Stalk Me

by Richard Parker

  Stalk Me

  Richard Parker

  © Richard Parker 2016

  Richard Parker has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 1

  The only element of Beth’s last glimpse that didn’t seem to shatter was the windshield. Every other component of her reality fractured and splintered as if a pickaxe had swung and embedded itself at its centre.

  She’d checked the road ahead was clear before turning to Luc, but didn’t see the stationary brown camper van tucked just beyond the curve of beech trees. Luc was in the passenger seat looking at his iPhone and something that clearly amused him. Her reflexes were good; she would have hit the brakes and they would have suffered nothing worse than whiplash. But her eyes were on Luc’s and as he’d turned to meet her gaze they’d hit the camper full on. It was the last time she ever saw him smile.

  It was the smile Beth couldn’t believe had been directed at her the day he first spoke to her outside the athletics track and that she’d seen thousands of times since, but the crash wiped it from her memory never to be retrieved.

  After the impact, it was as if time had continued onwards and left Beth briefly suspended in a vacuum. Then her vision was flooded white, and momentarily she couldn’t draw in air through her nostrils or mouth.

  She could hear the sounds of panic trapped in her head and the membrane of whatever was trying to suffocate her pressing tight against her face. Her skull was aching, not as if it had been traumatised, but as if it were being pumped up. Her personality had momentarily ejected itself from the vehicle. Seconds passed as she tried to remember who and where she was.

  With a great effort, she swung her neck back to fill her lungs, away from whatever was smothering her. It was the deployed airbag, and the sound of her erratic breathing bounced around its interior as its concentrated plastic smell filled her nostrils. She turned her head towards her passenger and heard bone grate with the action. Seeing Luc like that made her remember who she was.

  Luc had his face in his airbag, eyes closed and almost serene. She’d helped him shave his head that morning and momentarily focused on the tiny nick she’d accidentally made with the razor in the top curve of his left ear. Her identity and situation snapped back at her as if it had been on elastic, and the impact of that seemed worse than the crash. His chin tilted upwards and a tear of blood appeared at his nose. It didn’t drop into his lap but rose to the ceiling quickly followed by more thick droplets.

  “Luc...” Her voice sounded strange, as if it were bottled.

  They were upside down and Beth could feel the pressure of her throat working against her jaw and making her ears chime. She could smell petrol. Until that precise moment, it had been an aroma she’d always liked. They both had to get out quickly. As her circulation overfilled the veins in her head, she listened for signs of other drivers, people who might be running to help. But all she could hear were the hard rain thudding on the bottom of the car and the motor of the twisted wipers repeatedly grinding like a sluggish, rusty countdown.

  Beth’s fingers scrabbled for the buckle of her seatbelt. Her weight was jamming it tight, and it was constricting her lungs. The pad of her thumb pressed weakly against the solidity of the button as she bent and kicked her dangling legs against the pedals in frustration. One of her backless high heels dropped to the ceiling.

  The belt released and her scalp was suddenly slamming hard against padded metal, her sapphire blue dress falling over her like a parachute. The rest of her body toppled and her spine took its weight, her legs angled against the side window. She slid her shoulders from under the pile of herself and tried to reach across to Luc.

  “Luc.” Her constricted windpipe barely twisted out the word. Beth shifted closer to him.

  He hung above her, blood continuing to trickle from his nose into a pool beside her. He moved suddenly and she heard a strangled breath escape him.

  “I’m free. Don’t move. I’m going to try and get out.” She reached past the headrest and gently touched the back of his head, but he didn’t respond.

  Where was her mobile? She slid her hands about her trying to locate the tiny black tassel shoulder bag she’d brought to the restaurant. It wasn’t anywhere in reach.

  She slid herself to her door and tried the handle. It wouldn’t budge. Was it locked, or was the metal warped from the impact? Try the window. There was no button for it on the door. She dragged herself back and stretched up between the two inflated airbags to the console above her. Which one was it? The buttons and icons were upside down. She tried a few, stretching her arm higher and feeling a sharp rush of pain in her spine.

  Beth heard the soft whirr of the window and scrambled back to the door. The glass was rising in front of her like a stage curtain and she crawled through on her hands and knees into dim daylight, cold rain suddenly penetrating the skin exposed by the V at the back of her dress. She couldn’t rise, couldn’t stand. She felt the stones in her kneecaps and the icy droplets on her legs, saturating her tights and her knickers where her dress had ridden up her back. Darkness started soaking through her vision.

