Fiction Corner: Behind You

I'm in the middle of a writing seminar led by sci fi author Tobias Buckell, and one of the assignments is to complete a short story. It's due in about eight days. I'm enjoying the process so far, and may well submit this one for publication at some point. I thought you might like to see the first five hundred words, just to get an idea of the process. The story's set in contemporary London, and the working title is Behind You. Enjoy!

***

The late evening tide of humanity washes past the Nando’s, which replaced the BBQ Hut, which replaced the Smoothie place, flowing towards the escalators, and Jen rides the tide, with only the faintest hint of Him at the back of her mind.

The escalator is broken - again - so Jen and the rest of the evening crowd struggle up the way a cruel God intended. The woman in front of Jen has a pull-case, and lacks the upper body strength to haul it easily upward. Jen bangs her ankle against it.

"Sorry," Jen says, but doesn’t feel.

No reply. The other woman’s lost in the great Canary Wharf shuffle, one more in the mix, going home.

Jen gets to the top and sees a tattered Metro, left behind by an earlier commuter, beckoning her from its hiding pace stuffed at the top of the escalator. She grabs it, hiding her face behind it, pretending to care about a Sudoku that someone else had already finished.

She glances at the board. Ten minutes till the next DLR train. Ten long, soul-sucking minutes.

The Sudoku is in pen, and whoever it was got it wrong.

The cartoon is one she'd seen before, but she idly looks at it again, begging for distraction, when the hairs on the back of her neck begin standing up. She shifts from foot to foot.

He is looking at her.

There’s no particular He, at least not that she can make out, but there’s no mistaking the feeling. The greasy eyes-on, the sensation of cold, slimy wetness. It’s one of the Hes. Which one?

Fat one, thin one, short one, tall? Some of them she knew from work, has seen in corridors, been in meetings with. None of them she could put a name to. The platform’s full of people. He could be any one of them.

Her pocket buzzes, and her heart sinks. A text. She fumbles in her pocket for the new phone, almost drops it, then angrily swipes through until she finds the screen she wants. It’s Simon. Of course it’s Simon. It wasn’t going to be anyone else.

MEET U L8R?

Not after last weekend, she thinks, and texts back:

WRK L8, SRY.

How do you tell someone you've met someone else? Jan hated it, hated the lies that became bigger lies, but the alternative was to look him in the eye and say ... what, exactly? Not boyfriend material? I like you, I just don't fancy you?

The hairs on the back of her neck are still up and twitching. The other He is looking at her.

"Train approaching. Mind The Gap."

The sudden rush to board, the frantic quest for seats followed by the equally frantic search for somewhere to stand. Jan found herself standing at the front of the car, looking into the rear of the next car, just as full as this one. Bored commuters packed in together, staring sightlessly at London, too clamped together to read a Metro.