The pills - I think - look like spent bullet casings. Only they're red and yellow instead of shiny brass. I remember a year ago how a man in white overalls spray painted circles where every casing landed. He did it while the paramedics were trying to make Andy breathe again. Like the two tasks were of equal importance.

            I remember a lot of things from that night. Can't stop remembering.

            Carefully I line up the pills and flick them one by one into the bin in the corner. I don't feel like taking them today. The foul taste always makes me want to vomit.

Lisa has brought me a circular pill box, the lid of which is stamped with the days of the week. I like it a lot, but only because it was Lisa who gave it to me. As a practical object it's useless and ugly.

            As I return it to my desk drawer I think of Lisa. She's pregnant; the bulge in her belly huge now and beautiful in an odd, un-sexy sort of way. In there is my son; what will soon be a living, breathing, gurgling continuation of me. It's something I'm simultaneously looking forward to and dreading.

            Medicine done for the day I get to work, but soon the screen is flickering dully in front of me. I try adjusting my ergonomic monitor, but then I realise that the whole world is flickery - is falling apart. It's going to be one of those days. But I won't give in. I won't, I won't.

            Sweating.

            In the end I do. I get up and fish one of the pills out of the bin. Brush off the pencil sharpenings and swallow it dry - sour. One will be enough.

            One is enough, just, to get me through the day, though by the end I can barely type. For all I know half the work I've done today is wrong, but it's worth it to be down to just one pill rather than four.

            Oz from three desks across joins me as I travel down in the elevator. I try to crush him in the doors with the ‘> <' button, but as usual it doesn't work.

            "Grey, my man . . ." Oz talks like that all the time, like life is one big, American, movie-star party. It's all an act with him. "How's it going? How's things?"

            It's not one of those questions that demand a reply, so I stay silent and look at my warped reflection in the mirrored walls.

            "Listen man, me and the guys . . ." They're going down the pub. It's going to be awesome, apparently. I refuse politely and walk away as fast as I can. It's dark outside. I don't like the dark, because bad things happen in the dark.

            Andy died in the dark.

            It's like being a kid again. Don't stray outside the lamplight or the monsters will get you. Only I'm twenty four and have to act like I'm just walking casually home. Every time a car scrolls past on the road beside me I wince and cringe.

            I get home and climb the thirty three steps to our apartment. When I get inside the place is cold and Lisa is sitting stiffly on the sofa. She's not watching TV though, her head is bent forward - hair forming a black curtain on either side of her face. She's breathing heavily and her hands are gripping the edge of the cushions.

            "Lisa . . ."

            She twitches in surprise and I catch a glimpse of her wide, panicked eyes before she doubles over in pain again.

            "Something's wrong." She gasps, and her voice isn't really like her voice.

            "What?" I wasn't ready for this. I've never been ready. The baby isn't due for four weeks. Four whole weeks.

            She groans again.

            "Is it the baby?"

            "I don't know."

            I feel the same way I did right after the shooting. Like I'm paralysed, like my hands are awkward and clumsy and worthless. Before I can descend into a full on panic attack Lisa takes control again.

            "Call a fucking ambulance!"

            Right, yeah, of course. I leave her groaning and crying on the sofa and run to pick up the phone. Dial three numbers, wait. It rings once and then the voice on the other side wants to know which service I require.

            This is the second time in my life I've had to call an ambulance.

            Another pause that stretches painfully long, then I'm through. As I speak I back up as far as the phone cord will allow so I can look through the kitchen and see Lisa bent over on the sofa. She looks like she's about to be sick.

            "My wife . . . she's . . . . she's pregnant, but not for a few weeks yet." I'm not making sense, but they'll understand. "Something's wrong, she's in pain." I rattle off our address.

            The questions from the other end of the line wash over me - unimportant. Or maybe they are but I can't make my brain stop fizzing for long enough to listen to them. I've already heard the words that matter. They're on the way.

            Call done, I drop the phone and run back to her.          

            "Are you alright?" Stupid question, really stupid.

            "I'm scared." I know that tone of voice. God I know it. The last words Andy said to me were said in that voice. As he lay there on the ground. His last words.

