Approaching Zero

by R. T Broughton

  “Not like this,” he pleaded breathlessly and as he tried to reach out to stop the film, he fell out of his chair and landed heavily on the carpet with a thud. The last thing he saw as the life drained away from him was his wife’s slippers pattering into the room. Although he had her well-trained, even she couldn’t deny the truth of the scene as her husband lay dead on the floor with his penis hanging out of his trousers to the soundtrack of the screams of children coming from his computer.

  Chapter 14

  Kathy hadn’t heard happiness coming from her grandmother’s room for some years. In fact, she didn’t think she had ever heard the sound of laughter coming from it; her nan was an extremely happy woman, but sleeping was a serious business and when the door was closed at about 9 p.m., that was it—silence for the rest of the night until she was up at 6 a.m., out in the garden or on her bike if it was hot, and out on the bus somewhere in the winter to see one of her many friends. So for the sound of laughter to continue into the small hours was indeed a departure from anything Kathy had experienced before and this from a child who had just killed someone. That’s if she has killed him, Kathy thought. She had seen some strange and sinister things in her life but causing the death of another by touching a photo and drifting off into some kind of trance was new to her. She wasn’t sure if she believed it yet, or if she wanted to. It did strange things to her stomach and left her mouth feeling dry and fuzzy. But this was what she had wanted, wasn’t it? Wasn’t this what she wanted when she was sitting at the top of St Andrew’s Street, daring her feet onto the pedals of her nan’s bike about to mow down Malcolm Scott? Wasn’t this the whole idea? To find something or someone that could take them all out without a trace? But would it feel better if she was the one able to take control of the situation rather than this child who had spent half the night watching Grease, Grease 2 and whatever other old movies she could find on YouTube? By contrast, Kathy had spent the night in a state of alarm at the thought of it all, not to mention the revelation that all of the children were dead. It couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t, but there was something about Suri and the way she had spoken that told Kathy her words would always come from a place of truth.

  All of this was still spinning around her head the following morning as she lay in bed staring at the sun shining through the drawn curtains, not quite ready to get up. Getting up would be more complicated than the day before and the day before that now that Suri was here, and she didn’t feel ready to face it. Taking the work they would be doing together out of the equation, there was so much to consider with regards to the upkeep of this child. What would she feed her? She couldn’t just give her egg sandwiches for every meal, although she seemed to enjoy them. Did she have everything she needed, or would Kathy have to get some things for her? Clothes, things like that. Would they have to draw up a shower rota or would they just naturally work around each other? And what would the girl do all day? The summer holidays had begun just days before and she was too old for school anyway. Was she going to be staying long enough for them to have to think about what she would do with herself in September? And how long would it be before social services came sniffing around to see why she suddenly had a child living with her? What would she say then? Suddenly it was all too overwhelming for her and she had an urge to speak to the one person who could shed some light on all of this—Brady. The thought of this energised her enough to get out of bed and threw her grey towel dressing gown around her. She ventured into the hallway and stood outside her nan’s room for a few minutes, listening for movement. When there was none she slipped into the bathroom and lowered herself onto the loo. Whatever she felt about Suri, she was surprised that she didn’t feel scared of her. Here was a young girl with powers way surpassing her own, with the power to take life as if it were meaningless, but Kathy couldn’t bring herself to be scared of her. She was too amiable and oddly vulnerable. In fact, she was annoyingly vulnerable, but Kathy resolved there and then that whatever had gone on for Suri it was none of her business. She wasn’t her mother, she wasn’t anybody’s mother, and she wasn’t going to start acting like one now.

  When she stood to wash her hands and clean her teeth she couldn’t avoid the inevitable meeting with the mirror. She looked at her hair standing out in all directions and promised it that today would be the day she would get the straighteners out and return it to some semblance of normality. But it hardly seemed worth bothering with the deep kaleidoscope of greens, yellows, and purples that was still her face after the accident. It looked less angry than it had the day before, but now it almost looked as if it belonged there, as if the bruising was beginning to blend in with her natural tones and form a part of her everyday appearance, as if it would never go. She leaned over the sink and splashed cold water onto her face. On the plus side, it no longer hurt the way it did, but she couldn’t wait to look in the mirror and see her own face again instead of this constant reminder.

  Kathy thought about having a shower, but she would do it later. She really needed to speak to Brady and she didn’t need to look or smell her best to do that, so she wrapped the robe around her and made for the stairs. There was still no sound from her nan’s room as she did so.

  She knew she should have spent more time getting the room ready for her visitor and now she felt a pang of guilt that her sixteen-year-old guest would be staying in a room that clearly hadn’t been decorated since the Second World War, with yellowing walls, creaky furniture and a bony bed. She was also aware that it looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned since the Second World War. Kathy hadn’t been in there for years and she was sure that Suri would have had to wrestle the dust just to get into bed. She had meant to run a duster over it and throw on some clean sheets, but it wasn’t always easy to apply herself to these kinds of tasks.

