They went down the staircase, Tim first, Amber second. Hand in hand. The mass, the body, was still there in front of the fire. Her eyes were closed. She looked dead. The blood from her forehead had clotted, mostly in her hair, the spindly fibers matting and creating a sort of gauze. It was hard to imagine that she was still alive. At this point, they were hoping against it. But as they looked, a finger twitched.
“Maybe a reflex action,” Amber said. “Dead bodies do that.”
But then the woman gave a long and incredibly labored breath.
“Shit,” Tim said. “What do we do?”
“We kill her,” Amber said. “It’s as simple as that.”
“What do you mean, simple?” Tim said.
“Do you remember the cat I told you to kill? My cat,” Amber said, rolling up her sleeves. “Piece of shit yowled all night, you remember? Basically woke up the whole street. The vets’ said he was in heat or something stupid like that. And my bitch of a mother wouldn’t take him to get his balls chopped off.”
“I remember,” Tim said. “I remember that day.”
“So do I. Luring that cat out there like some stupid horny piece of shit. Remember when it came to it?” Amber said, looking at him.
Tim looked away, at the crackling fire.
“You couldn’t do it,” Amber said.
“You didn’t have to skin it,” Tim barked, so loud that he paused to make sure no one upstairs heard him. After a creaking from above them, there was nothing.
“No, I didn’t,” Amber said. “I just got a little carried away. Shoot me. Then, as I recall, you got a little carried away with me in the bushes. Some may say that you got carried away a little prematurely.” She beamed. “I became something else that day. Something new. Maybe today’s the day you become new too.”
Tim sighed, went to her. “I brought you in on this because I know you’re good with this kind of stuff.”
“Hence the cat.” Amber laughed.
“Hence the cat,” Tim agreed, with far less aplomb. “Look, are you going to help or not?”
“Of course,” Amber said, her eyes on fire with possibility. “What’s the plan, Mr. Claypath?”
Tim looked around for anything to end it quickly. But he found nothing. It was just the basement of a pub. Plastic menus and beer mats. Nothing for a quick departure. Upstairs, there were knives and things like that. But that would make a mess.
Tim sighed and then suddenly knew what they had to do. And he didn’t want to do it. Dear God, he didn’t want to do it. But they had to. He had to.
“You have to hold her limbs down,” Tim said.
Amber looked at him. “How is that going to...?” She trailed off and then it clicked in her head. “Oooh, what are you going to do with her? Are you going to smother her? Strangle her? Maybe you should just throw her in the fire, or...”
Tim couldn’t meet her eyes. “Just bloody do it, okay.”
Amber let go of Tim’s hand, and approached the woman. She was incredibly calm—maybe bringing her in had been a terrible idea. She was crazy—Edmund was right. But then, this whole situation was crazy. And it was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
Tim thought of the group. He pictured them in his mind. He had to do this for them. Or it was over. They’d never see one another again. All get shipped off to different pens, prodded and poked, and made to eat sludge, and told when to piss and shit. That wasn’t any destiny for any of them. And this insipid imbecile, this stupid bitch, had threatened to take that all away, because of her blundering incompetence. She deserved it.
Amber crouched down over the woman’s legs, even though they looked like they were never going to move again, and gripped her wrists. The woman made no sign of recognition of this. She was so far under she wouldn’t know what was happening.
Bitch.
He went to her, knelt down, one leg either side of her torso, his face looking down at her battered, broken one. This bitch, walking along some road in the dead of night, without any sign she was there. Just there to make them all suffer.
What a silly little bitch.
He reached out with his hands, and clutched her throat in his palms.
They were going to achieve so much before she came along. Now they had to fight to survive. Because of her.
An anger flared up inside him.
He pressed down. Hard. He felt the muscles in her throat, felt them tighten and then constrict. And he carried on. He watched her face and saw that her one visible eye was fluttering open. Good—he wanted her to feel it. He wanted her to know what it felt like, to have your life flash before your eyes.
Her whole body started to shake, as he pressed down even harder. It was easy, this. Just grip down and watch a soul disappear, a life force fade away. Her eye rolled back in her head, and a frothy spit started coming out of her mouth.
Amber was making some kind of sound behind him—something between a laugh and a cry, holding the woman’s shaking limbs down. Tim wasn’t laughing. But he wasn’t crying either.
He was in the moment, existing faster and stronger than he ever had before. What a feeling—to have a life in your grip. And to be allowed to be the one to decide that it was over. He pressed even harder just for the hell of it, and a little laugh escaped him.
Such fun.
And then she gave one final choke, a wheeze. And her body stilled. Her eye rolled back. And she stared at him, would forever. He knew she was dead.
But he carried on, squeezing her neck.
For how long—he didn’t know. But soon enough, Amber was forcing him upright and pulling him into a hug. She was laughing, and he did too. And then she cried, and so did he. But for him—for both of them—they weren’t tears of pain. They were tears of joy.
At becoming something new.