Nailbiters

by Kane, Paul

  Never again, he told himself. Never again!

  It was very late when he arrived home. His mother didn’t hear him come in; the sleeping tablets her doctor had prescribed did their job most nights of the week. How he wished he could take some himself that evening; not enough to kill him (although the thought had crossed his mind), just enough to make him forget what he’d done. The dirtiness. The invasion of privacy.

  All for the Cyclops.

  But he was amazed at how fast he fell asleep, even without the aid of medication – a mixture of nervous exhaustion and bodily fatigue drawing him under. And as he slept he dreamt of the woman in the shower. The minutes spent recording her face, her body, had paid off. It was an exact reproduction of reality, except he was in there with her this time. It was pleasant. She lathered his chest, throwing her head back and laughing. They kissed, her soft lips squashed against his.

  ‘Is this love?’ he found the courage to ask, and she giggled again.

  Then she saw the Cyclops. Even in his dreams he couldn’t escape this parasite. Indeed, it almost seemed like the Cyclops was manipulating his psyche – which, to a large extent, it probably was. Gaining as much gratification from these images as him. More, if anything.

  The woman screamed again, just as she’d done when she saw him at the window. A replay of that precise moment in fact, then a freeze-frame of her open mouth. The dream was over and the nightmare had begun.

  When he awoke he discovered the Cyclops was already up. He stared into its dark, glassy eye and scowled. He felt like throwing up, but didn’t. If the freaking bastard had been blessed with a mouth it might have smirked then.

  The thought of what he’d done hounded him for weeks. He saw the phantom of that frightened woman’s face wherever he went, but no one came looking for him. He was never arrested and placed in jail. Even if he had been he could have blamed the Cyclops; maybe sought help from the doctors. They might’ve been able to remove it.

  He didn’t know if that was at all possible without killing him too. The Cyclops never let him think about such things for any great length of time. So now he had to acknowledge that they were inextricably bound together.

  As one.

  The images of the woman didn’t satiate the Cyclops for long. A month, six weeks at the most. Then it began to press him again. For more mental pictures, more stimuli. He held off as long as he could, battling the Cyclops for all he was worth, the oath he’d sworn to himself still ringing in his ears:

  Never again! Never again!

  But the agony it brought to bear was too much for him. Intense, but impossible to describe, it even caused him to pass out for a minute or two once. The Cyclops hadn’t meant for that to happen, hadn’t realised its own strength. He’d fallen over and nearly split his head open on the dresser – his mother rushing in to see what the thump was, only to find him prostrate on the floor.

  That earned him a day in bed, a legitimate day off school. But no doctors. The Cyclops made his mother promise. No doctors.

  As he lay there, looking up at the ceiling, he knew the Cyclops was regretting its actions. All those years, all that effort, would have been for naught if he’d died. It would hate to have to start from scratch with a new host, not when it was so close… He realised that the Cyclops needed him alive and well. Could that be used to his advantage?

  It didn’t cause the Cyclops to relent, though. How could it? No sooner was he back on his feet than it was niggling him again, but in more subtle ways. Wrecking his concentration, stabbing him with short, sharp bursts of discomfort; nothing that could damage him permanently. Every day became a guessing game as to what it would do next, and in the end it shoved him right up to the brink. After a further few weeks he stopped resisting and went along with the Cyclops once more.

  Out on another midnight trawl.

  He was the Cyclops’ arms and legs, its transportation. He derived no enjoyment from the excursions. The creeping about, the spying. It forced him to become more and more adventurous. So he could ‘record’ the footage for ease of reference. He – it – built up quite a library. There was the blonde woman getting ready for bed, slipping into a baggy red T-shirt before climbing under the covers; the tall, sophisticated office lady just getting in from a late working dinner, stripping off her tweed suit and throwing it in the laundry basket; and the Cyclops’ favourite, the curly-haired woman they caught on the living-room floor, already bare, rubbing oil all over her body, arching her back when she reached certain areas. It could access these memories whenever it liked, without his say-so. Waking or sleeping, it didn’t worry the Cyclops. He could be eating his dinner, a microwave lasagna on the settee, and the Cyclops would activate them, feeding itself on the renderings. Compelling him to watch those oblivious women again and again. Their most intimate moments anything but.

