Breaking Point (2 page)

“So.” He licks his lips nervously, tries another, longer smile. This one reaches his eyes, but manages to be zero percent reassuring. Fuck. “Here we are. Sorry for the drama getting you in here. I didn’t plan this too well. As you can probably tell!” A single soft laugh, not quite a giggle. “Yeah, got a bit over enthusiastic with the bat. My bad, man."

Again the smile, this time apologetic, but the eyes, ah the eyes, they tell a different tale, don’t they? And not a comforting one.

“Seemed like the quickest way to get you in, but I obviously overdone it, didn’t I? Yeah. Nevermind.” All one word.

He draws a deeper breath.

“Suppose we should get this bit out the way. I’ll talk, and after if you’ve got any questions…” A shrugging gesture, vague wave of his left hand - southpaw? “So, basically…” Scratching the back of his head, eyes to the ceiling, reflecting, looking for a rehearsed or at least learned passage. “…I’ve always wanted to torture someone to death.”

It’s not a long pause, but it is a definite one. He regains eye contact and holds it. The smile around the edge of his mouth is faint but unmistakable, and he’s clearly, unarguably, not joking.

I think the pain helps, oddly, to keep the worst at bay, but I feel gooseflesh ripple under my jacket sleeves, and my scalp tingles in a deeply unpleasant way. My vision tunnels but does not fade to black and white. I’m faint, but not fainting. Dislocated, but not, alas, dreaming.

Fuck.

Wolfmother chugs on behind us.

“It’s, uh… Killing someone is easy. You know, pretty much. And it does have its appeal, sure. No doubt. But, you know, it’s quick, and easy, and don’t tell you a lot. You know. But to torture someone, until the pain kills them…”

He drifts off, as though further explanation is unnecessary.

“I’ve done some reading, you know, on the internet. They think it’s the heart that gives out, eventually. When the pain is too much, it induces a paralysis in the heart muscle; it just stops beating. I don’t know, but I think it’s like a heart attack, you know? Like there’s too much strain in the heart and the muscle just tears, you know? Like rips too badly to keep working? Man. I bet that fucking hurts. I mean, I bet it’s quick, but I bet it still hurts like a motherfucker there in the end. The biggest pain ever. You know?” It’s rhetorical, but he raises an eyebrow like he’s looking for a response.

I’m a little too preoccupied to answer.

“Anyway… Oh! It’s not a sex thing!” he says suddenly, like he’d forgotten something important and wanted to reassure me. “I don’t want to fuck you or shove things up your ass. It’s not, whachacallit, homoerotic or nothing. I’ve just always wanted to, you know, see how long it would take someone to die, see it up close, you know? Be the one to push someone over the edge.”

For just a fraction of a second, his eyes leave the here and now to gaze over some terrible internal landscape, before snapping back to me with a big, happy grin. The grin of a child who’s just torn open the wrapping paper and found their heart's desire.

Oh, fucking hell, God help me.

“That’s why I didn’t pick a girl. I’m not a rapist, and I’m not a bender. It would have been weird, to do this to a woman, you know? It had to be a guy. So don’t worry” - yes, he says that - “I’m not a perv or nothing.”

Pause. To read my mind apparently, because I’m contemplating the complex series of motions that might lead to me licking my lips, swallowing, and drawing (slowly, carefully) enough breath to ask… “Why you?”

I couldn’t tell you how my face reacts to this, but fuck me it makes him laugh; a real, delighted belly laugh. His face splits into an honest-to-God grin, and never mind his eyes, it stretches right down to his boots. “I knew it! Man, I knew that’s what you were going to ask! Shit, that’s cool, man.”

He cracks up. I wait.

“Sorry. Sorry, man. That’s just...” More laughter. High, almost girlish.

I curse loudly, in my head, the dumbassed eleven year old that made the mistake of laughing at that laugh; calling this guy a sissy or gay, because even though I’m sure my new intimate got his revenge, I’m equally sure I wouldn’t be here now if that thoughtless, moronic, vile, pathetic, stunted, ignorant waste of sperm had just kept his mouth the fuck shut. Fuck fuck FUCK fuck it.

