The winter air is sharp with cold, the wind howling around them, drowning out the sound of their pounding footsteps.
She cannot remember the last time she was outside after midnight, when light and the morning seem impossibly far away. She cannot remember the last time she ran anywhere, and her panting breath alerts her to her lack of stamina.
The cold sneaks in under her layers, finding exposed skin to taunt. It’s hard to imagine summer ever returning. But then it’s impossible to imagine tomorrow right now, to see a life for herself after this. How will she go on if the worst has happened? She risks a glance to the side. How will they go on?
He continues to up his pace and she struggles to keep up with him, her head moving left and right, dark patches and shadows surrounding her. Fear catches in her throat and she coughs.
Her breath condenses in front of her and she has a sudden memory of herself as a child standing outside on a winter’s morning, blowing out and watching, fascinated, as her breath emerged in a cloud of white in the frigid air. She is no longer a child but she feels like one, overwhelmed by confusion, by her lack of control.
How has this happened?
How could I not have known?
Is this what I deserve?
The street is eerily silent, the barren housing plots looming large in the darkness, threatening them with their emptiness.
There is a slight hum of cars coming from the highway in the distance, where nothing stops the endless streams of traffic – not the dark nor the cold nor the late hour.
She is dressed for the weather, with her coat on and a beanie hat, but she regrets it now that she’s running. Her hands are freezing but she can feel a trickle of sweat make its way down her back. She pushes her body to move faster, pushes against the wind that seems determined to send her backwards. They need to get there quickly.
We’re coming, baby. We’re coming.
‘Come alone,’ he had instructed.
But she’s not alone.
‘Don’t tell anyone,’ he had commanded.
But she has told someone.
‘I just want to talk,’ he had stated.
But what could there be to say?
‘I won’t hurt her,’ he had promised.
She knows that’s a lie.
It’s not a sound that wakes her, more a feeling, a thickening of the air that indicates a presence in the house. She sits up on her bed, her heart already racing as she strains to hear something. Your imagination, she tries to convince herself. She swings her legs over the side of the bed, sinking her feet into the plush carpet, grounding herself. ‘Your imagination,’ she whispers. They’ve only lived here for two weeks and she’s not yet used to the night-time sounds of the house. In their old apartment she could tell the time by the movement of other residents in the building. Mr Hong always returned from his work shift at ten o’clock. He lived next door and she always felt herself relax as his key clicked in the lock, knowing it would soon be time for sleep. Mrs Davos, on the floor above, slammed her front door and huffed downstairs at six every morning to hang her washing in the communal garden. Milly from the first floor sang on her way out of her flat when she left at eight. She made up songs about the kind of day it was and how she was feeling.
She had not thought she would miss those noises but right now she feels her isolation, her distance from everyone else in her large, quiet house. The furniture they brought from the flat was not enough to fill it. Generous spaces, like the dining room and the formal lounge, remain open and empty.
She listens again, hoping she will hear nothing or that she will identify a sound as something familiar. She hopes that she’s just had a dream as she dozed over her book, but as she leans forward, she hears something. A sharp thump.
It is obviously the sound of a foot bumping into something, a misplaced step by someone unsure of the layout of the house, someone who is unaware that there are piles of unopened boxes everywhere. She takes in a deep, shocked breath. It’s not possible. Is it possible? She grabs her mobile phone off the bedside table and holds her breath so she can hear better, undisturbed by even the sound of her own breathing. Swish, swish, thump. Another misplaced step. She leaps off her bed and stands at the top of the stairs, looking down into the house where the entrance hall and kitchen lights are on because Ben will be home soon. She strains to hear something, afraid that she won’t be able to hear anything over the loud thudding of her own heart.
Another sound, another misplaced footstep. Someone is in the house. Someone is actually in the house.
She opens her mouth to call out because maybe it’s Ben. It could be Ben. But then she closes her mouth again. Her husband enters the house with noises she’s grown used to over the last couple of weeks. He shuts the door that leads from the double garage to the kitchen and then he checks the lock: click, click. He drops his briefcase in the kitchen – thwack – and then he always reaches for a glass for some water: gush, swish.
Then if she isn’t in the kitchen, he calls for her: ‘Home, babe.’
Please say, ‘Home, babe,’ she prays. Please say, ‘Home, babe.’ Please be bumping into things because you’ve had a couple of drinks or you’re tired. But there is only silence.
She swipes her thumb across her phone, checking her location app for Ben’s phone. The noise has not come from Ben. Her husband is still at work, still forty-five minutes away, even in the light late-night traffic. She is frozen where she stands, her mouth so dry she can’t swallow and she has to suppress a cough. She takes a step forward and a shape jumps out at her, making her stomach drop. She gasps in fear but the shape doesn’t move and she realises that it’s a stack of boxes, nearly as tall as her, filled with extra linen and towels, waiting to be unpacked. She holds her breath again, listening.
