Page 8 of Collateral Damage

Shaking off my paralysis, I think of the next best thing. I need a gun. He always has...had… Guns in his office. But I haven't a clue what the safe code is. Please have a handgun in arms reach. It's lucky I am so small, you can barely hear me moving across the floorboards as I hover on my toes, sliding inside the room where I'm met with this now cold and empty space. A space he used to sit, a warm and inviting atmosphere now desolate with memories I have yet to comprehend the extent of. I have no time to grieve right now and that is weighing heavily on my need to stay alive. I want nothing more than to let the floor swallow me whole and give up this enviable fight, but something is telling me to fight. To keep pushing. That instinct in the back of your head that keeps you breathing and doesn't let you give up.

I scurry for the desk nearly fumbling over, my balance is totally off right now. I physically cannot feel anything but pins and needles lacing every pore in my skin. I reach for the little drawers sitting either side of his office chair, the varnished wood making it hard to grip with my wet and sweaty hands as I attempt to pull them out.Nothing.There is nothing but paperwork and stationery.

As solid taps turn into shallow thumps exchanging levels between the basement and the first floor, heavy boots echo down the corridor making their way straight to the office where their feet cut off the light source leaking in underneath the door from the hallway. I duck behind the desk, covered by only a small barrier of plywood where the legs rest. Placing my hand over my mouth, I begin to push so tightly I nearly cut off my oxygen supply as the door creaks open.

They are in here and I have no way of getting out if they stick around. They are homing in on me and all I can do is close myeyes and pray. I'm not a believer but please, hear me now. My pyjamas are literally stuck to me, soaking with sweat and my hair is smothering my damp cheeks. I'm completely still, like someone has injected aconite into my blood, static electricity coursing through me as I grip tightly to the knife glued to my chest. So focused on being silent that I suddenly notice the silence. They have stopped moving but I can feel them glaring at me through the wood, like they can smell my presence in the room with them. Horror movies aren't so fun in real life. I don't ever wish to star in one.

They shift again, and by the sounds of it they are moving away from me. The hall light that was illuminating the room has now dimmed, leaving only a sliver of light slicing up the wall and ceiling behind me. Maybe they are leaving? I feel like a shell. The body that once inhabited me is no longer present, a cavity replacing the fleshy parts of me, the parts of me that cannot be replaced. I've lost everything I once knew and gained trepidation of the future that I may possibly never even live to see. Even if I do, what now? What's left for me besides mourning for that missing part of me that made me whole. My life will never be the same. How are you supposed to move on when your heart is stuck, beating for a life that doesn't exist as you sit braindead in a void of infinite emptiness. I knew I'd lose them one day, but I wasn't ready for it to be so soon.

The silence is becoming deafening as the space between me and them grows. I have a gap. I need to get upstairs and use my phone. Crawling out from underneath the confinements of the desk, I make my way to the exit, heart in my mouth trying not to vomit it up. My stomach is physically aching as I grip the door to peep out into the hallway. It seems empty and I hear no movement.Now is my chance.

I push for the stairs, creeping up them like a kid at Christmas trying to see Santa until I get to my bedroom, the door is stillopen and I run for my phone which I now realise I forgot to charge. The damn thing is dead.You’ve got to be kidding me.The last option I have is my window which leads out onto the roof. It’s one you have to push up and it’s always jamming so I don’t know how the hell I’m going to do this quietly. I cup the wood and push it as gently as I can, the wood grinds against the window frame, the belt squeaking without lubrication as it inches open, barely enough to get my hands through as I grab the bottom and pull it up, cringing at how damn noisy it is in the desolate silence that surrounds me. Everything is two times louder at night.

A sudden surge of heat burns into my legs directing my focus to the tears of crimson running down my outer thigh, I must have caught myself with the knife. Rubbing the warm liquid against my salty skin I follow the trail all the way down to my foot and my heart sinks to the bottom of my abdomen when I peer down at the carpet beneath me, a perfect blood trail haunts me through the bedroom door to where I'm now stood, cutting the room in two like an earthquake. I can't hide, I've just led them straight to me. My muscles seize, growing tighter against my bones as I tense.

Boots begin to climb the stairs, breaking the floorboards beneath them and all I can do is lock this door. I run for the handle, turning the lock anticlockwise until I hear it click before backing away slowly, light on my feet, holding my breathing so tightly I'm beginning to feel lightheaded, and it feels like I've just jumped fully dressed into a pool, heaving in painful silence, fixated on the handle as their thuds becomes deeper.

They stop. Silence filling the grave around me, boxed in with nowhere to go, already making my bed in a coffin. I glare at the window and scan the room for something heavy. A stack of books are perched on the corner of my bedside table.I need to distract them. I pick them up and throw them with all the powerleft in me, shattering the glass until my carpets smothered in shards.

