She's Not Gone

by Sarah Northwood

  For some reason, it doesn’t come. Daryl goes over to the other side of the room and looks at the photograph I’d asked about earlier. His expression closes off, only his wild eyes give anything away. This is my chance; there is no hesitation, I take it.

  Pushing myself back up to a standing position with my arm, I stagger, swaying but upright. The front door is to the side of me, I can make it. Using the wall to bolster my moves, my head swirling from the soccer punch, I gain traction. I fling the door open and stagger out of the house. Daryl jerks around at the noise of the door opening, nothing but wild contempt in his eyes. As I wade out into the driveway, the security lights come blaring on, temporarily blinding me and lighting up one hell of a show for the neighbours, who have come out into their front garden. Evidently, the noise of our argument has aroused their suspicions. Relief washes over me when I see that Mr Jones has a mobile to his ear. I pray he is calling the police.

  Battered and bleeding from the earlier blow, I stand outside, Daryl’s scream of rage following me through the door. A wave of fear hits me as I dart in front of the car, trying to escape him. He is mere seconds behind me, delayed only momentarily as he stops to pick up a weapon. As I look over my shoulder, I see him chasing hot on my trail with a knife in his hands. I am certain the police will arrive to find my dead and bloodied body, right there on the driveway. I picture the decaying corpse I’d found in the woods and wonder how long it will be before the maggots start to bury into my skin. Skidding round the front of the car, I make my way out onto the slippery gravel drive. Desperately flinging my head from side to side, searching for help, I am frozen with fear. If I go towards the Jones’s, will he kill them too? If I head into the road, where will I run to?

  Suddenly, the lights of the car come on. I stop, looking over my shoulder to see if Daryl is getting in it to chase me. I see him instead between the garage and the front of the car, in a kind of trance, dazzled by the lights. Unable to see me behind the car, he peers in through the windshield, wondering if it is me behind the wheel. Roaring, he raises the knife in his hand and breaks forward. I hear the unmistakable sound of the engine as it revs and advances towards him. A sound like breaking eggs erupts, as his scream rattles around my head. Next comes a squelching noise and a scream that punctuates the air with horror.

  Less than an hour later, I’m sitting down. I’m still on the driveway but wrapped in a blanket that Mrs Jones has brought me. The ambulance sirens are fading into the distance, carrying Daryl with them. A policeman hands me a cup of tea. I wonder how many incidents I have to have before I get a profile with them.

  “So you weren’t in the car, Miss Hawcroft? You weren’t driving?” the policeman asks.

  “No, I wasn’t, I was on the drive, behind the car. Speak to Mr and Mrs Jones, my neighbours. My ex-neighbours. I don’t live here anymore. I just came to pick up my stuff. They saw the whole thing. It was them I think, that called you.” My staccato sentences come out in spits and spurts as I mentally try to process what has just happened. Instead of being killed, the car has somehow saved me.

  “How do you think it happened, Miss Hawcroft?” he asks, certain I must be lying. Or perhaps he is as confused as I am.

  “I don’t know.” My teeth are chattering from the shock. “Honestly, I’ve no idea. I put the handbrake on. Maybe the cable snapped?”

  The policeman looks around. “But the drive slopes away from the garage, Miss Hawcroft. Surely if the handbrake had broken, the car would have rolled backwards rather than into him?”

  “No, you’re right. It does, doesn’t it? Honestly, I don’t know what to say. That’s what happened,” I tell him, and wrap my hands tight around the cup.

  Chapter Seven

  I spot him standing by the door of the coffee place. Looking around, I can tell he’s excited to meet me. I stroll up behind him and tap him lightly on his shoulder. Turning around to face me, I’m not afraid to look at him. I love the look of joy I see in his eyes. I’m glad I can take it in now, I’m amazed how much my confidence has grown.

  “Hey,” Dan says, giving me a light kiss on the cheeks. Out of his usual ‘car salesmen’ suit, he looks different, more relaxed. There’s an air of casual confidence about him and I see that he’s slicked his hair back. I wonder briefly if the extra effort is for my benefit.

  “Hey,” I reply, smiling back at him.

  “You OK?” he asks.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I tell him.

  “You look beautiful,” he remarks.

  “Thanks,” I say looking at my feet. How quickly my confidence fades. I’m not sure what it is he can possibly see in me, I’ve not even managed to put on any make-up today. There’s been so much to process, and emotionally I’m totally drained. I’ve endured endless interviews at the Police Station and now have a court case to look forward to. I wonder whether this will ever be over.

  It’s been a little over a month since the incident at the house. Where the car, my Eva, saved me and got Daryl out of my life forever. A month of living, since my life almost diminished out of existence…again. I call it an incident because I have no other words to express it, no way to make sense of it all. I can only feel grateful and relieved to be alive.

