“Monika! I’ll fucking find you! Monika!”
For an hour I staggered through poorly-lit avenues and alleys, occasionally startling some passerby, or refusing the help of some do-gooder. It had begun to rain lightly, and the temperature had dropped dramatically. The icy coldness felt like anaesthesia, my body stuck in a limbo of numb, imminent pain. Desperately I stumbled and ran, like some lopsided animal. I cursed and shouted, glancing around for some sign.
“Come on, come on out! Come on out into the open! You can’t hide forever Monika!”
How stupid could I have been. Everything fit so perfectly. The world made sense. I noticed some markings on a wall and walked towards them. Then, remembering Josie’s book, I turned away hurriedly. The whole world was tainted. Monika was everywhere. A beast behind every image. Posters, billboards, graffiti, I squeezed my eyes for fear they would burn into me. They symbols explained everything. Perhaps even Monika.
There was a sinister growl. I looked up, realising I had blacked out or fallen asleep for a few seconds. It was an alleyway, barely four metres wide, and nearly pitch black but for the sparkles of light that trickled down with the rain and mist. A shape. Shiny and black. Two glistening beads intent upon me. Another long, low growl evolved into a violent bark.
“Fuck off!”
Another growl, more vicious this time. Then the dog barked erratically. Before I could move I realised the beady glints were getting larger. The noise grew closer rapidly. The shape rose from the ground and for a second the dog was silhouetted against the grey fog; elegant, leaping, and heading directly towards my face.
Dog breath and spit struck me as I swung aside and lashed my hand against its flying body. The dog clattered into something that made a clashing metallic sound, and I tripped over something heavy and rigid. Scrambling to my feet I turned quickly in the direction of the dog, making out his sleek haunches vaguely. His claws scratched frantically against the concrete as he clambered to his feet. Again he growled and barked, enraged further.
“Fuck you too!”
I slung my coat off in a singular movement. The twinkling globes appeared once more, angry and focused.
“Come on then,” I snarled.
As if comprehending, the dog growled, barked and pounced again. I threw the coat in front of me, splayed open, and pressed forward myself. I missed, and instead of capturing the dog in my arm, he clattered into my chest. The coat had covered his jaws though, and as I fell back I wrapped my arm around his thrashing body. I hit the floor hard, waking up all the residual pains of my body, but my grip stayed strong. The dog thrashed against me, his head covered by my thick jacket. I pressed my shoulders against the floor, trying to roll over.
“Shhh!”
The sting of the fall spread and deepened, threatening to send me under. I could smell the animal nitrate of the dog’s sweat. Images and thoughts flashed before me. I tightened my grip, but my body felt like it was being taken over by some parasitic force. The words ‘we’re not guilty’ echoed in my mind. The dog growled and twisted. I gave up trying to roll over. Now Monika’s body, dressed in that top with the lopsided strap. The dog kicked and barked beneath my coat. I drifted...
Cold dampness and pain merged with my dreams, growing stronger and more real until I pulled myself into reality. The hard ground, my clothes soaked. A touch of purple hue hung in the sky, indicating that dawn might break eventually. Feeling slowly returned to my body, and with it came soreness.
With a huge exertion, I fought the stiffness in my limbs to roll onto my side and push myself up. I picked up my coat and put it on, disregarding the heaviness it had gained through wetness. It was still raining, but the draughts that had whipped the rain had ceased. Looking down at myself, red smatterings of blood covered my jeans and tattered shreds of my coat hung in untidy ribbons around me. I gathered my breath, zipped my coat up, and pushed on down the alleyway, my joints still waking up.
I raised my head, my neck clicking. A few metres ahead, poised and focused upon me, stood the dog. A Doberman pinscher. We looked at each other for minutes. His eyes were no longer wild flashes, but the expressionless, primal eyes of a dog looking at his master.
“What?”
I looked at him, watching for some movement or sound to defend against. The dog was still as stone.
“Fine.”
I walked towards the end of the alley, passing within feet of the dog, who kept his eyes fixed upon me. Before stepping out of the alley and onto the street I turned around. The dog was still in the same spot, the same posture, watching me. I left him there.
Memories of the night trickled through, and with them purpose. Monika was gone. I considered returning to her house, but it was unlikely she’d return. The sour taste of her lies returned, but my body was too tired and burnt out to conjure any anger for them. Limping slowly through the downpour, bitter thoughts led me home.
It was well past four am when I finally returned. I threw my coat off, slowly removed the tea towel, and gently pulled off my jeans. My leg was a mess. The wound was nearly two inches wide, but it had scabbed over with blood, dirt, and fibres from both my jeans and the towel. It throbbed once I exposed it, and my eyes were heavy. The bed tempted me, but I knew I should sort myself out. I had to walk Vicky to school.
After showering tentatively, eating through a whole pack of smoked bacon and the last of the bread and cheese, I crawled into bed. The wound felt better, not least for having an inch of bandage around it now. I stretched out and realised that I couldn’t bend my leg so much at the knee. I pushed as far as I could, but the pain and resistance wouldn’t let me. After setting the alarm, I settled back into the fresh sheets, and slept.
