Don't Hang Up

[ashkent]

Well, this has already been on the site as an interactive story, but other that about four occassions the number of valid points to have some interaction were becoming more an more sparse the further in the story went.
Another reason I wanted to end it as an interactive story was that there were more holes in the opening chapters than in a Tombstone salloon door. Also with stories like that I tend to find that I don't get a grip on the story or characters until about ten-fifteen thousand words in. Dean Koontz rewrites every chapter as he writes them, another author I can't think of rewrites each line until he's happy with it. I write a tenth of a book then go back to the beginning and rewrite it!
So, this is the extended and edited version of Don't Hang Up. The first chapter remains pretty much the same, but from chapter two the details are in sync and some important plot points have been corrected.
Enjoy once again.

[ashkent]

PART ONE - Where It's Safe

Chapter 1

The sound of Cliff Richard greeted me as I opened the door. I could’ve thought of a better welcome.

I pulled my key from the lock and stepped into the hall.

“Hey babe,” I called. “What have I told you about putting that bloody disc on when I’m due in?”

I closed the door and bent to take my shoes off. My fingers pulled loose the knot of the left lace and the shoe dropped off. I changed legs then paused, my attention turning to the house.

Jennifer hadn’t replied.

“Babe?”

I pulled off the other shoe.

There was still no reply. She must have gone in the shower and left the music playing again. It wasn’t the first time. She did it just to annoy me sometimes. I hate Cliff Richard.

I walked along the hall and into the living room. The hi-fi was right next to the door and soon the sound of the Young One ceased.

Backing into the hall I could hear no sounds from upstairs; no running water or moving floorboards.

“Jen?”

I moved along to the kitchen, pushing open door. Empty. The back door was shut and other than a few cups and bits of cutlery on the drainer there were no signs of life.

Where was she? It wasn’t like her to be out. It was much more common that she would be draped on the sofa, or sauntering around the living room in something teasing and provocative.

I walked back along the hallway to the foot of the staircase.

“Jen?” I shouted. “Is this one of your games? Give me a clue, babe!”

The shrill call of the phone broke into the silence. I spun around, hanging onto the banister to keep my feet.

“Shit,” I said to myself with a smile. “Jen, if this is you I swear I’m not going to show any mercy. I’ll have you in that bed for hours.”

I reached over and picked up the receiver from the bulk, retro base.

“Hello?”

“Hello, David.”

I didn’t recognise the voice. “Who is this?”

“You don’t need to worry about that. Just listen to what I have to say.”

“Look, whatever it is, I’m not buying. Thanks but no-“

“Don’t hang up.”

“What?”

“Don’t hang up.”

“Why the hell– ”

“Don’t hang up, David. Hang up and she dies.”

[ashkent]

For a moment I didn’t say anything but just stared blankly at the wall.

“What did you say?” I asked with a short laugh.

“I said hang up and your wife will die.”

I turned around and leaned against the rails of the staircase. I laughed again, longer this time.

“I’m being serious. Are you listening, David?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Serious. Right. It sounds like something she would set up. So what does she want me to do?”

“David, I really don’t think you are listening. This is not a game. I am not part of some sexual tease. I do intend to kill your wife.”

I found myself staring at the wall again. I couldn’t be standing in my own home being threatened by someone I didn’t know. It had to be some kind of set up.

“Are you listening, David?”

“I’m listening,” I replied. “I’m not buying this sick idea of a joke, but I’m listening.”

“David, I can assure you that this is not a joke. Jennifer Fiona Thompson, aged 32. A brunette.”

“That’s meant to convince me that she’s in some kind of danger. You’re going to have to do better than–”

“Jennifer Fiona Thompson. Aged 32. Brunette. Scar along the top of her left buttock. Mole to the right of the nipple on left tit. Blue teardrop piercing through her bellybutton. Bar piercing through her clit shining in her cute, tight bald pussy.”

All cynical thoughts left my mind. The information fired from the phone line like bullets from a rifle. An image of Hannibal Lecter barking quick-fire monotone instructions to Clarice Starling from within his cell flashed before me. With just a few words it felt like I was suddenly in the middle of a very different conversation.

“Who are you?” I asked, my words sounding odd and distant.

“Your worst nightmare,” the voice said through the receiver before bursting into a laugh. “Sorry I couldn’t resist.”

“Who are you?” I shouted into the mouthpiece.

“I don’t think I need to tell you that right now. I’m sure you will work it out eventually. It will be too late, most likely, but nonetheless you will work it out.”

“Where’s Jen?”

“Now, David. You really need to get a bit of imagination in that head of yours. Why would I want to tell you that so soon?”

“Tell me where she is!”

“And what will you do if I say no? Throw a tantrum? Threaten me? Cry like a little baby?”

That laugh came again.

I turned from the wall looking around the hallway, through the open doors of the kitchen and living room. My mind whirled in images of fictional serial killers and abducted victims, bound and gagged, cut and bleeding. The room around me looked no different to when I left for work that morning. There were no signs of a struggle, nothing.

“No more questions, David? All out of fight?”

“What do you want?” I asked quietly.

“You soon cotton on, don’t you? Ever alert and always looking for the solution to someone’s problem. This is yours though. Much more difficult to dish out advice don’t you think?”

“Tell me what the fuck you want!”

“Temper, temper. You seem tense, David. I can see sweat, I’m sure.”

I opened my mouth to speak then stopped as the words sank in. I felt sweat trickling down the side of my face.

I turned around quickly. My gaze darted around the walls, towards the window, the door.

“I’m impressed,” the voice said. “Well done.”

I did not reply. I still searched the room, my thoughts in turmoil. What was going on? How had this man invaded our home?

“Have you ever seen a rabbit in headlights?” the voice asked, a hint of malicious chuckle present in its tone. “Look in the mirror and you will.”

I could see no cameras and no transmitters, yet there was no way to doubt the blatant fact.

I was being watched.

[Chinaren]

Good to see this one is still alive, even if it's in a different body!

[ashkent]

“You can speak, David.”

I wasn’t so sure. This was not the type of thing that happened in real life. This came straight from the pages of some cheap holiday paperback. I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

“Would you rather I take the lead?” the voice chuckled in my ear.

My eyes moved around the room again, not really seeing. What was all this about? Why was I standing in my own house being tormented and threatened by someone I didn’t even know? Where was Jen?

“We can do this very easily,” the voice continued, tone even and clearly confident in the power of its words. “I just want you to listen to what I have to say, carry out a couple of meaningless tasks, and I will be gone as though I never called.”

“What about Jen?” I asked, finding my voice. “Where is she?”

“All in good time, David. Don’t try to jump ahead or I might stop being so patient. Remember, I said you need to listen.”

“So I’m listening. What do you want me to do?”

“First I want you to stop staring at the walls like they are going to eat you. It is still your house, just as you have always known it. I am merely a short term lodger. Don’t worry about me making a mess. You won’t even know I’ve been here. Provided you do exactly what I say.”

