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  He didn't reply. Lisa's screaming continued to ring out, and I put more pressure on the pedal, not that it would go much faster, I was already doing over a hundred on the small country lane, and had passed the hospital.

  Their GPS signal showed them as just up ahead. They were still driving, perhaps aimlessly. I didn't know how long she had been in labour for, but as long as she was still screaming, as long as I could hear her pain and heavy breathing, she was alive. That was all that mattered.

  I could make out the car up ahead, and was gaining on them. Cars passing in the other lane slammed their horns as I sped by. I should have been doing twenty, maybe thirty tops on the small winding lane, but thirty wasn't going to get me to them.

  “John, you've got my fifty thousand. You can keep it...” I said. “Just let me have my wife... let me have my daughter...”

  “She's our fucking daughter.” he said.

  And then I finally understood what this was all about.

  It wasn't about the ransom or the money. It was about the baby we held out to them as a beautiful gift, then pulled back at the last moment.

  This was our punishment for second-guessing our ability as parents. For trusting the facade of a couple that now seemed not only dysfunctional, but genuinely mentally ill.

  So caught up in that thought, I didn't see the little road I was coming up to on the left. Didn't see the car driving up from the farmhouse it led to.

  I had never been in a car crash before, certainly not one whilst going at a hundred miles an hour. The frame of the car crunched around me with an ungodly scream of contorting metal, glass shattering and flying from every angle.

  The seat belt dug into my chest forcing the breath out of my lungs as I flew forward into the airbag, which cushioned my path. But every gasp was obscured by its coarse woven nylon.

  Then everything went black.

  15

  I couldn't remember how I got to the hospital.

  It was all a blur; the car speeding through the streets; the call to the Campbells. All of it gone from memory. Wiped clean by the impact. All I knew was that I was there, in the hospital. Lisa being pushed in on a stretcher. Karen and John running alongside me as the paramedics rushed her along the hallway. Any anger or vengeance I felt for them had vanished. None of it mattered. All I cared about was that the woman I loved was safe. Alive. And that our baby was going to be ok.

  The paramedics pushed her through a set of double doors that exploded open with a thud. A nurse held us back as they took her in to surgery. I watched her disappear down the corridor, the doors batting back and forth, alternately obscuring and revealing the view of her path down the hall.

  I was taken through to the waiting room, sitting impatiently as the time ticked away, seconds crawling at snails pace. Every nurse or doctor who walked by drawing my eye as I silently hoped and prayed that they would have news.

  The Campbells sat opposite me. Saying nothing at first, then spewing profuse apologies, before returning to silence. Only to go back to apologising after yet more time had spun on.

  Eventually, I was taken through to the Maternity Ward, and brought to a window. Told that the second girl from the left, the one in the incubator, was my daughter. In that moment, after years of eyes that refused to shed tears, I was finally able to cry.

  It felt like the greatest relief. All those years of dry ducts finally being set free. That beautiful girl, that perfect little creature was alive. She was ours and she was alive.

  More time passed before they would let me see Lisa. She had been in surgery for what seemed like an eternity, but was finally out. In the ITU. Recovering.

  When she woke, she asked what happened to the Campbells, and I told her that they were in the waiting room. We made the mutual decision to allow them to see our daughter, our little girl, who we had bickered over naming, but finally settled on Sophie.

  They were taken through to the nursery and I pointed Sophie out to them, allowed them to see the life they had almost snuffed out, before the police took them away.

  When she was able to be removed from the incubator, Lisa held Sophie, cradled in her arms, and I held Lisa. She looked up at me with those big blue eyes, those eyes I had loved for as long as I could remember.

  “Are you ok?” she said.

  I didn't know how to respond, the tears were still flowing. They wouldn't stop, as if a tap had been left running since I first saw my baby girl.

  “Can you hear me?” she asked. “Are you ok?”

  From somewhere, a horn was wailing, the tears continued to flow, and my hair felt wet, thick with blood.

  I lifted my head, and wasn't in the hospital.

  Wasn't holding Lisa.

  Wasn't looking down at the woman I loved, or the baby cradled in her arms.

  16

  “Can you hear me? Are you ok?” shouted a voice over the droning horn.

  I lifted my head from the airbag, blood left dripping down towards the foot well.

  “Are you alright? You were driving like a fucking maniac!”

  It was a man. Older, bearded. I saw his car over the top of the airbag, totalled from where I must have slammed into him.

  “I'm...” I said, trailing off, words lost amidst concussion. Up the road, far beyond his wreck, the Campbell's Micra was parked up.

  I grabbed the golf club from the passenger seat and tried to open the door. It was a mess of crunched metal. Pushing at it with my shoulder, I slammed myself against the damn thing until it gave way and swung out.

  “Hope you've got insurance...” the man said.

  “Yeah...” I said, taking the club out with me as I started walking down the road towards the Micra.

  “You can't walk away!” he said.

