by Matt Shaw
He’s not watching me.
He can’t.
Even so - his stare makes me feel uncomfortable. Out of sight, out of mind - I hope.
I put my hands to the floor, to push myself up, and my left hand lands in something soft... something squishy.
Don’t look.
It can only be one thing.
Don’t look.
Gross.
I try not to heave as the thought of what I’d done flashed through my mind.
Don’t think about it. Put it out of your mind....
Easier said than done.
I did what was needed. It was the only thing I could think of. Don’t think about it.
Without looking down I lift my hand and flick..... it....... under the bed.
Out of sight, out of mind.
“It will stay with you forever, you know.”
“Fuck you.”
2.
Getting down the stairs, with my ankle, isn’t getting any easier. One hand against the wall and one hand clutching the bannister, I tried to hop down each step using my good foot - keeping any weight away from my ankle.
Easier said than done when you’re feeling so tired.
Occasionally both of my feet hit the steps and I feel a pain shoot, from my ankle, straight up my body. Each time it happens, I can’t help but let out a little whimper.
So painful.
Part of me thinks I should just set up a little base-camp downstairs, so I don’t have to keep going upstairs. I can stay on the one level whilst my ankle heals.
If it heals.
I wonder what sort of damage has been done.
Exactly how bad is it? For all I know, it could be broken.
Stop thinking about it.
It would be nice to have a base-camp downstairs too - so I don’t have to go upstairs and see him. Maybe, if I stay downstairs, I won’t hear him?
“You’ll always hear me.”
Ignore him.
“Guilt is a powerful thing.”
I’ve done nothing wrong. It was self-defense.
“I was still a person.”
Ignore him.
A base-camp is a stupid idea.
Time-wasting.
I just want to get out of here. There’s no point wasting time in setting up a comfortable living environment. I don’t want to stay here another night.
I need to get out.
The sooner, the better.
See if there is any more plastic cutlery - or anything else with a sharper edge and keep working on the bricks. The way I ground down yesterday’s plastic knife - the current stash, from the aluminium bin in the kitchen, won’t last any time at all. And yet they’re my best way out. Or maybe I should look in the garage again, see if it would be easier to get out via the garage door?
I wish I knew what was outside.
I wish I knew if there was something out there. Someone out there even. Someone out there, nearby, who would hear my screaming and banging - eventually.
If I am in the middle of nowhere, like I suspect - there really is no point in wasting my energy with any of that. I’d just feel more comfortable if I knew for sure...
I hobble through to the kitchen, hoping he kept the cutlery in here and not in the garage. I don’t want to go into the garage again.
I can’t go into the garage. Not with mum and dad....
..... don’t think about it.
Focus on finding more plastic knives. I survey the room. Hmmmm. Easier said than done. They could be anywhere and there isn’t a clear space to be seen; tins and tins of produce piled up everywhere. Looking at it, I wonder if he even had a system in here.
Of course he did - all the planning he did for everything else, there’s no way he didn’t have a system. He had a system for everything...
Everything...?
What if one of us got ill?
A way out, somewhere. A way out to get help should one of us needed it?
“We would have been happy.... until Death do us part.”
I don’t believe you. If you loved someone, you couldn’t just sit back and watch them die from something which would be easy to seek help for. You wouldn’t put yourself through that.
“I’d sooner lose you to illness than someone trying to cure you from the illness...”
I know it’s not him saying it. He’s dead. The troubling thing is, I can hear him saying it. It sounds like something he’d say. It makes me realise there’s no way I can predict what he has and hasn’t done.
I can’t think like him.
I’m not a monster.
I continue hobbling around the kitchen, looking in the cupboards I can open without knocking down stacks and stacks of cans. With the cupboards opened, revealing yet more food produce, I turn to the drawers dotted around the room and start pulling them open - not bothering to close them once I’ve peeped inside.
Weirdly, most are empty.
Most...
Not the last drawer I look in...
Plastic knives and plastic forks...
Bingo.
I pull the drawer from the kitchen work-top and limp back down the hallway to the front door with it in my hands. Easier than trying to pick up all the loose cutlery - I’d only drop some on the wearied walk back down the hall.
