Six Days, Six Hours, Six Minutes

by Alex Smith

  “How did you know it was me?” asked Blake, hunched forward in his seat, his arms folded over his chest.

  “Because we know everything,” said the woman, holding his eye. “And we have CCTV. We used it to see where you went, then which car was yours. Why did you run?”

  Because I can’t be seen with the police, because just by being here you’re endangering our lives.

  “I remembered that my wallet wasn’t stolen,” he said. “I made a mistake.”

  “Yeah?” said the man.

  “Look, I’m sorry to waste your time, but it was an honest mistake. I was in Pret, I ordered a coffee, that guy was there. I walked past him and then my wallet was gone, and I just assumed he had it.”

  It sounded plausible, and Blake swallowed hard before continuing.

  “I confronted him and he ran, which is why I thought he was guilty. I chased him into a stockroom, behind a shop, and lost him.”

  A thought suddenly occurred to him.

  “Wait, did you find him?”

  “The guy you were chasing?” said PC Faruqi. “Nope, he must have got out while you were being restrained. You’re telling us he didn’t take your wallet?”

  “No,” said Blake, shaking his head.

  “You’re sure about that?” he pressed.

  “His wallet’s right there, in the hall,” said Julia, holding a squirming Connor with one hand and pointing with the other. “Go check.”

  The police officers shared a look and the man replaced the pad in his chest pocket. He popped his hat back on his head, shifting it gently until it was in place.

  “Well, we just wanted to check,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Blake said. “Sorry I didn’t wait. I just realised I’d made a mistake, didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.”

  “This is wasting police time,” the man said, emphasizing the first word with a pointed finger. He turned to Julia and touched his hat in a salute. “Sorry to interrupt your Sunday, folks.”

  He turned and walked away. The woman studied Blake for a moment more.

  “You sure there’s nothing you want to say,” she said, reading something from his expression. “We’re here if you need us. Always.”

  “I’m fine,” Blake barked.

  PC Savage lifted her arms in surrender, then followed her colleague. Julia hopped up after them, escorting them from the room. They didn’t spare Blake a single backwards glance but he still sat tight, his fingers clenching the fabric of his robe. He heard Julia speaking softly, knew she’d be telling them about his illness, about the fact it had been making him act weird. Then the door closed and he spluttered out a breath.

  “Blake, why didn’t you—?”

  He ignored her, running to the living room window. The cops were idling up the path, the woman casting a look back and taking in the house, the garden, meeting Blake’s eye again for a fraction of a second as she walked through the gate. He looked left and right but the apple trees were too thick, concealing too much, so he jogged through the hall and up the stairs.

  “Blake!”

  He almost tripped on the rug as he entered their bedroom, trying to see through the net curtain. Everything was blurry so he pulled it away, scouring the street below. Still no brown truck, still no sign of the devil man. The police car was just sitting there, lighting up the whole street. Go, go, please go, Blake screamed inside his head.

  Two men appeared from the right, walking on the other side of the road. Young guys, in their late teens or maybe early twenties. They were staring at the cruiser. Blake squinted, trying to identify them. He couldn’t make out their faces but one was definitely wearing a cap—blue, though, not red. They didn’t stop, just kept walking, hunkered down against the rain. Someone was walking the other way too, a woman pushing a buggy, a rain cover concealing the child inside. And there, a house down the street, a twitching curtain. What if the man had got inside, what if he was squatting there, watching everything that Blake did?

  “Blake?”

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and he almost leapt through the window. He turned to see Julia right behind him. She was looking at him like she didn’t know him, and she said his name again as if she was trying to reassure herself that he was who he appeared to be.

  “Sorry,” he said. She took his hands and he made himself look at her, rather than turn back. But it was like he was a puppet, and within a second or two he had craned his neck around, watching the police car as it came to life and purred away.

  “You want to tell me what that was all about?” she asked, bringing him back.

