Blackout, p.4
Blackout, page 4
Andrus laughed, amused by this, though he didn’t say why. “I studied in London when I was young. Met my wife there, too, though she is also Estonian, like myself. She came one summer for a program and we fell in love. Been married fifty-two years this autumn.”
“Congratulations.”
Kirsten walked into the room at that point. She seemed a little agitated, confused. She spoke only to her husband, in fast Estonian. Who is this?
Andrus stood up slowly, going over to his wife and lovingly embracing her. He looked at Marcus.
“She gets forgetful. Don’t worry.”
Andrus led her back out of the room. He was gone for a moment, then returned, shutting the door firmly behind him. He looked at Marcus, his face glum.
“It’s the early stages of dementia, you see.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Marcus spotted the clock on the mantlepiece, taking in the hour. “Look, I really had best be going.”
They stood, Andrus following him to the door. They walked to the front of the property, now back out on the road.
“You said you lived nearby?” Andrus asked.
Marcus was laughing. He knew how strange it was going to seem, saying what he was about to admit.
“Yes, very near, in fact. We live next door.”
Andrus looked surprised. Or was that also the look of embarrassment?
Marcus added, almost apologetically. “I know it had been empty for ages, but we’ve lived there for three years already.” He felt somewhat ashamed even admitting it. Admitting that in three years they had not done what he had just done and actually spoken to their next-door neighbour.
“You live next door?” Andrus said.
Marcus couldn’t even keep eye contact now. “I’m sorry we’ve not introduced ourselves sooner. You must have heard all sorts of strange noises over recent months? We’ve been renovating.”
“You’ve renovated?” Andrus sounded especially intrigued.
“Hell, yeah. My wife did most of it, the design element, I mean. You wouldn’t believe what it looks like now. You’ll have to pop over someday, if you like. I know the outside is still a sorry state. I’ll get onto that soon, I promise.” He paused there, wondering whether to ask the thing now running through his mind, but doing so anyway. “Is it true what they say about our house? About the previous owner, I mean.”
“The previous owner?”
“The psycho doctor who killed all those women.”
Andrus’s face went somewhat vacant at this. He looked troubled.
Marcus realised, too late it would appear, that he shouldn’t have said anything. Perhaps it was all too raw for those still living in the area?
“You must have heard about it, no?” Marcus asked, when the silence had dragged on long enough.
Andrus was nodding, slowly. Was that pain there? Sadness? Or was it something else? Marcus felt relieved. He said, “Well, before we purchased the house, we had heard nothing about it. How could we, coming from Finland like we had?” He laughed as he added. “It explains why we got it so cheap. Still, it’s a beautiful home now.”
Andrus still said nothing. He looked distressed by the reminder. Marcus realised what an idiot he was being.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring back terrible memories. Do you mind me asking if you lived here then?” They must have been living there given the state of the place inside. That wasn’t an elderly couple who had just moved there within the last five years.
“Lived here since these were first built, yes,” Andrus confirmed.
Marcus suddenly seemed fascinated by this, seemingly pushing away his concerns about raising the topic for the sake of learning more about it all himself. “Did you know them? I know his first victim was his wife. We’re told she didn’t die here, is that right?”
Andrus nodded slowly. It was evidently hard for him to talk about, something that Marcus could well appreciate. He was grateful that Andrus was saying anything. “That is correct. You seem to know a lot about all this, for a foreigner?”
“Only what’s online, really,” Marcus confessed. “My wife, Tiffany, looked into it all when we first found out. Naturally, we thought about selling right away. I mean, who wouldn’t? But we soon realised nobody local would buy it. Plus, we’d already started fixing it up, putting plenty of money into it… You really didn’t hear us?”
“No, not a sound. Mind, we have the television on loudly most of the time. My wife is hard of hearing. Tell me, what else do you remember?”
“Not much. We know he became Estonia’s most active serial killer. When they eventually caught him, was it something like seventy of his own patients whom he had killed? And all starting with his wife. An induced heart attack or something, if I remember correctly.”
Andrus was smiling, nodding. “Indeed. You obviously have a wonderful memory. It is all very disturbing.”
“Look, I am sorry,” Marcus said, feeling terrible now, touching Andrus on the elbow. “It was wrong of me to bring this up. I shouldn’t have. It isn’t our place to do so. Look, if you see my family come home, please tell them I’ve gone back to the shopping centre, and to find me there.”
Andrus nodded. They shook hands, Marcus walking back off up the road.
Andrus watched Marcus leave, standing in silence, until Marcus was gone from sight, shaking his head at that strange man.
Alone with his thoughts, Andrus considered everything he had just been told. He glanced over at the house next door, visible above the fence from where he was standing.
The paint was peeling on the front door as it had been for decades. The garden was mostly weeds, the fence panels rotten and lost within the bushes that had taken over.
Andrus headed towards the property next door, walking up the front garden. Getting to the door, he pulled out a key from his pocket.
