Six Days, Six Hours, Six Minutes

by Alex Smith

  He watched her pick up her coat and umbrella in the hallway. She flashed him one more smile as she jerked open the stubborn front door, closing it behind her. He studied the vague shape of her in the patterned glass shrinking into pieces before vanishing altogether, and he had to fight the urge to go after her, to collect those broken scraps and put them back together before they were picked up by the wind and lost.

  He slid off the stool, clutching his son to his chest as he loaded another bagel into the toaster. He wasn’t exactly hungry, but he had to eat something before going to work.

  Work. His stomach shrank to the size of a thimble when he thought of it. What if that man was in his office again? Was if this time he came with a knife? What if he was so lost in his psychosis that he thought Blake was somebody else? Maybe he should call in sick today, blame Connor, say the kid was throwing up all night. Better that, right, than getting stuck like a pig in your office?

  Then what, Blake? How far do you push them before they throw your arse out of the building and tell you never to come back?

  And they needed the money, especially if they were seriously going to think about having another kid. It wasn’t like this one had been cheap. What did they say? That each kid cost you something like a quarter of a million pounds to raise to eighteen?

  “Maybe we should send you out to work, yeah?” he said, Connor squinting at him. “Chimney sweep or something.”

  He tried to smile but he still couldn’t shake the sickness that was balled inside his stomach—part wine, part anxiety. He closed his eyes and saw the young man’s face, almost sick with panic. He couldn’t risk it, couldn’t risk something happening to—

  The toaster popped and Blake flinched, his heart firing like a rifle. The bagel wasn’t done so he pushed it back down. Connor’s face had dropped, the kid on the verge of tears, and Blake hugged him close, saying, “Sorry mate, your dad’s just a Nervous Nellie, there’s nothing to be scared of.”

  And he half believed it, too.

  Until the doorbell rang.

  Eight

  Blake didn’t move, he stood by the toaster and listened to the artificial voice start its rendition of the Mexican Hat Dance. Doof was up straightaway, barking that pathetic, throaty bark of his, his claws chittering on the wood. He glanced up at Blake, those big, dark eyes saying, What are you doing? Answer the door! Answer the door!

  He didn’t want to answer it, though.

  “—the Russians they dance on a sabre, but the Mexicans dance—”

  Because all he could think about was the man from his office. Maybe he’d found Blake’s address, too, dug around in his drawers until he got hold of a loose bill or invoice. He could be out there right now, naked and crazy, eyes full of deranged glee, those dirty fingers clenched around the handle of a butcher’s cleaver.

  “—on fresh butta, which they squeeze from one cow or anutta—”

  Maybe he should ignore it, just wait for whoever it was to up and leave. Except Connor was struggling in his arms, the kid letting out a squeal that could have been heard across the street. Doof was barking louder now, but he wasn’t attacking the door the way he normally did when there was somebody outside. He was prancing from side to side like there was a glass wall in the way, gobs of saliva dripping to the floor.

  “—the Mexicans dance on their hats. Ole!”

  The doorbell fell quiet. Doof fell quiet, just snuffling. Even Connor paused, cocking his head like he could hear something that nobody else could. All Blake could hear was his heart thud-thud-thudding too hard behind his ribs, a weak, wet pulse in his ears. He breathed once, twice, keeping them shallow and quiet.

  “It’s okay, kiddo,” he whispered. “Just somebody selling windows or something. We haven’t got time.”

  Another breath, and another. The crunch of a foot on the porch. Were they leaving? Blake waited, counting the seconds as his stomach started to loosen. Christ, he needed a piss. Maybe it had been one of the neighbours. Maybe they’d seen Julia drop something. Maybe a letter had been delivered to the wrong house. It was cool, they’d come back.

  “We’d better get ready for—”

  He heard it this time, that static click and the soft electrical hum that always came a split second before the song.

  “Oh Americans dance on the dancefloor, and the Spaniards they—”

  He felt his bollock crawl right up into his pelvis, his stomach twisting itself in painful knots. Now that he was aware of it, his bladder was like a football, full enough to split. Doof was barking again, Connor squirming and wailing.

