Run Away With Me : A fast-paced psychological thriller

by Daniel Hurst

  Actual pieces of chalk.

  I pour myself a glass of juice and return the carton to the fridge before re-taking my seat on the sofa, just in time for Adam to join me downstairs. He looks better now that he has showered. He seems calmer. That’s good. I guess the walk in the rain was worth it, after all.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ he asks me as he switches the kettle on and rummages around in the cupboard for a cup.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I reply as I watch him take out a mug emblazoned with the face of a Disney character. I assume it belongs to one of his sister’s daughters. Adam’s nieces are aged six and three, and they are cute as buttons, if a little annoying after a while. I can handle being around them in short bursts which is why we haven’t really babysat overnight for them before, but I don’t feel too guilty about that, nor do I worry about what it will be like when I’ve got my own child to look after that I can’t just walk away from when they give me a headache. It’s different when it’s your own offspring. It’s worth all the drama, noise and mess then. It’s chaos in Kat’s house, and the decibel levels when the girls get going are off the charts. Maybe I’ll be able to stand being around them more when Samuel comes along, but I guess asking Adam’s sister to babysit for us all the time is out of the question if we have barely done it for her.

  I should have thought that through more.

  It’s only then that I catch myself and remember that all these innocent thoughts of my future life when Samuel is born are no longer on the table. We’re on the run. Adam is a criminal. We’re staying in this cottage secretly. Adam’s sister doesn’t know we are here. Nobody does. Life is not the same as it was.

  Forget babysitting and visiting Adam’s nieces.

  We may never see them again.

  Adam eventually finishes making his cup of tea and then joins me on the sofa where I allow him a couple of sips of his hot drink before I broach the elephant in the room again. I wish we could sit here in peaceful silence, but we can’t. We need to discuss the next part of our plan.

  ‘Do you think you can check the TV aerial after that?’ I ask as Adam sips his tea. ‘We need to keep an eye on the news, and it’s easier than you having to go out into the village every time to check it.’

  Adam nods. ‘I’ll get right to it,’ he says, going to get up.

  ‘Finish your drink first,’ I remind him, feeling bad that he has only just sat down and I’m making him get up again. But the TV really does need fixing. I want to check the news channels for myself. It’s not that I don’t believe Adam when he tells me that there are no reports of the hit and run anywhere. It’s just that I need to see something of the outside world and TV is my only way of doing that.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Adam asks me as he settles back onto the sofa.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I reply, which isn’t really true.

  ‘How’s Samuel been today?’

  ‘No kicking yet.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The conversation dries up there, not because either of us has nothing to say but because we are both too busy worrying about the only topic that we should be talking about right now.

  ‘I love you,’ I tell Adam as he stares out of the window at the grey sky outside.

  I’m disappointed when he doesn’t say it back. But that’s okay. He’s distracted. He’s always said it before and I’m sure it won’t be long until he says it again.

  18

  ADAM

  I’m standing on a ladder fiddling around with the cable attached to the satellite dish on the side of the cottage, even though I know that there is nothing wrong with it. Laura isn’t watching me so at least I don’t have to pretend even more than I already am, but I still have to be up here for a decent amount of time so that she believes I have given it my best shot. I estimate I’ll give it another five minutes before I go down and tell her to try the TV again before feigning my surprise that it still isn’t working and then telling her that I am out of ideas.

  Thankfully, the rain has stopped so I’m not out here working in the wet, but the strong wind is still whipping around me, and I have to be careful that I don’t lose my balance and tumble from this ladder.

  A broken leg would really mess up my plans.

  As I fiddle around with the black wire that’s sticking out of the back of the aerial, I look out across the sweeping valley from my high vantage point. It’s a picturesque scene that wouldn’t be out of place on a postcard, and I think about how much people would be willing to pay to enjoy this view that I am getting for free. I don’t know exactly how much my sister forked out for this cottage, but it can’t have been cheap, which makes it all the more surprising that she doesn’t use it more often. From what she has told me, she has only been out here once this year and the last visit was seven months ago. She keeps it maintained and ready to go whenever she does visit, but it does seem a massive waste of money to have a place like this sitting empty for most of the year. She could have rented it out to holidaymakers at least.

  Of course, it’s my knowledge of how little my sister uses this cottage that has enabled me to use it in my plan, so I’m not complaining. I just wonder why she ever decided to buy this cottage if she wasn’t planning on coming here more often. I do remember that she had her reservations about how much use it would actually get, and it was her husband, Martin, who was the main driver behind the idea of buying this little getaway. Perhaps my sister’s lack of enthusiasm for visiting here more often is her way of making a point to her partner about how much of a waste of money it was.

  I smile at the thought of my sister refusing to come up here for a weekend with the family just to prove a point to her husband. We are both stubborn. We get that trait from our late parents. But whilst my sister’s stubbornness generally only extends to benign family affairs, I put mine to use in much more imaginative ways. It’s actually my stubborn attitude that led to me making this plan to bring Laura up here.

