When You Wake up and Scream

Conán jerked awake. For a few moments, he was confused as to where he was and what had woken him. The TV was still on, murmuring quietly in the corner, and once more he was sprawled out in a heap on the sofa. He wondered if it had been the TV that had woken him up, but he quickly realised that it wasn’t on that loud.

He heard it again – knocking at the door. He sat bolt upright. Surely it couldn't be morning already? And even if it were, who would be knocking on his door? No one came around to see him these days.

Perhaps it was Naoise? Conán wasn't sure if she remembered where he lived, and even if she did, what would she be doing round here at – Conán glanced at the clock. It was half past four in the morning.

The knocking started again, this time sounding more frustrated. Conán groaned and pulled himself away from the warmth of where he had been curled up on the sofa, bleary-eyed and aware that his hair would be all over the place. He pulled open the door bad-temperedly.

"What?" he demanded as he did so, before realising who was standing out in the landing.

It was Mary.

"What in Hell are you doing here?" Conán burst out. "Get out of here!"

He went to slam the door in her face, but she stopped him.

"Where is she?" she asked him.

"Who?"

"You know who. Naoise. Where is she?"

"I haven’t seen her. I was sleeping, you know? That's what people do when the sky goes dark like this. You sleep."

"Don't give me that! She did a runner earlier and I know she's here."

"Well, she's not, and even if she were, I don't think she would want to be seeing you."

"So you have seen her tonight!"

"Yes, I have."

"So where is she now?"

"I don't know. But she's not here with me. So kindly go away."

"Let me check."

"What?"

"Let me check in there. I know it would be just like you to hide her."

Conán rolled his eyes.

"Would you just –" he began, but then he broke off. He had realised what an opportunity he was going to miss if he didn't play his cards right. He changed his mind in mid sentence. "Fine. If you really feel that you must."

He moved aside. Mary glared at him.

"You have a serious attitude problem, do you know that?" she asked him.

"I really don't care at half past four in the morning, thank you." Conán told her. "Now, if you're going to look for someone who's clearly not here, then do it."

He pulled the door open further and gestured behind him.

"Not much to search anyway, is there?" she asked him, wrinkling her nose. Conán glared.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It's supposed to mean that the place is tiny and I can't believe anyone would want to live here, that's what it's supposed to mean."

"You're a total bitch, do you know that?"

"I am not. I just dislike you."

"That's not what I heard from Naoise. I heard that she walked in on you having a right rant about her. Do you care to elaborate on that, or are you a coward who can only say it when you think that she's not going to find out?"

"You don’t know anything about what's happened, so don't give me that!"

"I know enough to know that you stabbed her in the back and upset her." Conán glared.

"And I know enough about you to know that you've got her wrapped around your little finger! She's told me all of the crap that you’ve fed her, about how you're all vulnerable and abused, and I know she's fallen for it but I haven't! What do you really want from her?"

"What do you mean?" Conán hissed, his voice dangerously low.

"I mean what I say," Mary hissed back. "I mean that you're feeding her all of these lies to try and get her to feel sorry for you. You make me sick, taking advantage of her like that. Naoise's kind but she can be gullible, and you're preying on that!"

"Don’t even try to talk about things you know nothing about," Conán growled.

"You're just annoyed because I've found you out!"

Conán's eye twitched.

"If it could be said that everything that happened to me, when I was younger, was a lie, I would be a very happy man," he said softly, dangerously. "If could say I was lying about all of the beatings, if I could say I was lying about the way my mother used to torture me, if I could say I was lying about how I was starved and forced to sleep in a bathtub and bullied at school and abused by everyone I ever met, I would most certainly not be in the position I am now. Naoise is the only person who has ever been nice to me, and I wouldn’t lie to her. She's a remarkable person, and, unfortunately, you will never be like her, and you will never understand her. You'll never understand anyone, because you're one of those annoying people who always think you're right."

"So you're trying your crap on me, now, are you? I tell you this, if all of this is true, I can see why your mother must have hated you!"

Conán snapped. He reached out and grabbed her so quickly that by the time she had a chance to scream, she was already in the flat and Conán had slammed the door shut.

"What are you doing?" she shrieked. "Get off me!"

"You little bitch," he hissed, slamming her up against the wall. "You know nothing, you know nothing at all! Do you want to know how serious I am about this? Do you? Do you want to know what all of this has done to me?"

Conán pulled her away from the wall and pushed her hard away from him, knocking her to the floor. She whimpered and scrambled away from him, but she seemed unable to carry on screaming. Conán felt no sympathy for her. His hatred for her was too strong. Not only was she talking about things that she had no right to talk about, but she had also hurt the feelings of the only person who had ever been kind to him, and on top of that he saw his mother in her. She had the same eyes and hair … she was prettier, but she had qualities that Conán remembered from his mother. The way she would curl her lip in disdain at him, the way she had the same sarcastic drone to her voice, the way she seemed to think that she was always right.

She had to go.

