Terror Scribes Read online

  Moon Books, which is due out in the winter of 2012. In the meantime, he has lots of short stories appearing soon, and several movie projects, too.

  The Third Possibility

  by Sue Phillips

  Diina leaned close to her husband who was still deep in slumber. She studied his face, unlined, untroubled despite all that had gone on, and said. “Let me go Freddy.” There was no response. She had expected none.

  Would she ever feel again? Her chest rose and fell and she knew she was breathing, but nothing touched a single nerve. Freddy murmured softly, words he would not remember when he woke. Holding one hand up she studied the ragged lines that crisscrossed its surface like a livid spider’s web, seeming more substantial than the skin they covered. Would they ever heal? She rose from the bed ever conscious of the cord that bound her. It allowed her liberty within the house, but try as she might, she could not get outside. Many times she contemplated breaking it, but it was also her lifeline. Without it she could not survive.

  She went into the bathroom, going through the motions of showering and dressing for the day, pulling on the same blue cotton long sleeved shirt and grey skirt she wore every single day. She brushed her hair and put it up the same way she always had, gazing in the mirror but not really seeing, and slipped on those same gleaming black leather shoes before going downstairs to the kitchen to wait for Freddy’s alarm to wake him and bring him down for breakfast. Diina sighed, but with no feeling, there could be no satisfaction, no relief.

  After an hour or so there was a small commotion upstairs. Freddy was stumbling out of bed and straight into the bathroom. She went back up and watched him shower and shave while the iron heated up. He was almost fanatical about his shirts and had never allowed her to involve herself in either washing or pressing them.

  She said. “Why are you keeping me here?” but her words were lost in the hiss of the steaming iron. Her voice was faint nowadays. Before the accident, she had been able to belt out commands with the best of them. When she got the promotion she knew she had made it, but it came at a cost. For all the claims of equality, female warrant officers were rare and there was a point to prove. She had had to harden up a little and had lowered her voice tone to add authority. Whether it worked was debatable, but she had a mighty yell to back it up.

  He slid the grey-blue tie under the crisp collar and tied the knot exactly according to regulations. If promotions were awarded on smartness, Freddy would be a group captain by now. The Royal Airforce (never RAF) was already her life when she and Freddy met five years before on a detachment to the Falklands, he too was a career serviceman and there was always an undercurrent of competition between them. She had moved up the ladder faster than him and she knew it rankled, but that was his problem to deal with and she had never concerned herself too much with his feelings on the matter. It wasn’t as if they ever worked together and rank was irrelevant once the uniforms came off.

  Detachments, usually abbreviated to dets, were a normal part of military life. They tried to volunteer for the same postings where possible, but it sometimes happened that while one was away the other was home. Diina often wondered whether he remained faithful during these times, many did not, but there was an unwritten rule: what happens on det stays on det—nobody asked and nobody told.

  He was tying his shoelaces now, neat bows on gleaming black leather, breathing a little heavily with the effort of bending over. Freddy was only as fit as he had to be and his admin role did not require him to do much running around.

  “Let me go Freddy.” No response.

  He ate breakfast with a paper napkin tucked into his neck to catch any spills.

  “Can you even hear me?”

  He washed up efficiently and fished keys from his pocket to unlock the door, glancing briefly at the photo on the fob, her face, suntanned and smiling, framed by the white pillow she was lying on. She had taken it herself in Afghanistan with her mobile phone shortly after she arrived and sent it to him, eager that he should not forget her while she was away. He had her listed in his contacts as Gina, a simple error, but he never bothered correcting the spelling. An emotion flashed across his face as it did whenever he looked at that picture. Anger, sorrow? She could never tell. Then out he went, locking up behind him leaving her inside, ignored, unreleased.

  After Freddy left there was always a period of blankness. Try as she might, Diina could not maintain her presence quite so fully without him and so she drifted vaguely around the place, as securely held as if he had chained her to the wall. At last his shift was over and he returned to change before going out again. Diina continued to ask him to let her go and he continued to ignore her.

