The door burst open and people ran in, pushing me aside in their haste. A nurse took my shoulder and guided me out into the corridor. "What's happening?" I asked as the door swung closed behind me. "Is he dead?"
"Just wait here a minute," the nurse said. "I'll be right back." She led me into a side room, just a chair and a pot plant on a coffee table. "You sit there dear," she smiled as a man leaned in from the corridor and whispered something in her ear.
She pulled the door closed and I heard a click. I tried the handle but it was locked. "Hey," I shouted, hammering on the door. "What's going on?"
There was no answer but after a minute‘s yelling the door was pulled opened by a police officer, the doctor stood beside him with her arms folded.
"What's going on?" I asked. "Is Stan okay?"
"Would you mind coming with me miss?" the officer asked, not waiting for an answer. He took my arm and led me out, ignoring my protests. "You can't do this," I said as he pushed me into the back of his car. I was hysterical by the time we reached the station and it was some time before I was calm enough to listen to my rights being read to me. "You're under arrest for the murder of Stanley Charles Raines."
I sat in a steel chair in a windowless room, trying to stop crying. The door opened and a man in a suit walked in carrying a pink file and a cassette recorder. "Care to explain?" he asked, sitting down opposite me.
"Explain what?" I said, sniffing loudly. He ignored my question, hitting record and reciting names and times into the tape. There was a minute of silence as he flicked through the file before looking up at me.
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"How well do you know Stan?"
"Quite well I think. I mean we've only been on three dates but-"
"Nasty car accident you were both in."
"I know that. Listen, what's going on? I didn't kill him. I don't know what's happened."
"What happened at the hospital?"
I told him all I knew, falling asleep and waking up to that incessant beeping noise. He listened impassively. "Is...is he really dead?"
"Six hours in surgery," he replied, looking down at the file. "Then one night next to you and he doesn't wake up this morning. Do you want to know what I think?"
"What?" I asked, hardly able to believe it. Was Stan really dead?
"I think you suffocated him, pillow over the face while he was helpless. I just wondered why you did it."
My mind whirled and I felt incredibly nauseous all of a sudden. It was Marion. The thought flashed into my brain. It had to be her. Who else could it be? I told him about Marion, everything Stan had said about her.
"So how do you know it was her?" he asked.
"I..." I realised I didn't know. I had no proof, nothing to show she was responsible. "Is there CCTV at the hospital? There must be cameras there."
"There is. We're looking at it now. But you're certain it was this Marion woman?"
"Yes!" I shouted, getting more and more worked up.
"I'm going to ask you one more time. You're certain that Marion Bishop, Mr Raines's ex-partner, is responsible for cutting his brake cable and murdering him in his hospital bed. Is that right?"
"Yes! Why is it so difficult for you to understand? What are you smiling for? You know where she lives don't you? Is she here? Have you talked to her?"
"Well, you've answered all the questions I had. Thank you. Interview ends-" He clicked off the tape and carried it over to the door.
"Answer me!" I shouted. "Where is she?"
"Same place she's been for the last three years. Landwell Cemetery. You think about that for a while and then see if maybe you want to reconsider your story."
Collins rubbed his eyes, the glare of the screen in the dark room was beginning to sting. He'd spooled through hours of footage from the hospital corridors, nurses, doctors, cleaners, patients. All dead ends. If only there'd been a camera on the ward, he wouldn't have had to spend the entire day stuck in the tiny little TV room at the back of the station, wishing he'd never applied to join the police in the first place. He started again from the beginning, not wanting to miss something important. The same footage, the same people, trapped in time, stuck on repeat.
He was leaning back in his chair when he caught sight of something right in the corner of the screen. He zoomed in, the image blurring slightly as he noticed a woman walking along the corridor, ignored by those around her. He was sure she hadn't been there when he'd last looked. He zoomed in further and pixelated as the face was, she looked familiar. He looked down at the file on the desk, flicking through the photos. There she was. He looked back at the screen. It was the same person, but how?
