Voice on the Wing

6: Home Sweet Home

"If you can't stop yourself, can you go slow? Give me chance to catch you up?"

"I'll try."

I'd been left home a fair while. From the road I was on, I would pass my parents' house. For the first time, I felt a pull in that direction. I'd avoided both my parents and my childhood home, the memories of sleepless nights and ineffective parents keeping me at bay. Now, my voices were pushing me towards it with a vigour I'd not encountered before. I tried to slow down but it was as if they had taken a hold of my legs and were moving them for me, against my will.

It wasn't the woods! I wasn't revisiting the scene of the first murder! I was relieved but then more anxious because of my actual destination. Even though I didn't live there anymore, it was still home, after a fashion. My formative years, as harrowing as they had been, were spent there. I'd climbed the old tree in the back garden every weekend, it seemed, partly to read and partly to hide. I'd walked to and from school. Screamed through the night. Yes. I avoided it. Occasional, too infrequent, I knew, phone calls were the majority of the contact I had with my family. Life got in the way and I let it.

And now I was going there. I rang Dave again to tell him. I wanted - needed - him to arrive either before or with me. Someone had to be there to prove I wasn't the murderer. Someone had to be there to change the reality of what I feared I might see. If another person was there, then mum and dad might still be alive. D.C. Philips would prevent their deaths purely because such madness didn't really happen in lives other than mine. Another version of reality would fade into this one so easily we wouldn't notice the seam. Mum would invite us in, make us a drink, awkwardly ask how I was and who my new friend was.

Wouldn't she?

Despite the urgency the voices were telling me was required, I was doing everything I could to hold back. I tried to close my eyes but, on opening them, found myself closer than I should have been. I wanted to sit down, but found myself crawling. I removed my belt and fastened my arm to a garden gate, but a sharp knock on the window of the house I was attaching to prompted me to remove it quickly. I was getting close. Too close. I could feel the warm touch of dread reaching out to me. If I was being pulled or pushed or dragged, it could be for only one reason.

Death.

Somehow, the warmth left a chill.

Finally, I heard the screech of tyres not inflated enough and driven too fast. D.C. Philips pulled up beside me, his foot hitting the brakes hard enough for his seatbelt to lock. His hands fumbled with it, shaking, the click a sigh of relief. He practically fell out of the vehicle and scrambled to me.

"What are they saying?" he panted.

"My parents?"

"Your parents? No. The voices. What are they telling you?"

"I... I don't know."

He frowned.

"I thought you were meant to be listening to them?"

"Hey, I've been trying to do that my whole life. What make you think I can crack it in a couple of months?"

He put his hand on my shoulder, startling me. My mind was on the house. My parents. The voices and their necessity.

"Chill," he said, his voice soothing. "I understand. I just meant... Do you have anything?"

I shook my head. "Only that I need to get to my parents. Quickly."

He was matching me for speed and we both moved faster. We were just short of a run and I was panting.

"What do you...?"

"I don't know. But I can guess. You're the policeman, what do you think?"

"I think, if you say we need to get there, that's what we need to do."

"Is there only you?" I hoped the answer was a negative but I feared the affirmative.

"We'll see what we're facing, then I'll call it in."

I thought he understood. This wasn't just another stranger, this was my parents! I supposed they were strangers to him, but still. Shouldn't it have been procedure to have back-up here or on its way? Why was he going it alone? Then I realised. That magic word - psychic. He might believe but I might be talking out of my backside. One policeman was better than none and, given the circumstances, more than I should have expected. Also, I wasn't locked up.

At that moment, part of me wished I was.

I nodded. He kept his hand on my shoulder as we neared the house. It was just as I remembered it. The same curtains in the windows and the blinds half dropped, a result of the mechanism breaking on one so they all had to be put to the same height (rather than going to the expense or bother of a repair). The grass outside in the small front garden was short and even. I realised it was fake. Well, it was one way to get out of gardening, something Dad hated.

The voices were shouting, almost. Even though they still whispered, it was an intense cascade of sound. They were... eager? Was that what I was feeling from them? They were eager for me to go inside? But, if the killer was in there, they wanted me to go to my death? No, the sudden change in tone at my thought showed me I was wrong. They needed me to hurry, but they didn't want me hurt. I felt the same.

"We need to hurry," I said quietly.

Dave nodded and slowly turned the door handle. He went to push but I put my hand on his.

"It squeaks," I said. "Just the first inch. Open it quickly and you won't hear it."

He nodded again and I could see him mentally counting to three before pushing hard and fast. We didn't have time for countdowns. We didn't have time for silently creeping either, but neither of us wanted to alert anyone inside. I felt as if my body were vibrating. The voices were playing my nerves like a tightly strung harp where, at any moment, the strings could snap and I'd fall to pieces. D.C. Philips moved first and I followed, resisting the urge to call out.

The house smelled fresh but the air was still, as if it were holding its breath, waiting for us to arrive. Well, I thought, we're here! Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Or, whatever you are...