The Replacement Phenomenon
Will Thurston
Fidus Publishing
Copyright 2010 Will Thurston
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-908042-04-0
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CHAPTER 1
Friday 30th January
Despite Jake Hingham hearing the gunshots that had killed his family, and his arriving at the scene within seconds, one scene was missing from his memory. He had not witnessed the demise of his wife and his two sons just a few hours earlier. His mind was working fiercely, attempting to fill in the blanks in his memory. He imagined the killers exiting the car and raising various sizes of guns, saying various things or saying nothing. He didn’t know enough to imagine the incident but could not prevent himself from doing so.
He would do anything to numb his mind into letting go of the tragedy he had just faced. He had turned to alcohol to provide a welcome distraction, but had long since proven to himself that half a bottle of wine was affecting nothing but his balance.
Jake used the plain looking black balcony railing to halt his fall as he stumbled towards an aerial view the crime scene that had previously been his front garden. The combination of alcohol running through his veins as well as attire consisting of a dressing gown and old blue slippers, in hindsight did not make for good grip on a stone tiled floor, especially in times of inclement weather. He didn't care that the evening's weather was dreadful and that the rain was throwing down like there would be no tomorrow. The only things in his life that he did care about were now gone, so he had no desire to face tomorrow anyway.
As much as he hated to admit it, within the space of a few seconds his precious family had become as much a part of history as his ancestors. He couldn't handle that. As far as he was concerned there was nothing left. No reason for him to carry on with his day-to-day life without his family beside him.
Perhaps the hardest thing to which Jake needed to come to terms was how close he had been to intervening. Not only had he been seconds away from saving his family from their grim fate earlier that day, but he was the first to witness the awful scene directly below where he now stood.
On previous occasions he'd seen his house as he rounded the last bend in the road, and counted himself as being lucky to be living where he lived. His house was a modern take on an Art Deco style. The white rendered exterior made the detached house look somewhat like a giant, elongated sugar cube with prominent rounded corners and the flat roof. White windows had recently been fitted, replacing poorly constructed dark wooden frames which had been in place previously. The balcony, on which Jake currently stood, protruded from the front of the house overhanging the front door and driveway to the right.
The interior was not so true to a lavish Art Deco style. It clearly showed plenty of signs of a house built in the seventies with brown bricks that were once clean and considered decorative forming a fireplace in the lounge, and an open wooden staircase leading to the first floor. The house looked refreshed and clean, exactly the kind of property estate agents loved to sell. Jake had previously held no desires to sell the property until tonight. Rather than being his family home with fond memories attached, it was now just a building attached to a crime scene.
With an almost empty bottle of cheap white wine gripped firmly in his hand, but swinging loosely as an extension to his arm, he slurred, “If I'm lucky those heartless maniacs will come and finish the family off.”
He couldn’t see why anyone would kill his wife and two children in such a quick, brutal manner but leave him untouched. What had they done? Why not take him and leave his wife and children alone? They were just a small family from the quiet town of Darlington, County Durham. What could they possibly have done to hurt or offend anyone? They didn't go looking for trouble. They had been a normal, quiet family, doing normal things together. To his knowledge his wife had never been involved in drugs or blackmail or any unscrupulous activity of any kind, and their kids were just kids.
He turned and walked towards the white UPVC bi-folding doors that opened onto the platform on which he now stood. When fully opened the doors created what was essentially a large gaping hole in the front of their house for the length of the balcony. On this occasion, owing to the weather and his current lack of enthusiasm for anything, only the door to the far left was open, leaving the rest of the glass doors in place. As he saw the reflection of his own distraught face stare back at him through the double glazing, he spun around, arms arcing out from his side, and decided he would yell at the grimly dark sky some more.
He didn't know if he was talking to anyone or anything up there. The existence of some kind of God or all-knowing force seemed illogical to him, an opinion being shared by more and more people he knew. He didn't expect an answer to his night time rant, nor did he really want one. He just needed to shout more of what was on his mind into the night sky, even if nothing could answer back or even feign interest.
“Why?” he asked the midnight blackness. “Why my family? Why now?”
The sky managed to grow even darker than it had been seconds earlier; something he hadn't really thought was possible. It was obvious to him that a storm was about to hit. A bright flash was followed almost instantly by a loud rumble of thunder, meaning the lightning struck not too far from where Jake was standing. The storm was beginning and he thought it might be best to continue his protests against such an angry sky from the relative safety of the warm, dry side of his double-glazed doors.
