The Hollow Places (15 page)

“Sit down,” he
said. “Be still. Don’t talk.”

She sat on a
stool at the breakfast bar, alternately watching Firdy and glancing
through the window that looked out onto the drive. It was going to
be frightening when Firdy discovered that Simon wasn’t here.

Even as she
listened to him securing the front door using the second and third
locks, she thought of escape. She knew that a weapon had been taped
beneath the breakfast bar, inches from her knees. It would be a
knife or a police baton or maybe an escrima sharpened to a point.
There were no guns.

If you pull
one of these things out, Simon had told her, be prepared to use
it.

Firdy was
grunting, struggling with one of the locks.

She was
prepared to kill him. Escaping was the problem. Each time Firdy hit
a pothole or bumped the kerb, she heard the thing in the back
scrabble around. It butted the walls, scratched and snorted. She
didn't know what it was, but its temperament was even worse than
Firdy's.

Even if she
did kill Firdy, the thing in the van would get her. Eventually, it
would break out or someone would investigate the abandoned vehicle
and it would be free. Firdy had made it clear that its purpose was
to find her and that its desire was to eat some of her. Firdy was
the only thing between her and the animal.

“Don’t look so
unhappy,” Firdy said. “By tomorrow, it’ll be over. Try to relax
until then. You’re here, with me, and you don’t have a choice. So
get used to it. And get some rest.”

He removed his
hat, revealing his hairless scalp. In secondary school, her pottery
class had once been tasked to make model heads. They had moulded
clay around newspaper balls, building the mixture up and then
defining it until they were skull-shaped. She’d made nostrils by
shoving a pencil into the nose. She worked for an entire day on the
eyes but couldn’t quite get them right and had attempted to smooth
the skin all over the head, but could always see the dents made by
her tools and the trenches made by her fingers. It was not bad for
a first attempt though, she had thought.

She had glazed
the head, holding it by the neck between her thumb and index finger
and dipping it into the pot of yellow gloop.

On her way to
the kiln for the biscuit firing, however, it had slipped from her
fingers. After it had slapped against the stone floor, she noticed
its peculiar expression, the curl of its mouth and the plaintive,
lopsided eyes accusing her.

She tried to
fix it, but there wasn’t time to do a good job. The firing would
happen with or without it. Guilty, she quickly straightened his
features and placed him inside.

The following
morning, Mrs Gutteridge told the class that two of the heads had
exploded during the firing and, as it was a very small kiln, they
had managed to damage every other head in the process. All except
for Sarah’s, which everyone thought was unfair, because hers had
been the worst of all. Mrs Gutteridge had the head on her desk,
where it sneered at everyone.

At home, Sarah
had promptly smashed it with a hammer and had scraped the pieces
into the bin. Now he was back, alive and climbing the stairs with
his mis-shapen head. His gloved right hand made a recurrent wet
slap and hissing sound against the wall as he used it to steady
himself.

When he was
out of sight, she slid her hand under the breakfast bar and felt
for the weapon.

*

As he climbed the
stairs, he felt nervous and afraid. His life was coming to an end
and he was making it happen. In fewer than 24 hours, he’d be gone.
So would Simon. So would Sarah. He wasn’t afraid to die - he’d
looked forward to this for far too long - he was only scared that
he might fail, having come so far. This was his chance to prove
himself, to show how well he could do without the Third's guidance
and thus earn his place in the next life.

Sarah’s escape
was a big negative, but he had made the best of it. He'd got her
back to the house, calm and afraid and predictable. Besides, he had
the main thing in place already.

With his hand
on the door to Simon’s room, he couldn't help considering
consequences of the Third rejecting him at the last moment.

Thanks for
everything, but it wasn't enough.

He’d kill
everyone. It was that simple.

And when they
were dead, he’d ...

... left it
open.

Simon's door
should still have been open; he'd deliberately left it that way so
he could hear what was going on in there.

