I am now surrounded by darkness, with thin strips of the slightest moonlight running horizontal across my eyes. It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust. I hear thrashing from the lounge.
I am hiding in the bedroom wardrobe. It smells of old clothes. Very old.
‘Sarah!’ he calls.
I hear the familiar sound of the French windows to the balcony. I recognize the heavy friction of the door sliding open.
Later, for what seems like ten minutes but I’m sure is really no more than one, the door slides again, this time coming to a clunk as it closes.
I peer through the slits in the wardrobe. I can see the bedroom door and the teasing silver glow of moonlight creeping in from the corridor. The only other light is the red glow from my alarm clock, that is now flashing zero zero dot zero zero. A power cut? But then how is there any light at all?
I watch as a shadow fills the doorframe, blocking out the shimmer for a moment. I hold my breath and shiver. I am petrified.
7.2
He steps in and looks around, and it is a miracle I can keep this lump in my throat from exploding into a fearful yelp, or worst a frantic scream, as I see the blade glistening in his hand.
Instead I start to cry. The tears flow freely. At the same, as if in unison, I hear water running and splashing. He hears it too and runs for the bathroom.
This is my moment to escape and I will myself to open the wardrobe, to leap out and to sprint for the front door.
My muscles don’t move at the speed my heart is churning through these painful beats. My body is achingly slow to keep up. I step with extreme caution out of the wardrobe and push my back up against the wall by the door.
The water stops running. He has turned the shower off. That means he is standing in the cubicle. This really is my moment to make a move, but my lungs are deprived of oxygen as I have been holding my breath so long and hard.
The wardrobe door has been swinging back without my noticing, until it connects again; a thud as wood hits wood.
I move onto the balls of my feet, ready to push off the wall and go for it, knowing he will have heard and come hunting for me.
Then I hear his first step; a heavy, lumbering thud, followed by another. He is charging down the hall. He will be in this bedroom in just a few seconds. I can’t do it, I can’t expose myself now. He will see me.
I squeeze up against the wall, hidden by the darkness; a corner where the moonlight doesn’t reach. I hold my breath for dear life; I suck my diaphragm in and plead with my ribcage to restrict my lungs from giving me away.
7.3
He walks in, stalking his unseen prey. I keep still and he moves right past me, holding his knife ready to stab down. He seems transfixed by the photo of the girl on the bedside cabinet and somehow, despite the racing thoughts of fear and death and self-preservation surging through the nodes in my brain, I find time to wonder is this Sarah real?
The photo frame is laid flat. He walks around the bed to pick it up and my eyes widen when he drops the knife to the duvet.
I grab it and run. I run for my life.
I hear him drop the photo frame and I hear the clambering of his feet as he gives chase.
Everything slows down and our footsteps echo into a rumbling crescendo.
7.4
I am reaching the front door holding the knife tight in one hand and reaching out to twist the door handle with my other. Both hands are shaking.
I feel his large hands grab my shoulders and I spin around, my hair snapping across like a whip.
He lurches towards me, a scowl on his face. The scowl freezes, and then his cheeks drop and his lips loosen and his eyes look deep into mine; a look I have never seen before on another human being.
It is a look that is overtaken with regret and sympathy and disappointment.
My hands suddenly feel warm and moist. I break his gaze to look down and see my fingers turning red as his blood washes over them.
The blade is planted deep into his gut, right in the middle of his abdominal muscles. I let go of the knife and stumble back against the door in shock. I have stabbed my creation.
He pulls the knife out of his stomach and it drops to the wooden floor. He falls forward onto me; his limp arms wrapped around my exhausted frame in a pitiful embrace.
There are no ill intentions in him anymore, I can tell. Instead, he now begins to cry. He buries his nose into the softness of my neck and hair. I don’t know if it is regret for having stabbed him or relief now that the fear has subsided, or merely a cathartic release of emotion, but I cry too.
‘I’m sorry, I still love you,’ he whispers into my ear.
He then lets go and I can’t hold him up any longer. He slides down my body, staining my skin with dark crimson, and rolls onto his back.
He is dying. I know this.
He knows this too and exhales bubbles of carbon dioxide slowly and deliberately as if he was holding onto the breathing process for as long as possible. He inhales again as I drop to my knees by his side.
His stomach is squeezing out more blood with each heartbeat, like some sort of hydraulic anti-life machine.
My hands are covered in his blood, but I soothe his forehead painting streaks of vermillion love above his tearful eyes.
And it is in this moment that I understand. I get it now. It all makes sense.
It isn’t about whether life is worth living within the rules or outside of them. It isn’t about whether I can function as expected by society, or if my own personal dysfunction can be enjoyed alone.
It is about escape from the confines of life itself.
It is about the ultimate release.
7.5
Tears pour down my face leaving wet trails like streams breaking off from an overflowing river.
I almost pull the medicine drawer out of its fittings as I grab at the multitude of bottles and packs I had placed there just six days earlier.
