AWAKE

Synopsis

Kate Dalton works as a retail attendant at the busiest Easy Buy Supermarket in the state. That is about the most interesting thing she can think to tell people when they ask about her. Luckily, Kate and Max live in solitude up in the mountains of Southern Tasmania and questions such as these are both limited and infrequent.

As Kate’s exploration into psychological help grows increasingly troubling and taxing on both her sleep and her relationship with Max, secrets are revealed and revelations are made.

Paranoid thoughts become alarming realities. Someone is watching, someone is waiting and someone wants Kate dead.

 

PROLOGUE

After numerous attempts to ease her mind, Kate Dalton lay motionlessly awake in her king bed; the deafening silence only interrupted by the pounding heartbeat she could both feel and hear in the ear she lay her head on. In the week previous, her psychologist had explained that people can have different responses to stress; fight, flight or freeze. This was a connecting of dots moment for Kate as she drew back on deep memories buried inside her childhood of nights spent soberly awake and paralysed in fear. Kate was new to therapy and she desperately wanted her psychologist to like her; to accept her. Often times she spent her sessions in that dimly lit room, surrounded by alphabetic blocks assembled to spell things like “freedom” and “peace”, making sure it wasn’t all about herself. Kate often countered the psychologist’s questions with interest and inquisitions into the life of the psychologist. The psychologist of course had a name, Tamera. Not pronounced as Kate would have preferred and that of which was familiar to her but pronounced as it was spelt. Tam-er-a. She never knew of anyone with that name before and Kate lived in constant fear of not saying it properly. In order to avoid this, she simply referred to her as “The Psychologist”.  

                In her appointments with The Psychologist, Kate observed the nature of Tamera and was inspired by her calm and collected manner. Often she imagined challenging the cool and unreactive reception of The Psychologist by saying something absurdly grotesque like “I fucked myself with a wooden cross during church service on Sunday…”. The Psychologist, she assumed, would welcome the outburst with a cool expression and a simple retort of “Wow, you must have been really brave to do such a thing…”.

                In reality Kate hadn’t been too transparent with The Psychologist since the first time they met as she had a deep seeded fear of people being able to look inside. What might happen if they knew? What would she be diagnosed with if she was really honest about what went on inside the inner workings of her mind? A flash of her mother arrives just in time to remind her that feelings are not something she should be talking about, moreover not something that she is sure even exists. Go for a walk, go outside, maybe if she exercised more she wouldn’t feel like this. When she closed her eyes and thought of her mother she often saw a dust pan and brush unattended but magically sweeping dust under a rug.

                With that, Kate brings herself back to the present. She hears the overhead fan expressing the frequent creaking that is associated with being on too high of a setting. Kate rolls her half closed eyes with the realisation that she will have to get up and turn it down. She urges her hot frozen body to move by wiggling her toes and clenching her hands. Max, who lies sleeping next to her, will no doubt groan when she stirs but it is a necessary evil that she must face. She confronts the dark spaces within the room and muses that the darkness is complete and closing in on her. Eyes open or eyes shut, an encompassing black obis is all she sees.

                After an awkward confrontation with the fan switch that makes Kate wonder just how Ray Charles not only functioned day to day but rose to success, she washes her face in the bathroom vanity; a suggestion The Psychologist made when in these exact moments of dread. The lingering feeling that someone is behind her and watching her looming in her mind the entire way. Five small steps to the ensuite and five small steps back to her bed is all it takes but each step forward adds to the mounting trepidation she is faced with. She is convinced that someone is there, someone is watching and someone wants her dead.

 

Chapter One

1

4pm finally ticked over on the first Thursday of October.

“Ok guys, that’s me. I’ll see you on Sunday, I’ve got the next two days off.” Kate says as she offers up a small wave and a smile to the other workers unloading a pallet of stock.

                “Right, we’ll see you tomorrow then!” Mel counters and the rest chime in with a laugh.

                It was true that Kate had been called into work almost every day off she had had in the last month. She found saying no to people an extremely difficult task and once on the receiving end to those fateful calls that always began with a generic “Sorry to bother you on your day off but….”, it was a losing battle.

                Not saying no to the extra work came at the expense of her body. Grocery stores were generally a circus to work for and to add to this the Easy Buy in which Kate worked was the busiest in the state, not because it was in a populated area but because it serviced a far expanding area.

