by Carys Jones
Amanda pulled at a loose thread on her coat. She wondered if she tugged hard enough if the whole thing would just unravel.
*
The first night had been the worst. Amanda had stood in the centre of her small apartment, letting the emptiness seep into her. She could still smell him in the bathroom. On his side of the bed. Even on the sofa. His cologne had burrowed deep into the fabric throughout the place, embedding itself upon the home like a permanent tattoo.
Amanda felt restless. She tidied the kitchen cupboards, rearranged all her knick-knacks in the living room area and made and then re-made her bed. Midnight crept by and she didn’t even notice. She felt Shane’s absence everywhere. Only he wasn’t really gone, not like her father had been. Amanda went to the window and drew back her thin curtains, gazing at the pale glow of a nearby streetlight. Shane was out there, in the world. Maybe he’d gone back to his parents or perhaps he was crashing on John’s couch. But he was no longer in Amanda’s world. She regretfully glanced back at the emptiness.
She just needed to readjust. That’s what she told herself. Shane had been such a huge part of her life for so long that losing him now was obviously going to be a shock to her system. But she’d get over it. She’d recovered from far greater loses before.
As she ambled towards her bedroom, finally resigned to the fact that she needed sleep, she wondered what her father would say if he were there to witness the collapse of her first big relationship. Would he be annoyed as her mother had been? Relieved? Would he tell her that this was her chance to spread her wings and see the world? To grow?
He’d left Amanda’s life before he’d really had chance to impart any wisdom to her about love and matters of the heart. He’d only ever known her as his little girl.
‘Love is a strange beast,’ he’d declared one Christmas after several glasses of sweet sherry. ‘It can be playful like a kitten or ferocious like a wolf. But no matter how love treats you, you can’t ever shut it out completely, not forever. It will always scratch at the door, begging to be let back in.’
*
A crimson fissure cracked along the horizon. The darkness was distilling. Amanda rubbed at her eyes and grabbed a bottle of water that was resting at her feet. She needed to sharpen her senses.
‘We’re nearly there.’
Shane confirmed what she already sensed. An iron ball rolled around her stomach, crushing everything in its wake.
‘I won’t ask again if you’re ready, because I know you are. You’ve shown me that you are. And I believe in you.’
Amanda nodded in gratitude. Shane’s belief in her helped keep the wind in her sails. She told herself over and over that she could do this. That everything was going to work out fine.
‘Where will we live?’
She blinked, startled. Her mind had drifted and she’d missed the start of Shane’s question.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘When we go back, where will we live?’ He was watching the distant sky as the fissure widened. A new day was imminently dawning. And for someone in the woods that morning it was to be their last.
‘When we go back home?’ Amanda had barely entertained thoughts of home. She was too fixated on the present.
‘Yeah, when we go back. I mean, I know you’ve got your house that you shared with Will, but I didn’t want to assume anything about that and—’
‘I can’t live there,’ Amanda blurted. The apartment had become so hollow after Shane left and his absence wasn’t permanent. There was no way she’d be able to tolerate the pure walls and sparkling surfaces of the home she’d shared with Will, not when she knew he’d never be coming home to tell her off for not using a coaster. It would be too painful to continue to exist in the world they’d built together.
‘Then we’ll find somewhere,’ Shane said gently. ‘Together. If you like?’
‘Have you been thinking about it much? Going home?’
‘Of course.’
The woodlands were up ahead. Dark and still shrouded by shadow.
Shane cocked his head towards her as he slowed the car. ‘Haven’t you?’
‘Not… really,’ Amanda admitted honestly. ‘My head’s kind of been stuck in the moment.’
And the past.
She felt like she was being haunted by all her previous choices. All her lingering heartaches.
‘Well, I’ve been thinking about it.’ Shane stopped the car. ‘To be honest with you it’s the only way I’ve been able to cope.’
‘Really?’
