The Killing Hour

He stares into her eyes. He keeps his hands on her mouth. Her breath against his skin is weak and warm. She is fading. He stands up. He looks down. She has her hands on the handle of the knife the same way he did on Monday morning. Welcome to my world, bitch.

He turns towards Charlie. He should just kill him. Then he can jump into his car. Drive away from here. Drive into a lamppost to explain his injuries, though first he’ll have to remove the padding from his stomach.

But first he must show the dying bitch to Charlie, yeah, he has to do that first, because that’s quite possibly the most painful thing he can do to the man. It’ll only take a matter of seconds.

Perhaps he’ll get to enjoy some of this after all.





56


An awareness is coming back to me. I am Action Man. My mind is starting to clear, and a whole lot of imagery starts spilling into my consciousness in a random way that suggests this is all a dream, but the pain in my head suggests otherwise. There are ghosts in my world, but if they are here with me now, if they are a part of this Real World then their time for helping has finished.

Cyris starts circling me, and as he circles he slips in and out of focus. He picks up the torch and turns it on and off, on and off, and the sudden darkness and sudden light make me want to vomit. The edge of the beam hits his broken and swollen face. Each lip is as thick as my thumb. I recall causing that damage. It’s so extensive that it makes it impossible to tell if he’s smiling or grimacing. My mind lets go of everything. I lie in a state of cold hope and I don’t know how much time goes by. The torchlight reappears around the same time I start thinking again. It turns off. Comes on. Click. Click-click. Click. Click-click.



Click. He leans down and draws his lips apart. He leaves the torch on so I can see him. Dark blood falls from his mouth in hanging clumps; they are cold and they land on my face and neck. Behind his lips are a couple of upper teeth. The torch shows them clearly. Some teeth are on angles, some run flat against the roof of his mouth. Others are split, most are completely gone. He flicks at two loose ones with his tongue and dislodges them. He pokes his tongue out and shows them to me. They sit on the end, like fingernails. He spits them at me. Hard. One hits my nose, the other hangs down on a long piece of drool from his chin.

‘Where is she?’ My words are sluggish so they come out in one word, but he seems to understand exactly what I’m saying. He moves away and starts to laugh. Jo is behind him. She’s looking at me, but not really seeing, because she’s no longer in my world but has moved on to join Kathy and Luciana. The handle of the knife points from her stomach to the heavens where God doesn’t care or is too busy to notice.

Tears form in my eyes and a scream lodges in my throat. Every muscle in my body starts to burn and then tighten. My jaw clenches so tightly it could be locked. I curl my hands into fists. I thought I was angry earlier in the week, but this is anger. This is the real deal. Jo has a knife sticking out of her and all I’m doing is lying down and feeling pissed off, thinking about my good friend Evil and how he seems to be running my life, thinking about the Real World and wondering what I can do to escape it.

Cyris moves towards me.

‘I’m going to kill you.’ I can say it matter-of-factly because that’s exactly what it is. A fact. A goddamn irrefutable fact. And the best part is that we both know it. I can tell because he stops walking towards me.

I get to my feet, and even on his damaged face there is uncertainty, and I recognise it. My body suddenly feels stronger than it has all week. My mind is sharply focused, and he can sense this. I’ve just had this giant weight taken off my shoulders. The weight of the world. The weight of caring. This is how Atlas would feel if somebody came along and kicked the entire fucking sky off his back.

In the edges of the torchlight I see Cyris’s face start to drop. His eyes, normally wild and black, are now blank. His bleeding mouth is slightly open. Then his eyes flicker and he takes a small step back. He knows I’ve spoken the truth and for the first time he looks scared.

I don’t run at him full steam. Instead I stroll forward slowly, and this seems to threaten him even more because he keeps stepping back. I’m just strolling along as though it’s a nice day and I’m at the beach. But I’ve been to the beach recently and the experience pissed me off. So I’m channelling all my pissed-off emotions. And there are a lot of them to channel. I think of Kathy and Luciana. I think of myself. Most of all I think of Jo.

My cuffed arms hang in front of me. Cyris knows he’s screwed. He just hasn’t admitted it yet. He stops walking backwards. I close the distance. We are silent and we watch each other and no matter what happens now we both know this is finally the end. This week of hell is about to be over.