He shook his head, and looked at her expectantly.
Susan flipped open a large journal.
"Last time we were talking about your father. About you growing up with his illness."
Illness. Michael's father would never have called his depression that. He never talked about it at all, of course, but Michael knew the man didn't think of depression as an illness. It was a flaw.
"My father's illness," - Michael couldn't keep the bitter inflection from his voice; the inherited disdain - "is nothing to do with this. Even if it were hereditary, it's not the reason I am here."
Susan nodded, her face contemplative.
"Some people believe everything is connected," Susan said breezily. "Everything we do has a root cause, and one thing leads to the next, even if we’re not aware of it."
"Cause and effect?" he asked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You are here, Michael," Susan said kindly, "because of your response to a specific situation. You are also here to understand why you responded in that manner. Why do you think you responded the way you did?"
"The guy killed a baby in front of me. My response was..." He trailed off. The sentence, he realised abruptly, had no ending in his mind.
"You've been an officer for some time," Susan said. "You've been faced by violence before, and highly-charged situations. Have you ever responded emotionally?"
"No," Michael said immediately.
"So what was different this time? The crime was appalling, yes, but what else?"
Michael opened his mouth, and again his mind let him down. In none of their other sessions had Susan fired questions at him in such rapid succession. Normally she smiled and nodded and let Michael talk about whatever popped into his mind. He felt like a boxer on the ropes, hiding behind his guard and hoping to ride out the punches.
"Maybe you are right," Susan said. "Maybe it's nothing to do with your father. Anything more recent?"
Suddenly Michael saw where she was going, and relaxed a little. It was familiar ground at least, something they had already discussed.
"You think this is about my wife leaving me?" He said, and fabricated a scaffold of mock disbelief to prop the question up. "We already talked about that."
He shrugged.
"Briefly," Susan replied. "You don't seem to think the collapse of your marriage has affected you."
"It hasn't," Michael snapped.
"Everyone responds to trauma differently, Michael," Susan said with something approaching a sigh. "For some people the response is instant and unmistakeable. For others it might manifest years later, triggered by unrelated events. For some people, it can alter them permanently, unless they are able to address the underlying issues."
Susan leaned forward and fixed him with a smile, and Michael suddenly felt as though she was a different person, someone trying to forge a real connection that went beyond the professional. The smile was genuine, and there was concern in her eyes.
"You have suffered a trauma, Michael, and now you have beaten a suspect to death. Yet you present yourself as unaffected, as though you believe there is no connection at all."
"Because there isn't," Michael responded, a little too quickly. "I'm not programmed to respond in a certain way to anything. Nobody is. If that were true then everybody could have a murderer lurking inside them, just waiting for the trigger that brings them out."
"We're not here to talk about everyone, Michael," Susan said with a smile. "Just you."
It was the closest any of Michael's therapy sessions came to looking at something he didn't want to see. He had nodded and smiled at Susan, refusing to engage her words as anything more than homespun wisdom, and the sessions soon returned to the mundane, until finally he told Susan he was feeling fine and stable and happy, and was ready to return to work. He had, he said, come to understand that it was all to do with his father after all, and spun a tale of coming to terms with the fact he suffered from depression and would look into getting medication. He repeated it often enough that eventually Susan had little choice but to agree to end the therapy.
As Michael stared through the thick stone of Caernarfon Castle's walls, he thought about that strange barrage of questions from Susan, and the odd feeling that she was trying to cast aside the therapist/patient relationship and really talk to him.
And about the possibility that an intrinsic darkness lurked inside him, something inevitable and fundamental.
*
Michael was still lost in brooding silence when Linda stepped into his room, startling him.
“Sorry,” she said with a grin. “I can come back if you’re busy…uh…staring at the wall?”
Michael smiled wearily.
“Just thinking,” he said.
“Ouch. I don’t think there’s a cure for that.”
Michael laughed softly.
“Everything okay?”
Linda nodded.
“Everything apart from your daughter taking away all my candles.”
“Ha, sorry about that. She’s on a…secret mission, I guess you could call it.”
Linda nodded solemnly.
“So I gathered. It’s sort of why I wanted to talk to you.”
“Oh?”
Linda drew in a deep breath, and Michael felt his nerves begin to prickle.
“The thing is,” Linda said, “I get that you guys are all close. You and John and Rachel. And everyone is grateful for you being here, and getting rid of Darren, really. But it sort of feels like you’re all keeping yourselves separate from the rest of us, you know? And I don’t think it’s helping the general mood in here. Everyone is confused, Michael. All of a sudden half the men in this place are gone, and you’re…well, I don’t know what you’re doing. But I know something is going on, and I’d like to know what it is.”
Linda rushed through the final few words in a single breath, like she wanted to get them out before she had a chance to reconsider.
Michael blinked.
Is she afraid of me?