                Mel’s retort was heard but it was also felt with a pang in Kate’s right shoulder. She couldn’t help but think it was her body’s consciousness begging for it not to be true. She needed to rest. Kate was inwardly reminded of the saying ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ and she noted to herself that she wouldn’t subject even a camel to the abuse her body has faced in this job. With that, she collected herself and headed out to the staffroom to collect her bag.

                 Two messages greeted Kate upon checking her phone.

                Max: I’m parked by the trolley stand.

                Telstra: Hi Kate, a reminder that your Telstra bill is due soon.

                Placing her phone back into her bag and heading out to the car park she marvelled at how quickly the last month had gone by and how unfortunate it was she was due to pay another $150 for making not a single call in the last four weeks.

                As Kate braced the bitter cold that awaited her outside the store, her eyes searched the awaiting cars around the trolley bay to her left hand side. After spotting the white Mitsubishi Outlander she made her way over, looking into the windscreen yet only being able to see the reflection of the shopping centre. Although blinded by the reflection, she was sure Max would be excitedly waving with a welcoming smile on his face so she offered up a hand as she drew closer to the car. 

                “Heya Bubs!” he greets Kate as she settles into the passenger seat, embracing her with a warm smile and kiss planted gently on her cheek. Then begins their drive through the mountains on the well anticipated drive home from work.

 

2

It was early September in Woodstock, in the southernmost region of the southernmost state of the country. Snow laced the mountain ranges around Kate’s house and smoke billowed from all two of the neighbouring houses in the ten square kilometres her suburb encompassed. After two years of inhabiting the area, Max was growing confident in his fire starting skills and often referred to himself as “Fire Boy”. Their house was something you would not be hard pressed to find on the cover of an architectural magazine and Kate often found their elaborate home both unnecessary and lonely. German leather couches lay resting on polished timber flooring alongside a standalone fireplace in the living room. A whiskey bar (set up to entertain guests’ years ago, yet never been used apart from when Kate needed to entertain herself) sat in the corner of the room with Waterford crystal glasses and decanters from the century previous.  The house had every bell and whistle a tech enthusiast would dream of including sensor lights in every room and mood lighting throughout. Both the living area and bedrooms had panoramic windows displaying the rolling mountain ranges and valley below where the house sat. Kate often thought the kitchen area would have been space enough for herself and Max to live in and felt a pang of guilt when she dared open the doors to the four spare bedrooms within her home. With each new area Kate and Max moved to Kate was always excited by the idea of nesting, entertaining and meeting people she could invite into her life. In reality, her crippling anxiety and fear of rejection made it impossible for her to be vulnerable for long enough to make plans with people she had met, let alone make friends. Kate told herself that people would not like to be close to her as she had nothing interesting to offer and she was ultimately probably too boring to form close relations with the people she encountered each day in her community and at work. It was true that Kate had only experienced the comfort of friendship with one person her entire life; Jessica Bramish. Jessica and Kate found solace in each other during their years through schooling. A relationship built on mutual shyness and passion for animals. Both Kate and Jessica often felt that the loneliness of being an outcast and the shame in being bullied by the more confident students was bearable because they had each other. In the 10 years since graduating high-school they had lived in separate states. Being that they both hated the confrontation of phone calls and organised gatherings they had become more like pen pals via text, both of them quite happy and comfortable with that type of exchange. So alas, Kate’s elaborate house with its elaborate furnishings went untouched and unseen by the eyes of those belonging to anyone other than Max or Kate herself.

 

3

Kate found the idea of taking a bath both counterproductive (being that the water you sit in is ultimately contaminated by the exact filth you are trying to rid your body of, a point her mother raised to her at five years old.) and an extremely selfish waste of water. However, her back ached so badly that she was willing to throw those thoughts aside and soak herself in a magnesium salted bath, after returning home from work.

                The huge bathroom billowed with steam as Kate lay face up in the deep bath. She could hear Max in the kitchen banging every draw and every dish as he attempted to make dinner. Thank God, Kate thought, he enjoyed cooking. She would not have had the energy to throw something in the microwave tonight, let alone prepare a cooked meal for the two of them.

                As Kate shimmied her head down the edge of the bath and closer to the water she was greeted by the familiar intruding thought of someone standing over her. She practised a strategy that The Psychologist had given her to simply cut the bad thoughts off as they arose and replace them with something positive. In doing this she challenged herself to submerge her head below the water, knowing that the deafening silence and darkness of being underneath the surface of the water was something that terrified her.

