DEAD GONE (22 page)

You do not understand even life. How can you understand death?

Confuscious

Grief is perhaps the one aspect of death which can be examined. However, even this comes with its own issues of experimentation. There are many different reactions to death, with a seemingly vast array of diverse responses towards it. A death of a loved one can lead to many issues for the person left behind. Dr Kubler-Ross forwarded the theory of the five stages of grief, namely denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, this arguably compartmentalises a strong set of emotions which cannot be streamlined into a set of ideals. Simply; death and the response to it, is anything but universal.

We all deal with death according to our own emotional set up. How we live our lives, our past and present, informs how we grieve.

We should also be aware that grief is possibly a social construct, created by man to instruct us how we should act when someone dies. We mirror each other’s reactions, learning how we must react to death.

There is no correct way to act. When we grieve, we do so in a way that has been designed for us by the society in which we live.

However, we are not all the same. We all feel differently, react differently to events than each other. Inwardly, we struggle to define ourselves by those social ideals, causing psychological issues as we deal with our own grief.

Grief isn’t a real, tangible object. The way in which we use it is.

Taken from ‘Life, Death, and Grief.’ Published in Psychological Society Review, 2008, issue 72.

She stood at the top of the stairs, trying to catch her breath, the sound of it hitching in and out reassuring her that she had made it this far. Only a few feet from the safety of the outside world.

It was a really bad idea. Going back was a really stupid idea.

In fact, in a list of bad ideas, this was probably the worst one she’d had. She should run. As fast as she could in the opposite direction. Never stopping.

But she couldn’t leave the other girl down there. She could hear the screams looping around and around, the same cries and pleas. She couldn’t exactly leave her there, run for her life and hope she got help quick enough to save her.

It wasn’t her fault if something happened to the woman locked away down there, in the room opposite where she herself had been kept. No one would blame her for leaving her there.

She battled with her conscience.

If it was the other way around, wouldn’t she hope someone went back for her?

It came down to a simple fact. She couldn’t live with herself knowing she’d left someone else in that position.

She listened to the quiet, trying to hear if there was any movement from the bottom of the steps. She couldn’t see anything properly, just outlines of form, the silence giving shape to invisible obstacles.

She stepped down, not wanting to move too fast in case she disturbed the unconscious man she hoped was still where she had left him. She tried to muffle the sound of her bare feet slapping on the stairs.

Two steps away from the bottom, she finally saw him. Still in a crumpled heap against the wall. There was a thin shaft of light coming from somewhere behind him, further down.

He was around six feet away from the door which she needed to open. She reached the bottom of the steps and kept moving, reaching the door within a few strides. Her right knee throbbed, and she could feel dampness leaking down her shin.

It was locked.

She’d known it would be, but she still tried to open it. Searched for a bolt or something which would be easy to slide back and open it up.

She looked back at her own door, the bolt across the middle, the hatch still open.

But she found nothing like that. Just smooth wood and a keyhole, with no key.

The girl behind the door screamed out again, making her jump. She looked over at the man.

Unmoving.

She breathed in deeply, letting it out in a low whistle.

She wanted to get out of there. There was a little more light now her eyes had become used to the darkness outside of her room. Not enough to see more than a few feet in front of her, but it was nowhere near as tar black as the darkness which lay within her room. The basement was small, but seemed to grow in size as she stood in front of the door. She could see what she needed near the bended legs of her captor.

Captor. A strange word. Not one she was used to saying, or thinking, but it had just popped into her head. Why would that be?

What the hell was she doing focusing on her choice of words?

Concentrate.

She stepped lightly over him, his shallow breaths lifting his chest up and down softly. She moved quietly, but quickly. Grabbing the keyring from the floor, she noticed it held three keys. She wondered what the third one was for. Almost smacked her own head when she remembered the door leading to the basement. What a fool.

She berated herself again. Focus.

She turned back the way she came, her eyes constantly shifting between where she was stepping and the man slumped on the floor, his head tucked into his chest. The smell of blood filled the air, fresh. How did she know what blood smelled like?

She wished those breaths would stop. Then she wouldn’t be shaking so much.

She tried the first key on the ring, sliding it in to the lock. Turned it, but nothing happened.

Of course it wasn’t the first one. This was her horror film, and at any second the scary man was going to grab her ankle and pull her to the floor. She held her breath, checking he was still unconscious, the few feet in length that lay between them contracting, seeming both longer and shorter in distance.

Snap out of it. Try the second one. It won’t be the second one. It’s always the last one. She decided to just try that one instead then.

She moved past the second key and tried the third key instead.

The lock turned. She swung the door inwards and took a step sideways, expecting the girl to come rushing out. Not wanting to be knocked over by a screaming banshee.

She waited a few seconds, but no one came out of the room. She stepped back into the open doorway, the dim light from the basement offering her a little sight.

She stood, open mouthed, in the entrance.

It was empty.

She jumped back as the screams started again. Louder now, with the door open and with her standing close to it.

From the walls. The sounds were coming from the walls.

She opened and closed her mouth, suddenly dry. Stepped back until she was clear of the basement. Confused.

It wasn’t real.

She turned to go back up the stairs, when she heard a shuffling from behind her.

‘You fucking bitch.’

He was rising to his feet.

‘No …’

She moved quickly, towards the stairs, her injured knee sending a wave of pain through her body as she twisted. She cried out, but kept moving.

‘Come back here. I haven’t finished with you yet.’

She reached the stairs, not willing to risk looking over her shoulder. She took them two at a time at first, before the pain became too much. She could hear him shuffling forward behind her.

