The Spiral

by Gideon Burrows

  Up into Giles’ back.

  She let out a final urgent scream; one of terror, determination, and hope as the blade connected. The sensation in her hands was sickening as she felt the screwdriver break through the skin. She could hear the cracking as the screwdriver blade scraped against one of Gile’s ribs. She almost retched as the bone splintered and the blade broke through and plunged into the mush behind. Organs, skin, blood.

  Giles let out a huge shriek, followed immediately by a gurgled cry which could only have been blood rising in his throat. He immediately released the pressure on Megan’s neck, and she gulped heavily for air.

  Giles let out a deep cough and Megan felt a sticky and warm liquid spatter her face and get into her mouth. She breathed in again, and the oxygen brought her back to full awareness.

  She wrenched her arms away from his back, leaving the screwdriver where it had found a home. Giles was moaning through bubbling, urgent breaths. She could feel blood soaking the sides of his shirt and sticking her blouse to her own skin.

  Her hands felt slick and tacky. At once, she pulled her elbows up, connected her palms to each of his shoulders, and pushed as hard as she could while twisting her body from beneath him. Her spine was in agony again and she scraped herself back up one step, then another, eventually getting high enough to pull her legs out from underneath him.

  With both her bare feet, she kicked out desperately in the dark. For a beat she listened and heard only a very low gurgle from Giles. She stood, listened for the gurgle again, and grabbing the rail, kicked hard in its direction.

  It connected with Giles somewhere, and she heard him tumble backwards down the steps. He cried out as each step damaged a different part of his body. Finally, she heard him come to rest.

  In the pitch dark, she listened, catching her breath and weeping. She felt for the step in front of her, got her balance, and then ran upwards. Three steps, five, ten, fifteen. She didn’t care that her toes stubbed and scraped painfully with every footfall. She didn’t notice that she was crying hysterically, screaming with every step.

  Megan kept running, though her thighs burned and the adrenaline in her blood stream leaked away, leaving only pain. It seemed to come from every part of her body: her feet, her legs, her lungs from screaming and desperate breathing, her back from where she knew her skin must be hanging in strips, her neck which felt burned and bruised. She had to keep going, pushing her body to the very limit.

  The screwdriver had connected, that was for sure. The blood was proof of that. And the gurgling. But that meant nothing. It could have just been a superficial wound, lots of blood, but not much impact. Or maybe he was down there now, already lifeless.

  Dead, thanks to her.

  In the darkness, Megan became aware that she had stopped running. She realised she’d been walking upwards for the last few moments. Now she stopped completely.

  Had she killed him? God, she hadn’t tried to kill him. She didn’t have a choice. It was all so fast, almost instinctive. She tried to calm her breathing and when that didn’t work, she held her breath, feeling her heart pulsating wildly in her chest. But there was no sound from below. She let out a breath, breathed in, and held it again. Still no movement, no breath, no gurgling.

  She’d killed him. The realisation took the wind out of her; she blew out air desperately and pointlessly looked around in panic in the dark.

  No, she wouldn’t go into a panic attack now.

  She refused.

  She was going to beat it. No more bin.

  She tried to concentrate on the pain in her body, pushing away the panic in her head. Ten minutes ago, Giles was fighting his own mental urges. Now she was fighting hers. She was a murderer. He was lying below in a pool of his own blood, seeping from the puncture she had torn into his back.

  Megan leaned over and pulled her body close to her legs, hugging them to her chest. She pushed her face into her knees and cried with both relief and grief for what she had done.

  36

  When he came for her it was all at once. It wasn’t a leg grasp like ten minutes before. Without a sound, Giles leapt and landed on Megan’s curled up body.

  That’s it, Giles, creep up on her. Finish what you started.

  Giles had tried to reach around his back to find where the screwdriver was still jammed in. But whichever hand he used, he couldn’t grasp it. She’s stabbed me. I’m going to die down here.

  Yeah, she’s stabbed you, that’s true. Ha ha, can’t win them all Giles. But you can still go out with a bang, mate.

  No! Giles stopped reaching behind him. He slowly climbed the staircase, led by her sobs. I’ll be dead in ten minutes, twenty at best. She’ll be left down here in this fucking pit. Alone, starving, scared. I need to… help.

  Give me a fucking break, Giles. Help! You’re in no position to help, old boy. Yeah, you could even say you’re ‘screwed’ with that tool in your back.

  No.

  Yeah, like you helped that whore last night. She took a bit of slapping around too, didn’t she, Giles? A bit of push and shove, to get what you needed.

  It’s over for all of us.

  It’s not over, Giles. This is us. Work hard, play hard. This is what we do.

  It’s not what I do. It’s not what I DO!

  Giles fell upon Megan and held her tight in his arms. Before she could fight him off, he pulled her on top of him and locked his hand over her mouth. He held tight, then rocked them both on the step, feeling the screwdriver embedded in his lower back, but without any pain.