                Kate, of course, was above all of this. She knew it was just her subconscious trying to play tricks on her. She knew she was safe. She was home. Max was just in the next room.

                Holding her nose, Kate slowly sank into the water, submerging her face. In the dark silence she noted how her ears could hear the water overtaking them. She lay still and focussed on the weightless feeling of her body in the tub. A quick flash appearing in her conscious. A dark figure leaning over her in the bath, holding her down, trapping her in the submergence of her bath. The figure has huge eyes, almost completely white, and an upturned smile that makes its way up it’s face all the way to its ears in a crescent moon shape.

                Kate tries to push herself forward but she is frozen in fear. Air starts to escape out of her mouth creating jet like bubbles from below the surface of the water. She thinks she could drown here, paralysed by her own mind.  

                Suddenly, a force reifs her out of the water. Deep gasps are taken by Kate who feels breathless and in shock. She screams. Her eyes are filled with bath water and she desperately wipes at her face to gain clarity.

Max is kneeling by the bathtub, eyes wide and a concerned expression painted across his face. “Kate! Kate, it’s me. It’s me. Are you alright?”

Small sobs escape Kate. “I don’t know what happened.” It comes out as a whisper.

“I came by to see how much longer you needed before dinner and heard thrashing. I looked in and your eyes were wide open… It looked like you were trying to drown yourself.  Kate, what were you doing?” Max says and hopes it doesn’t come as an accusation.

“I think I was having a panic attack… Fuck.” She is shaking. “Can you pass me my towel, I need to get out.”

Max goes to the heated towel rack and retrieves the huge grey towel. Kate stands up slowly, as to not make herself dizzy and stands in the bath as Max wraps the towel around her shoulders embracing her in a hug as she gets wrapped into, what Kate briefly imagines, is a towel straight jacket. He kisses her forehead and rests his cheek beside hers.

“Let’s get you warm Bub. We will have dinner and get into bed.” He offers. A million things are running through Max’s mind. What is at the forefront is the image of Kate’s shocked face, green eyes wide and mouth open, submerged underneath the bath water.

4

Kate’s sleep is deep that night. Vivid images fading in and out of her sleeping consciousness. Dark figures, upturned grins, huge cartoonish white eyes - someone chasing her.

 

 

Chapter 2

1

Max makes his way from his car to the back door of the building in which he operates his business. At six foot and three inches with wide shoulders and a body that suggests not only does he enjoy the gym but he enjoys food, it seems bizarre that he is looking over his shoulder and wondering whether he locked the car. He presses the lock button once more to make sure before he unlocks the back door to Eternal Peace and enters.  

                Upon entering he switches the lights on to the right of the door which lights the entire floor. Taking his coat off and extending his arms to hang it, he catches his reflexion in mirror that hangs in the entry room by the coat stand. At thirty nine years old Max is traditionally good looking, perhaps even more so than he was in his twenties. People were often shocked to hear that Max was over ten years Kate’s senior, as age had been incredibly kind to him. Fitting the tall, dark and handsome description to a tee, freckles lace his nose and pan out underneath his hazel eyes. The brown of his freckles matching his thick hair and short, well-kept facial hair. He notices the dark shadows below his red tired eyes and thinks back to the night before. Kate was more restless than usual in her sleep and being that Max is an extremely light sleeper it made it impossible to get periods of longer than twenty minutes of sleep. He always refused to leave her alone in their bed to find respite in one of the four spare bedrooms they had because he hated to think of her waking in a panic to find herself alone. A bigger sigh than anticipated leaves his mouth as Max runs his hand through his thick hair thinking simultaneously that he needs to wash his face and that he is due for a haircut.

                Max walks through the hallway and into the front area of the shop, enjoying the moments of peace before Joanne, his receptionist, arrives. Joanne is in her sixties and has proven to be a wealth of knowledge, precision and empathy; attributes that make her a great candidate in her chosen profession. Max can appreciate this and expresses his appreciation quite frequently to Joanne but often times prefers to be down stairs and away from the constant chatter and prying questions that a woman in the second half of her life feels both confident and finds appropriate to ask. Joanne is constantly concerned about the meals in which Kate is preparing for Max at home and whether they are both nutritionally rich and portion heavy. A man, after all, at his age and with his workload needs to be looked after correctly.