  “I'll be back.” I said. “My details are in my wallet... in my purse...” I pointed to the car without turning back, and continued to walk up the street. Their car was getting nearer with every aching footstep.

  The driver and passenger doors had been left wide open. I raised the club as I came round to the side, and saw John on his knees, hands and shirt covered in blood. He turned to me.

  “I'm sorry...” he said.

  Lisa was in the back seat, cradling a coat in her arms, shirt lifted up, belly exposed, blood soaked into her clothes and the upholstery.

  “So sor...” he said, his sentence left unfinished as the club swung at his face, taking three teeth out and spitting blood across the tarmac. I hit him again and again, until his face was a mush of blood, muscle and bone, one indistinguishable from the other. Destroying his face just as he had destroyed my life.

  “Nina....”

  I looked up to Lisa.

  She was barely conscious, and paler than I'd ever seen a person, holding the coat in her arms with every ounce of remaining strength.

  Clambering over John's body, I got into the back seat and held her.

  “Lisa!” I said, trying to find my phone in a pocket, to call an ambulance, to get her help. But I didn't have it. It was left in the dock, in the wreck of the car.

  “She's so beautiful...” Lisa said. “Our little Sophie.” she looked down at the coat. I took it from her, trying to gently support the newborn's head. It was light. Too light. The coat unfurled, rolled out towards the ground, empty.

  “Oh Lisa...” I said, holding her.

  I wanted so bad to go back to the car. To get the phone. But I couldn't bring myself to leave her. Holding her close, I felt her fragile, weak breath on my neck. Until I didn't any more.

  I shook her, begged for more breath, and somewhere deep in the back of my mind, a dam was opened. Tears flooding out, more tears than I ever imagined possible.

  Getting out of the car, I looked around for signs of Karen, evidence of where she might have taken our daughter. A trail of blood speckled the road, leading up towards a path to another farmhouse. I grabbed the golf club in my hand, a sludge of blood and brain dripping onto the ground, tracing my path away from the car.

 
Coming to the door, I banged my fist against it. “Karen? Are you in there?”

  There was no response.

  I looked through the window and saw an older woman, terrified, holding a phone to her face with shaking hands. The police would take their time getting out this far, and even then, they weren't going to bring the kind of justice and bloody fucking vengeance I wanted to enact.

  Going back to the front of the house, I used the club to smash the window, reaching in and unlocking the door.

  “I've called the police!” said the woman, cowering from me.

  I caught my reflection in a mirror behind her. My own blood trickling down my face, John and Lisa's blood on my arms and legs, spattered across my clothes. “I'm not here for you.” I said. “Where is she?”

  She was harbouring Karen, and I knew it. The mentally disturbed woman must have come to the door, covered in blood, holding a baby, proclaiming it as hers, telling the story of a mad woman was chasing her down. And I looked like a fucking mad woman, but I didn't care. All that mattered was getting my little girl back.

  The old woman pointed to the stairs. I followed them up to the landing, where I could hear a running tap accompanied by Karen singing a tuneless rendition of a nursery rhyme. “Itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout...”

  I tried to take slow, quiet steps towards the sound of her voice.

  “Down came the rain, washed the spider out...”

  Closing in on the room, I could see a bath through the open door. A mirror behind it was pointing towards the sink, where Karen had placed our baby, our Sophie, and was washing the blood from her.

  “Out came the sun, and dried up all the rain...”

  I raised the golf club, watching the mirror, waiting for Karen to step away from my little girl.

  “Itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again!”

  She turned the tap off and reached for a towel, drying her hands. I came round the corner, club raised, ready to strike.

  “Step away from my baby.” I said.

  “She's my baby!” Karen said, stepping back towards the sink as I swung the club at her, warning her to keep back.

  “You fucking mental!” I shouted. “You know she's not...”

  “You didn't want her!” she screamed, tears in her eyes. “You don't love her, you don't want her, you were going to give her to me, It was a promise! You can't take back a promise!” she tried to step towards the sink as Sophie started crying. I waved the club aloft to keep her back. “You're not fit to be a mother!” she said, “Threatening me like this! What kind of woman are you? Think you're going to bring up my beautiful girl as a fucking dyke?!”

  The anger surged through my body.

  Every memory of Lisa standing up to homophobes, every time my father vocalised his disapproval of my 'lifestyle', every fucker that ever looked at us funny, called us names. And this couple, who tore our beautiful, perfect family apart.

  The anger took over, autopilot operating through a sea of tears, slamming the club forwards into Karen's gut, throwing her to the floor, winded. She looked up at me with glassy eyes, and in her face I saw everyone I ever hated, bringing the club down over and over on those faces, destroying every bigot I had every come across.

  The police didn't come. At least not while I was in the house. I walked out of the bathroom, with Sophie in my arms. Down the stairs, out the house, down the path. It was as silent as the street we lived on. I couldn't even hear the gravel under my feet. Just the soft, gentle breath of our beautiful daughter.

