Page 7

My £2,000 dining table has been converted into some kind of whisky swigging operating theatre. There’s too much motion to really tell what’s going on, but there’s three of them. Two normal-sized humans and some kind of monstrous pile of wounded muscle, hair and tattoos currently clutching a bottle of scotch, biting a belt and growling at the ceiling.

There’s some cursing and an exchange of very angry looks as the chief surgeon stands up straight and sighs in frustration. “Drink” he instructs again, “bite” and the patient bites down on the leather belt before the surgeon squats again and goes back to work on the patient’s side. The patient’s breathing becomes guttural and almost subhuman, his body tenses so hard that it makes his back arch off the table. And apparently this pisses the surgeon off. He stands up straight with impatience, stares straight into the wounded monster’s face and slaps him, hard, on the cheek. “Suck it up, Royal” he almost spits at him, before taking the belt from his mouth. He practically waterboards him with the whisky before ramming the belt back in all the way to the corners of his mouth “bite… and stay fucking still.” The surgeon takes a deep breath and squats back down, apparently not overly concerned about the blood that’s now pooling on my floor. More vocal suppression, and clenching the edge of the table.

“Got it” and the surgeon stands decisively, the monster throws the belt away and takes another swig from the bottle before dropping his head back down with a thud. My eyes gradually start to take in the scene, there’s blood, mess, and muck everywhere.

I hear the metallic clink as the foreign object… a bullet… no, a piece of a bullet, that has been removed from the patient drops onto a tray. The back of my hand finds my salivating mouth to stop me from heaving. I’ve seen bullets before, of course. But I’ve not seen one be removed from a human. Especially not so… nonchalantly, as if this isn’t the wildest, most grotesque piece of home-made surgery ever concocted. In my fucking kitchen. On my table. I’ll never eat toast on there again.

The macabre moment freezes as I realise that, in all likelihood, I’m going to have to fucking clean this kitchen, and that this is probably my new lodger.

Doc simply grabs something from his bag and rams it, with some force, into the wound. I gasp as my stomach churns just watching.

The third man walks back into the kitchen from the front door, hanging up the phone. I didn’t catch any of his conversation at all. He spots me lurking in the shadows, and my intrigue is instantly replaced with cold terror as he paces towards me, emotionless.

“Sawyer?” he asks, I hesitantly nod like a wide-eyed idiot. “Phone.” he instructs, I just hand it to him. I have no idea why. “Passcode?” the question sparks some kind of function from my brain and with a stutter I manage to stumble it at him. He takes the phone, taps away a bit and hands it back, still on the doorbell app.

“Do you have any other cameras in the house?” I shake my head, still glancing nervously at the table trying to watch what’s unfolding.

“Don’t let anybody in. Don’t tell anybody he’s here. Stay home. Don’t let him leave. Don’t call.” He’s rattling way more information than I can really process right now so I just nod along, my mouth open at what’s unfolding in my kitchen. The instructions continue.

“Burn his clothes” I nod again “tonight” he reiterates whilst stabbing his hand at me to show how serious he is. Seeing me clearly zoning in and out of focus he tells me to repeat back what I’ve been told.

“Erm… don’t let anybody in… don’t tell… anybody… stay here… don’t call… don’t let him leave” still thinking hard

“…and…?”

“…burn his clothes”

“When?” he shoots, growing impatient

“Tonight” I confirm like a zombie, my eyes barely able to focus on the man stood in front of me, his black shirt rolled to the elbows, slightly ruffled but uncreased.

“Take this” he hands me an envelope and I feel it “for expenses. And this” and he offers me the opening to a black holdall, I put my hand in and feel a gun. Oh my god do I need a gun? I take it by the grip and pull it out of the bag, it feels huge and deceptively heavy. I’ve barely got it out before his gloved hand closes around the barrel and he removes it from my possession, dropping it into a clear plastic bag. He peels back the blue tape from the top and I watch as it floats to the floor. Sliding his hand along the open edges, he seals the bag closed, and carefully returns it to the holdall.

He turns and walks away without another word or so much as a look back, he just goes and leans on the doorframe closest to the front door. The surgeon approaches me next, with his severe limp, in slightly more functional clothing, and blood up his forearms. Hands weirdly clean, I can literally see what his surgical gloves covered.