  He did, more than anything. He wanted to tell her the whole story about the devil man, about the threats. It didn’t matter now, did it? The police had been here, the man would assume he’d called them. Maybe now was the best time to tell her the truth.

  “It’s…”

  It caught in his throat like a fishbone. Why couldn’t he do it?

  Just tell her. Maybe that way she’d be able to help him deal with it. Maybe she’d just deal with it herself. She was the surgeon, after all, the problem solver, the lifesaver. What was he? He felt it bubble up his throat, felt it burn through him, ready to erupt.

  Tell anyone, and your wife and child will die.

  And he clamped it down, swallowing air like the truth was a physical thing that could be beaten back. Because maybe the man wouldn’t have seen the cops, maybe there was still time to figure this out.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “I completely forgot. It was nothing.” He offered a nervous laugh, high-pitched and bordering on crazy. “Like I said, I thought some guy had gone off with my wallet, but I’d just left it here. End of story.”

  Yeah, right, said her expression. His guts churned like the truth was on fire down there. He couldn’t drag her into this. He couldn’t risk her life, or Connor’s, any more than he already had.

  This is the right thing to do.

  “I’m just not with it,” he said, pulling her close, wrapping his arms around her so he wouldn’t have to look her in the eye. She let him hug her for a moment then she backed off.

  “I’m going to call your old therapist and make you an appointment,” she said.

  “No, there’s no need. Jules, I’m a therapist now, it’s my job. They’re not going to be able to say anything I don’t already know.”

  Julia thrust her hands in the air again in frustration.

  “Okay fine,” he said, a brief flare of anger passing through him. Then, more gently, “Yeah, it’s a good idea. Sorry. I’ll go see her. I’ll book it.”

  “No, I will,” said Julia. “I’ll get you something next week, the sooner the better.”

  Make it Friday, he thought. I’ll either be dead or miraculously cured.

  She studied him a moment longer, probing, then nodded. She was reading him, sure, but he could read her too, a decade with somebody gave you that power. He could see the line furrowed in the middle of her forehead, the way she chewed the corner of her lip, the rapid blinks. She was worried, really worried. And why wouldn’t she be? He’d just told her he had cancer and he was acting nuts, the kind of nuts you got when it spread to your brain. Again, that urge to come clean, to tell her everything, seemed to commandeer his brain. Again, he pushed it away.

  However bad this was, the truth was worse. The truth was far more dangerous.

  “Right,” she said, unsure, lost. “I’ll get dinner on, then.”

  She walked from the room, running both hands through her hair. Blake longed to follow, to pick her up and hold her tight, to tell her everything would be okay.

  Instead, he turned back to the window and stared at the street.

  Twenty-Nine

  Blake lay in bed and listened to his wife sleep. Her breaths were soft, with the occasional hitch and the rare snort. She lay with her back to him like she always did, curled into the foetal position. She could spend the whole night like that, unmoving, whereas Blake could only lie on one side for a few minutes before he fel
t restless.

  Tonight was even worse. Tonight, sleep seemed like an enemy, like something that hid from him. Even though he was exhausted, even though he’d almost fallen asleep several times already that day—on the bed after watching the street for an hour, on the sofa after dinner while Julia took Connor through his evening ritual—he just could not find it now. In fact, he couldn’t remember a single night in his life when he’d felt more awake.

  He rolled onto his back as quietly as he could, pushing the covers away from his neck. It was hot in here, the heating on even though it was coming up for midnight. He considered getting up and switching it off but he knew that if he climbed out of bed then he would be surrendering to the night, there would be no more hope of sleep.

  A moan slipped out of the baby monitor on Julia’s bedside table, almost inaudible because the volume was right down. The kid made a couple of noises that sounded like nonsense words then faded out. Julia didn’t even stir, her breaths like gentle waves running up the shore. Blake focussed on them, trying to breathe in time with her, trying to lower his defences so that sleep would creep in like a cautious bird.

