64 :

He hadn’t thought this far ahead. Not really. In a kidnapping, you don’t. You assume that everything’s going to go to plan, to go as assigned, that the demands will be met and that whyever you’ve kidnapped someone, that this reason will be true.

Some people kidnap for a ransom.

Some kidnap for love.

But for most kidnappers, this is the first, the only time they’ve done it. There is no big game plan, no strategic design. Just a series of improvised actions.

Which is why, more times than not, the Good Guy allegedly always gets his man. There’s trained response units, trained in the job of negating kidnapping, of criminal psychology, armed response. Of all these things.

But there’s always the element of uncertainly. Of not knowing what to do next.

And what was he going to do? Seduce her? Romance her? Slip her Rohypnol and rape her, every night until she swooned into his love, or he got bored and disposed her? Until her body was found, wrapped inside plastic sheeting, weighted down, at the bottom of the River Thames, her flesh devoured and nibbled by fish (name them!), algae, plankton.

And so she awoke with a snap. The gentle surfacing from unconsciousness perverted by circumstance, the normal, almost leisurely journey to lucidity, cut short by a body that ached, perverted out of shape, muscles that were raw with unnatural posture, the sharp, unrelenting stab of a virtual crucifixtion. As she tried to move her neck, her hands, her legs, the quick, muffled gasp of shock, surprise, and anger. Her trousers removed, replaced by a skirt, the fabric soft, too soft to prevent the rubbing of hard fabric against her skin, the glimpse of her flesh for the first time in years.

Her body jerked, muscles trying to pull against whatever it was that was holding her down. She opened her eyes, and could see only blackness. Something was pulling against her arms, her legs, biting into the skin. A yelp came out of her mouth, but was swiftly covered by a hand. And a familiar voice.

“Hello, Mrs.” The voice said.

And her skin crawled. Wherever she was, she wanted to be anywhere but here. A pair of scuttling claw at the bottom of an ocean. Anything. Anywhere.

True love never dies. No, true love never dies. But this, this wasn’t true. It wasn’t false. It was some perverted approximation of love, some kind of monster, some kind of obsession and addiction masquerading as love, where whatever love was, respect, attraction, friendship, no longer existed, but had been bent out of shape, perverted by the course of years.

She jerked. And breathing stiffened into short gasps of panic.

And I wanted to hold her safe, hold him away, bring the true love in this room together.

“You ever remember the phrase,” he said, with halting pauses between words, as if he was thinking too hard how to come across, this final moment of reunited lovers, the long-awaited reunion, “Until death us do part?”

Of course, she couldn’t answer. A dull whimper came from somewhere within her. As my heart broke, she tried to shrink.

How fucking dare you. Life isn’t about power. It isn’t about ripping people off and abusing them : it’s about fairness, equality, about something, anything else.

And I shouted, impotent, invisible.

“You Fuck.” And my fist flew straight through him, again that yanked, transparent feeling as if I was being pushed through something that clings, his DNA meshing with mine, if only for a second, and my body followed through.

Of course, to still call it a body would be bullshit. But something moved through the air. It was like being sucked through a black hole.

I landed on the floor. As if I had suddenly stopped moving. Aimed at the ground and not missed. But if hurt. Hurt as it would as if I were alive. An unfit, thirty something with bad hair. But I couldn’t feel. I could move my fingers and not feel the air around them.

And I couldn’t be seen. But I was heard.

He turned his head around. I could feel his eyes boring into where I was. Looking not at me, but through me. And I thought, loud enough that I thought the world could hear. Come and get me you fucker.

I was becoming real. In slow increments.

Helen whimpered. Treat people like animals, and they behave like them. They reduce to meet the circumstances. A man in a cage becomes a prisoner even when he is released. The mind is the smallest prison of all.

He looked quizzically where I was, and I swear for a second he saw… something. Something different. But he couldn’t see what. Me. I am someone.

Motherfucker, I’m here.

Come and get me.

And sometimes the truth is so obvious, so huge that we can’t see it. Sometimes we see it, and do not recognise it. As if one had forgotten to read. Symbols becomes meaningless. Hieroglyphics. As if the brain is regressing. Running backwards. Making nonsense from sense. As faculties slip away.