She stumbled as she reached the top.

There was a moment when she thought she would regain her balance, become upright and stable, reach the door, run for safety.

Why did she go back? What an idiot. Always thinking of others. She should have just run. Why didn’t she just run?

She wanted it more than ever.

To sleep in her own bed. Eat hot food, lie in a bath. Go for a run.

See daylight. Sit and watch TV, or go for a walk down the front. Look over the Mersey and see the ferry.

Instead, she found herself falling backwards.

Laughter came from behind her as she fell down the steps, her shoulder taking the first impact, before she rolled over and her legs took over.

It was over in an instant. She threw her arms out to try and stop herself falling, every joint seemingly on fire with pain. As she crashed to the floor, her hands took most of the weight, her body thrown around with no control.

She was on her back, her surroundings seeming to pulsate. Her eyelids felt heavy. She could hear screaming but didn’t know if it was coming from her, or the walls.

The walls. A failsafe. Played on her compassion, so she couldn’t escape.

She had been so close. Freedom, escape, only mere moments away. Now she was gone.

Why did she go back down?

The air around her changed. She moved her head to the right, seeing the man loom above her.

She could swear she heard him smile, actually hear his lips smack as they lifted, his cheeks swelling. She imagined him, blood running down his face onto his sweating neck.

Smiling at her idiotic attempt to save the day.

Smiling at tricking her into thinking she wasn’t alone down there.

That was what she was. Alone. Dead soon. She’d be dead soon.

She wanted it now. Anything but going back into that room. Death instead of darkness. A good trade.

She let herself go. Her eyes closing, slow laughter, the feeling of being under water.

So close.

The silence shifted around her as she came swimming back to the surface of consciousness.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in the darkness. Her escape attempt already a fading memory, even though she didn’t feel she’d been unconcious long.

Down there.

She wasn’t dead, but she may as well have been. Nothing to do but wait. So, that’s how she’d spent her time in the days and weeks which followed her attempt at escape.

Waiting.

Waiting for another chance.

She’d been in there too long. She’d lost count of the amount of times she’d slept since her time outside the room. In those minutes, hours, days following her escape, she barely moved from her bed. She couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to. She rubbed her wrists as she remembered the shackles which had kept her in place after her failed attempt to get out.

The empty feeling in the pit of her stomach as no food was delivered. Hunger making her weak, the lack of water finishing the job.

As she lay on the thin mattress, her voice sounding worse and worse as she sang to herself, the voice had spoken to her once more. Coming through the walls again. Telling her why she was there.

He went on for so long, her attention slipping constantly as various images of food and drink fought for space in her mind. She heard him talk about experiments and death. She didn’t understand any of it. She hadn’t seen one beaker full of bubbling potions since she’d been in that hell hole.

Some time later, the door was changed. The hatch was smaller now. No chance of getting out that way again.

After that, he didn’t talk to her again. Just dropped food and water through the now smaller-sized hatch, without pause.

She’d all but given up. She was just waiting to die. She didn’t want to live like this any more. She wasn’t living during all the days and nights down there. She was existing. That was all.

It was February when she was taken and put in this place.

Over eleven months had passed since then.

She didn’t know that though. She didn’t know she’d been in the darkness that long. Almost a year. Time meant nothing. Her unravelling mind was just trying to keep track of what she was supposed to be doing. Eat, drink, sleep. Sing if she fancied it.

Talk to people who weren’t there.

If someone had told her she’d been down there that long, she’d laugh and think they were crazy.

It had to be at least ten years. Twenty, more likely. That’s what she would say. When she got out.

If she got out.

The early evening had become darker as they waited for the arrest warrant, the streetlights providing slight illumination to the scene of twelve officers waiting a few seconds for a door to open.

Scotland Road runs from the city centre, the turn-off for the Wallasey tunnel indicating the beginning of the long stretch that works its way from there towards Everton. In stark contrast to the concrete paradise of the Liverpool One shopping centre, Scottie Road is the beginning of the other face of Liverpool. Graffiti marked, shuttered shops. Burnt-out pubs and fire-scorched grass verges. The odd garage, which at first seems to be abandoned, before you look closer and see the boarded-up front is for security rather than to indicate closure.

A rundown set of flats, above three different businesses: a bookies, newsagent, and launderette. Access from a shared side door, which looked new, thick and hopeful.

It was a long way from the house Murphy had visited Rob in a year earlier. He wondered how far he had fallen. Whether that fall now extended to a moral one as well as a financial one.

Whether Jemma Barnes had been his first.

They were about to raise the enforcer to knock the door down, when Rob Barker exited the newsagent’s a couple of doors down from the flat entrance.

Took one look at the officers, turned, and ran.

Murphy was closest.

Rob pulled away quickly, as Murphy sprinted to catch up. Turning left onto Hopwood Street, Murphy had already fallen at least a hundred yards behind. Railings on the main road prevented the cars from following, but Murphy could hear a few officers trying to catch them up as they ran down the side street, passing bemused hooded kids on bikes, and one stout woman in a dressing gown.

Rob ran straight on ahead, Murphy turned right.

He knew the area better. He was counting on that.

He sidestepped a purple wheelie bin as he ran down an alley, his shoes echoing around him as he upped the pace down the cobbles. He reached the end of the alleyway within seconds, turning left onto Bangor Street, deep into the housing estate which ran behind the main stretch of Scotland Road.

Then he came to a stop, waiting.

Rob appeared around the corner, panting, out of breath, but still moving forward. Murphy stepped back, trying to melt into the brick of one of the buildings that lined the main road.