by S.D. Wasley
****
Omen
Six words.
Six words led me to this moment. Led me here to a cold, dark field where I am to die.
Odd how the brain works. I don’t see my life flashing before my eyes. I see something more like a game of Tetris: seemingly irreconcilable blocks slotting together to form a whole. And the only thing that flashes before my eyes is that banal moment in which six words started it all.
I touch the wound in my left shoulder and feel gushing blood and torn flesh. I close my hand over it, knowing I have to somehow stop the bleeding. My heart is thudding hard so I will the beats to slow, feeling the way each one pumps blood out past my fingers. Kicking off my sandshoe I yank a sock from my foot and press it hard against the wound. Immediately the cotton soaks through with warm blood. Its smell is nauseating. I need something more substantial than a sock to stem the flow but I can’t get my jeans off with this useless arm hanging like a hunk of raw meat. It will have to be my T-shirt. I tug and twist but simply cannot get out of it without the help of the left hand.
A strange little whimper escapes me as I struggle to my feet. Blood is running right through the sock and down my arm. I head for the track but I need to make a choice: should I turn for the beach or the highway? Which is closest? Will Owen drive back this way soon? I choose. Hopefully I will meet Owen on the track back to the highway. I wobble down the slope toward the fence.
I make it about half a dozen steps before my legs buckle under me and I hit the ground again. I must have stumbled over something. I try to get back to my feet but it’s like they aren’t my own anymore. My legs react in slow motion, weak flinches in response to my mental command that they straighten up and lift me off the ground. After a couple more attempts I stop trying. I’m still a good twenty yards from the track, slumped behind a clump of dry grass.
I’m cold. Terribly cold, through and through, as if all my warmth is pouring out of my arm with my blood. At least the pain is easing. The world seems darker than I’ve ever seen it. I can’t even see where the embers glowed in the paddock a few moments before. I think about an eagle landing near me in tomorrow’s daylight, hopping over to inspect my stone-cold, blood-soaked body. Plucking my eyes out of the open sockets. Carrion. The thought prompts another effort to heave myself upwards. Nothing. No physical response. I’m like a dead body with a living girl stuck inside. I groan thickly and the sound goes on and on.
After a moment I realise the sound is not my groaning. It’s something else … an engine? I try to raise my head. I think I can hear a vehicle. Owen? He won’t see me over here, off the road and hidden in the dark. Or it could be the farmer coming back to pick up his quarry. I clutch my arm harder, surprised anew by the constant pouring. Do I really have this much blood in my body? I’m not sure but there might be footsteps coming toward me. A cloud moves to reveal a waxing moon, its cold white light coming through the distant trees. It’s quiet now but for the irregular beat of my pulse in my ears. I attempt a call but my voice makes no sound, just a wheeze of air. I’m going to die here, voiceless, weak and alone.
Six words.
You could argue it didn’t start there. Perhaps it started when I decided to return to Gaunt House ruins, or when I saw Cain’s face. But my addled, blood-starved brain has decided it was the moment when I heard those six words: Hey Frankie, come for a ride?