  “—Russians they dance on a sabre, but the Mexicans dance on—”

  “Fine, fine,” he said, taking a couple of steps towards the door before stalling again. If it was the guy from his office then he didn’t want to be holding his baby, right? Or maybe he did. Maybe the guy wouldn’t stab him if he had a child in his arms.

  Get a hold of yourself, Blake, nobody is getting stabbed.

  “—they dance on hot coals in Calcutta, In Wisconsin—”

  He doubled back, trying to slide Connor into his highchair, the kid planking like a motherfucker but eventually dropping in. His cries were shrill enough to shatter glass, and whoever outside would know for sure that there was somebody here—either that or they’d call social services and report a baby left alone.

  “—squeeze from one cow or anutta, but the Mexicans—”

  “Just hang on, kiddo, I’ll be right back.”

  Blake walked across the kitchen, attempting to pull his dressing gown tight around him before he remembered he wasn’t wearing one—just his boxer shorts.

  “—Ole!”

  He reached the end of the kitchen and peered into the hallway. It was dark, the light almost entirely blocked by a silhouette set in the frosted glass of the front door. It was motionless, and it could have been the night itself out there, he thought, drenched in darkness. Doof had scampered back towards the kitchen, tail between his legs like the coward he was.

  Blake froze, unsure. Then the silhouette moved, looming in even though it surely couldn’t have grown any larger, big enough to blot out all but a narrow outline of sunlight, close enough for him to make out broad shoulders, a baseball cap, a hand held up to the glass as whoever it was attempted to stare inside. Blake hated that door. When you were standing on the front step the glass acted like a fly’s compound eyes, taking every movement from inside and duplicating it a hundredfold.

  A shiver ran through him. It felt too dark, too cold, in the shade from the man at the door. The only positive thought running through his mind was that the silhouette was too big to be the guy from his office. He had been young, and skinny. Whoever this was, he was built like a wall.

  Suddenly he was thinking about something else, something the man from yesterday had said.

  He’s the devil.

  You can’t get rid of him, not when he chooses you.

  And the goosebumps bubbled up on his skin so hard it hurt.

  Just go away, he silently ordered. He didn’t move, didn’t want to give himself away. He had no idea why, either. He felt like a small thing cowering beneath moss and leaves as a shadow burned across the sky. His bladder was throbbing, aching. Doof whined from the kitchen, pacing back and forth. Go away, Blake thought. There’s nothing to see here.

  The man outside sniffed, a quiet sound that somehow seemed deafening in the small hall, as if there was no door there at all.

  “I see you,” said a voice. It carried an accent that Blake couldn’t place, one that made the words seem to hang too long in the air. He felt his cheeks burn, found himself trying to make excuses already, sorry, didn’t realise you were standing out there; I was busy trying to catch the dog; I’m deaf. The man’s hand reached for the doorbell and Blake shook free of his paralysis. Whoever was out there, they couldn’t be worse than another verse of that bloody song.

  Right?

  “Hang on, hang on,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

 
He blew out a sigh as he walked to the door and flicked the Yale. He checked his shorts to make sure nothing was peeking out, then he grabbed the handle and pulled it open. He had to take a step back almost immediately because the man outside was close, way too close, like he’d been standing with his face right against the glass. He didn’t make an effort to move away, either, he just stood there. He was tall, maybe six-four, and stooped, like his height made him uncomfortable. He could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty, his face blunt and unfriendly, his dark hair hanging in lank curls beneath the peak of a faded red Arsenal cap. He wiped the back of one big hand over his mouth and leaned in through the door, his wrecking ball of a head sweeping from side to side. His eyes were small and pale and wet, and they seemed to drink in everything they landed on.

  Then he looked right at Blake.

  “Blake Barton,” the man said—a statement rather than a question, popping the B’s of his name like he’d never used the letter before. Blake coughed, one hand on the door like he might be able to bar it. Something right at the heart of him was screaming for him to slam it shut and lock it tight.

  He’s the devil.

  He didn’t, though. He just nodded.