  Once a fortnight he did a big grocery shop, but bought none of her favourite foods. She preferred coffee, he only bought tea. She enjoyed beef, he opted for chicken. It was as if he did it on purpose. The cupboards contained nothing that she would choose, unless it happened to be his own preference too.

  “Why Freddy? Why can’t I leave?” She said his name often these days, hoping it might help her gain his attention. “If it hadn’t been for the crash I’d be long gone, you know that. I was on my way to Innsworth, you were staying here. It’s not as if we didn’t try to work it out, but you were always so jealous. As if that wasn’t bad enough, you broke the cardinal rule Freddy. What happens on det stays on det, simple enough. How was I supposed to react? Three weeks after my promotion and you’re home from Germany touting that bloody Kara around, not even trying to be discreet. It wasn’t my fault you haven’t made it past corporal, but you did everything you could to humiliate me until I had no choice. When the posting came up, I took my chance to leave you, start afresh.

  Was it you who messed with the car? Details of the crash are hazy, but I’m sure I braked. Braked and nothing happened—that’s not true, it did—something most definitely happened. They say your life flashes before you when you think you’re about to die, but the only thing that flashed in front of my eyes was the bloody lorry as the car slid underneath it doing about eighty. I should have died then.

  Comas are funny things you know, some say you can hear what’s going on, others say you can’t. Nobody mentioned the third possibility. I watched you, watched myself lying there. Saw the nurses come in and out, keeping me clean, changing all those drips, checking my wounds and wondering why they didn’t seem to be healing. You knew why, didn’t you? Every day, whenever you were alone with me I saw you pulling the edges of the cuts apart. I felt it Freddy, it bloody hurt, you smiled when I groaned, but there was nothing I could do to stop you. Mind and body totally separate, but some things cut through the gap.

  How did I never see that cruel streak in you before? Just took it as the everyday barracking that’s so much a part of service life, but with you there was more to it. The jokes, the mickey taking, you weren’t laughing at that, it was the pain you saw in the eyes of your targets. That’s what did it for you. Everyone thinks you’re the man now. Stood by your wife even though she was leaving you, even though she was disfigured by those terrible injuries, but you loved it. That photo album on the laptop, full of pictures of my wounds: what would your mates think if they found it? But you keep it secret, even I haven’t managed to find out the password and I watch your every move.”

  Freddy was leaving the house again, now wearing jeans and a polo shirt. Through the window Diina saw him get into his new car—a replacement paid for with her insurance money. As he drove off, he seemed to drag the life from her, leaving her faint. Would he ever release her? What if something happened to him while he was out—a crash... she’d be stuck in this house. Alone.

  A key sliding into the lock of the front door heralded the arrival of the agency nurses, a middle aged woman and a girl of around nineteen. Not quite alone then. They did not seem to know each other well, there was a distance between them and the conversation was light, avoiding personal subjects. Diina followed them as they climbed the stairs, the younger woman hanging back to keep pace with
her colleague. She paused at the first door, her hand resting on the handle.

  “Have you been here before Esme?”

  The older woman shook her head. “No, but I’ve heard it’s a bit . . . ”

  “Not just a bit. Look, we’ll be in and out, just get her done and away. Don’t look too hard, I’ve had people throw up just at the sight, and it’s a right pain to clear up. Hold your breath, we do the necessaries and mark it down on the sheet.”

  Esme squared her shoulders and her mouth tightened. She caught her companion’s eye. “Right, well, thanks for the warning Jen. I’m ready. Sooner we go in, the sooner we’ll be out.”

  Jen pushed the door open and they whisked into the room. She picked up a pink folder from the bedside table and ticked half a dozen boxes on the top page, adding the date and glancing at Esme. “I always do the paperwork first, means I can get out quicker. Right, quick once over with the wash wipes and check her pulse, temperature and blood pressure, change the drips and make sure they’re running properly.”