As I moved my hand to push myself up from where I fell, I felt the floorboard creak. I felt the floorboard push against me. I could feel the carpet. I could feel. And if I could feel, I could touch.

And, without thinking, I became as instinct, and I swung my fist, my thumb held out and not inside the fist, where it would absorb all the power of the blow and break, and I connected.

And to someone watching this they would see a man beating himself up, and they would think, What The Fuck?

And they would be right.

I aimed without thinking. I tried to remember all those things I had read on the Internet, in Worst-Case-Scenario Handbooks, in the dark corners of my memory where I knew the catalogue numbers of old records but not the important stuff, I aimed for the side of his neck : no bone, no muscle to absorb the impact, just skin and flesh, and a windpipe.

And I felt something crack. I saw my finger imprint against the neck, the skin move in on his neck, the shape of four fingers, the look of shock, surprise, and confusion – all at once – and the sudden influx of breath, as he choked, albeit for a second.

I hit with all I had. All the hate, all the hurt, all the everything., Because I knew that this wasn’t me, or you, or us, or war, or love, or anything, This was survival. Good Versus Evil. And to defeat Evil, I must learnt o think and fight like Evil, act like Evil, abandon those hard won rules I had been trained to follow all my life, and in order to rid oneself of monsters, one must also become a monster.

There are two types of monsters. Those that are monsters, and those that are made monsters in order to defeat monsters. I knew not which side I was on anymore. I could not think.

In a moment, like this, a fight, or whatever, thought, logic is absent. Time slows to a crawl, yet travels faster than light. There is no time to respond, only to react, to think only milliseconds in advance.

Uncertain, caught off his guard, he stumbled, almost losing his balance. And then from nowhere that voice again – of fury trapped in a thorax.

“What the Fuck?” He half asked, half-screamed.

His foot buckled, and it was only because he stepped back and caught himself that he failed to fall. The strange ballet of the confused.

Of course, if he had it would’ve made it so much easier.

But I was alive. Not physically : but somehow I felt alive, more alive than I ever had, as the world coursed through my veins. And he could not see me.

Like an cornered animal, a dog barking at nothing but an earthquake three days in the future, he did not know what to do.

Helen whimpered. I didn’t know what to do. If I spoke he would know where I am. My heart was racing. I was scared. So scared. And yet, without form, without body, I had no fear. I did not fear death : I had transcended it. And even if I were to spend the rest of my days in this awful limbo, it would be no worse than this, having to watch this shit try to rape the love of my lie.

He couldn’t see. But he could hear. And the floorboard beneath me creaked as I tried to creep silently to Helen, to stroke her hair, to whisper in her ear, to do something, anything that could help.

His eyes darted to me, and even though he couldn’t see, we stared deep into each other. Me into those dark, black eyes, like a black hole, sucking all the light in, he into a space, not in me, but through me, determined, confused.

Almost as if he knew I was there, but didn’t know what I was. He knew there was something wrong, but couldn’t put his finger on it. And an angry, scared, confused animal is the most dangerous thing there is.

I couldn’t feel sympathy or pity anymore. He was an enemy. An animal. A predator. Dehumanising the victim is the only way to survive it now. I can’t think of him as a person, but as an object, something to be removed. And I’m turning into him. Thinking like him.

And then another creak as my –

And all of a sudden something hit me. And I could feel it. I had forgotten, even if for a fraction of a second, too wrapped up in my fear, and the breath vomited out of my body, and I collapsed, winded as something hit me, and he saw it.

He saw the screwdriver fly through the air, it’s wooden handle stop against nothing, and fall to the ground with the dull clunk of metal on thin carpet. All sound is just the release of energy. And he heard me, my exhaled, breathless grunt of shock, involuntary, reflex and then -

I fell and the floorboards shook. And he ran towards me, not know what was happening but that something was wrong, his mind distracted from the love of his life, over to me, his foot connecting with my ribs, and if I had ribs they would break, I could hear them, bone splinter and become dust, and remember that you’re dead remember that you’re dead I was thinking, it was all I could think, as my mind emptied itself of thoughts and become nothing but a shaking bag of fear.

