It wasn’t long afterwards that Andrew found an easier way of making money through alien erotica. He started working for Gary Kennedy. We were all out one night in Brighton – myself, Andrew and a girl called Charlotte – or Cherry, as they called her – who is actually asleep in the room next to mine right now. Andrew sent Charlotte home with Gary, and soon afterwards he started taking photographs for Planet Flesh.
Andrew took photos and shot videos for Gary. Charlotte was the most popular model, though there were a few others who would come round to the flat, whose names I couldn’t remember. Charlotte became my best girlfriend. But then one day I came home and found her and Andrew having sex in our bed. This was when Andrew was still my boyfriend.
I was so angry I almost left the group. They had betrayed me. I stormed out, and Andrew chased after me. He found me sitting on the beach. He persuaded me that he had done nothing wrong. The vox celeste had told him that by making love to Charlotte he could make her hear too. It was fated that she would be one of us. She had been chosen. He said he still loved me, but he loved Charlotte as well.
“When we join the Chorus we will need to learn to share. There will be no possessiveness, no selfish jealousy,” Andrew said, and I saw that he was right. However, I decided to move out, to give him and Charlotte space. Andrew reluctantly agreed and I moved back into the bedsit with Calico. Then Gary complicated things by falling in love with Charlotte as well, but Andrew said it was OK for her to see both of them. It suited him for a while.
We spent the next couple of years recruiting. It’s not easy. Everyone has to be vetted very carefully. Only a certain type of person could be allowed to join the group. They had to be 100% committed, prepared to sacrifice everything.
For a brief while I hoped that I might be able to show you that Andrew and I were right, that alien abduction is real. I wanted to make you believe, so you could join us. I clung to the hope that you would change your mind for ages.
We recruited nine people to join the group alongside myself, Andrew, Charlotte/Cherry and Samantha. The last of them was Kevin, who found us just a week ago, when we were already in the house. He didn’t know about us when you met him – but you did him a favour. You set him on our trail.
When I met you, we were almost ready. There had been an incredible increase in UFO activity. Crop circles were springing up all over the place, for the first time in years; animal mutilations had started to happen all across Sussex and Kent; there were so many sightings and reports of abductions that we had a hard time keeping up with it all. And the vox celeste was growing louder. Andrew and I knew something was going to happen soon. We started to prepare.
I must be blunt: meeting you almost wrecked everything. You were in the way. You worked for a newspaper and could therefore have made things very difficult for us. A lot of the girls in the group are very young. Jenny is sixteen, Alison only fifteen. Their parents have no idea where they are. We could have had all sorts of problems.
Andrew was furious when I moved in with you. I still hoped that we could convert you, and that’s why we brought Sally round your house. We hoped that after hearing her experience – when she was abducted and her baby removed – you would see the truth. But it backfired. You were horrified, and when I ran off that night it was partly because I panicked. I spoke to Andrew the next day and together we decided what we had to do.
We needed to be in the house by the end of October, so we would have time to get ready for contact. I knew that you would never let me go. You would disturb us, cause trouble . . . It would be impossible. I knew that if I just disappeared you would guess that I had gone off with Andrew somewhere. You would be out there asking questions, trying to track us down.
That’s when we came up with the idea of faking Andrew’s death. If you thought Andrew was dead it would mislead you, muddy the waters. Better still, it gave me a motive for having disappeared: after Andrew’s death I would be so grief-stricken I would lose it and run away somewhere. It would set you on the wrong track, and delay you enough for us to fulfil our destinies before you found us. And faking Andrew’s death also helped us break our ties with Gary and allowed Andrew and Charlotte to be together. Andrew had become more and more worried about her. Gary was violent towards her but was obsessed with her. We knew he would never let get go, especially if he thought she was leaving him to be with Andrew.
We also knew it would help us shake off Fraser, who had become increasingly obsessed with Andrew.
To put it bluntly, we only needed to fool three people: you, Gary and Fraser.
The cremation never took place. The ashes we scattered that night were those of a pig Andrew bought from a butcher and burned. Melissa and Katie, who are here now, were in on the act.
There was only one negative repercussion of this scheme: Fraser Howard’s death. We had needed to shake off Fraser because the vox celeste told Andrew that Fraser was not chosen after all. Fraser couldn’t handle it and I understand from reading the news that he came looking for me after I went.
That was unfortunate.
To be honest, I never realised you would pursue me as hard as you have. You’ve surprised me. Kevin told me about how you attacked him, and I was afraid I had driven you over the edge. And I never thought you’d go to Oregon. If I had known, we would have warned Pete, spun him a lie that made him wary of you, so he wouldn’t have told you where we were. That was our one mistake: we underestimated your persistence.
Oh Richard, maybe if I’d known that you felt that strongly about me I would have made a different choice. I might have stayed with you longer. Tried harder to persuade you to share my beliefs. But although I knew you loved me, I didn’t know how much. Who ever does? How can you measure love? I thought you would recover quickly. I thought you would try to find me for a while and then give up. I thought you would heal. But your persistence has taught me a lesson – never underestimate what love can do.