  For years this went on. He could not deny the Cyclops. But then, towards the zenith of his teens, it pushed him over the edge. And suddenly there was no turning back.

  He could never forget the first, the same as he couldn’t forget the woman in the shower, her screaming (her laughing) face.

  Is this love?

  The Cyclops had spotted her arriving home. Alone.

  Instead of dragging him round the back to watch through a window, it took him over completely. Before he even knew what was happening, he’d pushed the woman through her front door and closed it behind them. His temples throbbed when he resisted the Cyclops, as he tried to get out of there. His intended writhed under him as he gripped one hand around her throat, cutting off her cries for help. The other hand pressing against the side of his own head, to quell the palpitations.

  The Cyclops had its way that night. It made him… He couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do a blessed thing. He was just as much a victim as the girl beneath him, and he strove to make her understand that.

  ‘It’s not me. I’m not doing this!’

  She became even more terrified, and he couldn’t exactly blame her. How could he convince her that he was being directed by some kind of malicious, twisted fungus? At the end of the day it didn’t make any difference. The Cyclops saw to that. It could leave no witnesses to this deed.

  He was the one who sobbed in his room that night, as the Cyclops relaxed its hold on him – now it was over. The girl and the woman in the shower became interchangeable in his thoughts, both screaming now. Both—

  Once the Cyclops had tasted, had touched, there was to be no dissuading it. Each progressive assault seemed to make it more energetic, as if it was somehow sucking the very fear out of its quarry and turning it into energy… Or food? Was that what the Cyclops did? Was that what it required to survive? He didn’t have the answers and probably never would.

  The Cyclops went on for as long as it dared in this neck of the woods. Always so careful, never as clumsy as the first time – and always making him wear gloves. The women who assembled on street corners were the easiest targets. They went willingly with him, but soon changed their minds once they discovered his – its – true intentions. The Cyclops, and what it must take from them.

  Then came the time to move on, before he attracted too much attention. He travelled abroad, informing his mother it was a backpacking trip, and didn’t come home for six years. There was so much scope for the Cyclops in foreign parts, the police that much slacker.

  He used to think as he wandered down crowed streets, if you had any idea what walks among you… What ‘lives’ inside of me. As part of me. But how could they? He could hardly tell them and the Cyclops only revealed itself to the chosen few. They seemed to see it near the end, before they died. When it could camouflage itself no longer.

  It was around this time that he began to drink. The Cyclops permitted it; hell, the Cyclops encouraged it – the alcohol making him even more compliant. But never too much. Never to the point of inebriation. The Cyclops did share his flesh and blood when all was said and done.

  He returned home when he discovered his mother was terminal
ly ill, but was too late to say goodbye. The Cyclops didn’t care about his grief, it just wanted to take up where it had left off. Again it went on the rampage, always the same. The Cyclops was never satisfied. It made him regularly roam around the country, to throw off the scent in case anyone might be looking for them. But no one ever found them. The crimes went unpunished, which pleased the Cyclops, yet frustrated him.

  Numbed to the slaughter and turpitude, his old self – his real self – rotted away. His only solace was the next beer. The Cyclops governed completely. It didn’t mind – why should it, so long as it was getting its way?

  Strangely enough, it was during one of these random forays that he came closer to the truth. He’d been acting on autopilot again (he didn’t make the effort to explain his behaviour these days) when he caught sight of himself in a full-length mirror. The shock was like a punch in the guts. There was something about what he was doing that reminded him of…

  Leaving the woman barely conscious, but still alive – red indentations marring her neck – he covered up the Cyclops, exited her house, and ran. It couldn’t stop him, it was taken by surprise and more than a little drained by the night’s exploits. He ran into the blackness, just as he’d done so many years ago when the lady in the shower screamed. And awkward remembrances came back to him from childhood, from so far back he couldn’t ascertain his age. Two, three…surely no older than that. Hearing noises and doddering out to see what they were.

