The Cost of Living

by Karen Pomerantz

  THE COST OF LIVING

  By Karen Pomerantz

  Copyright © 2017 Karen Pomerantz

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Karen Pomerantz.

  Distributed by Smashwords.

  eBook ISBN: 9781370727070

  Cover design by Dawn Bevins Design.

  Credit for skulls element of cover art: iStock.com/LordRunar

  Credit for IV drip element of cover art: SJLEE/Shutterstock.com

  Discover other titles by Karen Pomerantz:

  Trapping Honey

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Start of The Cost of Living

  The origins of The Cost of Living

  Other works

  Feedback for the author

  Social media links

  Sample of Trapping Honey

  A knock at the front door roused Erin from her slumber. She squinted at her bedside clock. It was six a.m. Who on earth would that be at this time? She stumbled out of bed and over to the window, almost landing on her dog in the process. "Oops, sorry Cecil," Erin muttered as the golden retriever grumbled sleepily and rolled over.

  It was still dark outside, the recent change in the clocks having stolen away an hour of morning daylight. Through the gloom, Erin could just make out a shadowy male figure standing on her front door step. He raised his hand to the door and the knocking came again, less patient this time. There was no one who didn't fear a man who came to the door at six a.m., and Erin was no exception. Properly awake now and wary, she threw on her robe and walked across her room, the faces of her friends staring out at her as she passed a dressing table full of photo frames. She reached down and pulled Cecil up by the collar, "C'mon boy, earn your keep." They descended the stairs together, passing Erin's 'achievement wall' that proudly held all of her many music awards and qualifications.

  Holding Cecil tightly, she opened the front door a crack, leaving the chain in place. A man that she didn't recognise looked back at her through the narrow gap. He was dressed in dark colours, topping off his joyless ensemble with a black fedora. "Oh, hello," he said with a smile. "Sorry to bother you at this hour, but I have some important information that I need to confirm."

  "Excuse me?" said Erin, confused at the stranger's words.

  "Nothing to worry about," continued the man, consulting a clipboard that he held before him. "Are you 'Erin Beaufort'?"

  "Yes, why?"

  Erin had relaxed her grip on Cecil. The man at her door was clearly an eccentric but had made no attempt to get her to open the door fully, so she did not feel like she was in any great danger. The dog trotted off, clearly not impressed with the interruption to his sleep.

  "I just need to get my facts straight before we proceed any further, Madam. Your date of birth is the tenth of November, nineteen ninety-four, correct?"

  Erin really wanted to tell the man where to go, waking her at this ridiculous hour and asking her dumb questions, but politeness and British-ness stopped her. Instead, she automatically indulged him whilst internally cursing his actions.

  She was about to answer the man when a noise behind her made her whip her head around to face the kitchen. She had turned the hall light on as she had come downstairs earlier, but the rest of the house was still in complete darkness, and there was no way of seeing the source of the sound without going to investigate. "Is everything ok, Miss Beaufort?" the stranger at her door was asking.

  "I thought I heard something, that's all," Erin replied quietly, her gaze lingering on the shadows a few seconds longer before she turned her attention back to the man.

  "I'm sure it's just your dog," he still seemed content to be speaking through the crack in the doorway.

  "Yes, probably," Erin glanced back again, not fully satisfied with the idea of Cecil as the cause of the noise. Don't be silly, it has to be him. You're just on-guard because of the odd awakening.

  "Anyway, could you please confirm your date of birth, Miss Beaufort."

  "Yes, as you said, nineteen ninety-four. Now is there anything else, because it's crazy early to be knocking on people's doors and I really need to get some more sleep, I have a performance this evening."

  The stranger was scribbling on his clipboard, muttering to himself, "- early twenties. Of course, Miss Beaufort, that may well answer my next question. Is it correct that you are a concert pianist?"

  "Yes, I am. What is this for exactly?"

  "Oh, nothing to worry about, as I said before. It's just my job to make sure that we get the right person. Good day to you, Miss Beaufort." He tipped his hat then turned and walked away from her door.