The doorbell rang, startling me into dropping the phone. The handset bounced on its wire and hit the floor with a clatter. I heard the tinny sound of the voice at the other end shouting something.

I spun around to face the door, trying to discern a face through the frosted glass.

The scratching of the voice imploring something at the other end of the line pulled my attention back to the dropped receiver. I bent and snatched it up.

“– she will die!”

“What?” I said. “I didn’t hear. I dropped –”

“Dropped the phone like some frightened fucking girl, I know,” he spat down the line. “Piss your pants at the same time, did you? I said to get rid of whoever that is, and if you tell them anything then she will die.”

The bell rang again.

“Answer it and I want you to get rid of them.”

“Ok. I’m going.”

I placed the receiver down next to the phone and shifted to the door. In one movement, I reached the door, grasped the handle and swung it open.

“’Ello, mate,” the man at the door said before I could speak. “Got a package for you.”
I found a clipboard being pushed in my face and a pen in my hand. I looked blankly at the paper in my hand, my thoughts only on the abandoned phone. I vaguely saw a dotted line and absently scrawled something resembling my signature on it.

“There you go,” I said, turning from the casually dressed delivery man.

“You still need your delivery, mate,” the man said.

I looked back over my shoulder. The blow came from nowhere, sending me backwards across the hall.

I hit the table, knocking it over and taking the telephone down with me. I heard a horrible thud as my head hit the wall and a blinding pain ran the length of my spine.

I lay on my back, unable to move as darkness overcame my vision.

As I drifted out of consciousness, the last sound I heard filled me with a pain greater than any physical agony.

“David?” the scratchy voice echoed close to my ear. “David? If you hang up you know what happens. I told you to do what I said. I told you to get rid of him. Don’t hang up. Don’t–“

Blackness engulfed my world. The voice faded into obscurity and with it the hope that I would ever see my wife again.

[ashkent]

Coming to was not the most pleasant experience I’ve had.

My waking body seemed unsure how to respond to my pains and aches. My face throbbed down the left side. I moved my jaw and felt something hard and crusty crack. Dried blood.

I remembered the delivery man. The blow.

The phone call.

The haze across my mind cleared instantly, my eyes widened and I turned to find the phone.

Then the room opened up around me, blinkers coming off, allowing me to see what I should have known instinctively.

I couldn’t move.

I sat in the middle of the living room, my wrists and ankles tied to one of the chairs from our dining room. The house lingered in silence but for my wheezy breathing.

Scanning the room suggested nothing had been disturbed. No one stood watch over me and although it wasn’t in my line of sight I knew from the lack of draught that the front door was closed. Someone could still be watching though. I could only see a small area, the remainder of the house offered my attacker plenty of room to loiter.

And there could still be the other watcher, the voice on the phone with his hidden eyes in the room.

With some measure of calm I looked over my right shoulder.

The phone was back on the righted table, the handset resting in its cradle. Whoever had knocked me out had also hung up the phone.

A tightness gripped my chest with a grasping fingers, squeezing the air from my lungs.

Hang up and she will die.

That was what the voice had warned me. What I didn’t know was whether he had carried out his threat.

One question burned in my mind. Why me? Two men had singled me out in less than ten minutes, but why?

Someone had abducted Jen. Why?

A seemingly genuine delivery man had turned up on my doorstep and knocked me out without any reason. Why?

The word repeated itself in my mind, until I heard it emerge from my dry lips in a hiss of a whisper.

“Why?”

Panic should have started creeping into my mind, and thoughts of Jen’s fate should have been flooding my head. Freeing myself from the chair lingered as only a vague instruction, and working out the identities of the delivery man and the voice on the phone had become distant and ghostly. In the deathly silence I just sat and stared at the phone.

Maybe it had been the blow. I couldn’t motivate myself or concentrate on what I needed to. My initial realisation of being tied to the chair had stirred me, but now a dimming veil had drawn across my mind, enclosing my thoughts in a dull fog.

Part of me wanted to move and to struggle against my bindings, but something prevented me from giving a conscious effort to free myself.

And it all came back to the phone.

Seeing the receiver resting in its cradle had caused any kind of fight to abandon my body. I hadn’t needed to question what effect the hung up phone would have, not really. Deep down I already knew the answer.

I watched the news and read the papers. I even watched those real life dramatisations when there was nothing else worth watching on TV. If someone said they were going to bomb an airport, it would happen. If someone threatened to kill your wife if you hung up the call, she would be dead the instant the receiver dropped. We live in that kind of world.

For a long moment I felt blind to the room around me. My eyes only saw the images of Jen that passed through my mind. The first time I saw her and the day we finally gave in and admitted how we felt for each other; our wedding day, wedding night; how I’d seen her last and what I’d said to her.

There was no conscious decision made to give up the fight. I was just accepting the way the world worked. The world is cruel and takes all it can. Even when we fuck our lives up it is rare to have the chance of undoing mistakes. 

A tear rolled from the corner of my eye. I wasn’t crying, but somewhere inside I had broken. What reason did I have to want to get out of the chair? There was nothing now.

Until the phone rang again.


Note - One thing that a couple of people had mentioned about the opening of this book was a lack of feeling for the lead character and his plight. Nothing was really known about him and quite a few people said they didn't really care about what happened to him because they didn't know him. I think i originally kept away from too much detail for two reasons. First, I didn't know the character myself. I never plan anything but a basic idea so I had no idea who this guy was, why these people were doing to him what they were, or how he was going to react. Second, I hate getting bogged down in chapters full to tell tell tell. Why fill three paragraphs giving someone's history when it can just come out a bit at a time. So, now that I know what kind of person David is and just how he is going to react to what is happening, I have editted in some extra detail that I think is a happy medium between outright information information information and a blank canvass.

[Chinaren]

I'm a fairly 'light on detail' person myself.  Still, this improves it a bit!

[ashkent]

Well I know someone said that they didn't feel like they had a chance to take a breath until about chapter 10 which was good enough for me, but for this kind of story I tend to have a maximum word limit per chapter so when I extended it I still stuck to that limit.

It's a bit like when I'm reading. I can read a James Patterson book in a couple of days because if I'm waiting of an internet page loading up (which currently takes forever and is the main reason I haven't been posting as much recently) or have two minutes spare I'll usually pick it up and read a chapter seeing as they are only a page or two long. If I know the chapters are 9 or 10 pages plus I tend to wait until I have time to read which rarely happens. I think when you're posting on here too it's best to stick to short chapters.

[Chinaren]

Gosh, you're back in time 10 years!  56.6 modem time. 

Yes, short chapters are generally better for getting reads. 

Anyway. 

[ashkent]

Only 10 years? Lol. If you ever move house and have to move from Broadband to mobile broadband...don't!

Now...back to the story (provided this connection remains open long enough)

[ashkent]

My heartbeat pulsed in my temple and breathing came harder.

The bindings around my wrist were too tight. I struggled against them, tugged so hard I thought I would dislocate my arms. All I wanted to do was reach the telephone.

