“I know you have it behind your back. You can’t hide it.”
He stepped into my space. I froze with the sudden intimacy. The heat of his body warmed my chest. His breath brushed my neck. I pursed my lips tight. He reached around me and gently, calmly, took the hammer out of my hand.
“The thing about a weapon is”—he casually tilted the hammer as if checking the balance—“if you’re going to bring it somewhere, you’ve got to be prepared to use it.”
Lights danced in the flat, but there were no shadows of anyone else. I was alone with this stranger. And he was alone with me. The stairwell felt small all of a sudden. And so very lonely.
“But you hadn’t thought about that, had you?” He twirled the hammer in his hand. “You thought the sight of it would send me shaking. Because that’s what would frighten you.”
He tutted. The lights from the room behind him cast long, sharp flashes on the walls around me, putting the world into a slow staccato. He swaggered in stop-motion in the blaze and shade.
“That’s why I kept the music loud. Because I knew there was nothing you could do about it. I had your number the moment I saw you, peeking through your curtains, tutting in your dressing gown. I know your kind. You’re the snob who kicks over the cup of change while the jakey’s asleep. You’re the busybody who tips a noisy cat into a wheelie bin. You’ll dish it out on those who can’t fight back, but you wouldn’t dream of standing up to the real target of your anger. Full of rage, but none of the balls to do anything about it. Too scared of losing the little you have—the job you hate, your crummy flatshare, the freedom you’re too scared to do anything with—to gain a little respect.”
Flash-flash-flash
Unce-unce-unce
Like the crack of a whip, his arm flew up and struck the wall next to my head with the hammer. I flinched. The old gloss-painted plaster cracked around the impact. As he removed the hammer from the wall, a small chunk came away with it.
“You’re a coward.”
He put his hand over the hole in the wall.
“That’s why you could never do what needs to be done.”
He swung the hammer into the knuckles of his hand.
The sound rang in the cramped stairway, vibrating the walls and the stairs in time to the music.
KRunce-KRunce-KRunce-KRunce
My eyes couldn’t leave the violence. I was glued to it. Each flash of the lights from the flat revealed a new visceral snapshot. A finger bent the wrong way. A knuckle burst like a grape. A bone piercing skin.
I froze with the horror of it.
Flash-flash-flash
A hand caught in a tangle of metal. A painted fingernail hanging by a thread. Hot pink.
I blinked for what felt like the first time. The image was there and gone in a flicker of neon light.
Suddenly the gaunt man stepped to me, head bent to get into my eyeline. I jumped.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” he roared.
Hot flecks of spittle landed on my cheeks. My teeth chattered as if I were freezing. It was like all those times I’d been screamed at not to cry and yet the tears would always come anyway. Don’t cry or I’ll give you something to cry about. I desperately wanted to run, but there was nowhere to run to. The door behind me was gone. The stairs above had been taken away by darkness. And the way ahead was blocked by a man with a hammer and the will to use it.
“I-I-I don’t even know you.” I managed to force the words out despite my fluttering jaw.
“And you didn’t care!” He threw the hammer against the wall by my head.
The ringing was so loud. I clutched my ears and scrunched my eyes closed.
“Look at me!”
I opened my eyes and now he was different. He was taller with a full head of hair, and wearing a stylish, blue-striped shirt.
“Would you have felt different if I’d looked like this?”