  “I’ll give it a clean today,” she told herself quietly as she crept down the stairs. “Maybe get some cushions, new curtains, maybe a rug,” but she wasn’t really listening to what was coming out of her own mouth. The only thing on her mind was Brady. Half of her now wanted scream at her best friend for her delivery of adolescence, the other half couldn’t wait to tell her what had happened the night before. For someone who didn’t know how she felt about witnessing a remote murder, she was certainly demonstrating a lot of excitement. However, a greater, more pressing issue stood between her and the conversation that she was planning in her head—tea. The day didn’t officially begin until she had had her first cup of tea, so her first stop was the kitchen, where she filled the kettle, clicked the power button and set about lining the cup with milk, sugar and a teabag as steam and kettle moaning filled the room. Job done, she carried the mug into the living room, set it down on the coffee table and turned to her laptop.

  “Shit!”

  The fact that she had given Suri the laptop to take to bed had completely fallen out of her head and suddenly she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. The silence was absolute and brutal. She picked up the cup of tea and blew into it, but it was too hot to drink so she replaced it and tried letting out the kind of sigh that she imaged other women took first thing in the morning—a relaxing sigh, signifying that they didn’t have a care in the world, that they had a limited time to enjoy the peace before either their children got up or they had to take themselves off to work. Coming out of her, it appeared to be one of frustration and far from sitting back and letting the hazy morning settle in over her, she was on the edge of the seat as if she fully expected the ceiling to fall in at any moment. She tried the tea again—it was still too hot—and then she looked up at the ceiling. Was it okay for her to just go in and take the laptop back? Should she wake Suri and ask her for it? She had no idea how to deal with sixteen-year-old girls. Her own experiences of being sixteen could hardly be used as a reference because she was so different, but then Suri was different too and in the same kind of way. She wouldn’t have wanted someone coming into her room when she was sixteen and thinking about it, she was far more highly strung than Sur
i. It was not long before her sixteenth birthday that she had had the blow-up with her mum, moved in with her nan and was probably an absolute nightmare to be around. By contrast, Suri was mature and self-assured in a way that Kathy didn’t master until… until… She was trying to pinpoint exactly when adulthood hit her when she was shaken from her reverie by the doorbell.

  “Who’s that going to be?” she asked the empty room and looked at each of her hands in turn as if they were juggling multiple tasks and she just didn’t have time to be answering doors, although she was really doing absolutely nothing. Grudgingly, she pulled herself to her feet and was prepared to tell whoever was at the door where they could shove whatever product, idea or religion they were selling. But as she opened it she was confronted with the familiar face of DCI Spinoza. Didn’t he ever wear anything other than the jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket?

  “Er, hi,” he said, looking her robe up and down.

  “DCI Spinoza,” Kathy answered and tried to stand as tall and look as serious as she could, but the robe was seriously letting her down.

  “The face is looking better today.”

  Kathy pulled the robe closer to her body and folded her arms in front of her. “Thanks, look, is there something I can do for you? It’s a little early.”

  “Er, right, sorry about that. I need to speak to you. Can I come in?”

  Without answering, Kathy let out the kind of sigh that she had practised just minutes before and beckoned him into the hallway. She tried to guide him into the kitchen, but the setup in the living room was visible through the open door and drew him in—mission control for a vigilante WI group in a Victorian terrace house with awful, browning wallpaper and condemned furniture.

  “Wow!” he said as he took a short tour of the photographs, maps, and notes on the wall. “This is some sabbatical, Kathy. This is more like a police station than ours.”

  “As I said, it’s research that cures diseases.”

  “Hmmm!” he was now reading rather than listening and then broke suddenly and turned to Kathy. His expression was a mix of confusion and his customary compassion. “I don’t think I could live like this,” he said and then seemed to regret it immediately. “It’s just that I need to get away from it all when I go home.”

  “Well…” Kathy motioned for him to take a seat without providing any kind of concrete response and sat beside him.

  “The reason I’ve come, Kathy, and I am sorry to interrupt you at home, is that we have a tenth child. You have to understand that I’m here unofficially, but anything you can do to shed light on, well, any part of this, would help.”

  Kathy was on the edge of her seat and reached for the notepad. “Okay,” she said, poised for more information.

  “Josh Fletcher, six years old, Stoner Street. He was playing with his sisters in his garden yesterday afternoon when he was snatched. I have to be honest, Kathy, we have absolutely nothing to go on here. Here’s a picture.”

  The little boy in the picture was beaming a full smile although his two front teeth were missing. It was a school photo, but he looked too small to even be in school, with his flyaway blonde hair and baby blue eyes. Kathy had no real fondness for children, but even she could see that he was adorable.

  “No witnesses, no prints?”

  “Nothing. We’re going to appeal later today and publish the picture. We can only hope that something comes from that.”

  Kathy couldn’t quite draw her eyes away from the boy. “Joshy,” she mouthed.

  “Josh Fletcher,” Spinoza repeated and then both of their eyes were drawn to the ceiling as they heard the sound of heavy footsteps in the room above them.