                Max minimises the “Four Foods That Will Help Battle Alzheimer’s Disease” article that first appears on Joanne’s computer screen and skims over Joanne’s emails making sure there were no urgent matters to attend to overnight. His phone hadn’t rang at all since leaving Eternal Peace at 6pm the day before so he was not surprised to find no pressing matters at hand that morning. At this, Max exits the front reception area and heads back into the hallway opening the first door on the right. Using his flash torch on his IPhone he lights up the staircase down to the basement and makes his way into his workshop.

                Four corpses to embalm; a slow day. He would fill in the time by doing a thorough clean of his utensils, placing an online order for makeup and deep cleaning the cremating chamber. A mortician’s job is never done, he thinks to himself as he looks over to 3x6 rows of stainless steel draws.

 

2

By 10AM on Friday morning it had become apparent that an extremely premature Christmas Miracle has reared its’ head; Kate had not been called into work. Rejoicing in the much needed respite from Easy Buy, Kate busied herself with the work she had been unintentionally neglecting around the house in the weeks previous. Max was at work, the perfect opportunity for Kate to get any form of housework done.

                As Kate moved from room to room with a cloth, cleaning spray and a duster she lost herself in the familiar routine of cleaning. Her mind wandered loosely covering an array of subjects. She wondered what she might make for dinner that night and whether Joanne had been grilling Max about what had been on the menu in his home lately. As she made her way into the spare room that had become Max’s office in the last year since he had purchased Eternal Peace off of the elderly couple that had owned and operated it since the 80’s, her thoughts had drifted to a conversation she had overheard between Mel and a woman from the Frozen Food section at work that week.

                Mel, being a larger than life character and not the least bit of a prude, was discussing her son’s new girlfriend. “Look, she’s not terrible but she definitely gives off ‘town bike’ vibes to me! Every time she comes over its straight to the bedroom. No “Hello Mrs White” or “Thanks for having me Mel!” Logan says she’s just shy, says she’s got no mates… I tell you what, one things I’ve learnt in my time Heather is never trust a girl with no friends!”

                Kate feels a pang of what? Worry? Concern? Sadness? Was Kate not to be trusted? Kate had Jessica after all, that must count for something. As she looked back on her life it was true that she had always been a sort of loner. In her early years she had her mother. Christine Dalton, a hard working single mother whose husband hung himself the day of Kate’s fourth birthday. Christine’s entire personality seemed to revolve completely around the fact that she was a hard working woman raising a fatherless child. Kate’s fondest memory of her mother was one vivid evening when Kate must have been around five. Christine had returned from the local golf club after a night out with her nursing colleagues and was merrier than Kate had ever seen her. Christine picked Kate up off the floor by the TV and placed her up on the kitchen bench. “Do you need anything darling? Do you want mummy to make you some toast? We can’t have you going to sleep on an empty stomach.” They smiled at each other and Christine hugged Kate. Kate relived that moment over and over as she grew older. Replaying it like an old favourite Disney movie. Never growing sick of the memory.

                Something shocks Kate back to the present moment. A striking pain is felt in her right hand followed by a cold wet sensation. Her right hand is clenched around something and as she opens her palm she looks down to find a shining metal scalpel in her hand. Blood oozes from the incision in her palm and Kate gasps.

                “Fuck.” The scalpel drops to the floor and Kate runs to the kitchen sink, leaving a trail of blood from Max’s office throughout the house. Lucky its’ cleaning day, Kate thinks.

 

3

“What the fuck was a scalpel doing in your office?” Kate’s usually placid tone coming through the phone like a sharp accusation.

                “What?” Max, placing his half eaten sandwich back on its’ plate, is caught off guard.

                “I was cleaning in your office and cut myself on a scalpel in there? I didn’t realise you were bringing work home with you these days?” Kate is flustered and Max thinks he can hear a small sob through the line as she says ‘home’.

                “Oh bub, are you alright? Is the cut bad?” He is genuinely worried. His knuckles whitening around his grip of the office phone.

                “No its fine, it’s small. The bleeding stopped after a few minutes. I just… Max you know how sensitive I am to your profession. The whole thing has given me the creeps.” Kate feels bad for being angry.

                “I’m so sorry, I know. I stupidly had left the scalpel in my pocket last week and hadn’t realised till I had gotten home that night. I’ve been meaning to bring it back into work with me… I guess… I guess I just forgot…” Max is defeated and frustrated he’d forgotten about the small metal object.

