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SALLY’S PREDICTION turned out to be accurate. The haze of cloud outside the waiting room was just as thick as I recalled, its arms reaching out to devour me as soon as I started my quest. Undeterred by its insidious reach, I concentrated on my phone, raising it into the air while I wandered from the door.
Keeping the brick wall on my left to ensure I didn’t lose my bearings; I waved the device around and checked to see if my signal had returned. Nothing. No matter how far I went or which way I waved, the device was stubbornly resistant to its purpose.
“Oh, come on!” I hissed, frantically seeking to avoid the rising agitation growing as I walked on. “Just give me a signal.”
We needed this, and not just for Old Tom. Of course, I wanted him to be okay. He didn’t deserve to die on the dirty floor of a station waiting room, but the signal had come to represent something far greater than any one of us. It was a sign of hope—an omen that we weren’t doomed to spend the rest of our lives stuck on this miserable platform.
“What’s the bloody point of these things if they don’t work when you really need them?”
My burgeoning frustration demanded I waved the device around. The signal had to return, didn’t it? It had to. The whole world revolved around the internet and technology, and we couldn’t be the only ones affected. There must have been people sent to rectify the problem. It was only a matter of time.
“But Old Tom doesn’t have time,” I reminded myself as I stumbled on. “I have to act. Have to get help now.”
Focusing on the screen didn’t help. There was still no chance to communicate with the outside world, and the constant attempts to try were wearing down my phone’s battery. I’d have to go back to the waiting room and charge it. I had my charger with me, after all. It was in my bag with the others.
“Tom needs me,” I muttered. “I have to keep trying.”
It was then I noticed what should have been obvious. The wall had vanished. When I reached out for it in the murk, my fingertips sensed nothing. No brick. No building at all.
“Shit!” This time the flaring panic was a real, tangible entity, powerful enough to strangle the life out of me. “Where is it?”
Feeling around in the fog, there was nothing obvious to grasp, no evidence of the waiting room I’d come from. Alarmed, I flicked on the torch function of my phone, hoping the added illumination would bring clarity, but all it achieved was flashing the glare of the cloud back at me.
“Oh, God.”
Heaving in the damp air, I peered left and right. Every direction looked the same—an endless sea of haze and confusion—but I knew I couldn’t have wandered too far from my starting location. Could I? Staring around again, I was abruptly reminded of where I was. This was a platform, and somewhere shrouded by the mist was the platform edge and one hell of a drop to the tracks below. I didn’t want to be stumbling around too far and discover where that descent began.
“Fuck,” I muttered, desperate for any sort of bearings.
As things stood, I didn’t even know which direction I’d come from.
How had this happened? I was smarter than this, wasn’t I? Knew better than to wander off alone in the fog and get lost.
“I have to find my way back,” I whispered, but if I thought saying the words out loud would reassure me, I was wrong. The sound of them only reinforced my stupidity.
Switching off my torch to save power, I checked my signal again. Still nothing. No way of reaching Laurel and no way of saving the old man. Old Tom was dying in that waiting room and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to help. A wave of powerlessness washed over me, flattening my already somber mood. How could I live with myself if Old Tom died because I managed to get lost in the smog?
That’s not the reason, the gnawing voice in my head nagged. It’s a heart attack. It could have happened anywhere.
“But it didn’t,” I mumbled. “It happened when I was quarreling with him. I’m to blame. If he dies, it’s my fault.”
My fault. My fault.
The words echoed on, reverberating around my head long after the sound had finished. I’d done this. I’d killed him. I might as well have stuck a knife in his heart.
“I’ll never forgive myself.” Tears pricked in my eyes as an image of Tom’s frightened expression burst into my head. “I deserve this. Deserve to die out here alone.”
Laurel needs you.
My heart hammered faster at the unhelpful aide-mémoire. “I know.” Sniffing, I wiped my eyes. “I have to get through this for her.”
“Typical.”
I leapt at the sound of another voice, conscious suddenly that I still didn’t know where the platform ended. “Who said that?”
It was a man, I knew that for sure, but I couldn’t decide which direction it had come from.
“Ewan?” My voice was tentative. It didn’t sound like Ewan, but the voice was unnervingly familiar.
“It’s fucking typical of you, Em.”
“Wh-what?” Gasping, I looked frantically around. “Who’s there? Who are you?”
“I told you.” He sounded closer, whoever he was. “Didn’t I tell you that you wouldn’t cope without me, and look. The first sign of stress and you fold like a paper kite in the wind. You’re fucking pathetic.”
“Sam?” It came to me in a heartbeat—the reason I knew the disparaging voice so well was because it belonged to my ex. “Sam? Is that you?”
But it couldn’t be. I knew that. Sam wasn’t there. He’d been taken away for the things he’d done. He couldn’t be on the platform with me.
“Poor little Emmy.”
Emmy. A shiver of fear raced along my spine. That was what he used to call me. The word alone contracted the terror in my body.
“So fucking incapable.”
“Stay back!” I hissed, holding my hands out in front of me, although I still couldn’t see anyone.
“I told you, Emmy. You wouldn’t cope without me, and I was right, wasn’t I?” This time, his voice came from behind me, and spinning, I saw the silhouette of a man emerge from the dense cloud.
“Stay back!” I warned, though the tremble in my voice conveyed just how he affected me.
All those months of therapy had achieved nothing. I was still just that terrified woman, unable to save myself and powerless to protect Laurel. He was right. I was incapable.
“I don’t think so, Emmy.” He laughed, that same sick sound that had taunted me for so many years. “Do you?”
“No!” I was sobbing now, overcome with dread that, somehow, Sam had found me. “Stay away from me!”
How is he here? How has he found me?
“You were never going to survive without me, but don’t worry, Emmy. I’m here now.” His voice whirled around me as if he was everywhere at once. “I’ll deal with you, and then I’ll take care of our little girl.”
“No!” I hollered the word, fury surfacing as he referenced Laurel. “You stay the hell away from her, you bastard!”
“I’ll do whatever I like.” The tall shadow of a man grew larger. “Just like I always do.”
“Fuck you!”
Lashing out at the looming silhouette, I threw a punch and stumbled forward. Engulfed by panic that I might tumble from the platform with my next step, I lost my balance and fell to the concrete below. There, on my hands and knees, I shivered as his chilling laughter rang out around me.
“Stop,” I pleaded, lifting my hands to my ears to make the noise go away.
I’d heard it too many times before and knew what it meant. I swore I’d never hear the sound again, and yet there he was, spat out from hell to pulverize me. Curling into a ball, I gave way to more tears as I waited for the inevitable conclusion. Whenever Sam was near, only one thing was guaranteed. Pain.