“Sorry.” He does get himself under control, looks a little embarrassed - though again, that doesn’t reach his eyes, quite.

Disingenuous motherfucker.

“…Anyway, yeah, 'why you?' Perfectly fair question. The simple answer is bad luck, but it’s always a little more complicated than that, isn’t it? Basically, I was looking for someone easy and local. I’m not bothered about getting caught. I mean, with DNA and all that shit, it’s bound to happen sooner or later, right? But I don’t want to get caught tonight, you know? I don’t know how long you’re going to last…”

And how much do I care for the appraising way he looks me over at this moment? Even less than that, actually.

“…but I want to make sure it’s me – well, us - that ends it, not the Old Bill showing up, you know? I mean, I’m realistic, right, they’ll catch me sooner or later and with what I’m going to do, no question I won’t be getting out, and I’m cool with that. I mean; prison is” - pffffft - “A doddle, you know. They’ll be more scared of me than I am of them; you know…?”

Big smile.

“…And I’ve got nothing going on out here, you know. Never saw the point of a bird or kids or any of that shit, so, you know… Anyway, so prison isn’t a thing, but I picked you because I wanted to make sure that I’d get at least you, all to myself. And look…” He gestures, again with the left hand, taking me in, in my entirety, and dismissing me. “...I mean fuck me, no offence, but you probably know this song better than I do, right? Know all the words and everything.”

Well, actually, I don’t. But it’s true that I do know the riffs and the music pretty well. The only reason I don’t know the words is because I haven’t heard it that much yet. I mean, once I’ve heard it a few more times; I will (would have) done. In other words, I do love it. It’s primal and amplified and distorted and raw and ugly. So ugly that it’s beautiful, which is earned beauty and the only kind I understand or respect. So he’s wrong but he’s right, and where the fuck is he going with this? I realise belatedly that he’s actually waiting for a response this time, but I’ve only just began to consider how I might formulate one (I’m slower than I can ever remember being, at this point) when he decides I’ve already replied and continues.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I mean, look at you: long hair and a leather biker jacket but on a peddle bike. Days one week and lates the next, so obviously working shifts. Clearly not in any way a factory worker; no offence, mate, but you ain’t built for it. Besides, there’s no factories around here, right? Gotta be the call centre, so okay, call centre, mid-twenties, right?”

Thirty two, shithead, I think, and fuck knows why, but at this point, this exact second, for no real reason I can discern, that most poisonous, deadly of flowers begins to bloom in my heart. For the first time since I stopped cycling home and started feeling more pain than I knew existed, I feel…

Hope.

Fuck me. Hope. Motherfucker.

The feeling wants to rise from my chest to my face, but fuck that shit, fuck it in the ear. If it reaches my face, I’m completely and totally dead for all time. So I choke the feeling in my throat as it rises from my chest, and I breathe just a little deeper than I need to. I’m rewarded instantly by a whole row of daggers slicing into my lower chest and biting deep. My eyes squeeze shut, and tears practically fucking spurt out of my scrunched up lids, but it’s all good in the motherfucking hood, because I look scared and in pain and lost, and that’s just exactly how I need to look. When my eyes reopen, I can see his grin even through the veil of tears.

“Ha!” He says it, rather than laughing. Triumph. “See? Fucking see? Yeah, mid twenties, dead-end job, on a bike? No tapping foot at home for you mate. Only use your mobile for games, right? Or maybe you don’t even have one?”

I stiffen. He smiles.

“Where d’you live, Under Meddow, Tailors Landing? Somewhere the rent’s cheap, right? And with your taste in music, no shared accommodation, right? Single occupancy; twenty five percent off your council tax.”

He’s nodding as he talks, answering his own questions. The fire in my lower chest is taking a long time to die down - and frankly that scares me - but for the first time since I opened my eyes, I’m more scared of the pain than I am of the man in front of me. He’s bright and observant and very, very dangerous, but he’s also prone to lazy assumptions, and deeply in love with his own internal version of the world and omniscience. And fuck me if that doesn’t give me the barest sliver of a chance.

He doesn’t know me.

He doesn’t.

But it occurs to me fairly swiftly that, if I am to hold on to that merest sliver of (don’t say it don’t even think it) sliver, I need him to think that he does. Maybe better than I know myself, but at least as well as.