He considered
retrieving the Cat from the van, but decided against it. His
control was limited. He couldn't even feel the Dog. Whatever he
found in that room, he'd deal with it alone.

His hunting
knife slid easily from inside his coat. He upended it so he could
thrust it in a downward arc, into a shoulder or an arm or a leg,
and so the serrated edge would punch in cleanly. He had to remember
to leave the knife in, otherwise Simon might bleed to death. He had
to be very careful. He knew how quickly things could go wrong.

Listening with
his ear against the door for a minute, he heard no sound on the
other side and wondered if Simon was doing the same, holding his
breath.

He shoved the
door and it swung open, slamming against the wall inside.

Simon was not
there.

Nor was the
Dog.

As the door
reverberated, on its way back to the closed position, Firdy entered
the room. The rope he had used to secure the Dog was heaped on the
floor, one end still attached to Simon's desk. The other end was
draped over what looked like a discarded rug. He walked towards it
and fell to his knees.

He removed his
glove to lay his bare hand on Dog’s side.

In attempting
to remove the rope from his neck, his fingers disturbed torn flesh.
He found three stab wounds in the back of his neck. Although the
Dog's throat had been cut too, Firdy didn't imagine that it had
been a quick death.

Trembling, he
let the Dog slide from his hands. Aside from the Dog – dead - and
Simon - missing, everything appeared to be as it had been. What had
he overlooked when setting this up? Somehow Simon had got far
enough from Dog that he was impeded by his rope, but it was little
more than a box room. There should have been nowhere to run. Had
Simon managed to get past the animal?

Firdy shook
his head and found that once he had started he didn't want to stop.
He drew a deep breath. The cool air cleared his head somewhat. The
window was open. From his knees, he could see the tops of trees
silhouetted against the ocean-dark sky, waving, watching, laughing.
A sudden breeze toyed with the curtains, explored the room, found
his bald head and played with the scars. This so-called fresh air
stank. He wanted this life over with.

He spent a few
painful seconds straightening up and in the process the
significance of the open window came to him. On investigation, he
found that it was not open, but smashed. With a naked finger, he
touched one of the remaining shards that remained in the frame.
There was so little glass on the floor that it could only have been
broken from inside.

He leaned
out.

It was a long
way down.

Now he knew
what had happened to the Dog. He'd flung himself out of the window,
chasing Simon, and he'd hung himself. Simon had finished him
off.

Firdy didn't
know where Simon was … only what he would do to the escapee when he
found him.

*

She probed with the
fingers of her right hand, looking over her shoulder to see if
Firdy was descending. The stairs were empty.

She laid her
hand firmly on the thing and gave a yelp as the blade sliced deep
into two fingers. That was stupid. Her palm was full of blood by
the time she found a cloth under the sink.

With the cloth
wrapped around her hand, she thrust it, burning, into her pocket.
She was allowing herself a croak of pain when, upstairs, Firdy
yelled. She stared up towards Simon's room, where the yell was
followed by a crash.

This, she
assumed, was the sound of Firdy realising that Simon wasn’t home
after all.

She returned
to the bench and detached the knife.

*

The bulb in the lamp
smashed, but the rest of the contraption made an unsatisfying
clatter against the wall before dropping to the ground. Simon's
room was so sparse that there was nothing to hand that was worth
breaking.

Firdy stormed
onto the landing and kicked open the bathroom door. As he expected,
Simon was not inside.

He had already
turned Sarah's room over looking for clues as to her location. As
soon as he saw that Simon was not in there either, he completed the
job. He ripped the Chicago poster from the back of the door. The
middle section tore away, leaving two heavily made-up women on
either side. He clawed at them, pulled them down, kicked them
across the littered floor. He swiped photographs and paintings and
sketches from the walls, hauled over the chest of drawers, turned
over the bed. A Maglite torch rolled across the floor; he upended
it and hurled it at the television screen. Missed. He kicked the
television from its stand, but it didn’t break, so he made his
stance wide and picked it up, attempting to raise it above his
head. Its wires kept it tethered though, so he dropped it and the
floor shook. He tried to put his foot through the screen, but again
it wouldn’t break. He roared with frustration.