‘I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t drive you out here, let you buy yourself a bloody, gun,’ he shrivelled as he said the word, ‘I couldn’t do any of it unless I knew we were working towards a tomorrow together. I can’t believe that this is the end, Amanda. Even though there’s a gnawing fear within me that thinks that it could be.’
Amanda nodded and stared at the glove compartment. She felt that fear too. It was in a constant orbit around her and occasionally it crashed against her like a meteorite, destroying the part of her that it touched.
‘Everything is going to be fine.’ She lifted up the hood of her coat. ‘I’m going to go and kill Gregg McAllister and then we are going to go home. Together. Everything will be fine.’ She hoped with all her heart that she was right.
28
The morning air was damp. It was filled with the lingering remnants of a cold night. Despite the canyon of dusky pink that was expanding on the horizon, the woods remained clotted with shadows.
Amanda stood beside the car, tentatively scouring the darkened treeline. She’d already pulled on her plastic gloves which made her look like a misplaced surgeon and the gun was tucked into the waistband of her jogging bottoms. Each time she breathed in she felt her skin prickling around its solid shape.
‘We need to go now.’ Shane crept away from his car, keeping his body low to the ground. He slipped into the shadows and Amanda watched the darkness absorb him. She didn’t know if she was ready. She drew in more damp air, filling her lungs to capacity. She clenched and unclenched her hands, listening to the static ripple of the plastic gloves.
Will.
His presence was everywhere. It crackled within the trees along with the whispering of their leaves. He was the reason Amanda was stood at dawn on a remote dirt track about to enter woodlands that were laced with danger.
Had Greg McAllister left his sumptuous home yet? Or was he knelt down in the grand hallway, still lacing up his trainers? Amanda glanced at the digital clock on the car’s dashboard. Minutes were slipping by as she pointlessly deliberated what she needed to do next. She already knew the steps to this dance. She’d rehearsed them in her mind a thousand times. Her fingers flexed as though squeezing an invisible trigger. She could do this.
It was darker in the woods than she’d anticipated. Any milky pre-dawn light was banished entirely by the solid wall of trees that packed in tightly around her. Amanda crouched low to the ground, just as Shane had done. She took small, fast steps between trees, pressing herself up against their rough bark as she snatched an anxious breath.
‘Amanda,’ Shane whispered her name and then reached for her arm. They dropped closer to the mud, huddling together. ‘I think the first camera is just up here.’
She looked beyond him and amongst the various shades of grey she saw the unmistakeable outline of the hollowed-out tree in which she’d placed a camera. The previous morning it had filmed McAllister jogging by.
‘I’ll go grab it while you move onto the next one, okay?’
‘No. We’ll get it after.’
‘I’m not risking there being any record of what goes down here,’ Shane scurried away from her. Amanda blinked and slowly stood a little straighter. He was right. The camera was fitted with a motion detector and she couldn’t risk it going off. Unless…
The gun prodded her in the back. Reminding her that all was not lost. Not yet. But if everything did go wrong. If she fumbled the shot, if McAllister had time to produce a weapon o
f his own – wouldn’t she want to record him killing her? Wouldn’t that be a noose she could posthumously wrap around his neck?
She hurried in the direction Shane had gone, following the sound of snapped twigs and rustling. His hand was in the bowels of the tree when she found him, plucking free the little digital camera.
‘What if he kills me?’ Amanda grabbed his arm, staying his hand.
‘What?’ He sounded distracted. Annoyed. Amanda threw a fearful glance along the jogging trail. How much sand had slipped through the hourglass since she’d left the car?
‘Leave the camera,’ Amanda told him briskly. ‘If things go wrong it’ll film him killing me. It’ll be evidence.’
‘We won’t need evidence.’ Shane shook her off and roughly removed the camera and stepped back from the tree, away from the jogging trail.
‘Shane!’ She was on his heels. The camera needed to go back. It needed to be a back-up in case she failed.
‘We won’t need evidence,’ Shane repeated, his voice low but filled with rage. He drew her close enough to see the glint of something sharp when he partially opened his coat. A knife. He’d taped it to the inner lining. ‘Because McAllister isn’t leaving these woods alive.’