  "Right person for what?" Erin called after him, but he ignored her. In the limited view that the chained door afforded her, she saw him cross the road and walk on down the street without stopping at any other houses whilst in her sight. She was curious, but not curious enough to open the door fully and chase him down a dark street in her pyjamas.

  Still unnerved, she closed the front door on the stranger, locking it behind her and returning the key to a drawer in a telephone table near the base of the stairs. The visit had left her on edge, and questioning whether she should perhaps follow him out into the street after all. No, that would be crazy. It's dark and no one will be around. If he does turn out to be dangerous, I'll be on my own. Erin resigned herself to the idea of asking her friends later in the morning if they had heard anything about this stranger in the fedora that visited at all hours. Perhaps the other musicians that she worked with may know something. She'd call the local police too, to let them know. He wasn't exactly threatening, so there isn't really any urgency to act. "Come on Cecil," she called then went upstairs, back to her room. Cecil didn't follow. He must have taken himself back to bed already. Turning off the light in the hallway, Erin went back into her bedroom.

  The lights were off in the room so she felt her way around her bed to its side, the laminated floor cool underfoot as she walked. She felt fur at her bare toes and smiled, that dog always seemed to be under her feet. With the next step she took, her toes touched something slimy and warm. By the time Erin realised what the substance was, she had already committed her weight onto the foot that was in the puddle and lifted her other one off the floor. She slid over, her cheek landing in the pool of blood, her eyes level with Cecil's lifeless ones. Erin suppressed a scream as she took in the horrific sight before her.

  The sun was beginning to peep over the horizon, and the limited light that entered the room illuminated Cecil's glistening tongue as it hung limp from his mouth. The puddle of crimson liquid that Erin was partially lying in was still widening. Its source was clearly the foot-long opening in the dog's abdomen where his silky, golden hair was beginning to mat with drying blood. Parts of Cecil's that should be on the inside were slipping out of the roughly-cut slit and collecting on Erin's deep-pile rug that Cecil always slept on. As she watched, they began losing their pinky colouring and turning a greyish-white due to the lack of blood flowing through them. The dog's bleeding soon slowed, his dead organs unable to continue the vital tasks necessary to keep the creature alive. Erin lay there, nauseous and staring but unable to tear her eyes away.

  She was still struggling to fully process the grisly sight before her when the thought struck her; someone's been in the house. Someone might still be in the house. I have to get out! She hastily stood, careful not to slip once more in the bodily fluids that surrounded her, and stepped gingerly out of the puddle. Erin cursed her blackout blinds at this moment. Her room was still mostly impenetrable darkness, so she listened intently. All was silent except for the sound of a clock ticking on her wall, and Cecil's breathing. Wait. No, it's not Cecil! As she spun round to see where the intruder might be, a hand roug
hly grabbed her arm.

  Erin felt the sharp scratch of a hypodermic needle penetrating her skin before a sudden, intense feeling of calm flowed through her. As strangely welcome as the sensation was in that moment, the sedative spreading through her veins prevented Erin from expressing the underlying panic that she felt. As the drug pulled her down into darkness, she rolled onto her back to stare into the menacing face of her attacker; the man that had just brutally murdered her best friend.

  * * *

  Erin's eyelids were heavier than she had ever remembered them being. Even in her drowsy state, she felt that something wasn't right. She willed her body to respond to her brain's desperate request; be alert, take in your surroundings. One by one, her eyes opened a fraction, and at first the images that they conveyed to her brain were blurry. She lost the fight against her weary muscles and her eyes closed again.

  The next lucid thought she had was that the silence was overbearing. Where am I that could possibly be this quiet? Listening intently for what she gauged to be a full minute, she picked up on nothing. Fear gripped her, as she began to wonder how far from civilisation she could be.