It is a lesson I will carry forward with me, but not one I can use to alter the past.
I paused again. I was furious with Andrew, my loathing for him at a fever pitch. But I also felt angry with Marie. For going along with it, the deceit, the way she called Fraser’s death ‘unfortunate’ and the fact they were harbouring teenage runaways, one of them only fifteen. I could imagine the hair-tearing panic their parents must be feeling. I wanted to reach into the email, through the computer, and shake Marie, ask her if she knew what she was doing.
I squeezed my eyes shut. A great sense of disillusionment hit me. Had I been wrong about Marie all this time? If she’d known how much I had been fearful and worried about her . . .
What she had done to me was cruel. It was not the way you treated someone you supposedly loved.
It would be easy to put all the blame on Andrew, to believe that he coerced or brainwashed her. But it didn’t sound like it. It sounded like she had been fully aware of what she was doing. Her belief in the Chorus and this ridiculous idea of a coming rapturous day had made her feel she had licence to do whatever she liked. To hurt people.
I stood up and threw my coffee cup across the room, watching it shatter against the wall, coffee splattering the wallpaper.
I sunk back into my seat, heart beating hard, and returned to the final part of the email.
I’m running out of time here, Richard. I’m afraid that someone’s going to hear my fingers on the keyboard and come and find out what I’m doing. And I need sleep. Tomorrow is the big day. In just a few hours’ time we will make contact.
There’s no way I will be able to sleep.
This is what I’ve waited for all my life. Since my dad left and I discovered the truth. I’ve waited and watched and listened since I was fourteen. I’ve given my life to the pursuit of the truth: that we are not alone in the universe; that there is a great intelligence that wants us, the chosen few, to join it. All across the world, different groups are preparing, each of them waiting to be taken to the Chorus, to be part of it. Andrew believes that only our g
roup are the true chosen ones. Soon, we will see.
I’m shaking. I feel so nervous. But also excited, happy. This is like everything you’ve ever wished for rolled into one – every Christmas, every birthday, every love affair, every present, every exam pass, every job; like losing your virginity, like meeting your true love, like getting your dream job, having beautiful, healthy children, enjoying the perfect night beneath the stars, surrounded by perfect friends. All those things, collected together and multiplied infinitely. Because this is all I’ve ever wanted. And we are the first in human history. The very first.
That, Richard, is why I could not stay with you. Why I had to deceive you and hurt you and leave you. Why I lied and hid and made you cry. One night I almost gave in, and I phoned you, but I chickened out before you could answer. I wept that night, wondered if I was doing the right thing, almost had a crisis of faith. Were we wrong? Have we been fooling ourselves all this time? I lay awake all night, and then I talked to Charlotte, told her my fears. Charlotte went to Andrew, and we talked, and it was just like when we had first met. We talked and talked, and he helped me renew my faith.
I know we’re right, Richard. I know it’s going to happen.
And maybe one day you and I will meet again. Who knows, I may return to Earth to spread the message. Otherwise, I will wait until the Chorus embraces Earth as a whole, welcomes the entire planet, and you will be there among the newcomers. You will see that I was right all along. And I will be waiting.
Until that day, goodbye my love. Please don’t be unhappy. Go on with your life. Be successful, fall in love again, have babies. And watch the stars. That’s where I’ll be.
Love Marie xxxx
I stared at the screen.
Despite my anger and disillusionment, I still cared about her. I couldn’t help it.
And I had a horrible, sickening feeling in my gut . . .
I ran out of the house to my car, then realised I had forgotten my key. I ran back indoors again. I stood in the middle of the living room for a moment and forgot what I was supposed to be doing. I held my face in my hands until the world stopped spinning and grabbed the key from the table.
In the car, I turned on the radio.
The last few bars of a song I didn’t recognise faded into the news. I pulled out behind a bus and headed down the hill.
The first story on the news made me hit the brake, swerve to the side of the road and almost lose my life. I missed the bus by inches.
‘Police in Eastbourne, East Sussex, have confirmed that approximately a dozen people committed suicide today by apparently throwing themselves over the clifftop at Beachy Head in the early hours of this morning. The people who killed themselves are believed to have been part of an alien abduction cult that was based in a village near Eastbourne. The police report that they have one witness to the event, but are unable to confirm at present either the number of people who died or their names. The event is similar to—’
I switched the radio off.
I sat and stared.
It took me ten minutes to get to Simon’s. I sat in the car and leaned on my hooter until he appeared. As soon as he saw it was me he looked anxious and uncomfortable.
‘You’ve heard the news?’ he said, opening the passenger door.
I nodded.
‘It might not be her,’ he said. ‘It might . . .’
I looked at him and he shut up.
