Last Rites by Neil White Page B

they were being pulled backwards through a small hole, reality imploding, the unreal taking its place.
    She felt herself panic. She knew what was happening, but she knew that she couldn't stop it. Her legs turned heavy and she slumped to the floor, unable to move.
    Sarah closed her eyes quickly, but the lights were stillthere. First red, lighting her eyes, then purple, then blue. They went to green, then to yellow, then back to red. Then it started again, only this time faster, the rhythmic change becoming a streak, becoming a blur, the noise of the colours screaming in her head like pressurised air.
    She opened her eyes in fright. The ceiling rushed at her. She covered her face, but when she moved her arms away the ceiling was back at the top of the room.
    Sarah screamed, but she couldn't hear herself over the metronomic pound of the heartbeat.
    Reality was hell. This was worse.

Chapter Twenty-one
    Sarah's school was a sixties comprehensive on one of the hills overlooking Blackley, in the more derelict end of town, where the kids would go for gang fights with the Asian kids at the next school along. Time hadn't been kind to it. Paint flaked from the metal window frames in all three storeys, and the bricks looked damp where the flat roof drained the rain down the front of the building.
    I made my way to reception just as the classes were emptying. Most of the kids were in uniform, although the ties were slack, the shirt buttons undone, their rucksacks slung lazily over their shoulders. Some wore their coats over their faces and tried to intimidate me as I went past. I ignored them. They were teenagers. Being pleasant wasn't in the script.
    The school secretary looked up at me as I approached the counter. I smiled.
    ‘Hello, my name is Jack Garrett, and I'm …’
    ‘A reporter?’ she asked, her eyebrows raised, completing the question.
    I nodded, could do little else.
    She stood and put her arms onto the counter. ‘No,we haven't seen Sarah. Yes, she was a good teacher. Yes, it took us by surprise. Did she do it? We don't know.’ She pointed towards the door. ‘That's all your questions answered. Please leave.’
    I noticed weariness in her eyes. She knew Sarah, maybe even liked her, and people just like me had interrupted her life for the sake of a throwaway quote.
    But that was the game. I didn't take part to be popular.
    ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘If I can't speak to any members of staff, I'll wait outside and ask the kids.’
    ‘We've had that threat before.’
    ‘So you'll be used to it then.’
    And then I turned to walk out.
    I knew she would shout me back. She was pissed off with reporters because she had no choice but to speak to them.
    ‘Okay, Mr Garrett, I'll see what I can do,’ she said, and when I turned around she pointed at a low seat by the main entrance and barked, ‘sit there, and don't you dare move.’
    I smiled, tried to get her back on my side, but the glare she gave me told me that she wasn't interested in making friends.
    I watched the school kids slouch by, and then the secretary appeared at the counter again. She pointed along the corridor. ‘That door,’ she said curtly.
    As I looked along, I saw a man by a door, hands on hips, his grey jacket pulled to his sides.
    I nodded thanks, but she had looked away before I'd finished it. As I walked, I heard her bellow, ‘Don't run!’, and the sound of adolescent footsteps slowed down.
    The head teacher looked more tired than angry. He was wearing a cheap grey jacket over a thin white shirt, with black trousers and scuffed suede shoes. His moustache was bushy, obscuring his top lip, and so it was hard to see whether he was smiling.
    ‘Hello, I'm Jack Garrett,’ I said, and I held out my hand.
    He shook, too polite to refuse an outstretched hand, and then beckoned me into his office. His room was neat and functional. A filing cabinet filled one wall, and there was a bookcase on the other. His desk was beech-effect with a plastic in-tray, but