  Esme was staring at the occupant of the narrow hospital style bed and Diina had that strange jolt she always got when she looked at her physical body. Pitifully thin, face so badly crushed it bore no resemblance to the photo on Freddy’s key fob, and almost every inch of skin etched in red lines, only breathing because it was connected to a ventilator. The cord was short now. It always maintained a straight line between body and spirit, slipping through solid objects as if they were mist.

  “Oh the poor thing! But I thought you said she was in a coma?”

  Diina could understand the woman’s perplexity. Her body was writhing and twitching as if locked in some terrible dream. Should she slip inside and try to take advantage of the activity? She knew she was kidding herself. The movements were involuntary and, according to what she’d heard from others caring for her, not uncommon in such cases. What was left of her brain could not support conscious thought, only this continual movement. If she once slipped back inside, she could be stuck. Her prison would shrink from the house to a small, wrecked body. A living corpse.

  “Makes you wonder why he didn’t just leave her in the hospital,” said Jen. “I mean, he doesn’t exactly bother much with her. Look at those sheets—doubt if they’ve been changed this side of last month.”

  “Can’t we do it for her? Seems criminal leaving her in that state.”

  “Yes if you want to lose your job for time wasting.” As she spoke, Jen was taking Diina’s body’s temperature and blood pressure, marking the measurements down in the pink folder. “Best we can do is give her a wash and put her in a fresh nightie. That’s all we’re paid for and times running on. Let’s get to it.”

  “But if she gets an infection, won’t we get the blame? Wouldn’t take a moment to change—maybe her husband doesn’t know how to do it with her in the bed.”

  “Come on then, quick, but if anyone asks, you did it while I was in the loo.”

  Seven minutes later Diina’s living body was washed, changed and lying in fresh sheets with the drips and tubes that took everything needed into and out of her body replenished to prevent her from dying. To say they were keeping her alive was essentially an overstatement. Diina planted an out of body kiss on Esme’s cheek as she bustled out of the room. Esme raised a hand thoughtfully towards her face, but then let it drop. She glanced back at the now closed door. “How are they going to manage it?”

  “Manage what?” said Jen, already hurrying down the stairs.

  “The birth. How does a woman in a coma give birth?”

  “Oh for pity’s sake Es, if you’re going to be like this with every patient we visit today we’ll still be at it at midnight! They’ll probably do a caesarean. Now let’s go. Only twenty minutes left for the next three and they’re on the other side of town.”

  Diina went back into the room after they’d gone. Being alone with herself made her nervous in case her body should suddenly swallow her up and she’d be forever trapped. There was always the chance that consciousness would reunite the two entities separated by the accident, but she had heard doctors say that there was little chance of recovery, that she was brain dead and (privately) that if it weren’t for her husband’s insistence that they save the baby, they would have switched off the respirator and let her slip quietly away.

  The swollen belly heaved as her unborn child moved in its tiny prison and Diina felt nothing. Any hopes she might have entertained that she could communicate with the soul inside faded weeks ago. There did not seem to be any connection and her spirit body had remained slim, not mimicking the pregnancy. She tried to imagine Freddy as a father. Would he be gentle, loving? He had fought hard to have her at home, but paid her scant regard, except when he chose to amuse himself. All the care she received was from the agency nurses. And there was his cruelty. Even now he worried at her injuries like a dog with a rag doll. What kind of a life would the child have with that for a father? But—when he’d had a drink he sometimes bent over her and rested his hand on her belly, feeling the baby’s movements with that same strange look on his face he had when he looked at the key fob photograph.

  When Freddy returned home a few hours later he was drunk: too drunk to drive, but he somehow managed to park the car and get himself to bed before falling into a heavy, snoring sleep. There was some small relief in that, he would not torment her tonight at least. Diina lay beside him, uncertain why she did this, but unable to prevent herself, having gone through the actions of undressing and washing first.

