Epitaph (9 page)

Laura Hacket watched the figure as it moved slowly around the room and she felt the tears running down her cheeks.

She couldn’t scream because of the tape that was wound so tightly around her mouth but her body jerked almost rhythmically as she cried, lurching up and down in her seat with each inhalation. Her nose was running, too, and bubbles of mucus kept forming at each nostril the more she cried, bursting instantly as she sniffed.

Laura couldn’t take her eyes off the figure even though she wanted to. She didn’t want to look at this thing that had taken her. This thing with hooded black eyes, no nose and a zip where its mouth should have been. But no matter how much she tried to look away she couldn’t.

She was beginning to wish that it had left the tape on her eyes, too. At least that way she wouldn’t have been forced to look at it as it moved back and forth in the room.

Laura would ask it if she could go home if it should take the tape from her mouth. She would tell it that she had to be home
or she would be in trouble with her mum. She would plead with it if she had to. Anything just to get out of this place and get away from this thing. Whatever it was. She wanted to ask it why it had grabbed her and stuffed her into the boot of its car. Why it had put grey sticky tape around her eyes and mouth and why it had secured her to this old wooden chair.

She would ask it if it knew Mr Peter File, that dangerous man who her dad hated so much and who did bad things to children like her. Above all, she wanted to ask it if she could see her mum.

She wanted that so much. She wanted to be held and cuddled by her mum. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be anywhere other than where she was now. Alone here in this empty room with this thing.

Laura was shuddering as she sat on the chair, her whole body trembling. It was deathly silent inside the room apart from her own sobs. She couldn’t even hear the creature breathing unless it came close to her and then the sound was like someone breathing into their hand.

It had come close to her twice. Once to remove the tape around her eyes and another time when it had moved to within just three feet of her and stood silently looking at her, its head sometimes inclined to the right or left, as if it was studying her, taking in every single detail of her face.

Then, Laura had wanted it to remove the tape around her mouth. That was when she would have asked it the questions that plagued her. But all it had done was just stand there like some kind of horrible statue, just looking. Just waiting. Then, after a moment or two, she had watched as it had turned its back on her once again and wandered off behind her towards something that she couldn’t see but, through her tears and her sobs and
sniffs, she had heard something that she couldn’t identify. A sound
that was vaguely familiar and it made her cry even more.

It sounded like pieces of metal clanking together.

Like knives.

Paul Crane collapsed exhausted, his arms by his sides, his head to one side, perspiration covering his face and chest.

He was murmuring something unintelligible under his ragged breath.

Prayers, perhaps?

He had been hammering away at the coffin for more than fifteen minutes but to no avail.

Was it fifteen minutes?

He suddenly remembered that he was still wearing his watch and he tried to look at it. Pointless, really, because it was so impenetrably black inside the coffin that he couldn’t even see the lid that was mere inches above his face, let alone the face of his watch. Perhaps if he could get the glass over the face off then he could feel the hands and work out the time that way.

And how are you going to get the glass off? Did you slip a chisel into your bathrobe pocket before you passed out?

Paul exhaled deeply, exhausted and drained of energy.
However, he noticed that his breathing had slowed somewhat. His exertions had taken his mind off his pre dicament for precious minutes and, in that time, his heart had slowed and his breathing returned to something like normal.

He sucked in a deep breath, held it, and then released it as slowly as he could. If he could get his breathing and his heartbeat under control, he reasoned, then he could calm himself and begin to think logically. Think of a way out.

He took several deep breaths and concentrated on releasing them slowly, forced himself to exhale a little at a time. The longer he did this the more the fuzziness inside his head seemed to clear. He had a headache.

It could be a hangover from all that booze the night before.

The night before. He had no idea of the time. He didn’t know if it was the following day. An hour after he’d passed out or minutes after he’d achieved the oblivion he’d needed so badly. That was the first concrete fact that he was aware of. He had absolutely no idea what time of the day it was or, indeed, which day it was.

It’s actually the second concrete fact, isn’t it? The first is that you’re in a fucking coffin. The first is that you’ve been buried alive.

‘No, no,’ he said to himself, as if denying the facts might change them.

Deny them all you like. You are buried alive. Face it and deal with it.

Paul felt sick. A wave of nausea that made him sweat again and, for one terrifying second, he thought he was actually going to be sick.

That’ll be nice inside this box. The stink of your own vomit
mingling with your own sweat and Christ knows what else. Don’t throw up.

The feeling passed and he was grateful for that. What he wasn’t grateful for was the terrible thirst that he was suddenly aware of. His throat felt raw. Some of it doubtless caused by his frantic shouting. His mouth was unbearably dry, too. Paul tried to generate some saliva by rubbing his tongue against the roof of his mouth and then against the inside of his cheeks. It helped a little but not much. What little saliva he generated he forced back and forth across his clenched teeth. The unbearable dryness inside his mouth began to recede somewhat.

Well done. Try and deal with one thing at a time. One problem at a time.

A line from a hymn suddenly popped into his mind.

‘One day at a time, sweet Jesus,’ he muttered.

One day at a time. Sweet Lord.

