When You Wake up and Scream

Naoise hurried over to the door and banged on it, knowing that she would be in trouble if her mother noticed she was gone. She was leaving for Cork the next morning, and her mother had explicitly banned her from going to Conán's flat as Naoise was liable to stay the night there, and it was an early start. However, she hadn't had the chance to go over the day before like she had promised she would, so she was hoping to make it up now.

Conán pulled the door open eventually. He had clearly just gotten up from his bed, or the sofa, wherever he had been sleeping. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair messy, and he stank of booze and his clothes were ruffled.

"What do you want?" he asked, too bluntly for Naoise to ignore. Naoise looked surprised.

"What's wrong with you?"

"You said you would come over yesterday. You promised, and you never did."

"Oh, Conán! I tried, I truly did. I'm so sorry. I really did try to get over here, but my mother wouldn't let me stop helping her in the house and whenever I got remotely close to the door, she would leap on me again."

"Yeah. All right."

"No, it's not. I made you a promise and I didn't keep it, and that's not all right. But I'm here now, and I'm really sorry."

Conán shrugged.

"It's no matter. You'd better get going. You leave early tomorrow, remember?"

Conán went to close the door, but Naoise put her hand out and touched his arm. She observed that he jumped slightly.

"Conán, it's nothing personal. I know what you're thinking. You're scared that I would leave you."

Conán looked up, and Naoise clearly saw the surprise in his brown eyes.

"Yeah, well," Conán muttered, shifting awkwardly.

"Conán -"

"Look, just go."

"I'm going to miss you, you know. You take care of yourself, all right? Don't get too drunk. Don't so anything stupid. Try to go to bed at a decent time –"

Conán made a strange noise. Naoise realised that he was both laughing and crying at the same time.

"You're like an auld mother hen," he said, with a watery smile to accompany it.

"Well, I want to know you're be OK. It'll only be for two weeks."

"I'll miss you too, you know," Conán sighed, and then he opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but closed it again before he spoke, frowning. Naoise looked at him worriedly.

"Conán, what's wrong?"

"I'll just miss you."

"What else? Come on, I know that look."

"It’s nothing, honestly. You … you wouldn't understand."

"I'm sure I could try."

"There's nothing you can do. I'm fine, I'm just going to have to …" Conán's voice dropped so it sounded as though he was talking to himself more than anything else. "I just have to ride it out myself … just gotta get through it by myself."

"Conán –"

"It's nothing! Look, you have a good time, yeah. I still have your number, I'll ring you or something, or you’ve got mine so yeah, whatever. Don’t get too scarred by drunken uncles, right?"

"I'll try not to."

"All right. See you."

"You will be all right, won't you?"

Conán forced a smile.

"I'll be fine," he lied. He edged the door closed slightly, to hide the body lying on his sofa. He had only killed the man half an hour ago.

"I hope so." Naoise said softly.

"Me too." Conán agreed.

There was a long and slightly awkward silence, before Naoise signalled to her right.

"I'd better go."

"Yeah."

Naoise took a step to the side, but before she could move away, Conán grabbed her, pulled her to him and kissed her. Naoise kissed him back instantly, and they stood there for quite some time, hugging and kissing one another until they finally had to accept the fact that Naoise had to go.

"I'm going to really miss you," Conán whispered to her as they gave each other a final hug. "I want you to know I really care about you, right? If I ever do anything to hurt you, I want to say sorry. You're a great girl, you're wonderful and gorgeous and I want you to know I'll always care about you, no matter what happens."

"Conán, what do you mean?" Naoise was worried. "Sure I'm coming back, it's not for forever."

"I know."

This was the closest that Conán could get to doing what he really wanted to do – to tell Naoise that once she left he knew he was going to embark on a murder spree that would either end in his arrest or destruction.

"You're not going to try and kill yourself again, are you?" Naoise asked worriedly, her green eyes bright.

"No. I'll not do anything like that."

"Please don't. Don't even think about it. Conán, it just sounds like you're planning on something like that. If you ever try to go through with it, think of me, will you?"

"I will. I won't kill myself, Naoise," Conán mumbled quietly. Thinking secretly that if he just went into his bathroom, drank a load of vodka and slit his wrists over the bath, he would probably be doing several people and their families a favour. At least with his death there would be no more murder. "Look, you had really better go. You'll get yourself into trouble."