Chapter 20
On barely three hours sleep I got up, made Vicky a packed lunch, threw out my bloody jeans, put my other clothes in the wash, and re-bandaged my leg. Once that was done, I had about ten minutes before Vicky’s annoying alarm clock would sound and she would emerge sleepy eyed from her room looking for juice. I made a brief trip to the pharmacy, buying the first thing the chemist suggested when I asked for the strongest painkillers she had.
I looked at the pill bottle in my hand, immediately regretting what I had done. I dropped it back into its white paper bag and tossed it towards a bin. It smacked against the side and fell into the gutter. I picked it up, took the pill bottle out once more, and contemplated it. I opened it, threw a few of the capsules into my mouth before I could change my mind and pocketed the bottle.
Back home, I took a long drink of water, and leant against the fridge waiting for the painkillers to kick in. Vicky’s door opened and she shuffled across the passage to the bathroom.
“Do you want juice, Vee?”
She came out of the bathroom and walked to the kitchen.
“Do you want juice?”
“Mmm.”
I grabbed a glass and poured it out.
“Cereal?”
“Mmm-mm.”
“Little bit of toast?”
“Mmm-mm.”
She picked up her glass and returned to her room.
“You should find your umbrella. Looks like it might rain soon.”
Her door closed.
I sat down on the couch, stretching my leg out, and turned on the TV. Scenes of a great mass of people pushing and fighting each other displayed themselves. I turned the volume up.
“…still queues around the block this morning, but thankfully a lot more subdued, and a lot less violent, scenes this morning.”
“Linda, just how common are incidents like this?”
“Well, at this time of year Oxford street is full of shoppers anyway. As you can see behind me, the streets are already crowded with consumers looking for a bargain in these freezing temperatures. So it’s not uncommon to see such a large crowd, but certainly the aggressiveness of those at the opening of Joliet was remarkable.”
“What is it about this opening that caused such a reaction, do you think?”
“
As I said earlier this is the first time these dresses will be available in the UK. And for the past year, prior to the store’s opening, there was a large banner at the location, so a lot of people would have known, and been excited about the opening. There’s huge buzz around the designs, and of course, Christmas is just around the corner now. Prime time for stores to capitalise on that buzz.”
“Linda. Thank you.”
“Thank you.”
“A new report by the FIA on EU banking failures—”
After flicking around a while I got bored and turned it off. It was all too much. I stood at the balcony a while, gazing downwards at the parking area, then across the city. The destroyed car had been removed, but not even the heavy rain could wash away the burnt rubber markings that remained where its tires had been. I looked at the other balconies around me. I had often wondered what it would be like to fall from the highness of our balcony. How it would feel falling for maybe a full ten seconds. As a kid, I had even dreamt about it a few times. In the dreams, I would jump, and I would always regret it as soon as I started falling. I’d reach out my hand to grab something, some flying bird, or one of the lower balconies, and the dream would end. Josie had always asked about my dreams, poking around to try and figure out what they could mean, but I had never told her about that one. Another regret.
“It’s time.”
I spun around.
“Shit, you scared me. I’m sleeping standing.”
Vicky looked at me.
“Come on then.”
“What’s wrong with your leg?”
“Nothing. Just a bit of cramp.”
“There’s a bulge there.”
“Yeah. It’s a bandage. Come on, you ready? Got your umbrella?”
We left the flat and got into the lift. Vicky was silent the whole way down. She had a solemn expression on her face.
“You tired?”
She shrugged her shoulders. The lift doors opened and Vicky walked out ahead of me. We walked for a few minutes, passing the same things we had passed thousands of times on a thousand wet mornings. Something about them felt a little unreal and uncomfortable that morning.
“Ok Vee. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie. Tell me.”
She said nothing.
“Didn’t you sleep well last night?”
“No.”
“How come? Were they playing music loud next door?”
“No.”
“Why then?”
“Nothing.”
“You’ve been eating too many sweets, maybe. Got to eat better if you want to sleep well.”
“I didn’t eat any sweets.”
“What, then?”
“Nothing.”
“Did you have bad dreams?”
She said nothing again.
“What was it? Nightmares? What did you dream?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Why didn’t you come to my bed?”
“I did.”
“Oh. When I was out? Yeah. I’m sorry.”
“You wasn’t even home.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I had to do some things.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
We walked on a little more. Vicky was walking ahead of me slightly, my stiff leg slowing me down. She made no real effort to let me catch up.
“Christmas is soon.”
“So?”
“I got a good idea for what I’m gonna get you. Been thinking about it for a while. You’re gonna love it, Vee.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
“I want something else. My own thing.”
“What?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
We turned into the school street, joining the procession of parents and children. The same crowd of quick-parkers, sleepyheads, and stressed mothers I had grown used to. Vicky made to walk ahead of me. I put my hand on her shoulder. She turned towards me slightly. With some effort I knelt down to her level, pulling her to face me head-on.
“Vee.”
“What?”
“Are you scared of me?”
She paused, her focus flicking between my eyes.
“No.”