I unscrew all the tops and chug down pills. I want it to stop. I don’t want any friends, I don’t want anyone anymore. I swallow handfuls without water and the few I can’t squeeze down my throat I chew on. Their chalky residue dries my mouth.
And then it starts. Immediately.
The wooden floorboards peel open like the leaves of a rose and an abyss below sucks in his lifeless bleeding body. He disappears below, gone forever.
The walls start to ooze thick red syrup, which trickles down. I come to realize it is blood, and I am horrified.
Then I hear the hissing. It is coming from the door.
I see nothing, but when I look down there is an army of crimson snakes slithering under the door into my apartment. I jump over the hole in the floor, the angry abyss below, and scamper back into the centre of the open plan lounge.
Scratches rip across the sofa material, cut fresh by invisible swords and revealing clouds of white fluff beneath.
Then the voices start:
‘Are you taking your medication on time Melly?’ my mother’s voice rings out.
‘If only I had been a better kid.’
‘Now remember darling, you've come so far and this position is your just rewards. I'm so proud of you Melissa, and you look so grown up.’
‘People, people are damaged sweetheart. We’re all just patiently being destroyed.’ I hear my father say.
I hoist my heavy harp up above my head and launch it against the sickening wall of oozing blood. It smashes into pieces with fragments of black amongst the strings and the decorated frame.
I gather the black shards and shapes and find I instantly know how to connect them back together; the handle, the safety, the trigger.
There is one bullet.
The snakes are reaching me now. One coils itself around my ankle, hissing and sneering up at me. I snatch at its head and tear it from my leg. I throw it into the black hole, which swirls with furious nothingness.
I jump out onto the balcony and close the French windows, trapping the sea of hungry serpents in the ap
artment. I watch through the glass at the monstrous hole, the abyss, growing larger and larger. It starts to suck in furniture, the broken harp, the case and the stool.
I give up. My chest sinks and my shoulders hunch forward. I fall back against the railings, leaning and looking up at the night sky. It is black, without stars.
I cock the Colt .45 and feed the barrel into my mouth. I allow my lips to close around the cold metal.
I drop my eyes. I pull the trigger and the bullet blasts into me. Through me.
The momentum flips me back over the railings and I fall upside down. I am diving head first towards the concrete slabs down below. I don’t look but I know the ants are growing larger now and becoming people. I hope I don’t crush one.
The air shoots up against my body, causing my hair to billow upwards as I descend flapping like broken wings. There is no sound. The air tastes sweet.
No police siren. No crowds. No traffic horns. Nothing. It is silent and I close my eyes, enjoying the peacefulness. I have never felt such stillness and calm.
I reach round and feel the back of my head. The bullet has ripped through, tearing my skull open. It is wet, but warm. I can feel the soggy flesh beneath broken bone.
I pull my hand away again and stretch my arms out. It feels like I’m flying.
I let go.
The End.
The following is a true story.
HE JUMPED
A true story
It was January 2007 and I was stood shaking, wrapped up in a beanie hat and a hefty coat with deep pockets for my shivering hands to bury themselves in.
They would have to take it in turns, one hand in a pocket at a time, leaving the other hand to hold a steaming polystyrene cup of hot, badly made, English tea (too much milk and too much sugar). Every so often I would place the cup down on the cobbled stones that made up the uneven ground below my aching feet, in order to wrestle out of my pockets the shooting schedule for that night, or my director’s notes for the scene at hand.
'Cut!'
The air would smell of the burning that rose from the bank of lights; the warm orange at odds with the freeze of grey, night time London.
'More blood on set. More blood!'
That became the catchphrase during the first couple of weeks of filming. We had shot slow pans revealing dead corpses draped over the wet concrete and slumped up against the dark alleyways. We had filmed frenetic nocturnal attacks in deserted subways and horrific vampiric devouring of innocent victims.
'Action.'
Throughout it all, my 1st AD (assistant director) Richard would be on hand to radio over to the make-up girls those immortal words. Each time his eyes would linger on me with a mix of sympathy and exasperation. What is wrong with this guy, he must have been thinking to himself.
'And cut.'
'More blood on set. More blood!'
The movie was Night Junkies, and I was its out-of-my-depth director.
I had always announced to anyone who would listen since my long-haired, biscuit eating and rock club obsessing art school days that I would be making my first movie by the age of twenty-five. I had created this heavyweight of a goal, and when I turned twenty-five it was no mere monkey on my back, it was a baboon. A giant baboon with snarling sharp teeth, thrusting its pink behind in my face.
In the last few remaining months of that year I wrote a vampire screenplay that I titled Night Junkies and pulled every trick in the money-raising book until I had a workable budget; enough to hire a crew, cameras, equipment, locations, cast, vehicles, food and post-production. It was a stretch, but I had done it. I was twenty-five and I was starting my first feature film project.
What should have been an exhilarating adventure quickly became a waking nightmare, as most of the filming took place during angry winter months in intimidating, dirty and hostile surroundings. We shot on the same East London alleyways and cobbled streets where Jack the Ripper killed his red-light victims, in disused drug dens, urine infused subways and crime-alert corners of an urban hell. None of it was a laugh. Very little of it felt like an exhilarating adventure.