  “Ah, I’m sorry. You’re not alone.”

  “No, it’s all right,” Kathy assured him. “It’s just…” but then she didn’t know what to say. And she didn’t know why she suddenly felt the urge to explain as if she were the guilty party. “I’ll see what I can come up with,” she told him, holding up the photograph and was suddenly on her feet, having decided that telling him nothing was better. She didn’t want him to know about Suri, that much was true, but why she didn’t want him to think she had a lover upstairs she couldn’t quite work out.

  “That would be a great help,” Spinoza smiled and was also on his feet and heading towards the door. When he reached the hallway again Kathy could see that he was looking all around himself in much the same way that Suri had, assessing the way that she lived. And here she was, powerless in her dressing gown.

  “I know,” she said less kindly than she should have. “I’m Harriet Hoard.”

  Spinoza cracked a smile. “I was just going to say that I’ve got this exact wallpaper in my hallway.”

  Kathy looked at it as if for the first time and saw that it was actually quite nice. She didn’t know how she hadn’t noticed the cute woodland details and it made her smile. “This was my nan’s house,” she said, her voice now a little lighter.

  “Well, she had good taste,” he smiled and Kathy watched him walk the short length of the path and get into his car. She remained in the doorway looking into the road until his car was out of sight.

  “He is a very handsome man,” a little voice chirped behind her.

  “Don’t do that!” Kathy snapped holding her chest. “You’ll give me a heart attack.”

  “I am sorry,” Suri told her happily and wandered into the living room behind her with the laptop under her arm, which immediately calmed Kathy. Kathy followed her in, loosely noting that she was wearing the same skinny jeans and T-shirt as the day before.

  “Sit down, Suri,” Kathy said seriously. “I know it’s early, but…”

  “It is one o’clock in the afternoon,” Suri informed her.

  “Oh my god! Are you serious? What must he…? Never mind that for now. That was DCI Spinoza. He’s with the police. He brought this photo with him. Another child is missing, and he’s desperate for any information he can get.”

  Suri tried and failed to suppress a yawn. She looked tired and fresh at the same time as if she had slept for many days but could still do with more. She took the photo from Kathy and immediately said. “This one is alive.”

  “Thank God for that,” Kathy sighed.

  “He is in a room.” Suri closed her eyes tightly and began to look around this new landscape. “He cannot move. His hands and feet are tied. It’s a shiny room. I cannot… it is just a room, Kathy, and he is all alone.”

  “There must be something there to help us, Suri. Look carefully.”

  “There is nothing, Kathy. It is plain room with window only.”

  “Who’s keeping him there?”

  “He is alone, Kathy.”

  “Can’t you do that thing where you kill the man who’s taken him?”

  Suri opened her eyes and looked at Kathy with a curious expression that was becoming familiar to her. It was a sympathetic look, but it told Kathy that what she said was strange or wrong. “If I kill man then little boy will die. He is alone and tied by hand and feet. He will not be able to escape. But I do not know man, Kathy. He is not there. I need photo to have any kind of power. Or I need to be with him. I can do nothing, except…”

  “What?”

  “I can give boy power to make affliction.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I have only done this kind of thing one time before, Kathy. It is kind of remote psychic touch.”

  As soon as she said the words, the strange Indian website came to Kathy’s mind again. What did he say he could do? Remotely blocking psychics? She would look again later. This was all completely alien to her.

  “I have idea,” said Suri excitedly. “When bad man come in contact with Joshy he will be struck with bad illness. It will make it so he cannot hurt the boy and has to go to the hospital.”

  The delight on Kathy’s face grew as Suri unveiled her plan, then she blurted out, “We should make his dick feel like it’s full of needles.”

  Suri blushed a little before consider
ing the idea. “This is a good idea, Kathy. We will see man at hospital with this kind of pain and we can tell the police.”

  “Bollocks to the police,” Kathy told her. “We’re getting this one ourselves.”

  Chapter 15

  In Malaysia, the old woman had been true to her word; she had returned with a precious necklace for Suri—the value of which greatly surpassed anything the family could ever dream of owning—in payment for saving her granddaughter. Aisyah protested, but the old woman only wished she had more to give. True to her word, she also hadn’t mentioned a single murmur of the miracle to another living soul. However, as it always is with secrets, word slowly gathered momentum of its own accord, rumors of a miracle child capable of great healing, and as predicted, the life of this small Malaysian family slowly began to change.

  For the first few years, occasional, desperate visitors, much like the old woman, would arrive at their home, often at night, seeking healing, which Suri gave indiscriminately before she had even gained the language skills to articulate what exactly it was she was doing or the intellect to understand it. As she slowly developed, however, she would casually chatter to her mother and father about it as if it were the most commonplace thing in the whole world, as if everyone could do the same thing. She had absolutely no concept of how special she was. She called it the heartlights, and she was also beginning to take control of this great gift rather than it controlling her as it seemed to when she was little more than a baby.