Daisy Jacobs Saves the World

by Gary Hindhaugh

  There’s a guttural sigh, as if from a great distance, and I can’t say if it comes from me as my life drains away or from what had been Quark as his goal finally comes to fruition. But now it sinks in. It’s such a small thing. Such a tiny, tiny glimmer of hope: inside it, deep, deep inside, I know there’s still the slightest spark of humanity.

  I allow myself to sink for a moment longer and then dredge deep for the last remaining particle of energy to power the weakest of all sucker punches. It’s barely a slap at the creature that has me, but I catch it off guard, so sure is it of imminent triumph. The half step it takes back is enough for me to gasp in another lungful of air. “No! No! No!” I scream, refusing to succumb to the everlasting night that has all but entombed me. The scream echoes around my head, drowning out the enticing murmur of eternal darkness.

  I force my arms up under the hands that loosely hold me by the throat, twist away out of its grasp, its claws raking my arm as I pull back. Waves of pain from my raw throat and gashed arm cascade through my puny, under-resourced system. But the pressure loosens and I draw a scratchy breath. I hug my arm to me, grasping it with my other as I take another step away. My vision blurs, my arm is an agonising open wound, my throat painful and my breathing ragged as I stumble away. I turn and almost trip, clutching at the last moment at a rail on the wall that I hadn’t noticed before and just managing to hold myself up.

  And, like that, I’m running. Running down corridors, blindly turning corners, hurtling over obstacles to get away from it, all the time searching for a familiar landmark to allow to me reorient myself. You know those play centres in family-friendly pubs you were taken to when you were a kid? Full of brightly coloured bouncy cushions and ball pits? This part of my brain is kind of like that, except the colours are more muted — greys and cloudy pinks: whole corridors and crossways of pink squidgyness. I’m still in school uniform and have thick, clunky soled school shoes on my feet and I’m scared I might damage something by falling against the wrong synapse or whatever and giving myself a headache. Hang on though: wouldn’t this be a good thing? I pause briefly, listening out for footsteps behind me, and kick out at a dark red sticky-out bit low on the wall next to me. No idea what function it serves, but neither that or the thump I aim at the grey blob higher up has any noticeable impact.

  I set off again, thinking about my destination — the room that has protected me for so long from the monster that’s been within. Its door has always had a physical key rather than a combination that Quark could steal from my mind. As I’m gasping for breath, struggling to pull air into imaginary lungs that suddenly feel all too real, I change that. While I hurtle down corridors that look more like my neighbourhood, I change the lock in my head so that my door is now secured by a remote access system. Instead of a key, I imagine a clicker like the ones people keep in their car to open remote controlled garage doors. I look down and it’s there in my hand.

  I’m still gasping for breath, struggling to breathe. But so intently have I been focussing on the new lock, that I realise I’ve missed a turn. Again! I now know the inside of my head almost as well as the back of my hand, because of the cautious night-time expeditions I’ve taken, trying to find a way to outwit him. But now it’s Quark who’s led me into uncharted territory. Somehow, I’d fluked my way back to familiar spaces, recognising bits of my grey matter as though they were street signs. But so intent had I been on avoiding the whole throttling thing that I focussed too much on escape and not enough on the direction I’d been heading. I tried to compensate by taking a shortcut down an alleyway between a couple of nerve endings. This was a bit of a backwater, not so illuminated by the flashes from synapses as signals zipped around my brain with a thrum that vibrated through the soles of my feet. The area clearly wasn’t used much — maybe it was the bit used by our Neanderthal ancestors for night vision or where my fashion sense would have been stored, had I possessed any.

  I take a turn and lean back against the wall, peering round the corner to see if I can double back and return to the area I know. But the floor vibrates with heavy steps and in the distance, down the narrow alley, I see the shadow of towering, louring monster with red laser eyes that look not at me, but into me with a gaze so intense it threatens to stop the heart I can somehow feel pounding away in my chest. The creature’s face, moving in and out of shadows cast by lightning-like bursts of electricity, still bears the cold expression of my nightmares.

  I’m hurt in my arm, in my throat, in my heart — in fact, I’m hurt in my everywhere! I’d been close to home, but now must take the long route if I am to make it back to the safety of my room so we can live to fight another day.

  Chapter 50

  THE BIG KILL HE’S BEHIND YOU!

  This chapter was supposed to be called “