Downstairs the footsteps move with more purpose now. She bites down on her lip, holding back a cry of fear. She needs to get to Beth, needs to keep her daughter safe. She tiptoes, silent footstep after silent footstep, across the landing to Beth’s room. Once inside she closes the door, grateful for its silent glide over the thick carpet. She turns the lock slowly, hoping that the click sound it makes when it catches won’t alert the intruder. Once it’s locked, she breathes a sigh of relief but then panic ricochets around her body once more. She can see her little girl is deeply asleep, her night light twirling, the butterfly shapes fluttering their pink wings in the dim light. The room smells of the strawberry-scented shampoo she uses to wash Beth’s hair. Such an ordinary night. ‘Head back, Beth, don’t squirm. Story time now. Time for sleep, darling, night night.’ Such an ordinary night filled with all the ordinary tasks raising a young child brings.
But nothing is ordinary anymore. Because someone is in her house. Her home that still doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to her, that is not yet familiar but is supposed to be her safe space. She clutches her phone hard as terrifying images of her and her daughter being attacked flash through her mind. She is not safe. They are not safe.
She breathes deeply. Calm down, she tells herself. She needs to be calm, to think. The butterflies twirl and the strawberry scent gets stronger. Beth’s chest rises and falls slowly, sleep holding her tight.
Rachel’s hand shakes. She doesn’t know what to do. She needs to… She can’t seem to think straight. Panic swirls through her brain, smothering all other thoughts. ‘Ben,’ she whispers as if she could summon him. Ben, she thinks. Ben will know what to do. Ben always knows what to do.
She calls her husband, pinpricks of fear dancing over her skin. ‘Someone’s in the house,’ she whispers. She explains – the sound, her fear, and he tells her what to do.
‘Call the police, I’m coming, call the police.’
His voice is panicked. If he is panicked, she’s in trouble. ‘Relax,’ he always tells her. ‘It will be fine,’ he usually says. Ben believes things will always work themselves out. But he doesn’t say that now. ‘Call the police,’ he says, urgency hiking his voice.
Why hadn’t she thought to do that? Of course, she should have done that first.
Her trembling fingers dial 000. When a voice answers, she has to squeeze her hand into a fist, her nails digging into her palm.
Don’t ever tell, don’t tell anyone. Promise me you’ll never tell. Especially not the police.
The words are ingrained in her psyche, part of who she is – but this is different. Now, she is not telling. She is not bringing up the past at all. She is asking for help, just asking for help.
She gives him the details in a stuttering whisper, her heart pounding in her ears, almost unable to catch her breath.
‘They’re on their way now,’ a man with a liquid-calm voice assures her. ‘Don’t leave the room, sit tight, they’re coming.’ Rachel wishes the man on the line were right here with her, sitting next to her, reassuring her as he is doing on the phone. She imagines him as a tall man with broad shoulders. He is certain she will be fine. He must be right. He has to be right.
She slumps down next to her daughter’s bed, trying to control her breathing, her arms wrapped around her knees, her phone clutched tightly in her hand, turned to silent. The room is warm, the slight hum of the heater the only noise in the silence.
All is quiet but then she hears someone coming up the stairs, the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the plush carpet that still retains its slightly chemical new smell. A whoosh, a thump. A shadow appears under the door and she freezes, trying to disappear into stillness.
Is it Ben? Is he home? Is he playing some sort of strange joke on her?
No, it can’t be Ben, of course it can’t be. He wouldn’t do that. She just called him. He told her to call the police. She’s not thinking straight.
The door handle twists, slowly, quietly.
She glances over at her daughter, hoping she is still asleep. Stay asleep, she prays, please stay asleep. She touches her own chest, trying to still her racing heart.
The door handle twists again, a more violent movement this time as though the person outside is trying to break the lock. She can’t let them in. She can’t let them near Beth.
‘I’ve called… called… called the police.’ Her voice trembles as she speaks. All the lessons on strangers, all the warnings about crime float through her head. Is she about to become a statistic, a story on the news? And Beth? What will happen to her child? She stifles a sob, bites down on her hand to stop her terror escaping.
The door handle twists again. She feels like she might throw up.
Crawling towards the door on her hands and knees, she says, ‘I’ve called the police,’ her voice a little stronger this time. She is locked inside and they cannot get in. Can they get in? Where are the police?
She feels like she’s having a heart attack. Is thirty-five too young for a heart attack? Is this how she dies? Right here, right now? What about Beth? What will happen to Beth?
She feels tears on her cheeks. She bites down on her lip. Stop it, stop it, she cautions herself.
And then miraculously, wondrously, a siren fills the air. She holds her hand across her mouth because she wants to shout with joy. They’re coming, they’re coming.
