A groan escaped her as she regained consciousness and tumbled out of the bloodstained Persian rug. Her body was weak and covered in fresh bruises as she pushed herself onto all fours and retched.
She coughed up a thick and grimy liquid – a mix of the mud forced down her throat and oxidised blood from her dislocated jaw, which restricted her movement as she struggled to open her mouth and steady her breathing.
The first thing she noticed, once she calmed down, was the pungent stench emanating from the swollen, dilapidated floorboards. As she tore at the floor with her bare hands, the body of a decapitated corpse greeted her.
Startled beyond belief, she recoiled and crawled away, her dislocated jaw hanging loose as she held it in place with her free hand. Only then did she fully take in her surroundings.
It was that apartment again. Apartment 17.
But there was no time to question how she ended up here. Before she could process anything, a cold hand seized her neck and slammed her down from behind. As she fought to break free, the person who brought her here and dislocated her jaw shoved her into a cardboard box. Folded tightly and with no room to move, she listened intently as the perpetrator sealed the box.
Then – silence.
But not for long.
A foul odour wafted towards her from within the cramped, dark space. Slowly, she turned her stiff neck and locked eyes with a young girl. Her jaw dislocated in the same way, and she… was grinning at her – as if she knew something Jamala didn’t. Then, before she knew it, the disfigured child lurched forwards in the cramped space and held her in a chokehold.
She screamed – or tried to.
The next thing she knew, upon shutting her eyes, was the steady hum of an engine running in the background. She opened her eyes, only to realise she was no longer trapped in the cardboard. She was on the move, inside a train compartment, and sharply accelerating.
Panic surged around her as passengers scrambled towards the emergency exits, desperately trying to escape the out-of-control train. Seconds later, the first impact – a massive crash from the locomotive – reached her compartment and sent her slamming against the window.
Once again, she found herself hurled out and plummeting straight into the roaring sea below. She shut her eyes. When she reopened them, she was back in the driver’s seat of her Togg, holding her phone to her ear with trembling hands as that familiar voice spoke to her from the other end of the line.
“Do you believe me now, Detective?”
“This… this is…”
“Possible. You witnessed it yourself.”
“Those people I saw, the corpse in the floorboards, the girl in the cardboard, and the passengers of that train… They were real?”
“They once were. And that girl you saw in the cardboard—”
“Hawwa Mirza.”
“What do you think happened to her?”
“I… I couldn’t see his face, I…”
“Neither did Hawwa. What she saw, what she experienced in her last moments, you did too.”
“That corpse I saw on the floor – that was you? Did your niece see you before she… passed away?”
There was no response to this. Jamala switched ears, the anxiety mounting with every passing second as her mind cleared, and she pressed on.
“When did your parents disappear, Mary?”
“I don’t know. I never met them.”
“Your brother, he… Did he do this to you, to Hawwa?”
“He’s not working alone, Detective. Even if you solve this case and prove his guilt, these murders won’t stop.”
“Then why are you telling me all this?”
“That hole…”
“What about it?”
“What did you think of it?”
“What I thought of it? I… I don’t think I understand.”
“I left a clue in the train for you. Maybe you can find it.”
“A clue – what clue? Mary? Mary!”
The line went dead.
This time, it remained silent. Not even Mike called.
She racked her brain, trying to connect the significance of the train crash to the Mirza family murder case, but nothing stood out in her slowly fading memories.
She didn’t recognise the panicked people running around her, nor the vast landscape the train passed through. Yet she was supposed to find a clue? It was madness!
As she pulled into the driveway on Street 19 and turned off the engine, she hesitated to step out of the car. A thousand thoughts clouded her mind. She needed those extra minutes to calm her nerves and put on a fake smile.
James Hopkins, her husband, planted a wet kiss on her cheek as she stepped into the hallway. His hands were loaded with savoury dishes and glasses of wine. She hung her jacket on the coat rack and set her leather bag on the floor before sitting at the round table.
“You’re late…”
“Uh, are the kids asleep?”
“Hmm. You never answered.”
She smiled as he placed the cutlery in front of her, then took a seat across from her with a wide smile. At first, she didn’t know what to say or how to explain what had happened, but she decided it was pointless to reveal the whole truth.
“Been busy. That case I mentioned the other day? It seems like it’s going to be one hell of a ride. There’s just too—”
“Oh, that case with the terrorist?”
“Terrorist?”
“Hmm. I thought I read the suspect had converted to Islam or something.”
“How does that make him a terrorist, James? I was raised in a Muslim household too, you know.”
