by Emmy Ellis
Jesus Christ, no. Please, don’t let me die, not when I’ve come so far…
With no idea how long she’d stared at the mud and grass, nodules of brown jutting out of water-smoothed earth, sprouts of green that looked black in this light, she shifted her eyes and scanned the rest of the bank. No feet there, no legs or that leering mask. No syringe waiting to jab into her and send her on her final journey—home-home, he’d called it. Nothing but dark sky and a moon half covered by deep-grey clouds. She tried lifting herself but failed, so flexed her fingers, determined to get some warmth into her hands and arms, even if just by one degree.
Eventually she moved her arms as though doing the breaststroke, then chanced to draw her hands up the rock beneath her chest and attempt to push herself up on it. She managed a few inches and, with muscles like rubber, smacked back down again, her face plunging into the water. It rushed into her ears, her eyes, and as the force of the splash took over, she listened to a combination of her heartbeat, the whoosh of the water’s current, and an odd, quiet humming that brought on the sense that she was doomed, never to get out of the water. Emptiness, a strange void where, for the second it took for her head to make its journey, her chin dashing against the stone, teeth jarring, tongue bitten, death touched her keenly and with eager, grasping hands. No pain, nothing but a dull thud of rock on bone.
She tried again, this time slapping her palm onto the rock and keeping her arm straight for long enough to launch herself sideways. She raised her other arm and clutched at the grass, seeing it, from the meagre light of the moon, inside her curled fingers but not feeling it on her skin. She gripped, she tugged, and hauled herself across, bringing her legs up so she knelt on the rocks. With both hands around clumps of grass, she dragged herself up until she flopped her torso onto the flat of the bank.
Her breaths came in heavy pants, lungs growing sore from the spiteful snap in the air, and she marvelled that even the weather seemed to conspire against her. She laid her head down, resting for a short time to gather her strength, then eased her head up again and dug her elbows into the ground. She army-crawled the rest of the way out of the water then flopped over onto her back, fully expecting to see him looking down at her with those piercing green eyes and that hideous mask.
All she stared at was the murky sky.
She stayed like that for ages, knowing if she didn’t get moving soon her body would give up, her organs shutting down on her while she silently screamed for help. She’d close her eyes and just let everything fade away, too weak to fight anymore.
No. Oliver! Oliver, please, please come and help me.
A response drifted to her from far away—Oliver’s voice, him repeating her name, the chant coming towards her, the chug of a train, closer, closer, closer until it was so loud he could have been standing right beside her.
“Cheryl? Cheryl? Is that you?”
It’s me, she wanted to shout, but the words wouldn’t come. Frustrated, she waited to hear more from him, for him to tell her he was on his way and everything would be all right. It took ages for her to raise her hand and manage an awkward rub on her arm, forcing heat into her skin so she’d be able to get the hell out of there. But her body shivered so brutally she couldn’t control it, and her hand whipped away from her arm of its own accord, to land on the grass and jolt in vicious jerks.
“Oliver, please! I’m at the stream. No forest. Just the stream.” She moved her eyes to the side, away from the water. “A field. It goes on forever.”
She wondered, then, whether it was the field she’d read about, where when you died your loved ones came to collect you in a meadow. But this wasn’t the meadow she’d imagined, with bright-green grass highlighted by a beautifully warm sun, with buttercups and daisies swaying in a mild breeze. If this was the field of the hereafter, it was the one belonging to Hell. The one where no one but men like him came to collect you.
“Cheryl? Hang on. We’re coming!”
Those words were too much, too overwhelming, too needed. She closed her eyes and bucked from the cold, unable to gain power over the spasms. As everything slipped away, she thought of the sunny meadow and hoped, if Oliver didn’t get here in time and she didn’t wake up on this plane, she’d open her eyes and see the sun, the daisies and the buttercups. And Gran.
* * * *
Diary Entry #309
Quote of the day: Instinct is a valuable thing.
No one approached me, and I was able to lay Cheryl in the back seat of my car and strap her in with both seat belts. The drive to my usual street by the stream didn’t take long, but I didn’t park there. I had this dodgy feeling in my gut and decided to stop somewhere else—that someone was watching. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I got goosebumps that matched Cheryl’s. So I went down this side street then turned off onto a track. Left the car behind some bushes and carried her as far as I could away from Morrisons. And I mean way away. Farther than I’ve been before. It took a while, what with having to trek through the forest first, and a few times her hair snagged on tree trunks and low branches.
By the time I’d left the forest and tramped over some fields, got to what I felt was a safe part of the stream, I was knackered. Panting. My arms ached—she’d grown heavier than when I’d lifted her off the bed before her bath—and I wondered if she’d snuffed it, but it was just my muscles aching from carrying her so far.
I kept walking until I found some rocks like the ones I’d chosen before and placed her over them, belly down. She looked like a hill, a stark, white hill in the darkness. I put her face in the water then clicked the light on my watch so I could watch a full minute tick by. I’d planned to wait longer, to make sure she drowned—five minutes or more—but something rustled in the field behind me, and I shit myself.
Mr Clever told me to get going, go home, so I left.
