Last Days by Adam Nevill

susceptible to. And on her instruction, The Seven used that information to accuse us of dissent. In the sessions.
    To weed people out. And they always seemed right about us.
    We couldn’t deny what we were accused of, so we just confessed to more and more.’
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    ‘Why did you do that?’
    ‘We were desperate to be accepted. Terrified of exclusion.
    Of her disapproval if we did not confess something. Her retreat from us just added to the secrecy, the mystery of it all. Of her. Oh, she was clever. And lazy. Being up here only made her more powerful without lifting a finger. Everything she did was strategic.’
    ‘What did she do, Susan, to people who fell out of favour with her?’
    ‘There were terrible penalties for disobedience in my second year. Terrible.’
    ‘Can you tell us? Was this physical punishment?’
    ‘In a way. But at first you would just be excluded. Which was even worse than what came later. You were mocked by the others in the Gathering, who were told to say the most awful things about you in the sessions. In that room, where we’d re -
    noun ced everything. In that place of openness and nurturing and togetherness. It was like a sacrilege. What it turned into.’
    ‘But is it true there was physical abuse here?’
    Susan moved her face into a scowl. ‘Yes, but not like they said in the papers. You had to do it to yourself. With the ropes. You know, beat yourself. I never saw anyone thrashed by anyone else. I don’t think that ever happened here. But they got the idea for it here. For what they did in France and America. Physical humiliation. To degrade a person phys -
    ically in front of the whole group. Use them as examples. I only saw it get physical about four times here, when they made some of the adepts beat themselves with the ropes.
    What’s it called? A flail.’
    ‘And all that time, she was up here. Leading a life of luxury.’
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    Susan nodded. ‘I began to feel like a slave. Out there all day, selling that wretched magazine. It was hopeless. Some days you wouldn’t sell a single copy while the best sellers were rewarded. I couldn’t bear it any more. I ended up just begging for money. I hated coming back here. Because they would punish me and the others who fell below their targets, by making us stay out all night until we reached the donations set us each morning. Is that what we had become, pen-niless slaves? Some girls even, you know, exchanged favours for money. On the street.’
    ‘Was this the catalyst for you? The final straw? Working so hard for no reward, while she enriched herself?’
    ‘I, I need to sit down. Do you have any more water?’
    Kyle walked into shot and helped Susan to the floor, where she sat crumpled into herself. Outside, the sun had lowered; the sky fumed with orange and pink clouds, the sky in between the clouds purpled. He gave her the bottle stained by her lipstick and stared at the little collapsed figure on the floor. Once again, Susan White had been reduced in this place.
    No wonder she could barely face looking at it from outside.
    When they restarted, she stared into the middle distance, as if forgetting the cameras were even in the same room. It was no longer clear who she spoke to. Three times, Dan asked her to look into the camera.
    ‘I suppose I made the decision to leave when I was out selling the Gospel in the second year. I remember a day when I was feverish and cold and wet. I had a terrible flu and I was somewhere behind the British Museum. I fainted. Then I came to and I was sick. So I went to rest on a bench. That day I was with Sister Hera, but I couldn’t find her. So I just sat on my own, on this bench, soaked to the skin. Without 52
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    a shred of dignity or self-respect left. I was broken. And as I sat alone in the rain on that bench feeling very sorry for myself, I picked up a copy of the Evening Standard . Someone had left it on the bench and I went to raise it and keep my head out of the