                “… No its okay. I’m just a bit of a mess at the moment. I’m sorry. It’s fine. I have, however, just left it on the carpet in your office. I can’t bring myself to go back in there today.” Kate says from the kitchen as she looks over the trail of blood down the hallway stopping at the door to Max’s office.

                “That’s fine darling. Look, I am going to try and come home early. Work is dead today. No pun intended.” He hopes the joke will relieve some of the tension in Kate’s voice.

                “Not funny but nice try. Yes, that would be great. I love you.”

                “I love you, I’ll see you soon bub.”

                Max’s caramel voice is gone and Kate lingers a while longer in the kitchen visions of dead bodies and the smell of formaldehyde in her mind.

 

4

Upon placing the phone back on the receiver in the basement of Eternal Peace, Max’s thoughts are interrupted by a loud sounding release of air. Sounds like Mr Ellis has finally let go of that last bit of gas he thinks.

                Walking over to the stainless-steel bench, Max concludes that what is left of his egg and lettuce sandwich will remain uneaten. Joanne herself, desensitised to the funeral industry after years of experience on the job, could never understand how Max managed to keep an appetite in that room. Perhaps, she often supposed, Max was just too embarrassed to brace the small lunch room upstairs armed with whatever Kate had decided to throw in the lunch bag that morning. Joanne never pressed the issue. She did however, bring lunch to work for Max each day. Just in case.

                Mr Ellis’s body lay cold, rigid and no longer ballooned on Max’s work table. At age seventy five, he had done extremely well to maintain a full head of grey hair and a luscious John Oates style moustache. Another old chap lost to a lawn mowing session, Max thinks as he places the cavity injector into the small incision in Mr Ellis’s abdomen. Once secured, Max switches the pump on and watches as the embalming fluid makes its way up through the tubes and into Mr Ellis’s body.

                It was true that Max had treated the bodies of over twenty corpses that had perished in lawn mower related incidents. Being that he had only been in the funeral industry for five years, he found the numbers astounding. He was never able to get an exact figure of how many Australian deaths it accounted for but after a few minutes of some Googling research early in his career, he knew lawn mowers were responsible for 35, 000 deaths in the US each year.

                “I’ll finish you off tomorrow morning you old bastard and then you’ll be in the hands of Joanne. Whatever you do, don’t eat her meatloaf.” Max’s attempt of a joke falling on deaf ears. He lines up the wheel table Mr Ellis lay on with the extended mortuary fridge drawer and slides him over pulling the body bag across towards him. Zipping up the body bag, Max gets one last look at Mr Ellis’s face.

                “It’s a shame we didn’t meet sooner…” He says and with this he shuts the draw, places his half uneaten sandwich along with his latex gloves in the bin and heads up the stairs.

 

5

“Joanne, I’m going to take this rare opportunity and go home early. Not much going on down there today and with any luck I can get through till tomorrow without a phone call. Pray to the God’s of death and ask them to hold off over night on the whole Grim Reaper shit.” Max flashes one of his award winning smiles at Joanne, who counters with a flush of red in her cheeks and a giggle that would make a school girl cringe.

                “Yes honey, absolutely fine by me! You truly do deserve it. I myself only have a couple of consultations to attend to and a little bit of admin so don’t you even stress darling.” If it was a cartoon, Joanne’s eyes would be in the shape of a love heart whilst she looks up from her desk at Max.

                “Thank you Joanne. Honestly the place would fall apart without you. Has Cathy Wheelhouse given you a bit of a break today at least?” A smirk on Max’s face as he reads Joanne.

                “Oh god, don’t remind me! Haven’t heard from her in about a week and let me tell you, I am thoroughly enjoying it.” Joanne says, rolling her eyes.

                Cathy Wheelhouse is what a modern day psychiatrist would label as having thanatophobia within five minutes of meeting her. Along with OCD and General Anxiety Disorder, Cathy had her coffin, funeral, burial and family bereavement matters organised to be executed with finesse. Mrs Wheelhouse got in contact with Eternal Peace over ten years ago and insisted with checking in weekly to ensure the plans were both well stipulated and remembered by Max and Joanne. The sale of the business to Max over twelve months ago was felt most by Cathy and she was not about to let a “rookie” ruin the well-oiled machine that was her death plan.

                “I feel for the lady, I can even kind of understand. Losing her husband so early and then the kids all moving to the mainland. Poor woman has some serious abandonment issues… Anyway Jo, I’m off. Of course, call me if you need anything okay?” Max gives one more of his dazzling smiles to Joanne and exits Eternal Peace.