  A man with his mother.

  Not Uncle Bob, too early for that. And although she had never shown him pictures, he somehow knew that this was his father. The man his mother escaped from when he was but an infant. A man he had never seen, never been in contact with.

  A man who also knew the ways of the Cyclops.

  It had hidden these recollections from him, but now he drew them up from the deep well of his mind and drank in their sights. His father wore the parasite with pride, enraptured by its attachment to his body.

  The noises he’d heard became perceptions now, his father and the Cyclops forcing themselves upon his mother – empty beer cans on the floor beside them. Her shrieks in agony at his violation, one hand reaching for her neck (small wonder she had fled soon after – in fear of her life!).

  His ugly face turned towards the youngster, mouthing the question: ‘Is this love?’

  There could be no confusion, no doubt remaining. His father had passed on the legacy of this filthy organism. Indeed, he was more than likely a product of its lust, the result of a filthy Cyclops rape.

  Half-crazed, he made it back to the flat he now rented and fell to the kitchen floor, banging the linoleum with his fists. If only he’d known…if only…

  The Cyclops was snapping out of its daze, becoming aware of what was happening. Of the anger and hatred building. It wanted to quash this rebellion, to buck up and defend itself. But that was impossible.

  Or was it?

  His hand went to the counter and pulled down the bottle, part-filled with beer. That would calm him down, it thought. That would—

  Before it could prevent him, he’d turned the bottle around, grasping it by the neck. He smashed it down on the side of the counter. There would be no more defilement, no more killing. He refused to carry on his father’s legacy. To maintain the Cyclops and then, eventually, pass on its genes.

  He freed it from the confines of his clothing. The parasite looked at him with its one black eye, pathetic and weakened. Like a shrivelled slug. All control lost, trying to evoke sympathy. For a moment it almost worked; he almost dropped the bottle.

  But the detestation, the potent and vengeful loathing hit back. It was now or never. He had to rid himself – rid the world – of the contemptible, nauseating, thoroughly evil Cyclops, and hang the consequences to his own person.

  Wearing a lopsided grin, he stabbed at it. Slashing with the bottle’s ragged edges, ignoring the pain, the oozing blood and beer.

  Plunging it deep, oh so deep between his legs.

  Until he was sure the Cyclops was dead.

  And he was at last free from its grip.

  R.S.V.P.

  23rd July

  Mr A.J. Farnsworth (Managing Director)

  Huntley Insurance Brokers

  13 Umbridge Street

  Chetterton

  C23 3RA

  Dear Mr Farnsworth,

  Thank you for considering me for the position advertised in The Gazette last month, and for the interview you granted me two weeks ago. Your letter arrived promptly this morning, stating that you do not find me suitable for the job. Please, I urge you to continue reading. Do not simply cast this aside as you have done my services.

  Firstly I feel I must respond to some of the issues you raised in your letter (thank you, by the way, for composing the letter yourself, even if your secretary did type it — so much more personal than the standard photocopied ones). I understand that I have not worked in some time, due mainly to circumstances beyond my control, as I stated at the interview and in my C.V. (which, you kindly pointed out, was disappointingly short and lacking in qualifications). But this in itself would not necessarily have prevented me from working for your firm. If anything, I would have given one hundred and ten percent to repay you for offering me a chance. For giving me a break. I’m positive, despite what you might say, that I could have handled the work quite easily if someone had been willing to show me the ropes. However this is sadly all academic now, isn’t it?