  He cried as he drifted his other arm up towards her neck. She tried to pull his arm down, but she had no energy to even get a hold. He rocked and cried and pulled his arm tighter.

  “I’m sorry Megan,” he said between sobs. “I’m sorry Lisa.”

  Faintly he could hear her breath catching, trying to cry out but not having the energy to do it. Her neck was in the crook of his elbow now, and he took more leverage to pull his hand up towards his own shoulder, squeezing.

  There was no longer room for breathing. He kept on squeezing until long after she’d stopped trying to resist. Until long after her grip had released and her arms had fallen away.

  37

  As carefully as possible, Giles rolled Megan off his body and lowered her down on to the steps. He felt around for her arms, trying to manoeuvre her into a sleeping position. A peaceful one. With hands now drying with his own blood. He stroked her hair.

  From his pocket, he took out a small black canister. In the dark, he counted each one of the 12 pills. He pushed them into his mouth, used his own blood as lubrication to swallow them one by one.

  Then he wrapped his arms around his knees and pulled them close. He could still feel the pressure of the tool in his back and the taste the pills and the blood in his mouth. He stared into the pure blackness beyond, listening for the voices in his head to return.

  Nothing.

  “Nothing to say now, lads?” he shouted into the darkness, spitting out phlegm. “All quiet suddenly? Too much for you?”

  He listened for the voices.

  Nothing.

  He rocked on his step, in time with his shallow soft breathing, trying to comfort himself.

  He wanted to feel as he had when Lisa would hold him in bed. Back when they first got together. And for a moment he could feel her warmth. His eyes felt heavy, and he could no longer tell whether he’d closed them or not. He rocked slower and felt the welcome weight of a blackness.

  A blackness that was even deeper than the surrounding darkness.

  38

  “You okay, mate?”

  Giles looked up from where he was sitting. In front of him was a middle-aged man with a bald head. Giles stared at him.

  “Mate, you okay?”

  Giles looked around him. The lights were on and there was a buzz of movement in the air. Deep below him, further down the steps, he heard a whoosh and a braking noise, the muffled sound of an announcer. He looked up from where he was sittin
g and the man had an impatient but puzzled look on his face.

  “Yeah,” he said to the man. “I’m fine. Just, I, I don’t know, it’s fine.” Giles grabbed the bannister and pulled himself to standing. He concentrated on the sensations in his back, but there was nothing. In one hand there was a near-empty bottle of Lucozade.

  “Okay, as long as you’re sure,” the bald-headed guy carried on up the stairs.

  The lights. Giles looked up and saw the neat row of lit bulbs going down into the distance and around the spiral. He put one foot down onto the step below him and the ease with which he did it surprised him. There was no aching in his legs, and the dead feeling of hunger in his stomach had gone. He swallowed and felt dry, but not the coarse, dryness of absolute desperate thirst. There was a dull ache in his head and a low nausea in his stomach.

  Giles took more steps down, turning around the corner below, and saw a brighter rectangle of light open up before him. And through the rectangle, there were no more steps. The corridor stretched out flat into the distance. As he took his last step off the staircase and placed his foot onto the flat ground, he felt euphoria mixed with the dizzying unsteadiness of stepping off a rocking boat onto dry land.

  He’d forgotten to take his meds yet again. Last night, with another night out. And then again this morning. He felt in his pocket. He always kept a spare blister for just this scenario.

  Giles looked around and steadied himself against the wall. He saw a Tube train filled with strange faces. Around the corner, more commuters were climbing aboard the train. As they did, Giles walked, mesmerised, along the platform. He looked up at the blinking sign, indicating the train was headed for Morden. As the doors beeped, he noticed a young girl in a smart blouse and A-line skirt dip onto the train just as they were closing.

  He headed to the other end of the platform, where a blue Way Out sign pointed off to the right. There, a greying older man in a faded blazer reached the bottom of the staircase, followed by a man in grubby jeans who looked up at the next train indicator board. The carriage screeched as it exited the station. A large tourist, with a huge sized suitcase emerged from the staircase, took out a hankie, and wiped his head. He heaved out a sigh, then headed for the platform too.

  At the turn, Giles hesitated for a moment as he saw stairs leading up. But then he watched others going up and down the half-dozen steps, then carry on forward on the flat. He took the steps and allowed himself to be carried along with the crowd as it turned through corridors, eventually reaching the bottom of a long escalator. He hesitated again, then stepped onto the moving steps. He stood on the right, instead of his usual habit of following the keener commuters walking up on the left.

  At the top, he saw the exit of ticket barriers and instinctively reached into his pocket to find his pass. He heard an inspector call for tickets and passes. It was there with his wallet, as he would normally have expected it to be.

  He swiped and walked past a small shop and cash machines, then up another short flight of steps into the daylight. It wasn’t a sunny day. It was grey and there was a wetness in the air, as if rain had just come or was about to start.

  Giles took an enormous gulp, relishing the feeling of taking new air down into his lungs. There was no pain in his breath, no gurgling in his throat. The air tasted gritty and grey.