He read the notes again, looking for a hole, something to explain what he was seeing. The abuse she'd suffered at the hands of a man she'd met online, the jury split on the evidence, letting him go. There it was in black and white. She'd committed suicide afterwards but if that was the case, how was she walking down that hospital corridor?
He stared at the monitor, not hearing the door open behind him. On the screen her face craned upwards, looking directly at the camera and at Collins. He felt a hand on his shoulder and spun round, his mouth falling open as he saw who was standing there looking down at him.
The next morning the cleaner found Collins slumped lifeless over the desk. A heart attack wasn't surprising given his predilection for too much fatty food and too little exercise. The CCTV footage that would have played a vital part in an innocent woman's defence case was gone. It was never found.
The Adult Toy
Barry hadn't committed a crime for more than 25 years. Surely that was long enough to let things go? It was in the past now, you can do this. You can. He stood by the front door with the handle gripped in shaking fingers, gulping for air as he tried to steel himself to go outside.
When he'd woken up, he'd decided it had been long enough. A quarter of a century was long enough. Nobody would recognise him anymore, there'd be no baying mob with torches and pitchforks out for his blood. Her parents probably didn't live round here anymore anyway, they might even be dead by now.
His stomach churned, threatening to send his breakfast up and out onto the stained and threadbare carpet. "You can do this," he said out loud in a voice hoarse from lack of use. He let go of the handle, his heart pounding. It wasn't going to happen. They might still be out there, waiting for him, memories of what he'd done fresh in their minds as they dragged him to be lynched from a lamppost. Better to stay inside, stay safe for a while longer. Besides, some company was due soon anyway.
With a sigh of defeat he turned away from the door, angry with himself for having gone from optimistic to terrified in the time it took a single car to rumble past outside. He shuffled back down the hall past mounds of mouldering rubbish, squeezing into the one chair available in the kitchen, his feet on the curling beermats piled under the table.
He sat surrounded by filthy mugs and towering piles of newspapers, staring out through the tiny gap in the yellow net curtain into the concrete yard beyond. He didn't see chaos out there, he saw order. Everything in that yard was a vital possession, something that he'd neatly filed into the available space back when he was still capable of stepping outside.
It had been a long time since he'd been out in the yard but it was always reassuring to see everything still there. He lifted the open tin of beans from the table top and drunk the contents down like a fine wine, wiping his mouth with his hand before standing and opening the window, brushing the net curtain aside long enough to push the tin out through the gap before shutting the window quickly, feeling the cold breeze on the skin of his hand like radioactive fallout, something to be avoided at all costs.
The doorbell rang and he walked into the hall. Could it be her? Was his companion here at last? He winced as his worn out hip bone ground into the socket but nothing could stop him rushing to answer the door, he was too excited to slow down.
"I'm coming," he called, shuffling as fast as he
could between the carrier bags filled with old milk cartons on one side of the hallway and every letter he'd ever received stacked on the other. He left deep wet footprints in the unidentifiable gunk that coated the remains of the carpet. The heel of one slipper flapped loose as the doorbell rang again. "Hold on - Yes?" he asked, kneeling down and opening the letter box, peering out into the crotch of a delivery man.
"Mr Algras?" The man asked, leaning down and coming face to face with Barry’s pair of watery eyes staring out at him.
"That's me," Barry wheezed, his lungs hurting from the exertion of rushing down the hallway.
"Parcel for you. Do you want to open the door and I'll bring it inside?"
"No," Barry snapped, fear rising in him at the thought. "Leave it there, I'll get it in a minute."
"Sign this." A clipboard was passed through, almost hitting Barry on the nose. He signed and passed it back, waiting until the delivery man had driven away to close the letterbox. He stood up and grinned, wringing his hands together. Wiping the sweat from his palm, he grasped the door handle, if anyone could make him open the door, it was her.
