Six Days, Six Hours, Six Minutes

by Alex Smith

  “No,” said a soft voice, so close it might have been in Blake’s ear. “No.”

  Footsteps shuffling across the carpet. More wet sniffs. Then the crunch of broken glass. Whoever was in there gave a murmur of surprise. Blake heard the pop of a lighter and a warm glow filled the space, leaking out into the hall.

  The door ahead was open, a kitchen almost visible past it. Blake tried to move, couldn’t. He tried again, each step impossible until it happened. He tried to focus on the route ahead but he couldn’t stop himself from looking behind him, into the candlelit living room. From here he could only see the window, the coffee table. But he was in plain sight. If whoever was in there was to walk to this side of the room then he’d see Blake straight away.

  The phone bleeped again, twice.

  “No!” said a voice, angrier. Blake paused mid-step. He knew that voice. There was a slap, as loud as a pistol shot. Again, like a fist on flesh. “No no no.”

  Blake marched quickly through the door into the darkness of the kitchen. His hip bumped the side of a unit and he froze, holding his breath.

  Silence. He had to have heard that. Blake felt his way along the counter, his fingers slick with grime. He fumbled past a sink, his eyes groping the gloom, searching for a back door, for another loose board. But this side of the house was sealed tight, not even a crack of daylight creeping in.

  “Fuck him, fuck him,” said whoever was in the other room, that weirdly familiar voice. There was more, but it was too quiet for Blake to make out.

  He reached the back of the kitchen, no way out. He couldn’t see anything other than the door he’d entered through, and past that the hallway and the living room.

  “Sorry,” said the voice, fading in and out. “… isn’t nice, wouldn’t like… something later…”

  Blake heard the rustle of paper, the hissing pop of a can being opened. He gingerly felt the units behind him, drawers caked in dirt. He eased one open and felt inside, recoiling at the touch of damp cloth. He tried another, finding objects that might have been utensils—a rolling pin, a sieve. From the living room came the sound of footsteps again, those whispered words growing louder.

  Somebody walked into sight, perfectly framed by the arched door of the living room. He had his back to Blake and was silhouetted by the window, but Blake recognised him instantly—the green shirt, those filthy pants, that mess of blond hair. It was the guy from his office, the guy he’d chased at the mall. He was staring at a mobile phone, muttering to it.

  “… no, I won’t…”

  The young man growled, the noise a beaten dog might make. He threw his head back, sobbing. Then, as if Blake had suddenly called out, he twisted around and stared right at him.

  Blake’s entire body petrified, bone-still. The man craned forward, blinking into the darkness of the kitchen. His eyes scrolled left and right, rolling right over Blake, not seeing him. It was pitch-black in here, Blake understood. He was invisible.

  The guy stared for another second or two then turned away, walking out of sight. Blake’s lungs were close to exploding and he leaked a breath out of his mouth, the lightless kitchen spinning so fast that it might have been picked up by a tornado.

  From the other room, he could hear the sound of the young man eating—great big mouthfuls, pig-like grunts from the pleasure of it. If he was going to go he needed to do it now, while the guy was distracted. As good as his cover was here, he couldn’t stay. No, better to creep upstairs and climb back out the window. Once he was outside, he could re-evaluate his options.

  He started to walk to the door, then stopped. This was the guy he had been chasing, the man he’d wanted to speak with. He was right here, right now. Blake would never get a better chance to find out what was going on.

  But that meant walking in there, it meant confronting him. Just the thought of it made Blake want to curl up in the dark and lie there forever.

  No.

  He walked to the drawer he’d opened, easing his phone out of his pocket and shining it inside. Spatulas, wooden spoons, a cake slice. Nothing he could use as a weapon. He tried the next drawer along, dinner cutlery and teaspoons, nothing sharp. Glancing behind, just to make sure he wasn’t being watched, he moved deeper into the kitchen. There was a knife block on the counter but it was empty. So was the next drawer he tried.