"Do you have any idea what you've gotten yourself into?" Conán snarled at her, standing over where she was curled on the floor, looking up at him fearfully.

"Just let me go," she whispered hoarsely. "What do you want?"

"I've hated you from the first moment I ever lay eyes on you." Conán told her, leaving her for a few seconds to go over to the counter in the kitchen and pick up the bottle of whiskey. As he walked back over, he took a hefty swig from it and came to a stop standing next to Mary.

"Why?" she asked.

"Why? Because the first time you saw me you treated me like something you wiped off your shoe, that's why. That's a habit that you should snap out of, love. It's not a good thing to get into. Unfortunately for you, you pulled it on the wrong person, and you'll not get that chance again."

"What do you mean?" Mary squeaked, her eyes widening. This behaviour told Conán that she already knew. He smiled. He was enjoying her fear, her desperation, her pleading.

"You think I'm lying about this whole thing?"

"No! No, I don't! I was only trying to wind you up, I was only trying to get to you!"

"Well you succeeded!" Conán suddenly barked, and Mary jumped. Conán laughed, taking another swig from the bottle. "You succeeded, are you happy now?"

Mary shook her head.

"No! I'm not, I'm not! I'm sorry, I really am! Please don't hurt me! Please let me go!"

Conán watched her, entertained. He loved watching how scared she was, and in his head he began playing with ideas to scare her further. He wanted her to be scared. He wanted her to feel all of those things he had felt as a child, wanted her to feel all of the things she thought that he had made up.

He turned and walked away from her, a plan in his mind. She stayed frozen to the spot, wanting to run but unable to move out of fear. She was terrified of what he was planning. She had known he was weird, and she didn't know what he was going to do to her. Either way, she knew it wouldn’t be good. She couldn’t help but notice that he seemed to be enjoying himself. She remembered the conversation she had had with Naoise, about the fact that Conán could be anyone. She wondered if this was the conversation coming back to haunt her. What if he was a murderer?

"Do you want to see how serious I'm being?"

Conán was suddenly speaking again, from somewhere to her right. She couldn't see him because of where the sofa was positioned.

"Not really," she croaked. "I just want to get out of here!"

"I'm afraid that's not an option."

Conán came back round to face her again, and Mary saw he had something in his arms. He was holding it carefully, almost as though it were a baby, and his dark eyes were glinting and glittering manically. He knelt down in front of her and placed it on the floor, but Mary didn’t take her eyes away from Conán's face.

"Look at this, Mary," he whispered softly, though he was not looking at her. He was looking at the bundle he had placed on the floor. "You know what this is? This is my friend, Mary. This is my friend. I call him Steve, Mary. Say hello to Steve."

Conán was smirking as he spoke, and he carefully took out the head from where it had been wrapped up in the very back of his freezer, safely out of sight, and he held it up. Dragging his eyes away from it and the fascination it held for him, he moved his eyes to watch Mary's reaction. For a couple of seconds, her face was blank until Conán pinpointed the moment that she realised what it was, and then her expression turned to that of complete and total horror.

"Oh my – Oh my God!" she shrieked. "Are you being serious? Oh my God! What the Hell are you? What the Hell are you doing here? Are you crazy? You're mad! You're crazy! You're bloody sick! Oh my God! Are you – that's – did you – you did!"

"Hey, what's wrong?" Conán pretended to look hurt. "You not like my friend? Steve's feelings are hurt now, you know. You've hurt his feelings. Look at him, he's upset! Apologise, Mary! Apologise to Steve!"

"No! No, get that thing away from me!" Mary screamed, and Conán frowned.

"You're not a nice girl, are you? Apologise to him! How would you feel if he did this to you, eh?"

"Conán, he's a … he's a head! He's just a head! And he's … dead! How can I apologise to … that?"

"He's got a name, you know, Mary." Conán grinned. He placed the head down on the floor between them, facing it so it was looking at Mary with glassy blue eyes. Mary wanted to draw her eyes away, but she couldn’t. "It took me ages to get the head off. I had to sit and hack at it for a long, long time. It's heard work, you know. The strangling is the easy part. It's the simple part, all you have to do is pin them down and hold on. Even cutting the arms and legs off was easy enough. See that spinal cord, though? Takes a fair bit of effort. Its not the cleanest cut I would have liked, but you know, you can't have it all, can you?"

"You're a psycho!"

"No, I'm not. I'm just different." Conán grinned. "So. You know what this means, don't you? It's your turn. I can’t let you go now you've seen this. Do you want to do the whole screaming thing, or are you just going to let me kill you quietly?"

There was a pause during which Conán smirked at Mary, who was torn between staring at the head in horror and looking at Conán in disbelief. It was entertaining to watch, Conán thought, very entertaining indeed.

Then, she jumped up and ran for the door, but Conán had been expecting her to do something like that. With a swift sidestep he had blocked her path, and gripped both of her arms firmly in his own.

"Steve and Mary." he cooed softly. "It goes, do you not reckon?"