When You Wake up and Scream

Conán looked away, while Naoise watched him worriedly.

"What's his problem?" Mary hissed to Naoise.

"Leave him, Mary."

"Who is he?"

"He's a friend."

"You've never mentioned him."

"I haven’t known him that long."

"What's his problem?" she repeated.

"He's ill, that's all."

"He looked fine a second ago."

"He's in the room, you know." Conán muttered, bad-temperedly, from the chair he was slouched in. "Look. I'd better go."

"Please do." Mary said coldly. Conán glared at her.

"You can shut up!"

"Conán, Mary, stop it, would you?" Naoise muttered, burying her head in her hands. "I'm already getting a headache, and I don’t need you pair bickering to make it any worse than it already is."

"I just want to know what your problem is." Mary told Conán, folding her arms and glaring in a way that was all too familiar to Conán.

"It's you." Conán said simply, and then he turned and made his way out through the crowded shop and onto the street beyond.

He was storming angrily up O'Connell Street, not paying attention to the indignant people he was walking into, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Conán! Conán! CONÁN!"

He stopped reluctantly and turned slowly around. It was Naoise, her hair wilder than usual from chasing him up the street, catching her breath.

"What?" he asked bluntly.

"What was your problem with Mary? Do you already know her?"

"No."

"Then what was that about?"

Conán shrugged.

"Conán!"

"What?" he demanded, his voice rough now. Naoise was momentarily shocked. She hadn't seen this side to Conán before, and she didn’t like it.

"There was no reason to treat her like that, Conán."

"I never did anything."

"You should have seen the way that you were looking at her when she came in!"

"Oh, that's right, it's all my fault, isn't it?" Conán growled. "It's never anyone else who's being mean or nasty or inappropriate, is it? It's always me."

"Don't be ridiculous, Conán!" Naoise fired back, her temper rising. "It's not a personal stab against you; it's merely an observation. She only reacted like that because you were giving her death glares."

"Well, pardonnez moi, Naoise, for glaring into space once in a while!"

"Conán!"

It was too late. Conán had already walked away. Naoise started to go after him, but decided against it. She would leave him to it. She wasn't going to worry about somebody that she hadn't even known for a week, over a friend she had known for years. She walked back to Starbucks, shaking her head and wondering how Conán could change moods so quickly, and have such a violent reaction to what was, essentially, nothing.

Conán was already glowering as he walked through the busy street, heading to areas of the city centre that would not be as packed as O'Connell Street. It was the busiest street of the city, and right now, Conán had had enough of people. He couldn't stand them at the best of times, and he wished that he had somewhere to go back to. He decided to just go and give his landlord the money. He would be so pleased at finally getting paid that he wouldn't ask where Conán had got the money from, and his daughter wasn't due to visit until the next weekend.

He stood banging on the old man's door for about fifteen minutes before an eye suddenly appeared and the peek hole, and then the door cracked open cautiously, still on the chain.

"What do you want, Connolly?" he asked suspiciously.

"It's nice to see you, too, Mr. Meehan." Conán told him brightly, though the sarcasm was evident in his voice.

"If you don’t want anything, get off of my doorstep."

"I don’t want anything at all, Mr. Meehan, and I'll be quite glad to get off of your doorstep, that is, unless you don't want your money. But, I did offer, so I guess I'll just be going now."

Conán turned to go, but them mention of money had caught his senile landlord's attention, as the door closed, was taken off he chain, and opened fully again.

"You've got my attention, Connolly." he said slowly. Conán turned again, already with the money out so the landlord didn’t see the bag full of it that Conán kept protectively in his pocket.

"Two hundred, I believe?" Conán asked, holding the two one hundred Euro notes out. Mr. Meehan took them suspiciously, and turned them slowly over and over in his wrinkled hands, as though checking them for forgery. Then he raised his eyebrows and disappeared back into the house, before coming back out with the keys to Conán's flat.

"If it happens again you won’t be coming back." he told him warningly, before slamming the door in Conán's face.

"Have a nice day, Mr. Meehan!" Conán called cheerfully through the letterbox, causing Mr. Meehan's Yorkshire terrier to start yapping at him. Conán laughed and walked over the street to his flat, going up the stairs and letting himself back in.

Nothing had changed much, apart from the place looked slightly tidier as there had been no one living in there. Conán was glad for the heat and the shelter, for it had been raining a lot lately and he hadn't enjoyed sitting there through it all. He went and lay on his bed, looking up at the ceiling and going over what had happened earlier.