  The one after that, though, held more utensils. He reached in and picked up a meat tenderiser, heavy steel, one side ridged. He tested its heft in his hand, swinging it gently from side to side. It wasn’t exactly a war hammer, but it was enough.

  Could he do it, though? Could he walk into that room and threaten somebody with a weapon? More to the point, what would happen if the guy came at him? Could he really use it?

  He thought of Julia, smiling; he thought of Connor’s laugh.

  Yeah, he fucking could.

  Gripping the tenderiser hard, he crossed the kitchen into the hall.

  Thirty-Eight

  Blake faltered outside the living room, everything shaking. He gritted his teeth—you have to do this, you are going to do this—and stepped through the open arch into the living room.

  The blond guy was sitting cross-legged on the floor, on that rancid sleeping bag, facing the fireplace. He was eating something from a carton, a microwave meal, Blake thought, even though it must have been cold. He was digging it out with his fingers and slapping great handfuls of it into his mouth.

  “I’ll get you something nice,” he said as he ate, wiping the back of his hand over his face. “Isn’t nice. Later.”

  The guy glanced at the arrangement of clothes on the sofa, running a food-caked hand down the skirt that had once belonged to Elizabeth Nevill.

  “Maybe wine, yeah? A drink of something nice, something nice. He won’t mind, not if he doesn’t know. I can do that, I can do that for you.”

  He was insane, Blake realised. He had completely lost his mind. And that changed things, because even if he was able to get the guy to talk then the chances were nothing he said would make any sense. He flexed his grip on the meat tenderiser, checking over his shoulder, thinking of the stairs. Should he run? Or maybe he should just creep up on the young man and crack him over the head.

  He did none of those things, he just stood and watched as the man picked up a can of Coke and gulped it down.

  “We can go out, do something nice,” he said, belching. “I promise it will be nice. He won’t be there.”

  He.

  The guy might have been nuts, but he knew more than Blake did.

  Fuck it.

  Blake opened his mouth to speak, but every fibre of his body fought it, actively resisting him. A croak fell out of his mouth, weak and pathetic and enough. The guy shot to his feet like a puppet on strings, wheeling around and crashing back against the fireplace. Frames cracked beneath his feet. His face was so twisted by fear that he didn’t look human. His eyes stretched impossibly wide, and his mouth drooped open in a long, low, awful groan.

  “Don’t,” Blake said, not even sure what he was asking the man not to do. He lifted the hammer, pointing at the guy with his other hand. “Don’t.”

  “No!” the young man screamed, loud enough to bring the house down. “No! No! No!”

  His face contorted again, crumpling into a mask of fury. He pushed himself away from the fireplace and bounded across the room, those filthy hands knuckled into claws. His eyes burned a hole in what little courage Blake had, fear making him stumble away, his shoulder cracking against the side of the arch.

  The guy was fast, vaulting the lamp table. The noise coming from his mouth was like something an animal might make, high-pitched and desperate. Blake lifted the hammer, more in defence than attack, just trying to put something between him and the thing that rushed at him.

  He thumped into Blake with a madman's rage. It was like being hit by a truck, both of them flying back into the far wall of the corridor. The impact drove the air from Blake’s lungs, the hallway full of lightning as his head cracked ag
ainst the plaster. For a second he was blind, and he swung the hammer in front of him, meeting nothing but air.

  Pain erupted in his cheek, something raking down his skin. Another hand was over his mouth, in his mouth, tasting of cold lasagne. It slid past his chin, pinching at his throat and trying to choke him. Blake pushed against it but the man was strong, driving him back against the wall again and again, like he meant to crush Blake’s bones to powder. He was going to die here; this crazy fucker was going to kill him.

  Blake opened his mouth and screamed until his lungs ached. It seemed to empty him, seemed to purge everything from him other than one clear, burning purpose.

  He rocked himself forward, bucking away from the wall and into the man that held him. His forehead made contact with something soft, something that popped. There was a gargled cry and the man staggered back through the arch into the living room.