She senses that the intruder has moved away from the door. Then she hears the sound of running footsteps as they go down the stairs.
The atmosphere changes. The air feels lighter. They’re gone – whoever they are –they’re gone. She should just sit here and wait, but how will the police get in? She doesn’t want them to have to break down the front door, scare her baby girl.
Slowly, cautiously, she opens Beth’s door, grateful that the heavy sleep of childhood has kept her daughter lost in her dreams. She peers around the door, her hand ready to slam it in case they’re still here, but she can feel they are gone. She’s sure of it.
As the police begin pounding on the front door, she sees it.
At first, she thinks it’s a trick of the mind, her imagination working overtime. She cannot be seeing what she thinks she’s seeing. It’s not possible and yet there it is.
It shouldn’t be possible. Yet there it is.
She leans down and picks it up, almost expecting her fingers to move through it as though it were a hologram. But her hand closes around it; its small plastic weight is solid. She shoves it in the pocket of her pyjama bottoms and then she flies down the stairs to open the door for the police.
His mobile phone startles him, ringing with the song that played at their wedding, a title he can’t remember. She changed the ringtone for him. ‘So you’ll know it’s me calling,’ she smiled. He likes it, likes to remember her in the floor-length cream dress with the ruffle of roses along the bottom. He had heard about the dress for weeks. The dress, the veil, the flowers, the food – but all he had cared about was getting to call her his wife. He had, before her, agreed with all his friends that he didn’t want marriage, didn’t need to be tied down, but then he met Rachel and he knew that he needed to tether himself to her. He wanted to watch the way people looked at him when he introduced himself as her husband. ‘Batting above your weight there, mate,’ his father had laughed the first time he’d met her. He had to agree. Her honey-brown hair, sage-green eyes and delicate features lent her an ethereal appearance, as though it were possible that she wasn’t quite real. But she was, of course. When she laughed really hard her face scrunched up and she made a hooting sound. She loved Monty Python and funny birthday cards. She craved Indian food and hummed advertising jingles while she did the washing. She was shy and quiet in front of strangers and had only a couple of good friends, but she would stop and pet every dog she walked past.
He likes to remember the way she looked at their wedding, just before their song started playing, when she tipped her glass of champagne and winked at him at the same time, a promise of the night ahead. She lost some of her reserve when she drank, became flirty and funny. They hadn’t prepared for their wedding dance so they simply swayed together, staring at each other, marvelling at what they had just done.
‘You look beautiful, Mrs Flinders,’ he told her.
‘Why, thank you, Mr Flinders,’ she replied and then she giggled like a child playing a game. It felt like pretend for the first year or so, as though they were just playing at being grown-ups.
He glances at his watch. It’s after ten. Everyone else left long ago. The office is silent except for the slight hum produced by the computers. He has been concentrating and only now realises how creepy the empty space feels with only the leftover smells from lunch for company.
He looks down at his phone, confirming it’s her. He imagined she would be asleep already, has been keeping himself calm by holding onto the image of his wife curled up in their bed, the midnight-blue duvet tucked around her shoulders, her brown hair spilling over the pillow. For hours now he has been promising himself he will get up and go home but he has instead opened another spreadsheet, looked over another column of figures, worked through another pitch, chewed his nails through it all.
‘Get a degree and the world will be your oyster,’ his father, Bernard, always said, but everyone has a degree now. Every year a whole new generation of graduates becomes his competition. He is losing. He can feel he is losing. A degree isn’t enough, not nearly enough. He should have kept taking courses, kept learning. The business software industry moves too fast, and now the amateurs are better than the professionals. Teenagers have thousands of followers on Instagram just from posting random pictures. His company is struggling to garner any kind of attention for their product. He feels like they are shouting into the wind. No one can hear them.
‘I thought you’d be sleeping,’ he says when he answers the phone.
‘Ben, someone’s in the house,’ she whispers desperately.
‘Oh my God, what?’ he asks. His heart rate immediately ramps up, the blood pounds in his temples. ‘Rachel, are you sure?’ He stands up straight, feels his shoulders stiffen. He has to protect her but he is forty or fifty minutes away from home.
‘I’m certain,’ she says. ‘I was in bed and I heard someone moving around downstairs. I’m scared. Please come home.’
He can hear the terror in her voice and he searches frantically on his desk for his keys. ‘I’m coming, Rachel. Hang up and call the police. Call the police now.’
‘Okay,’ she replies and he can hear she’s crying.
‘Rachel, my love, just calm down and call the police. Where’s Beth?’ Why hadn’t she already called them?
‘I’m in her room with the door locked.’
‘Good, good, I’m on my way. Call them now, call the police.’