  With a mighty effort, Erin forced her eyes open, fighting against their continued attempts to drag her back down into slumber. This didn't help much in identifying where she was, because it was dark; night-time perhaps. Shapes around her began to unfold out of the darkness, but remained indistinct. Erin realised that she was lying down on a soft surface. Less groggy now, she glimpsed shadows around her and blinked rapidly to encourage her eyes to help the dark shapes take form.

  Her bedroom. With relief, Erin realised that she was in her bedroom. No need to worry, I've simply awoken from a deep sleep. Feeling silly, she went to rub her eyes with her hands, but her arms would not lift from the bed. She tried to wiggle her fingers and that worked. Her legs were also free to move. Feeling concerned, she attempted to reason with herself. Look around, Erin. You're in bed, at home in your room. It's probably just a bit of leftover sleep paralysis, you'll get control of your muscles back soon.

  Tentatively scanning over the familiar surroundings, Erin looked for reassurance in the safe space of her own room. There wasn't any. Something was off. It was her room, and yet somehow also not her room. Fighting the rising panic, she attempted desperately to calm herself. It must just be a dream, places can often be distorted from their norm in dreams, and that's why I feel like I can't move my arms either. Her sight now mostly restored, she glanced around the semi-darkness of her recognisable abode. The door to the room was in the wrong place, and there was a window next to the door, that definitely wasn't right either. Just a dream, she confirmed to herself.

  Suddenly, the faint sounds of screams mixed with agonised yelps reached her confused consciousness. Perhaps this will be more of a nightmare, she thought anxiously. Erin noted that the bed was also in the wrong place, and yet everything else in here is as it should be, right down to the photos and ornaments. Actually, not everything else was as it should be; the smell wasn't right. Can you smell in your dreams? Erin couldn't remember ever having done so before. This one smelt clinical and a little coppery.

  'Welcome, Erin.' The disembodied voice seemed to ring out from inside Erin's head itself, and she instinctively moved to throw her hands up to cover her ears and protect herself from whatever the thing was that was speaking to her. Her arms did not move. They were still somehow immobile. Her vision now as clear as it was going to get considering the gloom around her, she could make out the heavy duty restraints that were binding her wrists down tightly to the bed.

  Erin's heart suddenly beat faster than she ever thought safely, possible as a wave of panic swept over her. She opened her mouth and screamed with all the breath in her lungs. She couldn't actually hear the scream over the sounds of laughter from the Voice, combined with the overpowering hammering noise in her ears as her heart threatened to explode out of her chest. 'Welcome to the nightmare inside your mind.'

  As Erin expelled the last part of her scream the door to her room opened, and for a second bright light spilled in, resetting the little night vision that she had managed to accumulate. There something stood, silhouetted in the doorway.

  As it stepped into the room and closed the door, plunging them back into the semi-darkness, Erin took a sharp intake of breath and tried to process what she was seeing before her.

  To begin with, she could only just make out the body, which appeared to be human; sensible flat shoes, dark tights, nurse's uniform. Perhaps I'm in an asylum. Erin attempted to reassure herself. The voice is in my head and the nurses here have had to restrain me for my own good, recreating my bedroom to try to settle me. A vision of Cecil's intestines collecting on her shaggy bedroom rug suddenly flashed up into her head. Did I do that? Tears began to pool at the corners of Erin's eyes as she tried to make sense of how she might have come to be here, both physically and mentally.

  She heard the nurse begin to move, she could ask her what was going on. She was approaching Erin's bed with a slow shuffle, her shadow casting creeping shapes onto the ornaments in the room as she moved through the eerie lighting.

  'H-hello?' Erin called gently.

  The nurse didn't respond, but continued the shuffled approach.

  'Where- where am I, p-please?'

  More shuffling.

  The nurse was almost upon Erin, its vast shadow now looming over her, the light around it coming from goodness knew where. Erin dared to look up, through the gloom and the lingering haze of her mind, and wished that her eyes had remained shut from the beginning.

  'Is that? It c-can't be. It's not possible. I AM dreaming, I AM! Wake up, Erin. WAKE UP!'