There was one thing that was for certain in his head, and that was that Mary had to go. He couldn’t stand the thought of someone who reminded him so much of his bitch of a mother living. She would have to go, and soon. He would not rest until she did.

*

Conán woke with a start, sprawled out, still fully clothed, on his bed. He felt terrible – as though he had a hangover, though he hadn’t been drinking the day before. He groaned and tried to sit up, but his throbbing head forced him back down again.

"Not again," he muttered, thinking back with disdain at the time he had spent practically dying of the flu. He closed his eyes and tried to zone out from his throbbing head. He thought about his next kill to take his mind of it for a while. He was starting to get the urge to kill more and more frequently now, and it wasn't like what it used to be. Usually he could zone out, think about other things, but now he couldn't ignore it. He was consumed by it, thinking all of the while about the feeling he got when he saw the light fading from someone's eyes, and he missed the feeling of power when he was living day-to-day life. However, he still got a thrill whenever someone brushed past him in the street, wondering what they would think if they knew hat the stranger they had just passed had already killed four people and went undetected.

This Mary … he couldn't wait to be shot of her, but he could already sense the dangers. Mary was different to all of his previous victims, and he couldn't forget it. He couldn't get naïve in this business, and he couldn't get arrogant. That was what doomed all killers. Either that, or some stupid mistake like a small clue or a victim that survived. Mary was from a decent family, it was clear. She was in Uni, she dressed well, and Conán just knew that her murder would not go unnoticed. The Garda had enough work to do without having to chase up the killers of the homeless or the prostitutes, although Conán had had to lay low for a while after he had cut the homeless man's throat. He had been lucky that time – he knew he had been pushing his luck by approaching Naoise the very next day, but she seemed to not be suspicious about anything.

However, if Mary were to be found dead … it would be a completely different story. A pretty, eighteen-year-old student being murdered would cause an outcry from the public. Conán couldn't just leave her body where it lay after he had killed her. He would have to make sure that there was no body. She would be reported missing, but of course she wouldn't be found.

He thought about Naoise. She and Mary were good friends … but what did that matter? Friends only wanted things back from you, in Conán's opinion, and nobody who looked so much like his mother would be allowed to live.

Conán was planning the murder in his head. He would have to get her back to the flat, but that was simple enough. All he had to do was get her when it was late and knock her unconscious. He was excited at the thought of killing another girl … he could almost picture it being his mother. They were so helpless; as well … it made him feel all the more powerful.

But there was the problem of getting rid of the body. Conán frowned. This was a problem that he had never had to think about before. It would take a little preparation, but it would take a while to seize an opportunity to grab Mary. He hated her. It was only explainable to his own consciousness, but that was all the excuse he needed.

When Conán woke up, not that he remembered falling asleep, he felt worse than ever. His legs were weak and trembling, and his whole body felt lifeless. For a while, Conán lay there, tuned in to the numbness of his body and imagining that he were dead and this was what it felt like. He played with the idea in his mind, imagining if this is what it was like for his victims in their last moments. He smiled to himself, before tuning back into reality.

He had to get himself something to eat. He couldn't make the same mistake as last time. He could have easily died, and that was not something that Conán fancied doing anytime soon, although the idea often fascinated him. He always pictured himself dying in an interesting way – not of old age or illness. Ever since a young age he had come to accept that he would probably be murdered, because of his mother's frequent rages, but now he had physically escaped her, he wondered what would become of him now.

"Perhaps I'll get an attack of conscience and kill myself?" he asked to himself, and then he sniggered. "No way. That would never happen to me. All right, what if I get shot down by police? Perhaps that'll happen?"

Conán sniggered again. He didn't have much intention of being caught, but if he ever were, he wondered if he would prefer to go down in a blaze of glory than go to prison.

He leant with his head against the microwave as he waited for some Super Noodles to cook, while he nibbled on a few uncooked ones. They were helping to settle his churning stomach. He went into the fridge and poured a glass of Coke into an empty water bottle before shaking it until it was flat – another technique he had discovered to help nausea.

He stood leaning against the counter as he ate the Super Noodles, thanking the lord that his stomach was beginning to settle. He didn’t want the flu again – he had work to do. His brain was ticking over the idea of disposing of bodies. He had decided without much thought that he would do a trial run if he could find another homeless person. He could easily lure them back with the idea of food, and then he would kill them and see what needed to be involved. He smiled to himself. It was always better to do a trial run in things like this, plus he was curious.

It would have to wait until he was better, though. He needed his strength. He would finish eating, and go back to bed and try to sleep it off.