Oh, fuck me.

“Ha! On the fucking money, I see. Don’t feel bad mate. It’s not your fault. Fuck, it ain't even personal. It’s just… I needed someone single, you know? No flatmates; certainly no girlfriend or wife…”

Do his eyes narrow just slightly when he says that? Does his breath catch for a fraction of a second? Does mine? My heart pounds louder than ever, almost drowning out the Wolfmother in the background, and, in what I can only call (as a non-religious man) a moment of sublime grace, my abdomen sends an extra vicious spike of pain up and an involuntary sob escapes my throat. The smile that he smiles now is great and terrible - there is pity, and in the eyes a dark consuming blankness.

“So, there was someone, once? Shit, sorry geezer. But at least, you know, whatever happens in the next few hours, at least you felt that thing once, you know? Puts you above me, man. Forever. I don’t have it, you know? Never have. Never will.” Shrug. “Ah well. Anyway, that’s why you. You’re single and basically a loner, and no-one is going to miss you until it’s way too late. I mean, when I first clocked you biking past my door a couple weeks ago, I thought, fucking hell, talk about fate! I mean I don’t believe in that shit, you know, but still…”

Fun fact: people who insist they don’t believe in fate always do. I file this away deep.

“Anyway,” his eyes focus firmly back on mine, and begin to harden, “That’s why you. As to the rest, the house is detached, and either side is empty so, you know, no danger there. The music’s been running at that volume for the last week, way into the early hours, not a single knock at the door. Good, eh?” Winning grin. “Triple glazing and the windows bricked, so: scream as much as you like! Now, unless you’ve got any questions…” He actually starts to rub his hands together. “Let’s get cracking!”

As he walks towards me, his hand reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a Stanley knife.

CHAPTER 4

He walks towards me, and I don’t ask any questions. The reasons are multiple (as in injuries, as in homicides): I can tell he doesn’t want me to ask a question, and that if I do, it won’t delay things any further in any case, and also there’s only one question in the world that matters to me right now and it’s one I can’t ask: how long was I out?

I know with absolute certainty that any chance I have of survival rests on the answer to that question. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? I mean, why on earth would I ask, if not the obvious reason? It’s a question that would give entirely too many answers to my new friend, and he’s far too bright not to draw the fairly simple implications and that shuts down that.

The other reason should be obvious - I’m all but paralysed with terror, at this point. I discover, as this young man walks towards me with a naked blade and Wolfmother seems to fade even further, as I meet the eyes of a man whose sole occupation and only concern is my pain and destruction, that terror and hope reside in the same places. These two kissing cousins (no, twins, right?) flutter, exactly as the cliché has it, in the heart and gut. They dance together in an uneven, shambling gait that induces arrhythmia and nausea. My breathing is speeding up - something I can’t control - but I somehow manage to keep it shallow. He moves closer, closer, slowly filling up more and more of my field of vision. When he’s almost on top of me, he squats, bringing us face-to-face. He holds the blade in his left hand, the point level with his eye, one thousand percent fake nonchalance, and smiles. I realise he’s chewing gum and, as he exhales, I get a face full of Juicy Fruit breath.

Jesus, talk about torture.

My leather jacket is hanging open, and he holds my eyes with his own as he reaches out with his right hand towards my chest. There’s a calmness and intimacy to it that makes my stomach turn over. I wonder for a moment if I’m going to puke. I try to imagine how spectacularly painful that would be and the thought calms my gut, just enough. I have to squeeze my eyes shut for a second. More sweat pops and my jaw hurts from the clench, but my stomach contents stay on the inside.

I open my eyes and still I’m being stared at, the firm gaze recording every detail with a gravity that you could mistake for concern. He’s unbuttoning my shirt, still with that hypnotic, small but infinitely threatening blade just happening to hover in my immediate peripheral vision, a hateful coiled snake that is sure to bite at any second with lightning speed. Undoing someone else’s shirt with one hand is not a no-brainer, but he manages it slowly and smoothly, without breaking eye contact, and I realise that he has lived this thousands of times, turning each moment over in his head, rehearsing.