  Above the shoulders of the pristine white uniform, her gaze was met by empty eye sockets, situated in the oversize head of a goat.

  It reached out a long-fingered, hairy hand towards Erin's ankle. Screaming, she mustered a primal strength from somewhere and scrambled away from the hand, kicking out with her heels as she scrunched herself up at the head of the bed. Her arms were still restrained over the sides of the mattress, so she stretched as far as she could to keep her distance from the demonic figure, but it wasn't far enough.

  The goat ceased its forward motion and inclined its head questioningly. Erin stopped screaming. Breathing heavily, she took in more of its appearance. It had long, spiral horns which rose up high out of its head before curling over and down, finally ending in two sharp points. Its ears were both mangled into ragged sections along the tops and sides, and the nails on the hand that slowly extended out again towards Erin were filed to claw-like points.

  Erin screwed her eyes shut and concentrated on breathing normally. Hyperventilating and screaming isn't likely to get me out of here, wherever 'here' is. She forcefully calmed herself at the goat's seemingly friendly gesture.

  Without warning, it lashed out and grabbed her ankle. Deftly, it secured a leg restraint to Erin's right leg, accidentally clawing her skin as she tried to pull away. She cried out in pain and surprise, and began thrashing about the only limb left that she had any kind of range of motion with. With that disadvantage, it wasn't long before she lost the battle. Having secured both ankles now, the goat stepped back, its eyeless stare seeming to bore right into Erin's mind as she whimpered, spent.

  Lying there on her bed, that somehow wasn't her own bed, Erin could do nothing but watch as the goat connected tubing to a cannula in Erin's arm that had gone unnoticed earlier amidst her confusion. Unlabelled intravenous bags hung ominously overhead, ready to feed and condition her body through the ordeals that were to come.

  An odd, cold feeling occurred where the clear liquids were entering Erin's blood stream, spreading slowly along her arm towards her body. 'Please, no. Why are you doing this?' Erin whispered as the goat connected up a second bag. 'Who... what are you?' It ignored the question, and within a minute or two the sobs that had been wracking Erin's body ceased outwardly, as the paralysis took over.

  The goat stepped back to observe
Erin. Satisfied that the chemicals were each doing their jobs, it began to walk a deliberately slow circuit of her bed, stopping every now and then to do the shuffle again for a few steps, all the while running a sharp fingernail along her paralysed flesh. All Erin could do was watch in horror, now unable to move or even scream. She observed the goat as it approached the ankle with the cut in it from when she had fought against being bound. With both hairy hands it lifted her leg slightly and appeared to caress the area, looking down at it. Running a fingertip along the length of the cut, it stopped as it reached the end. Erin's body was still, but inside she was twitching, terrified and willing her leg to at least try to pull away from the hairy grasp.

  The goat whipped its head up, concentrating on Erin's face once more, as it dug the point of its talon-like nail into the end of the cut and pulled along, extending the wound further. Erin didn't feel any pain from the manoeuvre, yet this somehow made it worse, like if she couldn't feel it, the creature might do anything to her body, anything at all, and she'd be completely powerless.

  The goat moved round to the side of the bed opposite to where the intravenous bags hung, and connected up different tubing to a needle that it then inserted into Erin's other arm. It stepped back into the middle of the room and stood menacingly, facing her. It remained motionless, observing her intently for a few minutes during which time Erin's brain screamed at her muscles to move, to just make some sort of effort to fight whatever was happening to them.

  Seemingly satisfied, the goat moved decisively back to the side of the bed, and ducked down, disappearing from Erin's view. She could not turn her head to see what it was doing, but she knew it was still there by the faint sound of its ragged breathing. After less than a minute it reappeared, having undone Erin's arm restraints, and it quickly released her legs after that. Her heart leapt at this sudden turn of events, which she chose not to question, but a sinking feeling washed over her as the realisation dawned. The goat silently swung the restraints it was now holding back and forth for her to see, teasing her. They were no longer needed. I'm to be kept in this paralysed state for as long as I'm in this room.