Last One To Die

by Cynthia Murphy

  Tommy. I let my thoughts linger there, picturing his cheeky smile. If I stayed, maybe we’d have a proper chance, maybe even a relationship. I imagine future us standing on the Southbank, Tower Bridge all lit up in the background. Behind us, the Thames is dark and imposing. Tommy’s lips are soft, gentle as he leans closer, brushing them softly across mine. . .

  Yeah, I’m not going anywhere yet.

  It’s hot in here. I kick my sliders off, wishing I had been allowed to stay at Jess’s after all – I’m in desperate need of some distraction and I could really do with the company. Will she still want to be my friend after all this? I hope so. I flick through my contacts and reach her name, hovering my thumb over it before I hit dial.

  I press the call button and wait patiently as it rings. And rings. And rings.

  No answer. I decide not to leave a message because I seem to be sinking into the bed. The pillow is fluffy, like a cloud. I’ll text her instead. I try to focus on the screen but a yawn ripples through me and my eyes blur and water, until all I can see is a bright rectangle. The phone slips from my open hand and I close my eyes, just for a second. I’ll text her in a minute.

  *

  It takes me a second to remember where I am. Actually, it takes a second to remember who I am, what day it is, and where I am.

  I push myself up from the face down, drooling-in-my-pillow position and panic at the dark room – there is a distinct lack of light streaming through my window. I must have been out for hours, it feels like the middle of the night. Strands of hair cling to my clammy forehead and my mouth feels like something crawled into it and died. If anything, I feel worse than I did earlier, my head foggy and leaden. I pat around for my phone, finally disentangling it from the sheets. The screen is dark – out of battery. Damn it. My stomach rumbles a protest and I realize I haven’t eaten since those chips at lunch. I try to ignore it, rolling over and squeezing my eyes shut, willing myself back to sleep.

  It’s no use.

  I let my feet thump to the floor like dead weights and twist my body around, so I’m lying sideways on the bed. I lie there for a bit and try to put my muggy thoughts in some kind of order.

  One, pee. Two, charge phone. Three, food.

  My stomach rumbles again. Definitely food.

  I stand up, stretching my arms out as wide as they’ll go, trying to loosen all the kinks and knots. I switch on the light, shielding my eyes as the fluorescent bulb groans to life. Blurry eyed, I wander into my little bathroom (the only perk of this new building) and when I come out, I stick my phone on charge, grab a packet of instant noodles from my stash and leave the room in search of hot water and a clean bowl.

  These halls are quiet, but much more modern, so they automatically feel a little less creepy. I boil the kettle, idly wondering whether Derek is still downstairs or if it’s the night watchman, the one who makes a little fort of duvets behind the desk so he can have a kip. The kitchen clock catches my eye. Almost midnight; I really was out for hours.

  I’m so hungry I start slurping the noodles on the walk back. The hot, savoury liquid scalds my lips, but it also cuts through the horrible cotton mouth. My sore tongue tells me I need to give it five minutes, though.

  Once I’m back in my room I exchange the bowl for my phone, which is now happily charging in the corner. Two WhatsApps, a bunch of junk email and, I’m delighted to see, a missed call from Jess. I open the WhatsApps first: one from Jess, apologizing for missing my call, and the other from Meghan, to say that Granny H doesn’t seem to be improving so Daddy is staying at the hospital with her. They’ll be too busy to worry about me then. I shake my head and push the selfish thoughts aside quickly, feeling like a horrible child. Poor Daddy; he would be lucky if Granny H recognized him in the morning.

  I retrieve my dinner and sit cross-legged on the bed, wriggling so my back is against the wall, and drag a pillow on to my lap. It hits me that my ankle hasn’t bothered me and I stretch it out tentatively. It feels fine; I guess the ice did the trick. I blow on the noodles for a bit as I scroll through my social media, filled with friends at home who don’t seem to have any Niamh-shaped holes in their lives. I tap in Jess’s name and request to follow her. Then I click into the camera for a noodle selfie, ready to filter my lonely dinner for one and caption it with something that seems vaguely more exciting.

