Final LockDown (2 page)

“Okay, you don’t want me, I’ll go see our Melissa; she will always love and want me,” I say stupidly, giggling to myself. I know she is somewhere around, but it is just a matter of waiting for her stubborn arse to come out.

I shake my head, still smiling wide. I can’t stop it from infecting my face today; my life has just turned from perfect to everlasting.

I place my hand to the glistening knob of my daughter’s room.

“Hey man, where am I sleeping tonight?” I hear Scott ask me from the stairs at the end of the landing.

“Hey man, you feeling okay?” I ask him, his face is still so sad, sorrow apparent on every crease.

“I’m fine, Leigh. It’s life, I’ll deal with it,” he tells me bluntly and my heart breaks a little, to see one of my family hurting so hard. Don’t get me wrong, the guy can be an arsehole, a real fucking dickhead, but I never wish this level of unhappiness on anybody I love.

“Scott, talk to me man,” I command him. I know from experience, the worst thing anybody can do, is hold in their self-hatred and hurt.

“Leigh, seriously, if I need you I’ll holler, but until then, leave me be ‘kay?” he asks me, that sad smile still on his face.

“Sure thing bro. You’re in your usual room knobhead,” I tell him, patting his shoulder.

“Okay, I’ll see you in the morning,” he says turning around fast. “Hey Leigh, what the hell is that smell?”

What the fuck is he on about? “What smell?” I ask, inhaling heavily to try and detect what he is on about.

“Smells like copper mate,” he says, a worried look marring his face. He shoots past me, sniffing around like a bloodhound.

He opens and closes every room door along the way, peering his head in and nosing around before closing the door again.

“What are you doing Scott?” I ask him, laughing at his bizarre behaviour. It is official, the guy is bonkers. All that cocaine he insists on taking every day, is clearly catching up with his mental stability.

He reaches my daughter's room and I follow him, needing to say goodnight to her anyway. As he opens the door, the pungent smell he has been referring to, shoots through the hallway like a laser pointer, now heading straight for my fucking heart.

“NO!” I say loudly, my heartbeat accelerating fast enough to pound out of my chest. “Please god no,” I beg again, as I shoot through the remainder of the corridor.

“FUCK!” I hear Scott say as I push past him, knocking his drunken body into the door frame.

“FUCK!” I scream loudly, I am sure everybody will bloody hear it.

I look to the floor as my heart splits through my ribcage, tearing the skin apart and falling to the floor in a lifeless heap beside my wife.

I fall to my knees, the caps on them smashing harshly into the floor. “Baby no.” I cry as I lift her bleeding, lifeless body into my arms.

I turn my head and expel my stomach contents.

“NO!” I shout again as I hear a strangled breath escape Abigail’s chest, blood gurgling up through her throat and trickling down the sides of her mouth.

Tears stream down my face and my body ceases to exist, as I watch my beautiful angel’s eyes flitter, her breathing slowing as she begins to sleep.

I am dead, in heaven once again. It is becoming a common occurrence lately, but this time I fear my existence has completely halted altogether. This time I am alone, there is no Leighton or Thomas with me, keeping me company as I surf amongst the fluffy white clouds. This is more like hell to me. It is cold, hard and horrible. I have already been in heaven, my living life pure and utter bliss. This is god's payback for all the good luck I have been given.

I have prayed one too many times, rubbed the genie's lamp too rough, too often, that I am now in hell as my punishment for my greediness. I had thought I deserved a good life, after everything I have been through. I had thought it was my time to shine and live, but no, here I am, freezing cold, as the fiery inferno around me spits and incinerates the entire perimeter of my rusty cage.

I miss them, every one of them. My husband, my friends, my family and then there is my baby girl, whose life is now in jeopardy, my deranged and sickening father now holding her in his vile grasp. I need to escape, I need to break free of this god forsaken blazing pit and fight my way back through the whole that has swallowed me.

Think Abbi, think. How can I defeat Lucifer himself? Surely there is a deal I can make. He, of all people, knows what it is like to love somebody so much you will kill for them. If people understand the stories of why the devil, as he is known, was sent and banished to the darkest, loneliest corners of this world, they wouldn’t think him so bad.

