Land of the Living by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-14-190458-0
Publisher: Penguin Group UK
Published: 2002-03-12T05:00:00+00:00

Ten

I woke with a start and for a moment I couldn’t remember where I was. The room was dark and there was no sound at all. I lay in bed and waited for memory to return. I waited to hear something; a sound in the blackness. My heart was hammering fast and my mouth felt suddenly dry. Then I heard it, a gentle shuffling outside. Perhaps that was what had woken me. But who was there, outside my window? I turned and looked over at my radio-alarm clock on the table. It was ten minutes to five, and cold.

I heard it again, the shuffling, scraping sound. I couldn’t move, but lay pressed up against my pillow. It was difficult to breathe properly and my head hammered relentlessly. I let myself remember the hood and the gag, but then I pushed away the thought. I made myself get out of bed and go over to the window. I opened the curtains a crack and looked outside, through the flowers of frost on the glass. The newly fallen snow made everything brighter, and by the light of the street lamp I could make out a dark shape beneath me. A fat tabby cat was rubbing itself against the shrub by the front door, winding its thick tail round the dead leaves. I almost laughed in relief, but then it raised its head and seemed to gaze straight at me with its unblinking yellow eyes. A feeling of dread seized me. I looked down the street, dark between its puddles of orange light. It was empty. Then a car a few yards away started up; its headlights illuminated the street and I caught the glimpse of a shape in the distance. There were footprints in the new snow.

I let the curtains drop and turned away. I was being ridiculous, I told myself sharply. Paranoid. In London someone is always awake. There are always cars and cats and figures on the street. Whatever time I woke in the night I could press my face against the window and see someone standing there.

I climbed back into bed and curled up, wrapping my arms around myself. My feet were freezing and I tried to tuck them inside the rugby shirt to warm them, but they kept slipping out. After a few minutes, I got out of bed again and went to the bathroom. I’d seen a hot-water bottle hanging on the door. I boiled the kettle, filled it, took two pills for my head, then climbed back into bed. I lay there for a while, hugging the bottle against myself and trying to go back to sleep. Thoughts whirled round in my head, like a wild snowstorm, and tasks piled up in drifts: the phone calls I had to make, the names in the file I had to go to see, and I must try to find out where Jo was, find out more about her at least, and what about the bloody morning-after pill? Someone

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