  May has taken a firm hold of the weather, and spring has at last delivered upon her promise of better times. Dan and I go into the coffee place where we first met ‘properly’. Life seems to be a circle of connections that keep on meeting. The place is filled with couples and families, and the aroma of coffee makes me feel rejuvenated and happy. The smell of lightly toasted waffles and croissants would make even a full person feel hungry. Licking my lips hungrily, I glance around and see the look of promise all around me.

  “So you’re sure you’re OK? I mean, that was a close thing, Katie. God, I almost lost you,” Dan says as he reaches his hand across the table. I let him take mine and feel safe with him there.

  “Really I’m doing fine.” I laugh. I find myself staring at him and wondering how such a good man could like a loser like me. I have nothing to offer.

  “But what about what it said in the papers abut Daryl? That the body you found, the girl in the rug, they think Daryl killed her and just dumped her body there. Like she was nothing. God, it was like he was just tossing out the rubbish. I just keep thinking it over and over Katie, that it could have been you!”

  “Yeah, I saw it,” I reply quietly, shuddering a little at the memory of her delicate pink nails and the flesh hanging off her bones.

  “They identified the body,” Dan says, “and she was his ex-girlfriend. Her name was Eva. She sounded so much like you, Katie. I just don’t want to think about it, you’re so lucky to be here. I’m so lucky to have found you.” Dan’s eyes are wet with tears. I can’t imagine he has any faults, aside of course from being a car salesman, but that’s an easy one to forgive.

  “Me too, Dan. Me too. But there’s even more to it than that. You’re not going to believe it when I tell you.”

  “More, what do you mean?”

  I pull out the ownership document and hand it to Dan. I see his mouth drop open as he reads it.

  “It was her car? It belonged to Eva?”

  I nod.

  “Damn, I knew there was a reason I couldn’t sell it. I mean that thing was creepy.”

  I kick him under the table and look through the window. “Well, why the heck didn’t you say something about it then?” I ask.

  “I didn’t want to lose you. Right from the first minute I met you, I wanted to marry you.”

  I gasp and pick nervously at my hands. Turning back to him, I say, “You know, you scare me a little Dan.”

  I see a crease appear between his eyes and a spark of fear, wondering what he’s done wrong.

  “No, I don’t mean like that. You don’t scare me like him. It’s just you’re so good, you’re such a good person. I can’t understand why you would like me.”

  “And that’s why you’re perfect Katie, that’s exactly why I do like you.
You’re so wonderful and you don’t even know it. But you will one day, and I want to be there when you discover exactly just how wonderful and perfect, kind and beautiful you are. I’m not that good a person, you know. There’s something you need to know about me, about my motives. I’m entirely selfish, you see. I want to be the one that sees that light come on when you realise you can do this. I want to see that sparkle in your eyes because I love them. I love everything about you.”

  Right at this moment, I want to write down every single thing I feel. Every word, every feeling, every moment. Life is starting afresh. Where once I had only an endless black void stretching out before me, now there is light. I am with the right guy for a change and I don’t want to forget a thing.

  Epilogue

  Daryl didn’t die when the car rammed him into the garage. Eva made sure of that. It crushed his legs until they wouldn’t walk again and squished his internal organs somewhat, but I didn’t ask for the details. He will face justice for what he did to her and to me. With Dan at my side, I decide it is time to stand up for us both and for all the other women out there who feel it’s their fault, who stay when they should leave because they can’t. To be controlled like that, to live in fear, you can’t know what it is like unless you’ve lived it.

  I wish there is more I can do to help them but I have scars of my own to heal. Perhaps they never will. I can’t help thinking that I’m not as kind as her, as Eva has been to me. When I think back to the horrid things I’d thought. How I’d blamed her for making Daryl that way. I’d been an idiot, one looking for excuses for his behaviour, trying to make sense of the unsolvable.

  When I think how close I’d come to going back to him, I shudder. I shake my head and look out at the cars in the parking lot. I spy her, Eva, underneath the cherry tree where I left her. She sparkles in the May sun as it bounces off the shiny red paint and, for a moment, I think to myself that she almost looks alive.

  Turning back to Dan, I pause, then ask, “Well, what are we going to do now?”

  “It’s funny you should ask that, Katie. There was a couple who came by the showroom a couple of days ago.”

  My interest piqued, I raise an eyebrow curiously. “Yes?” I ask.

  “I think she might need help…the woman. She seemed scared and he, well, to be frank, there was something fishy about him. Something not quite right.”

  “Tell me more, Dan…”

  THE END

  Other Titles by Sarah Northwood

  Also, available on Amazon from Author Sarah Northwood.

  Chilling thrillers that should not be read alone!

  The Unravelling: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XJ8WJC3

  The Volunteer: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01M4M9R1L

  These can be read as standalone stories, or, now as a series, The Volunteer duology,

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07419J6D1

  Contemporary Fiction:

  Inner Voice, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01GQFF372

  Poetry:

  The Truths We Tell, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1521704546