‘HELP! HELP ME! I AM IN HERE!’
The shouting outside the room continues uninterrupted. Whoever is making that noise, whoever has come to find me – could it be Sylvie? Or Michael? Or the police? – didn’t hear me. I up my game, screeching with such ferocity I must cover my own ears with my filth-ridden hands, but I drop ‘HELP’ from the playlist and reaffirm my own identity.
‘SUZANNE! SUZANNE! I AM! SUZANNE!’
I don’t know why it occurs to me to scream my own name, but it feels right. Rob has taken my freedom from me, but he has also taken a large chunk of who I am. He has stripped me down and asked the world to gaze in at my ugliness. I want to reclaim myself.
‘SUZANNE!’
I stop for a second. That time, ‘Suzanne’ wasn’t shouted by me. They have heard me. I go again, screaming my name, but this time with a few seconds’ pause between each one.
‘SUZANNE!’
It comes back again. They know I’m in here. I am saved.
The banging and the shouting continues and I try to make some sense of it all. The blackness throws everything out of kilter and won’t let me pinpoint the location of my rescuer or rescuers, so I sprint to the desk and open up the lid of the laptop in the hope it has been recharged while I was out.
The laptop stirs into life. The battery has just enough juice in it. With its light in the room and my sight awakened, the noises outside seem even more alive. I am not imagining this. It is not a dream. Someone is coming for me. If it’s Sylvie or Michael or the police, I am free. If it’s Rob, I will take my chances.
The laptop’s light isn’t coming from the screensaver of Sylvie’s email or the bright white of yet another blank Word document, but from Five Parks. Rob has updated my recent writing. I stop shouting my name and slide into the tiny chair.
My latest writing has been published on the blog – my reaction to Miles Phillips’s Daily Herald article, my admission that almost all of its contents are true, and even my last piece of writing; my reveal that Rob is behind all this. His identity has been revealed on Five Parks for the world to read. Rob has even titled that blog post, ‘It Is Rob’. He wants everyone to know he did this. I don’t believe it. He wants to be caught. He must know they are closing in on him on the outside. Or maybe he has fled.
All my recent writing has been published, apart from one; my description of what happened in the hotel room with the TV presenter, Date #1.5. It hasn’t made the cut. I forget about it in an instant, because there is a new blog post at the top of Five Parks. I want to ignore it, but I can’t; the title sucks me in. I forget about the noises outside my room and read.
‘I am in a bad way: Part 2’
Posted by HIM and Suzanne
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
Hello, Suzanne. I thought that title might get your attention.
Unfortunately, this is my last blog post. And it is also the last blog post on Five Parks. The game is over. Neither of us has succeeded. But unlike you, I was never playing to win. I played to make you suffer and then end your existence. That plan has not altered since you woke up in here. You made the mistake in your writing of thinking that I wanted to get away with what I have done. On the contrary, Suzanne, I want the world to know I did this. But I want you to know it too, the last thing you learn before you are swallowed in darkness permanently.
Like your friends who claim to be on their way here to save you, I have enjoyed your little clues. Not as subtle as you think. But I thought I’d leave them in your writings, make the game a little interesting, given that I’ve always known how it will end. Your friends are too late. This will all be over soon.
You’ve been wrong all along in thinking I want to protect my identity. I’ve merely been waiting for you to figure it out. You tried your best to unmask me with your little clues, and no doubt those words have had repercussions for someone outside your little black world, but not me. Frankly, I’m disappointed. I want to be unveiled, I want to be unmasked, but I was quietly confident you would be the one to do it. Not for the first time, you have let me down. I want the world to know I am responsible – why go to all this bother if you can’t claim credit for it? Did you think I was going to slink off quietly into the night while you were rescued?
This is my final message to you. This is where Five Parks ends. This is the last post on your blog. Fittingly, we get to share a joint byline. We’re going out together. Except I’m going out in a blaze of glory, and you are going down in ignominy. Your blog will be pored over for years to come because of what I did with it. I made you great, Suzanne. I made you someone by doing all this. It’s a pity you won’t be around to thank me for it. But I can’t take all the credit.