When I get to the front door, I empty the drawer onto the floor before throwing it against the bricks. A useless attempt at weakening the brickwork or a temper-tantrum?
I can’t decide.
* * * * *
Hallway CCTV camera:
Through a small amount of static we can see Vanessa is knelt in front of the hallway’s bricked up doorway frantically scratching away at the cement with a plastic knife.
The camera angle doesn’t allow us the chance to see her progress.
The frustration on her face, however, clearly shows her lack of achievement.
3.
“How was your day?”
I don’t reply.
“Well - my day was pretty unproductive.”
I don’t acknowledge him.
To outsiders, we must look like an old married couple. One half of the relationship desperately trying to get the other half to engage them in conversation.
Outsiders.
I snort.
Chance would be a fine thing.
“I love you.”
I frown.
He laughs, “Would be nice to hear you sat it back to me, sometime....”
You have a long wait.
* * * * *
Dining Room CCTV camera:
A crystal clear picture; Vanessa sits at the dining room table. A ‘cardboard’ bowl of food, not clear from the video image, is in front of her - untouched.
What looks to be a broken, plastic spoon in her right hand.
* * * * *
“Can I at least get a smile?”
I look up and flash the CCTV camera, in the corner of the room, a mock smile before turning back to my bowl of soup. I hate having the cameras on the wall. I know they aren’t recording anymore but, even so, they make me feel uncomfortable.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll pull the fucking things from the walls...
I have no idea why I prepared the soup - I’m not hungry.
My subconscious, perhaps, insisting I eat something. Anything. Keep my strength up. I argue with my subconscious, what’s the point of eating and keeping my strength up if there’s no way out of this Hell?
Why not just give up?
Just be done with it.
Starve myself.
Die.
Without so much of another thought, I dig the plastic spoon’s handle into my left wrist and drag downwards - a desperate attempt to open up my vein. I can’t help but let out a whimper.
It hurts but only grazes.
The skin doesn’t tear open and no blood is spilt.
I’m disappointed and, without thinking, go back to holding the spoon properly - by the handle. A split second later and I dip it into the soup before sipping it dir
ectly from the spoon.
Swallow.
Subconscious wins this round.
“Is it nice as it smelt? It should be - it’s the posh brand.”
Fuck you.
He carries on talking but I ignore him - block him from my thoughts - concentrate, instead, on trying to get a game plan together; maybe divide some of my time equally between scraping at the bricks and looking for another means to get out of this fucking house.
I know the bricks are probably my best bet but I can’t help but feel I could be missing something. Besides, the house isn’t that big - it won’t take long to exhaust all possibilities before I can dedicate all of my time to the scraping.
Start with scraping and then, when I have a large enough gash in the concrete, I could alternate between scraping and kicking at the bricks - maybe when they’re weak enough they’ll all just cave in revealing a hole large enough to escape from?
Maybe.
I just wish I knew how this was going to end - see if any of this is worthwhile at least. It’d just be nice to know all this hard work is going to pay off in the long-run.
It worries me how long I could be here.
There’s enough food in the kitchen to keep me going for months - probably even years.
I don’t want years here. I’d sooner die. A quick glimpse into the future would tell me if I’m better looking for an escape from the house or an escape from my life....
More soup.
Don’t even think about what the future will bring. There is no certain way of knowing. Have to remain positive. Have to keep going.
Have to believe there is a way out.
Or.
At the very least, I can force a way out.
Believe.
Jesus. Listen to me. I sound like I’m preaching to a self-help group. Just finish your soup and shut up, Vanessa.
No.
Don’t shut up.
It’ll be worse if I shut up. The eerie quietness of the house... his voice...
No.
Don’t shut up.
Everything’s going to be fine. A few more days, a week tops, and you’ll be out. You’ll be out and back to your loving mum and dad. They’ll probably be angry I didn’t find a way to get in touch with them - let them know I was okay. But, they’ll only be angry because their emotions will be mixed up; a feeling of happiness that I’m home and anger that they weren’t there to protect me.
* * * * *
Dining Room CCTV camera:
A smile spreads across Vanessa’s tired face. The first sincere smile any of the cameras has managed to pick up, properly.
She’s pretty when she smiles.
