Derek sat down in his armchair and wondered what time in the evening it was. The handle of the bloody knife was sticking to the palm of his ruddy hand, and he noted calmly that the coagulation showed an hour had passed since he’d sliced Sandra’s throat. She lay sprawled before him, her leg bent and her hand still touching the controller. The dry, stilted air around him parched his throat, and he reached for the whiskey. It was around fifty centimetres above the ground, stuck above the shattered glass coffee table Sandra had fallen through. He picked it up with his free hand and took a sip. It tasted of whiskey, that was unsurprising, but they hadn’t quite managed the peaty flavour. Moments passed as he swilled it in his hand. The knife wasn’t heavy, but it looked like it should be.
Sirens; less than half a mile. He had a minute, maybe less. Unhurriedly, he gulped the rest of the whiskey and stored it, getting up from the armchair. His leather shoes crunched on the cubed shards of glass as he moved across the brown carpet. He decided he hated brown. He entered the kitchen. It was a non-colour, Derek thought, passing the curry boiling on the hob. On the counter was the briefcase with his notes. Putting the knife down, he leafed through, printing dark splotches of blood on the thin paper. His fingers sticky, he struggled to pick the pages apart. He chuckled to himself when he nearly licked his thumb for better purchase. Instead, he moved the briefcase to one side and splayed the pages across the counter. He found the code he was looking for. Stepping back, he jumped twice, threw the knife, then he quickly followed that with a roll across the floor and a turn to the left.
The sirens were blaring outside, and Derek could see the flashing blue and red lights of the police. Moving over to the oven, he brushed the pot to one side, spilling the red curry and exposing the flame beneath. Without hesitation, he plunged both hands into the flame. The blood laced across his fingers fizzed and carbonised. Derek withdrew them and clenched his hand into a fist, popping off the black dust that had remained.
There was a violent crash as the front door fell in. Derek peeped around the corner, looking into the living room where Sandra lay dead. A stream of heavily armed police officers trampled across the room, their pistols drawn. Pistols, just pistols, Derek thought. They fanned out. Two thudded upstairs while three remained. One of them knelt by Sandra and tipped her head to get a better look. He saw the cut, sharp and raw, and shook his head.
Derek emerged from his hiding spot. The three officers shouted at him. The usual commands to obey and prostrate himself before them. He didn’t bother listening. Instead, he walked toward them. They fired their pistols. He continued. They kept firing, the noise deafening in the enclosed space. He smelt cordite waft over him. They wavered, then retreated to the front door, their faces fixed in aggressive scowls. The two officers upstairs flew down the stairs to see what was happening, but one tripped and tumbled down, hitting the wall at the bottom with a sickening crack. Derek laughed in disbelief.
He moved forward until he stumbled, his foot stuck. He looked down as they reloaded and saw that his left foot had gone. That was strange, he mused. He knelt down as another officer stepped closer and fired all six shots into Derek’s back. The foot hadn’t gone. He could see glimpses of it emerging through the brown carpet. He tugged it up, but it wouldn’t move. Derek frowned. Another police officer, a tubby one, tackled him to the ground. Then the room spun too quickly to make sense of any direction. The tubby officer’s body stretched and contorted in horrific ways. His thin limbs striking through the floor in narrow lines that whipped other objects about the room. The body bounced around, his extremities now flailing around with such speed that it became a blur to Derek.
Then Derek fell. Or, perhaps, he thought, the world above him was ascending. He looked up and saw Sandra’s corpse from below quickly rise. The tubby officer’s thrashing body disappeared through a wall, as the other agents above tried in vain to shoot Derek through the translucent floor.
He sighed, wondering what time in the evening it was. He was getting hungry. Another go; he thought.
Sandra stood in front of him, shouting. Waggling the controller in his face, her expression grave. Derek looked back with apathy, hoping this time his choice would be the right one.