A Life To Waste (6 page)

The two police officers looked
at each other, then looked back at Dave. Now they had looks of
suspicion in their eyes.

Office Stephens continued his
questioning “So what exactly do you mean when you say you
heard
Lisa?”

Dave was starting to feel
uncomfortable, but he decided he had nothing to worry about, he had
done nothing wrong so just tell the truth.

“I heard her screaming, I
ignored it being honest because it’s nothing new. There is always
screaming and shouting coming from her. You just, get used to it.
It’s not like I could help her or anything, she would just find
another fella to fight tomorrow”

“Lisa is missing” Officer
Stephens said bluntly.

This caught Dave off guard.

“Missing?” he said “How do you
know she is actually missing, maybe she just went out somewhere
drunk or pissed off after her boxing match last night?”

Officer Stephens replied “The
evidence suggests that there was more than just
a fight
last
night, there is a substantial amount of blood, in fact the quantity
would suggest that Lisa isn’t just missing, she is most likely
dead.”

Officer sidekick trainee spurted
out “Just a bit, the carpet is dripping in blood, and the walls,
holy, wow I’ve never seen any”

“That’s enough! Thank you!”
Officer Stephens silenced his younger counterpart instantly.
“please excuse my colleague, he is fairly new, but should still
know better.” There was an angry but also disappointed tone in his
voice.

Perhaps they were more than just
colleagues Dave thought, maybe this kid was his nephew, or even
son. That didn’t matter, the image this young officer had just put
in Dave’s head terrified him.

“What exactly do you think
happened?” He asked, now looking completely horrified.

“Well that is exactly what we
are trying to find out, is there anything else you can remember?
Anything else that could help us to locate the whereabouts of your
neighbour.”

“No, it was just the screaming”
Dave answered but he seemed distant now. The thoughts of this
bloody horror show next door had really affected him. “it really
wasn’t anything different from normal, honestly, I used to think
about going over to help her, but it honestly happens that often
now that I assumed she just went looking for it. Can’t help people
like that.”

There was a look in Officer
Stephen’s eyes, Dave wasn’t sure whether or not this man believed
him. He was telling the truth though, why wouldn’t he? But if the
house really was as bad as they said it was, how could it happen
without Dave hearing more than just a scream? Maybe there was, he
was pretty drunk, he could have slept through it. He had those
horror films on too, maybe he could have mistaken the sounds from
Lisa for something on the film, it could be done couldn’t it?
Especially when drunk. He thought about saying this to the police
but he stopped. Would it start to sound like he was making excuses?
He didn’t want to start making himself sound guilty. He didn’t want
to start drawing unnecessary attention to himself.

“Do you really think she’s
dead?” Dave asked.

“Like I said, we are trying to
find out exactly what happened. We will be questioning other people
in the area as well as you. I would imagine that we will have a few
more questions at a later date. Will you be here if we need to
contact you?”

“Yeah, I’m always here, I don’t
do anything.” Dave said “I mean, I don’t work or anything, so yeah
I’ll be here if you need to get in touch with me for anything, mum
will be back later as well, she’s in work right now.”

Officer Stephens and Officer
sidekick trainee thanked Dave for his time and made their exit.
Dave returned to the couch. This time he wasn’t engrossed in the TV
as normal. This time he was engrossed in his thoughts.

“What the hell happened to Lisa?
What was that guy talking about with all the blood? Exactly how
much blood was there? Could it have been an animal? Could it have
been one of the violent guys she likes to bring home? What
happened? Is she, is she really dead?”

All these thoughts came one
after another, flooding Dave’s mind with terror, then worse
thoughts came.

“What if it was a serial killer?
What if he came to my house instead of Lisa’s? What if he comes
back?”

Dave tried to block these
thoughts out but it didn’t work. They kept flooding back into his
mind, he carried on creating horrible bloody images in his head.
How the hell could he stop these thoughts?

“Beer” he said “I need
beer.”

Usually he would have text his
mum to tell her to grab some for him on the way home, not this time
though, he couldn’t wait till later, he needed beer now. So for the
first time in years, for the first time since before the crash, he
ran. He ran as fast as he could. He ran all the way to the shop. He
grabbed a crate of 24 cans of Stella.

HhHe usually drank Carling but
Stella was stronger and he felt that he needed to get completely
wasted to remove these thoughts so it was definitely Stella for the
job. He didn’t usually drink spirits but he grabbed a bottle of
Whiskey as well, just in case. He had stolen £50 from his mum’s
drawer before he left so he even had a bit of change to grab some
more smokes as well.

Then with booze and smokes in
hand, he ran again. Granted not very fast this time being loaded up
with all those cans and a whiskey bottle. But he ran anyway, ran
all the way back home shoved a load of cans in the fridge, opened
one and downed it before even moving from the spot. Then grabbed
another and returned to the couch. Oh yeah, he was getting shit
faced tonight. That would purge these thoughts from his mind. He
hoped.

Chapter 8

Dave was sat in front of TV,
again. He wasn’t even sure what he was watching, he was more
looking
at the TV rather than actually
watching
it.
He heard a noise come from somewhere else in the house, he couldn’t
quite place where.

He shouted “Mum! Was that you?
What you broke this time?” then mumbled “clumsy bitch” to
himself.

There was no answer, but then he
didn’t want or expect an answer, he was just shouting so his mum
knew that he had heard her break something,

BANG!!!

“What the fuck?” Dave said.

This wasn’t just something being
dropped, what was that?

“Mum! What the hell was
that?”

Again, no answer.

