All The Lonely People Read online

  Kat moved to the window and watched cars pass for a while, pedestrians hurrying home, and wondered who was waiting for them there.

  She needed to focus. Searching on her phone was a pain, but without her laptop she had no choice. First she checked her website: it hadn’t been revived in her absence, and there was no sign of the photograph. It could have been saved by somebody else, but she couldn’t worry about that now.

  Google was safe, but she opened an incognito tab just in case. Flexing her thumbs over the keypad, letters nudging through her nails, she tried to think of any search term that wasn’t completely ridiculous.

  Fading . . . disappearing . . . becoming a ghost . . .

  This line of questioning mostly turned up obscure films, rainforest charities, cleaning services, paranormal conspiracies, fetishes. She decided not to check the images.

  Kat tried a different tack: detached from life.

  Half way down the results she found a website that compiled suicide notes posted to social media, nobody able to save their authors in time – if anybody had even tried. Another website focused on Japanese teenagers who withdrew from society so completely they spent their entire lives online, literally never leaving their bedrooms. They were called hikikomori, literally ‘pulling inward, being confined’.

  ‘I wasn’t that bad,’ Kat muttered, then realised she was saying it to herself, alone in her bedroom.

  If any of the hikikomori had experienced what was happening to her, there was no evidence of it here.

  She checked the chat log, a double-tick confirming the message had been delivered. As she was locking the phone, the ticks turned blue. Suzy had read the message. Swiping the screen awake again, she waited to see typing . . .

  Ten minutes passed without her sister even attempting a reply.

  That left Kat only one place left to go.

  She had been strangely afraid of the note crumpled in her pocket. It was dangerously close to confirmation that this wasn’t all in her head. Plus it could have been written by anybody, Luke and Justin or whoever caused all this in the first place. It could easily be another trick.

  She ran her fingers over the note, its scrawled letters unwinding under her skin. I see you. She wouldn’t blindly write to the email address included, that was asking for trouble. Instead she typed the domain name – The Lonely People – into the search bar, and clicked.

  5

  Nesting Dolls

  It was a delicate operation, boring a hole through the centre of a burger and threading it onto the drinking straw so that the base of the bun rested evenly on the lid of the cup. Thankfully Evie was a veteran, and was soon slurping milkshake through its meaty centre with a minimum of fuss or waste.

  ‘That’s disgusting,’ said Wesley.

  ‘You’re disgusting,’ she shot back, before leaning forward to nibble at the edges of the burger.

  The dinner rush was over and McDonald’s was quiet, a few lone diners exiled to the fringe seats by a raucous group of lads at the long centre table. Wesley had taken his usual spot by the window, where he had a view of the car park. He kept his eyes fixed outside, watching closely any vehicle that turned off the road.

  ‘Can I save some for Jeff?’ said Evie.

  Her invisible dog. They couldn’t afford a real one. Nobody had yet worked out why she had decided to call it Jeff.

  ‘I don’t think he’s hungry, Eves.’

  There wasn’t enough money for them both to eat, let alone an invisible dog. Thankfully the MacBook on the table in front of him had already killed his appetite.

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Evie, pointing with a greasy chip.

  ‘I got it from a friend,’ he said, and opened the lid.

  Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr . . . he checked each of her accounts in turn and found them all still gone.

  Again, he waited for the triumph of victory, but there was nothing but sickness. That didn’t seem fair; Luke and Justin had been treated like heroes after the #SelloutSelena campaign last year, even after the police got involved and they went to ground.

  Headlights passed across the window, and Wesley craned his head to peer through the darkness. In almost two years of sitting there every week, the car he wanted to see had never turned into the restaurant.

  Dad had always brought them to this McDonald’s when they were kids. That ended when he was arrested for burglary and Mum had finally left him. He avoided prison, but they didn’t see him after that. Until Wesley discovered that Jordan had been meeting him in secret at this same McDonald’s. Six months of visits – of meals and pocket money and driving lessons – before Mum found out and flipped her lid. The resulting argument made all that had come before it seem like little more than spirited debate. When Wesley had tried to break them up, Jordan’s wrath had turned on him.

