Tania Carver: The Creeper

She looked round, trying to find something – anything – that could be used as a weapon. Nothing.

Did another sweep with her eyes. Looked back into the building. Looked up, looked outside.

She had an idea…

‘You a religious man, Phil? You look the type.’

He didn’t answer.

Fiona Welch edged forward. ‘Only, if you know any prayers, I’d start saying them now…’

He tried hard to keep his balance, keep his breathing in check.

‘You’d better start believing in the afterlife. Not that there is one – I know because I’m a psychologist – but it might make your last few seconds more comfortable.’

She edged closer.

Phil felt himself begin to totter…

Then Fiona Welch flung her arms out wide, a preacher beseeching her flock. Her eyes widened, her arms began windmilling.

‘No, no…’

She flung out her arm, fingers extended, grasping only air.

‘No, not me…’

Her eyes were wide with terror, with the realisation of what was about to happen.

Fiona Welch screamed. And fell.

To her death.

Phil looked at the entranceway. There was a hook on a chain swinging backwards and forwards through it. Suzanne Perry standing beside it. He smiled.

Suzanne returned it.

He edged slowly back towards her.

Ready to get down.

Ready to go on living.

The only sound in the room was the soft bleeping of the life-support machine. Regular and rhythmic, it had a soothing quality.

‘That noise,’ said Marina quietly, like she was in a church and didn’t want to talk above a whisper, ‘I always thought… always used to think… as long as it was going, everything would be all right. There’d be hope.’

Her final word was choked off by a sudden sob.

Phil, standing beside her, tightened his grip round her shoulder.

‘But that’s not always enough, is it?’ she said, still whispering. ‘Sometimes you need the truth. Stop dreaming.’ Another sigh. ‘Start living.’

She stepped forward, looked down at the figure lying in the bed. Phil stayed where he was, behind her. There if she needed him.

Tony seemed to be shrinking. Every time she saw him he seemed to get smaller. She thought of that old black and white science fiction film she had seen when she was a child, a man shrinking, getting so small he eventually becomes a microscopic organism, an atom at the heart of the universe.

This was different, though. He wasn’t shrinking, just wasting away.

And he wouldn’t be falling into the heart of the universe. And he wouldn’t be coming back.

Marina bent down, made to kiss him. Then straightened up, turned to the nurse, panic on her face.

‘What if he can see me? Or hear me? That happens, doesn’t it? People in comas for years suddenly come back to life, say they can hear everything that’s been going on…’

The nurse, standing silently at the side of the room, stepped forward. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, her hushed tone matching Marina’s. ‘In some instances. It depends on the kind of injuries the patient has sustained. The state they’re actually in.’

‘And Tony…’

The nurse shook her head.

Marina knew that. They had had this conversation over and over. But she hadn’t heard what the nurse had actually said.

Until today.

Marina leaned over Tony, kissed his forehead. He didn’t flinch, didn’t smile or frown, gave no indication that he felt anything.

She straightened up. Mouthed one word: ‘Goodbye.’

She stepped back, looked for Phil. His arm was straight back round her. She drew strength from his touch. She nodded to the nurse who then stepped forward to the machine at the side of the bed.

The noise stopped.

She turned into Phil’s chest, started to cry.

His arm strong around her, it felt like he would never let her go.

The sun was high, the beach flat. She could see for miles and miles. If anyone approached, she would know.

And that was just how Suzanne wanted it.

She sat on the wall of the house, looking out to sea. The house behind her was well protected. No one knew who she was, just a tourist renting a secluded beach-front house in a Norfolk village.

She had been advised not to go away alone, to always have someone with her, but that wasn’t what she needed. Newspapers had been on the phone to her constantly, wanting her to tell her story, offering prices that started off ridiculously high and just escalated. They gave her no rest, no respite. She had been tempted to choose one, the highest bidder, tell all and take the money. But once she had decided on that she hadn’t been able to go through with it. Didn’t want the whole thing opened up again in a way she had no control over, didn’t want to become public property, be stared at in the street, talked about in the supermarket. She just wanted to get away from all that. Run.

So she had.

And she couldn’t blame herself for doing it. Her best friend had been murdered. She had been stalked, kidnapped and imprisoned. And she had killed two people. The fact that it was in self-defence was something she was glad about in legal terms as it meant she wouldn’t have to stand trial or go to prison. But she, herself, had taken two lives. And that was just as hard to live with as everything else that had happened.

It had been five weeks since that night on the quayside and the nightmares still hadn’t stopped. They weren’t as frequent as they were at first, but they still came along, jumping out and surprising her when she thought she was healing, her life getting back on track. Claiming her day, her night, stopping her from moving forward.

It was something she imagined she would be living with for years to come.

Suzanne had been referred to the psychologist, Marina Esposito, for counselling. She was proving a great help, but most of it, Suzanne knew, she would have to face alone.

‘You don’t have to,’ Marina had said to her. ‘You’re not the only one to go through something like this, you know.’

Suzanne had looked at her, wary. What did she mean?

Marina had looked down at her knees, crossed over, smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in her skirt. ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this. Because it isn’t professional in any way and, I should think, violates what we’re doing here. But I think it’ll help for you to hear it. Something similar happened to me last year. I was… kidnapped, taken prisoner by a brutal, unhinged madman. And I had to… fight my way out, shall we say.’

Suzanne hadn’t known what to say, how to respond. ‘And… you got out? Well of course you did. Stupid question. But you… you had nightmares? All those fears?’

Marina had nodded. ‘Oh yes. Loads.’

‘And… and what happened?’

‘They… went away. Eventually. Mostly. The body heals. The mind does too, with help. Would you like my help?’

Suzanne had nodded.

Then burst into tears.

She still had regular sessions with Marina. Looked forward to them, because she felt that whatever she was unloading, she was doing it with someone who wasn’t just sympathetic or empathic, but someone who genuinely, sincerely, understood what she was going through. Because she had been through it herself.

She looked out at the sea, the waves rolling into the beach, waves that look so huge and threatening from a distance becoming smaller and smaller the nearer they got to her, eventually fizzing out to nothing on the sand. Harmless.

She smiled.

Determined not to let the nightmares claim her.

Determined to make this a good day.

Phil sipped his pint of lager, looked out along the front of the river. Wivenhoe waterfront was crowded, the Rose and Crown overspill sitting on the picnic tables eating Sunday lunches, drinking beer, enjoying the sunshine.