Eeny Meeny

106

Charlie tried to get up. But as she pulled herself upright, her head swam. She felt lightheaded, drunk, and collapsed back down on to her bum. Turning her head away, she retched once more. But there was nothing to bring up – hadn’t been for a couple of days now.

She was starving. It was a phrase she had used so many times casually – now she was learning its full awful meaning. Repeated bouts of diarrhoea, spasming joints, red blotches all over her torso and maddening cracked skin around her mouth, elbows and knees. It was like she was moulting – disintegrating. In time she would be little more than a skeleton. The maggots were long gone. Mark would probably be dead before they returned.

Across the room, Mark started mumbling ‘I had a little nut tree’ by way of accompaniment. He had been mangling nursery rhymes for a few days now – perhaps his mother had sung them to him, or perhaps he sang them to his daughter.

Whatever, the words were all wrong, the tunes all mixed up. He was just making noises really, proving to himself that he was still alive. Who was he kidding?

Charlie scanned their prison for the umpteenth time. And the same four walls stared back at her. The smell was awful now, six days of excreta, sweat and vomit combining in a hideous cocktail. And they were getting awfully cold. Charlie had tried to wrap Mark, whose teeth chattered with fever, in boiler insulation, but it scratched and annoyed him and fell off anyway.

Charlie had considered eating it, but she knew it wouldn’t stay down and she couldn’t face any more unnecessary vomiting. So she just sat and thought dark thoughts.

She rested her head against the hard, cold wall. For a moment, the coolness of the stone soothed her. This then would be her tomb. She would never see Steve again. She would never see her parents. Worst of all, she would never see her baby.

There would be no salvation now. She was no longer expecting the rescue party. All they could do now was wait for death.

Unless. Charlie kept her head pressed tight to the wall, her eyes screwed shut. She knew the gun was close by but she refused to look at it. It would be so simple just to walk over and pick it up. Mark couldn’t stop her, it would all be over quickly.

She bit her lip hard. Anything to distract her from that thought. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t do it.

But suddenly it was all she could think about.