by Luca Veste
Gone in a flash of violence.
And now, that future was simply darkness and destruction. Chris was going to find her. She would never be seen again. He would come back to that house and find me still sitting against the driver’s side of my car. He would be able to finish the job he’d started and that would be it.
The spare. The box.
I was thinking of that day we’d left for the music festival when I finally remembered—the small contraption that I had scoffed at when Alexandra gave it to me. I’d fixed it underneath the car and then forgotten about it.
A spare key.
I turned and knelt by the wheel arch. Ran my fingers under it, sure that it would no longer be there. I went back and forth, becoming more certain by the second that it would have fallen off in the past year. Caught on something and been torn away.
Finally, my fingers found purchase, and I pulled the box away with a guttural sound of triumph.
It was a small thing, the size of the palm of my hand. I closed my eyes and remembered the combination.
12 05 15
I would never forget that date.
If I got out of this, I would make this another date to remember.
The box opened, and there was the key.
I could have cried, but instead I rose to my feet, unlocked the car, and got in. My head was still pounding with pain and my chest leaked blood over my T-shirt, but I could barely feel any of that.
I wasn’t going to be late. I was going to make it.
I didn’t have my phone, but the GPS in the car was thankfully built-in. I rarely used it, but was glad of it now. I would have become lost in the hills and country roads without it, but instead I was on the major road in minutes, and then the M60 and M61 followed quickly. A trip that was an hour and forty-five minutes was going to take much less. I weaved through traffic as the sky darkened and became blacker by the second.
I was there in an hour and change. Pulled up to the hotel and saw Chris’s car first. Then the dirty white walls of the hotel, as I left the car—door wide open and forgotten—and ran toward the entrance.
My hand was on the door when I heard the scream.
It came from above me. The roof. I looked up and thought I saw movement. I waited there for a second. Frozen in place. Waiting for what I thought was the inevitable.
There was nothing else.
Only silence.
Instead of being afraid of it, like I always was, something broke in me. I felt anger instead of fear. Hate instead of terror.
He wasn’t going to win.
I shoved the door open and ran inside.
Forty-Four
It had started raining at some point, but I wasn’t sure if it was before or after I’d reached the roof. My clothes were already wet, but that could have been sweat, blood, the rain, or most likely a combination of all three.
I breathed rapidly in and out as I stood with my back to the door of the rooftop. From behind me, alarms rang. I hadn’t heard them on my way up the stairs, but the race up had been done in a blur.
The rain fell harder, and I wanted to close my eyes. I didn’t want to know what was happening. What was about to go into her. What was about to slice her flesh.
The shovel was in my hands still. I didn’t remember taking it with me from the car, but some part of me was still working without me knowing. My arms felt heavy, and suddenly any movement made me want to shout in twisted agony. I could feel the bruises and splinters in my hands. I could feel the angry slash across my chest, tearing apart a little more with each breath.
I could smell her perfume in the air.
I could see Chris. Standing with his back to me. His arm around Alexandra, as she knelt on the rooftop, looking almost like he was embracing a loved one.
Alexandra.
Kicking and squirming with every last ounce of energy she had left.
I moved forward, raising the shovel with both hands, and then when I was close enough and heard his voice, I screamed with everything I had.
The wave of pain hit my hands first, then up my arms into my shoulders, and I fell to the ground. My face hit the floor and my eyes met his.
Chris.
On the floor, his eyes opened for a second before they glazed over and closed. Blood seeping from his head onto the dark ground and disappearing into it.
I almost felt myself slip away. Then, her smell and her voice came through the fog.
“Matt…”
I wanted to answer, but I could say nothing. Could feel nothing. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to wake up and forget about all of this.
I felt her hands under my arms and was lifted to my knees. My body wasn’t responding, my mind not much better. I retched and felt the world spin around me. Saliva filled my mouth as my stomach churned and threatened to overpower me. I swallowed, trying to keep some semblance of control.
“We have to get out of here,” Alexandra said, looking around I saw the storm lantern and the red candle. Even up there, he had needed his talisman.
“Is he the…” she said, before stopping, unable to finish the sentence. Unable to accept the truth.
I managed to nod my head and set off another bout of nausea. I breathed a few times and managed to calm. The word concussion bounced around my head, and I wondered what would be left of me if I got out of there.
“He can’t be.”
“He is,” I said, twisting to see him. All I could see was the end of his leg before Alexandra pulled me again. My chest throbbed in pain, and I tried not to dwell on it. Tried to stay lucid.
I wasn’t winning the battle.
I held onto her arm as she turned and pulled me away. My legs groaned in protest. I could see the way out ahead. The door that led from the rooftop came into focus. I didn’t think this was real. My mind had slipped into delirium. I was still back at the house where Chris had buried Michelle and he was still slicing his way through my chest.
My best friend. Someone I considered closer than family.
This was him.
The feel of Alexandra’s hand on mine brought me back somewhat. She looked back at me, and I could see in her eyes that it was going to be okay.