  “You can’t you can’t you can’t,” the guy said, his words choked with blood. He looked like he was going to charge at Blake again but then he turned, bolting for the window.

  Blake was after him before he even knew it, pounding across the living room. He grabbed at the guy’s shirt as he was pushing out through the loose board, clutching cloth and flesh. He yanked back, reeling the man inside like he was a fish. The guy fell, landing on his backside, and Blake towered over him, raising the hammer above his head.

  “No!” the guy cried again, lifting his hands. “Don—”

  Blake swung the meat tenderiser down as hard as he could, around in a big, sweeping, furious arc. It hit the man’s temple with a sickening crack, the noise of something breaking. His eyes rolled back and he swayed where he was seated, blood spilling from his nose. Then he slumped onto his side, twitching.

  The hammer dropped from Blake’s hand, leaving a bloody print on the carpet. He stood there, shaking hard, feeling almost as though he was standing over his own shoulder, as if he was no longer Blake Barton but a ghost expelled from his own body. Then he blinked, finding himself again.

  He crouched next to the young man and pressed two fingers to his neck. When he felt the pulse there, weak but beating, he almost cried with the relief of it. He was exhausted, he felt like he could lie down right here next to the man and sleep for a decade.

  Instead, he used the back of the sofa to claw himself up. Then he walked to the window, climbing out into the day, into the cold, beautiful rain. He jogged around the house as fast as his unsteady legs would let him.

  Not to run. Not to return to his car. No, not this time.

  He needed some rope.

  Thirty-Nine

  “Wake up, fucker.”

  Blake slapped the young man’s cheek, hard. Incredibly, the guy was still out cold. Blake had hefted him through the boarded window, dragged him around to the front of the house and tied him to one of the wooden posts that held up the veranda. He’d searched everywhere for rope, even breaking through a rotten door to gain access to the barn. There had been nothing much in there other than a workbench full of tools and a generator—as well as a ladder, to his annoyance. He’d fiddled with the generator, trying to get it started, but he had no idea how it worked and it looked like it had rusted to death a long time ago.

  The tools, though, he’d brought with him.

  He held a crowbar in his right hand, its weight providing some comfort. There was a utility knife tucked inside his back pocket. The blade was orange but it still looked sharp. Sharp enough to put a hole in someone.

  He’d ended up using the garden hose to tie the guy up. He’d propped him in a sitting position against the pillar and wrapped it around him eight times, pulling it as tight as he could and tying the end in a dozen knots. Even though the hose was a little elastic there was no way the guy was shaking loose. Blake reeked of him now, like he too had become one of the devil’s unwashed disciples.

  “I said wake up, you piece of shit.”

  Blake slapped him again. The man’s face was a mess, one side of it dyed crimson from the wound on his temple. That side of his head had swollen up, like there was a tennis ball embedded in his skull. The skin had split, but Blake hadn’t looked too closely. He didn’t want to know if there was bone poking through. Once he’d secured the guy, he’d taken a good look at him. He was younger than Blake had first thought, early twenties maybe. He would have looked closer but the guy was pumping out that gut-churning stench, a forcefield it was difficult to see past.

  He had no ID on him, not even a wallet. The only things he had in his pockets were an old coin purse stuffed with shrapnel and a photograph that had been folded so many times it was almost impossible to make out. Blake had studied it for a full minute before identifying Elizabeth Nevill amongst the creases, smiling serenely, one of her children cradled in her arms.

  The man’s phone was an old one, a Nokia, and it was locked with a passcode. While he’d been waiting—nearly twenty minutes since he’d knocked the guy out—another two text messages had come through. The little closed envelope icon sat on the yellow screen, taunting him.

  “Wake up,” he said again, slapping the man’s face. He wondered if he should be doing that, given the state of his injury, but the guy was obviously a part of this. He’d made his bed. He tried again, harder, and the man groaned softly.

