Paracusia

This story is part of the Vocal + Assist on Facebook Unreliable Narrator Challenge. You can learn more about it here:

I think there is a killer in my building. I never go out alone, anymore. Not with everything that’s happening. With all that’s happening, my fear is high all the way out and all the way home, but the chatter keeps up and keeps me going.

“Ten lampposts home, just ten lampposts.”

“You did well today, good work.”

“That guy, the green coat, don’t look but he’s following you.”

“Is he?”

“No, he’s just going somewhere. He’s not interested in you at all.”

“No?”

“Yes” “No” “Be careful”

“He’s one of them, you can tell.”

“He’s just going somewhere.”

“I can’t get home.”

“Just stop, stay still.” “Run” “They’re watching you”

“You can expect repercussions, they’re all connected, corrupted.”

“You shouldn’t have done it.”

“He’s just a random man.”

“There’s kids on the playground.”

“Cross over, you might touch them.”

“Of course you won’t touch them”

“That’s what people who have been touched when they were children do, they touch children, you can’t risk it.”

“I’m not a paedophile!”

“No” “Yet”

“The world would be better if you were dead.”

“You’d be better if you were dead.”

“I wouldn’t be afraid, if I were dead.”

I can see the police outside when I get to the corner. I nearly go back, to wait until they give up and go, but the man in green is closing in. Devil and the deep blue.

“Michael Phillips?”

I panic then, they all tell me to run and I do, but there’s nowhere to go and no food in my belly since yesterday when I ate the last can, cold, with the lights off to avoid being seen. I freeze when they touch me, and for a minute every one is silent.

Now, I am sat on the end of my bed, a space carved out between the newspapers and dirty clothes. The police officers, a man and a woman, are stood over me. There is nowhere else to sit. The woman eyes the chair, the littered table, sticky, stained. No, there is nowhere else to sit.

“We’ve had a complaint, Mr Phillips. Again.”

“Shouting, in the night.” She opens a notebook and reads. “Screaming and shouting until 4.39am.”

“They’re on to you” he says.

“They’re going to make you pay” she tells me.

“I didn’t do anything!”

“Didn’t you?” “Didn’t you?”

“Did I?”

“It's isnt me. I can hear them, through the walls, all night. They’re torturing people in there.”

“This is the fourth complaint since Christmas Mr Phillips.”

“There’s blood, sometimes. On the stairs.”

“They’re in on it” he hisses.

“Say nothing” she whispers.

“Mr Phillips, are you taking your medications?”

“Mr Phillips?”

I sit, listening, waiting for the blow to my head or knife to my gut, but the officers only talk, and I can’t make out what they are saying, over all the jibber jabbering, but they leave me here without realising that I have wet myself, and my bed. As the door closes I can see another neighbour talking to the police, angry, pointing at me. They all want me gone. They all want me dead.

By sun down I am shivering, wet and cold. In the bag at my feet there is a knife, a new one, longer and sharper, two cans of peaches, two cans of soup. I pull out the knife and crawl beneath the bed.

“You’re next.”

“No one knows you’re here.”

“You shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You have to do what’s right.”

“Stop. Please stop. Please.”

The screaming begins again.

Help me.