Six Days, Six Hours, Six Minutes

by Alex Smith

  Adam was still an immature jerk—he lived on his own in a two-bedroom flat by the train station and looked after his fourteen-year-old son one weekend in four—but he had a good heart. He had a way of thinking about things, too, when he stopped messing around. He could make sense of stuff. If nothing else, he could tell Blake to stop worrying about nothing.

  He heard an engine behind him and turned to see the delivery truck cruise around the corner. The rain turned to liquid gold in the light from its headlamps. It stopped, sitting there in the middle of the street. Blake ignored it, but all the same he felt something tighten in his chest. He surveyed the pavement, the trees thirty feet apart, a scattering of cars on the side of the road. The houses were all blind and deaf, windows shut, curtains drawn.

  Stop panicking, it’s a truck.

  But what if it isn’t? What if it’s him? What if he heard me talking?

  He glanced back again, the truck still there. Shouldn’t somebody be getting out? Wasn’t that what delivery drivers did? Deliver stuff?

  “Come on, mate,” he said to Doof. “It’s wet, let’s get a wiggle on.”

  The end of the street was fifty feet away, maybe, and past that the main road. There was more traffic up there. Plenty of witnesses, said his brain. And even though he hated himself for it he sped up, his trainers kicking up waves of leaves and mud.

  The van was accelerating too, the engine grumbling. Then it roared, gunning up the street.

  Fuck.

  Ten miles an hour, fifteen, twenty, devouring the distance between them. Blake was midway between two trees, no cars here to act as a barrier.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  He couldn’t see anything behind the windscreen, the lights were too bright, dazzling him. Were they on full beam? He turned, breaking into a run. Doof was running too, the dog’s tail beating like he thought it was a game. Blake wanted to bend down and pick him up but the van was right behind them now. It was going to hit them. It was going to fucking hit them.

  It blasted past, roaring towards the end of the street, spraying him with puddle water.

  Just a truck, just a truck.

  Blake slowed to a walk, wondering what the neighbours would think if he emptied his guts all over the pavement.

  The truck screeched to a halt up ahead, bumping onto the kerb, just sitting there, the engine idling once again. Blake crouched down, scratching Doof’s back while the little dog snuffled in the dirt like a truffling pig, oblivious to it all. His pulse was drumming in his ears, the taste of the adrenaline like an iron file lodged down the back of his throat. He swallowed it down, making his way along the street. Nobody had left the truck, yet, its rear lights turning the rain to flecks of lava, its engine still the loudest thing in the world.

  He thought again about turning around and heading back to the house. But he really wanted to swing by the bakery and grab some coffee and something for breakfast, a pain au chocolat for Julia. Chewing his bottom lip, he gave Doof’s leash a tug and they marched up the pavement towards the van. Up close he saw that it was an old one, the paintwork rusted, just a ghost of the UPS logo remaining.

  It didn’t have a license plate.

  He was almost level with the back of it when the engine growled, gears crunching—and suddenly it was reversing, lurching over the kerb, looming up over him so fast and so hard it could have been a giant spider bursting from its trapdoor. Blake could only stand there, waiting for the impact, waiting to be plastered over the back of the truck, pinned between it and the wall.

  It braked hard, rocking, close enough to touch. Doof’s reactions had thankfully been quicker than Blake’s, the little dog cowering by the garden wall behind them. The truck sat there for a handful of seconds, then pulled onto the road, pointing back the way it had come, just sitting there again.

  Say something, Blake’s brain said. He nearly ran you over.

  But it had just been an accident, no harm done. He turned to go, then heard the sound of a window being opened. A man stared down at him, a young man—he couldn’t have been older than twenty. He was wearing a red cap over his dark hair, turned backwards. He rested an elbow on the open window, studying Blake and then Doof and then Blake again.

  “Sorry man,” he said. He didn’t look sorry, a smirk playing on the corner of his lips. His face was bruised. Bruised or maybe dirty, it was difficult to tell in the half-light of the cab. “Didn’t see you there. You okay?”