  She moved herself forward and expected to see her
own blood pouring from her face and spattering the backs of her hands. It felt like every part of her had ruptured, that everything inside her body was broken and loose. She pulled herself all the way out, her knuckles butting an unidentifiable piece of metal. She realised the warped obstacle in front of her matched the silver body of their Nissan Pathfinder.

  Faint gravel-hissing footsteps. She couldn’t work out which direction they were coming from. Was it somebody looking for survivors?

  She angled her body away from the metal and pulled herself towards the sound. The rain intensified and she found herself crawling through a deep puddle, the impact of the heavy droplets splashing about her ears. She couldn’t keep her head up, and it hinged forward so she was breathing the dirty water through her nostrils. She tasted oil and mud at the top of her throat and spluttered as she lifted her face back out.

  Beth tried to look up and along the curving road, but her aching spine only allowed her to raise her vision enough to glimpse the bottom half of the skewed camper in front. The chocolate-brown back doors were mangled and the French licence plate lay in the other debris that had been smashed from it, but the vehicle was still the right way up. In the gap between its underside and the road, she could see a pair of feet moving. Dark navy trousers and black boots. Somebody was the other side of it.

  She cried out, not recognising the mournful howl that emerged from her, but hoping it would be loud enough to attract their attention. Her face dropped into the puddle a second time and she had to blow a few bubbles of air into the water before she could raise her head again.

  Beth fought unconsciousness, and when she cracked her eyes and blinked the water from them, somebody was standing beside her, a smudgy black silhouette against the failing daylight. She opened her mouth, fighting oblivion to alert them to Luc’s predicament. Their foot swung back and kicked Beth squarely in the face. Before the impact embedded her deep into unconsciousness, she heard the squeak of her teeth and a flat crunch as her jaw fragmented.

  Chapter 2

  Ferrand squinted through the coach’s wall of windshield, as the wipers struggled to shift the rain obscuring his view of the narrow forest road ahead. Many of the circular mirrors on the bends had been smashed, so he spent much of the route blowing his horn to warn any oncoming motorists of his presence.

  Mercifully, the handful of American exchange students were quieter than they’d been on the outward journey to Le Mans. Another ten or so minutes and he’d be at the drop-off point and they were again the responsibility of the families foolish enough to give them lodgings.

  They were all about eighteen but seemed very immature to Ferrand. Their two chaperones, Kelcie and Ramiro, seemed to be only a few years older. Now that they were all spread out in the seats and wired up to their handhelds, however, the only noise was the engine and the rain battering the roof.

  He ran his hand through his thinning hair, blew his horn at the next bend and peered through the waterfall of the windshield. He needed an eye test but knew his worsening myopia was likely to soon rob him of his licence. He’d been putting it off month after month. But his grown children and grandchildren had just moved back in with him and he was the only person bringing money into the house.

  Ferrand was just rehearsing the conversation he might have with his wife if the tour company took his keys off him, when the crash site swung into view. Two vehicles lay smashed on his left, a junked camper and a silver car farther away at the edge of the trees, on its roof. It was difficult to see through the rain, but he could ascertain there were no police present. The wreckage definitely hadn’t been there on the journey out. He immediately pulled the coach onto the right-hand verge and switched off the engine. He could hear the students asking Kelcie why they’d stopped and then their awed reactions to the spectacle.

  Ferrand pulled the door handle on the dash and the doors hissed open. He got out of his seat and walked down the steps. As he dropped down onto the grass, the rain soaked into his white shirt. He checked there was no oncoming traffic and walked across to the buckled brown camper.

  When he reached the other side, he heard voices from behind him. He turned to find the students climbing off the bus and was about to tell them to get back on, when dumpy Kelcie and hungover Ramiro came down the steps.

  “Everyone stay away from the road,” Kelcie said without much effect.

  Ferrand left her corralling them and took a few more paces so he could survey the damage and look tentatively through the window of the buckled camper. If the bodywork was anything to go by, it was likely the occupants would be just as bashed out of shape. His stomach shrank at the thought of what might be slumped and bleeding in the seats.

  He was relieved to find only a scattering of broken glass there. Perhaps the emergency services had already been. Why were the vehicles still in the road, though? He walked towards the upside-down car that was about ten yards away at the edge of the trees. He’d only gone one pace, however, when he saw the woman lying on her back outside the silver Nissan.

  He scrabbled his phone out of his shirt pocket and quickly dialled 112.

