Savage Night - Allan Guthrie [55]
She started up the stairs, each step a strange, sticky sensation as her plastic booties creased under her weight. They'd been Martin's contribution. Put these on and if you did happen to spread any blood around, at least you wouldn't leave footprints.
Martin ran towards her, the bathroom door open, steam lazing around inside.
At the top of the stairs, they met. He wrapped his arms round her, buried his face in her neck.
She said, "You okay? Martin, baby?" She cradled the back of his head in her hand.
"Not really," he said.
His breath tickled her neck. She stroked his hair. "We'll be gone soon enough."
"Something's wrong."
"Everything's fine. It's all going to schedule. We're good."
He lifted his head, stared over her shoulder. She turned, followed his gaze. He was looking at the carrier bags in the tub by the door. He said, "They're watching us."
And Effie experienced a moment of terror. Or panic. Or something similar. For just a split second, she believed him. She became acutely aware she was naked, which she thought she'd forgotten about. Hell, no she had forgotten about it.
But what did it matter? She knew the last thing on anyone's mind was her scrawny body. She still felt uneasy, though.
Martin stepped back. "You feel it? Eyes on us?"
She looked at him, realised she'd put her hand to the back of her neck. She rubbed it. How could he know about the camera? It was tiny. No way he could have spotted it. She knew where it was hidden, and even she hadn't managed to pick it out. This was freaky.
"Shhh," he said.
She listened. Now that the taps were off all she could hear was the low buzz of the central heating.
"What is it?" she said.
"I don't know," he said.
Over his shoulder, down the hall, light spilled out from the bathroom. Ghostly shapes swirled inside. Steam. Nothing but steam. There was nothing there. Not even a shadow.
But there was something. A smell. A smell of roses.
Her muscles locked. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't even blink.
Eight years old. Waking up one morning, sunk into the mattress as if a fat man was sitting on each of her limbs, another couple weighing down her stomach and chest. There was a smell like somebody had emptied a bottle of Mum's most expensive perfume on the pillow. Took a little while to realise what had happened.
Then she understood. She was paralysed.
She tried to cry out for help, but the sound stayed inside her. Knew she'd just have to lie there and wait until her mother came to wake her up for school. Hoped she'd be able to carry on breathing till then. Her throat felt tight, the walls of her windpipe thickening.
She lay in the dark, dizzy, occasionally willing a leg or an arm to move, trying to dislodge the invisible fat men. But nothing happened. Not so much as a twitch.
Got so that she was convinced she'd never move again. She must have broken her spine during the night. Yeah, that was it. Rolled over in her sleep, snapped something, and it didn't hurt cause she was paralysed. She'd live the rest of her life being shunted between her bed, a wheelchair and the bath with one of those hoist things she'd seen them use on her grandfather after he got all weak and started to shrivel up like a walnut.
Eight-year-old Effie had cried. Soundlessly. She didn't want to be like her grandfather. Everybody felt sorry for him and secretly hated him cause he was a burden.
She lay still for a while, long enough to lose track of time, long enough to lose hope of ever being able to move again. But finally—after how long, she couldn't say—the feeling vanished, the numbness seeping away into the bedclothes, the smell of roses dissipating into the air, her voice leaking out of her in a quiet strangle.
And she could move again. A finger. A toe. A hand. A foot. An arm. A leg. She sat up. The fat men had gone.
It was as if the whole thing had never happened.
The next day, she tried to explain how she'd felt to Richie, who wasn't young enough to wander around with his hand down his shorts and get away with it, but that didn't