‘Shane…’ Amanda couldn’t stop looking at the knife. It was long and sharp. The kind of blade you’d use to cut through the toughest meat. Shooting a man was one thing. With that kind of execution you were permitted a level of distance. But using a knife? That required hand-to-hand combat. That required proximity. And a level of ruthlessness that Amanda knew she didn’t possess. ‘Will you…’ she pointed at his coat, ‘can you use that?’
‘Of course I can,’ he growled at her.
‘This is my thing.’ She stepped back from him, almost tumbling over a fallen log. In her mind she saw everything going wrong, her carefully laid plans unravelling at the seams. She’d miss her shot, McAllister would pounce on her, shoot her first. He wasn’t the kind of man who believed in leaving room for ambiguity. Not a second time. He’d shoot her right between the eyes, turning out the lights before Amanda even had a chance to realise what had happened. Shane would swiftly come seeking her, and when he saw her laying fallen on the ground he’d chase down McAllister. Would he plunge the knife into his back or spin him around first? Would he want to watch the older man bleed? And then what? Shane would stumble out of the woods, alone, drenched in blood that wasn’t his own. Amanda couldn’t let that happen. He needed to leave the woods as the same man he came in as.
‘If things go wrong just get the hell out of here. Go take care of my mum. And Ewan.’
‘Do you really think I could just run?’
‘Shane—’
‘Surely you, more than anyone else, understand the need for revenge?’
A bird distant heralded the new morning. Its cry was caustic and raw. The sound shredded down Amanda’s spine and she pressed against the nearest tree.
‘Just don’t do anything stupid,’ she pleaded before gathering herself and hurrying towards the location of the second camera.
As she picked her way through the trees, straining her eyes in the dim light to check for rocks and tangled roots upon the ground, Amanda could hear the echo of Will’s final moments all around her. With Ewan at her side she’d fled into similar woods not too long ago. They’d left the warmth of the cabin and hidden like hunted animals amongst the trees. Will, always brave, always formidable, had sacrificed his life to save his second wife and son. The boom of the gunshots still trembled deep within Amanda’s bones.
She continued to scurry between the trees. The rustle of leaves behind her told her that Shane was following. She found the tree trunk where she’d placed the final camera. Her gloved hand knocked off its cloak of leaves and closed around it. And then she hesitated.
If you die here at least let it film him killing you.
Her mind was still intent on going against Shane’s wishes. If only she’d found her USB when she’d returned to the beach, if only someone had filmed McAllister launching her off the edge of a cliff. Technology had always been her friend, her lifeline. How could she ignore it now to rely solely on the barbaric weaponry of a single gun and a knife?
‘Give me the camera.’ Shane’s breath was hot against her cheek. He’d caught up with her as she deliberated her next move. ‘There isn’t time to argue, Amanda. Give it to me.’
Numbly she obliged. She twisted the camera free of its nature-infused perch and handed it to Shane.
‘I’m going to be just here,’ he was creeping back into the shadows, pulling away from her. He was like the tide. Amanda yearned to just go with him, to let him take her wherever he went. She suddenly didn’t want to be alone. ‘You need to hide,’ he ushered his final warning and then he disappeared behind a tree.
Amanda looked around. The jogging trail curved away from her in the strengthening morning light. Above the latticework of leaves overhead, the sky had turned to a softer shade of charcoal. Birds were singing to one another, urging the other woodland animals to rise from their slumber. Amanda placed herself beside a grand oak tree, pressing her stomach against its barked centre. She leaned to the left and peered at the jogging trail which lay empty. Then slowly, carefully, she slid the gun out from the waistband of her joggers and held it in her gloved hand. With a soft click she removed the safety, just as Shane had shown her to. The silencer was twisted upon the barrel of the gun. The weapon was ready to take a life.