There has always been many speculations as to why Lucifer ruled the cold corners I now lived. As I have been told, he was an angel, in heaven. His love for the Lord manifested beyond control, he wanted to be everything god was, to be loved as intensely and passionately as god was. To me this is no crime; it isn’t a crime to feel the way I do about Leighton, to want to live and breathe everything he is. Maybe that’s why I have been exiled here, with those who love too much. Maybe my father was right, maybe I don’t deserve to live; maybe I deserve to be in the deepest, darkest pits as my punishment. After all, it is my fault; if I hadn’t been born, my mother would be alive, my father would be the happy person the photos in our home had depicted, my baby girl wouldn’t be in his clutches right now, Leighton wouldn’t be heartbroken, like I know he will be this very minute, having seen my lifeless and bleeding corpse.

I sigh heavily, looking above my metal cage, the miniscule exit overhead like the peak of a volcano. I squint my eyes to try and focus, as the steam and smoke of the cascading fires around me, fog my vision. Surely there is a way out of here; there is always an escape somewhere. I had once thought my father the devil, a monster in the shadows there to hurt me, but as I learnt more about the ‘devil’ I disregarded people’s opinions of him, because he is just a simple angel, in love with his leader.

I tap my chin repeatedly, like it will bring some semblance of control and thought. I can feel a slight throb in my shoulder, a reminder of my non-existence in the above world. It seems like a lifetime away, I wish I were an angel right now, with large feathery wings that would allow me to swoop down on earth from the cotton candy heavens and bring me back to my mourning family.

Jesus Abbi, get your head together, you have to get out of here. I am going crazy, a little devil and angel sitting upon my aching shoulders, probing and intimidating me to sway their way. The beautiful, white dressed angel, similar to how I had looked before the bullet had robbed me of breath, blood and life, telling me to fight, to force wings to pop from my spine and fly me away to my family.  Then there is that naughty devil, his fork tail spearing my bullet hole, sending searing pain throughout my body, incapacitating me completely, screaming in a horrible high pitched tone to sit my fucking arse down and suffer the consequences of my actions.

I look to that stupid devil, seriously wondering what I have done in my short lifetime to deserve this horrid end. Surely I should at least be in purgatory, able to fight my case to the jury and have my sentence fought for, not just chucked into this hellhole and made to deal with it.

“Fuck!” I shout, pushing myself forward. I shake my shoulder, trying to fling the irritating prick from its perch. I only have room for one conscience today, and that is the positive, encouraging one, that is fighting for me to get to my family.

“I’m not going that easily, Abigail Lock,” he says in this snarky whiny voice. Fuck it, force is clearly needed.

I reach to my shoulder, gripping the thing in my palm, squeezing horribly tight until I can hear him struggling for breath. Ha, you stupid fucker. I pull him from his pedestal, bringing him in line with my eyes. “See you, you nasty prick. Goodbye.” I look into his blood red eyes, the flames behind his irises burning bright. I launch him across the way. Sure my hand smashes against the metal bars, sure it stings like a bastard, but at least he is gone.

“So, Angel, what can I do?” I ask the pretty little girl sitting there, twiddling with her feathered wings innocently.

“You need a dash of courage, a load of forgiveness and a ton of belief,” she simply says, standing up onto her tiny little feet and twirling around like a ballerina. She is so pretty and perfect, reminding me of my baby girl, who I hope, when she is a walking, dancing toddler, carries as much grace and beauty as my angel conscience does.

“Let’s do this,” I say, dusting my hands off my legs. Yes, I am naked, it is pretty disturbing to be quite honest, but there you have it.

First thing is first. I need out of this cage, there is no way I will make it through that overhead exit hole if I don’t first break free from the rust pit. “And how do you suggest we get out of this one, Angel?” I say sarcastically, having pulled and pushed at the bars repeatedly without any budging from them.