  Blake nodded, reining in Doof’s lead so the dog was right by his feet.

  “Yeah,” he said, and he wanted to add, you should be careful, driving that thing like an idiot, there are kids around here, but didn’t. The boy’s smirk grew wider, his eyes not leaving Blake’s, holding them until Blake had to turn away and pretend to check on the dog. He could feel them on him, though, and they were making his skin itch. He counted the seconds—five, six, seven, eight—and glanced up to see the guy still staring at him. “Can I help you with something?” he said.

  “Myrtle Avenue,” was the reply.

  “Huh?”

  “Myrtle Avenue, you know where it is?” The boy looked away, picking up his phone from inside the truck. He sniffed hard. “Satnav doesn’t know its cock from its useless ballsack.”

  Was it Blake’s imagination, or did the guy’s smile seem to widen when he said that?

  “Myrtle Avenue,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair, looking down the road, wracking his brains. “Yeah, I think it’s back that way. Right at the junction, head into town for a bit, it’ll be on your right.”

  “Cool,” said the guy, retreating into the cab. He shifted the truck into gear, seemed like he was on his way, then turned back. “And you should be careful.”

  “What?” Blake said.

  “You should be careful, you should think about what you’re doing. One wrong step and that might have been the end of you.” The guy grinned, his teeth the brightest thing in sight. He reached up and pulled off his cap, running his fingers through his greasy hair. “Just think very carefully about where you step, and what might happen.”

  He put his cap back on his head, the right way round this time, the Arsenal logo faded and dirty. Then he saluted to Blake and floored it, the truck roaring and rattling up the street, leaving behind a cloud of exhaust fumes and something else, something worse, something that seemed to have bled from the cab.

  That same unbearable stench of unwashed flesh.

  Thirteen

  “What do I do if somebody threatens to kill me?”

  Blake whispered the words as he typed them, making sure Julia was still out of the living room. He was sitting on the sofa, his feet up, the family’s ancient Macbook resting on his bare thighs and almost hot enough to hurt. The TV was on, Connor’s eyeballs practically glued to it. Back when the kid was born, Blake and Julia had agreed a strict no TV rule, but it hadn’t taken long to declare Saturdays an exception, then Sundays, and evenings too. It was just good to have some time where he wasn’t yelling or screaming or burbling or lying on you, and the TV was a cheap and tireless babysitter. Connor stood there, his chubby hands gripping the TV table, utterly rapt. Blake was convinced that if they didn’t turn it off then he would keep standing there, unblinking, until he collapsed of hunger and thirst.

  He pressed Enter and Google did its thing. Blake scanned the list of web pages—mainly from official police sites and domestic abuse charities. He clicked on the Yahoo Answers link, almost laughing as he read some schoolgirl’s claim that one of her friends had threatened to “fuck me up till I’s dead”. The answers were all the same: call the cops, tell your principal, tell your parents, tell anyone. All except one, which said, “Kill that fuckn bitch B4 she bones you.”

  Great advice, he thought. He clicked back, scrolling through the pages and finding absolutely nothing that could help him. He tapped his fingers on the keyboard, then typed “Home Invasion”.

  “In the United Kingdom,” he muttered to himself as he read from Wikipedia, “a home invasion
is an illegal and usually forceful entry to an occupied, private dwelling with violent intent to commit a crime against the occupants, such as robbery, assault, rape, murder, or kidnapping.”

  Which was exactly what had happened, right? Although, to be fair, the guy hadn’t exactly been forceful when he’d entered, he’d just pushed his way past Blake. And had he technically done any of those things? Such as robbery, assault, rape, murder, kidnapping, or making a guy piss his pants. What would happen if he decided to go to the police now? There was no evidence any crime had been committed—unless he fished his underwear out of the bin, and that wasn’t exactly watertight, no pun intended. In fact, there was no evidence the devil man even existed.