He took a deep breath and held it in as he slowly turned the handle, the door creaking as it opened, light piercing the gloom of the hall for the first time in years. Barry felt his heart pounding dangerously fast, a voice in his head telling him to close the door quickly before they attacked, coming for revenge for what he'd done. But then he caught sight of the box waiting for him on the doorstep. He exhaled slowly and leaned his head out, the fresh air alien to his lungs as he squinted in the sunlight.
Taking a deep breath, he lunged out and grabbed the box, dragging it into the space he'd left for her. He slammed the door closed and leaned against it, waiting for his pulse to return to normal. As he did so, he looked at the box. Nothing was written on it, not even his address but he knew what it was. Rummaging in the pocket of his dressing gown, he found his rusty old pocket knife and cut through the plastic tape to peel away the panels that concealed her.
She was kneeling down inside as if praying, her unblinking eyes the only thing that proved she wasn't alive. He took one look at her face and fell instantly in love. She was perfect, not just worth the money, worth twice what he paid, ten times even.
"Hello Susie," he said, lifting her hand and feeling the pliable flesh-like substance of her fingers, planting a gentle kiss on her palm before gently pushing her arm back down into place.
They had her just right. He'd gone through all the options on the website, compiling every part to match the only girl he'd ever loved. Blonde hair just the right shade. Azure blue eyes you could dive into, freckles, that adorable dimple on her chin. She was the spitting image of Alison, so realistic he was sure even her parents would have struggled to tell the difference.
He noticed a bundle of papers clamped between her knees and pulled them out to flick through. It was a set of instructions. He flicked through them impatiently, looking for the quick start guide. His eyes scanned the diagrams, the settings, the cleaning and maintenance procedure. Sod that, let's just get her switched on.
Reaching round to the back of Susie's head, Barry felt for the tiny flap of skin at the nape of her neck, pushing his finger inside and flicking the switch hidden underneath. He jumped backwards as Susie immediately turned her head upwards, eyes fixing on him as she ran through her boot up processes. The corners of her cheeks creased as she began to smile, her mouth opening as her voice box warmed up.
"Hello," she said, shuffling out of the box and standing up, stretching as if stiff from being confined in the box. "My name is-?"
"Susie," Barry said, gulping nervously, as he looked down at her naked body with hungry eyes.
"-Susie. Thank you for inviting me to live with you. I'm sure we're going to be best friends."
Barry shook his head in disbelief. It was unreal. She put out her hand and Barry took it, her fingers wrapping round his, letting him guide her upstairs to the bedroom. She walked slowly, wobbling a little as if still learning. It was too perfect, she even walked just like Alison had when she'd been drinking.
The next morning Barry woke up exhausted but happy. It had been a quarter of a century since he'd last had sex and Susie was insatiable, so different to Alison in that regard who’d submitted to him eventually but never really seemed to enjoy it, no matter how much he disciplined her. Susie on the other hand was a real slut, moaning and gasping and begging for more until he fell asleep still inside her.
Rubbing his eyes he sat up, expecting to find Susie beside him. She wasn't there. He heard humming from downstairs and wondered what she was doing. He reached the hall and stopped dead, looking back at the steps. How had he not noticed? He’d gotten so used to weaving down through the detritus spread across them that he didn’t really see it anymore. But now he noticed, his fists clenching as he gritted his teeth, furious with her. The steps had been cleared of everything, all the objects he'd so lovingly accumulated had gone, every tread was visible. It was obscene.
He walked into the kitchen in a state of shock. The kettle was boiling on a clean side and the table had been cleared too, exposing the bare wood for the first time in more than a decade, the only object on top was his laptop. Had she brought that down from the bedroom while he’d been asleep? Susie was leaning against the counter, naked and motionless. When she heard Barry she turned, her retinal computers scanning the room until they settled on his face.