“Breathe deeply Abigail, take your time and regain your strength and determination. Now, focus on your goal and clasp the bars.” I do as she instructs me, giving up my own control so she can assist me through this bleak, dark time. “Right, now, as you breathe out, pull with everything you have. Remember the other side of these bars is another possibility of breaking free and seeing Leighton again,” she tells me, and I smile as I exhale hard and pull forcefully at the rusting metal. They separate a foot, the bars bending. “Good. Again,” she commands me and I repeat the process, breathing in deep and focusing my mind on Leighton. 1, 2, 3, exhale and pull. They creak and separate further, enough space in between for my tiny naked form to squeeze through.

“Hold tight Angel,” I tell her and her fingers cling to my shoulder as I shuffle us both through. “What’s next?” I ask her, looking above me to the dark hole I know will get me out of here, the hole that seems light years away.

“Now, Abigail Lock, we avoid the hounds,” she says and I jump back as a flurry, of what I can only assume to be hell hounds, run past.

Am I invisible to them? God I hope so, that’d make it easier.

“They catch you Abbi, there will never be an escape for you. You ready to fight for your life?” she asks me, and this time it is literally the case. If I break out of here, there is a minute possibility I will maybe inhale real, human life breath.

“Yup, let’s do this.”

“What the hell is all this noise about?” Maria shouts as she walks the corridor towards the room I am currently kneeling down in. Abbi is dying, losing blood by the second, the bullet wound in her shoulder pulsing blood. Her beautiful ivory dress is quickly turning red.

“Jesus Christ Abbi.” She cries loud, as she rounds the door and sees me pressing firmly against the wound, trying to remain calm. Who am I kidding? I am hysterical, trying to stop the tears from falling and my heart from smashing.

“Please, Maria, just keep Melissa and Joseph with you and keep an eye out for the ambulance, it will be here real soon.” I breathe out heavily, odd salty drops landing on Abigail’s cheeks as I press as hard as I can on her wound, trying to stem the flow of blood.

I think to myself, how this is an unwinnable battle, there is no way she will survive this, even if I could stitch this up myself. Sure, I have dug a few rounds out of Ant before, and stitched him up good as new, but Abigail has been lying here for god knows how long, the bullet having shredded some of her blood vessels at least. If I remove my hand now, I fear her tiny body will flat line on me for eternity, and where will that leave me? Hell, dead and gone, that’s where. Because I will follow her, taking a plunge into the darkening abyss, so I can forever feel her in my arms.

“Come on angel, stay with me, fight baby, fight,” I beg her, my hands wet, sticky and pungent with copper blood.

I hear a deathly scream in the room. Maria stands over my daughter’s cot, her hand on her mouth, the other on her belly. “What? What’s wrong Maria?” I ask her, still keeping my eyes focused on Abbi for any signs of change.

“Where is Mel?” she asks, shocked and scared.

“What are you on about? She was there, I swear she was,” I tell her, trying to recall what has happened since I entered the room.

“She’s gone Leighton,” she reveals to me and I realise, that I am in fact, a shit father, for not even checking the cot when I had entered, my every thought and focus on my wife.

“FIND HER!” I shout to every person in the room. “AND SOMEBODY CHECK WHERE THAT FUCKING AMBULANCE IS!” I scream, becoming inpatient. I am not even focused on revenge or finding out who has done this. My sole focus is saving my wife, because there is no way on this earth I can survive without her.

Mel has to be around here somewhere; maybe Abbi’s mother has taken her and is giving her a bottle of milk. I try to relax; I am no good to anyone in a state.

“Abigail you are not allowed to die. Try baby, fight for it, and fight for me and for Melissa and Joe. She needs you baby, I can’t care for her without you, please angel, I’m begging you. You are like a mum to Joe, he will be lost without you, he needs you too, you are his mum. Please, Angel.” I am beginning to cry too much, my vision blurry, my heart racing and my skin clammy and sticky as perspiration clings to it. “FUCK!” I shout in frustration, nothing is working. Her breathing is so laboured, it may as well be non-existent. Her skin is pale and cold and her eyes are fused shut.