My mind casts back to the night when a gang of Oliver Twist style hoodlums closed in on our outside set during the moonlit hours. We had to abandon the shoot when one of our camper vans were broken into and a real-life high speed chase on foot proved more interesting than the scene we were currently battling through.
I can also remember the apartment location that turned into a barred location when local residents decided to wait until we moved in before objecting. We had to then find a studio, build a set and shoot eight days of script in four days.
With each obstacle, my producer ploughed on. Dean was a short, stocky man who could often be found crumpling his notes and spreadsheets into his folders and wiping away the sweat on his furrowed brow. His suit jacket always hung awkwardly on his hunched shoulders. He gave the air of having to battle against the world, and to be fair it sometimes felt that way, but Dean was remarkable in his ability to never give up and fight on in his quest to produce the best film he could.
'Computer says no.'
He would often quote the comedy sketch show Little Britain in response to requests for more money or time from various crew departments (set designers, wardrobe etc.), but deep down, he burned with frustration that he couldn’t eke out just that little bit more cash. He had dripped the bottle dry, and still they were thirsty.
I have often felt like I let him down.
There were times when the pressure of steering the ship sunk me deeper than quicksand in an earthquake. I also conflicted quite severally with some crew members, most notably Sadiq; a real Scrappy-Doo of a DOP (director of photography). I didn’t like the way he stood, I didn’t like the way he looked at me and I didn’t like the feeling that I just couldn’t trust him. But I did like the way he lit scenes, which is what he was hired to do.
Our conflicts were the sibling brawls that Dean, as mother hen of the production, would have to do his best to smooth over. I would often see him confide in Mark, the line producer and stills photographer, who also happened to be a good friend of his. Mark flirted with anything that bore breasts or tasted of alcohol. But he found good crew, and took good photos, which is what he was hired to do.
Two weeks into principal photography we wrapped up for a short two-night break. I was ushered in front of the entire crew and cast by Dean and asked to give a morale boosting speech thanking everyone for his or her hard work so far. I did my best but the sea of tired faces, staring through eyes clouded over with dreams of sleep, remained stoic.
On the train home in the early hours of that morning, I spoke with my then girlfriend on the phone. She had been having trouble sleeping thanks to a neighbour in our apartment block playing James Blunt tracks way too loud, way too late.
I then slept all day and well into the night, when I awoke to find the warbling voice of James Blunt scratching its way through my windows, and my girlfriend sobbing in bed. She was exhausted from lack of sleep and the frustrating fatigue released itself in tears.
I got dressed, kissed her on the forehead and stumbled my weary legs out to investigate.
My apartment was on the third floor and the apartment building raised twelve floors into the dark winter night sky and the only way to quickly identify the source of the noise was to step outside and face the grid of windows head on. I stood in the car park and looked up.
It was late, probably around 3am but the years that have passed have drawn a misty curtain over my memory. I think it was around 3am. A few windows were lit from inside but only one was opened wide. The window opened forward so that it pushed up and the glass provided a reflected glimpse of the interior, where I could see him.
An arm, in a striped sweater, rifling through CD cases.
His legs curled up to this stomach as he lay across his carpet. I couldn’t see his face.
He then stood and walked away from the reflection. I watched his bare feet, under old jeans, disappear
.
I exhaled a bulbous, sighing cloud of icy breath; like steam that hung in the air, reluctant to drift from my side. I went inside and got into the lift. I had counted that the window belonged to an apartment on the seventh floor, but the lift buttons reached the sixth floor only.
The building I lived in was separated into two halves, accessed by two different lifts, and to reach the seventh floor and up I would have to go around the building where the other lift stood. I had already been gone for a few minutes and I didn’t want my girlfriend to worry so I took the lift back up to my third floor. I would just tell her that I’d be another five minutes and then go again.
As the metal door tore itself open and I stepped up to my front door, it opened. She stood there, pale and sickly, holding the phone in her shaking hand.
'He jumped. He just... jumped.'
She had been standing by the bedroom window, had seen me walk back inside from the car park, and then moments later watched the window black out for a split second. The moonlight had been blocked by a body falling headfirst.
My brain thumped against my skull in a dizzy panic. Every part of my body demanded that I stay put, to let her continue her desperate phone call for the ambulance and to save myself the fearful sight of what I would find. My heart threatened to rip out of my chest and my arms and legs turned to stone and jelly at the same time.
Still, I ran.
I ran down the staircase. It might have been quicker to take the lift back down, but the frantic confusion and mania rushing through every node in my brain wouldn’t allow me to stand still in a metal box as it descended slowly. I had to run.
When I got down to the outside car park, my breathing was erratic and I had gulped so much of that chilly air that my lungs began to freeze and shrink. I found it hard to breath. His body was nowhere to be seen, and then I realized that he had landed in the upper car park, accessible from within the building. I rushed back in and as I reached the corner leading to where his body lay, my legs slowed down.
The Haunted Hikikomori Page 10