  “Um, yeah,” he said. “How can I—?”

  The man stepped over the threshold, planting a dirty boot on the mat. He grabbed the frame, hauling himself inside like somebody pulling himself onto a boat, his spine straightening, his body unfurling, seeming to take up the entire hall—six-five now, six-six, maybe even taller. He entered the house as if Blake wasn’t even there. He didn’t barge past, just pushed the solid bulk of his upper body against Blake’s naked chest until he let go of the door, let him through. Blake’s heart seemed suddenly empty, his body bloodless. His bladder was unbearably close to rupturing. He staggered back before he even knew it was happening, a husk blown by a dark wind, crunching into the sideboard.

  “Hey,” Blake managed, almost choking on the word. He tried again, shouting over Doof’s frenzied, whining barks from the kitchen. “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  The man didn’t reply as he walked through the hall into the living room. His gait was long and clumsy and loud, his boots leaving clumps of mud on the tiles and carpet. He was wearing a huge coat, something that a tramp might have coveted, its ragged tails sweeping after him like a cloak. He ducked beneath the sill of the door, Blake’s home suddenly a doll’s house, shrinking around him. He heard the squeal of the sofa springs as the man sat down.

  What the fuck?

  He looked at Doof, the little dog’s head cocked out of the kitchen door, the whites of his eyes the brightest thing in sight. He whimpered, lying almost prostate the way he did when he met bigger dogs in the park. The way he did when he knew there was something dangerous nearby. Blake felt like whimpering too. There was someone in his house. Someone inside his fucking house.

  He’s a devil.

  You can’t get rid of him, not when he chooses you.

  He coughed, took a step towards the living room, stopped, wondered if he should be calling the police. People didn’t just walk into stranger’s houses, did they? What if this guy was a serial killer?

  Blake, said his brain with fraying patience. Just get in there and tell him to leave.

  He nodded to himself, taking a breath and stepping into the lounge. It smelled bad in here, the stench of unwashed flesh and damp clothes. It was the same smell as the guy in his office yesterday, like the air had been polluted. If he closed his eyes they might have been one and the same, but when he looked at the man on his sofa the two intruders couldn’t have been more different. The guy in his office had been fidgety and full of terror, an animal that has found itself in a strange and dangerous place.

  This man, though. He sat there like he owned the house, lounging back casually, one arm resting along the back of the sofa, his legs open too wide. He was wearing jeans, so slick with dirt and grease that they were more black than blue. The sofa wasn’t exactly a small piece of furniture—big enough for Blake and Julia and the kid and the dog to share—but he dwarfed it, he made it look like something from a child’s room. His filthy clothes rested on the fabric and Blake’s only thought was we’re going to have to burn it.

  The man’s dead, grey eyes swallowed the room wall by wall, a sliver of tongue worming out of his pale lips as if tasting the air like a snake would. Blake hovered by the door, feeling like a child himself, feeling the shakes starting in his legs, in his fingers, feeling like he could cry.

  Please just go away, he thought, and thought again, over and over, so loud in his head that it almost drowned out Doof’s barks from the kitchen, Connor’s growing distress. Blake looked back into the hall, wondering if he should get the kid, keep him quiet, or shut the door, or put on some trousers, or just fucking piss before he did it all over the floor. He didn’t do any of those things. He stood there, his heart thrumming like a plucked wire, his stomach churning. He stood there, frozen to the living room floor, staring into the hall, staring at the front door like he could psychically eject the guy out of it. He stood there until the man spoke.

  “Blake.”

  He didn’t want to look, but what choice did he have? Screw his eyes shut and pretend it wasn’t happening?

  “Blake, look at me.”

  He did as he was told, turning back to the man. He was still sitting on the sofa but he seemed closer now, the house compacting like it was in a car crusher. The sensation was so vertiginous that Blake reeled, grappling for the door to stop himself toppling. The man smiled, and the teeth set into that dirty, stubbled, grease-slick face were perfect and white and small.

  “Look,” Blake managed, his windpipe made of dust and sand. “I don’t have any money. I don’t have anything. Just take—”

  “You have a wife,” the man said. “You have a son.”