  Dad didn’t want to see you because he’s embarrassed you’re his son!

  Jordan didn’t come home after that. Last they’d heard he was backpacking around Australia. Until now, anyway.

  There was more to the McDonald’s visits than that, of course. It was cheap, and Evie always enjoyed inventing new ways to push the boundaries of culinary decency. It felt good to be around people too, rather than sitting alone at home, even if they were strangers (emphasis often on the strange).

  Still, he always sat by the window in case Dad pulled into the car park. Wesley had so many questions he wanted to ask.

  The website was called All the Lonely People.

  It was sparingly laid out, title stencilled in black Gothic lettering on a white background, like words wrought in an iron graveyard gate.

  Are you disappearing and don’t know what to do?

  Below this opening line was a strange symbol, seemingly hand-drawn; a Russian nesting doll with the hazy outline of a person standing inside it, the smaller dolls queued up behind and fading into the distance.

  You know that feeling, the post continued, of living in a house with no door and no windows, and knowing the world is rolling along outside but it doesn’t matter because it will never come calling for you? You are just too irrevocably separate.

  It read like a bad copypasta, destined to be pasted onto memes for eternity. Yet Kat did know that feeling, better than she had ever wanted to admit.

  The fade is loneliness made material, for a time. You have detached, a hot air balloon lifting steadily upward, and soon you’ll be out of sight.

  Kat skimmed the rest of the text, most of it further cryptic hints and poetic nothings dancing on the edge of the truths she really needed to know.

  The loneliness isn’t death, the page ended. Have you ever wanted to become somebody else? This is your opportunity. This is your second chance.

  A few days ago, she’d have dismissed the website as crazy. Now it seemed her best – her only – chance of finding answers. Whoever pinned the note had seen her when nobody else would.

  Kat opened her email, copied the handwritten address, and began to type.

  Quickly, before Evie could finish her meal and ask for a dessert he couldn’t afford, Wesley scrolled through Kat’s search history. Mostly searches for coding tutorials and word definitions, but also questions: collective noun platypus? weird stomach pain dying? Tinker’s videos on YouTube. She had also looked at the website for a women’s march in central London that Sunday. Next he went through the MacBook’s files. Nothing unexpected: folders of Tinker and Doctor Backwash clips, photos, gifs, artwork and more. There were films and games and music, backing up everything he already knew about her.

  Now that the campaign was over – now that he’d won – he missed her. That was the sick truth of it. She had become a part of his life, far more integral than he could ever have realised. Everything she had had online was so complete. So full. If only dismantling all of it had turned that fullness over to him.

  A single document on the desktop caught his eye, titled simply Please Stop. Somehow he knew it was written for him, and he opened it to find a letter.
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br />   To whoever is doing this, I’m asking you to stop. I don’t know why you decided to come after me, and if I ever did anything to you I’m truly sorry. You’re scaring me. We all know what happened to Selena. You’re ruining my life, taking away everything I love. I just wanted to find my place, find the people who would accept me for who I am. I ask you, from the bottom of my heart, to show some kindness and please stop. This is all I have left. Without it I have nothing. I am nothing.

  Wesley had expected the letter to be angry, to rail against him for the things he had done and demand they stop. She had never sent it, and he knew it wouldn’t have worked. Luke and Justin would have laughed and distributed it around the school. Would it have been enough to make Wesley stop? He wanted to believe it would, but he knew better than to think so highly of himself.

  He could feel the words breaching his defences, resonating with something inside himself; a lengthening shadow of desolation he had long thought to deny. He knew what it felt like to have an empty life despite wanting so much. Friends. Purpose. Wesley had never been good at finding either. There were times when the weight of his loneliness was almost too much to bear.