  I stop fiddling with the wire when I feel that enough time has passed and then descend the ladder to go inside and take part in the next element of this charade. I re-enter the cottage and see Laura exactly where I left her, sitting on the sofa holding her glass of cranberry juice and staring at a television screen full of static.

  ‘Any change?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I feign a sigh of frustration before putting my hands on my hips and giving my best impression of an engineer who has tried everything to fix the problem but is now at a loss to explain it.

  ‘I don’t know what else to do,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I really thought it was just something with the dish, but everything looks okay up there.’

  ‘It’s so annoying. Do you think your sister knows it’s broken?’

  ‘I’m sure they would have fixed it if they knew about it,’ I reply. ‘Maybe the bad weather up here has knocked something out. I don’t know.’

  I make it clear to Laura by my demeanour that I’ve now tried everything and am unable to get the TV working, and she seems to grudgingly accept it.

  ‘This means we’re not going to be able to check the news from here,’ she says, gesturing frustratedly at the screen. ‘We’ll have to go into the village every day now just to check.’

  ‘That’s okay. I’ll go. You can stay here.’

  ‘I don’t want to stay here. I feel like I’m living in a bubble. I haven’t been in contact with the outside world for twenty-four hours now.’

  ‘That’s because we’re not supposed to be in contact with it,’ I remind her.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ she says.’ I get that we’re lying low, but I need to know what’s going on outside of these four walls. Don’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I say as I approach her on the sofa, knowing that I have to choose my next words very carefully now. It’s imperative that Laura stays here in this cottage for the next couple of days until this is all over. But I also can’t let her feel like she is
trapped. I have to make her think of it as being her decision to stay here and not mine.

  I take a seat beside her on the sofa and remove the glass of cranberry juice from her hand, placing it down on the coffee table and then holding her free hand tightly now.

  ‘This is just another obstacle that we will get around,’ I tell her, looking her in the eyes. ‘There’s nothing we can’t do together, okay?’

  Laura nods. ‘Except get the TV working.’

  I laugh. ‘Except get the TV working.’

  I lean in for a kiss, and I feel her relaxing again as our lips meet. I needed to stop her talking about how she feels cut off in this cottage, and I’ve achieved that, at least for this moment. She will bring it up again soon, I’m sure of it, but for now, things are going as I want them to.

  The static on the television behind me is just one example of that.

  19

  LAURA

  I’m back in our house again, but this time it looks completely different. I don’t recognise any of the furniture, and I can’t see any of our possessions. It’s as if somebody else is living here now.

  It’s as if Adam and I were never here.

  I go up the stairs in search of a familiar room and open the door that leads to Samuel’s bedroom, but I gasp when I see it. The crib has gone, so too have the teddys and the dinosaur wallpaper. Instead, all I see is a single bed, a small desk and plain white paint covering the walls. It looks like a spare bedroom that could double as somebody’s study.

  It definitely doesn’t look like my son’s bedroom anymore.

  I leave that room and move into the next, and I’m in my bedroom now, the one I share with my husband. Surely nothing has changed in here. Surely everything is as it is supposed to be.

  But it’s the same thing again. All new furniture and all laid out in a different way to how I used to have it. The walls are a different colour too, as are the curtains that hang by the window.

  What the hell is going on? Who has done this to my house?

  I go back downstairs, and I can feel my anxiety levels rising with every step that I take. I feel like a stranger in my own home. I can’t shake the feeling now that I don’t belong here anymore.

  Then I hear the sound of the key in the lock. Somebody is at the door.

  Somebody is coming inside.

  My spirits soar when I imagine that it is Adam returning from work. Maybe he can help me understand what has happened to our house. Maybe he has an explanation for all of this.

  But then the door opens, and I freeze because it isn’t Adam coming in. It’s somebody else. It’s a guy of a similar age to my husband, but he looks very different. Different colour hair. Different build. Different clothes. And he’s not alone. There’s a woman behind him. Like the man to Adam, she is the opposite of me. But the biggest difference I notice between the two of us is that she is smiling.

  She is happy while I am drowning in a sea of fear and confusion.

  Then I notice the baby in the woman’s arms. It’s small. Can’t be more than a couple of days old. I can tell the woman’s level of affection and love for the child by the way she is holding it, but I’m not sure if it is a boy or a girl. It’s just a baby.

  A sleeping baby being brought home by two loving parents.

  Then they see me. How can they not? I’m standing right in front of the door in the middle of the hallway. It’s my hallway, or at least it used to be. But judging by the looks on the faces of the couple, this is no longer my home.

  It’s theirs.

  Their first reaction is shock, then I see fear register with the woman and she instinctively turns and shields her baby away from me as if to protect it from the crazy person in their house. I look at the man and notice that he isn’t as afraid of me. Instead, he seems angry.

  Angry that I am standing in his home.

  I go to speak. I want to tell the woman that this is my house and she is the stranger here, not me. That there has been some kind of a mistake. That she and her family need to leave and that I should be here with my husband and my son. But no words come out. I can’t say anything. It’s as if my body is betraying me now. It might as well do.