  As I’m perfecting my “student life” pose, a dozen tiny thumbnails of photos load up. I pause, squinting at them. I had expected to see the ones I took on the Southbank earlier today; I don’t recognize these at all.

  They’re dark, nothing more than little black squares. Did I cover the lens by mistake? I click out of the app and load up my photo album.

  The forkful of noodles doesn’t quite make it to my mouth.

  I shove the bowl back on my desk, spilling hot broth on my fingers, but they’re numb. Somewhere in the distance I hear the fork clatter to the floor. None of it registers, because I’m scrolling through my phone, through hundreds of pictures, the same image repeated over and over.

  An image of me. Here, in my room. In bed.

  Asleep.

  I slam the phone down so hard that there’s a chance I’ve shattered the screen again.

  I must still be asleep, that’s all. What do they do in films, pinch themselves? I try it, squeezing the skin on my calf. Ow. Not asleep.

  I study every corner of my tiny room, breath coming rapidly, but no masked murderers or camera-wielding psychos jump out from under the tiny desk. Everything looks so innocent – the room a bit sparse, a bit messy. Everything looks the same.

  Apart from all of the flaming photographs of me asleep.

  My gaze travels to the bathroom door. It’s slightly ajar. Didn’t I close it before? Mammy would go nuts if I didn’t at home. “You weren’t born in a barn, Niamh,” – but I can’t remember. . . I whip my feet up suddenly.

  What if he’s under the bed?

  Right, I need to calm down for a second. I can hear my heartbeat, it’s thumping so loud that it’s in my ears and I can hear all the blood swishing around in there, too. I could just look under the bed . . . or in the bathroom. . .

  Or I could dive for the door and get the hell out of here.

  Option three sounds like a winner.

  I leap from the bed like an Olympic gymnast and fling the door open, bare feet hitting the hallway floor with a slap as I run towards the bank of lifts.

  A soft click from behind me lets me know my door has shut.

  Or been opened.

  I press the lift button five, six, seven times, as if I can make it come any faster. The lights above me flicker. Not this again. There is no way I’m getting stuck in the lift with some weirdo stalking around the dorms. I consider the door that leads to the stairwell, remember I’m on the eighth floor now.

  The lights flicker again.

  Oh well, at least it’s eight flights down.

  I have to press my entire body weight into the door to open it. The stairwell beyond is exactly like the ones in every zombie apocalypse movie ever: buzzing overhead lights, bare breezeblocks, a massive sense of dread. . .

  A metallic tapping that I know too well sounds somewhere behind the closing door.

  I fly down the steps as though the devil himself is chasing me. At the bottom I burst out through the door, startling a snoozing Derek at the front desk.

  “Derek! You’re here, thank God!”

  I try to gasp out a few more words but I used every last breath running down those stairs. I lurch towards the desk, pointing over my shoulder while taking deep, sucking gulps of air. Thankfully Derek is already on his feet and moving towards me protectively.

  “It’s OK,” he says, his eyes scanning me. “Take your time.” I try to regulate my breathing as Derek assesses the situation. “What happened?”

  I reach for my phone, easier to show him. I slide my hand into my back pocket, but it’s empty.

  “My phone,” I gasp.

  He frowns. “What, did someon
e ring you? What did they say?”

  I shake my head. “No. I . . . I was asleep and when I woke up and checked my phone there were all of these pictures. . .” My chest rattles as I take another deep breath. “Of me.”

  “Of you?”

  “Yeah, but not like selfies, y’know? Pictures of me. Asleep.”

  Derek bristles. “What? From when?”

  “From now! Well, from earlier tonight. I fell asleep and when I woke up my phone was off, so I charged it and. . .”

  He doesn’t speak for a moment. Then he says, “Where is your phone now?”

  “I must have left it upstairs.”

  “OK. Wait there.” He disappears back behind the desk and doubt starts to scratch away at my fear. No one has followed me down the stairs. There was probably nobody in my room. But those photos. . .

