When You Wake up and Scream

Conán woke up on the sofa again, his face half buried in the cushions. He put his head up slightly, his head thumping, vaguely remembering getting absolutely hammered the night before. He groaned, feeling thoroughly wrecked.

He wondered what had woken him up, as he usually slept straight through bad hangovers. It was then that he realised someone else was with him, and he pulled himself up reluctantly and squinted over to the kitchen, where Naoise was leaning against the counter, looking as bad as he felt, and watching the kettle boil.

"What time is it?" he croaked, his throat dry.

"Eight o'clock," Naoise yawned.

"Eight o'clock?" Conán replied in disbelief, but the shock in his voice had used energy he didn't have, and he let himself collapse against the sofa again, groaning loudly.

"You can stay there if you like. I just realised I have a lecture at nine today," Naoise sighed. "And I went and got hammered and now I have to go to Uni with a head like this."

"Unlucky." Conán chuckled weakly. "No, I'll walk you down. I'll not have you suffer all by yourself."

"You don't have to."

"I may as well. The fresh air might do me good. I'll just lie here and mope if I don't get up."

"I need to run back to my house," Naoise told him. "I only have what I was wearing last night and I've slept in it and it's probably covered in cider."

Conán laughed.

"We know how to par-tay," he said in a singsong voice.

"We do indeed."

"What time did we get back, do you know?"

"I'm not too sure. I remember leaving the last pub and looking at the clock at it being about half three, and then it took about half an hour to walk home … so it would have been late. I don't think I'm going to survive my lectures today. It had better be something interesting or there'll be me snoring in the back row."

Naoise walked over to the sofa with two cups of coffee and handed a grateful Conán one. He moved over so she could sit beside him on the sofa.

"Were you not freezing last night?" she asked him, holding the cup close to her face and blowing on the coffee to cool it slightly, sitting with her legs crossed on the sofa.

"No, why?" Conán asked.

"I feel bad for kicking you out of your own bed."

Conán chuckled.

"You're the lady, Naoise, I must look after you."

"Awh, you're such a gentleman."

"Damn straight."

"Yeah, you just ruined the image." Naoise laughed, and Conán grinned.

"I'll have to work on it."

"So what have you planned for today?"

"I don’t know," Conán shrugged. "I had a bit of work earlier so I'll probably not hear from my boss until I grow a beard that reaches my knees now, so I'll probably just wander the streets."

"I couldn't see you with a beard."

"No, it would look weird, wouldn't it?" Conán chuckled, rubbing his chin as though twirling a beard. Naoise laughed, almost spilling coffee down herself.

"Don't! I'm trying to drink!" she spluttered.

"It wasn't that funny!"

"It was the look of concentration on your face that did it!"

"This one?"

"Conán!"

"All right, I'll stop."

"We’d better make a move if we’re going to get to my house."

"All right, let me find my shoes. Damn, where did I leave them?"

"In your imaginary beard."

Conán laughed. He eventually found one show in the bathroom sink, though he did not know how it had came to be there, and the other one was under the coffee table.

"Did you put my shoe in the sink?" he asked, when Naoise came out of the bedroom with her coat on, grimacing and trying to smooth down her wild hair.

"No," she replied, looking confused.

"Oh. I must have just thrown it in there for the craic of it, then," he said thoughtfully. Naoise smiled and shook her head.

"Another mystery of drink."she giggled, and Conán nodded.

"Don't we know all about them? Righto, lead the way. I can't remember what way we went."

They walked down the relatively quiet street silently for a while, until they reached a slightly busier street where some small shops were opening and people were hurrying around, making their way to school and work. They had linked hands again, though Conán couldn't remember when or where. They got to Naoise's house within a few more minutes, and Naoise took the spare key from under the flowerpot and unlocked the door. They quietly crept in, wondering if anyone would be up. Naoise's father would be at work by now, as a bus driver, and Friday mornings were the mornings that Naoise's mother could afford a lie in. However, today, this was not the case.