* * * * *
The first night in, with mum and dad, and they’ll be a mixture of crying and laughter.... they’ll probably lock all the doors, to the house, and close all the curtains - keeping everything, which doesn’t belong in our peaceful family, outside where it should remain.
Unlike here, it’ll feel different being locked in with mum and dad.
I’ll feel protected.
I smile again as I wonder what food they’ll order in, as a ‘welcome home treat’. Probably Pizza, knowing my dad’s yearning for the Ham and Pineapple flavour.... Seriously - who orders Ham and Pineapple?
Other than my dad.
Weirdo.
I still love him, though.
I wonder if I could talk them into getting a Chinese meal. Some spare ribs, in a barbecue sauce... sweet and sour chicken Hong Kong style, Egg Foo Yung and some special fried rice.
Or as dad calls it - Special Fried Lice.
Every time he said that in the take-away, I’d roll my eyes and wish he’d order the food normally - you know, not do it in such a way he thinks he is being funny.
A sadness washes over me - now I wish I could hear him say it.
I’d give anything to hear him say it.
An image of my dead parent’s bodies flashes through my mind. I close my eyes tight, forcing a tear to spill down my cheek, hoping to block the image from coming back but it has the opposite effect and, with my eyes closed, it’s all I can see - the expression on their dead faces.
“You’re letting your soup go cold.”
Fuck you.
* * * * *
Dining Room CCTV camera:
Vanessa picks the bowl of food up and throws it across the room - it smashes, out of shot of the camera. Splash-back of soup being the only evidence that the bowl didn’t land perfectly, without spilling a drop.
She drops her head on the table. The camera doesn’t pick up sounds but the shaking of her shoulders suggests she is weeping.
4.
I woke up to a banging on the bricks - blocking the front door. Muttered voices from beyond. The banging more frantic and determined to get in after I screamed at them, alerting them that I’m stuck here; stuck inside this prison.
“HELP ME! PLEASE HELP ME!” I scream at the top of my lungs. My voice echoing through the empty house.
“Don’t leave me, please.”
Fuck you.
“PLEASE HELP ME!”
I can’t make out their replies but the hits are getting harder, and harder, against the bricks.
Butterflies in my stomach.
It won’t be long now. I can feel it.
Sense it.
Taste the freedom.
I can’t help but cry - tears of joy. A sort of tear I felt, for sure, I wouldn’t experience again.
A few more heavy hits from the other side and suddenly a crack appears in the wall, letting daylight spill through into the hallway. A brilliant ray of sunshine bursting through, instantly warming my cold skin.
A friendly voice from the other side, “Is there anybody in there?”
“PLEASE! THANK YOU! GET ME OUT OF HERE!” I scream out, again.
The friendly voice, “Keep away from the wall...”
“PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE!” I cry.
“We’re not going anywhere.”
More heavy hits smash against the bricks around the hole, making a larger crack appear - enough for me to see that two men are on the other side. One of them bends down and peers through the crack.
“We’ll have you out in no time,” he says with a reassuring smile.
I smile back, through my tears.
His friend leans down to look at me through the wall too....
PETER?!
“I love you.” he says.
I can’t help but scream.
I open my eyes; no longer in the hallway.
I’m in the spare bedroom.
Alone...
Fuck.
I’m tired - it feels ages since I’ve last slept properly. Broken dreams. Some painful reminders of what my life once was and others more nightmarish, echoing my waking hours.
Last night I was quick to give in and go to bed - closing the door on the main bedroom, and him, before settling in the spare bedroom. This room isn’t as comfortable but at least it’s not as tainted by him. I have no idea why I didn’t come to this room last night - instead of sharing the bed with him.
I worry I might be cracking up.
“You’re not, you’re perfect. My perfect lady.”
Ignore him. It’s not him. Fuck.
I can’t be as quick to give in today.
Today?
Is it even today?
For all I know - it could still be yesterday.
The days are blending in to each other. I don’t know the time, anymore and can’t even tell if it’s daytime or evening...
Even the computer in the other room, stuck on the password screen, doesn’t offer any hints as to the time of the day or, even, what day it is - it’s pointless wasting minutes, maybe hours, of my day trying to figure out the password combination. There are just too many possibilities. And, if his brain could think of doing this to me - God only knows what he’d think of using as a password.