I flung myself forward, rocking the chair but not overturning it.

I couldn’t tell which would be worse, remaining upright or flat on the floor.

The chair creaked in protest to my struggles. I threw my weight down against it, listening to the wood grinding. The second time something cracked. The third, something cracked again, louder.

My movements became more violent, pain scorching up my spine as it jarred on the wooden back of the chair.

Suddenly the frame succumbed to my frantic thrashing and splintered. I hit the ground and cried out when the jagged edge of the broken chair sliced through the flesh of my shoulder.

With my feet and wrists still bound I slithered across the carpet, gritting my teeth against the burn. My eyes were focussed on the large, square shape of the retro phone, but my thoughts continued to play about with what ifs and could bes and without knowing it I spoke in wheezy breaths the same words over and over. Just a few more times. Ring just a few more times.

I stopped dragging my body across the floor, the pain of the burning becoming too much to bear any longer. I lay on my side, my breath rushing through mouth, my chest heaving. My hands were still secured behind my back but I knew there should be just enough give in the bindings to loop them in front. Pulling my legs into a foetal position I stretched my arms as far as they would go. I struggled to get my bound wrists over my feet, the urgent call of the phone ever present, pushing me to do whatever necessary to answer it.

I pulled my legs as close to my chest as possible, my knees spreading where the ties would allow. With possibly the greatest effort I had put into anything, I forced my hands down and wriggled them over my feet.

With breaths that sounded like quiet, hysterical laughter I rolled onto my front, lifted on my knees and crossed into the hallway. 

I almost leaped at the table, standing on my knees and grasping the handset in both hands. I lifted it to my ear but heard nothing other than the thudding of feet coming from the living room.

“Get away from the phone!” the delivery man’s voice shouted right behind me.

Without turning I yanked the phone from the table, swinging it by the receiver like a Neanderthal with a stone. I had no idea what I was doing or what I hoped to achieve but allowed some kind of survival instinct to possess me.

Somewhere deep in my consciousness I could hear the static sound of someone on the other end of the line as I caught the side of my head with the handset. I winced at the blow but it took nothing from the power of the swing, which yanked the phone from my fingers.

I fell back, twisting my leg and jarring my back against the low table. In the commotion I was aware of two things happening at once. The delivery man’s large hands were reaching for me, about to close around my throat, when the heavy base of the phone smashed into his face causing him to stagger away. The sound of the impact was sickening, and my stomach lurched when I felt blood spatter my face.

I swung away, losing what little balance I still had. The hallway spun around me and I thumped face down onto the floor. Pain soared from my shoulder and a new flash of agony burst in front of my eyes.

Breaking glass shattered behind me. Then a sudden stillness descended, broken only by a wet gurgling sound and a soft pattering. I forced myself up off the floor, twisting onto my good shoulder, and turning around to find my vision drawn to the blood that ran down the pine living room door.

“Shit,” I said. “Fuck. What? Fuck!”

The body of the delivery man hung from the fragmented glass panel of the door, his throat torn open and spilling blood down onto the carpet where it pooled around his twitching legs.

I scrabbled back along the hall, pushing hard with my feet until I found myself pressed against the front door, beside the shoes I could barely now remember bending to remove.

This couldn’t be happening. None of it. Nothing like this happened in little northeast towns. Nothing like this happened in Dragonville Town. The city, maybe. Newcastle on a Friday night when drink and drugs lead to unprovoked violence. Not in the home of someone like me.

My heart thumped even louder in my head now, drowning out my senses and overpowering everything except the one sound guaranteed to break through into my senses; the hissing and crackling coming from nearby.

The telephone receiver lay by the delivery man, its cord across his leg, the handset splashed in red blotches.

I wanted to crawl over to it, pick it up, but something held me to the spot.

I had my wrists and feet bound, blood pooling on my hallway carpet and the body of someone I didn’t know next to me.

No matter how much I did not want to believe it, this was all happening. It was all real.

And I had to get the phone.

I crawled along the floor, aching and throbbing pains battling for attention in every part of my body. Blood was spreading around the delivery man, but I was able to pull the receiver away from the corpse without having crawl into it.

I pulled the handset close to my right ear, wincing at the pain in my shoulder and cringing at the slippery feel of blood smearing against my fingers.

“Hello?” I said into the receiver, my voice raspy and strained. “Hello? Talk to me you fucker!”

“Now, now, David,” the voice said. “That’s not how you should be talking to the person who knows what you’ve just done.”

“What?” I asked, although I knew immediately the insinuation of his words.

“Do you remember I said I wanted you to do some small things for me? You’ve just set the wheels in motion. No going back now.”

“What do you mean? I haven’t done anything for you.”

“I told you to get rid of him, David. Take a look at that body again. I think you just did exactly what I asked, don’t you?”

I breathed heavily down the line but did not reply.

“Now,” the voice continued. “Here’s the situation and you need to listen to this carefully. That man brought a phone into your house. You need to find it and keep it with you. If you don’t, then you never hear from me again and your beloved wife will die. Do you understand?”

I still could not bring myself to reply.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes! Yes I understand,” I shouted. “Why though? Tell me why you are doing this to me?”

“I would stop asking questions and think how you are going to find that phone if I were you. You don’t have long.”

“What do you mean?”

“I believe a concerned neighbour may have called the police to report a disturbance in a house…oh, your house, coincidentally.”

“You bastard.”

“Don’t flatter me. It won’t do you any good to be locked up for murder now. You think you’ve had it bad so far? This is just a taster. You started this, and I want you to remember that. The clock is ticking, David. You don’t have much time. ”

Before I could say anymore, the line went dead.

[ashkent]

I dropped the receiver into the cradle and looked around.

I couldn’t think straight. Had someone really called the police? No, of course not, but the bastard at the other end of the phone probably had.

Comprehending what was going on seemed beyond me. Part of my mind still refused to accept what was happening, yet in the conscious denial I was thinking how to release my wrists and ankles.

My eyes fell on a large shard of glass in the blood pooling around the delivery man’s body. I stretched out but then paused. I couldn’t reach it without getting blood all over my clothes. I could use a knife from the kitchen, but preying on my mind were the words from the telephone.

You don’t have much time.

I crawled forward, blood seeping into my trousers. I felt queasy from the sensation of lukewarm fluid, fresh from another man, pressed against my legs. Touching the body had been nowhere in my thoughts, but if time was against me then to free myself I had little choice. The glass was the nearest I had to a chance and I had to take it.

I picked the shard up between my hands, trying to ignore the red trickling down my fingers and arm. The consequences of what I was doing and about to do were so long-reaching that I didn’t want to even contemplate their meaning. All I needed to do was loosen the ties and get the fuck out of the house. If I could get away from the house, I could find space to think and work out what was going on.

Sitting up I cut at the bindings around my ankles, hacking into the ties until they first frayed then snapped away. Holding the glass steady between my feet, I pulled and pushed my wrists back and forth. It seemed to take forever to cut through the cord and the whole time I expected the door to burst open and armed police to charge into the hallway.

