by Matt Shaw
“The police?” Jeff looked confused again. “Why would you do that?”
“You’re trying to kidnap our children,” she replied.
“No we’re not!” Dawn shouted.
Jeff held his hand up to his wife; a gesture to silence her.
“We’re not trying to kidnap your children,” Jeff said. “We’re trying to adopt them. I thought we had established this. We get to have children and you two get more time to spend with the other kids. Win, win.”
“We’re not giving up any of our children!” James said.
Jeff nodded, “Yes - you are.”
Both of the couples fell silent. James and Cathy clearly more nervous than the two visitors.
“Well look - fret not…” Jeff turned to Dawn, “Honey, you got the duplicates?”
Dawn nodded and reached into her long overcoat pocket, pulling out two duplicate copies of both the letter they’d originally dropped in and the adoption form they’d organised through their friend. She handed them to Jeff who gave them a quick once over to ensure they were the correct forms. When he was satisfied, he gave a little nod with his head to show as such. He slid the papers into the back pocket of his jeans and looked to Cathy and James.
“Right,” he said, “you’ve heard what my wonder wife thinks so… What do you think? Shall we agree upon the twins? Makes sense if you think about it… They book look the same so I’d imagine it would be like you’re giving one child away.”
“Did you not hear me?” said Cathy. “I went to the police!”
Jeff stood up straight. He nodded.
“Yes. I heard you. You went to the police. And how did that go for you?”
“They’re investigating.”
“They are? Investigating what exactly?” Jeff smiled.
“You want to take our children from us.”
“What? No. We want to adopt two of your children. I’m not sure whether you understand law but - believe it or not - adoption is not a crime. It happens all the time, all around the world. Hell - sometimes - people fly to other countries to adopt children from under privileged areas. It’s all quite heart-warming… People who can’t have children get to have their kids. It’s lovely. As is this. You’re helping us out. And we thank you.”
“I know how adoption works you piece of shit. And I’ll say it again - we’re not giving up any of our children.”
Jeff smiled again, “Yes - yes you are. And the sooner you do, the sooner we can all get on with our lives. So - I’ll ask again - which two are you going to give up?”
“Why two?” James asked, stalling for more time with which he could come up with a way out of this - without losing any of their children.
“Well I’m an only child and, I’ll be honest with you, that wasn’t much fun when I was growing up. Dawn here, she was a middle child and - well…”
“Middle children get ignored,” Dawn piped up.
“We don’t want our children to be ignored and we don’t want our children to not have any fun so it seems obvious - we’d need two.”
“You’ll have to find them elsewhere,” said James, “our children aren’t up for adoption. Why not go down the proper channels to get a child? What’s the matter - did you fail the background checks?”
“Let’s try not to get personal. This whole thing will be a lot easier if we stay on track,” Jeff’s voice didn’t rise but there was a tone to it which suggested he wasn’t to be messed with. A tone which James and Cathy both noted. Jeff took the letters from his pocket and held them out to James who begrudgingly took it.
“All we need are your names and the names of the children you want to sign over to us. It’s quite easy. All very straight forward.”
James hesitated a moment before a thought materialised in his head, “I’m not just going to sign this without our solicitor going through it as well to ensure everything is above board.”
“Everything is fine. I told you - our friend is a lawyer, he did it for us.”
“But even so…”
“You’re signing tonight. There’ll be no arguments.”
“Would you mind if my husband and I had a few minutes to discuss which children we’d like you to adopt?” Cathy said. She hoped the strangers would step from the room for a while giving them some much needed privacy to discuss a plan out of this mess.
“We’ve already said - we’ll take the twins thank you,” said Jeff.
“That won’t work with us. If you want us to give up two of our children,” Cathy countered, “then it has to be our choice as to which children.”
Jeff didn’t respond. He looked to Dawn.
She shrugged, “I just want children,” she said, “and they’re all quite cute.”
“My husband and I would like some privacy to discuss our options,” Cathy continued. “It’s obviously quite a big decision.”
Dawn nodded, “Of course.” She turned to her husband, “We can’t rush them into this decision,” she said. “We need to give them time.” She turned back to James and Cathy, “We’ll come back in a couple of minutes,” she said.
“A couple of minutes? You just said you can’t rush us into this and you’re giving us a couple of minutes?” said Cathy. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“Your time starts now,” said Dawn. She led Jeff from the living room and pulled the door shut, leaving a panic-stricken Cathy to discuss options with her equally worried husband.
“What the hell are we going to do?” Cathy turned to James as soon as the door clicked shut.
“We’re going to phone the police. That’s what.”
James jumped up and crossed the room to the telephone. He lifted the receiver to his ear. By the look on his face, Cathy could tell it wasn’t working.
“They must have cut it,” he said as he quietly replaced it.
“What about your mobile phone?” Cathy asked.
“It’s charging in the other room.”