  “Right.” He emerges and tucks something into his back pocket. “Don’t gimme those eyes, Irish, it’s just a taser. In case, like.”

  Oh. Just a taser.

  Cool.

  I trail behind him to the lift and eye it doubtfully. “Was the electricity being funny down here?”

  “No, why?”

  The doors yawn open in front of us and I’m reminded of a recurring nightmare I used to have, where the pulleys all snap and I’m left swinging in an open lift by one lone wire.

  “The lights were flickering upstairs.”

  He looks at me with something like concern. “Probably just a dodgy bulb. They’re always going in a building this size.”

  “Right.” I follow him into the lift. It drags itself up slowly, juddering to a stop at my floor. His hand stays reassuringly close to the taser.

  “OK,” he says as we step out. “Your room. Come on.”

  My heart starts to thump again as we near the door. It’s shut. Derek edges closer and does that classic copper thing of putting his back against the wall. He nods at me.

  “Ready?”

  My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth, but I manage to choke out a yes. Derek swings the door open to an empty room. The bathroom door is still ajar but he rips it open without hesitation. Again, empty. Relief floods my body.

  “Clear,” he says, and I start to giggle, all the stress of the last few minutes dissolving into hysteria. “Pull yourself together, girl. Now, where’s this phone?”

  My giggles subside. It feels off now I know someone else has been in here, less secure. Like my privacy has been completed invaded, which I guess it has. My phone is exactly where I left it, slammed face down on the corner of the desk.

  “Here.” I unlock the device and hold it out to him.

  “Er, no thanks, don’t wanna be riffling through a student’s phone.”

  “Oh. OK.” I open the album and go to click on the last image. It’s one of Jess, swinging her legs on the wall with a mouthful of chips. I scroll through, but that’s it.

  “That’s not . . . I mean, they were right here.” I swipe through the other albums, thinking I might have been looking somewhere else, but the creepy photos are nowhere to be seen. Derek’s sympathetic gaze burns into me.

  “It was probably just a bad dream,” he says. “You’ve had a hell of a time.”

  “No! They were here. Look!” I pull up a recently deleted file and expect to see multiple copies of my sleeping face, but there’s nothing there either.

  Every single photo has gone.

  “What, every single picture? There wasn’t even one?”

  “Yep.” I slurp at the dregs of my chocolate milkshake before tossing the paper cup into a nearby bin. I haven’t had fast food in ages, Meghan always puts me off with those documentaries she watches, but she’s not here and I’m knackered and starving and a student, so it seemed like a great idea. And, not gonna lie, it was.

  “Hmmm,” Jess mumbles through a chicken nugget. She nibbles all the way around the edges, just like I do with Jaffa Cakes, and is busy working on the last one. I wait for her to finish before questioning her again.

  “So, you believe me?”

  “Er, yeah.”

  “Try to sound a little more convincing, will you?”

  “No, I really do. I mean, the noodles were there, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “What do the noodles have to do with it?”

  “Well, if you had a nightmare, and you looked at your phone before you went for food, you could’ve still been asleep and thought it was real. But if you were awake enough to go all the way to the kitchen, and boil a kettle and make noodles, and then you looked at your phone, it’d be pretty hard to do that while you were half-asleep, wouldn’t it?”

  “Exactly!” Thank God someone is on the same page. “That’s what I told Derek, but he wasn’t having it. I reckon he thinks I’m getting all hysterical.”

  “But he has a taser?” I nod in response. “Cool.” Jess breathes.

  “It is, right? He said I could move rooms, so I’m closer to reception.”

  “Please tell me you took him up on that offer?”

  “Hell, yes. The closer I am to him the better, I think.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right.” Jess pulls at a curl so it springs back up. “Do you really think he doesn’t believe you?”

  “I dunno. Eugh, you should have seen those pictures though, just hundreds of them, all of me flaked out on the bed.”

  “You don’t think he, when the creeper was in your room. . .” Jess begins.

  “What, did he sexually assault me?”

  Jess nods.