And so I am going to let you have the last word on Five Parks. It is the least you deserve. But don’t worry, you don’t have to write anything now – you’ve already done it. It’s time I came clean; ‘I am in a bad way’ were not the first words you typed from that laptop.
You don’t remember – how could you? You were a mess. Even more of a mess when you woke up in your black box for what you thought was the first time. That’s right; before you wrote the blog post that started with, ‘I am in a bad way’, you wrote something else. You were in a right state, and I had to prop you up in the same chair you’re in now, but you managed to get the words out. I stood over you and watched you write it. You really were in a bad way back then, but you dug up the strength from somewhere to write your story. All I had to do was type ‘WHAT JUST HAPPENED, SUZANNE?’ at the top of a Word document and away you went.
Some of it didn’t make sense, of course, as the roofie was really kicking in at that point, and I had to correct a lot of your spelling, as you had some trouble connecting with the keyboard, but that’s what a good sub-editor is for. I filled in the blanks for you, added a few flourishes, but the story is all yours. Before I chained you to the bed, I gave you the chance to tell your side of the story. And you did marvellously. And ever since you woke up, you’ve tried to get back to that moment when you wrote about me and what I had done to you. At your most vulnerable and incoherent, you were at your most lucid and brilliant. Funny, isn’t it? You had the answer all along, inside that big brain of yours, and I kept it from you until now to see if you could find your way back to the truth. But now I see you will not figure it out, so I am going to tell you and your readers who I am. Tell you in your own words. How appropriate. I’ve helped you along with a few extra sentences here and there. Here is what you wrote. And here it is where it belongs; on Five Parks. Your last blog post. You will never write another word.
Oh, and those noises you can hear outside? That’s me. I am coming for you.
Goodbye, Suzanne.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED, SUZANNE?
Rob stands over me, blocking out the sun as I cower in the long reeds of Gladstone Park. He keeps saying, ‘I deserve this’. Fuck him. What about me? Do I deserve this? Why is he doing this to me?
I was waiting for … Paul. That’s right. Paul didn’t come. Rob is here though, and Rob wants to hurt me. I bury my head in the long grass as he shouts at me, hoping I can hide in there. He grabs my arm and drags me further down the slope, away from any watching eyes. I have never seen him angry like this. Desperate, sad, lonely.
‘We could have had something, Suze,’ he says. ‘You must have known all these years that I wanted to be with you. You picked me to help you with Five Parks for a reason. You wanted me near you. We belong together.’
Words and more words. No meaning. Just words in between the shouting. Rob is frightening me. He has lost control of himself. I need to stop him, calm him, escape him.
He picks me up and tries to hug me, says he’s sorry about all this, that he just wants to talk, just wants to go somewhere quiet with me so he can explain. He’s sorry he scared me.
I hug him back, let his arms relax around me, and then I grit my teeth and knee him in the stomach. He unhands me, drops to the ground and squeals my name. I crawl back up the grassy
slope until my hands hit concrete. Before I stand up, I turn around and look back at my pursuer, only he isn’t pursuing. He is gazing up in defeat at me, but not at me, past me and above me. I spin round to see why he isn’t chasing. A man is rushing towards me down the path. Even though he is sprinting, I am not afraid. He is not running at me because he wants to hurt me – not like Rob – but because he wants to protect me. The man bends down and puts his hand in mine like it’s the most natural act in the world, and he pulls me up off the grass and on to my feet on the path. He holds me close and I breathe in his familiar sweet scent. It is Aaron.
He shouts something over my head back down the hill at Rob, almost bursting my eardrum. He mentions the police. I peel off Aaron’s chest and shout something too. A crowd gathers and Rob runs across the front of the tennis courts, past the bench I was sitting on and down another green hill towards the park entrance. We don’t wait for him to disappear from sight.
Aaron takes me for a coffee. I need it. The café is on the top edge of Gladstone Park. The seating area is divided into three large wooden booths, big enough to fit eight people on both side amid red and yellow cushions. Aaron ushers me into the last booth, which we have to ourselves, then goes and orders two cappuccinos.
When he returns, Aaron slides into the seat opposite, rather than cosying up beside me. Aaron is edgy. He looks dreadful, like he hasn’t slept for days. We have not spoken since he spent the night in my flat.