Cathy’s heart sank further. Her own phone being upstairs in their bedroom, also on charge ready for the next day.
“One of us could get out via the patio door,” Cathy suggested. “We could go and get help…”
James looked towards the patio door and the main door from living room to hallway. He wasn’t sure whether it was a good plan, or whether it was asking for more trouble but - in the limited time they had to come up with a possible way out - it was probably the best they’d come up with.
“You’ll have to be quick,” said James.
He walked over to the patio door and carefully opened it, trying to keep the noise made from the door to an absolute minimum.
“You’re quicker than me,” Cathy said, “you should go.”
“There’s no way I am leaving you with them,” said James. “You go or we think of something else but if you choose the latter, we’d better be quick because we probably don’t have very long.”
Cathy looked from door to patio door. She looked back to James and nodded.
“Yes? Yes what?”
“I’ll go,” she said.
“Be quick!”
Cathy leaned forward and gave James a kiss.
“And you be careful!” she said.
She looked back to the living room door and back to her husband. It was evident from the expression on her face that she didn’t want to go and leave him - or the children - but she knew she didn’t have a choice; not if they were going to get these people out of their house without any trouble.
“Go on!” James ushered her out of the door. He watched as Cathy disappeared into the garden. Carefully - and quietly - he closed the patio door. He just stood there a moment, unsure of what to do and clearly concerned about the couple’s reaction to his missing wife. He knew they were going to be angry - of course they were - he just hoped they weren’t going to overreact. Hopefully they’d take the opportunity to get out of the house. Even if they did leave, though, James wasn’t going to drop it. He’d get the police here and he’d look
at pressing whatever charges would stick, along with obtaining a restraining order.
A few more minutes - which felt like hours to James - went by and still the couple hadn’t reappeared. He panicked for a moment as he thought about them sneaking upstairs and stealing the children from under their noses until he realised there’d be no way of getting any of the kids out of their beds without them screaming the place down. He wanted to go and find them but knew he couldn’t. He needed to give Cathy as much time as possible and - even if she had already got to the neighbours - he needed to give the police time to get to the house too. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously as a bead of sweat dripped down his spine.
“Please be quick,” he whispered to himself, “please be quick!”
After what seemed an eternity - but was most likely a mere minute more - the door to the living room opened and Dawn walked in. She closed the door behind her. James’ heart skipped a beat as he knew he was seconds away from Dawn calling out to her husband; raising the alarm to Cathy’s escape.
“Did you come to a decision?” she asked him.
James frowned. Her question wasn’t what he had expected.
“No.”
“If you can’t come to a decision,” she said, “we’re going to have to choose for you. After all - we don’t have all day, do we?”
“Why are you doing this?” James asked, trying to keep her mind away from both Cathy and the children.
“We said in our letter. We can’t have children and we’d like them. You have five children. You don’t need five of them. Three is plenty enough…”
“If you take two of our children, we’ll be left with three.”
“I’m glad your maths is good,” Dawn said sarcastically.
“You’ll leave us with three children. That means we’ll have a middle child. You said yourself - it isn’t fun for any child to be the middle one. They get ignored.”
“But you’re in the fortunate position of being able to have another child should you choose to. Yes you’ll have three for a while but within a month, you could be well on your way to a fourth child again.”
James shook her head, “You’re unbelievable. How can you do this to a family?”
“How can we do this to your family? We’re helping you out. Five children must be hard. You have a really young one, you have twins and you have what looks to be two teenagers… You have your hands full. We’re trying to help you. You’re the one putting your own family in danger,” she continued.
There was something about the way she said the final sentence; James was the one putting his family in danger. He realised that there was no way she wouldn’t have noticed Cathy was missing from the room. He suddenly felt very, very uncomfortable.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“What do you think it means? You asked for time to discuss which of the children you’re willing to let us adopt and yet you… It doesn’t matter. You’ve forced our hand…”
“What the fuck have you done?”
James grabbed the woman and shoved her to the side. He stormed out of the living room and into the hallway. Jeff was standing in the doorway to the dining room. He turned to face James when he heard his footsteps.
“What the fuck have you done?” James hissed.
Without any warning Jeff charged towards him and shoved him - hard - back into the living room. The two men crashed to the floor with a loud bang, which made Dawn jump. Jeff had the upper hand as he landed on top of James. He didn’t get off. He stayed there and moved his hands to James’ throat.
He hissed at him, “Did you and your wife want your children to be orphans? Do you think we’re stupid?” Jeff wasn’t the biggest of men. He had height on his side, but not the weight to back it up. The only reason James was pinned was because he’d managed to knock the wind out of him and - now he was throttling him - he was keeping it out. Jeff squeezed harder until James’ face turned a deeper shade of purple. Dawn was grinning like a lunatic to the side of the two men, clearly getting off on the unforeseen burst of violence displayed by her husband. “If you’re both dead - we’ll probably take two of your kids as discussed but, in all honestly, we’re probably not ready to take five on… You see… Five is just being fucking greedy.” With each word on the last part of the sentence- five is just being fucking greedy - Jeff lifted James’ head from the floor and hit it back down hard upon it again until, with the help of the lack of oxygen, James blacked out; the last thing he heard was Dawn’s crazed laughter.