Naoise had only just quietly closed the door on the cold weather when the living room door flew open and Patricia and Mairtin McCullough were there, both of them looking inbetween livid and relieved.

"Naoise!" Mrs. McCullough shrieked, hugging her daughter and then holding her at arm's length, looking stern and reminding Naoise of when she had received a telling off when she had been younger. "Where have you been? You said you would be back around midnight when you rang us! We were worried out of our minds; we've been on the phone to the police and everything! You can't run off like that, not when there's all these killings going on, are you mad, child? We were terrified you'd gone and got yourself into some awful trouble, you've nearly put my heart out!"

Naoise looked guilty.

"Sorry, Mummy," she said. "I went out with Conán and we didn't get back until early in the morning and we were pretty drunk so I forgot to ring you and tell you I wouldn't be coming back home until morning."

"You stayed at Conán's?" Mr. McCullough was eyeing Conán suspiciously. Conán shifted from foot to foot under his gaze, feeling incredibly uncomfortable.

"Yeah," Naoise said, wondering if her father was suggesting what she thought he was suggesting.

"I thought you were just friends, eh?"

"We are. Conán sleeps on the sofa."

"So you've been round there before?"

"Yeah,"

"Naoise!"

"What? We are just friends, Daddy, I just stay there when it's late and I'm too drunk to walk home or back to Uni. Unless you want me to walk back in the middle of the night?"

"Of course I don't –"

"It's the only safe way. Even if Conán walked me home he could still be attacked on the way back to his flat. The killer's not just targeting girls, you know!"

"I know that, but you've got to be more responsible, Naoise! You can't just start disappearing for the night and staying with people you've only known for a couple of months and not ringing home!"

"Look, I'd love to stay for the lecture, but I need to get changed. I've a real lecture starting in half an hour, and it'll be more useful than this one!"

Naoise hurried up the stairs, leaving Conán looking at his feet and feeling like he had just disembarked a train at Awkward City centre. Naoise's parents were both looking at him with a slight look of disdain, and Conán had never taken being rejected nicely.

"I thought you had no business with Naoise?" Mairtin McCullough asked, his voice dangerously low, as his wife, muttering to herself, went back into the living room.

"She's a friend," Conán hissed, beginning to get annoyed. "I don't know exactly what you want to believe of your daughter, Mr. McCullough, but I can assure you that there's no funny business going on. Can two people not be friends if they're male and female without the whole world thinking that they're more than just friends?"

"It's just very strange, young man. Naoise's very fond of you, and then all of a sudden the pair of you are showing up and you've spent the night together … it gives out the wrong signals."

"By 'spent the night together', you do realise that I was on the sofa, right?"

"That's not the point, is it?"

"Well, it's the entire point if you're trying to suggest that there's something going on."

"No, you're missing the point. You just don’t do it, do you?"

"Do what?"

"Young ladies don't usually spent the night at the houses of young men they've only known for a few months!"

"And why not? You'd have no problem if Naoise had spent the night at a female friend's house, would you? They wouldn't get here this morning and be accused of being lesbians, would they?"

"Less of the cheek, young man."

"I'm just saying."

"Well, don't just say."

Naoise hurrying down the stairs interrupted the argument at that point, and Conán and Mr. McCullough glared at one another for a few seconds. Naoise noticed.

"I see you two are having fun," she said brightly. "Come on, Conán, we'd better go. I'm going to be late at this rate."

"All right," Conán replied, dragging his eyes away from Mr. McCullough's. "I'll try not to snog you on the way."

Naoise rolled her eyes.
"Come on!" she muttered, grabbing Conán's arm and pulling him from the house. "What's up with you pair?" she hissed when they got out of the garden gate.

"You father seems to think that we're off having … how would you word it politely? Sexual relations with one another."

Naoise laughed.

"Who are you, Clinton?"

"No, just a peeved young Irish lad."