He didn’t know why his brain was processing these random thoughts the way it was. They seemed to be flying about inside his head like tennis balls.

Sweet Jesus. That’s who you need help from right now.

‘Help.’ He spoke the word quietly. How was he going to get help? Who was going to help him?

Paul tried to force those thoughts away, aware that his breathing was speeding up again. He knew he had to try and remain calm, irrespective of how difficult that might seem. He had to keep his mind clear and think his way through this.

He dug in his robe pockets, wondering if there was something in there he could use.

Use for what?

He found some balled-up tissues in one of them and that was it.

No chisels to dig your way out. No sweets magically placed there earlier to stop your mouth feeling dry? Tough shit.

‘Think,’ he told himself. ‘Concentrate.’

On what? You’re in a coffin, six feet underground. There’s no way out. No one can hear you. No one knows you’re here, and even those who do aren’t going to think you’re alive, are they?

Paul took a deep breath and held it.

What’s the last thing you remember?

He exhaled slowly.

He remembered being in his flat, in front of the tele vision. He’d drunk nearly three-quarters of a bottle of vodka upon arriving home. That was excluding whatever he’d drunk at the bars he’d visited before that. So, somehow, he’d gone from the sofa in his flat to the inside of a coffin. How? If he could figure that out then perhaps he could work out how to get out. Consider the whole problem. Think of it as an equation. Someone had to have put you in here so someone knows you’re here. Think about how it could have happened.

Think.

‘I
am
thinking,’ he told the voice inside his head.

Better not talk to yourself. I told you before, it’s the first sign of madness. Still, I suppose you’re entitled to go a bit mad when you realise you’ve been buried alive. Carry on.

No one had been expected at the flat. It wasn’t as if Amy had turned up and found him collapsed and called an ambulance or doctor or something. If that had happened then he would have remembered being taken to hospital. Wouldn’t he?

What if you were in a coma?

The amount of booze he’d consumed wouldn’t have put him in a coma. That was a fact. Even if it had, he would then have undergone all sorts of examinations and been certified dead. He didn’t have a medical condition like a weak heart or one of those other mysterious medical anomalies that characters in horror stories always had that caused them to be buried alive. There were all kinds of tests that had to be done to determine brain death and shit like that.

Also, he reasoned, if he’d been examined, certified dead and then put in the ground by an undertaker he’d be wearing a suit or something smarter. They didn’t bury people in bathrobes, did they?

So what’s the answer? You were buried by mistake?

Paul was beginning to wonder if he’d already lost his mind. There was no sane reason why he should be inside this coffin.

Think.

He took another deep breath.

Gina Hacket checked the wall clock in the kitchen once more then she wandered through into the small sitting room and turned on the television.

As soon as the picture burst into life she reached for the remote and pressed the button that indicated the time. It duly appeared in one corner of the screen, confirming Gina’s concern.

All the timepieces in the house, including her own watch, now testified to the fact that her daughter was ridiculously late getting home from school. Gina sat down on the edge of the nearest chair and tried to think rationally for a second.

Perhaps she’d gone to play with one of her friends after school.

Gina hastily dismissed that option, knowing that Laura would never go off to a friend’s house without first asking permission. Also, in the unlikely event that that had happened, the mother of the friend would have rung by now to explain.

She got to her feet and crossed to the bay window, pulling back the net curtains and peering down the street in the direction from which she knew Laura would approach.

There were two or three kids dressed in the same school uniforms as Laura’s making their way slowly along the pathways but of her daughter there was no sign. Gina looked at her watch again as if hoping that she’d somehow got the time wrong.

She hadn’t. Just as her watch was right so was the wall clock in the kitchen, the electronic timer on the cooker and the digital readout that had displayed on the television.

Could a group of them have ventured down to the local shops, Gina wondered, but dismissed that theory as rapidly, realising her daughter had no money on her and also because she’d never done that before. Why would she start now? Besides, it was the final day of the summer term; all Laura would want to do would be to get home to begin what was to be seven weeks of play for her.

Gina stood beside the window a little longer, her breathing now increasing a little, her heart beating quicker. She wondered if perhaps the school had finished early; they sometimes did that at the end of term. Perhaps Laura had come home, found the house empty and then gone off around to a friend’s house.

That particular theory was also discarded with uncomfortable haste. Gina now began to feel distinctly nervous. She remained at the window, aware of the sunshine high in the sky and of the blue sky. It was a beautiful day. Bad things didn’t happen on days like this, did they?

And yet, despite the warmth in the air and the brilliance of the sunshine, Gina Hacket could feel what seemed to be light, cold fingers at the back of her neck causing the hairs there to rise.

Another five minutes she stood at the window, the curtains pulled back further with each passing moment.

Eventually, she let go of the curtain, walked outside and up the short path where she stood staring anxiously down the street.
The vantage point wasn’t much better than the one inside the living room and now she had several greenfly to contend with as well. They flitted around her, causing her to swat at them with the flat of one hand.

Gina kept her gaze fixed firmly on the end of the street but, no matter how intently she looked, she still couldn’t see her daughter.

She stood at the window for another ten minutes until she could stand it no longer. She had to do something.

Gina scooped up her keys and headed out of the house.