BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

Someone was following her every move.

She wasn’t sure where that thought came from, but now it was in her head, it was all she could think about. Unseen eyes, tracking her feet with each step she took. They had to be watching, she guessed, so they knew she was doing it right. Watching, as she stepped away from the wall and removed the knife she had taken from its block in the kitchen. Her mum would wonder where it had gone in days to come, but would never think it was her who had removed it. She shivered again as the temperature seemed to drop further.

She could feel her heart begin to crash against her chest.

‘Hello?’

Her voice sounded alien, as if it belonged to someone else. She wanted to laugh, nervously, at the sound of it as it hit the air and died there.

There was no answer.

It didn’t stop the feeling. That something was in the increasingly small, constricting, disused yard.

The feeling of being examined.

Another shift behind her, but she was only dimly aware of it now. The suffocating silence, trying to recall the correct patterns, feeling the tears well up, believing that she was going to fail.

Believing she was going to lose.

In the darkness and silence, her heart beating madly against her chest, her breath shortening, a sudden sound snapped into it all.

A ringing noise, coming from behind her. A few feet away. She held her breath as she turned, seeing a dull illumination on the ground. She stepped towards it, bending down to pick up the mobile phone, turning it over in her hand and staring at the screen. She knew the voice would be there as soon as she answered. Comforting and chilling in equal measure.

She answered.

‘It’s the end,’ the voice said. ‘You lose.’

Then, she could hear the breath behind her. On her exposed neck, as she dropped the phone to the ground. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped.

No sound could escape.

Game over.

Three

Mark flicked through the BBC Sport app on his phone as he waited for Natasha to get dressed, leaning against the bedroom door while she scanned the room looking for something.

‘Do you need a hand?’ Mark said, glancing over at her, wishing they didn’t have jobs to go to. That they could just stay there all day – watching TV and eating food that would be classed as ‘bad for them’.

‘No, it’s okay,’ Natasha replied, her tone betraying nothing. ‘It’s here somewhere.’

Mark nodded, even as her head disappeared fully.

Natasha. He really liked that name. It had been a couple of months now, but he still enjoyed saying it out loud. They’d met through Tinder, of all places. After a few one-night stands and fizzled-out-after-a-week-or-less relationships, he’d almost given up on it.