  “No.” I cast my mind back. “No, I don’t think so. So they’re completely effing psycho, yes, just not in a sex pest kind of a way.”

  “Well, that’s kind of a bonus, right?”

  I bark out a hollow laugh as we push through the glass doors at the entrance to the building. Jess is helping her mum in the library again today and I have drama workshops all afternoon, which I’m hoping will be ridiculous enough to distract me from all the trauma. Again.

  “I don’t know how you’re going back into that library after yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t the one who got trapped in the mobile shelving units. Plus, Mum’s not been feeling great since. She’s struggling to pick things up so I’m going to be stacking shelves, mainly.” She glances around and lowers her voice. “Plus, Will didn’t come to work this morning.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Holy hell.” Was that because he was knackered from a night spent creeping around my halls, taking and deleting pictures to make me look like a complete nutter? Or had he been looking out for Jasmine while she did it, convinced to help make my life miserable. I haven’t seen her sneering face today, either.

  Or was it just coincidence?

  “Anyway, have fun at your workshops,” says Jess. “You wanna meet here when you’re done?”

  “Yeah, please.” I start to follow the mass of students trickling down to the drama studios. “I finish at five – see you then?”

  “Yep, see you then.” She waves me off as I allow the chattering crowd to carry me away.

  “. . .and the information will be outside the theatre studio. I expect you will all apply.”

  What information? I realize I’ve just spent the last five minutes of my workshop totally zoned out. I’m so tired, you could pack for a fortnight in Spain in my eyebags alone. I need to sort myself out.

  I collect my stuff from the side of the room and zip myself back into the hoodie I’d discarded earlier. The class was actually really interesting. There was a lot of emotion recall though, a technique where you remember past experiences to help you with a scene. I used the memory of seeing my sister in our messy shared bedroom back home. It left me feeling pretty tired and vulnerable. Still, I’m hoping a catch up with Jess will make me feel better before I head home.

  Home. Ha.

  I spot a group chattering their way to the exit, and I follow them, hoping I’ll find out what I missed at the end of class. They’re talking about the schola
rship essays and I relax. Thanks to Ruth, I actually had a head start for once.

  Then I hear a familiar voice.

  “Yeah, she woke up last night. I mean, I had to go and visit her straight away, she’s practically my best friend, you know?” Jasmine is just ahead of me with a handful of students, all hanging off her every word. So she made it in, after all. “She looked awful, poor thing, all bruised and battered. I felt terrible. I mean, that could have happened to me!”

  Oh, please.

  “So, did she say who did it?” one of her cronies asks.

  “Oh, I didn’t stay long,” she lowers her voice and I try my best to linger inconspicuously. “St. Mary’s is a bit of a dive, I didn’t want to hang around, I mean we usually go private. I just dropped off some chocs because she was sleeping.”

  “So, you didn’t even stay to talk to her?” Oops, did I say that out loud?

  Jasmine’s eyes flash at me. “Oh, it’s you,” she sneers. “I had somewhere to be, not that it’s any of your business.” She flips her silky hair over one shoulder and the buttons of her cardigan flash in the neon lights. It looks familiar.

  “I bet you did. Hey, is. . .” I study the velvet edging and cropped sleeves. It is! “Is that my cardigan?”

  “What are you talking about?” Is it just me or is there a shadow of uncertainty behind her eyes? “This is my top.”

  “Prove it, then.” The group falls silent, watching. I hear a whispered “Girl fight!” from the back.

  Jasmine takes a step towards me, all uncertainty gone.

  “Do you really think I would wear some trashy little backwater-town hand-me-down?” She lifts an arm and gives an exaggerated sniff, her pretty lip twisting in a sneer. “This can’t be yours, it doesn’t smell of potatoes.” A few sniggers give her a boost of confidence she really doesn’t need. “Or desperation. I wouldn’t be seen dead in something belonging to a hillbilly like you.”

  Tears burn my eyes as I try to think of a retort, but Jasmine turns away. She’s done with me. I can still smell her minty breath as she addresses her entourage, as though nothing at all has happened.