All The Lonely People by David Owen (5)

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.

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.

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.