            "Why can't I move?"

            And all any of us could so was stand and stare. And that's all I can do now. What the hell am I? I'm a god damned data analyst, I work with numbers. I water-ski at weekends - in my spare time I go down the gym. That's it, that's all I have. Useless, useless, useless.

"I'm sorry." I hear the words as if someone else has spoken them.

Then I'm gone. I can take the three and a half flights in under fifteen seconds when I want to, and I want to now so that I don't hear anything that Lisa might shout after me. I don't want her to be angry at me. I don't want this.

            I only slow down once I'm well away from our building. The lady on the phone said that help was on the way. I left our front door open, so Lisa shouldn't be alone for long - she'll be fine. I on the other hand . . . I just ran out on my pregnant wife - quite possibly when she'd gone into premature labour.

            I walk - not going anywhere in particular, just from a need to be moving, to be doing something to take my mind off how badly I messed things up. It's cold - but I'm still wearing my jacket. Didn't get a chance to take it off before my domestic life went to hell. It's not raining but the pavements are wet and slick from a brief shower earlier today. The puddles are orange under the streetlamps.

            Keep walking, keep walking. Keep breathing.

            I wander at random, not even conscious of where I'm going, and that's a mistake because before I know it I'm there. Some evil, masochistic part of me has drawn me here. To where it happened. The circles on the tarmac are still faintly visible - faded by a year of traffic. Some things aren't like paint. Some things don't fade.

            At once I wheel around and walk away, like I walked away that night - stiff legged and shocked. I had to duck under police tape just here. And a policeman tried to stop me . . . here. And here was where a gawping crowd parted for me. Then when I got home I found a thin, red line across the front of my white shirt and I threw up till there was nothing left inside me, and Lisa couldn't understand what was wrong and why I kept burbling Andy's name.

            I was shaking then and I'm shaking now. I should have taken the other two pills this morning. Maybe if I had I would still be back at the flat with Lisa.

           I run. I know it won't help, know I can't outrun any of these things - but I need to move, need to get away from here. I pass by row upon row of neat, identical houses with neat, identical front lawns. Down a tree lined side street and over a cast iron rail bridge. Then I'm running through the industrial precinct - all concrete and glass and echoes. Only then do I slow down.

            At first I think I'm alone as I can't see or hear anybody - but something at the back of mind tells me I'm not. Looking around again I spot a gaggle of figures lurking in the shadow of a glass fronted building. Only they're not just lurking, no.

            I move closer, walking silently outside the circles of light cast by the streetlamps. The gang is just that - a gang. All of them wear nearly identical hooded tops and baseball caps. All except one; the blond haired one crouching in the centre of the group. He's wearing a school uniform; shirt, tie, blazer - only the blazer is ripped and a look of terror is stretched across his face.

            As I watch one of them gives him a shove which sends him stumbling back then forward onto his knees. He stays that way and I see his mouth moving, but all I hear of his words is a high pitched, keening whine. That sound - that sound comes from inside of you, from the cupboards and boxes of your soul you normally keep locked. I move closer, closer.

            Then one of them, evidently the leader, steps forward and kicks the blond haired boy in the face. The sound it makes is flat and sickly, and the boy slumps back to the ground, hands reaching up to hold his face together. By the time the others drag him upright again blood is running in cracked rivulets down his face. His terrified face.

            For one second - a second that turns to plasticine and stretches - his reeling eyes meet mine and hold my gaze. Like the way that Andy looked at me when he couldn't get up. Like the way Lisa looked at me before I ran away and left her.

            Bad things happen in the dark.

            No, no, no, no . . . the same monosyllabic thought whirling over and over again through my mind. How can this be happening right in front of me? How? In that eternity of a second I make up my mind.

I'm not going to be helpless again. I'm not. Not this time.

            As the second kick crumples him to the ground again I'm starting forwards, hands curling into white-knuckle fists.

As they drag him up for the second time I'm breaking into a run - adrenaline flooding me, ready to fight, ready to kill to save him.

            I won't be helpless again.

            Not again.