Instead of going straight home, I visited The Stick after. That place is so weird, all rusty oil drums and bummed-out people with greasy hair and dirty clothes.
I can’t wait to see Conrad tomorrow. Well, it’s later today, isn’t it. Time to get a bit of kip. We usually meet about nine o’clock. I’ll clean my place when I come back home after breakfast.
I won’t be going in to work. Too tired.
Chapter Eleven
With blankets tossed over his shoulder, Langham sprinted out of the forest and into a field, heading towards the oval of illumination provided by the spotlight from the helicopter circling above. Its heat-seeking equipment had found Cheryl perilously close to the stream, and he was fucked if he’d get there too late. Oliver kept pace with him, and the air from the rotors blew back Langham’s hair, rippled his cheeks, and his eyes dried out. The grass flattened, spreading out into a crop circle. A black-clad figure dangled from a rope ladder, getting lower by the second. He reached the ground then ran to the stream bank. Langham and Oliver arrived there seconds later, getting the nod from the man in black that yes, she was alive, and yes, they needed to get her the fuck out of there.
Oliver draped the foil blanket he’d brought with him over her and knelt to tuck it under her so she was encased. Langham added the other blankets then tapped Oliver on the shoulder and motioned for him to get up and out of the way. Pointless speaking—the helicopter was too loud. They stepped back, allowing room for two more men from the chopper bearing a stretcher. Cheryl was gently lifted onto it, and the men carried her away. The chopper had landed, and Cheryl was settled on board. Then the great metal bird lifted and tilted a little to one side, shooting off.
Langham looked at Oliver, the whap-whap-whap of the helicopter distant now. “We got her.”
Oliver blinked.
There was nothing more to say, so they walked back to the forest, heads bent, hands in pockets, Langham wondering how the hell that woman had survived. She was unconscious, from the cold, drugs, and exhaustion, he imagined, but so long as her body didn’t go into shock and break down on her, she’d likely come through this okay. But what of her min
d? What about the mental scars? He dreaded to think what she’d have to face when she woke up, and again once she drifted back to sleep, the nightmares coming, treating her without mercy, relentless in their quest to fracture her further.
Branches grabbed at his trousers, but he didn’t give a shit. He yanked his legs away and kept going, other officers coming into view ahead, torchlight bobbing erratically as they ran. There was still so much to do.
They turned once the officers had come closer, back the other way to lead the men to where Cheryl had been found. As they all stood on the bank a metre or so from the spot, Langham explained her position, how he’d found her. Officers spoke into radios while others gazed around, probably working out which direction the killer had come from and what had possessed him to bring her out this far. Why had he changed where he’d left her? Why so far from the others?
Did he go to do his usual thing and spot the undercover policemen in those cars? Did he realise they were there? Could the officers have seen him drive past and not even have known it?
He stared at the rocks poking out of the water and shook his head. What the hell was it about them? Why did the killer put the women into position over them? It had to be significant, and when he caught the fucker, that would be one of the first questions he asked.
It took half an hour of waiting around before SOCO and Detective Fairbrother arrived to take over. Langham and Oliver left the scene, traipsing back through the forest to where he’d parked his car haphazardly, half on the uneven track, half off. Squad cars dotted the way out, their occupants preparing to leave the vehicles and join those on the stream bank. Once they were in his car, Langham whacked up the heat, cold to the bone and thinking he had no clue what cold really was compared to Cheryl. As he drove through the city, he wondered whether Cheryl was warm yet, whether she was getting some feeling back into her, because fuck, she’d had to have been freezing in that water.
He glanced at the clock on the dash, the luminous green numbers glowing five-fifteen. He pondered on whether to go home for a couple of hours, but it was pointless. He was wide awake, and Oliver was sitting beside him, anxious, Langham reckoned, to see Cheryl.
“Hospital?” Langham glanced across at him.
Oliver nodded. “Yeah. I’ll wait with her until her parents get there. She’s got no one else.”
Chapter Twelve
David was meant to be at work, but he rang in sick. He was too tired, the amount of restless sleep he’d had fucking with his equilibrium. He didn’t like feeling so out of sorts. It reminded him of being a kid. Not knowing what was around the corner. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. As a child he’d always known what had lurked at the bend on Don’t Hurt Me Avenue, just not when the bogeywoman, his mother, would make an especially nasty appearance. And she was nasty.
He studied Conrad across the table in Morrisons, their breakfast plates piled with a full English, their tea brewing in the pot. Conrad was a right bloody mess. Looked like he hadn’t slept very well either.
David cursed himself for not asking Cheryl about the availability of tea cosies.
Conrad was bursting with shit to tell him—obvious, it was—so David raised his eyebrows as a signal for the prick to start talking while David tucked into his breakfast. He needed Conrad now—more so than he had in the past. Before, the man had been a semblance of a friend, something David hadn’t had before. He could fool himself into thinking he was liked, that if he chose to, he could go out with Conrad on the lash and eye up the girls. But Conrad had never asked him—maybe he would one day—and girls had never appealed to David in that way. They reminded him too much of the bogeywoman.
