Mace Crindle Plant
December 3, 9.50 a.m.
Denise tried very hard not to think about Daniel. It was just pointless. Thinking of him just made her feel sad that she couldn’t control her thoughts. It made her despair, and despair would not help her win this fight for her life. It would not help her survive and that was all she wanted. To survive this. To do all that she could to help Tom find her before Sebastian killed her.
Silence again.
Perhaps this was it, though. This was goodbye. Dying in the darkness for no purpose, without anyone seeing or knowing. Yes, Sebastian was capable of that. Absolutely. She wasn’t sure why he hadn’t killed her already. That’s what really frightened her. She lay back against the hard mattress.
Then out of the darkness, the whistle again. The low, long whistle. Near and now further away… moving away. Her flesh bristled with fear.
She had been gnawing at her thumb, nibbling it with her teeth and rocking, like one of those little Rhesus monkeys the psychologists had deprived.
At university, she’d learned about a lot of cruel psychological experiments. Two sets of Rhesus monkeys were put in very similar cages after birth. In one cage was a plastic milk bottle and access to food. In the other was one simple but significant difference — the plastic milk bottle was covered in fur, to simulate the warmth of the mother’s body.
That was the only difference — the presence of monkey fur. Given time, the welfare of each set of monkeys was entirely different.
The baby monkeys with the fur bottle were happy, healthy and playful. Then you looked into the cage without the fur. The Rhesus monkeys were all rocking like psychiatric patients, some on their own like lost shadows, others clasped together in lines and rocking as one. And like her, they gnawed their little monkey arms right down to the bone.
Poor monkeys. For want of a scrap of comfort, a pretend mother, they’d started to destroy themselves with the anxiety. Like her, gnawing her thumb. She could taste blood. It was comforting to taste blood. Why was that? Was it food? Or was it company?
Then there was a noise. It was a different noise. Suddenly, she was alert. It was a clanking sound. Like metal on metal. Then a creak. Then a bang.
A door! There’s a door out of the Kingdom of Darkness. Hope swelled in her chest. Then fear pushed it back down to her stomach.
Footsteps now. They were definitely footsteps. It didn’t seem to matter to her then whether it was the killer or not. At that point, the killer was her saviour.
Someone was at the door of her dark cell. She scrambled her way to a corner. There was the sound of a key in a lock. Then the sound stopped.
Suddenly, a loud click and the room burst into light. Bright, bright light — as fierce as the midday sun. Her eyes burned and her hands rose to cover her eyes. Then he was there. In the same instant.
Something was put over her head. It felt like a tight fitted hood. She could smell it. It was made of new leather. Was he just going to kill her like that? Not a word. The hood was pulled tight and fastened below her chin. Then his hands moved away. She was so weak and disorientated that there was no fight in her.
He was behind her, lifting her to her feet. His hands found her bare neck. She was thinking about dying. She didn’t mind now. Best to go quickly and quietly.
How long can a body go without air? It’s a matter of minutes and seconds. There’s such a fine line between life and death, between the infinite variety of being and the singleness of non-being. Why was she thinking these poetic things? The stranger was lifting her off her feet. His forefinger and thumb pressed against her arteries. Her body fought for blood and air, desperate sudden lunges rising up through her muscles, the terrible clawing agony in her lungs, in her veins. Then she relaxed into his body. A scrap of fur, any fur, even pretend fur. Even killer fur.