MIDNIGHT
James tried to move but couldn’t; something holding his arms and legs in place. Despite a pounding headache he opened his eyes and was momentarily blinded by the bright light hanging from what turned out to be the dining room ceiling. When his eyes focused he looked down to his hands he noticed they were tied to the dining room chair he was sitting on.
“What the fuck?”
From where he was sitting he couldn’t see his ankles but presumed they were also bound judging by the lack of movement there. He looked up and noticed he was facing the dining room wall.
“Hello? Anyone?”
He spoke loudly but didn’t shout out for fear of waking the children. Whatever was happening in the house, they didn’t need to see - or hear - any of it for fear of the situation frightening them.
“I’d say keep your voice down but you’re not going to wake the children up so - you know - feel free to shout and scream as much as you want.”
Jeff’s voice had come from behind him; definitely in the same room.
“What are you talking about? What have you done to my kids? Face me, you son of a bitch.”
“Hey now,” Jeff hissed, “I said you can shout and scream as much as you want but let’s not go swearing in front of my wife.”
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY CHILDREN?” James screamed.
Jeff laughed, “I can’t believe you’re not concerned about your wife. Some marriage this is.”
James tried to calm himself down before he opened his mouth again, despite the need to keep shouting and keep swearing at this asshole.
“Look - please - untie me and let’s talk this through. Like adults. The whole thing, we can discuss it all and we can arrange it all. You, me, your wife… My wife. I’ll sign the papers. We’ll sign the papers.”
“Oh, now you want to sign over the ownership to us?”
James couldn’t help but latch onto the word ‘ownership’. No wonder the couple hadn’t managed to get any joy through the official channels. He shifted in his chair wondering what else he could do, or say, to bring everything to a peaceful resolution; a sinking feeling that things would never be the same again for his family. Not by the end of the night anyway.
“Please - where’s my wife? And what have you done with my children?”
Jeff didn’t answer. If it weren’t for the fact that James could hear his breathing, he’d have thought he’d left the room.
“I know you’re there. Come on… What are you going to do?”
Still no answer. He wondered whether Jeff was getting off on this.
“Look we got off on the wrong foot and I’d just like to thank you for your offer of helping Cathy and I out…”
“Go on then,” Jeff said suddenly.
“What?”
“Thank me.”
“What?”
“You wanted to thank me for helping you out. So do it. Thank me.”
James hesitated for a moment before, “Thank you.”
“What for?”
Another slight hesitation as James strained against the restraints. He wanted to break free, he wanted to get a hold of the stranger sitting behind him and he wanted to smash his face in. He took a deep breath and continued, “Thank you for the letter you dropped in. Thank you for offering to take two of our children to give Cathy and I more time for the other children and - of course - each other. On behalf of myself and my wife - thank you very much. We’re incredibly grateful.”
“So how come we find ourselves in this situation now?”
“What do you mean?”
“You say you’re grateful and yet here we are - you’re tied to this chair and your wife is… Well…” Jeff fell silent.
James struggled against the restraints again, “My wife is what? What have you done to her, you son of a bitch?”
“Now, now. Don’t be like that. We were getting on so well. Don’t ruin it. Answer the question; if you’re grateful - why are we in this position now?”
“We were just confused,” said James making it up on the spot. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” James started to cry, “Please tell me what you’ve done to my wife.”
“Imagine my surprise,” Jeff said, “when I stepped outside for a little smoke… You and your wife were in the living room supposedly talking about which children you’d like to give up… And yet… There I was, having a smoke, when suddenly your wife appears out of the blue gate to the side of the house… Can you imagine my surprise.”
James felt his body trembling as his imagination started to picture the worst case scenario. Another pointless struggle against the restraints. He asked the question that he both wanted an answer to - and didn’t want an answer to - in equal measures, “Did you kill my wife?”
Jeff laughed, “Of course I didn’t kill your wife,” he said.
James audibly breathed a sigh of relief.
“Not yet anyway. You see - I need both of you to sign the paperwork otherwise it doesn’t count. You both need to sign.”
“What have you done to her?”
“I just gave her a little something to calm her down. She was pretty excitable and I couldn’t have her attracting unwanted attention. Gave your kids the same stuff too so they could all sleep peacefully through the negotiations. Bad news is, we need your wife to wake up before we continue with previously mentioned negotiations and that could be anything from an hour to a couple of hours… I’m hoping the shorter timeframe though as I gave her a smaller dosage compared to the kids…”
“You’re a couple of Sick B*stards.”
“No. We just want to be parents.”
“Untie me, we’ll talk.”