  I left the golf club on the tiled floor, viscera and blood pooling underneath it. The room itself was in need of a good clean, with a lot of bleach, perhaps a repaint.

  The sun was setting as I made my way back down the path, out on to the road towards the Micra. Its lights still on, the horn of the other car still wailing further down the road. I stepped over the pool of red sludge that used to be John's head, and got into the back seat as sirens cried far off in the distance, flashing blue lights coming towards us from Enfield, finally answering the old woman's call.

  I curled up to Lisa. Took her arms and put them around our little girl, our Sophie, and held them both tighter than I'd ever held anyone or anything before.

  About ABAM.INFO

  ABAM, or 'A Book A Month', is a terrible experiment to see how long a former screenwriter can produce an original novella every month (along with companion audiobook) before he goes insane.

  Alternating between dramatic and comedic prose, the books will be released in print, audio and eBook on the first Monday of every month.

  If you've enjoyed this book in any capacity, do please review it on Amazon and Goodreads – I read them all and will no doubt veer towards writing more of what you like.

  Please visit the links below for more information about forthcoming releases, and free stuff.

  Amazon.com/author/leeisserow

  Facebook.com/ABAM.info

  http://ABAM.info

  Thank you kindly for being an observer to my mental deterioration.

  About The Author

  Lee Isserow is an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker, with over fifteen years spent trawling the back streets and dark alleys of the entertainment industry.

  He's pretty sure he has some traits of autism, because he's been constantly working and obscenely prolific for the entire duration, writing over a hundred screenplays, many of which he's adapting into forthcoming ABAMs, because very few people are willing to turn them into movies. For now.

  He lives in Liverpool, England because he accidentally bought a house there. He's not quite sure how that happened – but assumes part of that is because he used to drink a lot.

  If you'd like to watch the pretty things he makes, you may find them at LeeIsserow.com.

  You may also interact, call him names, and read his awful jokes and observations on Twitter; @Lee_Isserow.

  Other Books By The Author

  @

  At 21, Cassie’s life sucks. So on a whim, she starts farming her decisions out to Twitter.

  Before she knows it, the lives of her family and friends hang in the balance, and she’s racing against the clock to discover who’s pulling her strings.

  Dead City

  Jon Gilligan is the only living man in a city of the undead.

  He narrates his daily routine in the style of a noir detective, casting himself as a hero to all those around him.

  When he stumbles on to a conspiracy, it's time for him to be a hero for real, break out of the city and his noir fantasy to save London's Dead City from itself.

  NLI-10

  Ten years ago, the company killed her parents, now Sarah is going to take them down from the inside.

  She joins one of their clinical trials, certain that it will lead to uncovering evidence.

  But as the trial gets underway, she and the other subjects realise that it's changing them, programming them, installing false memories and taking away their emotions.

  If they don't do something about it before their tenure ends, they might not be human much longer.

  *FREE* NLI-10 prequel: The Whistle

  Inspired by a series of whistle-blowers over the last few years, Scott and Jennifer decide the work they've been doing for their nefarious employers needs to be brought into the light.

  But the company is far more prepared, and willing to go further than either of them could have ever expected, to make sure the whistle stays silent.

  I Hate Time Travellers

  Five years ago, everyone became a time traveller. Everyone but Luke, who now lives in a world where practical jokes are up 60,000%, his roommate insists on having 12-self orgies in front of him, and every potential girlfriend has dumped him for stuff he hasn't done yet.

  Luke suddenly finds himself on the run from a government agency with the intention of slicing him up for experimentation.

  No wonder he hates time travellers...

  Footage

  In a city of ten million, under
glass eyes of six million cameras, one man evades their networked stares, and watches those who are watched.

  But he’s is starting to see more, and fate is bringing other observers into his life, teaching him how to push his skills further, see beyond the present. But he’s also hearing voices, thinks he’s being followed, surveilled, and has no idea how much – if any of it – is real.

  All he knows, is that if he wants answers, he has to keep watching.

  *FREE* Footage prequel: Testing Ground

  Skelmersdale has always been a testing ground for pilot schemes.

  Nathaniel Myra innocently visits to investigate how the latest trial is going, but discovers that all is not as it seems in the quiet, dull town...

  Simon & Emily Are Going To Hell

  Simon & Emily are in love. They’re also damned to hell.

  It’s complicated, but trust me, as your narrator, I’ll walk you through the details.

  In this tome you’ll find Faustian deals, sex, expletives, comedy, tragedy, expletives, comedy, horror, comedy and expletives. And it’s funny, did I mention it’s funny?

  Also, the world ends and the heroes go to hell.*

  *Spoiler alert.

  E.N.D.A.Y.S.

  There are a billion realities out there, each protected by Jump Division, an interdimensional task force dedicated to preserving the stability of the grid.

  However, not all agents are created equal. Some, are just arseholes.

  Marcus Hayes is one such arsehole.