They are still silent. A few minutes go by and I find my feet again, creeping towards the door, the eerie stillness peaking my curiosity as I press my ear gently against the door, listening for any signs of life beyond the dirt. My eyes rattle at the nothingness,only the sound of my beating heart tunnelling my ear drums bouncing back against the wood.Are they gone? Did they fall for my decoy?

I press a little harder, cracking the lining of the door slightly before heavy duty nails pierce the barricade just centimetres from my nose pushing a yelp up my throat, throwing my hands flush against my mouth as I leap back from the door.

C H A P T E R 5

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

Puppeteer

Iheard the glass. But I wasn't born yesterday. No idiot is going to clamber through a broken window in pyjamas, most likely barely covering their skin. My bat is now wedged firmly inside the door protecting them from me and a sinister snarl falls slyly against my mouth as a yelp breaches through the walls. I don't hurt children, but they seem too smart to be that young. I was in the middle of setting the house ablaze before whoever this was ruined it. I guess I still could. I'd just have to hang around a while to make sure whoever this is, doesn't get out alive.

Their blood is smeared against the rubber souls of my boots and I can feel their heartbeat through the still air. I've been where they are more times than I would like to admit, fearful of my life. Fearful of evil, fearful of theDevil. And although I may not be him, part of his black heart poisoned mine in the process when exchanging my freedom. I inhabit a darkness that finds pleasure in this game of hide and seek, but it won't last long. My patience is slim and they are running it out rapidly.

I wait, even tempered behind the door for around five minutes before they finally buck up the courage to beeline for the front door.More fun for me. The door flings open abruptly, thudding echoes through the empty hallway before reaching my leathered hand to grip their forearm. It's pitch black up here buther dark, pin straight hair and blanc skin against the shadows that encapsulate us are nothing short of an eyesore.

Lilies and butterscotch sting my nose as her hair fights with the dead breeze, obstructing her sight as her body swings clockwise to face me and a hearty gush of blood slices my arm.The bitch caught me with a knife.I let my guard drop, shaking off the pain as she legs it down the maze of corridors that make up this house, but there is only one way down.

And that is past me.

I yank my weapon from the door frame, tugging it down a notch, wiggling it to release, snapping the bonds and leaving splinters to ride up the centre as I stride after her. Dragging the nails across the wood I stalk the top floor, slowly, with malice waiting for her to run her little legs down the stairs where I will be waiting.

It doesn’t take long for her to leg it for the opening and my bat meets the back of her calf muscle, the nails tearing her skin spilling a river down the backs of her sweaty flesh, listening to her sweet cries of pain. I wouldn’t have to hurt her if she didn’t run. She crawls across the floor slowly, dragging her immobile leg behind her as she floods the floor with her tears.

“Please!” She pleads, but I take no notice. I haven't got time for this. I need to get out of here. My impatience is getting the best of me. Turning her to face me, I’m ready to drive my switch blade across her delicate little throat and watch her bleed out slowly across the floor for me but as our eyes meet, I gently pierce the sharp edge into her jugular and she gapes at the horror that I am with my mask glaring back at her, taking in her final moments, pools spilling over her cheeks. She’s blubbering words I cannot understand beneath her breath and I twist my split tongue, rubbing each fork against the piercings in my mouth, sucking in her pain as her eyes catch me completely off guard, so full of sadness and fear. I feel like I am looking at myown reflection, frightening me to let her go. This is unusual, this feeling is foreign to me,I’ve never hesitated?

She thumps to her elbows, ready to crawl away and in my moment of weakness I almost lose her. I grab the bottom of her silky white shirt pulling her back below me as I lace rope around her petite wrists, so tiny I could snap them and prop her up against the nearest wall.

“Please don’t do this! Please let me go!” She murmurs as I mute her with tape, blocking out her voice driving my guilt as I begin to pace back and forth collecting my thoughts, her incessant whining breaking beneath me through her muzzle, eating at my frustration.All of this is wrong, everything is wrong, she wasn’t supposed to be here, why is she here, who even is she? How the hell did I miss this? There are no records of a fucking kid. If there was, I would have gone about this entirely differently!Cries bleed through my subconscious, blocking my concentration until I snap.

“Will you shut the fuck up!... I don't want to hurt you. Don’t make me hurt you. Please. Be a good girl and Shhhh…” I slowly kneel to her level, rubbing my leather finger against the soaked tape, smouldered in salty tears as she wriggles away from my touch, snatching her head to the side to unlink us but my grasp finds her chin, yanking her back to look into the eyes of the monster before her, tapping her cheek with sweet abuse three times.

The whining stops.

“There we go…” I can finally hear myself fucking think.

Gasoline. That’s what I was doing until I was rudely interrupted. I holster her body over my shoulder carrying her downstairs and place her by the front door before heading to the basement for the gasoline I was searching for buried underneath tools and building materials.Gotcha.

I can just burn the evidence, and it will be investigated as a house fire, that way there is no trace of me or this thing I’m now going to have to fucking figure out what to do with, but I will get to that later, right now I just need to get out of here.

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