Amanda held her gun at her side. She could feel its weight dragging against her wrist. She remained pressed against the oak tree and she waited. The trees ceased rustling, no longer sharing secrets through their network of leaves. Even the birds were no longer singing. It felt like all around her, the woods were also waiting. Did they know what was about to happen? Was the soft earth and ancient trees preparing to welcome another soul into their midst?
Dawn had arrived. Though its light was weak it meant that the jogging trail was completely lit up until it dipped out of Amanda’s eyeline. Sunlight sparkled on dew-speckled leaves and tufts of green grass. Amanda felt a single tear slide down her cheek as she wondered if this was to be the last day she’d live to see.
29
‘Dad was a good man, wasn’t he?’ Amanda resisted the urge to scratch at the sleeves of the black woollen dress her mother had picked out for her that morning.
‘He was the best kind of man.’ Corrine lifted a crinkled white handkerchief to her cheeks and dabbed at her tears and smeared mascara.
The cottage was finally empty. All of the mourners and well-wishers had moved on having issued heartfelt condolences and eaten their weight in finger sandwiches. Amanda swept her gaze around the living room, still not quite believing that her father wasn’t about to burst through the door any minute. She couldn’t imagine him in the long wooden box they’d committed to the ground just hours earlier.
‘Your dad, he always put his family first.’ Corrine’s handkerchief was now streaked with black but she continued to dab at her cheeks and panda eyes. ‘There was nothing he wouldn’t have done for you and me. He’d have given us his last penny if we’d asked him of it.’
‘What do we do now, without him?’ Amanda hugged a small crochet pillow to her chest. The date of her father’s accident had been carefully stitched into it. A ‘gift’ from Mrs Simmons who lived further down the street. Amanda couldn’t wait to take the pillow down to the beach and watch it burn on the next bonfire she made with Shane and John.
Shane had stayed longer than most people had. He let Amanda cry against his shoulder and barely spoke, as if he knew that words had no weight on days such as these.
‘We are tasked with the unfortunate demand of carrying on.’ Her mother ceased dabbing her cheeks and stood up with purpose, eyeing all the empty china plates littered around the room.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your dad is gone. It’s us, the living, who now get to suffer.’
Amanda whimpered into the pillow, lett
ing her tears sink deep into its fabric.
‘Your dad would want us to be strong.’ Corrine started to stack the plates up. She had to be careful as it was the finest china she’d used for her guests, the set which she’d once received as a wedding gift.
‘But I just want him back,’ Amanda wailed. ‘This is so unfair.’
All she wanted was a hug from the man who meant the world to her. Instead she’d had to put on an itchy black dress and say goodbye to him forever.
‘Life is unfair.’ Corrine was taking her stack of plates into the kitchen, finding comfort in her current pragmatism of attending to chores.
‘He was a good man,’ Amanda chased after her, still clutching the unfortunate pillow. ‘The best man. You said so yourself. So why did he have to die? How is that right?’
Corrine dumped the plates into the sink and spun around to look at Amanda. Her eyes misted with fresh tears which she didn’t bother to dab away. ‘There is no right or wrong when it comes to death. Good men, bad men, even the best men, they will all be forced to meet their maker at some point. None of us can escape that fate.’
*
The next ten minutes felt like an eternity. Amanda’s muscles were tight. She was pressed against the tree in a permanent state of alertness. Every chirp of birdsong or rustle of leaves sounded like a jackhammer going off. Her sanity began to gnaw in on itself.
What if McAllister wasn’t coming?
What if he knew that she was waiting for him?
What if some of his best guys were currently heading her way?
She was driving herself mad with the ‘what ifs’. But the doubt-filled questions kept coming, falling like an avalanche around her.
What if I’m too late?
Footsteps. Light, yet unmistakeable. Amanda held in a breath and barely moved a muscle as she inched her head out from beyond the cover of the oak and glimpsed along the jogging trail.
McAllister was coming. He was running directly towards her, arms powering at his sides. He wore grey joggers and a white T-shirt. His hair was slicked back, perhaps still damp from his morning shower. This was it.