Chapter 7
Sarah opens her mouth and screams. A scream that etches chills up and down her trembling body and that makes her jaws feel like they are being ripped apart with a hacksaw.
Glaring at her in the middle of the far wall are black marks which appear to have been made by fingers dragged down the whitewash.
Blood. She knows it is blood. The nails have gouged deep into the plaster.
She hadn’t seen it there before.
She begins to shake violently, unable to tear her eyes from the horrible sight. It isn't only the blood. Somewhere inside her a memory has stirred, and she doesn’t want it. There are innumerable half-decayed memories strewn through the darkness of her mind, and most of them don’t seem to matter.
This one does, though; this one she can do without.
'Please God, please God, please God,' she whispers again and again like a mantra as she retreats shaking towards the door, still staring at the marks.
When her heel touches the top step, she turns round, and, sobbing with fright, begins to descend the staircase. She hurries with short, jerky steps, her heart leaping into her mouth with every tremor of her body. Suddenly, her bare foot catches on something. She trips and rolls down and down, against each sharp stone edge, into – into –
The knuckle duster smashes across the face of the eight-year old child. She does not scream, but the weight of it flings her bird-like form back against the grey concrete. She cups her face in her delicate hands, stroking the spider web crack that had just been embroidered into her skin. It cried thick scarlet tears.
-No, Daniel!
It rings out against the choking, cruel silence, but the speaker is soon muted.
Big, tawny hands grab at her shoulders and lift her up; her legs dangling in mid-air. A frightened puppet hanging from its gossamer thread.
This is the way the world ends.
“Is that how you feel sometimes, Sarah? Like someone’s tugging at your strings?”
Thwack. Thwack. Twack as her laced patent boots knock backwards and forwards against the wall. Crimson rolls from her head, bitter and watery, staining the whitewash. She puts a hand to it and it stains her fingers. Horrified, she rubs them on the wall.
Red fingerprints, smeared on the white pure plaster.
“Don’t cry. Here. Drink this. They saw the walls, you know. It’s evidence. Do you know what that means, Sarah?” Of course not. Anyway, the cup of tea tastes like poison and her tears don’t even matter.
“Please…stop…please…stop.”
He doesn’t.
He takes hold of her wrists, frail as wineglass stems. His eyes, bitter, broken. They flare at her, pupils dilating.
It’s no use, so she bites her lip and crushes her sobs.
“Diagnosis is in. We’ve been meeting five years now, haven’t we? Well; we know what the cause is now, of everything. You’ve been on prescription for the disorder and there’s nothing more we can do. But Sarah, he’s never coming back. It’s over. It’s all over.”
Over?
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a -
Sarah wakes up. The curtains are drawn.