I dropped the pieces of cord on the floor and pulled on the doorframe to get to my feet. A bloody print remained when my hand fell away but nothing could be done about it. There wasn’t time to clean things up and one smear against so much carnage seemed insignificant. I had to get out.

Stepping away from the body, footprints marking my movements along the hall, I picked my keys off the hook and took hold of the door handle then stopped.

Walking out into the street with blood all over my shirt and arms wasn’t a good idea. I needed to change into something else. Time wasn’t on my side but I couldn’t expect to get further then the end of the estate looking like a crash victim.

Or a killer.

I ran up the staircase, crossing the landing with long-legged strides. I reached for the bedroom door then thought better of it. Blood dripped from my fingers. They needed to be washed first before the house looked like a massacre had taken place. The thought should have been steeped in irony considering the horror that lay in the hallway below.

Turning around I hurried into the bathroom, putting on the tap and running my arm under it. I stopped to pull off my bloodied clothes, dropping them into the laundry basket without even thinking about it.

I returned to washing my arms, watching the pink water disappear down the plughole. I dampened the flannel and rubbed my body, rinsing the colour from it and returning to wipe again until I felt something close to clean.  Checking the mirror, it looked like sleep had evaded me for a week; hell, a month. There were flecks of red down the side of my neck and under my chin. I dipped my head under the tap and rubbed with my hands.

I yanked the towel from its rail, dried myself and checked the mirror again. Clean.

Crossing the landing into the bedroom again, I opened the wardrobe and pulled out the first soft shirt on the pile. I tugged it over my head and reached in again for a pair of jeans. I hopped over to the bedside table as I pulled them on. I opened up the top drawer and took out the wad of notes I kept there. I stuffed the cash in my wallet. Pocketing it, I took one last look around the room.

I wondered when I would see any of it again. The room had Jen all over it. I had never been good with bedclothes or curtains or colour schemes, but she got it right every time. Blue, pale blue to keep the room cool, was what she’d said. It worked too. Looking at it right then, though, it looked cold. Very cold.
I left, closing the door behind me, and ran back downstairs.

My eyes were instinctively drawn to the body of the delivery man, still hanging by his neck from the broken glass in the door.

That man brought a phone into your house. You need to find it and keep it with you.

The voice from the call was as crisp and vile in my mind as when I heard it coming from the receiver.

 I shifted over to the body, trying not to disturb the blood any more than I already had. With my legs free I was able to stretch over the blood without touching it. I searched his pockets; jacket, trousers.

The first two were empty. The next one had a scrap of paper in. The last one had a wallet.

Time was pressing at my back. I couldn’t spend time on it now, but I didn’t want to just dispose of the only means of identifying my attacker. The wallet and scrap went into my pocket. I would look at it more once I was away from the house.

There were no signs of a phone. It could be anywhere.

“Think,” I said to myself. “Think, damn it.”

The delivery man hadn’t expected me breaking free from the chair. That meant whatever he intended to do in the house, he’d probably not had time to carry out his instructions, or at least he’d had to do it quickly.   

Crossing the threshold into the living room I looked for signs of anything different to how I remembered it. I moved around, following the path he had taken when he came at me. Nothing seemed out of place or disturbed. Only the broken chair in the middle of the floor shattered the illusion of a regular family home.

I took another few steps, turning one way then the other, searching for that one sign of something of something that could have been tampered with.

I pushed open the door to the dining room. He had to have come through this way. The large mahogany table dominated the room, a cabinet with frosted glass front behind it, three remaining chairs it. Except one wasn’t quite underneath. It stuck out about a foot compared to the one next to it. Nothing else up until then had seemed wrong.

I circled the table, arriving at the chair and eyeing it like something dangerous.

I pulled the chair out.

It was empty.

My hand went to my head of its own accord, raking through my hair agitatedly, and I heard the word “fuck” hiss from my lips.

The chair should have been tucked straight under the table. Jen went ape-shit if I ever left them out of place – she was almost an OCD case. Someone must have been around the table for it to be so noticeable. The delivery man had needed to leave a phone in the house for me and when he heard the phone, or the smashing of the chair, or both, he must have panicked and hurriedly pushed it somewhere.

I moved the chair to one side, searching the floor. Nothing. The chair next to it.

Nothing. Frustrated, I slammed my fist down on the shiny table surface.

Something thumped by my feet.

I looked down at the small silver mobile phone.

Under the table. It had been attached somehow to the underside of the table.

I picked the phone up and flipped open the cover. I turned it on and waited for the annoying jingle to end. The screen lit up, flashed once then displayed an image that sent a sickness through my stomach.

[Chinaren]

Hurrah!  Stomach sickness! 

[ashkent]

I couldn’t remember putting my fist into my mouth, but had to remove it to breathe.

The image of Jen twisted a malicious hand in my guts. My eyes ran up and down the small screen, registering every single minute detail wrong about it; so very wrong. A bruise shadowing her right eye; hair streaked with dirt; face streaked with tears. Naked and bound on a filthy bed.

Blinking away tears, I slammed the phone shut and resisted the overpowering urge to smash it against the wall. As much as I didn’t want to carry the image around with me, I needed the phone. As much as I wanted to open up the cover and delete the picture, I couldn’t because I wanted something to remind me that all of this was real and not just some sick fuck’s joke. I pushed it into my pocket without looking at it again.

I rested my forehead against the table. It felt like I was dying inside. How much worse could it get? Every passing minute brought a new devastating blow that knocked me off my feet and clawed at my belief that anything would be normal again.

Why? The question repeated in my head as it had since I answered the phone to those three words: Don’t hang up. Disturbed minds were nothing new to me. Being the victim of one was a different matter. Torment and distress had found their way into my life and all I wanted to know was the easy to answer question of why. What had either of us done to anyone?

I pulled myself back to the here and now. The phone I needed to find sat in my pocket and there were no other reasons to linger. The house felt alien, dangerous. It felt invaded by the smell of death. If I didn’t walk through the front door again, stepping in to that hallway where that body had lay, and where that phone rang, I could live with it.

Where was I going? Leaving behind the house, the hidden intrusive eyes that were surely watching every move; that would be easy. I needed someone to talk to though, someone that could help and knew how to help. Leaving the house and running away couldn’t become the same thing. If I ran it could only be to someone I knew and trusted.

Life had not granted me a large circle of friends. I wasn’t the type to buddy up with random strangers in order to feel part of the crowd, and with the exception of a small handful, my friends were Jen’s friends. I knew them fleetingly, saw them at weddings, funerals and birthday meals. They weren’t people I could admit murder to and expect them to listen to my pleas. Of everyone else, one person breezed to the front of the meagre crowd; Steve. Friends accept much, but everyone has that someone they know will accept anything. Steve had been my someone for a long time.

