Endurance (15 page)

I do not know
where or if Mum is even alive. But I simply don’t care because
she’s been dead to me for years.

I never ever
thought I’d have a normal life again but I do. Except… sometimes… I
see her. When I lie in bed I sometimes see her standing in front of
the wardrobe staring at me. Or when I’m driving to work, she’s
sitting on the back seat staring at me in the mirror. Even when I
sleep, I dream about her. I dream about what we used to be like and
then I dream of that night when she was killed, the impact, the
sound of the tyres and then her body, knotted and twisted. I still
see her body sometimes in random places, the cracking of her bones
as she clicks her broken neck, her shattered arms and legs always
rings through my ears. I make out to Danni that I can’t see Anna.
Deep down she must know I do.

I can’t cope
with it anymore. I can’t move on from her and the trauma is too
much. Everyday is hard. It wears me down.

So I sit here
in my house, in the sitting room, writing a suicidal note to Danni.
A chair is in front of me, a rope is tied to the ceiling where the
light and fan used to be.

I’ve been
here before. A month ago, I couldn’t go through with it, I had a
rope ready. I’ve even stuck a gun down my throat but now seems the
right time.

I don’t have
any real family, but I think that Danni and her family can cope.
They’ll pull through this, Danni will meet a new guy and then
they’ll be happy.

Tom stood
from his chair; he picked up a photo from the arm of the chair and
stood on the wooden chair below the rope. He put his neck into the
noose he’s tied. He raised the photo to his face and looked at the
photo of him and Anna sitting in a restaurant together. She’s
sitting on his lap and they’re both smiling. One of his tears fell
onto the photo. Tom pulled the photo away from his face.

As he stared
through the window onto the street where he lived, he kicked the
wooden chair from under his feet. The noose tightened; his weight
travelled downward but doesn’t reach the ground. As Tom struggled
and kicked his legs, the rope dug into his neck, it tightened as he
struggled. His vision blurred. He looked ahead to see Anna standing
in front of the window, where the sun beams into the room. He heard
the front door unlock and open.

‘
Hello.’
Danni shouted.

She closed
the door, placed her keys on the table next to the phone in the
hallway and walked slowly toward the sitting room door. Her hand
clutched the golden door handle on the door leading to the sitting
room. The shining handle created a mirror image of Danni’s hand and
caught her attention. She began to slowly open the door. She opened
it halfway to see if the TV was on. The TV was off and so was the
Sky box underneath the TV. She then let go of the handle and
wandered to the kitchen, dragging her feet.

‘
Tom, where
are you babe?’ Danni shouted, while unpacking her shopping in the
kitchen.

Here I am,
looking out the window onto the street. The sun is smothered by the
clouds, the birds’ tweets silent; the car noises from a distance
are silent and the vibrating bass from music playing from houses,
cars and passing pedestrians’ speakers have disappeared.

This is the
most silent it has ever been while living here.

The silence
is interrupted by a piercing scream from Danni. Danni ran to Tom’s
body, grappled with his legs and lifted him up. Her arms shook and
tears drenched her face. She grabbed the wooden chair and stood on
it; she untied the rope, releasing Tom to the ground. His legs
buckled and his head smashed onto the carpet.

‘
Tom, can you
hear me?’

Danni pulled
out her mobile phone and dialed 999.

I look down
to my lifeless body. I feel different. I’m floating. Danni looks
traumatised and she shakes as she holds my body in her arms. She’s
called the ambulance but by the time they get here, I’ll be long
gone. A waiting time of approximately five minutes or longer, they
might as well not bother.

Danni lay Tom
on the ground and began to push down on his chest,
whispering,

‘
One, two,
three, four.’

Opening his
mouth and blowing into his mouth. She repeated the same actions
four times before she looked down at Tom and rested her head on his
chest and began to scream.

I regret
putting Danni through this but I couldn’t cope with it
all.

I’m floating
further and further away. My vision blurs, my surroundings are
white and glowing. I’m not in the world anymore. I’m
free.

19

Miller sat in
his sitting room in his four bedroom house. He held The Guardian
newspaper reading the article on Thomas Williams committing
suicide.

The story was
out that Tom was the main subject of the Endurance experiment and
Miller was fully exposed by Danni. She gave them the book from Tom,
who wrote down everything that happened to him in detail and titled
the book ‘Endurance’. The book was published and the papers
released stories about it.

Miller was
interrupted by a knock at the door. He threw the papers to his left
onto the floor and walked towards the door. He walked across his
sitting room, through the dining room and into the hallway to the
door. As he does, he saw Danni standing there.

‘
What are you
doing here?’ Miller asked.

‘
Get in now.’
Danni screamed at him and pulled out a handgun with a silencer
attached to it.

She pushed
him into the house and shut the door behind her. She stood in front
of the door and pointed the gun at him. He put his hands
up.

‘
What the
fuck are you doing?’

‘
Shut up.
Tom’s dead.’

‘
Yes. He
killed himself.’

‘
You don’t
even care? It was your fault.’ Danni snarled.

She shot his
ankle; he screamed in pain, collapsing to the ground and holding
his leg.

‘
You silly
bitch, if you kill me, everyone will die. Tom even made the plea to
everyone in his book. You need me.’

‘
We don’t
need you. They have everything they need to stop it from becoming a
global problem. Don’t be so full of yourself. You are a lonely man,
no one will even care if you die and you’re a waste of space. You
killed Tom you arsehole.’

‘
I didn’t
kill him; his parents did that. Get out of my house.’