He kissed her again and she gave him a final hug.

"I'll ring you whenever I can. If you need me, you ring me too, all right?"

"All right."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

"All right."

"I wish we could stop saying 'all right'."

"Me, too," Naoise giggled and Conán smiled.

"I'll see you soon."

"Talk sooner."

"Naoise –"

Naoise had only taken a step.

"Yes?"

"I –"

Conán faltered.

"What's wrong, Conán?"

"I just wanted you to know," Conán sighed. "I don't know if I should tell you."

"Please tell me."

"I think I could be falling in love with you."

Conán blurted the words out, and then went a furious shade of fire engine red. Naoise looked at him in amazement. She had already judged from his mannerisms and personality that caring and loving didn't come easy to Conán Connolly.

"That means a lot to me, Conán," she said softly, and he gave her a shy smile.

"I don’t expect you to feel the same way back. But I just wanted to let you know. You're the first person to ever care about me and I guess … well, I don’t know. You're just special."

Naoise smiled.

"You're not so bad yourself, Conán," she told him. "You've just … well, you've got a tough outer shell, and who can blame you? Lots of people will like you. You've just got to let them in."

Naoise's words stayed with Conán long after she had hurried back to her family. Conán stood in the living room with his bottle of vodka and looked at the dead man lying sprawled out on his sofa, one arm dangling limply to the floor and his head turned away towards the back of the sofa. Conán was glad for the body's presence. He felt desperately lonely now he knew he would be having no contact with people for the next two weeks, and now he felt emotional, tearful, even slightly rejected despite Naoise's clear affection towards him. Biting back more tears, Conán silently walked over to the sofa and sat down next to the body, wondering how many more like him there was going to be.

The drink was getting to him. He lay down. The body was still warm. Conán found it strangely comforting. In the back of his mind he knew that the evidence was going to have to be taken care of, but he didn't have the energy, not he heart, to do it right now. He couldn't do it right now, not while the body was still so important, so real, to him. Now while the empty loneliness was still ripping at him.

As Conán huddled up to the body and closed his eyes to sleep, he knew that he had finally crossed the line. Naoise hadn't even been gone half an hour, and Conán knew already that there was no turning back for him now. He was heading down a path he knew he wouldn't return from.

Conán woke up after a troubled night's sleep. He realised with shock what the cold and limp thing next to him was, and his eyes snapped open to reveal that he was curled up next to the body with his head resting under the dead man's chin. Conán sat up quickly, his heart hammering, wondering what the Hell had been going through his head. He looked down at the body, realising that the man's eyes were still open. He closed them over.

"Staring at the ceiling all night, that can’t have been interesting for you," he muttered. "Come on. You need to be taken care of."

Despite his raging hangover, Conán reached for the rest of the vodka and drank it as he got the bathroom ready for what was in store. Then, he dragged he limp body into the bathroom and set to work. The whole thing usually took him about two hours, he had realised, but this time he took a little longer. For some reason he took a little more time over his work, making cleaner cuts, knowing that he had all of the time in the world, knowing that he wouldn't get caught. He tried not to think about the fact that he was enjoying it, tried not to think about the fact that somewhere in his head he didn't want this to end, that somewhere he was enjoying the feel of it all, enjoying hearing the sound of the blood trickling down the plug hole … it was a far cry from the first time, where he had practically sobbed all the way through the whole sorry ordeal.

His movements were no longer frantic and panicked, they were slow, calculated, thought out, deliberate. Hours passed and he didn't realise, he was so caught up in what he was doing. Eventually, there was nothing left to be done apart from hiding the evidence, cleaning up, and seeing what it was saying on the news.

Conán loved to hear the stories on the news. It gave him an extra kick; another boost for when the adrenaline created by killing had gone away. All of this was going on and yet people were passing him in he street and not realising that he had now killed ten people. There were a lot of things he got happiness from now – the killing, the fear of his victims, the fear of the city, even disposing of the body was becoming enjoyable. It was the fear, however, that Conán enjoyed the most. He had felt more than his fair share of fear in his life, and he liked to get his own back. He was fed up of the fear he had lived with, not only at the hands of his mother, but of others as well …