Everything I know about love I learnt working weekend shifts on the Ghost Train. It was a sweet gig for a 15 year-old — sitting in the mucky perspex booth, trading tokens for screams. We opened after the sun went down, when the kids from nearby villages would descend in packs. In the queue, the mating ritual would begin. They would size each other up and pair off, giggling and bopping to the music. People go crazy for fairground music. Despite this, there was always a gap between partners. Sometimes it was small but it was always there, as if touching would give them an electric shock. They’d point over their shoulders at their friends, hyping each other up. Two by two, they would take their seats.
They’d shout to me, Is the ride scary? and I’d say, It is, trust me, then pull the big lever to crank the train forward. They’d squeak like fat rats, clutch the bar, laugh nervously, as the train went into the darkness where my older brother and his mates were waiting, covered in fake blood, to jump out.
When the train came back they’d be snuggled together and smiling, high as hell, eyes shining. The Ghost Train worked better than the Tunnel of Love. Better still than the Ferris wheel, where couples have time to talk, rock the carriage, argue. There was something about the Ghost Train and everyone knew it.
You could tell who the spookers were straight away. The ones nervous in their seats. They knew that the ghosts were only people in costumes, but the more times they said it, the less convinced they seemed. It was the shockers who’d scream loudest. The adrenaline junkies, there for the jump scares. Then there were the monster-fuckers, who hung around, waiting for the mummies and the zombies to have a ciggie break. Not always girls, but mostly. They’d snap their gum and say they weren’t scared before giving the monsters handjobs behind the dodgems.
Under those flashing fairground lights, I made my first hypothesis. Fear is a catalyst for love, or at least a shortcut to sex. This proved true at Halloween parties and in the back row of cinema screens. Later, in my University text book, I found the scientific name for it: ‘The Snuggle Effect’. Some Dutch psychologists conducted a study into ‘recreational fear’ by recording people’s reactions in haunted houses. Heart-rates quickened and hands clasped tighter. They had all the data and I, personally, am crazy for data.
That’s why this first date is happening in a haunted pub in Hackney. One of my regular haunts, tried and tested. So this guy is sat opposite, with his funky IPA. He’s not not-hot but is talking about his insurance job which makes it hard to work out who he is. A friend-of-a-friend who reckons I need to meet someone and stop taking my work home with me set us up. He asks me what I do and I tell him about the lab and the studies and amazing inner workings of the brain. He’s wearing a PETA badge so I don’t tell him about the rats and how we can control them with a buzzer. Even make them stop eating the special ‘rat jam’, which the rats are just crazy about.
Despite being Thursday, the pub is Friday-night busy, so I tell him about what happened in the pub. Ghost stories are hot; they make people lean in closer. Touching my hand, he says, In buildings as old as this, it’s statistically probable people have died here.
To test if he’s a spooker, or simply a numbers guy, I get him to walk me home through the graveyard. My housemate is out, I say. This morning I briefed her and gave her a packet of jaffa cakes. She’s just crazy for jaffa cakes. We walk side by side, through the moon shadows of the yew trees. I tell him about Mary Shelley, yes that one, and how she lost her virginity on her mother’s grave, yes this grave here. In this graveyard, the spook inside me stirs. Did you know Mary kept Percy’s dead heart in her desk? The story doesn’t move him. The moonlight doesn’t move him. The rustling in the bushes doesn’t make his head turn. So he isn’t a spook. Tonight the Ouija board will stay under my bed. This guy must be a shocker.
Did you know you can build up a tolerance for scares? Exposure can soften, even cure, phobias. Put your hand in a box of tarantulas for long enough and you’ll start to find their furry legs unthreatening, silly even. But you can’t build a tolerance for jump scares. That shit is universal. So I invite him inside to watch Netflix and pick the most tension-packed-heartstopping-fucked-up slasher film I can find. But the bastard doesn’t flinch when the clown jumps out. Worse still, doesn’t put his arm around me at all.
It’s late and I have important labs in the morning. We’re going to see if the rats love the jam so much that they’ll scramble over hot coals to get it. My colleagues bet they won’t, but I’ve been tweaking the recipe. So I need to speed things up with this guy, call in the big guns.
Now, I’ve only done this a few times before. I’m not a monster. Only in the most dire of circumstances. It’s kind of a failsafe move. I’ll call up my brother and get him to do a scare. Just a small street mugging or an attempted home invasion. A real life jump scare. Simple stuff really. Nothing actually life threatening, just enough to get blood pumping. I text my brother and he says he doesn’t have time for my shit. I offer him £50 and he says £60 because my brother is just crazy about money.
So this guy is on my sofa, happy as Larry, smiling at me, not bothered by the tension building on the screen. He leans for a kiss but I move away because it’s not time, and besides, it doesn’t feel genuine, like he’s being polite or something. Then a bang at the French window. He looks up, alert. This is it. My heart flutters.
