Read Online Loss of Separation by Conrad Williams - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Conrad Williams
Tags: Horror
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heart was beating hard and fast and it was as if the skeleton had somehow got its ribcage to shrink in a bid to press down on what was keeping me alive.
I am within you but you are also within me.
I sat up. Wind cast spits of rain against glass. I knew I'd said the words. Spoken them for my thin, white friend. My blood brother. I suddenly felt claustrophobic and nauseous. I tasted whisky. I felt my stomach rising. I made it to the bathroom before I was sick and I kept my eye on what I was bringing up. Madness: I was looking for splinters of bone. Evidence that he, that I, was trying to escape myself.
I got back into bed and lay there shivering for an hour, until I heard the key in the lock. Ruth closed the door gently but there was no sound of her feet on the stairs. I saw a shadow spoil the line of light at the foot of the door and I pretended to be asleep. The door cracked open. I could feel her eyes on me. No doubt she had heard about the skulls. I really didn't want to go over that again just now.
She pushed the smell of the sea in front of her. She was wreathed in a fresh marine tang, as if she had spent all day on the beach, or walking the salt marshes. She smelled cold, but good. She smelled pregnant, I supposed.
She switched off the landing lights and I heard her climb the stairs, the sound of her bed as it took her weight and she diminished into sleep. The house followed suit, creaking and settling around her. I thought, much later, that I heard her cry out, but that could well have been me, or something disturbed in the dunes further down the beach. I listened hard, and she might have been sobbing into her pillow, but the noise might also be the suck of the tide at the shingle, or the fretting of the wind dancing around the village's firebreaks. I might have been dreaming it. I might still be in a coma. This could be death.
9
This could be death, she thinks, her first thought every morning, before her watch beeps and she thinks hard about how many beeps there must have been since The Man brought her down here, so that she will not forget, so that she can cling to some idea of time.
I breathe, I see, but it's so dark in here, even without blindfold. This is death, anyway. How much longer can you take? How long till he gets bored and decides to end it?
As usual, every morning (this is morning, right?), she wakes and it's like not waking, to the extent that she can't quite believe that she has wakened. The dark seems so complete, more so than the shades behind her eyes even, that it's hard to accept. But then her watch beeps, a day has turned, and she can concentrate on getting through this fresh block of time. The next block, with all the things that do and don't happen within it. That can and might happen.
The Man comes every day. Sometimes he does not switch on the light. Despite her fear of the dark, his switching on the light in here - a single bulb covered in ancient fly spots, wreathed in dusty cobwebs - is much, much worse. Like emerging into a nightmare that has been trying to coalesce in a hitherto well-defended mind. The misfire heartbeat. The flutter in the chest.
I read about this in self-help books, talked about it too at classes. Arrhythmia. Can I handle this? Will I give up against my will?
She does not know what the worst thing about the light coming on might be. Perhaps just the sound of his fingers flipping the switch. Perhaps just that. But then she sees - once she's managed the pain of the light's stab at her eyes - The Man, and the curtain in the corner of the room, and both are the worst thing imaginable, in their own way.
The Man brings her hot drinks, or water, or food. He brings good food. Soup and stews and steaming greens. Meat, fish, eggs, cheese. Lots of fruit. He brings her blankets if it is especially cold, and it is always cold. He brings her magazines to read. He allows her one hour every day to read: he unlocks one hand so that she can turn the pages. He
I am within you but you are also within me.
I sat up. Wind cast spits of rain against glass. I knew I'd said the words. Spoken them for my thin, white friend. My blood brother. I suddenly felt claustrophobic and nauseous. I tasted whisky. I felt my stomach rising. I made it to the bathroom before I was sick and I kept my eye on what I was bringing up. Madness: I was looking for splinters of bone. Evidence that he, that I, was trying to escape myself.
I got back into bed and lay there shivering for an hour, until I heard the key in the lock. Ruth closed the door gently but there was no sound of her feet on the stairs. I saw a shadow spoil the line of light at the foot of the door and I pretended to be asleep. The door cracked open. I could feel her eyes on me. No doubt she had heard about the skulls. I really didn't want to go over that again just now.
She pushed the smell of the sea in front of her. She was wreathed in a fresh marine tang, as if she had spent all day on the beach, or walking the salt marshes. She smelled cold, but good. She smelled pregnant, I supposed.
She switched off the landing lights and I heard her climb the stairs, the sound of her bed as it took her weight and she diminished into sleep. The house followed suit, creaking and settling around her. I thought, much later, that I heard her cry out, but that could well have been me, or something disturbed in the dunes further down the beach. I listened hard, and she might have been sobbing into her pillow, but the noise might also be the suck of the tide at the shingle, or the fretting of the wind dancing around the village's firebreaks. I might have been dreaming it. I might still be in a coma. This could be death.
9
This could be death, she thinks, her first thought every morning, before her watch beeps and she thinks hard about how many beeps there must have been since The Man brought her down here, so that she will not forget, so that she can cling to some idea of time.
I breathe, I see, but it's so dark in here, even without blindfold. This is death, anyway. How much longer can you take? How long till he gets bored and decides to end it?
As usual, every morning (this is morning, right?), she wakes and it's like not waking, to the extent that she can't quite believe that she has wakened. The dark seems so complete, more so than the shades behind her eyes even, that it's hard to accept. But then her watch beeps, a day has turned, and she can concentrate on getting through this fresh block of time. The next block, with all the things that do and don't happen within it. That can and might happen.
The Man comes every day. Sometimes he does not switch on the light. Despite her fear of the dark, his switching on the light in here - a single bulb covered in ancient fly spots, wreathed in dusty cobwebs - is much, much worse. Like emerging into a nightmare that has been trying to coalesce in a hitherto well-defended mind. The misfire heartbeat. The flutter in the chest.
I read about this in self-help books, talked about it too at classes. Arrhythmia. Can I handle this? Will I give up against my will?
She does not know what the worst thing about the light coming on might be. Perhaps just the sound of his fingers flipping the switch. Perhaps just that. But then she sees - once she's managed the pain of the light's stab at her eyes - The Man, and the curtain in the corner of the room, and both are the worst thing imaginable, in their own way.
The Man brings her hot drinks, or water, or food. He brings good food. Soup and stews and steaming greens. Meat, fish, eggs, cheese. Lots of fruit. He brings her blankets if it is especially cold, and it is always cold. He brings her magazines to read. He allows her one hour every day to read: he unlocks one hand so that she can turn the pages. He
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