"Hello," she smiled, her mouth remaining wide open as she spoke, looking like a bizarre ventriloquist. "My name is Susie. Thank you for inviting me round to your house. I like it here. I think I will stay."
Barry didn't know how to react. The kettle clicked off and Barry happened to glance past it to the window. He thought he was seeing things. He pulled the net curtain aside and nearly fainted. The yard was empty.
"Wh...where's my stuff?" He struggled to get the words out, his world turned upside down overnight.
"I don't understand the question I'm afraid." Her mouth remained stubbornly open. "You're so much smarter than me. Would you like a kiss?"
He grabbed her arm, nails digging into the pliant silicone, triggering Susie's pain receptors. He spoke through gritted teeth as her eyes widened in an approximation of fear. "My stuff, the yard. Where is it?"
"You're hurting me," Susie said, the pitch of her voice higher than before. "Would you like to make love?"
"No I bloody wouldn't. Where's my stuff?"
She shuffled her feet away from the side and thrust her bottom out towards him. "Or you could fuck me."
Barry glanced down, his anger fading away, replaced by animal lust at the sight of her exposed in such a wanton manner. He licked his lips as he tugged at the frayed cord of his dressing gown. Her eyes moved down to the laptop on the table. She blinked as she stared at the laptop screen, Barry grunting near her ear as he hunched over her, grunting loudly.
After he'd finished Barry felt strangely unsatisfied. She was supposed to respond to his desires but she'd remained stubbornly silent throughout, no moans or groans like last night. He took her by the hand and led her upstairs, pushing her into the wardrobe and pulling open the flap of skin on her neck, flicking the off switch before sliding the door closed as her head sagged downwards.
He went downstairs and looked out of the window again. Maybe it had been stolen. She was only a doll for crying out loud. Yes she might be the most advanced A.I doll in the world but still a doll. Where would she have put all his things? They must have been stolen, that was all.
And if they weren't? Well, she could just stay in the wardrobe until she learnt not to annoy him, learn her lessons like Alison had. He heard humming from in there and pulled open the door, annoyed that he must not have switched her off properly.
"Hello, my name is Susie," she smiled from between the hangers of moth-eaten clothes. Had she sat herself down cross legged like that? "Thank you for inviting me round to yours. I like it here. Would you like to make love?"
"Not
right now," Barry replied, reaching round her neck and flicking the off switch again. Her head sagged, eyes open but no longer focussing. He closed the wardrobe door and went downstairs, frowning as he heard humming coming from the bedroom again. Right, time to get a replacement. She's obviously defective. He loaded the laptop and clicked through his bookmarks for the doll shop website. The screen buffered for a moment before loading an error message, site not found.
Swearing loudly, Barry tried again. Nothing. He searched through his emails for his receipt. What good would a lifetime warranty be if the company had gone under? The email wasn't there. Had he deleted it? He couldn't remember. He clicked the Alison folder and loaded the photos of her, diligently scanned from his 35mm camera all those years before. Clicking through the images, he began to calm down. So she was a bit temperamental. Maybe she'd been designed that way to mimic Alison's behaviour as he'd suggested on the order form.
He left Susie in the wardrobe for the rest of the day, humming to herself in there as he rearranged his possessions, trying not to think of everything he'd lost from the yard. It was only when he climbed into bed that night that he felt the stirrings that had led to him ordering Susie in the first place. He sat up and swung his legs out, sliding open the wardrobe. "Hello," Susie said, standing up and stepping out. "Would you like to make love-," a pause, "-Barry?"
"Yes I would," he replied, taking her hand and leading her to bed, watching her bottom with a leer as she climbed under the filthy blankets. "Yes I would."
The next morning he woke up alone in bed again. Heart racing he stepped onto the landing, grunting with anger at the empty space where all his things should have been piled up. He could see the ripped wallpaper now, the hideous remains of the carpet, the sense of loss at his things being gone was so palpable he could almost touch it.
Night Terrors: 16 Horror Stories Page 9