He knew the answer immediately. Of course Linda was afraid. Everybody was afraid. The people in the castle had transitioned from being terrified of a man who openly intimidated them to being wary of a man who told them very little and kept a gun on show at all times. When he thought about how things must have looked to Linda - and everyone else - he felt like laughing at the absurdity of it all.
He snorted and smiled broadly.
Linda flushed angrily.
“I didn’t pick you for the kind of guy who would-”
Michael held up his hands apologetically and Linda fell silent, glaring at him.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, I was just laughing at, I don’t know, how ridiculous this all is, I suppose. I always did spend too much time in my head. It’s just that before there weren’t people around me wondering if I was planning to kill them or something.”
He grinned.
“I don’t think anyone thinks that,” Linda said cautiously. “But the fact is that everybody here had just gotten used to the way things were. No one liked it, but everyone knew where they stood. Now we’ve got a group of bikers in here, and they pretty much keep to themselves. We’ve got John telling everybody the castle isn’t safe and trying to train a bunch of terrified teenage girls to use swords without telling them why and Rachel, uh, well, Rachel frankly scares the shit out of me. And then there’s you, and you don’t seem to be talking to anyone at all.”
Linda shrugged.
“I just want to know what’s going on. Where did John go? And why have I just lost all my candles?”
Linda smiled weakly. It wasn’t much of a joke, but Michael could tell she wanted to keep things light-hearted. He appreciated it. Wished he could have answered in the same vein.
Michael sighed.
“I don’t know where to begin,” he said.
“Let’s try the beginning,” Linda replied.
Michael nodded, and thought about his sessions with the therapist, and abo
ut cause and effect, and realised he was no longer sure where the beginning actually began.
23
Panic crawled along Ed's nerves, turning his blood to ice and spreading a fearful, immobilising chill through his body. He stood, paralysed, in the dark kitchen, listening to the approaching footsteps. The sound was like a ticking timer. A countdown to something terrible that approached him unseen in the gloom.
The steps were slow and shuffling, but definitely coming closer. Maybe the Infected converging outside didn't know he was there. Indecision pulled his mind apart.
Run? Hide?
The footsteps got closer. Closer.
They’re right outside the house.
Ed swallowed painfully, his mouth suddenly dry enough to plant the horrific notion of coughing into his mind, and he lifted the poker, eyes scanning each of the kitchen's three large windows for movement outside. If they entered the living room first, he might have a chance to smash through one of the windows and flee. If one of the things threw itself through the glass, he would sprint back the way he came, out the living room and away from the building.
If they block both exits, you'll have to fight. And die.
The footsteps stopped.
Ed clenched his teeth so tightly that his jaw ached.
What are they doing?
As if in response, Ed heard something that almost made him lose his grip on the poker.
"You sure he went in there?"
A whispered hiss in the gathering darkness.
People.
For a moment Ed felt like laughing in relief, but something held him back. Some primitive instinct; long dormant but now screaming for his attention. Maybe it was the troubling tone of the voice he heard. Or maybe it was the words of the man lying unconscious in his mother’s storage cupboard: they’re after me.
"And he definitely wasn't infected?" A second voice, deeper than the first.
"Didn't look like it. He wasn't moving the way they do."
A third voice.
"Then he's probably in there right now listening to every word you idiots are saying." A fourth voice. "Which is probably going to make him more difficult to catch, right?" The fourth voice lifted until it was almost a shout, and Ed realised the speaker was now addressing him directly, and they definitely did not sound friendly.
Catch?
The word burned itself into Ed’s consciousness. Burned bright. A unique choice of word; particular and sharp enough to cut a long furrow of anxiety in his mind.
"Maybe he's even got a weapon in there?"
Ed placed the bag of food down on the tiled floor gently, keeping an eye on the archway that led into the huge glass-fronted living room. They were out front, apparently hesitant to enter the property so directly, but Ed didn't think that would last long. As soon as one of them stepped into the living room they'd see him standing there frozen in place like a terrified child.
Move!
There was another door leading from the kitchen, and Ed bolted through it, finding himself in a large double garage.
There was no easy way out, unless he pressed the button he saw on the wall that would open the garage doors and which would give away his position in an instant.
His breath poured from his lungs in rapid, shallow gasps that made him feel as lightheaded as a deep bong hit. He saw one alternative, set high in the rear garage wall: a narrow window that Ed definitely wouldn’t have fitted through two weeks earlier. Even with the starvation-induced weight loss, the pane looked too narrow.
Beyond the kitchen, he heard the first of the men outside entering the house. Heard them say can't see him, and felt his bladder loosen a little. Staring at the door to the kitchen, he took the only option available to him and slid the poker through the handle like a deadbolt. If they tried the door, the game would be up, but the improvised lock would buy him time.
Leaning close to the barred door, he listened intently. It sounded like they were all in the house now, and Ed thought he could hear faint whispering, but nothing that resolved itself into words.
His face was only inches from the door when it began to rattle as someone pulled it from the other side. Ed stumbled backwards, biting down on the urge to cry out.