I lifted my head, pulled on the table to get to my feet. I moved into the living room, crossed and stepped into the hall. It looked like an abattoir. The body lay sprawled, blood drying on the door and pooled on the floor. Beside the horror stood the phone. Jen had chosen the bulky retro monstrosity over a slimline cordless, lost in her childhood memories of the ones she used as a kid. Now it was a murder weapon, yet without it…I didn’t want to think about that.

I tried to clear my mind for a moment. Think straight. Think sensibly. I had money, cards, house and car keys. The mobile I had been implored to find. I didn’t have my own mobile. It had been in my other trousers, the ones now in the basket upstairs.

I gripped the banister and put my foot on the first stair then stopped when I heard a car pulling up outside.

[Chinaren]

Mmmm, who could that be I wonder? 

[ashkent]

Through the patterned glass of the door I could see the car on the pavement outside, a blur of blue on its roof confirming my fear.

He had called them. The bastard had called the police on me.

It seemed an effort to breathe and tightness contracted my body. I wondered if this was what a heart attack would feel like the moment it took hold. Pressure. It felt like pressure from all sides.

The back of a police car and a cell were the only places I would be going if I remained in the house any longer. Jen would be as good as dead.

A small, rational speck in the back of my thoughts told me to talk to them, explain, get their help. I wasn’t a killer. They would see how I was a respectable member of the community caught in something beyond control. They would know it.

But first they would see a dead man in a pool of blood. They would find the bloodied clothes upstairs, while I appeared to be very clean. They would make the assumption any cop would make based on what they needed; evidence.

I ran along the hallway, stepping around the bloodstained patch of carpet and barging through the door to the kitchen. I crossed the room with pace reaching and opening the back door as a sturdy hand knocked at the front one. They wouldn’t wait long before checking around the back. Considering a report of domestic violence would warrant two officers, one of them was probably already on their way.

There was a side path along the left of the house, a wooden fence sealing off the right. I couldn’t get around the front without being caught and suddenly felt more trapped than I had inside. The luxury of time to think had been taken from me and I needed to work out a way to escape quick. Impossibly quick.

I looked over into the next garden, the Gordons’. I could easily climb over the fence, but the risk was Jim Gordon or his wife looking out of their window and coming out to find out why the hell I was creeping around their property.

Except their curtains were closed. It looked like no one was home.

I didn’t give any thought to how much worse the situation could get. All I needed to do was get off my own property and maybe I could get out onto the street. 

I vaulted the fence, narrowly avoiding a plot of tidy plants on the other side. I didn’t want to make my path obvious by leaving flattened plants in my wake. It couldn’t look like someone had just hopped from one garden to the next or I was blown. I crossed the lawn to the back door of the Gordons’ house. I stood there for a moment, my back to the wall, eyes focussed on nothing while pieces of a plan came together behind them.

I tugged my keys from my pocket. The lock was pretty standard. A couple of keys looked like they would fit. The first one slid into the lock so smooth it could have belonged there. It didn’t matter that it wouldn’t turn. As long as the key hung from the lock, it would have the effect I wanted.

I held the key there, listening to the sound of my heart, breathing as steady as I could. I had to calm down. Deep breaths. Calm.

Seconds passed slowly. Each moment stretched out, doubt weaving like a serpent through the gaps between the thumps coming from my chest.

This isn’t a plan, I thought, This is fucking stupid.

I had no time to do anything else. The trap had closed and I was caught like fly waiting for the spider. I couldn’t hold it together for much longer.

Then the sound of footsteps echoed from the side of the house. Someone was coming. For all I knew it could be Jim Gordon coming home, but there were no half measures now. What had to be done had to be done.

I closed my eyes and counted to five, then pulled the key out of the lock. For a moment I was sure my feet were just going to remain planted to the stone, but then they were carrying me towards the side of the house. Without thinking I flipped the keys in my palm, feeling the sharp jab and hearing a solid rattle of metal on metal.

At the corner of the building, I rounded onto the narrow pathway between the houses. A young-faced policeman came level on the other side of the fence. The next few minutes were going to make or break me.

I looked directly at the cop and jumped slightly.

“Shit,” I said. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting anyone being there.”

He looked at me and I suddenly felt as though I had made the worst mistake possible in speaking to him. He would see through the façade, the trick I was playing. .

“Sorry, sir,” the cop said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. We’re just checking out disturbance reported here.”

“Really?” I asked, my compose holding on my face while inside I was knotted. “At Dave and Jen’s?”

Speaking her name threatened to undo me.

“That would be Mr and Mrs Thompson?” the cop asked. “Have you seen either of them tonight? Heard anything, Mr…?”

“Gordon,” I said without hesitation. “Jim Gordon.”

“Like in the Batman comics. Cool and the Gang.”

Suddenly the thought of the young cop seeing through my lies did not seem quite as certain. .

“Yeah,” I said with a forced smile. “Just like that.”

“Have you heard anything from the house tonight, Mr Gordon?”

“Not today,” I replied. “I haven’t been here much actually. I just popped back now to feed the cat. My wife’s mother’s in hospital so we’ve been there most of the day.”

“Sorry to hear that. I won’t keep you,” he said.

“Thanks.”

I instantly started thinking about how I was going to get away from the house. I couldn’t use my car but I needed to get out of there quickly. If I could make it out of the estate there was a bus stop just up the road. There was no other option unless I wanted to steal a neighbour’s car along the street and add TWOK to my problems. If it had to be the bus, then it had to be quick before the cop decided to look through the window or…

The rattle of keys in my pocket stirred a thought. I hadn’t locked the door. I wasn’t even sure if I’d closed it in my haste to get away from the house. If the door stood ajar, he wasn’t likely to just walk away without checking out if anyone was home.

I made to turn away towards the street.

“One minute, sir,” the cop said, and my stomach sank.

[Chinaren]

Oooh, now, what's he want I wonder? 

[ashkent]

I froze.

The call of the open street almost forced me to forget the plan and just run.

“Yes?” I asked instead, struggling now to keep my voice steady.

“Did you know you’ve cut yourself there, Mr Gordon?” the constable said.

Looking down at my shirt, there was a streak of red just below the collarbone. My jacket hung loose and had failed to cover the patch. I had completely forgotten about the injury from the broken chair. I thought it had stopped bleeding before I’d changed my shirt. My heart thumping far too fast was more apparent than ever. The slightest sign of panic and it all ended before it really began.

“Damn,” I said. “I thought that had healed up. I must have caught the scab.”

“You should get it seen to. I think we have some gauze in the car. Give me a minute and I’ll sort you out.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” I said, hoping not to sound too eager to avoid his help. “It’s nothing really, just an old scab I keep catching. Anyway, I’m on my way into the hospital so I’m sure they can give me something to stick over it.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” the constable said. “Have a good day, sir.”

“You too,” I said, forcing myself to turn away slowly and walk down the side of the house.

The open width of the street seemed so wide and spacious following the claustrophobic air between the houses. The feeling of being trapped retreated a little, but it lingered. I had an idea that was something to get used to. 

