Human Remains

my throat. It tasted wrong, made me feel sick.
    ‘Do you recognise me, Annabel?’ he asked.
    I stared at the face for a moment. There was a name that went with it but I couldn’t remember. It was as though the name had been wiped away.
    ‘It’s Sam. Sam Everett. Do you remember we met a few times?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I said.
    ‘It will be alright,’ he said. His voice sounded wrong to me: annoying, discordant, a buzzing – like a fly, or a wasp, somewhere in the room. ‘You’ll be fine, I promise. I’m going to look after you.’
    ‘Go away,’ I said.
    ‘I’m not going,’ he said. He sounded sad. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ He held the glass up to my lips again but I turned my head. It wasn’t the thing to do any more. I wasn’t supposed to do this. ‘Don’t go to sleep, Annabel,’ he said. ‘Stay with me. Stay awake.’
    My eyes were closing. I was tired, and I had to wait until six o’clock.

Colin
     
     
    I rang Vaughn at eleven o’clock today to ask if he fancied a pint. It feels like a long time since I last saw him – in fact, the last time was when he was scooting out of the pub in search of an engagement ring for Audrey, a whole week ago.
    ‘Colin,’ he said cheerfully, when I rang. ‘What’s this number, then? Your happy little face didn’t come up in the caller display.’
    I had to think about that for a second, and then I realised my mistake. ‘Oh, I’m ringing you from the work mobile. Does it matter? It’s still me.’
    ‘Shall I save it in my contacts this time?’ he asked. ‘I don’t always answer if I don’t recognise the number. I told you that before, remember.’
    ‘Don’t bother,’ I said. ‘It’ll probably be a different one next week. They’re supposed to be upgrading them all.’
    That seemed to pacify him, anyway. I forgot I’d called him from the wrong phone once before and he’d got all shirty about it.
    If I’d hoped that a pint and sandwich with Vaughn would lighten my mood, I would have been sadly disappointed. There’s nothing cheering about the place itself, with its brown carpet and wobbly bar stools; nothing to lift the spirits either in Vaughn’s countenance or behaviour. He seems almost as miserable as I am.
    ‘How’s Audrey?’ I ask, when I’ve ordered my sandwich and sat down opposite him.
    ‘She said no,’ he says dismally.
    ‘No? Really? Why?’
    ‘Said she’s not ready to settle down.’
    ‘I thought you said she’d been giving off hints.’
    ‘Well, that’s what I thought. But turns out I was way off the mark.’
    I take a long gulp of the pint of bitter. It tastes faintly, ever so slightly, off. ‘What do you mean? What does she want?’
    Vaughn sighs heavily. ‘You tell me, Colin. I’ve given up trying to make sense of what women want or expect from us.’
    ‘So,’ I say, trying to choose my words carefully and still probably failing, ‘she’s dumped you?’
    He looks aghast. ‘No, nothing like that!’
    ‘Well, what, then?’
    ‘She just doesn’t want to be engaged, that’s all.’
    I make a noise that tries to express sympathy for Vaughn, disgust at Audrey and relief that they are still in some kind of relationship. It comes out as a ‘Hmmm. Pfft.’
    ‘This pint’s off,’ I say after a while, and go to tell them to change the barrel.
    Vaughn’s problems are tiny, pale and uninteresting in comparison to mine, like the runt of a particularly average litter. I’ve lost one of my subjects – the woman with the satchel. That hasn’t happened to me for a long time, since I became choosier about which subjects to engage with.
    I called her at six last night, as arranged, and the phone went unanswered. I wondered if she had already expired and begun to transform – but that would have been very quick, even without water. When I drove past the house on my way home, there was an ambulance and a police car parked outside.
    However much I try to kid myself that I’m not bothered, I am still pissed off at my own negligence. I’ve failed her, but, more importantly, I’ve failed myself; and losing one when the police are already showing an interest in my activities is a big risk.
    I lost others, particularly in the beginning. Ones that were unsure, or maybe were less isolated than they first appeared. I thought that sooner or later someone – a family member, perhaps – would put in a complaint about me, or alert the authorities, but nobody ever contacted me with regard to this. As I