As Jake stumbled across the threshold of the door watching the storm through the glass, he still marvelled at the strange beauty he always found in lightning. Someone had once explained to him the science behind such storms, and how they relieved tension, headaches, and other symptoms of stress. He found that remarkable. Electrical storms neutralized the ions in the air and helped to calm everything through a violent display of light and sound that could not be equalled by any mere mortal.
Whatever the effects of the weather, it would take a lot more than an electrical storm to restore calm to Jake's life.
Whilst only for a brief few moments, Jake was glad to have something else to think about as he stared out at what he could see of the town's basic skyline. His mind had been focused on the events of the past few hours, and no doubt would be for the rest of his life. Any distraction would be most welcome over the coming days, weeks, and months. Any thought to keep his mind from returning to that image that had greeted him as he arrived home, whatever that thought might be, would consciously be given priority on the stage of his mind.
He could hear “Drinking Again”, one of the final tracks of a Frank Sinatra album, playing on the mini silver coloured stereo system in his bedroom. The lines “I'm havin' a few and wishin' that you were here” and “Bein' a fool just hopin' that you'll appear” held more meaning to him than they had done previously, and he was sure he did not want to listen to any more.
He walked over to the stereo unit without saying a word, picked it up and yanked it as hard as he could away from its current position with all the fury of a drunk and angry man, pulling it away from the wall and sending its two connected speakers hurtling to the floor. He opened the left hand door leading to the balcony and tossed out the stereo, hearing it smash on the groun
d beneath. He certainly would not be hearing those depressing lyrics again any time soon. He had probably just contaminated the crime scene below, but he didn’t care. According to the police earlier that evening, there was nothing more to be learned from the crime scene anyway.
Despite his efforts to think and do anything else, the events of that day played on his mind over and over again. He was now certain to fruitlessly replay key moments over and over, wishing with all his heart and mind that he could step into his memories and change everything, or even something. He looked up at the clock. 23:47. Only thirteen minutes remained of the worst day of his life. He decided he had to have one last good shout at the already violently raging thunderous sky, after which he'd call it a day.
Jake remembered vividly the day that was now ebbing out like old coals on a camp fire. He could see every moment in perfect clarity in his mind as if being displayed in high definition crystal clarity on a giant screen directly in front of him. He did not even have to close his eyes to picture any of it. The first scene was right in front of him as he stood looking through the doorway into his bedroom.
That same large digital clock with its bland LCD display had been his first sight of the day. It was almost always the first thing he would see every day, and the last thing he would see every night. From there, every event of the day rushed to his mind, and he could do nothing to prevent the flood of memories and their accompanying regrets.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The first time he looked at the clock it read 07:30. He dreaded seeing those digits appear. It meant he had another day of work ahead of him. Another day of drudgery and boredom in the name of employment lay before him, but at least it was the end of the working week.
On the weekends, in his mind there was only one 7:30 in a day, and it was much later. That time was usually accompanied by the family gathering around the television set to watch their favourite show of the moment. Most were little more than glorified talent contests, the like of which he had seen countless times. Still, Saturdays were usually a break from the normal way of things in his daily life. He needed the weekends with his family to remind himself of why he put up with the job he had. It was all to provide for his family.
Jake had a routine he had been following every weekday for almost as long as he could remember. Today seemed no different from any other, and there seemed to be no reason for departing from the carefully crafted order of things.
He would wake up with the sound of an alarm clock, look at the big clock on the wall, then his eyes would move to the right where he would see his calendar, set to the new day during the previous evening, and then he would turn over in bed and look at his beautiful wife. They had been married for nine years. It would be ten in just a few weeks.
This day was slightly different from others in the most minor of ways to begin with. There was no reason that this simple change could be considered a warning sign for the day ahead. On this Friday morning as he turned over, his wife was not there. It wasn't long before his wife returned, inexplicably climbed back into bed, and then got up and went about the usual daily routine. As she got back into bed and glanced over at Jake with a brief smile crossing her face, Jake had a good look at her and realised how lucky he was. He had a tendency to forget that from time to time, as he suspected most people did.
Amy was one of the most naturally beautiful women he had ever seen. At five and a half feet tall she was four inches shorter than Jake. She had a naturally pale complexion and dark brown hair the shade of mahogany. She had a snub nose and blue eyes and the cutest smile he'd ever seen on anyone. Even first thing in the morning she was stunning to look at. Make up added something when occasion required, but she rarely wore any. She didn't ever need to in his opinion. Amy of course disagreed, but he wasn't sure if this was out of humility or a reduced sense of self-worth.
In addition to her attractive features, Amy had some less than angelic qualities that surfaced every once in a while. Her temper was short and explosive when pushed to its limit. Luckily, it was extremely rare that anything happened that revealed this temper. Most of the world saw the cute and kind Amy, and to be fair she was that person for ninety nine per cent of the time. He lost his temper far more than she did, and had a list of failings as long as his arm. He was still delighted to be married to her after almost ten years, especially as she'd ignored most of his failings during that time.