The police car was mounted on the path outside my house to the left. The second cop stood looking up at the windows. He didn’t turn in my direction, moving instead towards the living room window. The image of the broken dining room chair flashed across my mind.

Without wasting any more time I crossed the Gordon’s front lawn to the pavement and headed towards the junction at the end of the road.

The urge to look back chewed at every step I took. Even the smallest glance could end everything. All it would take was the cop at the front of the house to look in my direction and catch me returning his gaze. They would jump in the car and pick me up before I made it half way to the main road.

Then the questions would start and it wouldn’t take much to break my fake identity.

I wanted to tell them what had happened to me, wanted to get them involved in finding Jen, but it didn’t work like that.

Perhaps this wasn’t a TV drama, but what is the saying about life imitating art? This kind of thing didn’t happen to me, but that was a lie. It did. It was. The only way to deal with it was to accept that my wife had been abducted, a man lay dead in my house and police were about to discover the body.

Focus. All I needed to do was stay focussed and the rest would work out fine. Dwelling on the past couldn’t help me. Thinking about what would happen if I got caught couldn’t either. I could only influence what hadn’t yet happened, just like I told so many people. Taking my own advice had never been one of my strengths.

Pulling up my sleeve, I checked the time. The bus into town would be passing the estate in about five minutes. Missing the bus was out of the question. It would be thirty minutes before the next one, by which time the body in my hallway would certainly have been discovered and I would be in a police cell.

I quickened my pace to a brisk walk, moving faster but no so much as to attract attention. consider the alternative.

The estate was quiet. Dragonville Town was by no means small, but within its area were many tight-knit communities. Greenwood Estate couldn’t be called anything else. The lines between your business and that of your neighbour frequently became a blur. You could piss a different way without someone knowing.

The body would be on everyone’s lips. No one would ask about Jen. None of them would consider to ask if I was ok. The forked tongues of the gossips would drive stream from their whispered words. Suddenly I would become a violent husband. Jen’s disappearance would be down to my drink problem. In a breath everybody on the estate would find they had never trusted me.

The world could be cruel, alright. It could chew you up and spit you out without any remorse. The only way I would ever get my life back was to find the bastard doing this.

It sounded simple. Add that I had no idea where to start looking and suddenly simple became obsolete. I was looking for the smallest needle in the largest fucking haystack.

The estate opened up into the main road, and under watch of the orange streetlights I took a right turn, moving out of sight of my home, the police and the trouble that would surely be only seconds away from coming.

The loud rumble of a vehicle behind me spurred me into moving faster. Worrying about running to the bus stop no longer mattered. Anyone taking an interest would see someone running for bus. It wasn’t likely to arouse suspicions.

I looked over my shoulder. The bus was early, and I was a good few hundred yards from the stop. There was always a chance that the driver would choose to ignore me and drive on, but as I stuck out my hand the engine began to slow.

The bus pulled up alongside me. The doors swung open and the driver greeted me with a smile.

“Just in time there, lad,” the old man said. “A few seconds and you’d have been in trouble.”

“Yes,” I said, dropping my fare into the machine. “I probably would have. One to the station.”

The ticket machine spat out my card, and the grey haired driver produced my change. I gave a quick thanks and shuffled along the bus, avoiding eye contact with anyone, to an empty seat near the back.

The bus pulled away, leaving behind my secret and, for the foreseeable future, my regular life.

[NicTei]

Ooh...nice one!

[ashkent]

A single light bulb lit the converted loft, illuminating nothing much beyond the immediate area. Darkness lingered in the corners.

In the middle of the floor stood a large desk, two monitors on top of it. The screens flickered slightly from a loose wire, but the picture remained clear enough. Each monitor had a different image, but one thing remained constant.

The click of a latch echoed through the rafters and a square of daylight opened in the floor. The rattle of a ladder being pulled down was swiftly followed by footsteps climbing into the hidden observation room.

The dark haired man walked across to the twin screens, pulling aside the wheeled chair to sit. He drank from a mug while he watched. The screens seemed to be frozen, the images not changing but for the flickering. It irritated him but it wasn’t important enough to waste time fixing. The screens had served their main purpose for now.

He looked at screen on the left. It had played out much better than he could have hoped. The screen on the right. Shattered wood scattered across the floor. The escape had been somewhat unexpected, but they did say people acted differently under pressure. Another psychologist would have a field day analysing the behaviour of the man of the moment.

He leaned back, scanning the Thompson’s living room and hallway, pausing on the body visible in both images. It had definitely played out better than he expected. It was always a risk involving third parties, but thankfully David had shown some ingenious spunk. The death by broken glass had just been a stroke of luck. Well, maybe the corpse wouldn’t exactly see it like that, but for his purpose it was.

Something moved on the hall monitor.

He sat forward in the chair, peering closely at the black and white screen. Someone was walking around in the kitchen. A shadow moved in the gap between the open door and the frame.

He had expected David to run with the threat of police. He had seen him run into the kitchen about ten minutes ago. The sonofabitch hadn’t stayed in the house, had he? That wasn’t part of the plan.

A brief flash of anger surfaced and he shouted curses at the screen.

Then the kitchen door flung open.

It wasn’t David.

A large cop filled the doorway. He took one step forward then stopped dead. Even on the monitor the disgusted horror on his young face was vividly apparent. He stayed there for a long time, his eyes taking in the crime scene then he ducked back out of view. The watcher assumed he had vomited. Obviously hadn’t been in the job long if he was still coughing his guts up at the sight of blood.

A second cop entered the scene, a radio by his mouth. It could have been possible to lip-read what he said, but he held the radio too close to his mouth. It did not take a leap of imagination to work out he had set some big wheels in motion – a murder scene call had been made.

The watcher sat back in his chair, thinking.

David did well, he thought. Two cops had arrived at the house and he had made it past them. The trapped rat could either fight its way out of a corner or get smart and look for the gap in the fence. As the cops were in the house without a prisoner, it was apparent which way David had gone. Very resourceful it seemed when the moment called upon it. Most criminals had the same quality.

That made things a little more interesting.

In the quiet of the loftspace, the dark haired man pushed himself back from the desk.

Murder. A fugitive on the run. Maybe he had underestimated David. The muscle lying dead in the hallway certainly had.

Surely David would know that his actions were those of a guilty man. Changing clothes, choosing to leave the scene of a crime past two police officers. David had willingly chosen to take that option, and in doing so he had turned the tables against himself. Who would listen to a man on the run? A man who claimed to be innocent of the crimes he had committed, but who had not taken the opportunity to tell the police?

But he had to keep track of David. He had not thought David capable of a confrontation like that he had witnessed in the last half hour. The surprise outcome had worked in their favour this time, but he couldn’t risk David getting a grip on the situation.

He turned from the screens and headed back down the ladder. A moment later the hatch closed and the light bulb blinked out, leaving the screens to illuminate the darkness with their constant twin view of the Thompson house.

[ashkent]

I stepped off the bus into a crowded, rowdy station.