‘Okay, okay I will,’ she sniffs. He hears her take a deep breath, feels a tinge of satisfaction that he is able to calm her down. He likes to think that only he can do that. That’s why she chose him. Of all the men she could have had, she chose him.
He leaves the office at a run, gallops down four flights of stairs before realising his stupidity, instead taking the lift the last twelve flights down to the parking garage. His car is the only one there, and as he races towards it, he imagines someone jumping out from behind a pillar. Anything is possible. Someone is in the house. Someone is in their home. Their new home where the dining room stands empty because they cannot yet afford the large table that will be needed to fill it. It’s supposed to be their forever home, but now it has been invaded. Everywhere feels like a threat.
He is grateful for the late hour and light traffic. He puts his foot down, risking a ticket but hoping for a police car behind him as well. He will lead them straight to his house. He won’t stop. He imagines them behind him, feels the relief that seeing their flashing red and blue lights would give him now. Has she called the police? Are they okay? Should he call her again? What if her mobile ringing gives her away to whoever is there? Could an intruder get through the heavy, solid door of Beth’s room?
‘Idiot!’ he yells at himself. ‘You bloody idiot!’
He shouldn’t have worked late again, shouldn’t have left his wife and child in a new house where a security system has yet to be installed. But the huge mortgage keeps him behind his desk every night, looking for ways to ramp up sales so he is not one of the marketing executives sent on their way as the company struggles to maintain a foothold in the saturated market.
He races up to a red BMW, changes lanes and changes back again to get in front of it. In his rear-view mirror, he sees the driver shouting and, he is sure, swearing at him.
Ben wishes this… What would you call it – a blip? Maybe but it feels like more than just a blip. It feels like a steady slide in the wrong direction. Whatever it is, he wishes it would have happened before they started building the house – long before. He would have made many different choices. They would have made many different choices, and right now Rachel and Beth would be safely tucked up in their small apartment, where help was only a raised voice away.
Rachel was, up until a few weeks ago, working part-time at a primary school, but it was an hour away from their new home, and just as she started looking for something closer to where they now lived, she was given the devastating news about her mother. He is bearing the financial burden now, and on days like today, it feels very heavy.
‘I don’t need such a big house,’ Rachel said but he wanted, needed, to give her everything. He loves seeing her happy, seeing her smile and laugh, loves those moments when the slight sadness in her eyes disappears briefly. He still can’t let go of the feeling that she is too good for him, too beautiful. If he gives her everything, she will never want to leave.
And it was time for a house, for a proper home. He is thirty-five already. His father had two children and a house in the suburbs by the time he was twenty-five.
‘It’s a different time,’ his mother, Audrey, kept telling him. ‘It’s not easy to save enough for a deposit these days.’
‘Don’t stop him from trying to have it all,’ his father said. ‘If you can push yourself a little financially now, it will all be worth it in the long run.’
Bernard has always been big on his children pushing themselves. All through their school careers, if they took up a sport or an instrument, they had to display an almost unnatural dedication to that hobby or his father stopped paying for lessons. Ben’s sister Louise played netball and piano and violin. She practised all three as though her life depended on it. Ben bounced around from soccer to tennis to guitar to karate and finally settled on nothing, much to his father’s disapproval.
Every day he got up and felt the need to prove that he could do this whole husband, father, provider thing as well as his own dad had done. But now everything feels like it’s changed. The optimism he had a few months ago is dissipating into thin air. He’s started chewing his nails again, a habit he thought he’d kicked long ago.
He changes lanes once more, sliding in front of one car and then switching back again. He wonders how the person got in. Is it a man? It must be a man. What if there’s more than one? His stomach twists. How will she defend herself against more than one of them? Are they there to steal something or do they have a more sinister intent? Who would want Rachel’s two-year-old computer and their five-year-old television anyway? Is it a drug addict looking for some quick cash? If so, he hopes they’ve found Rachel’s purse and left already. But he sees hands all over his wife and daughter, a man’s hands, and he wants to vomit. He pushes his foot down further. If he gets caught now, he will lose his licence. So be it.
‘Come on, come on,’ he mutters as he turns into a single-lane road and pulls up behind a slow-moving truck. He glances at the road ahead and, finding it empty, pulls out onto the wrong side, accelerating past the vehicle and pulling back into his lane. The truck behind him honks at his stupidity. It was a dangerous decision but he had no other choice. Are the police there yet? Do they even know how to find the address? It’s a new housing estate and the blocks on either side of theirs have yet to be developed. The only indication that anyone will ever live next door to them is a giant pile of building materials on one of the plots of land. But so far, no one has even arrived to begin the project.
There are empty lots all over the estate, all sold but waiting for their owners to begin building. Their house is one of only a handful occupied.
‘Maybe we should rent for a while longer, just until more people are done building. It’s going to be really noisy during the day and kind of creepy at night,’ R. . .
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