  The reply dropped into Kat’s inbox ten minutes later. Re: Who are the Lonely People? read the subject line. She took a moment to steel herself before thumbing it open.

  We’re a group of people who know exactly what you’re going through. Meet us tomorrow in the drama rehearsal room after school, 3.45pm.

  School was possibly the last place on the planet she wanted to go. A small part of her still insisted this was an elaborate prank. Smoke and mirrors. One way or another, she needed to find out.

  The email gave her the option to automatically enter the appointment into her calendar. The Lonely People, it auto-populated, as well as the time and location. Kat added a note: Consider this an official record so if I get murdered I hope somebody finds it and avenges my death.

  Not that there was anybody to find it. Entering it into the calendar allowed Kat to pretend she had a plan, that she was in control, rather than clinging to the edge of a precipice by her fingernails.

  Wesley needed to know that Kat was okay. He tabbed to her email, just to check. It signed in automatically, and he quickly scanned her inbox. The counter claimed there was one unread email, but he couldn’t see it. A glitch? He refreshed the page and the counter didn’t change.

  There was no new information here. No indication of her wellbeing, no explanation for what he thought he had seen.

  The screen shifted slightly, and the unread counter cleared to zero. Wesley stared at the screen for a long moment, sure something was being hidden from him, and then closed the tab. It was probably just the restaurant’s crappy Wi-Fi.

  Whatever was going on, he needed to return her MacBook. Tomorrow, he would use it as an excuse to track her down.

  He would see her for himself.

  6

  Hashtags and Heartbreaks

  They caught up to Wesley as he made his way onto the playground at lunch. Luke flanked left and shouldered him sideways for Justin to catch in a headlock, squeezing tight enough that Wesley thought his head might pop off. When they let him go he laughed and straightened his tie. He couldn’t let them think he wasn’t a good sport.

  ‘No sign of Kat Waldgrave,’ said Justin.

  It was like they could read his mind. Wesley had spent the morning trying to find her, looking into classrooms and waiting in the corridor between lessons (Miss Jalloh had caught him twice, ushering him away as she would a beggar).

  Luke stretched to lean against the wall in a way that blocked Wesley from escaping. A dark sweat stain had blossomed in his armpit. ‘Tru likes how that went.’

  ‘Even if she was an easy target,’ added Justin.

  Wesley tried to push any thoughts of the unsent letter on her MacBook desktop out of his mind. ‘You spoke to him?’

  ‘Online, yeah,’ said Luke, before jabbing him in the chest. ‘Don’t worry, we told him everything you did to make it happen.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Wesley couldn’t keep the smile from his face.

  Luke glanced around slyly before he spoke again. ‘He’s got something else going on, something we’ve been part of for a few weeks. Something bigger.’

  Wesley’s smile faltered. A few weeks? Easily long enough that they had kept it a secret while they worked together on Kat. He swallowed, refusing to let them see how much it bothered him. ‘Bigger?’

  Justin grinned. ‘Bigger than Selena.’

  The name made his heart beat faster. Selena Jensen had been in the year above them, and dated a guy called Gabriel Clark. She had done some modelling work, and almost every boy (and a lot of the girls) in school were obsessed with her. When she broke up with Gabriel, he didn’t take it well.

  First he wrote a blog post detailing how Selena had cheated on him, taken his money to support her career, and strung him along. Whether any of it was true or not, he sent the post to the whole school and enough people chose to believe him. It struck a spark. Every guy who wanted Selena so badly they had come to resent her was mobilised. The blog post confirmed all their worst fears: that girls like Selena only slept with guys they could use; that boys like them could unfairly be painted as the bad guy.

  It became a crusade, and Luke and Justin led it online, coining #SelloutSelena. It immediately caught on across social media, hundreds of (mostly anonymous) accounts bombarding her – and anybody who spoke up in her defence – with abuse, as well as spreading rumours and ideas for action, using it to promote videos about the evils of modern women and feminism. Even TrumourPixel joined the hunt, talking about it on his streams and making videos in support of the cause.