And I realised I was dead, the essential paradox of being both alive and dead at the same time, and nothing he could do could hurt me, and all I had to do was somehow survive, to outwit him, to make it through this, and, he, not expecting to find me, fell over the top of me, his body collapsing on me, winded, confused, and I reached out for the screwdriver, fumbling in panic as I found it in the fraction of a second as he lay confused on top of me, trying to move away from him, him away from me, and Helen whimpered, I think, I can’t remember anymore, I can’t think anymore, I am just a bunch of muscle and spirit that reacts to panic, and my hands connected on a wooden handle and I thrust it into the air, making sure I was holding it by the handle, and no matter how hard I stabbed at him, it didn’t go in. And I jammed it with all the force I could and

But he sure as fuck felt it.

And it felt good.

The weight came out of his legs as he tried to stand up, confused and I’m not really sure exactly what happened next, I remember he buckled, collapsed, and I was trying to shift myself out from under him so he wouldn’t collapse on me, because he was big fucker, and I hated him.

Somehow, the fear that had paralysed me, that had stopped me before, had gone. I felt raw, animal, a battle for survival. I had to do this. I had already died trying. Nothing else to lose.

He hit the floor, like a dead weight. It was an ugly fight. The type of fight between people who don’t fight, who think they can fight, but can’t. Sluggish. Not some fast, quick-cut, graceful Hollywood ballet of impacts and moves. It was ugly.

I stood up quickly, over him, and pulled his hair.

So fucking what if I fight like a girl? This is life and death.

And I looked for something. A Hammer. I found a hammer, my fingers rolled around the handle, and I smashed his fucking face in. I forgot how many times I hit him. I wasn’t counting. I just hit and hit and hit, until somehow it felt enough. I felt something crack, heard something crunch.

And I didn’t give a shit.

The floorboards filled with black liquid in a bizarre, Pollockesque collage. Something thick and sticky, like paint thrown out of the bucket. And slowly the body went limp and heavy. I was carrying a brick made of flesh in bloodied hair.

And I looked at myself, if I had hands they would be covered in blood, if I had a conscience it would be black as midnight and then I realised that I was a murderer.

And if there was a god I would be the damned. For there is no holy war.No righteous murder. We all bleed the same. Us or them. Kill or be killed. He who fights monsters must become a monster. I am everything I claimed to hate. Everything I fought against, everything I tried not to be.

And I was aware of a sound. Something like wind, being sucked backwards out of somewhere. As if something was alive, but not alive.

And I was aware of movement. Something was happening. Something was changing.

He stood up. Confused he picked himself up, like a drunk on the stairs who’d just fallen down.

And yet his body was still there, face down in a pool of blood and shit. He looked around, at me, at Helen, at the room, and –

At his body.

“What the fuck?” he said. More confused than anything else.

And he was real. As real as I. He could touch, taste, feel, hurt me. I wanted to run. But what was the worst he could do? Kill me again?

“You cunt.” He whimpered. And then I saw him. I saw the frightened little shit he was underneath the bravado. He had nothing to hide behind anymore.

And then there was a sound. Like something being sucked backwards, like a black hole sucking through. And something came out of the walls, out of the floor, out of everywhere, something black, with two arms, two legs, and something dark, like eyes that sucked the light in until there was nothing but black, an absence of light, and it reached for him.

And then another. And another. Their arms enveloped him, black tendrils wrapped around his soul. And he looked at me, and his eyes were fear, and I saw for a second, the human being that lived inside him, that was behind the eyes, and I saw the little piggy eyes of fear. Shrinking away from me, being pulled away, faster and faster, as black arms covered him.

And he was gone, sucked into nothingness.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

And trembling, I walked towards my love, and I tried to remember how I could undo her binds, and trembling, she whimpered because she could hear my footsteps, and I wondered what the hell I was going to do next.

I whispered in her ear. And she could hear me. Her skin wet with tears. I stroked her hair. I kissed her. I let her go. If you love someone, let them go.