by John Riley
‘He’d say anything to get out.’ Sarah stated, resting back against the wall.
‘About that.’ Miles said slowly, Sarah looked up to him careful of her neck, ‘look I know you don’t want to hear this but I don’t think he’s lying. I think he’s still himself.’
‘How could you possibly know?’ Mary snapped instantly, shocking Sarah who was about to say just that.
‘He just sounds normal.’ Miles shrugged.
Sarah hugged her arms around herself and looked at the floor.
‘I think,’ Miles said slowly, ‘that it would help if you spoke to him.’
Sarah sighed in annoyance and looked up.
‘I don’t want to.’
‘I know but-’
‘No Miles!’ Sarah stood, raising her fists angrily, ‘I told you I didn’t want any of this, I wanted to leave!’
‘I know but-’
‘You said I wouldn’t have to talk to him at all!’
‘I know.’ Miles held his hands up placatingly, ‘look Sarah I just spent an hour having a conversation with a guy I don’t know and it felt exactly like that; a conversation.’
Sarah opened her mouth to shout but he started first,
‘I don’t know what kind of guy Daniel was before he was changed-’
‘That isn’t him, he wasn’t changed he was swapped or-’
‘But now!’ Miles’ voice rose above her own, ‘now he’s a nice, intelligent guy worried about the woman he loves and desperate to do anything to save her.’
Sarah closed her mouth. She didn’t know what to think but she sure as hell knew what to feel.
‘I can’t do this Miles, you promised me I wouldn’t have to do this.’ She felt betrayed. It was stupid really, none of these people were her friends, none of them had any agendas but their own. They were going to use her pain and her fear in any way they could so that they could get their families back. Her family was trapped like a bug in a jar in the other room, but that didn’t mean that theirs were lost.
‘Sarah, we don’t have any other options!’ Miles was getting angry now, she could see he was trying to be patient and failing, ‘we need to know what’s going on and the only way to find out is sat in the other room ignoring my questions!’
She stared up at him then, anger and hurt in her eyes. He looked away, lifting his glasses with one hand and running the other over his face.
‘It might help us figure out how to help my Mum.’ Laura said quietly. Sarah looked to her, she stood holding her brother, both of them were dirty, cold, hungry despite the small lunch they’d shared. How long had she thought this could all go on anyway? They couldn’t hide here indefinitely, they couldn’t even hide for a day it seemed before somebody was searching the place for them. But what would she do if the others left... no she couldn’t think like that, couldn’t let herself be so selfish as to destroy their lives just so hers wasn’t so lonely. God why did this have to happen,
‘Ok.’ Sarah said quietly, ‘I’ll do it.’
17
The others all decided to stay in the store room. Sarah wasn't sure if she was glad or not, didn't know what she was supposed to feel as she stood with her back to the door and closed her eyes. She took one steadying deep breath and held it. She let the air out slowly and tried to visualise her stress, fear and sadness leaving with it,
'That just leaves the rest of my crappy feelings.’ she muttered darkly. Daniel moved in the vat, she heard the soft sound of his clothes against the metal, she didn't want to do this. Taking the first step away from the door took a massive effort, the second took a little less and suddenly she found herself there, an arm's reach from her fiancé but for the metal between them. Her breath caught as he moved again, fear zinged through her followed closely by the disgust with herself for her fear. She knew that the fear was all too logical considering what she had seen, but it was Daniel; the man she loved, the man she was supposed to marry.
As she thought about it she realised that since Daniel had proposed everything had gone wrong. If he hadn't proposed they would never have been out when the things attacked the club and then they would have been… well, attacked on the street today or tomorrow probably.
'Sarah?’ Daniel asked tentatively, she jumped at his voice, her mind whirling with what-ifs, 'I can… hear you clicking your nails.’
She looked down at her hands, they were balled into loose fists and she had been flicking her thumbs out like she was flipping invisible coins. Her thumb nails made little popping clicks as they came up, a habit she gained when her nails grew out. She opened her hands and forced herself to stop,
'Yeah it's me.’ He'd heard the tiny sound through the metal and known it was her, creepy.
'Sarah I've had lots of time to try and figure out a speech for this moment, what with that guy Miles trying his cult thing on me.’ he paused, Sarah assumed that he wanted her to say something but she couldn't think what so kept quiet, 'but I've decided to keep it simple; can we go home now please?’
She hadn’t been expecting that. Then again, she didn’t know what she had been expecting; an hour ago he’d been hissing at her.
‘I…’ What the hell was she supposed to say? She’d told Miles she couldn’t do this, talking to him froze her up, turned her insides to glass and made her wish she was dead. She was so scared.
‘Sarah baby please.’ He pleaded, he scooted towards the hole which was his only way of getting close to her, ‘Let me out and let’s go home.’ Well that was easy enough to respond to,
‘If I let you out you’ll try to kill me.’ Sarah heard the tutting sigh, ‘again.’
‘Like this morning when I killed our neighbours?’ He scoffed, ‘the neighbours who you saw were completely fine?’
‘The neighbours that joined you in chasing me from our home and down past Booker’s Street?’ She spat back. He wasn’t listening, but then again why would he if he wasn’t him?
