Free Abandoned by Vanessa Finaughty Page B

whispered to me.

    Ethan… Oh, Ethan… Come
play with the baby, love…
    It was ridiculous.
Claire was not dead. She wasn’t in the building, either. I realised
I needed to regain control of myself, and stopped just before the
second-floor landing. Breathless, I leant against the wall, trying
to calm my ragged breathing. I resisted the urge to vomit, while
listening for an indication that I was not alone. Silence. I could
be such an imbecile sometimes. Of course I was alone. I
stood up straight and walked further down the stairs.
    As I reached the
second-floor landing, the stairwell door upstairs slammed and the
pitter-patter of little footsteps running down after me echoed
through the stairwell. I swear my blood froze in that instant, and
my feet grew wings as I flew the rest of the way down the stairs.
Finally reaching the downstairs reception area after what seemed
like an eternity of being chased, I ran straight for the outside
door, but was halted by a firm tug at the back of my coat. I
whirled to face my foe, only to discover that my coat had caught on
a rusty nail protruding from the stairwell wall.
    I let out a thin,
choked giggle as I unhooked myself. A giggle that was cut short
when I reached the front door: a childish smiley face had been
drawn in the dirt on the glass. The cold sweat covering my face
seemed to seep back into my pores and freeze my blood. I maintain
to this day that a child’s giggles came from behind me, along with
the sound of light footsteps gaining on me.
    The outside doors
stuck, and I struggled to pull them open. It had seemed so easy to
open them earlier... Pure adrenaline brought on by frenzied fear
gave me strength to yank the doors open, and I stumbled into the
street. Not daring to look behind me, I ran back the way I had
come, desperately searching for another soul so I would not feel so
devastatingly alone. As I ran, lungs burning, it seemed almost as
if I was no longer fleeing from unknown horrors, but running to Claire… I didn’t want her to
die.
    I ran three blocks
before I found another pedestrian, and slowed to a brisk walk when
I reached him. Under the pretence of asking him for the time, I
took the opportunity to look behind me for the first time. It
appeared that I had not been followed.
    Hurrying home, I could
not rid myself of the fear that seemed to have permeated my very
bones. Although there were no more childish giggles and little
footsteps, I still felt the need to look over my shoulder every few
seconds. By the time I got home, I was nauseated by a feeling of
dread. Stepping into my well-lighted flat and seeing the familiar
comforts of home did nothing to ease the sickening lurching of my
stomach.
    Even the damn cat
seemed to look at me ominously, as if it knew something I didn’t. I
went into the open-plan kitchen to grab a beer while the feline sat
in a shaggy heap of ginger fur on the faded leather single-seater
couch, following my every move with its sarcastic green eyes. I
resisted the urge to throw the beer bottle at the mangy
creature.
    The phone rang and I
ignored it. It was probably for Claire, anyway. Claire. I realised
that she didn’t seem to be home. The flat was silent. I had
expected her to be home; she’d been ill when I left, and she had
said she was only moving out over the weekend. Panic crept into my
being as I hurriedly searched the small flat. Her clothes and
make-up were still there. I wondered where she’d gone. Then I knew.
To her lover. Angrily, I hurled the still-full beer bottle against
the lounge wall.
    The phone had stopped
ringing and someone had left a voice message. It was a man’s voice.
I walked over to the old machine and roughly pushed the replay
button. After listening to the message, I fetched another beer from
the fridge. It was the last. I made a mental note to buy more the
next day. I sauntered over to the cat, grabbed it by the scruff
and, in one vicious movement, flung it to the floor. It yowled and
glared at me