  Nothing. He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. The room wasn’t light but it wasn’t dark either, the streetlights casting a pale glow through the curtains. The rain still fell outside, the sound like the chittering of a thousand insects climbing the walls of the house. He shuddered, despite the clammy warmth. There was a pain in the muscle of his lower back, something he’d pulled chasing the guy that morning. He wanted to turn onto his side again but he didn’t want to risk disturbing Julia.

  She was already pissed off with him—she was trying her best not to be, but there was only so much she could do to hide it. Even with his excuse—the real one and the made-up one—he was acting like a dick. He wondered if it was more than that, though, if maybe she was trying to switch off, disconnect. It would be easier for her, when he finally went, if she’d already convinced herself she didn’t love him.

  It hadn’t been like that last time. Weirdly, the cancer had been part of who Julia fell in love with. But it was different then, different because he was already sick when he met her. It was the whole Florence Nightingale thing. It was her job to cure him, and she’d done it—with help, of course. He hadn’t let her down back then because he’d been at his lowest and she’d helped him up. Now, though, illness meant something else, it meant widowhood and a single parent family, it meant being on her own.

  He suddenly wondered if somebody else would be lying here in a few years; months maybe. Another guy curled up next to his wife. Because she would move on. Julia was all about efficiency, she’d find somebody else just to take the strain. The thought of it, the thought of her kissing him goodnight, of waking another man up in the morning with a smile, made it feel like something inside him had already died.

  Blake realised, too, that if Julia remarried then the kid would call a stranger dad. Because Connor was too young to remember Blake, he’d just become a dusty photo on the wall, an annual trip to the cemetery—a duty that Connor would perform more and more reluctantly and bitterly with each passing year until he and his mum stopped altogether. And with that thought he saw his son grow into a teenager, a student, an adult, a father in his own right—all the things that Blake would miss because of one fucking arsehole.

  He had to turn away from Julia, had to ball the duvet and stuff his mouth full of it. This wasn’t fair, why the fuck did it have to be him?

  Calm down, it hasn’t happened yet.

  He inhaled as slowly as he could, breathing in a lungful of dust from the duvet. Then he pulled the fabric from his mouth and breathed out, regaining some small piece of composure.

  No, it hadn’t happened yet. Right now, in this instant in time, he was alive.

  He tried to think about something else, something that might actually let him sleep. But there was nothing inside the entire circumference of his skull except this.

  Except him.

  He’s the Devil.

  There was a sudden gust of wind from outside, rain hitting the window like a handful of gravel. The whole house seemed to creak with it, like it had caught the shockwave of an explosion. Connor whimpered in his sleep, even Julia stirring for an instant, holding a breath then falling under again.

  Something creaked again, no wind this time. It was a more specific sound, too, instantly recognisable. One of their stairs had always creaked like that. Blake lifted his head from the pillow, holding it perfectly still even though it made his neck hurt. His eyes scrolled back and forth in the darkness as he listened.

  Nothing. Just the house.

  Just the rain.

  Just his wife breathing.

  Something felt different, though. The atmosphere had shifted somehow, as if the house itself had been startled. Blake propped himself up on his elbow, trying to hear past the ordinary sounds of the night. He hadn’t realised how fast his heart was beating until now, his pulse drumming wetly in his ears, drowning out everything else.

  A soft burble from the monitor, Connor happy in his sleep. Blake wiped his dry lips, wanting to cough but nervous about making any sound at all.

  Julia whispered something, so faint that he wasn’t sure if they were words or just a breath. He looked over his shoulder as she whispered again.

  “What?” he said beneath his breath.

  But she was sound asleep, not so much as a twitch.

  And yet those whispers still came, loud enough now for him to snatch a word or two.

  “… sleep tight… bite…”

  What the fuck?

  Then Connor moaned again and Blake’s heart imploded inside his chest.

  The whispers were coming from the baby monitor.