“Good.”
“But.”
“But?”
Another pause.
“But what? Go on.”
“I dunno.”
There was a shiny wetness in her eyes.
“Say it. You don’t trust me anymore, right?”
At this, she sniffed, and rubbed a clenched hand to her eye. She tried to pull away.
“Ok.”
I let her go. She turned away, stopped for a moment to clean up her eyes with all the delicate poise of a grown woman taking charge of her emotions, then began walking again towards a group of kids chatting just inside the gates. I watched her go inside. Something had changed in her. The way she walked, the posture she took while idly chatting; a million miles from the playful kid who ran through the school gates with her bag flapping behind her. She glanced at me briefly, a distant and serious expression on her face. Another line of kids marched across the playground and I lost sight of her amongst the crowd.
“Morning. You alright?”
It was Sandy.
“Hey. Yeah, fine. You?”
“Oh you know. Same old same old. Ms. Harrison just had a word with me again about Davey. He’ll be the death of me, he will. Do you know what he did last Friday? Stuck glue in some poor girl’s hair. You alright there, hun? You don’t look too good.”
“It’s alright. Just a bit of cramp.”
“You know what you should do. Eat a banana. It fixes cramp right up. So they say anyway. I don’t know. I’ve never had it—touch wood. Did Vicky tell you about yesterday?”
“The shopping?”
“Yeah. Oh my God. I tell you, Joseph. I needed a second pair of hands to deal with my kids. They just want to buy everything. I even had to smack my Davey. You’ll never guess what he did. He tried to pocket some video game right there in the shop. I couldn’t believe it. Vicky was lovely though, she’s such a sweetheart.”
“She is. But Sandy, you shouldn’t have let her buy make-up. She’s too young for it.”
“I knew you were going to say something about that. Vicky was worried about what you’d say but I told her ‘you just buy it and I’ll speak to Joseph’. You can’t punish the girl for it, she’s just a girl, you know. If she was wearing high heels or a thong or something then yeah, I understand you. But a little bit of make-up is fine at her age. Plus, Vicky’s not the kind of girl who—”
“I don’t care. I don’t want her wearing it.”
“Joseph—”
“I mean it.”
I glared at her, trying to force the seriousness of the point home, but Sandy was far too self-absorbed to notice.
“It’s the same thing I was telling you about before: You’ve got to let the girl grow up. Otherwise she’ll turn out for the worse. If you don’t let her buy make-up she’ll just do it in secret. She’ll end up getting obsessed with it. Let her experiment a bit though. She needs it, it’s all part of growing up.”
“Fuck growing up!”
The words came out louder than I had intended but I was tired of Sandy’s assumptions.
“Vicky doesn’t need to grow up! What for? So she can be miserable and poor like the rest of us? I grew up and it was a fucking pain. She never has to go through any of that, and yet she still hates me and everyone thinks they know better. I raised her since she was a baby. Nobody else. Just me.”
I spun away from her and briskly walked away, still talking.
“Vicky’s perfect how she is! She don’t need to grow up. You don’t know what you’re talking about. None of it.”
As soon as I turned out of view I stopped and leant against a wall. My leg ached from pounding it against the hard pavement. Without thinking, I reached into my pocket and thr
ew a few more capsules into my mouth, crunching them down just before the urge to spit them out.
I put the cap back on the bottle and looked up. Down at the end of the street I saw the dog. He was standing poised, the same way he had been in the alley, his eyes fixed upon me with that passive stare. He didn’t move for what seemed like minutes. I considered going to him then remembered I had things to do. Slowly, I began walking again. I made my way to the station and took a train leading to Monika’s house.
It was close now, retribution. The loss I felt would be resolved. The front door was locked. Monika had to have locked it. I thumped my fist against it.
“Monika! Open up!”
No sound came from the other side. I pounded even harder.
“Monika! I know you’re here! Monika!”
I looked around until I found a loose brick propping up a broken flower pot in the front yard. I picked it up, and smashed out the glass in the front window with it. I clambered through it into the living room.
“Monika! I’m in now, so you might as well talk to me.”
The kitchen was just as it had been the night before, the knife lying in a reaching pool of blackened, dry, blood. I passed through the kitchen to look through the door that led into the yard.
“Monika! I’ll find where you’re hiding!”
The printout of Josie’s book was amongst the broken shards of wine bottle and glasses. I picked it up, folded it, and put it in my pocket. Before I left the kitchen a row of spirits caught my eye. I grabbed the bottle of whisky, it had it the most left in it. I spun off the cap with my thumb and took a long, pulsating gulp. It went down as smoothly, burning inside of me. I took the bottle with me to the base of the stairs.
“So you’re up there then, are you?”
I took a few steps up the stairs, stopped, sucked down more of the golden liquid, and continued.
“I know you killed her. You’re a murderer! Do you think you can get away with that?”
Out of some instinctual muscle memory I turned left towards Josie’s room. It was empty but for a body mirror placed in the corner. The frayed edges of the carpet where I had pulled it up still tapered at the skirting.
Delete-Man: A Psychological Thriller Page 22