"This one's locked," a voice whispered from beyond the door.
He heard a response, but it was muddy and indistinct. Moments later he heard two sets of footsteps climbing the staircase that led from the living room to the upper floor.
When they find out you're not up there, they'll be coming back to this door.
Ed's subconscious had developed a troubling habit of delivering news he didn't want to hear, but he knew it was the truth. It might take them five minutes to search the house, but once they had eliminated all the rooms they would know exactly where he was hiding. They might not be able to break into the garage, but they didn't need to. If they were determined to get Ed, they could just wait him out.
Or set fire to the house.
Ed told his subconscious to shut the fuck up and frantically searched the garage for some means to defend himself. Surprisingly enough, the Atkinson family didn't keep a range of weapons in their garage. Just some storage boxes, half-empty paint cans and various unhelpful stacks of old crap, alongside the small sports car that Ed had seen Mr Atkinson driving. The man had looked ridiculous: fat and middle-aged, driving ninety-grand-plus of midlife crisis with a v-8 engine and apparently no idea that he was a bloated cliché.
The door leading to the kitchen rattled again, and then shook as someone delivered a heavy kick from the other side.
Focus!
Flicking the switch to open the garage door would alert the men searching the house for him, but there was nothing else for it. The moment the garage door was a foot off the floor, Ed would be scrambling underneath it and bolting. He knew Orchard Grove well. Just had to find somewhere to hide; had to move quick. Speed had never particularly been a strong point for Ed, but he had a sudden feeling that sprinting was just a matter of motivation, and he had plenty to spare.
The door shook under another kick, but the poker held firm. They could kick it a thousand times and the improvised lock would hold.
Ed paused in front of the switch on the wall, marked open and close. Once he hit the switch, he would have a couple of seconds to wait until there was enough of a gap to squeeze through.
That wait would be the worst couple of seconds Ed could imagine anyone having to endure. He paused, scarcely able to believe what he was doing. It all seemed like a bizarre dream.
Another kick brought him back to life and he flicked the switch to the open position.
It responded with an apologetic click.
Ed’s eyes widened.
No electricity.
Ed’s mother had been right: his stupid, dope-addled brain would let him down one day, just when he needed it most.
Like now.
Trapped in the garage, wincing at the rattling of the door to his left and unable to open the door in front, Ed's mind promptly went blank, apparently choosing that very moment as a perfect time to take a brief vacation.
Shit.
Things couldn't get much worse.
Ed heard mumbling on the other side of the door. At least two of them were in the kitchen. He imagined the other two were waiting outside the garage, just in case Ed somehow found a way to open the door.
He pressed his ear to the door, trying to make out the words.
"You sure it was him?"
Ed frowned.
The response was too distant; too muffled. He couldn't make it out.
"What's the point? The dumb bastard barely understands a word anyone says anyway," The first voice said.
They think I'm him.
Another indistinct mumble from inside the kitchen.
"Fuck's sake," the first voice said loudly, and the door rattled under another heavy impact.
Ed leapt away from it, startled, and sent another furtive glance around the dark garage. There were a couple of
spanners and screwdrivers he could use as weapons, and if he withdrew it quickly enough, he could still use the poker. But the image of him brandishing a poker and fighting off four men was something from a darkly comedic nightmare. Something he could easily accomplish with an xbox controller. Not while almost pissing himself with terror in his neighbour’s garage.
His eyes fell again on the narrow window, and once more he frantically tried to judge whether his frame would fit through or whether he should just wait them out, when the voice on the other side decided for him.
“Find something to get this door down.”
Ed clambered on top of a new-looking washing machine and felt along the window pane and discovered there was no latch. The window was designed only for light to get in; not for potential victims to get out.
Ed’s brow furrowed in frustration. He was going to have to smash the window, but the men trying to catch him would surely hear the shattering glass and make their way outside. Motivation or not, Ed doubted he would outrun them if they were out there waiting when he emerged through the window. His only chance was getting a head start.
Need to make a noise, he thought, need to cover the sound of the glass breaking.
He turned, and looked down on the garage.
And on Mr Atkinson’s ninety grand sports car, and Ed astonished himself with a grin. He didn’t have keys, but the car would make noise without them. Noise that he had heard many times before, reverberating around the neighbourhood irritatingly.
He jumped down and pulled on the car door, and his grin widened when the deafening alarm burst into life, valiantly trying to inform its dead owner of the attempted entry. In the confined garage, the noise was ear-splitting. Still grinning, Ed leapt back onto the washing machine, and drove the spanner into the glass.
The window was too narrow. There really hadn’t been much doubt in Ed’s mind from the moment he first felt for a latch to open it. Even if he could somehow squeeze his shoulders through it, he imagined himself getting stuck at the waist and being left to just hang there like a drying ham until the men found him.
Trauma (Wildfire Chronicles Vol. 5) Page 14