  Blake threw himself out of bed, his feet getting tangled in the duvet and almost bringing him down. He kicked them away and staggered to the door, cracking his knuckles against it as he searched for the handle. He burst onto the landing, his breaths almost sobs. The house felt like a sinking ship and he used the wall to guide him, stumble-running to his son’s room. He thought the door would be barricaded again, thought he’d have to kick it down. But when he shouldered his way through, it swung open easily, hitting the wall and bouncing back. By the soft, red glow of the nightlight he could see that there was no man here.

  There was no child either.

  “Nonono,” Blake said, a groaning plea that seemed to rise from the deepest part of him. He slapped his hand on the main light, blinking against the force of it, diving to the floor to search beneath the cot. He scrambled up, ripping open the wardrobe door to reveal nothing but clothes.

  “Connor?” he said but didn’t scream, not enough air in his panicked lungs.

  He ran from the room, checking the bathroom, the cupboard, the spare room. He almost fell back into his own bedroom, wanting to wake Julia, needing her—our son is gone, our son is gone—but unable to bring himself to do it because of the rules, because he still couldn’t break the fucking rules.

  He clamped his breath in his lungs, behind his clenched teeth, and heard that wet, grating voice from the monitor.

  “… cracked his head…”

  It couldn’t be far away, those things didn’t have a range of more than a hundred feet. He turned, half running and half falling down the stairs—creak—heard Doof barking furiously. He threw open the kitchen door, seeing nothing but the dog. Then he bolted into the living room.

  The devil stood there.

  It was so dark that he was just a silhouette, like somebody had cut his shape out of reality to reveal the gaping void beyond. He seemed too big, seemed to stretch right up to the ceiling, from wall to wall, a hulking mass that seemed to grow even as Blake watched, that seemed to pollute every inch of the room. Then Blake blinked and he was just a man again, standing in the middle of his living room.

  Blake opened his mouth to speak, inhaling a lungful of stench—worse now than ever, the smell of a public bathroom in the middle of summer. He gagged, t
hrowing both his hands to his mouth.

  It wasn’t obvious whether the man had seen him or not. It wasn’t even clear which way he was facing. That whispered voice carried on speaking, almost singing,

  “And couldn’t get up in the morning…”

  Connor was in the man’s arms, whimpering.

  “Please,” Blake said, a whimper of his own. He took a step forward, squinting into the dark. His mind was a broken machine, no idea how to process the situation, no idea how to respond. “Please, don’t hurt him.”

  The devil man whispered for a moment more, then his voice faded out, as if he had only just noticed Blake’s presence. His bulk shifted, parts of it seeming to inflate and deflate impossibly. He was turning, Blake realised, the vague outline of a face appearing in the gloom, two eyes blacker still, burning with darkness.

  You should have attacked him, his brain screamed. You should have grabbed a knife and stabbed it into his spine.

  Too late. The devil man had been cradling Connor almost tenderly, but now he let his arms slump, the boy hooked beneath one elbow. Almost instantly Connor started squealing, but his face must have been covered by something because it was horribly muted, like he had been buried alive. The man reached out with his other long, spindly, spider’s arm and turned off the baby monitor on the mantelpiece.

  “Please,” Blake said again.

  The devil didn’t reply, he just took in long, heavy, angry breaths. His eyes were lightless pits and yet they bored into Blake with an intensity that made his legs tremble, that made him realise once again how much he needed to go to the toilet.

  “Why are you here?” Blake said, fear burning holes in his words, filling his voice with hesitation.

  The man inhaled deeply through his nose, sniffing the way a cat does when it smells prey. He held his breath for a moment and his whole body seemed to shudder with some kind of pleasure, then he breathed out again. Connor’s screams were awful, the kid was choking in there.

  “You know why I am here,” the man said, his voice like leaves kicked up a street.

  “I haven’t talked,” he said, his eyes on the bundle of rags that was his son. How long would he last in there, his head cocooned in the man’s stinking rags? “Please, I haven’t said anything, I haven’t broken the rules. He can’t breathe, just give him to me and I’ll do anything, okay? Just g—”