The lock opened.
Inside, the hallway was old, one floorboard still missing. The wallpaper was peeling. There were plenty of signs of damp.
There was no sign that anyone had been living there, let alone making renovations to the property.
The house was empty.
It had always been empty.
Andrus stood still, looking utterly confused.
Chapter
Six
Marcus walked all the way back to the shopping centre, arriving an hour after first leaving. The one and most likely place that his wife and daughters could be.
He already felt stupid for having walked off.
What was he thinking?
Wouldn’t they already be out of their minds wondering where he had gone? Trying to call his phone, only to hear it ringing in the jacket they had with them.
Then again, what were they thinking?
Why had they gone, left him? He’d only been a minute, two, at most.
Or had he been longer? It hardly mattered.
Walking in through the main doors at the front of the shopping centre, Marcus headed towards the far side, back to O’Learys, where his fun day after breakfast and the garden centre had continued, but where it had since turned into something else entirely.
He still couldn’t work out what they had been thinking.
Might they be there, puzzled but waiting? Laughing when he showed up, when he spotted them finally.
As Marcus got close, it wasn’t the eager faces of his family he saw, however.
His mouth dropped open, his eyes going wide.
Where O’Learys had stood just an hour or two ago, there were now only shops. People were coming in and out of them, windows displaying the wares on offer.
Downstairs, there were only small food outlets.
He’d seen none of them before in his life.
He doubled back, spinning around, checking his bearings. Was it possible he’d gone the wrong way, come to a different section? Somewhere he’d not seen before. But the shopping centre wasn’t so huge. He wasn’t so lost that this could have been anywhere else.
Except it had to be.
Still unbelieving, he walked into the shop that should have been the entrance to the sports bar. Linens and blankets, quilts and towels, none of which were there that morning.
It had never been there.
His monitor sounded its alarm, Marcus well aware of why his heart might be racing. He rubbed his temples, forcing away the pain in his head that was threatening to overwhelm him at any moment.
His actions—standing in the doorway to a shop, circling around, looking utterly confused—soon attracted the attention of a bored security guard. The man walked towards Marcus with purpose, though it was Marcus, pleased to see someone who could help him, who stepped towards him the fastest.
“Excuse me,” Marcus said, a little too urgently, the guard stopping where he was, thinking it best to keep a little distance between them. “Where’s O’Learys?”
“Sorry sir?” the guard replied in English, though there was a strong accent present.
Marcus spoke slower, thinking through the easiest way to say what he needed to say. “O’Learys, the sports bar. It was right here this morning. I’ve been gone, what…” he looked at his watch, “two hours. Where the hell is O’Learys?”
Marcus was fast losing his cool, which wasn’t normal for him, nor was it safe. His monitor kept warning him, still in the safe zone for now, but getting closer to danger.
The guard became noticeably more cautious. “Sir, I think you are in the wrong place. There is no shop here called O’Learys.”
“Yes, there is! I came here today, to this very spot. I’ve been several times. The sports bar, you know, shuffleboard, bowling, screens: O’Learys. You must know what I’m talking about!”
Marcus looked around, the people walking in and out of the shops giving him little attention. There was no sign that there was anything but shops there.
His alarm continued to sound, the beeping more urgent now.
“Sir, I need you to calm down. Let me call someone.”
Marcus sat down, closing his eyes, rubbing his forehead. The beeping continued.
“Have I blacked out?” Marcus asked, though the security guard didn’t hear this, as he was on his radio. The guard spoke rapidly into the handset, in Russian, his eyes constantly shifting back to Marcus.
“What am I missing?” Marcus asked himself, the first crack in his resolve. His memory was failing him. It had to be.
But how?
“It’s okay, sir, and the police are on their way.”
“The police... why?” Marcus stood up quickly. The beeping continued, something that the guard had picked up on, too, spotting the device around his neck.
“To help you,” the guard confirmed.
Marcus wasn’t so sure. He didn’t trust the police, had long since not trusted them. “Look, I don’t need their help... I need to find my wife, my daughters.”
Marcus ran, the security guard making a reach for him, but Marcus easily evaded him. He moved away from the area quickly, soon out of sight.
In the large outside carpark behind the shopping centre, Marcus was crouching low, getting his breath back. His alarm was screaming at him, though the tone changed after a few seconds. He had his eyes closed, breathing deeply, slowly.
There was still no sign of the family car. It was like they had simply vanished.
Like they had never been.
Perhaps they hadn’t?
Marcus swore. “What’s happening? Where the hell are they?” He glanced around him, taking in the location, that part of town. What a fool he had been! “Nick and Carol’s, of course,” he said, as the realisation hit him. They only lived a few streets away from there.
He looked up; the road that they lived on was in sight of the carpark. Had he missed the mention of a party there? Had Tiffany told him? Were they now waiting for him, wondering where he was, why he hadn’t shown up yet?
With it not being far away, he slowly jogged towards the street.