  On TV, the ads rolled, and Connor started to moan, looking over his shoulder like the world had ended.

  “There’s another one in a minute, mate,” Blake told him. The kid’s cries escalated, then the next episode began and he snapped his head back so hard he almost toppled over.

  Blake popped his lips, moving the laptop up his legs so it wouldn’t scald him. Then he typed in ‘circle with triangle inside, tattoo’. He clicked on the Images tab to be confronted by dozens of tattoos with triangles and circles of various kinds. He scrolled down the page, the sight of them making him feel queasy. But nothing here matched the carving on his door or the image on the man’s wrist. He adjusted the search again, ‘circle tattoo, crazy motherfucker’, but all that came back were some links to random Facebook pages and an interview with some grunge band.

  “If you’re looking for porn, you’re looking in the wrong place,” Julia said behind him. He flinched, automatically reaching for the laptop lid.

  “Huh?” he replied as she walked to Connor, picking him up and sitting him down a few feet back.

  “Not too close, sweetie, your eyes will fall out,” she said. Then, to Blake, “You’ve got the private browsing on, I thought that was just for the naughty stuff.”

  He had turned it on, just in case Julia had checked his browser history later and started asking questions. Not that she needs to check it, his brain said, when you’re sitting there right in front of her letting her see everything you type. He quit out of Chrome and loaded it up again, clicking onto Facebook to check his notifications. Not that there ever were any.

  “Not porn,” he said. “I allow myself five hours of sheep orgies a day and I’ve already reached my limit this morning.”

  “That’s good to know,” she said, squeezing onto the end of the sofa and practically sitting on his feet. “A tattoo?”

  Dammit.

  “Yeah, was thinking about it,” he said. “A massive tattoo of my face, on my face. So I’m doubly beautiful.”

  “I don’t think I’d be able to keep my hands off you,” she said. “You should just get tattoos of your face all over you, like a hundred of them. You could be in the Guinness Book of Records. The world’s biggest dickhead.”

  “Ha ha,” he said. He pointed to her chest. “I think you should get one of my face, right there, so if you ever get another boyfriend he has to look at me looking at him while you have sex.”

  She laughed, and it was the best sound he had ever heard.

  “You’re such a douche,” she said, slapping his legs. “You should be careful with that laptop, you don’t want to crispy fry your testicle, we might need him soon.”

  “I’m afraid he devotes all his energies to sheep orgies,” Blake said. “It’s not his fault, there’s only one of him and he just can’t cope with the demand.”

  “I hate to break it to you, Blake, but you can’t impregnate a sheep.”

  He let his mouth drop.

  “What? Seriously? That’s… I mean I just thought if we tried enough times… Are you sure?”

  “I’m a doctor, I’m sure.”

  They laughed together. She ran a hand up his leg, tickling the patch of red skin on his thigh beneath the laptop.

  “I’ve been thinking about it. Maybe this is something we need to do sooner rather than later.”

  “Yeah?” he said, and this time his heart was fluttering for a different reason. Just the thought of it made him stand to attention.

  “Well, not this soon,” she said. “I don’t think my body is even ready. But maybe not as long as I first thought.”

  “After lunch?”

  “Like, maybe in six months,” she said. “It will give me time to secure my career, make them realise how much they’ll miss me.”

  “Six months,” Blake said, nodding.

  “Six months,” she smiled again. “But if it happens before then, it happens.”

  She squeezed his leg and pushed herself off the sofa.

  “Right then, grotters, breakfast.”

  She left the room and Blake rested his head on the arm of the sofa. Six months, maybe sooner. That was fine by him.

  Six months. And then it hit him, like a sledgehammer to the solar plexus. He opened the laptop, shuddering despite the fact the heating was on full blast, and typed another search into Google.

  ‘Five days left to live.’