  *

  Beth opened her eyelids against moisture and blinked it away. She was looking up at stars in a night sky through bare branches and watched rain droplets dilate at the end of them and then plummet towards her. Wind blew them sideways before they could land on her face, but a finer spray blurred her vision again.

  Beth observed this for a while, mesmerised and waiting for her conscious fragments to gradually cluster and tell her why she was lying there. A vanilla hint of the Shalimar she’d sprayed on for the evening was still in her nostrils. She rarely wore scent. There were mumbling voices nearby, including a male’s on a radio. She could only hear them through her right ear. The severity of her situation lurked at the periphery of her memory. She was injured and instinct told her not to move. But she needed to take in her immediate environment, and as soon as she turned, Beth was looking at Luc.

  He was lying on a trolley next to her, red and blue lights skimming over him. His eyes were open and his soundless words punched a hole through the black patch of congealed blood coating his mouth and chin. His blue eyes were faded to grey, as if the exertion of trying to speak to her was gradually sapping him.

  A warm hand was rested on Beth’s forehead, repositioning and restraining her skull so she was looking at Luc through the corner of her eye. She tried to twist her neck, but the fingers holding her increased their pressure and squealed against the movement. They were clad in surgical gloves and she could feel their adhesion as they readjusted their grip.

  “Let me up.” But the plea emerged as shapeless babble and something scraped at her eardrum. The interior of Beth’s mouth felt as if it were fused around her tongue, a useless and swollen bung of flesh. She rolled her eyes upwards and saw an Afro above the features of the black female paramedic holding her in place. She was looking from side to side, seeking assistance. She mumbled under her breath and Beth could smell the spearmint and cigarettes on her warm breath as it fell on her face.

  “Ne bougez pas!”

  Her forehead was released and the paramedic disappeared from her field of vision. The rain fell harder on her face and she had to briefly close her eyelids again and exhale from her nostrils and swollen lips.

  She turned slowly back to Luc. His eyes were screwed tight against the pain, teeth gritting and fresh blood flowing from his nostrils. Luc had a nosebleed every other month but nothing like this. He opened his mouth to try to speak to her again, but a movement beyond him caught her eye. She squinted hard at the blue blobs on the opposite side of the road.

  Beth could see a crowd gathered there, their faces illuminated by the emergency vehicle lights. There were about fifteen or so people. A length of luminous yellow tape segregated them from the crash site. They were all craning to look at Beth and Luc.

  Luc moved and came back into focus. He was still muttering deliriously and said her name but it sounded like an exclamation of
agony. His lips parted and his voice cracked in his throat. “Sorry...”

  Beth frowned a response. “Lie still,” she tried to say. But the words came out mangled, and it felt as if she had gravel in her mouth.

  “Sorry...” he repeated, and then his head fell back on the stretcher, and its impact seem to release the tears from his eyes. He clenched them tightly shut and a red bubble formed at his nostril.

  Beyond him, Beth could see some of the crowd had their arms in the air. A handful of them had their phones raised. Surely they weren’t recording her and Luc as they lay injured in the road?

  Beth hinged her body so she was sitting up on the trolley. Her whole spine throbbed once and she felt her heart pulse irregularly in her jaw. She could see all the way across the road. Paramedics and police weaved around each other, but Beth saw no other casualties. She felt hot and cold adrenaline course through her. The phones were aimed directly at them.

  Beth swung her feet off the trolley and back onto the road. It felt as if she had been lying there for days. She reached over to Luc and clasped the icy hands that lay balled at the centre of his chest. He responded, but she knew it wasn’t to her touch. He was convulsing. Was he bleeding internally as well?

  “We need help!” She forced the words out through the tiny gap around her tongue, but they didn’t emerge with the volume of urgency she wanted. It felt as if she had shards of broken glass piercing her gums. She tried to rise from the trolley, but her legs failed and her knees smashed into the gravel. Luc didn’t turn to her when she touched his cold, wet face. Another spasm extinguished his recognition of her. He didn’t know she was there.

  “Couchez-vous!”

  Beth turned to the paramedic whose hands were on her and forced out two mashed words. “Help him!”

  “I will. Lie down first.” The woman’s English was crystal clear.

  Beth felt the paramedic’s hands hook under her arms, helping her up. When she was shakily standing, Beth found herself looking straight at the crowd. They were filming. They were capturing every second of the worst moment of her life. Luc could be dying, and they were casually recording it to show to their friends.

  She shook off the paramedic and marched unsteadily forward, a concentrated rage she’d never experienced overwhelming her.