"Don't let him get to you; he thinks that about every male friend I've ever had, even when I was in primary school. He's just a typical father. It wouldn't matter if I brought the Pope back for dinner, he'd probably still suspect something."

"Well, tell him from me that it's rather annoying."

"You never know, we could end up proving him right one day."

"Oh?" Conán stopped, raising his eyebrows. Naoise laughed.

"Do you not think we'd make a nice couple?"

"I suppose we're just as mad as one another. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. I'm a girl. I think about these things a lot. Would you not want to go out with me?"

"To be honest with you, I've wanted to ask you for a while now, but I don't think I could."

Naoise looked at Conán properly, her green eyes sparkling.

"I haven't heard this before. Why can't you?"

Conán sighed.

"I don't know. You worry about me enough without having other feelings thrown in there as well. I'm a pretty unstable guy, in case you haven't all ready noticed. I just wouldn't want us to end up with a serious relationship and it end with me ruining it."

"But don't you think it's better to have it and loose it then to never have it at all?"

"Well, I'd rather not put myself through all of the pain."

"But think of the experience points." Naoise grinned. Conán laughed.

"I'm not on a computer game."

"How do you know?"

"You're starting to make me sound sane, and that's pretty scary, wee girl."

They were reaching the end of O'Connell Street now, and Naoise glanced at the clock on her mobile worriedly.

"Oh, damn, I'm totally going to be late," she muttered. "What's my excuse going to be?"

"I don't know. Kill off a grandparent, that always works."

Naoise laughed.

"That's terrible, Conán!"

"But it would work."

"I should be all right if I run now. I'll have to love you and leave you."

Conán put his hand to his forehead in a mock faint.
"As they all do, the story of my life!" he swooned. Naoise laughed again and rolled her green eyes.

"I'm sure you'll live. I'll come round and see you anyhow, before I go away."

Conán's mood darkened.

"Oh yeah. Away. Right."

"Awh, you going to miss me?"

"'Course I am!"

"Don't you worry about it. I'll see you soon, all right?"

"All right, go on, you'd better run."

Naoise let her hand slip from his and she ran into the grounds of the university. Conán watched her go, half of him wishing she would come back, and the other half desperately screaming at her to keep running, and wishing that she were running away, away from him, away from his hellish world and the evil that was lurking in him.

The street he lived on was deserted, and so he seized the opportunity and decided to get rid of the body parts left in the freezer. He didn't think Steve was too happy about loosing his freezer-buddy, but, as Conán patiently explained to him, it was a necessary precaution.

"You were the one who wanted to stay here, Steve," he told the head. "So you have to put up with the downfalls."

When he was back at the place where he had left the last body, Conán couldn't help but investigate he progress the other remains were making. He looked around the ground, squinting closely, but all he could make out were tiny fragments of bone. The flesh had clearly defrosted and been eaten by the wild animals. He didn’t have time to smash the other remains up, as it was daytime and he was anxious of discovery, and so he buried them around the area in shallow graves, deep enough to cover the smell when they thawed out but shallow enough for wild animals to get to them to get rid of the evidence. Then, he decided that he had better get out of there, and back to Dublin before he was discovered.

Conán arrived home, and as there was nothing else to do, he sat on the sofa with Steve, sitting in silence, thinking. He didn't like thinking, but there was nothing else to do. Conán was scared of his thoughts. They told him that the thing he was dreading was only around the corner.

"I don’t know what I'm going to do, Steve," Conán said quietly, his voice barely making a ripple in the silence. "You know when Naoise goes away? I don’t know what I'm going to do. She's the only person I have, you know? I'm scared, Steve. I know that when Naoise goes away I'm going to loose it. I'm slipping enough as it is, but when she's gone … I don't know what's going to happen. I know it can only be bad. I'm just going to calm myself down and take it. There's nothing I can do, is there? I'm a killer. I was born to be a killer. Now we'll just have to ride out the storm."