He wanted to
strangle Simon the way he had strangled the Dog. He wanted to see
his eyes roll back in his head, to snap his fucking neck.

But the Third
needed Simon. Above all, she needed him. She had been specific
about that.

They'd be
committed to existing together. The thought made him nauseous.
There was something, however, that would redress the balance.

It was time to
for answers from Sarah. If she happened to die in the process, then
so be it.

*

The thing in the van
snorted, barging into the walls, tearing strips out of the floor.
Its steps thudded in a circular path in the darkness.

It sensed that
something terrible was going to happen. It could feel Firdy's anger
spiralling out of control, making him consider doing something that
would upset the Third.

Killing the
baby had been a bad move, but in the end that was collateral
damage. They had got the girl; all they had to do now was deliver
her along with her brother.

It paced the
darkness, attempting in vain to communicate with its so-called
master. In truth, the only thing it respected, the only thing it
feared, was the Third. When she returned, Firdy's raging would be
nothing compared to her anger.

*

He had been meaning to
question her when he came down the stairs, but her clear skin with
the slight odour of sweat and those big eyes looking at him all
trembling made him want to crush her perfect body, snap her arms
and punch in that pretty face; he wanted to yank her by the arm and
dislocate her beautiful shoulder, show her what he could have done
to her all along if he hadn't been nice.

Seeing the
expression on his face, she slid from her stool and started backing
away.

“Tell me where
he is,” Firdy said, “or I’m going to break every fucking bone in
your body. I’ll start with your fingers. I’ll bite them right
off.”

He was jabbing
a single finger at her; the rest were curled around the handle of a
knife that dwarfed the one she had managed to secure for herself.
She kept it hidden behind her back as she spoke.

“There’s no
need for that,” she said. “I’ll tell you what I know, but you
probably know more than I do.”

The speed of
his movement took her by surprise. His fist slammed into her chest
and she fell and fell and fell, spilling over a stool and landing
painfully on her arm, banging her head against the tiles. Her knife
spun away from her. She heard the clatter, but didn't see where it
went.

Before she
could get up, he was coming again, landing on top of her. She
bucked, but he overpowered her, his left forearm jammed against her
throat, pinning her to the ground and cutting off her air at the
same time.

“Stop
wriggling,” he said, “or I’ll crush your throat.”

She gasped, a
sound that terrified her. “Please,” she said, and she tried to draw
a breath. Nothing.

“Give me a
reason, you … fucking … cunt.”

His spittle
landed on her lips and she gagged; his rotten-animal breath was hot
against her face. His one good eye flicked around like a pinball
and she thought she was going to laugh, but a scream came out of
her mouth instead. Firdy released her throat and slapped his hand
over her mouth.

She saw the
knife that he meant to hurt her with, discarded on the floor. Its
serrated edge was monstrous. He would be certain to twist it once
it was inside her. She understood that he was capable of anything
and had seen the desire in his eyes. Being sliced scared her even
more than being stabbed; worst of all was the idea of being gutted,
losing herself amid a bloody spray, splashing tiles, screaming,
soaking the floor.

See that
especially clean patch on the carpet?

Sarah woz
‘ere.

Firdy removed
his hand from her mouth in order to snatch up the knife, which he
did with great speed. He raised his arm high above his head. Her
eyes were wide as he plunged the blade into her shoulder.

This time, his
hand couldn't absorb her scream.

When she
opened her eyes, crying with the pain, snot bubbling under his
hand, he was glaring down at her.

“I'm enjoying
this,” he said, “but it stops as soon as you tell me where he
is.”

She had known
that Firdy might try to kill her, but she hadn’t prepared herself
for the possibility of being tortured first.