The road to Beachy Head was crowded with ghouls and journalists. Luckily I had one of the latter in the car with me. Simon flashed his press pass, said, ‘Local press,’ and we were allowed through by the roadblock. I had never seen so many people in this one spot before. They came from all over the surrounding area – Eastbourne, Pevensey, Bexhill, as far away as Lewes – to take a look. The words alien, cult and suicide had combined to whip up a feverish interest. Of course, anyone who lived near Beachy Head was accustomed to suicide – as the huge Samaritans billboard testified – but mass suicides were unknown here.
The edge of the cliff had been cordoned off, and police kept out undesirables while the emergency services set about trying to recover the dead. Below us, the authorities went about the awful task of recovering the broken bodies from the rocks.
I couldn’t speak. Simon went over and talked to one of the policemen, asked him if they had a list of names yet. The policeman shook his head.
A middle-aged couple stood nearby, both ashen-faced, the woman weeping on her husband’s shoulder. Simon approached them.
‘Do you know somebody who . . . might have jumped?’ he asked.
The woman let out a shrill cry. The man said, ‘Our daughter.’
‘What was her name?’ Simon asked softly.
‘Emily,’ the man replied, turning away. He looked over at the cliff. Wind ruffled the grass; the sky was so low it almost touched our hair. The clouds were dark grey, pregnant and threatening.
‘Was one of them called Emily?’ Simon asked me. I shook my head. I didn’t know.
I managed to speak: ‘I want to go to the farmhouse.’
With Simon behind the wheel, we made it back past the ever-growing number of voyeurs, who had been joined by reporters from national newspapers. A BBC news crew were trying to get their van through the crowds.
I gave Simon instructions and we headed to East Dean. I pointed out the gate where I had parked the day before and we pulled up, then walked down the lane into the farmyard. All the chickens had gone, as had the white van. It was silent.
The front door stood open. We went inside.
We wandered from room to room, not bothering to call out any names. There were no farewell notes, no clues as to what had happened. The fridge was half-full; the TV had been left on standby. The washing up had been left in the sink. Upstairs were half a dozen bedrooms. The largest room, with the best view, contained a double bed that had been made neatly that morning.
Down the hall was a small bedroom containing a single bed and a laptop. Marie’s room. I knew this immediately. The room smelled of her. There were pale red hairs on the pillow. This was where she had slept while I chased around, following her trail. I flipped the laptop open, ran a finger over the keys, where her teardrops had fallen.
‘Come on, mate.’ Simon put his hand on my shoulder. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’
We walked outside. Rain had started to fall. I turned my face to the clouds and closed my eyes, felt the cleansing kiss of rain on my eyelids and mouth and nose. I opened my eyes. I wanted to see into space, but the clouds were in the way.
Andrew had sent out a press release via his website that morning, tweeting a link to it shortly before the mass suicide.
This morning, contact was made between ourselves, the Vox Humana, and an extraterrestrial intelligence known as the Chorus. The Chorus is an interplanetary council made up of various species from across the universe. They have been in contact with Earth for over 70 years now, although successive governments have consistently denied this. Today the Chorus bypassed government and made contact directly with The People.
A craft will land at Beachy Head today to transport us from this solar system. We will step onto the craft from the cliff edge. When we return, it will be to welcome all of humankind to the Chorus.
Until then – farewell.
Vox Humana
It was headline news. And by the following morning, the police and the coastguard had recovered and identified all of the bodies. The names were all over the web, along with the video testimony of the only eyewitness, a man called Gerald Potter, who had been walking his dogs at six a.m., as he did every morning.
In the video, Potter stood on the clifftop, squinting into the winter sun. He read from a piece of paper, making his statement sound stilted and unemotional.
‘I was just heading home when I saw this white van. It pulled up about fifteen yards from the edge of the cliff, maybe a bit further – just over there.’ He pointed. ‘I thought it was a bit odd, a white van at that time of the morn
ing. I thought maybe someone was going to chuck rubbish off the cliff. If so, I was going to have words with them.’ He coughed.
‘The back of the van opened and a number of people climbed out. They were mostly young women, plus a few chaps. They were all dressed in white robes with hoods, except for one chap, who was wearing black. The one in black gathered the others around him and started talking to them. At this point I thought I’d stumbled upon a coven of Devil worshippers, and that he was their high priest or something. I wasn’t sure what to do. Then they stood in a line holding hands, the chap in black at the centre of the row. I counted them. There were thirteen of them. I know that for certain because I remember thinking it tied in with my idea that they were Satanists. Then they started to walk slowly towards the edge of the cliff, and I realised what was going on. I was too far away to stop them . . .’
Mr Potter was asked by a reporter if there were definitely thirteen people.
‘I’m absolutely certain,’ he replied. ‘My eyesight’s as sharp as when I was a boy.’
I stared at the list of names. Of those who had jumped.
Samantha O’Connell. Charlotte Myers. Philip Warner.
Kevin Stiller. Melissa Bourne. Jacqui Etheridge.
Kelly Smith. Katie Johnstone. Alison Bradfield.
Jenny Taylor-Reeves. Maggie Sherman.
I scanned the list from top to bottom, then from bottom to top. I closed my eyes, refocused, then read it again, counting to eleven.
There were two names missing.