Sarah stood in silence, waiting for him to say something. After a few seconds, she heard him sigh.
He still didn’t speak however. She decided to sit down, with her back to the vat. Miles had left the hammer and she found herself picking it up and fiddling with it.
‘What do you want me to say Dan?’ She asked, he’d always been better at silences than her, ‘I thought…’
She’d thought she was going crazy. The truth, plain and simple. She had seen horrendous things that nobody else could see and she had thought she was losing her mind. If she closed her eyes she could still imagine Daniel standing over their neighbours with his fists raised.
‘No, I’d hoped I was going crazy.’
His face the other side of their front door, blurred from the frosted glass. His amused confusion when he found it locked. The neighbours fine again despite the bloody beatdown. Her final, total acceptance of her new-found insanity as she’d begun to let him in. The beyond lucky mind-slip that had meant she left the chain on.
‘I gave in.’ She said, her throat tightening. She had been going to let him in. ‘I gave up…’
‘Ha.’ His short derisive laugh cut her off suddenly, ‘you did that months ago.’
Sarah’s grip tightened on the handle of the hammer unconsciously.
‘...What?’ He’d thrown her completely off course, this was… new.
‘Why do you think I asked you to marry me?’
‘What!?’ Sarah got to her feet and turned to stare incredulously at the vat.
‘I was losing you!’ Daniel said back, ‘just like your parents lost you…’
‘No way,’ Sarah cut across, confusion disappearing to be replaced by anger at the mention of her parents, ‘I stopped answering my Dad’s “catch-up calls” when it became obvious all he wanted to do was bitch about how unsuccessful you are!’
‘Sarah when…’
‘No Dan!’ She growled, ridiculously pointing the hammer at the vat, ‘my parents stopped the limp attempts at love as soon as I stopped being their sweet little obedient girl. T
he last time I spoke to my Dad he said I could come home once my “little experiment” was over.’
‘He was talking about your job.’ He stated quietly.
‘He was talking about you!’ She lied.
Daniel went quiet again. Sarah had no idea what he was talking about. Her parents had always been more interested in making money than in spending time with her; he knew that. If anything, this proved that the thing in the vat couldn’t be Daniel... But it was true that her parents had never spoken badly of her choice of partner. Of course, they had never said much of anything about him, beyond perhaps a condescending “that’s nice dear”.
‘When your life gets settled, when you're in a steady relationship with a steady job,’ He paused, ‘you get bored and… switch off.’
Sarah realised her mouth was hanging open and closed it quickly.
‘It’s ok,’ He carried on as though he hadn’t just sucker-punched her, ‘I understand. When I met you in college you had already been to pretty much everywhere, done pretty much everything, I mean you’ve even been sky-diving!’
‘So?’ She managed to ask,
‘So, I’ve never left the country!’ Dan almost-shouted, exasperation plain in his voice, ‘the most outgoing exciting things I’ve ever done have been with you!’
‘So what!’ She shouted back, ‘I’ve never asked you to do anything you didn’t want to do!’
‘That’s not the point.’ She heard him punch the inside of the vat, the metal boooonged quietly, ‘We got together, we had loads of fun, then we got jobs and the house and had responsibilities… We grew up and stopped going out and that was fine for me because I had you.’
‘I didn’t go anywhere.’ Sarah said, biting her lip with worry, ‘I stayed with you.’
‘Yeah you did.’ He replied softly, ‘You stayed. You started working more and more shifts, taking on more and more clients. Then when you actually came home you would switch off and we would watch crap on TV, in near silence.’
He was right of course. About the more shifts anyway; they didn’t need the money but she enjoyed the workouts, the competition of her clients after building them up. She helped them to feel better about themselves and they were grateful for the results, she wasn’t saving lives but she was making them better, at least a little.
They were always interesting people too, the one thing she missed about talking to her parents were the multiple holidays abroad to meet interesting new people and see exciting new places. The invitations hadn’t stopped coming, she’d just stopped going. Dan hadn’t liked to “impose” and have everything paid for and she had enjoyed annoying her parents with him. Was that all Daniel was to her then, a big middle finger to stick up to her uncaring parents? She didn’t think so, but he was right again, their life had gotten more bland; as they lived it more and more through the characters on TV.
Dan had always been hot in college, but bookish, quiet and steady. She remembered thinking it would be fun to try and bring him out of himself. It had been fun, they’d been go-karting, paintballing, kayaking and a multitude of other crazy fun outdoors-y things. Then they had crashed back at one of their flats and eaten too much and drank too much and watched films and… God he was right.
‘I…’ She didn’t know what to say. She loved him more than anything, she knew she did, but she had started to push him away. Things had been getting dull and boring. She’d started spending less time at home and more time wishing she were somewhere else when she was at home. She’d started thinking she’d ask him about spending a year travelling when he had suddenly sprung the whole marrying thing on her and she had been surrounded by people and he’d started talking about honeymooning in exotic places...
‘I knew I was going to lose you if I couldn’t get you excited about life with me again.’ He took her silence as permission to continue, ‘I don’t think it’s a bad thing, you’re not an adrenaline junkie or anything, I just think you hate the idea of “simply existing”.’