It was just after six, Friday night. People were heading home from work, others were arriving to start a night that would likely end up in a hazy alcoholic cloud. I’d been there many times, but such days seemed a world away.

I squeezed between lines of people, avoiding eye contact because it would be distracting, not due to paranoia. The station was a necessary stop, nothing more. I didn’t want to bump into anyone I knew or attract attention to myself. If anonymity could stay with me until I left then that was fine with me.

The irony of being in such a busy place but wanting to remain out of sight hadn’t been lost on me, but similarly in all of those faces, moving to and fro, coming and going, who would remember one more face in the crowd. It also seemed like a safe place to be. 

Safety could come in some strange guises. The nightmare I was in the middle of had begun in my house, the place that should have been the safest of all. Perspectives could change in a moment. Mine was shot to shit.

I walked over to one of the timetable boards on the wall. I read down the list of bus numbers, tracing destinations until I found the one I wanted. I had just missed it. The next wasn’t due for another hour.

I turned and looked down the length of the open platform, trying to remember when the station had gone from being quaint and compact to the expanded monstrosity I stood in the middle of. The town served as a link in the public transport chain between Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland which had inevitably led to an expansion programme over the last few years.

Somewhere up the other end of the station were a coffee shop, newsagent and charity shop. I could see the lights streaming out from their windows, signalling their willingness to abide me until my bus arrived, and although I hadn’t planned on lingering, the warmth of the coffee shop seemed preferable to the chill of the evening settling in. Part of me wondered if I would be the only one inside, alone with some serving girl who would remember my face and later remember how I threatened her, attacked her…

Perhaps paranoia had found me after all. It wouldn’t happen like that. There were security cameras everywhere. That wasn’t a great thing for someone trying to keep a low profile, but it also meant I couldn’t be accused of something I hadn’t done.

I walked up the station, keeping my head down. People paid no attention to me. I could have been invisible, but wasn’t that the way in crowded places? Some peculiar trait of the human condition caused friendly, open people to become contained in their own bubble, unwilling to interact with strangers around them. It suited me if no one turned to acknowledge me.

I entered the shop through the tinted-glass door, feeling a burst of heat hit me the instantly drew me on into the warmth.

The shop had been part of the station for as many years as I could remember, remaining under the ownership of a small private company rather than succumbing to the pressure of the Starbucks regime. The quaintness that had been lost out on the platform lived on in the neat, seaside-bar furniture and the granny-flat décor inside. As a marketing prospect the owners must have had a fight on their hands to keep the place open without compromising the look, but sometimes the homely atmosphere and tea like mother makes seals the deal.

I quietly made my way over to the counter, passing a couple of fully occupied tables and noticing a number of individual people dotted here and there. There were still tables off to the side, away from the other customers, seats I could use without having to talk to anyone.

The girl behind the counter looked like she should have been at home studying for school exams, but I suspected she was a little older than I thought. Probably making a little money to help with college fees and text books. She was brunette, pretty and petite with a smile that all good waitresses should supply.

“What can I get you?” she asked, a cheerfulness in her voice that could only come with practice. “We have a special on blueberry muffins.”

“Just a coffee, thanks,” I said, glancing sideways at the stack of muffins beside the till. “Are they going out of date or something?”

“Not yet,” she smiled. “Come back and ask me that in the morning and then…”

She didn’t need to finish the sentence and instead turned away to start pulling levers and pushing buttons on the prehistoric coffee machine mounted on the wall.

You’re a fucking cool customer, I thought. Your wife is missing. Some guy is dead in your house. Yet look at you now, shooting the breeze in a café with a girl you could probably be arrested for looking at on a couple of years ago.

It wasn’t like that though. Somewhere inside I knew it wasn’t like that at all. It was about keeping myself together while I was on my own. If I cracked now, in public, then it ended there and then. Jen would die and I would be on my way to a four-by-four room in maximum security.

“There you go,” the girl said, bringing me out of my reasoning and self-analysis. “Ninety-six pence, please. Unless I can tempt one of those muffins on you?”

Her smile, so sweet and pure, sold one of the almost stale muffins to me. I could have looked at that smile for hours, forgetting about the evils and truths of life to allow my mind to believe that only innocence and purity lived in the world.

“I’ll take one,” I said, with a surprisingly genuine smile of my own.

“That’ll be one-forty-six altogether,” she said, pulling out a plate and presenting the top muffin on it.

I handed over the money, took my change and made my way over to a table near the back knowing that I probably wouldn’t find anything else to smile about for a long time to come.

[Chinaren]

Oooh, nearly up to date! 

[ashkent]

Almost, although there are a few extra scenes in the next few chapters. A little bit of fleshing out of the story...oh and a completely new character. Well, it's actually a really old character to me as I first wrote about him six or seven years ago, but this is the first time anyone else has seen him.

[ashkent]

When I closed my eyes I could almost believe that none of it was real. I had somehow ended up in the station café on my way home, safe and secure home where Jen would be waiting and wanting to know why I was late. When I arrived back everything would be just as it should be.

All of those plans couples made would still be scattered in the ether waiting to become real; a bigger house, kids; the dreamy perfect life created in reality. The niggling little arguments would still happen every now and then, likewise the tight, passionate love making that followed. It would all be there as always..

Then I opened my eyes and all that melted away.

I took a mouthful of coffee, swilling it around my mouth then swallowing it without any enjoyment. It was hard to enjoy the simple things when your world had crashed down like a house of cards in a draught.

Too many thoughts swam in my head. The caller, the delivery man, the phone, the blood in my hallway, a killer’s hands on the end of my arms. Jen.

What would be happening at the house now? How many people would know?

How many people would be searching for me?

I glanced across the quiet room. There were no television sets mounted on the wall. Music played from a single speaker in the corner, but it was some cheap panpipe disc and not a radio station. I had no idea how long it took to get breaking news on local channels, but once my face appeared on any programme I wasn’t going to be able to spend much time taking buses around town.

Outside, the sky was dulling towards sunset, a redness appearing along the rooftops opposite the station. Watching the steady glow calmed me a little, but it would take more than that to remove all of the doubts and fears from my mind.

Who were these people?

The same questions spiralled around in my head, constantly returning to the front of my mind before being replaced by another that I had no answers to. I knew the delivery man and the voice on the phone were linked, the caller had told me so. The delivery man had been some kind of…trap? Bait perhaps to set off the trap? I didn’t know, but I knew all too well that he was dead by my hand.

That man brought a phone into the house.

That line again, trapped on my thoughts and repeating like a skipping disc. The phone was in my pocket, the terrible picture it contained hidden from view unless I opened it up. That was the point though, wasn’t it? A reminder. Whenever the phone rang I would see Jen with all her bruises and scars and any thought of defiance would be instantly dulled. The oldest psychological trick in the book.

I pulled the phone out of my pocket and looked at it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something flutter to the ground.