“I went to the newspaper, like you suggested,” Conrad said, “and she hasn’t been there either.”
David swallowed a piece of fried egg. And the knot of emotion in his throat. He needed to get focused, to concentrate on the here and now. “Look, how long has it been again?” He flapped his fork midair, feigning casual when inside he felt that thing creeping back, that desperately depressing thing that, once it took hold, was a bastard to shake off. “You know what? Time doesn’t matter at this stage. Some people, if they’ve got problems, just take off for a bit. No explanation, nothing. They have so much going on in their head that it’s best to stay away. Or they go off into a world of their own, a different world to this one, where they can be someone else and not worry about shit.” He was dangerously close to letting something slip.
“Be quiet, David,” Mr Clever said.
“Didn’t I tell you this before?” David asked. “About people just taking off? That’s why the police don’t usually follow up on an adult missing person until they’ve been gone more than forty-eight hours. People just need a breather, a break. Two or three days, and I bet she turns up.”
David worked hard to stop himself smiling. Someone would stumble upon her—not a dog-walker this time. No, it might be the farmer or maybe one of the people who worked for him. Off out in the fields thinking they had a normal day’s work ahead of them and, ‘Oh, what the hell’s that in the stream there? Good fucking Lord, it’s a body!’
“She’ll reappear, and everyone’ll wonder where she’s been, what she’s been doing and who with, but I reckon she won’t tell anyone a thing,” David said.
“How come you think she won’t say anything?” Conrad frowned. “She owes her bosses an explanation, at least. Me, even. You don’t just not arrive for a date or work, do you?” Conrad looked at him funny, like he knew something David didn’t. Like he was trying to draw something out of him.
“Watch him, David. He might cause you trouble, and we wouldn’t want that, would we…”
“Oh, come on! Lots of people do.” David cut a bacon rasher in half. “Bet if you plugged it into Google, you’d see a shitload of links about people who’ve been stood up with no explanation.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Jesus, Conrad. Will you listen to yourself? Anyone would think you were a couple or something, like she should have told you where she’s gone, but bloody hell, she just knows you as some bloke she serves breakfast to. Sorry to be blunt, but that’s the way it is. Sounds to me like all the strong feelings are on your side anyway, so yeah, you would be expecting her to care and let you know where she’s gone. But look at it from her point of view. Let’s just say she doesn’t dig you as much as you dig her. You’re not important, she doesn’t care about you, so therefore, when she decided to take off or whatever the fuck she did, I bet you didn’t even figure in her thoughts.” That should shut him up.
“Her neighbours haven’t heard her dog barking like it usually does.” Conrad gave a self-satisfied smile. “What do you think about that?”
David stared at him. Conrad had gone so far as to visit her house and speak to the fucking neighbours? “You asked them?”
“Yeah, I asked them. Someone’s got to give a shit.”
David shook his head and sighed as though he was weary of Conrad’s worrying ways. The child in him reared up. No, he was a man now. Everything would be okay. Don’t take me back there. Don’t hurt me. “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that much. Not sure I’d be the same in your position.”
He had to find out more. Had to stop his mind splitting in three first, though. One piece wanted to be David, the other wanted to be that man who took girls and did that weird shit, and the last, his kid self.
Come on. Concentrate. Conrad might prove to be a pain in the arse if he pokes around asking any more questions.
“So tell me,” David said, “did you actually find anything out that would be useful to the police? They’re not going to listen to you with what you’ve got, you know.”
Conrad speared a sausage then bit off the end. He seemed to chew forever. “Well, that’s where you’re wrong. From what I gathered, she was seen leaving her house that night with her dog. The night she was supposed to meet me. Seven-thirty on the dot, as always. She headed for the field just over there, and someone else walking their
dog saw her but couldn’t remember the exact time. Estimate is just before eight, he said.”
“You spoke to someone where she walks her dog?” David had failed to hide his surprise and kicked himself under the table.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. Got cramp. Carry on.”
“That was a good one, David. You’re getting very adept at thinking on your feet. It won’t be long, and you may well be able to do this sort of thing without my help. Would you like going it alone?”
“Yeah, some bloke who comes in here,” Conrad said. “I nipped in yesterday afternoon once I remembered earwigging to a conversation she’d had with him. They’d talked about seeing one another while walking their dogs once. He comes in at two every day. You know the one? Bald with a penny-sized birthmark on his neck. Well…” Conrad played with his food. “I got this idea after I spoke to him. You know I said about those women?”
David’s head spun. “What women?”
“The ones The Weirdo is taking. God, we talked about this!”
“Keep calm, David,” Mr Clever said. “Even if he says what you think he’s going to say, keep calm.”
“Yeah,” David said, relieved he’d sounded normal.
“I looked up some stuff online about The Weirdo, and the last couple of women he took, he only kept them for about two days each.”
Fuck.
“And?” David’s heart rate increased. He didn’t like it. Don’t hurt me.
“And so I went to the stream last night.”
“You did what?” It had burst out before David had been able stop it.
“I know!” Conrad beamed. “Good idea, eh?”
“Are you nuts? That bloke is dangerous.”