So, this was what he thought she was. Not a thrill seeker, just afraid to stop, afraid to “just exist”. Scared of things staying the same, but even more scared of anything that would change her. Daniel believed she had been pushing him away even before he had tried to kill her.
But that was just it, he had tried to kill her. Fuck their life together. Fuck this thing’s manipulative bullshit attempt to convince her to let it out and fuck Miles for making her do this.
‘Dan.’ She spat, teeth clenched against her pain, ‘I may have been the shittiest, inattentive girlfriend, but at least I didn’t try to kill you.’
‘Sarah please stop!’ He must have crouched down again because his hand came out through the hatch, palm down and reaching softly, ‘please listen to me.’
She loved him, she hated him, she was terrified of him. Man, or monster, or both, her head was spinning with want, need and a thousand thousand thoughts.
‘I’m right here and I’m not trying to kill you, I never could, I never would!’ His voice had caught, he was crying she realised, had been crying for a while.
His hand was still there, reaching lovingly towards her, one small movement and she could be touching him. She moved her hand and saw the hammer in it. Man, or monster, or both. Something snapped, her world tumbled into blinding redness and she screamed, throwing all of her anger at the world behind an overhand swing. The hammer arced through the air in slow motion and for a fleeting moment before the impact she managed to worry both that she would hit and that she would miss. She didn’t miss.
Hardened steel struck flesh with little sound. The head of the hammer indented the top of Daniel’s wrist, shattering the joint. The blow drove the underside of his wrist onto the jagged upper lip of the hatch cover and it bit deep. Blood burst beneath the hatch like a water balloon and Sarah jumped back from it, vomit already threatening to explode from her.
‘WHAT THE FUCK!’ She turned, the hammer dropping from her limp hand, to see Miles and Mary staring wide-eyed from the factory door. Mary had her hands held to her mouth, Sarah glanced down at the hatch and saw blood soaked globules of flesh hanging from it. She threw up.
Tears streamed down her face, she couldn’t breathe and Daniel was screaming. God Daniel was screaming. Long, horribly human screams of pain and anguish that drove Sarah to the brink of insanity.
‘No go back to the store room!’ She heard Miles yelling over the screams, ‘It’s fine, go!’
Sarah let herself fall into a heap on the floor, her legs beneath her as she sobbed, trying to breathe and not be sick again. Through the tears she saw Miles rush to her,
‘What did you do!?’ His voice was rough, he was angry and she didn’t care. She didn’t reply, could barely think let alone form words.
‘God it’s everywhere…’ Mary said quickly, ‘must have severed…’
Sarah stopped listening, closing her eyes she shook and sobbed and held herself tightly. He’d be fine, he wasn’t a person anymore, he was a monster, he would be fine, he would stop screaming, he would be fine. Her face hurt, her neck hurt, her thoughts hurt.
Slowly she managed to stop crying, the sobs subsiding into hiccups like she were a child. Finally, even those stopped and she opened her good eye, sticky from tears.
‘He’s stopped.’ Mary said worriedly, Sarah had already known.
‘Daniel?’ Miles called out tentatively,
‘What the fuck is going on…’ Came the quavering reply from the vat. Sarah closed her eye again and grimaced. Daniel would believe them now. She had broken something inside herself to do it, but he would have to believe them now.
She picked herself up carefully, making sure not to touch any blood or vomit and left the factory floor in silence. Neither of the kids said anything to Sarah as she walked into the store room. She glanced their way and saw that they were both asleep, nestled into some sleeping bags. She decided that this was probably a good use of her time, God only knew what Miles would want to do with Daniel now. The only certain thing w
as she didn’t want to know. Tired and aching with more emotional hurts unseen. Best to be unconscious, if she could manage it. But first she had more urgent problems.
She left the store room for the hallway and found that the other door led to a second corridor with bathrooms off to one side. It was dark, but with the light from her phone she just about managed to go to the toilet. It wouldn’t flush unsurprisingly but they wouldn’t be there for much longer. She caught a glimpse of herself in the battered mirror and was shocked, she barely recognised herself. Her hair was a mess, one eye was bruised and puffed up so that she could barely see, her cheek had a huge red mark running down it and thin tracks of dried blood ran from her mouth to her chin. She managed to get the blood off and pulled her hands through her hair, but it didn’t make much difference.
She succeeded in making her way back to the store room, her aching ankle threatening to turn on her. The kids had left a small pile of sleeping bags off to one side and she grabbed a couple, putting them down on the other side of the room.
Uncomfortable and cold despite the bags, she resigned herself to the idea of fitful nightmare filled sleep.
18
“Sarah?” Miles shook her shoulder gently, ‘sorry, I need you to wake up.’
Being awake hurt. Her face and neck were hot and throbbing, her neck stiff and aching, her right side from her hip to her ankle felt like hot pins were being stabbed into them and for some reason the thumb on her left hand hurt to move.
‘What.’ She growled, deciding against moving.
‘You’ve been asleep for a few hours,’ He said unasked, ‘it’s nearly four.’