  Blake walked out of the shelter of the veranda and into the overgrown grass of the front garden. The rain still poured but he didn’t mind it now. He’d washed himself in it, cleaning the blood from his face, rubbing the welts on his cheek where he’d been gouged by filthy nails. The garden pots he’d first seen in the crime photos were still scattered around the lawn and he searched for one that was full, grappling with it. He upended it on the guy, covering him in muddy water.

  He came back like someone who’s been resuscitated, opening his mouth and clawing in a gasping, endless breath. His eyes bulged, seeing nothing, then seeing the house, then seeing Blake and growing even wider.

  “No—” he started and Blake leaned in, brandishing the crowbar above his head. The man’s face fell, and he writhed against the hose, his feet scuffing the rotten boards of the veranda deck.

  “Shut up,” Blake said, ignoring the tremor in his voice, ignoring the sickness in his stomach—sickness partly born from the horror of treating another human being this way. “Shut your fucking mouth.”

  The guy kicked out, a rambling stream of words pouring from his lips. He was really struggling, the hosepipe creaking as it stretched. The whole veranda was rattling from the strength of it and Blake suddenly wondered if it was strong enough, if the entire structure might fall down around them. He brought the crowbar down hard, striking the wood beside the man’s foot. A jarring pain ran up his arm, lodging between his shoulder blades, but it worked because the man’s efforts wilted.

  “That’s enough,” Blake said. “I swear to god the next one will snap your knee in half. Do you understand?”

  The man stared up at Blake with big, wet eyes. A child’s eyes, Blake saw, and he wondered if maybe the guy had something wrong with him, some kind of condition. He raised the crowbar again.

  “I’m going to ask you some questions,” he said. “I need you to answer them. If I sense you’re hiding something, if I sense you’re lying, then I’ll use this. Okay?”

  The man looked at the trembling crowbar, then back at Blake. He nodded. Blake swallowed, scanning the grounds, the driveway, making sure there was nobody there. He wiped his face with his free hand and took a couple of deep breaths. Then he pulled out his iPhone. He’d almost used it to call the police earlier. The police and the paramedics. Let them deal with it, let them take him away and interrogate him.

  But the guy hadn’t actually done anything wrong, other than making threats, and maybe trespassing on an abandoned property. Blake was an intruder here too, and he was the one who had almost staved the guy’s head in. The police would have carted them both away in cuffs and he still wouldn’t have answers.

  He didn’t dial, he opened up the Dictaph
one app, pressed record, and laid it on the porch.

  “My head,” said the guy, his voice a hoarse whisper. “It hurts.”

  “It’s fine,” said Blake. “Tell me what I need to know and I promise I’ll get you out of here. I’ll get you help.”

  At this, the guy began shaking his head, hard enough to open up the wound again. Blood pattered down onto the porch, spattering Blake’s shoe.

  “Hey,” he said. “That’s enough. You’ll make it worse.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the guy said. “I’m dead. I’m already dead.”

  “The man?” Blake said. “That guy? He’s not here. He doesn’t have to know. Look, if he’s making you do this—”

  “He is here,” the guy said. “He’s everywhere, he’s the devil, he sees everything. He’ll kill me, and he’ll kill your wife, he’ll kill your son. They’ll be just like Lizzie, just like her.”

  And he began to growl, a deep, throbbing, animal noise from deep inside him. Blake squatted down, balancing himself with the crowbar as he leaned in.

  “It doesn’t…” he started, no idea what to say, no idea what he should ask. “He isn’t a devil, that’s not possible, it’s not real. Is that what he told you?” Then, shaking his head. “Look, what’s your name? Start with that.”

  “I don’t have a name,” the man said. “He took it from me. I don’t know where it is.”

  “What? Your name? How… Where are you from?”

  “He took that too,” the man went on, clawing in a sobbing breath. “He took it all, he took me. He won’t give it back, he never gives it back. I don’t know who I am, I don’t know who I am.”

  Blake shook his head. This was pointless, the guy was speaking in riddles, he was nuts. He sat back against the side of the house, pulling his knees up. He’d get back in the car and stop at the next petrol station to make an anonymous call for an ambulance. What the hell else could he do?