  Everything else here has.

  The man is telling me to go before he calls the police, and even though I’m not sure why, something tells me to believe him, so I comply. I head for the door, pushing past the frightened mother and child and out into the fresh air. But I don’t see my garden, or at least what used to be my garden. Instead, I see the rows of police cars parked out front and the many police officers standing in front of them. They are all looking at me, and they are all telling me to get on the ground.

  The man lied to me. He told me that he wasn’t going to call them if I left. But here they are, and now they want to arrest me. But what for? What have I done?

  Why is this happening?

  Suddenly, I’m face down on the ground, and my arms are being dragged behind my back. I feel the cold, hard handcuffs being wrapped around my wrists, and then I am dragged to my feet and hauled off to the nearest police car. I notice all the neighbours are watching me as I go, but I don’t recognise any of them. It’s as if this whole street is foreign to me now.

  But where is Adam in all of this? And where is Samuel? That’s when I realise that I’m not pregnant. My baby bump has gone. But I don’t remember giving birth. What happened to my child? Is he okay?

  Am I okay?

  The car door slams shut behind me and I am alone on the back seat. The two police officers in the front of the vehicle give me a sorry expression before turning to look through the windscreen and driving me on towards the police station. I stare out of the window as we drive, at all of the faces of the neighbours who are looking at me and pitying my situation. It’s only as we reach the end of the street that I finally see somebody who I recognise.

  It’s the man standing with his arms around another woman as she cradles a baby boy.

  I feel like I know the boy. Is it Samuel? I’m not sure. But I definitely know who the man is.

  It’s Adam.

  And he is laughing at me.

  20

  LAURA

  I wake up with a gasp, but I can’t see anything. It’s pitch black. Not a speck of light in the room.

  I reach out beside me to where Adam should be, but the bed is empty to my touch. Then I scramble for my phone on the bedside table. I can use the torch on that.

  But my device seems to be missing too. I could have sworn it was there when I closed my eyes.

  Am I still asleep?

  Am I still dreaming?

  The sound of the creaking floorboard nearby tells me that I am awake because I recognise it as the one that makes the sound whenever somebody walks over it on their way back from the bathroom. It must be Adam. Sure enough, two seconds later, the bedroom door opens and brings in a little light, and I relax when I see my husband staring back at me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks with a concerned look on his face.

  ‘Where have you been?’ I say with a slight level of anger to my voice.

  ‘The bathroom,’ he replies. ‘Where do you think I’ve been?’

  I let out a deep breath. I’m calming down a little now. It’s dark because it’s the middle of the night. Adam was gone because he was on the toilet. There is nothing to worry about.

  ‘Have you seen my phone?’ I ask, turning to look at the bedside table.

  ‘No. I thought it was next to the bed,’ Adam replies as he closes the door.

  ‘Don’t shut it! I can’t see anything!’ I cry, and he quickly opens it again, allowing the moonlight from the window in the hallway to at least give me a chance of seeing what I’m doing.

  ‘It’s not here. I can’t find it,’ I say, and I’m not sure why I’m so desperate, but I am.

  ‘It must be,’ Adam mutters, and the casual tone of his voice is extremely irritating to me as I continue to look for it unsuccessfully.

  ‘Will you turn the light
on?’ I ask as I pull back the duvet and swing my legs out of bed, determined to locate my mobile now and not a second later.

  ‘It’s one o’clock in the morning,’ Adam replies.

  ‘I don’t care!’ I hiss back, and Adam knows better than to say anything else when I am like this. He quickly reaches out for the switch on the wall, and the room is suddenly flooded with light.

  The sudden brightness causes me to squint my eyes until they adjust, but they quickly do and now I am fully awake. Adam seems annoyed that he is too, and I see him watching me as I rummage around in the empty bed looking for my phone in case it is underneath the sheets somewhere.

  ‘I guess we’re up then,’ Adam says with a sigh as he rubs his eyes.

  ‘Help me find my phone and we can go back to sleep quicker,’ I tell him, and he begrudgingly agrees because he joins me at the bed and starts looking too.

  I’m not sure why I feel so anxious to know where my phone is. It’s not as if I can use it anyway with the lack of signal here. But there was something about the dream I just had that makes me feel desperate to be reunited with the one device that makes me feel as if I’m not completely losing all association with my former life. After all, I only need to walk down to the main road and get a signal again to be reconnected to the outside world, and that’s what I plan to do tomorrow, although I haven’t told Adam about that yet. That’s because I don’t want him to tell me that it’s a bad idea for me to be out of the cottage and at risk of being seen by somebody driving past. He seems to think it is okay for him to go into the village and take that risk but not me, which is annoying, but I’m not arguing with him because I can’t handle an argument now. All I need to do is wait for him to go into the village again, which he will do shortly, and then I will be free to get out and go in search of a signal.

  But I can’t do that if I can’t find my damn phone.

  ‘I don’t understand how you could have lost it,’ Adam says as he huffs and puffs beside me.