  It tasted like London.

  Giles sucked in more and more. Cars and busses and taxies queued at traffic lights, while other vehicles crept by in the other direction, cyclists swung among the vehicles and over crossings.

  Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people were walking this way and that, chatting or talking or striding ahead purposefully. Some were eating sandwiches from Sainsburys and Pret a Manger, a late breakfast grabbed on the way to work or a meeting. Over the road, two police officers were offering directions to a small group of Japanese tourists.

  Giles looked down and saw a pile of free Metro newspapers. A man in blue was handing them out to anyone who would take one. It was the late edition. On the cover a passport-sized photograph caught his eye. He lifted a paper off the pile and leant against a wall to read.

  The picture was of a young girl, plain but beautiful. It was only a minor story, a couple of column inches.

  Suicide: police appeal

  The City of London was brought to a standstill this morning, as emergency services dealt with a person on the line on the London Underground between Bank and St Paul’s Stations.

  A young woman named by police as Rachel Colly, 25, is thought to have stepped onto the tracks in the early hours of this morning. Police say her death is not being treated as suspicious. Her family have been informed.

  In a statement issued this morning, The Metropolitan Police have said they would like to trace Ms Colly’s movements in the 24 hours before the incident. They have appealed for anyone who may have seen or interacted with her during the previous day or night to come forward.

  The Northern Line and Central Line experienced severe delays this morning, and Underground staff say parts of the track may be closed until the end of the day.

  Giles stared into the marine-green eyes of the girl in the picture, nausea rising in his stomach. He breathed in the London air again and looked around him. Hundreds of people and dozens of cars. Everyone going about their normal lives. He could be one of them. He could walk away. Not even blink. Keep taking the meds.

  He looked over again at the Japanese tourists, who were giving their thanks to the police officers.

  Giles gripped his newspaper tightly as he waited for the lights to change.

  Thank you for reading The Spiral.

  I hope you have been entertained, perhaps challenged, and that you would like to read more of my writing.

  You can get a free book by signing up to my website, below.

  It would make a real difference to me if you were able to please leave a review of The Spiral on your social media, share your recommendation of it with your friends, and please write an honest review on your favourite review site.

  Please do it now, before you forget!

  Thank you again for reading.

  * * *

  Gideon Burrows

  www.gideon-burrows.com

  Who’s In Control? | Books 1 - 4

  * * *

  Four very different novels.

  One uniting theme.

  The most vital question in the modern world.

  Who Is Really In Control?

  Buy using this link and guarantee a better deal on these four e.books than you will get anywhere else.

  Buy from your favourite online bookstore

  Also by Gideon Burrows

  * * *

  "Pacy, thrilling, suspenseful and complex to keep your attention... this is a must-read for anyone who likes intelligently-written thrillers - political, techno, or otherwise." ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

  "The best of this genre I have read for a long time." ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

  "A thought-provoking thriller. I'm already casting the film version in my mind." ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

  * * *

  It's 2030. A world of driverless electric cars, touchless screens and social media that knows what you want before you do.

  When jaded journalist Curtis Soren meets the new powerful boss of the government's mysterious Ministry for Society, he uncovers a top-secret organisation that puts him and his colleagues in danger - and threatens the privacy and freedom of every citizen.

  In a struggle with his own haunted past and a present he doesn't understand, Soren is forced to take on Portico, the biggest social media organisation of all.

  It becomes a desperate battle to expose the truth in an online world of fake news, censorship and social users addicted to their screens.

  Lose yourself in this thrilling page turner which will challenge how you think about the future, and what you might need to sacrifice to get there.

  Buy from your favourite online bookstore

  Also by Gideon Burrows

  What is an
y parent’s greatest fear?

  In a beautiful way it explores the story of a family which is facing some very hard times and helps ask difficult questions about how we would react under similar circumstances. *****

  A brilliant book. Couldn’t put it down *****

  This book took my breath away. Absolutely couldn’t put it down. Beautifully written, it explores some hugely emotional issues with honesty and grace. *****

  Honest, heartbreaking and unputdownable *****

  * * *

  Loving parents. A brand new baby girl. They should have been an ideal young family.

  It doesn’t always turn out that way.

  Matt Carron is desperate not to lose his perfect wife, but he can’t hide his jealousy when his daughter is born.

  As Minnie becomes a toddler, he’s driven crazy by her tantrums. When she gets a jigsaw wrong. When she won’t listen or won’t eat.

  When he has to pin her to the ground so hard she bruises her arms.

  When Minnie becomes seriously ill, the family embarks on a desperate mission to understand the condition and its treatment.

  But the couple have very different ideas about what will work, driving a gap between them so severe it could mean life or death for their daughter.

  Can Matt finally comes to terms with the unbearable choice he’s been avoiding for twelve years?

  His daughter or his wife?

  * * *

  The Illustrator’s Daughter is a heart-wrenching novel about the deep challenges all of our relationships might face, living with the decisions we make, and choosing between unbearable futures.