  Fourteen

  For the first time in days, the rain had broken. The sky was still grey but it was smoke not concrete, high overhead. Blake stepped out of the door and breathed in a lungful of clean, fresh, beautiful air. The world is big, he told himself. There is an infinite supply of oxygen. And the weight on his shoulders seemed to lighten. He stretched, pushing his hands against the rim of the door and hearing his back crick.

  “So, we’ve got today to do something fun,” said Julia behind him. She tapped the pocket of her spotty Joules raincoat to make sure her keys were there. “A whole day of nothing at all, a day of limitless possibilities. And you want to spend it at Homebase?”

  Blake had been avoiding it, but he glanced down at the scar in the front door. Just the sight of it made the walls crash back down, made his body sag like he was carrying a yoke. He slapped his arms to his sides, moving out of the way as his wife bent down and examined it. She traced a delicate finger around the edge and it took all he had to stop himself from screaming at her to stop—as if the scar was a mouth that would suddenly open, splintered teeth clamping down. Or worse, a long, pink tongue sliding out, licking its way up her arm.

  He rubbed a hand over his stubbled face, no idea where that image had come from.

  “Just don’t think it makes a very good impression,” he said. “The neighbours and all.”

  And he hated it being there, hated the fact that this symbol had been cut into his home. He couldn’t help but think of it as some beacon, a secret message to whoever might pass by, inviting them inside. This man is weak, this man will roll over and piss his pants, this man will give in to whatever you need.

  Well, the hell with them, this man was going to buy some Polyfilla and some paint and was going to erase every last trace of it.

  Then all of this will go away, everything will be absolutely fine.

  “Yeah, the neighbours are going to be so offended,” Julia said, straightening. “You’re right, though, it is weird. Why would somebody take the time to do it? Nothing else has happened? You haven’t seen that guy again?”

  “No,” he said, and it wasn’t technically a lie because he hadn’t seen the man from his office again. All the same, he looked away when he said it, staring up the garden path, past the bushes drenched in last night’s rain, past the crooked, browning, hunched bodies of the apple trees, to the street beyond. “No, just this. Kids probably, maybe those skaters up the road.” He felt guilty for blaming them. “I don’t know. It could be anything.”

  “Well, if you’re sure this is how you want to spend your day off, then let’s do it.”

  “You’re always moaning at me that I never get stuff done around the house,” he said, ducking back into the living room and scooping Connor from the floor. “You haven’t put the shower curtain back up, Blake, you haven’t taken out the bin, Blake, you haven’t…” He wracked his brains and Julia folded her arms over her
chest and raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to finish. “Well, loads of stuff that I can’t quite remember. And when I do finally show some hint of decisive action, I get shot down!”

  “Oh Blake,” she said. “Get over yourself.”

  He started to protest and she placed a finger over his lips. Connor thought it was hilarious, smudging his tiny hand against Blake’s mouth.

  “That’s it,” said Julia. “Tell your dad to quit moaning. Your car or mine?”

  “Yours,” said Blake.

  “Yours it is,” she replied, grabbing his keys from the hook by the telephone and pushing past him. He shifted Connor to his other arm and stepped out after her, pulling the door shut, half wondering whether he should go back in to double-check that the windows were locked. He fought the urge, compensating for it by testing the front door three times, but it still gnawed at him as he navigated the slippery path. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, the desire—no, it was more than that, it was a need—to run back, to know for sure that he’d secured the house. It was ridiculous because he knew he’d already done it, he knew every single window was closed.

  But what if you forgot one? What if your memory is telling you lies? What if Connor accidentally opened the latch while you weren’t looking?

  Shut up, he told his brain. Everything is fine.

  Connor did his usual one-baby opera as Blake loaded him into the car seat, his screams just about taking the roof off. Blake managed to fasten the clip, and he closed the door and stood there for a moment to collect himself before clambering into the driver’s side.

  “You really want another one of those?” Julia asked as he started the engine. He laughed, turning the radio up loud, Connor’s cries like a physical blow to his eardrums.