I turned around, downcasting my gaze to the scrap of paper lying on the floor. For a moment I wondered where it had come from, then the memory came back to me. The wallet and a piece of paper; the things I had taken from the delivery man’s pockets.

Part of me wanted to leave it lying there. The simple enough scrap served only as another reminder of what I had done, what I had left behind at the house. The rest of me needed to reach down and pick it up, turn it over, open it.

The next thing I knew the paper was off the floor and between my fingers. They seemed to work of their own accord, undoing the folds, opening out the sheet and eager to release its secrets. It was as though my fingers had been possessed by some force that wanted to hurt me, wanted me to suffer, urged on anything that would grip my heart a little tighter to squeeze out every last speck of life from me.

In a moment it was done.

The paper, off-white and unlined, lay open on the table, my hands resting at ease now their work was done. I read the one word written in black, thick letters and what little I understood about the situation shattered like fragile glass.

And as my eyes crossed the page again and again, the phone in my hand began to ring.

[Chinaren]

Did you add that paper bit this time? 

[ashkent]

Yep, the piece of paper was added and all is now well with the continuity...for now!!

[ashkent]

The clatter of the phone hitting the table drew the attention of everyone in the café.

The ringing had startled me and the crack of the metal case striking the formica made me jump again.

I quickly looked up at the faces around me, scattered across the room yet at that moment so close they could have been sitting on my knee.

The green flashing light on the front of the phone attracted my attention. There seemed to be nothing I could do but stare at it like something alien and unknown.

Answer it, a voice said in my head. Answer it or your life ends here.

The command seemed so simple. Pick up the phone, flip the cover. That’s all it took. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it though. The thought of Jen’s picture inside, that voice coming down the line making demands, mocking, threatening. I couldn’t handle it.

For the first time the full impact of what had happened at the house became apparent. It was as though a curtain had drawn, revealing the horrific truth in all its terrible glory. Weigh pressed down on me, crushing me. The café had suddenly become as claustrophobia as my hallway.

I needed to get out.

People are looking, I thought. They are looking and they will remember you more if you go running out of the door like a madman.

I couldn’t get through this unless I kept my head straight. How many times had I told people how to keep themselves focussed, how not to let situations get on top of them? Nothing could be truer than the old phrase about following your own advice. It was the hardest thing to do.

I lifted the phone off the table and hooked my thumb under the cover.

I took a breath.

My thumb tensed.

And the ringing stopped.

My eyes remained fixed on the closed phone, time frozen indefinitely. In my ears I could still hear the monotone ring even though I knew it was only in my head. I wanted to flip the phone and listen to the voice tell me what to do to get my wife back. I wanted to do it even though I knew I would hear nothing and be reminded of Jen’s injuries just for the hell of it.

I glanced up, turning my head just enough to see how many were still watching me.

My entertainment value seemed to have been expended. All the eyes that had been trained on me had returned to other matters.

Strangely, the feeling of being watched had not moved on with the eyes that instigated the sensation. I doubted it would leave me for some time yet. Being watched in my own house played a large part in that. The one place that should have been safe. It wasn’t a violation. It was something more than that. No word came to me that would completely describe how it felt. I suspected it was something like being raped.

My desire to get out of the café hadn’t lessened. I still wanted to be out of there. Being out on the platform couldn’t be any worse than sitting inside with people who now know that something wasn’t right with me.

I left the seat, pushing the phone into my pocket by some kind of instinct-driven move that I didn’t think about. No one watched me get up and walk towards the door. The girl behind the counter gave me a customer-friendly smile as I passed then returned to the arranging of plates and cutlery.

I walked out of the café as anonymously as I entered, although if pressed people would remember the guy who dropped his mobile phone when it rang.

Maybe they would even remember the guy who left a scrap of paper on the table with one word written on it.

If they did they were more alert than me. I had completely forgotten about it, at least for the next hour.

[Chinaren]

Oh. This seems more detailed this time around.  And it's interesting, having seen the 'future' last time.  If that makes any sense! 

[ashkent]

Don't worry...I get those seem feelings every time i go back to my stories. A kind of...hmm, i've been here before but not quite in the same way.

[ashkent]

It had been just over half an hour since I had last been on the platform but I could have been gone only a minute. People still piled off one bus onto the next, only now there were more than just workers. It was heading towards seven, the weekend started here.

It seemed like a lifetime ago that I had been one of the early twentysomethings stepping into town looking for quick thrills. If only that was my reason for being in the station I would have been a happy man.

I walked down the platform, back to the stand where my bus should be arriving in less than thirty minutes. I didn’t want to have to linger around, but as seemed to be commonplace now, I was unable to do anything to change it.

I looked for a seat, or even a space by the wall, but it seemed that idea had been stretched to its limit while my time had been spent in the café attracting unwanted attention to my presence. I contented myself to stand just off from the main throng of the crowd. Part of me still wanted to be close to people, that strange perspective of where and what was safe weaving in my mind again, but I didn’t want to be so close I would feel their breath on my neck.

The general noise of the station provided a welcome distraction, a kind of din that distorted the thoughts in your head no matter how urgent or important or imprinted. Voices spoke over one another, money jangled in pockets, a phone rang and clothes rustled. A child cried somewhere up towards the café, and another one screamed when its mother grabbed it by the hand and marched it towards a waiting pushchair. So many sounds at once yet each audible in the mix.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” a voice said at my side.

I jerked around, finding a middle aged man looking at me.

“What?” I asked, aware of voices all around and the single chirp of a mobile phone.

“Your phone? Aren’t you going to answer it? Or are you avoiding the wife?”

The ringing suddenly dominated my head. I pulled the small, silver phone out of my pocket, staring at it like something alien and not the phone I had been about to answer only a few minutes ago.

Or are you avoiding the wife?

My gaze darted from the phone to the man.

“You ok?” he asked.

“Who are you?” I said, looking at him like a coiled viper. “What do you know about my wife?”

My hands grabbed at his jacket, closing around the collar and pulling it tight to his neck.

“Hey, what are you doing?” the man yelled, pulling my hand away. “You some kind of nutfuck?”

People were turning in my direction, no one moving but all of them staring at me as though I was some kind of freak.

What was I doing though? The guy had made a throwaway remark, nothing more and I had virtually assaulted him in front of a station full of witnesses. Many more moments like this and I wouldn’t have to worry about the police, the man who had my wife or anything else. Someone would kick the shit out of me and leave me bleeding in a gutter somewhere.

I stepped away from the innocent man, my hands raised in the best apology I could give.

The paranoia that had momentarily left me returned, pressure from the people around me, the ringing of the phone. Noise seemed to be coming from everywhere now, no longer a welcome distraction but torturous and never ending.

The need to get out of the station overwhelmed me, ten times that to get out of the cafe, my stomach turning, sickness rising and burning my throat and through it all the phone continued to ring.

Turning away I headed towards the sliding doors.

The doors opened, ushering in a cool draught in as I hurried out.

I flipped the cover and lifted it to my mouth.

“Why are you doing this?” I said quietly into the phone.