  You can’t have them, Blake thought, and the man’s smile grew so wide it might have slid right off his face. He sniffed the air, his nostrils flaring.

  “I don’t want them,” he said. “Sit down. You and I are going to talk.”

  “I can’t,” Blake said, and that urge to cry was making his eyes burn. It was fear, yes, but there was something else there too. Shame. What would Julia say if she saw him like this? Cowering in the corner in his own fucking house.

  The thought of it seemed to put the bones back in his legs and he forced himself to stand straight, to open his mouth. And the words—you can’t do this, get the fuck out of my house before I call the police, before I rip your fucking head off—were halfway up his throat before the man got to his feet and moved. Moved fast. One second he was sitting down and the next he was a giant who filled the entire room, a flood of darkness and stench who dwarfed him, who grabbed his arm with an iron fist and pulled Blake after him like a parent leading a scolded child.

  He pushed Blake down onto the sofa, hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. A spurt of piss escaped him and he clamped down on it, grunting in pain. He wanted to get up but the man was a storm cloud over his head, the folds of his coat blocking out all the light. From down here it looked as if his baseball cap was scratching the ceiling, his big, wet mouth hanging open, sucking in all the oxygen. Blake hitched in a breath, drowning in panic. He tried to stand but the man put a hand on his head and pressed him back, pressed hard, like he was trying to crush his whole body into the ground.

  “We do this one of two ways,” the man said. “The first is that you do not listen to me. You struggle. You fight. Do you know what that will lead to?”

  Blake rooted his hands on the sofa, trying to push himself up, but he may as well have had six feet of dirt on top of him. The man was freakishly strong, his fingers gouging into Blake’s skull as if they meant to twist it open. Because of the angle he was sitting he couldn’t get purchase, couldn’t do a damn thing. Past the stench of filth he could smell something else, too. Something burning. Connor screamed. Doof’s barks were there too, soft and pathetic. Why the fuck h
adn’t they got a Doberman?

  “Let go!” he yelled, the man pushing harder, pushing his head down into his chest so that his words were gargled. He felt a pressure in the top of his spine and knew that if the man chose to he could press down with all his weight and snap Blake’s neck like a piece of kindling. “Please. Please.”

  “Relax, Blake.”

  “Okay, okay,” he managed to say, forcing himself to stop squirming.

  The weight on his head lifted and he clawed in air, his fingers kneading the fabric of the sofa so hard they hurt. The pressure in his bladder had gone and he looked down to see the stain spreading over his shorts, a warm current soaking into the cushions beneath him. It was too much, and this time he did start to cry, his tears impossibly hot. He grit his teeth, looked up up up at the man’s head, so far above him. He was standing so close that his crotch was almost in Blake’s face, the stench worse than ever.

  “Please,” he said again. “My son, he’s… Please don’t hurt him.”

  Connor was screaming now, the gasping, choking, desperate shrieks that meant something was seriously wrong. That smell was stronger, too. Something burning. What if there was somebody else in the house, in the kitchen with his son?

  It’s the other guy, the blond one. He’s in there now and he’s taking Connor, he’s hurting him, he’s burning him.

  Blake tried to get up again, but there was nothing left in him, his body torn from strips of newspaper. He felt as if his neck had actually been snapped, and his sobs ripped their way out of his throat. He lowered his eyes. Just a kid sitting there in his piss-soaked pants.

  “That’s better,” said the man. “Look at me, Blake.”

  Blake shook his head, keeping his eyes on his knees. The man lowered his hand and that smell wafted over him, something old and terrible. He choked, felt for a second that he might vomit. He glanced at the man’s arm and saw something on his wrist, peeking out from beneath the ragged cuff of his coat. It was a tattoo in faded blue ink. A triangle and those weird ovals inside a larger circle—the same thing that had been carved into his door. Then the arm moved and a long, sharp fingernail hooked Blake under the chin, pulling his head up. The man’s eyes were as big as moons, his mouth carved open into a pumpkin’s grin.