Chapter One

       The Space Between Breaths

      When it regained consciousness, he had already glued its mouth shut.

      This excited him. It was like locking the life inside, not letting it bleed out. Usually there was some sort of leakage as something died beneath his hands – blood, breath, tears. This already felt different. He decided that he would use the glue again.

      He turned away as it started to twist and moan. The bindings were tight, and he knew that there was no chance of it working its way free. Not in the short time it had left. But for a moment he wanted to observe unseen, not meet its gaze. He liked the power this gave him.

      Circling around behind the chair, he paused to watch. Perhaps it could smell him. It could certainly hear him, because his breathing was deep and heavy, calm. But now that it could no longer see him, the panic was deeper, the desperation more divine.

      He watched for a while, coughing once, uttering a long, low whistle, excited at how these sounds affected its behaviour – a pause, and then more frantic efforts to break free.

      He glanced around the room. The house was old and abandoned, everything neat and ordered but layered with years of dust, perhaps the home of a dead person with no relatives. It was out of time, and he was confident that he would not be interrupted. The traditional life represented here by a bulky TV, a table for dinner, and family photographs, was not his life.

      Far from it.

      A loud snort drew his attention back to his victim. Blood and mucus shot from its broken nose, and then it breathed more easily.

      He closed slowly from behind, and then pounced.

      Moving with confidence, he pulled its head back against the high-backed chair, pressed the tube’s nozzle into one nostril, and squirted the superglue inside.

      Then he dropped the tube and squeezed its nose shut.

      As it squirmed and tensed, attempting to writhe from side to side against the ropes, its strength surprised him. He had to pull back hard, tipping the chair onto its two rear legs. But it didn’t take long.

      After a minute he let the chair drop back onto all fours. The impact on the hardwood floor had the sound of finality. Retrieving the tube of glue, he moved around to face it for the last time.

      Its right nostril was closed, deformed. Its eyes were wide and desperate, issuing pleas that it knew would not be answered.

      He could see that realisation in its eyes – there was no hope, and the only future remaining was the space between this breath and its last. That pleased him. Its panic was his fuel.

      Pressing its head back against the chair, he heard the sudden inhalation that would feed those final few seconds. He squirted glue into its open nostril. Squeezed the nose shut. Looked into its eyes.

      ‘Shhh,’ he said.

      But even then, he did not smile.