Sleepless (Shourtney Story)

This Guy?

Clang.

The sound of metal against metal. Deep. Resounding.

Clang.

The sound again. Louder. Closer.

Clang.

For a moment, Courtney looked into the dark orange fuzz of her closed eyelids, a slow shadow passing across them.

Clang.

This one was longer, echoing round the edges of her throbbing skull.

God, it was throbbing.

In the haze of waking up, Courtney instinctively reached to pat the radiating pain on her temple and found her movement impeded. The sharp burn of rope circling her wrists.

Clang.

Her eyes snapped open as she fully came to, blood rushing to her chest and fingers, and fell immediately upon the face only centimetres from her own.

"Courtney."

Harry's once beautiful, now terrifying brown eyes bored into her own. A lamp swung gently above his head, as though it had been knocked, sweeping a strange glow across his face.

For a few odd moments, Courtney felt herself detach from her body. It was like her conscience had risen up above the two and was looking down at them.

This wasn't her, here, right now.

This was some other woman's life.

This was a thriller she and Shayne had scrolled mindlessly through Netflix for. The gentle tapping she heard was the popcorn expanding in the microwave and the heat was a warm blanket he had pulled over their legs.

She was safe.

Until, she floated back down into her body and the popcorn in the microwave was the man before her tapping a steel rod against concrete.

Fear, only fear, for what felt like a lifetime.

Harry moved closer to her and the swinging light slowed almost to a halt.

"Courtney Miller."

Her name sounded wrong as it twisted and curdled over his tongue.

Harry, if that was actually his name, was smiling, almost joyfully. He seemed pleased with himself.

"Here you are!" He said, his pupils almost pulsing, drifting down and boring into the curves of her lips.

"Look..."

Tap. He cracked the rod against the floor next to her.

"At..."

Tap.

"Us."

A moment of instinct. Shayne's voice quietly pressing at the back of her mind. Pulling at the ropes around her wrists, testing their tautness.
Impossibly tight.

In a terrifying instant, as though he'd seen right through her torso and watched the gentle tug of her thumb against the binding, Harry flew backwards and tossed the steel rod aside.
It tumbled noisily across the floor and into the far left wall, rattling to a halt at the base of a pitch black flight of stairs.

Instead of murderous villainy, she watched as Harry let out a gentle screech of excitement and wiped thick beads of sweat from his forehead.

"Don't fuck this up, dude." He was whispering, leaning awkwardly into his own shoulder, still staring right into her.