  I can’t begin to tell you how much this post would have meant to me and my loved ones, my girlfriend and child. We were all looking forward to it, to being a normal, happy family again. You say you found my attitude off-putting, and it’s funny you should mention that. Mary, my partner, is always telling me I lose my temper too quickly, but then I’ve had a lot to put up with over the years. Sorry, do bear with me, I’m getting to the point. You haven’t stopped reading this, I hope? It’s very important that you carry on reading…

  You see, I’ve taken out a little insurance policy of my own. Just in case. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately. Time to think, to watch. To watch your family wave you off in the mornings as you go to your cushy little job in your expensive car and…they remind me a great deal of my own family. We all have responsibilities, you know.

  That’s why, Mr Farnsworth, I visited your house again this morning, to explain it to them. To show them your letter. And guess what? They agree with me, your daughters and your wife. They say that your behaviour has been absolutely intolerable, so they decided to come along with me instead…after a little gentle persuasion. To replace my…my own family now that they’ve gone.

  Ah, ah, ah. Before you reach for the phone to call the police, consider this. Do you ever want to see them again, Mr Farnsworth? If you bring in outsiders I doubt very much that it will happen. And don’t bother trying to trace me, I no longer live at the number on my application form. Also the courier who delivered this has no idea of my true whereabouts (I gave him my old address, clever eh?). So that’s that.

  I know what you must be thinking, what have I done to them? (After all, they have been with me for a good few hours now.) Are they alive or are they dead? And this brings me to the purpose of my letter. To find out you’re just going to have to meet with me, aren’t you? Then we can discuss my future at your company. I think you’ll agree now that you acted rather hastily in dismissing me, yes? I can use my initiative when I have to, Mr Farnsworth, and this goes to prove it. I have so much to offer, if only I could make you understand.

  The alleyway behind McDonalds. Tonight. Come alone, I’ll know if you don’t.

  Thank you for your precious time, Mr Farnsworth, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

  Yours truly,

  S. Rawlings (aspiring insurance broker).

  A Nightmare on 34th Street

  Christmas Eve.

  A time of loving, of giving. Peace on Earth and good will to all men (or should that be ‘persons’ in this politica
lly correct day and age?). Yeah, right. Officer Mal Docherty hadn’t seen much evidence of Peace on Earth recently, hadn’t seen much evidence in all his years on the job, come to think of it. Yes, it was true that the crime rate had gone down in New York, so the figures said. But here on the streets, down here you saw plenty. Muggings, stabbings…and shootings – there were never any shortage of those. The last one he’d seen involved a drugs case back in August. Mal and his partner, Norman Young, had provided back-up for the cops in charge, and they’d witnessed the worst possible outcome of a deal gone sour. Mal could see the blood now, exploding out of the victim’s chest as the bullet… He shook his head; he’d seen worse anyway. Much worse.

  ‘Here y’go, Tee,’ said Harry Grace, handing over two steaming cups of coffee to Mal. ‘That’ll keep you going for a while.’

  ‘Thanks, Harry.’ Mal had been coming to Harry’s stall ever since it became part of his beat a few years ago. Harry made the best damned cup of java you’d ever tasted, and his hot dogs and doughnuts weren’t so shabby either. The large man with salt and pepper hair and a glowing red nose that would give Rudolph a run for his money leant against his cart, grinning as Mal fished about in his pocket for change.

  ‘No need for that, Tee. On the house tonight. It’s Christmas!’

  Mal looked up and down the street, surveying the scene. The swell of bodies filling up the space, bobbing in and out of stores – most notably Crosby’s, the biggest store on 34th Street – all doing their last minute shopping. Not too far away a Salvation Army band was playing ‘O Come All Ye Faithful’. Quite who the faithful were, Mal had no idea, but the bandleader was conducting the music for all he was worth in case they happened to show up. Lights glimmered in the darkness, the festive decorations illuminating the whole area. Above, giant screens advertised everything from aftershave or perfume at one end of the present scale, to outrageously expensive sports cars at the other: a stocking filler for the man or woman who has everything.