  It all ended with the attack. One day after school this guy, egged on by everything he had seen on the hashtag, waited in the car park and hit Selena with his car. Apparently he’d been at school two years before and she had rejected him.

  She survived, though she never came back to school. The hashtag died, but despite how it ended Luke and Justin became legends in certain circles. Wesley couldn’t help but envy them that.

  ‘We think you proved yourself,’ said Luke, watching him closely. ‘Tru’s looking for more help, and he thinks you’d be perfect for the job. I’ll tell him you’re up for it?’

  The thought of being part of anything bigger than #SelloutSelena terrified him, but he couldn’t let them see. They were inviting him to be part of the next campaign. TrumourPixel was inviting him. It was exactly what he had wanted.

  So why could he not stop thinking about Kat Waldgrave?

  ‘What’s it about?’ he said, trying to sound casual.

  Justin lowered his voice to a dramatic whisper. ‘We can’t tell you yet.’

  ‘We just need to know if you’re up for it,’ said Luke, leaning closer. ‘And I can ask to bring you along to meet him.’

  Wesley’s stomach seemed to backflip. He was almost overwhelmed by the urge to retreat, to surrender to his fear because doing so would confirm the simplest truth he knew about himself: that he wasn’t up to this, and never had been.

  Now Kat’s letter gave him strength – he had done that. For better or worse, it propelled him forward.

  ‘Yeah,’ Wesley said. ‘I’m up for it.’

  If this strange fade was caused by withdrawal from the real world, maybe all Kat needed to do was re-engage. Maybe she just needed to go outside. Suzy had always told her to get out more.

  There were a few hours before she was due to meet the Lonely People, and sitting at home was driving her crazy. Going to school would at least give her the chance to test the limits of the fade – it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go, and she might feel better knowing what she was up against. Right?

  Alongside her usual school clothes, Kat added tights and a blazer in an attempt to make herself as solid as possible. She was almost dressed when Dad knocked on her door. ‘Are you okay in there?’

  Dinner had still been waiting forlornly in the oven w
hen Kat snuck downstairs in the middle of the night. She’d thrown it away and helped herself to a selection of luminous orange snacks instead, although once she’d brought them up to her room her appetite had abandoned her.

  ‘I’m going to work now,’ said Dad. ‘Let’s catch up later, okay?’

  Kat had always joked – to herself – that she learned most of what she knew about video game mechanics from studiously avoiding her dad. Over time, she’d realised it might be true. In the evenings Dad would pour a glass of wine and spread his marking across the living room carpet while Kat stayed upstairs, making toilet runs when she was certain he wasn’t nearby.

  Excluding the weirdness of the fade, there was no actual reason for it be so difficult to talk to Dad. Generally speaking, they got along fine. The word that always came to mind was estrangement. It had only become apparent after Suzy went to university.

  Before Mum left, Dad and Suzy had always got on. They watched films and went shopping together. They even looked more alike, Suzy’s skin a similar dark brown where Kat’s was lighter, closer to Mum’s.

  There was a vacuum to be filled after Mum was gone. Suzy’s already BIG personality expanded further to fill the space. It was always unclear why, but she began to clash with Dad, and after a while it seemed like they never stopped fighting. Kat was left no territory but the sidelines. Even though Suzy was gone, and had barely been in touch since, Kat hadn’t found a way back. She thought if they kept to themselves, their relationship couldn’t sour like it had with her mum and sister. So they became like former best friends who had moved on, obliging them to be cordial and nothing more whenever they ran into each other. Awkward, when you live together.

  Now, as she listened to Dad’s feet shift uncertainly on the carpet outside her bedroom door, she wondered if trying so hard to find herself online had made her neglect the scraps of life she still had here.