It didn’t take him long to get to the building, a location he knew well from sight, even if not the address by heart. The main door was open, as always, their friends’ apartment on the first floor, up just a short flight of stairs, with only the entrance on ground level, aside from a stairway down to the basement.
Marcus caught his breath, trying to calm down. He knew he would be pleased to see them again. He just had to keep his temper in check about them walking off without telling him where they were going.
Marcus knocked on the door, waiting.
There was no answer. He thought about knocking again, but he had been inside many times. It wasn’t a large apartment. If they were home, they would have heard him easily with that first knock.
Down the small run of stairs, there was the building’s notice board, old fliers left around, some of which were in the post boxes, others just lying on the floor. He spotted a pen. Taking a scrap of white paper from the corner of one announcement, he wrote them a note. It’s Marcus. Trying to get hold of Tiff. Don’t have my phone. Need help.
He thought twice about putting down that last part, but wrote it anyway. He slipped the note into the edge of the door, hoping that it would stay in place for when they return.
With nothing more for him to do there, he left the building.
Back outside, his head was still spinning. His alarm was no longer sounding so shortness of breath or a rapid heartbeat were no longer triggering it. Yet he was far from calm.
He was even getting a little scared now.
He walked back down the path, towards the pavement, bushes either side so that he didn’t see the bike coming along the pavement until it was too late.
The lady riding had no time to react, not even able to brake as Marcus stepped in front of her, giving her not even a glance her way.
He fell to the tarmac.
For Marcus, as he hit the ground, everything went black.
Marcus had a bag of peas held to the back of his head. He was sitting on a chair at a small table in a kitchen.
He remembered most of what happened.
Remembered the bike, the feeling of falling. He was out for a bit, but only briefly. Marcus remembered the lady, older though she had been able to help him up. He remembered standing. She helped him. They walked somewhere. He didn’t remember how far.
It couldn’t have been far.
He remembered getting to a door, her door, she’d said.
Piret was the lady on the bike. She was just coming home when Marcus stepped out in front of her without any warning. She was thankful that she’d been slowing. Any faster, and she might have herself fallen from the bike more seriously.
She made Marcus a drink.
“Here, take this.” Piret handed him the drink. She was in her late sixties. She felt bad for him, even while knowing it wasn’t really her fault.
He passed her back the bag of peas.
“Thanks. And again, it was my error. I’m sorry. I didn’t even look.”
She held her tongue on that. “You gave me quite a fright, that’s all. Then that monitor of yours started beeping. I thought it meant you were dead. I thought I’d killed you.”
“Maybe you did? Maybe I already was dead?”
The comment hung in the air, tense, heavy. She eyed him like the expert she was, able to read through such a comment. This ability picked up after years in the field, though she was now retired.
“You seem troubled?”
He was shaking his head. Troubled wasn’t the half of it, though he didn’t think he should say anything more. Didn’t know what he could say.
What could you say?
“It’s nothing... well, it’s complicated.”
“Go on,” she encouraged.
She had a professional, friendly, inviting nature to her. She had worked in the field of psychiatry for decades.
“Nothing makes sense.”
“I’ve spent my life helping people unravel that one, Marcus.”
“You’ll think I’m delusional,” he confessed. He was refusing to admit that he was beginning to think that of himself already.
“That is a complex word... one I know a lot about. Before I retired, I worked in psychiatry.”
Marcus looked suspiciously at her. She nodded.
“I remember things differently to how they are... a place that I visited, for example. It’s not there now.” He gauged her reaction, to which there wasn’t one. She just nodded, encouraging him to continue. After a brief pause, he added. “I can’t find my family.”
She pointed to his necklace, ignoring for the time being his mention of a family.
“That thing hanging around your neck, it’s an ECG, correct?”
“I can black out... or have a risk of blacking out if my heart rate goes too high. It’s genetic, you see. My father had it.”
“When did you last blackout?”
He couldn’t seem to answer this initially. “It’s been years. Seven, I think... unless…”
She was nodding slowly. “Do you think you might have blacked out today, when I hit you?”
He had a lump on his head. He had evidently hit the ground with some force.
“That was different. It was just a collision.”
“But this confusion you say you are suffering… could it have happened since then?”
He clearly didn’t know. Didn’t answer. She followed up with another question.
“What’s the last thing you remember that now, you know, is different?”
“I visited O’Learys this morning with my wife and daughters.” He paused there, briefly, to see if she showed any recognition, any sign that she knew the place. Yet she was professional and wasn’t reacting to anything he was saying. He continued. “It’s my birthday, you see. We went there to celebrate. When I came back to the table after visiting the toilets, they were gone. I couldn’t find them anywhere.”
“Do you have any photos of your family?”
He was shaking his head. “My phone is in my jacket, with them. Keys, wallet, everything.”
“I see.”
Marcus, suspecting that she didn’t believe him, got a little angry. “I’m not delusional!”