“MUM!!!!”

No answer.

“ugh” Dave groaned and got up
“Fine I’ll go see what’s up! You best not have broken anything mum
or I swear to god!”

He walked into the kitchen and
had a look around, there was no one there, nothing wrong,
everything looked fine. He went to the bathroom, again no one there
and nothing wrong. He checked his room and then finally his mum’s
bedroom, no one there. She wasn’t in.

“What the hell was all that
noise then? Hearing things now Dave” he said to himself “and now
talking to yourself as well, losing your bloody mind.”

Dave walked back to the living
room and plonked himself back on the couch.

BANG!!!!

“Seriously what the hell is
that?”

He knew he had already checked
everywhere and he knew he was the only person in the house. Still,
he felt that he had to go and check everywhere again. He walked
around all the rooms again, checking for anyone or any sign of
something that could have made that noise. Again, nothing.

He walked back to the living
room, he started to feel like he was being watched, he carried on
turning around to look behind him, he felt chills going down his
spine. He was being watched, he was sure of it. He turned to look
behind him again, nothing. He sat back on the couch.

BANG!!!

“Again!”

He turned around, this time
there was something behind him.

“Oh shit! What the fuck!”

There was a huge shadow behind
the couch, he jumped up and turned around so he was stood facing
the shadow, but there was no one else there. It wasn’t his shadow,
was it a ghost? He was terrified. The shadow moved. Dave jumped in
fright. The shadow had moved to the left side of the wall. Dave,
paralysed with fear stood staring at the shadow. To the right he
noticed movement. Another shadow had appeared on the right hand
side of the wall. He looked behind him, no one there. Where were
these shadows coming from? Who did they belong too? Dave’s fear was
growing inside him, he felt himself shaking, he could feel sweat
dripping down his forehead. Are these things monsters? Are they
here to kill him?

The two monsters stood
stationary on the left and right sides of the wall. Dave stood
stationary, almost like he was in a standoff with these two
creatures.
He noticed something else. Something starting to
fall from the ceiling, it began to move down the wall. This wasn’t
another shadow, it was something else, some form of liquid. It was
red. It was thick. It was blood.

“Oh shit, oh shit what the fuck
is going on?” Dave said, his voice high pitched almost sounding
like a small child.

The shadows still didn’t move,
still stood staring at him. He couldn’t see that they had any eyes
but he knew that they did. He knew that they were watching him,
staring through the black pits that were hidden in the huge black
hole that shaped their body. Oh yes, they were definitely watching
him. The blood continued to spill from the ceiling down the wall,
it had reached the floor now, a puddle was starting to form at the
bottom of the wall.

“This is what happened next
door” Dave thought “this is what happened, these things came and
took Lisa and now they’ve come for me!”

The puddle continued to grow,
the blood started to creep along the floor towards Dave. He stepped
backward trying to distance himself from it. He kept stepping back
until he reached the wall. The blood kept coming, splitting into
different routes, looking like fingers from a growing hand reaching
out for him, it kept coming. The shadows started moving in, closing
in on the room, they weren’t just covering one wall now, they were
surrounded the whole room. Darkness was growing all around Dave.
The only thing he could see was the black giants surrounding him
and the red blood hand reaching for him across the floor. They were
coming to take him.

He screamed “NOOOOOOO!!!!”

Dave sat up, he was still on the
couch. He had fallen asleep drunk again. The TV was still on, he
looked around. There were empty Stella cans all over the floor and
an empty whiskey bottle next to him on the couch, which presumably
Dave had been sleeping on.

It had been a dream, well a
nightmare.

“Thank god” Dave sighed in
relief.

He was pretty shaken up, it must
have been all the thoughts about Lisa next door playing on his
mind. Drinking to forget about the scenes next door didn’t work as
well as he had planned. In fact it looked like it made it a hell of
a lot worse.

That was only the first
nightmare, the next night he had another nightmare. Then the next
night, then the next. It came to the point that he was getting too
scared to sleep. Lisa’s body still hadn’t turned up, which meant
who ever or what ever had been the cause of the house next door
being covered in blood still hadn’t been found. This didn’t help
with Dave’s dreams, what if it came back? What if his dreams
actually came true? They felt real enough to him, he was
overwhelmed with fear. He tried staying awake, he started drinking
coffee when he felt tired. It didn’t work, he still fell asleep,
even during short naps, just closing his eyes for a couple of
minutes. The dreams came rushing back into his mind and he would
wake up screaming again. The lack of sleep was starting to make him
feel ill.

He decided that enough was
enough. Regardless of what had happened next door, he was a grown
man and he couldn’t be making himself sick through fear of sleep.
He decided he would go to the doctors and see if there was
something they could give him. Something which could help him sleep
throughout the night without waking every ten minutes. He had heard
that sometimes if you took sleeping pills that you could sleep
without dreaming at all, he had also heard that sometimes they
could amplify the dreams. It didn’t matter, his dreams couldn’t get
any worse than they already were. He had to do something, he called
the doctors to book an appointment.

Chapter 9

“Take a seat” Doctor Spring said
“so what seems to be the problem?”

Dave shuffled in his seat. He
was looking everywhere in the room, at his feet, at the pictures on
the walls, at the doctors computer. He looked everywhere except at
Doctor Spring. He would make quick glances towards the docs face
but he would quickly look away when accidental eye contact was
made. He was biting his nails, then messing with his hair, then he
would go back to biting his nails while frantically looking
everywhere in the room again. He was a complete mess, sleep
deprivation had really started to take its toll on him.