The next few actions of the day were as they might be for anyone else. He would shower in the en-suite bathroom and get dressed in his usual workday suit. When dressed for the day he would make his way downstairs to the kitchen to eat breakfast with his family. The content of his breakfast varied from day to day. The same cereal every day would lead to more boredom than Jake could stand. On this particular Friday he enjoyed raspberry jam on toast. Following breakfast he would walk out of the front door to work, climbing into his new car. He would slouch into the comfortable cream leather seats in his silver Mercedes and drive the two miles or so to the office.
It was an almost perfectly straight drive, east on Yarm Road to work. Sadly, traffic meant the journey couldn't be done in four or five minutes. It was just over half an hour to walk the same route, but he didn't earn that money and have a nice car so he could walk into work and leave a fancy car sitting dormant on his driveway. Besides, the modern office block was located just outside of Darlington, in a relatively new development called Morton Park. A lot of the newer business parks didn’t seem to have been built for pedestrians. People wishing to travel in or out of the area would need to do so using their own, or local public transport.
There was little that could be considered pleasurable about the job which Jake had endured for the past three years. He was overqualified and underpaid for the tasks he did. Still, he figured that everyone else in almost every other place in the world had the same complaint every day, so switching jobs or careers would not benefit him much, if at all. He was at least glad to be behind a desk and have his own office.
He did not see why people made a fuss about working outdoors. He had undertaken various outdoor tasks including gardening and house painting. Such tasks did nothing to persuade Jake that outdoor work could be enjoyable. The prospect of working in all weathers had never appealed to Jake. A comfortable office was much more to his liking. Besides, he thought, the great British weather should be enough to put any sane person off even entertaining the notion of outdoor employment.
Jake sat at his expensive looking desk and looked around his office, complete with dull pictures on green pastel shade walls. The company for which he worked was large, but small minded. It was nationwide, yet people still viewed it as being a small company that would soon fizzle out as other similar ones had done previously. Whilst they had many competitors, they were the biggest in their line of business in Europe.
The organisation was called Nannotek. Unfortunately, the good spelling of the word had been registered with another company, but they were unwilling to let go of the name. They produced and sold electrical equipment from their own chain of stores up and down the country.
The company employed upwards of three thousand people with their main headquarters in Darlington and other smaller offices at seemingly random locations throughout Europe. Jake figured their policy of avoiding capital cities and ports for the location of their premises was purely a consequence of a company keeping costs as low as possible.
Nannotek had dealt with many obstacles before, but new troubles were arising. Soaring fuel costs meant that transporting their products was becoming prohibitively expensive. They received record numbers of complaints and order cancellations every day. Jake knew that life in his job would not be easy until small problems were dealt with by people who had a lot more influence than he had.
He worked in Customer Services, and was often responsible for dealing with annoyed people wondering where their washing machine, freezer or computer had got to. Many cancelled their orders purely because of the time frame involved in th
e delivery of their chosen product. Customers often considered the failure of prompt delivery to be the breaking of a promise made to them. Being such a big retailer, deliveries sometimes took days or weeks longer to complete than the time indicated when the order was placed.
This frustrated Jake too, but he didn't ever let the customers know that. He worked in Customer Service, and it was his job to reassure customers that he was doing everything possible to speed up their orders, even though he had no influence whatsoever over such matters. He had complained to his superiors about the company’s casual attitude towards their customers, but nothing was ever done to improve the quality of service. Jake felt that no-one in management cared enough about their customers or ever really listened to him, no matter how many times he voiced the same concerns.
When orders were cancelled, as they sometimes were, he felt that the customers were blaming him personally for the company’s poor service. None of it was his fault, but it didn’t make him feel any better. Some customers were abusive or offensive when they called, and Jake hated having to meekly put up with being cursed at and called various rude names. Nobody should have to be subjected to such abuse on an almost daily basis. Occasionally, when he was feeling particularly vindictive, he would hold off on the withdrawal of the finance agreement and make the customer sweat a little before finally closing accounts and informing their bank not to take money from the accounts of disgruntled former customers. Jake rarely felt in such a harsh mood, but strangely enjoyed exposing the more sinister part of his personality every now and then.
Today was going to be another difficult day for Jake. So far, nothing unusual had happened. January 30th was just like any other day. It was a Friday, which was something he always enjoyed realising. Two full days away from the annoyance of these people would be a blessed relief. He could enjoy two full days of quiet and contentment and solitude with his family.