I move myself closer but he pushes me away, hard. Someone’s outside, he says, getting up. Suddenly he’s much more attractive. Standing tall and silhouetted. Another bang. His fists clench. Then he’s at the doors, flings them open, and pulls the hooded figure inside by the neck.
This never happens. Normally, a face at the window and a bit of door handle rattling is enough. But now my brother is on the floor and this guy looks like he’s about to beat him up. What if he’s not a shocker but a sadist. I don’t mess with sadists. The people who are only into the guts and gore. The ones who know too much about knots and knives. Trust me: it doesn’t go well. I’ve got the data.
My brother squeaks and writhes on the floor, his hood falling back to show his face. The guy pulls back, shakes his head and laughs, shattering the tension.
I know you, he says. You pull pints at the Red Lion.
I confess it’s my brother. Say, He’s always losing his keys, and send him on his way without a penny. I don’t believe in rewarding failure. It’s not what I planned but the guy has his arms round me anyway. Our lips meet but they do not tremble. I guess this is the best I’m getting from this man who’s not scared of anything. Though I know it’s not going to be good, we go upstairs anyway. Might as well get this over and done with, so my friend will stop setting me up with losers.
When I turn on the bedside lamp, he jumps back. I forgot to tell him about the rats. Their eyes catch the light and glow red, which I guess could be scary if you’re not expecting it. To me they’re as normal as the standby light on the TV.
Don’t worry, they’re friendly, I say, the temperature in the room dropping deliciously. Though he’s clearly scared, I’m really not, so this is more of the experiment. I forgot some of science’s most significant discoveries were accidents. LSD, X-rays, Teflon. He watches the rats, flinching with every tiny scuffle, every metallic ping of the cage bars. As I demonstrate how they respond to the buzzer, I unbutton his shirt and his breath fills the room.
Not a fan of rats, then, I whisper in his ear. He shakes his head. I can help you with that, I say. He could leave but he doesn’t. I kiss him gently on the neck, and tell him to put his palm out flat. He waits while I find the rat jam — my own special batch. I open the jar and the rats go just crazy. They’re at the bars begging to get out. Eeep eeep, they go. Hungry little fuckers. I put my hand on his shoulder to calm him. I’ll let them out for just a second. Then they’ll go back in their cages, nice and friendly.
I scoop out the jam with my little finger, and put it in the centre of his shaking hand. Is that his heart beating so loudly? Perhaps this is enough; maybe we don’t need to get the rats out. But no, the way his shoulders are up by his ears, he needs this scare and release. Later, he’ll thank me, for sure. Wide-eyed, he watches me put my hand to the cage door. The rats push, plead, white fur and pink noses poking through the bars. He asks me if it’s going to be ok and I say, It is, trust me.
Then I unhook the latch and the three of them run out, straight to him. He screams and jumps up. But that doesn’t stop them. Urgent and scrabbling, they run up his legs, up his body, heading for his hand. As he tries to get them off, he spreads jam all over his jeans. Do the thing, he yells, the thing.
Seeing someone else scared when you’re not isn’t fun. It’s like being sober in a room full of drunks. Or being sat behind perspex while your classmates are snogging. I flick the buzzer and the rats stop dead. For a second, I get hopeful that my rat jam recipe is too good to leave alone, but then they file back to their cages slowly, trance-like. I must admit, I’m disappointed. The rats are just crazy about jam but it’s not enough to forget what they’ve been taught.
That’s wild, he says, pacing, giggling and rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. He smiles so wide I can see his back teeth. Words in half sentences spill out of him, a classic symptom of shock. Then he stops. What’s that? he says.
When you’re scared, you tune into every little movement and sound. I’m not scared. So it takes a moment for me to hear it, the low rumbling. The back of my neck tingles, like little paws running over my skin. Something’s not right. The floor shakes. My first thought is demons, then earthquake. Neither makes sense. His mouth opens wide but the sound from him stops mid-word, mid-scream.
Then they come. From under the door, from under the bed. Quick-moving shadows, with long tails. Bigger than the lab rats, and meaner. Squeezing through every gap in the room. He grabs my arm and I drop the jam. The rats swarm, run over each other, a huge mass of a thousand tails.
He’s bashing the buzzer with his whole fist but these rats don’t know the cue. They’re a whole mass of hungry crazy covering his legs. He grabs my arm and we run. Run out of the room, down the stairs, out of the house. Together we run, hearts pounding, legs flying. Scared in sync. Adrenaline pumps behind my eyes, driving me to keep going, to keep up. I don’t need to look back now to know they’re still coming. If we get out of this alive, he’ll marry me. This isn’t a hypothesis, it’s fact. This is it. This is love.