“Change his dressing if it leaks through or in two days if it doesn’t. Don’t let him exert himself, keep him calm. There’s pills for the pain, fresh dressings, and anything else you might need in the bag.” he tries a warm smile, but it comes across like one of those emergency department doctors who did the “Patient Care” course but isn’t at all interested now he’s done his job - preventing death - he just needs to get onto the next person in line.

The pair of professionals quietly converse and my extraction from proceedings gives my senses time to come back online, a bit at a time. That’s an eight-person dining table, and with his head very close to the top, his combat boots still hang over the edge. My gaze travels up his trousers, covered in pockets and pouches and straps that I’m sure all serve some purpose.

His pale, clammy skin stands in stark contrast to his black waistband as my eyes follow his V-lines, to his glistening, abdominal muscles straining with every pained breath. His chest hairs matted with blood that’s starting to dry-stick to almost everything on his side. His beard practically shines with sweat, his lips hanging slightly open as every breath takes disproportionate effort. Beneath his beard, hard cheekbones cut through his lightly tanned face, and as I get to his lazy, dark green eyes they align perfectly to mine. He’s staring at me as I examine him.

My stomach drops, my eyes bounce off in every direction. That, was fucking awkward. Despite all of this, that was fucking awkward. I cast my eyes back to the other professionals who seem to have concluded their stand-up meeting. The doctor grabs his bag, and they just leave. Not so much as a farewell, they just leave me alone in the house with Demon Edition Deadpool still laid on the table as his eyelids get heavier and he loses his fight with consciousness.

What the fuck am I even supposed to do now? Despair floods over me, I don’t even know where to start. My kitchen looks like a medieval torture chamber, there’s a human asleep on my table. I can’t take it all in, so I just kind of walk backwards until my calves hit the sofa and I slump back into it. Leaning my head all the way back I stare at the ceiling. So many thoughts swirling around my head, from the mundane - I’ve got to clean that shit up. Through to the shocking - what happened that meant this was the best available plan? Right through to the life shattering - what am I now an accomplice to? For a split second I am transported, I’m sitting in the magistrates. I’m the one in cuffs, the thought makes me shudder. I didn’t sign up for this. I’m claustrophobic, I can’t be slammed in the back of a van and moved from cage to cage. I’m not made for that life, I just fancied a dickhead and got swept away. I didn’t kill anybody. I don’t want any of this.

I don’t get too long to sit and reflect about the strange turn into Fuckedsville that my life seems to have taken before I hear something thump in the kitchen. Oh I don’t want to go, I don’t want to, I don’t want to, I don’t fucking want to. I force my eyeballs into the back of my head with the palms of my hands, my whole body tensing with absolute and overwhelming dread.

Like a terrified rat spying a food source, I creep to the doorway and peer towards the kitchen. Stomach turning step after stomach turning step I approach the tiled floor and take in a bit more of what I can see. His whole body is covered in a patchwork tapestry, tattoos and scars stretch across almost every inch with layers of cracked drying blood decorating him further. He’s like a terrible piece of artwork, the kind that depicts a war zone or some great humanitarian crisis.

I jump as his arm suddenly twitches to life, and I rescue the bottle before he knocks it from the table, only to feel his hand tighten on my wrist. I let out a shocked breath and he eases his grip, but his brow doesn’t relax as he grimaces directly through my pupils and into the depths of my soul.

“No” a single gruff word finds its way through the forest on his face. His intensity is incredibly unsettling.

“Okay… that’s okay… I’ll leave the bottle” I do my best to soothe. Okay, don’t touch his alcohol. Got it, that’s fine I can work with that. His eyes don’t leave mine, engulfing my face in invisible flame. The silence is awkward, I desperately need to break it.

“It’s… really messy in here… can I… is it okay… I’m going to clean around you. I’m not going to hurt you” in my best soft, I’m-not-a-threat voice. He raises an eyebrow at me slightly. That’s right Sawyer, you tell this bloodied hitman soldier monster thing that you’re not a threat. Of everything he’s got going on I’m sure he was worried that you were going to finish him off. Dickhead. I’d laugh at myself if this whole thing wasn’t so damn awkward.

He starts shuffling awkwardly, what’s he even doing? Scraping one boot along the inside of the other leg, down the heel. Why’s he rubbing his boots together? He puffs through his nose and goes still. I watch as he animates just long enough to repeat the action, the toecap of one boot pushing against the heel of his… oh. His boots. He’s trying to get his boots off.