  The long hours of night enfeebled her. “Let me go Freddy,” she said over and over again. At one point his snoring stopped briefly and her voice seemed clearer than ever in its silence. He began to speak, slurring but distinct.

  “What happens on det stays on det,” he said. “but the evidence comes home.”

  “How? What evidence? That little tart? You didn’t have to parade around with her like that. Why were you so cruel—still so cruel?”

  “What happens on det—they took photos. Did you know they take photos, videos? Slip the phone under the covers. Share ’em round. Everybody gets a sneaky peek. That lovely smooth skin. Think I wouldn’t recognise it because there were no marks, just smooth, perfect skin? Think I wouldn’t know? Wouldn’t be so keen now, would they. That smooth, perfect skin covered in scars, cuts. Sliced.” Then he was snoring again.

  “Freddy, you know I never joined in with that. I’m a lifer—was a lifer. You don’t get yourself a reputation when you’ve got to dish out orders the next morning. No Freddy. I don’t know whose pics you were looking at, but unless you took ’em, they’re not of me.

  Is that what turned you against me? Thinking I’d been up to that? You’re such a fool sometimes Freddy. Such a total prat.”

  “Whose baby is it? Can’t be mine can it?”

  “Well who else’s, you fool!”

  “Bet it’s got lovely smooth skin like its mother.”

  “Freddy you wouldn’t. That’s your child. It’s done nothing. Promise me. Promise you won’t hurt the baby.” She put her hand on his arm to shake him, but she was just an insubstantial fetch and it passed straight through the flesh uselessly. He began snoring again and nothing she said or did rouse him until morning when the cycle of washing and dressing recommenced. He hadn’t really heard her. She knew that. He was just talking in his sleep and she was filling in the gaps.

  The body in the bed grew thinner, the belly more distended and, though it dragged, time was passing. Her health continued to be monitored by Jen and Esme. Occasionally the doctor called and checked her vital signs, which the machines kept annoyingly vigorous, despite the fact of her true state. He would listen to the baby’s pulse and lay his hand on Diina’s belly, feeling for movement. As soon as he was satisfied he would fill in those all important charts that nobody read, and leave her to her constant rhythmless dance.

  When Diina had been pregnant for twenty-four weeks, Freddy went away on a six month detachment. Jen and Esme continued to call
in once a day. The doctor had stepped up his visits to once a week and noted in the folder that her wounds were finally beginning to heal. In the middle of the third week, an hour or so after Jen and Esme had changed her sheets before dashing off to their other charges across town, the baby began kicking frantically and then seemed to settle down more still than it had been for a month. Her belly tightened briefly. There was no pain, just sensation. A few minutes later it happened again, and again a few minutes after that, transmitting a ripple of pain to Diina’s fetch.

  Diina watched in fascinated horror as the contractions continued to strengthen. It was too early. The baby could not possibly survive. In any case, how could it be born if she could not push? The contractions would pass. They had to. But they did not. Pain coursed through her ever more powerfully, contractions growing stronger until felt the agony that was causing her body to writhe more than ever. She moved closer to her body, wondering if she might be able to control things better from inside, but afraid of getting trapped, perhaps ceasing to exist altogether. At last, seeing no alternative she climbed onto the bed and rested on her own body, waiting to slip inside. Instead she found herself standing once more beside the bed. Her body had rejected her. She tried twice more, with similar results.

  There was a sound. Tapping. No, dripping. Had her thrashing limbs knocked one of the tubes loose? She moved around the bed checking each in turn. All secure and functioning. The sound of dripping continued. A red stain was soaking through the top sheet, spreading across her groin. On one side, blood dripped steadily, rhythmically off the waterproof mattress onto the floor. The drips became a trickle and then a flow, creating a growing pool of bright red on the grimy carpet.