Danni looked
at Miller’s smug face. She lifted her gun, aiming at Miller; she
shot him twice in the chest. His white shirt soaked up the blood;
it spread across his shirt and stuck to his black tie. He fell to
the ground and lay on his back. He looked at his chest and covered
the bullet wounds. Danni walked up to him and pointed her gun to
one of the bullet holes, he squealed.

‘
We don’t
need you.’ Danni whispered.

She pulled
out a syringe from her pocket and injected it into his
neck.

‘
What’s
that?’ Miller asked warily.

‘
Just some of
the virus to keep you alive a bit longer, you won’t change or
anything but you’ll be alive for a few hours.’

Danni stood
and walked to the door; she looked back at Miller, who began to
crawl to the phone on the table side. Danni shot the phone and it
smashed across the floor. She then shot Miller’s other
ankle.

‘
Goodbye,
Doctor.’

‘
No, no, no…
you don’t understand what will happen to me.’

Danni put her
gun into her trousers and opened the door. As she does, Miller
began to scream at her.

‘
You stupid
bitch, I will kill you and everyone else. This is your
fault.’

Danni looked
back at him and shut the door. She calmly walked down his steps and
began the walk home.

20

Danni stood
at the empty Leicester Square Underground stop. She listened to the
screeching trains and felt the cooling breeze that made the rubbish
crawl and the paper of the newspapers on the dirty tiled flooring
throb. As she stared down the gaping black hole of the tunnel, she
heard a high pitched sound come closer to her left ear. As she
looks to her left, she saw a small fly flying next to her ear. It
was miniscule. She stared at it and blew it away.

She looked to
her right and a tramp stood directly in front of her. Danni jumped
at the shock and shivered. She shuffled away from him. He held out
his hand.

‘
I don’t have
any money, go away.’

Danni pushed
past him; as she does, the train pulled into the stop. The empty
train screeched as it came to a stop. The doors clanked open and
Danni stepped into a carriage with a flickering light. She sat down
and waited for the train to pull away.

A high
pitched sound was created and the train began to move. The tramp
stared through the window, revealing his severely bloodshot
eyes.

Danni brought
out her turquoise iPod and headphones. She folded her right leg
over her left and moved her right leg to the beat of the
song.

As she looked
around at the carriage’s line map and posters, two of the posters
stood out to her.

The first
poster was a picture of Miller titled “Missing, Michael Miller.”
with a picture of him underneath the title.

The next
poster grabbed Danni’s attention more. Danni stood from her seat
and held onto the yellow bars throughout the carriage to pull
herself towards the poster on the rickety train.

Standing in
front of the poster and leaning on the yellow metal bar above the
double doors, she looked at the poster “A message from Sarah
Williams. Hello everybody, due to unforeseen circumstances, I will
be taking over as the leader for the virus case. My aim is to keep
everyone in London safe and to stop the virus from spreading or
getting into the wrong hands.”

Danni laughed
as she looked at the poster, but was distracted as she saw somebody
in the next carriage. Danni stepped into the middle of her carriage
and looked straight through the glass of the door into the next
carriage, and saw a female walk toward the door. She took out her
headphones and continued to stare.

Danni paused
as she heard a growl behind her and a shuffling of feet. She turned
around to see Miller staring at Danni, with Smith behind
him.

‘
Shit!’ Danni
shouted.

Smith growled
louder and Miller stared at Danni. His eyes were a dark red, his
skin was blotchy and blood covered his entire body. He wore the
same shirt he had on when Danni shot him. His feet were crooked and
his ankles looked shattered.

Miller
growled.

‘
Hello.’
Miller snarled.

‘
You can
talk?’

‘
Yes.’ Miller
laughed; his laugh was deep and occasionally cut out. He coughed
and spat out black liquid; and blood dribbled from his
mouth.

Suddenly the
train began to brake, throwing Danni down the length of the
carriage. She slid past Smith and Miller who stood on the seats
holding the metal bars. Danni smashed headfirst into the end of the
carriage which left her feeling faint.

Danni looked
to the opposite end of the carriage and saw that the person who was
in the other carriage had entered the same carriage as her. The
lights flickered and the part of the carriage that the female stood
in turned dark.

Miller and
Smith jumped off the seats and Smith bolted to Danni. She stayed
down, on her back and kicked Smith’s ankle, which broke. She kicked
both his legs as hard as she could. He collapsed. Danni rose and
kicked him in the stomach. She then put her right arm across his
chest, grabbed his chin and cheek with her left hand and turned
both her arms opposite ways until his neck snapped. His body went
limp and she dropped him to the ground.

Miller
unfolded his arms and began to clap slowly. Danni walked up to him
with her guard up.

‘
He’ll be
alive soon.’ Miller said.

‘
How can you
talk?’

Miller began
to laugh. ‘I’ve been infected all this time.’ Miller tried to
continue speaking but struggled as he continued to cough up blood.
‘My eyes have always been dark; I’m surprised you didn’t notice my
pupils. The cure didn’t work for me; it just held the virus off.’
Miller began to laugh and choke. ‘I have to inject the cure every
two hours otherwise I’d change. You injected me in my house with
the virus to make it even stronger and now.’ Miller coughed,
smiled, as he does, blood poured out of his mouth, revealing his
blood-stained teeth. ‘Now I’m unstoppable. You left me, I couldn’t
get to the cure to try and stop it.’

Miller
grabbed Danni’s arm and he threw her along the carriage. She slid
down the plastic flooring and stopped at a woman’s feet.

As she looked
up, past the woman’s black heels and skirt and past her white
blouse, she saw Sarah’s face looking down at her.