I start there. I apologise for blogging that he came over and stayed the night. I was out of order. He bats it away, like it is meaningless. The waitress brings over our coffees and puts them on the table. We are so engrossed we don’t even notice she’s been until we see the cappuccinos.
He apologises for not returning my calls in the two days after he stayed at my flat. I say sorry for not returning his in the days after that. We both made mistakes.
When I ask him what he is doing here, he says he needed to talk to me and that I wouldn’t answer his calls. But how did he know Date #5 would be at Gladstone Park?
‘I followed the Green Man,’ he says. ‘I didn’t trust him. I was right.’
Aaron tracked Rob from Regent’s Park across London on the treasure hunt, hoping he would lead him to me. He looks like shit because he spent last night in his car outside Rob’s flat, waiting to see where he would go for today’s date. Aaron doesn’t seem fazed by this, it’s almost as if he does it all the time.
We keep talking, but it’s like crawling up that hill away from Rob again – we’re not getting anywhere. We’re two people who had something then lost it a second after it fell into our laps. How did we mess this up? What we had in Regent’s Park and in my flat was so special. I ruined everything by blogging that he was in bedroom. I shouldn’t have done it.
After a long silence, I look up from my long emptied coffee cup and try to apologise again, but he stops me.
‘You’re not the one who should be sorry, Suzanne. It’s me. I am sorry. I’m sorry for what I’m going to do to you.’
My head thickens, like it’s suddenly been pumped full of treacle, and I slide off the bench, only catching myself on the table. I try to stand up but I feel woozy and flop back down into the cushions.
He asks me if I’m okay. I ask him what he’s apologising for, what is he planning to do to me? He won’t tell me, but only says it will be the end of us; we have no future together. I get angry, ask him why we can’t have any future when the future hasn’t happened yet. Why does he have to do what he says he is going to do? He says it’s already too late, that things have been set in motion.
I want to go home. I get to my feet but they are unsteady, yet I power past him and out of the café. He shouts my name but a member of staff calls him back; he hasn’t paid for the coffees. I want to get out of Gladstone Park, I want to get out of Five Parks.
When I come out of the café, the park is emptying and the sky is pushing down the sun, choking it to death. I can hear the shouts of boys playing tennis, but I can’t see them. I run past the pond until I’m on the steepest slope in the park, the one leading to the residential streets of Dollis Hill and the Tube station. I have to get home before my head explodes. But my brain is no longer powering my body, and halfway down the last hill, the railway tracks in the distance beckoning me, my legs betray me. I can’t stay on my feet. It is too hard. My head goes fuzzy and darkness begins to take me. I am losing myself. I close my eyes for a second.
When I open them, I am on the ground, back among the long grass. The rumble of wheels on tracks reminds me where I am, but the train is shooting up into the sky, into the dying sun. I lie on my back and look at the world upside down. I roll over and the freight train returns to its proper horizontal position, but the rush of blood to my head has made me even more disorientated. I don’t think I can make it to the Tube. I don’t think I can stand up. A male voice rains down on me from somewhere above.
‘Suzanne, are you okay? Talk to me.’
It sounds like Aaron, but I thought I left him in the café. How could he have followed me into this other spinning world?
I don’t have any words anyway. I don’t know what to say. Five Parks is finished. I have to go home and write it up – perhaps I try to say that – I don’t know. My eyes close for another few seconds and my weight is borne by something other than the long reeds of grass. Something moving. I’m floating away into oblivion. Darkness all around me.
Until I wake up a second later to be dazzled by the inside light of a car. I am lying down in the back seat, my head too heavy to lift, my mouth too numb to speak. But I can still move my eyes. The last thing I see is Aaron, staring down at me, his face full of intent.
‘I’m sorry, Suzanne. I’m sorry for what I’m going to do to you.’
He slams the car door shut and the darkness eats me alive. I let out a scream, but I think it’s only inside my head. The last thing I hear is the sound of an engine startling into life. I just need to sleep to stop the dizziness. When I wake up again everything will be okay. My head is fuzzy. My face hurts. My elbow aches. I am in a bad way.