“But you’re not a Muslim, are you? You didn’t choose your parents. That guy, on the other hand, chose to become a Muslim. Let that sink in.”
“I didn’t know you were an Islamophobe, considering you married me. How did you keep all that pent-up rage inside all these years?”
“Me marrying you isn’t the same as that fucking piece of shit. He’s a human animal; you’re not.”
“Because I chose not to live as a Muslim?” She couldn’t help but smirk as she stood up, her appetite gone. “You must be kidding me…”
“Sit down.”
“I’m tired—”
“Sit the fuck down, bitch!”
As he overturned the table, sending the dishes crashing to the floor, it was the first time she’d witnessed such delirious rage. James had never raised his voice at her, let alone acted this way. They had married after two years of dating back in ’88. He had been her instructor at the police academy, but they hadn’t got involved until after her graduation.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? What the fuck’s wrong with you!” She stepped back as he advanced towards her but quickly regained her composure and stood her ground. Her deceased father always told her to never back down or show weakness in front of a man, never to give him a reason to believe she feared him.
“Calm down and speak so I can understand. You’re gonna wake the kids up!”
“You sympathise with those fucking animals, don’t you? What? Why are you looking at me like I’ve lost it, huh? Did those Muslim genes get to your head?”
She turned her face away as he relentlessly jabbed his accusing finger at the side of her head, harder and harder with every passing second. She couldn’t grasp the cause of his sudden shift in behaviour.
How could someone hate another person or group to the point of losing all control? The man in front of her, with his bloodshot eyes, was not the person she married. This was a side of him she’d never seen before, and it terrified her.
As she grappled with these thoughts, Mary Mirza’s voice echoed in her mind. Before she knew it, she was back on the accelerating train, observing the panic rising around her for the second time.
In the chaos, a shrill scream pierced through the air, but it wasn’t a scream of panic – it was the distressed cry of a child in need of help. Through the rushing crowd running in the opposite direction, she followed the cry to an empty wagon and stopped at an occupied WC.
Seconds later, the WC door opened, and a younger version of her husband stepped out. They locked eyes for a brief moment before he shoved her aside and ran off, adjusting his belt and shirt.
When she pushed the door open and stepped inside, she met the lifeless body of a naked child, blood pooling between her exposed legs. Then, the first bang reverberated through the back wagons as the front of the train collided with something up ahead. The force hurled her against the sink, and she fractured her skull. Less than half a second later, another loud bang echoed throughout the train, and she perished.
“What? You’re crying now?”
She stared directly into his eyes as he spoke, his tone dripping with disdain.
“I didn’t know I was married to a monster… How come I never knew?”
“Monster…? You fucking lost it or what? The only monster I know is people like you – human animals who deserve no mercy or forgiveness!”
She wiped away her tears and turned her back to him. But as she did so, her husband yanked her by the hair and slammed her into the wall. Disoriented and struggling to comprehend what was happening, she barely regained her footing when he punched her to the floor and began hammering her head over and over again.
When the punches finally stopped, she found herself unable to lift her head or move her stiff neck. Blood mixed with her hair as her husband dragged her to their bedroom.
He shoved the cabinet aside, then fetched a hammer from the shed outside. With brutal efficiency, he made a thin, narrow hole in the wall. As he removed the debris, she braced herself for what she knew was coming.
He pointed the hammer at her.
The first blow landed, followed by several others that utterly mutilated her face and skull, rendering it unrecognisable. Bits of flesh from her face scattered across the floor, quickly becoming a feast for the creatures to scavenge.
As the hammer continued to break her apart, limb by limb, she remained conscious. But she felt nothing. Her vision blurred with streaks of blood from her exposed brain – or what was left of it.
He aimed the hammer at her neck next.
Then – nothing. For a while.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself trapped within the remnants of her severed body. The pieces that had once been her now lay scattered on the floor, and the broken cabinet and narrow hole in the wall served as her tomb.
Through the gap in the cabinet, she witnessed her husband, Mr Cohen and Mr Sandersson engage in a grotesque and depraved orgy. They remained indifferent to the bloodstains and pieces of flesh strewn across the floor – even relishing in the horror.
Extending her dismembered hand, her fingers twitched as she sought help, but the horrific moans soon overwhelmed her, drowning out every sound.
She then saw her youngest daughter standing in the doorway, a look of confusion and fear evident in her eyes. Desperate, she reached out to her, warning her to stay away but no words escaped her disfigured lips.
It was too late.
The monsters seized her daughter and dragged her into the bedroom, and as her husband glanced at her one final time, he closed the cabinet door with a suffocating thud.
The End.
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