40
I wrote this. I don’t want to believe it but it’s true. The words are mine.
As he says, he has added flourishes here and there, but it is my story. I remember it now – just snatches – swaying in this very seat, barely able to focus on the laptop screen, yet somehow bashing out what happened on the keyboard. The first thing I wrote in here, forgotten as soon as I’d finished. And then I passed out again, just as I did in the back of Aaron’s car. The next thing I knew I was chained to the bed.
The tennis ball, the long grass, the shadowy figure, the train shooting into the sun – it was all in front of me the whole time, but I couldn’t put it together. My run-ins with Rob then Aaron ran into one.
I promised myself I wouldn’t shed any more tears in this room, and I don’t. Instead, I give in to rage and punch the laptop as hard as I can. It doesn’t hurt. I am past pain. I propel my knuckles into the computer again and again, trying to beat Five Parks to death. My cursed blog stares at me until the screen cracks, but Five Parks is still under there, still alive, still clinging on to me, sucking me down with it into hell. I will not type another word on this wretched broken thing.
My fists bring more noise outside the room. He has stopped shouting, but I can hear the hurried scrape of something heavy.
‘That’s me. I am coming for you.’
Come, you fucker. I am ready.
I stay in my chair at the desk, near the light of the battered laptop. When he comes in this time, I want to be able to see. I look down at my weapons. Both my fists have turned black, but the knuckles on my right hand are also stained in light red – there is blood on the screen too. I clear my head of dates and treasure hunts and poems and steel myself for what is coming. Close contact. This is my last chance. He is coming in here to kill me. But even if he succeeds, I want to make him regret that he even tried. I want him to taste just a sip of w
hat I’ve imbibed since I woke up in here. I want him to be scarred. If I am about to die, that can be my solace.
I can still hear him making noise outside the room. He is getting ready. The sounds might be smoke and mirrors – they’re so loud it’s clear he wants me to know what he’s doing, just like he scraped the chair along the carpet seconds after I first woke up in here. According to the time stamps on Five Parks, that was three days ago. I have lasted that long. There is still strength in me, born out of hate. I hate him. I hate what he has done to me. I hate what he’s made me. I want him to know I’m ready. As he thunders around on the outside of these four dark walls, I beat my own battle drum. I bang my fists into the table on both sides of the laptop, slow at first, like a spoilt child demanding its dinner, then I speed up as the rhythm takes me. Splinters stab me with each thump of the table, but they are just fuel for the fire now – maybe I can thrust one from my fist into his eye when he comes in here. For the first time, I embrace my surroundings. I know its dark corners better than he ever could. He put me in hell, yes, but he didn’t hang around to breathe in the flames. He doesn’t know pain like I do. This is my domain now, and I must use it to my advantage.
All this oozes through me while I bang my fists on the table, faster now, too fast, because I don’t notice that his own thumping has stopped. I don’t notice until I bring up my fists, but instead of slamming them back down into the wooden slab, the table rises to meet my hands, swift and merciless, ripping skin from the side of palms. There is no time to contemplate the desk’s attack, because I am teetering backwards, my feet in the air, my hands grasping at a table that isn’t where it’s supposed to be. A flash blinds me and I come down with such force that the plastic back of my chair snaps in two. I scramble on my scored hands and feet to the back of the room. It’s cloaked in darkness bar the glare from the laptop, but there was something else a second ago; a flash of, what, light? I don’t believe it until I see it again. This second time it isn’t a flash, but a slow reveal, a gradual opening on the floor, underneath the table. I know it is underneath the table because the table – along with the laptop – is levitating of its own accord, a horrific magic trick before the final deadly illusion. I cover my eyes with my bloody palms as the cell gives up its darkness and a new force beams into its corners. Through my fingers, I see a growing rectangle of light – much bigger than that created by the opening laptop lid – taking over the room. The table keeps arching upwards, attached to a trapdoor, a slot in the floor he has used as an entrance and an exit. And I was sitting on top of it, tapping away my meaningless words, for almost all of my time in here. The table was welded into the floor, I thought. It wouldn’t budge. I never realised it was stuck into a trapdoor too. My hell wasn’t below the Earth, but above it.
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