Then, they changed. They darkened in a moment, and I suddenly dropped to the floor. I heard a scream. I heard footsteps scraping against the concrete. I heard my name, then a screeching feeling in my back.
I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t move. My body went limp and I could feel a wetness under my upper body as I lay on the floor.
I saw her.
I saw him.
I saw the knife in his hand, something dripping from its blade, and Alexandra disappearing from view. Chris staggering after her.
The last thing I saw before I blacked out into the silent darkness.
The rain was still hammering down above me when my eyes came back into focus. I put my hand slowly underneath my arm and against my chest, flinching rapidly with the pain it caused. When I pulled my hand away, I could see the blood on it by the candlelight.
I wanted to lie there forever and accept it was over. Lie there in the evening darkness and let it wash over me. Take me away. Allow my life to seep from my body and onto the dirty ground. Wait for the silence to consume me and not worry anymore.
Alexandra’s face came to mind then, and in an instant, I shook my head to try to forget.
It wouldn’t happen.
It couldn’t. I wasn’t going to let it.
I dragged myself up to a sitting position, my right arm limp across my lap. I groaned with the effort as I managed to get to my feet and start moving.
With every step, a fresh wave of pain hit me, and my head swam as the world threatened to flip over me. The pain stabbed into me, down into the depths of my body. I put a pale hand against the wound and screamed in response.
I kept it there and continued moving.
I hadn’t been unconscious long this time. I could still hear their voices on the other side of the rooftop. My vision was darkening by the second as I dragged myself along.
I heard a shout from ahead, and it seemed to help.
I moved quicker in the open air. The freshness and cold hit me and seemed to wake me up to the reality of what was going on. The world became more solid around me, and I focused on what was ahead of me. The rooftop was long, and I kept moving toward the distant shouts and struggles.
I fell to my hands a few times, as I dragged myself along the roof. With each moment, I felt another minute of my life end.
They eventually came into view ahead of me. Two figures in the darkness, as the lights from the front of Blackpool shone ahead.
“Stop,” I said, but it came out as a whisper. I coughed and continued to move slowly up. “Chris, it’s over, stop.”
He turned toward me, and I could see the man I had known for so long wasn’t there anymore. This was someone else—a stranger in familiar disguise.
“I just can’t get rid of you,” Chris shouted across the rooftop. He had hold of Alexandra, who was fighting against him with everything she had. He still had the knife in his hand, but was too close to her to use it. “Don’t come any closer. It’s over.”
I kept moving as Alexandra managed to dodge another blow and then struck Chris in the chest. He stumbled backward, dropping the knife to the floor. I broke into a half run, trying to get closer to them.
Alexandra looked over at me and then aimed another forearm at Chris, who absorbed some of it with his hand in the air in front of his face. It was hard enough to make him lose his balance, falling to the ground and away from her.
I was only a few feet away now and could almost reach out to Alexandra. She turned toward me and ran the distance between us. I grabbed her and tried to pull her away, but she resisted.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, having to take a breath after every other word. Splinters of pain shook through my body, and every muscle was weakened by effort and agony. “Please…”
I glanced behind her and saw Chris moving groggily side to side. Only conscious because he hadn’t taken the full weight of her elbow into his temple. I stepped ahead of Alexandra and faced him again. “You’re not going to win.”
“This isn’t a game,” Chris said, getting to his feet slowly. One side of his face was a mask of blood, a thin laceration on his forehead the cause of it. What had once been a light shirt was now a mix of browns and reds. Still, he came forward. Off balance at first, then more purposeful. Behind us, the drop below was a chasm of possibility.
I pivoted around, trying to keep the distance between us, but I managed instead to leave no way off the rooftop other than through him.
“I’m not going back,” he spat at me.
Alexandra’s hand found my shoulder, but she was no longer behind me but at my side.
“We can still get through this.”
“You never knew me.” Chris wiped a sleeve across his brow and winced at the pain it caused. “This is my life. I’m not going to lose. You don’t know what it’s like. You could never understand this. There is no black and white. There’s only gray. I’m both people, Matt. You won’t take this away from me.”
I blinked away sweat that began to sting my eyes, sucking in a breath as another sharp bite of fire shook through my body. “Chris, there has to be another way.”
“There is no other way.”
I had taken my eye away from where the knife had fallen and Chris was faster than me. Faster than Alexandra. I saw him move, but it was already too late. He pounced forward, knocking me to the ground in one movement before tackling Alexandra. I turned groggily to see him above her. The knife in his hand. In the air and moving toward her. She struggled underneath him, bucking him one way and another, one hand gripped on the wrist holding the weapon. I tried to crawl, but my body protested against any movement.
I watched as his free hand formed a fist and he pounded it down into Alexandra’s face, her struggling becoming weaker. I tried to move again, hearing my screams coming from another world.
Reality slowed down. I saw the knife in the air. I saw the fight leave Alexandra’s body as unconsciousness gripped her. They were on the edge of the roof—an unseen drop of at least forty meters. One hundred and thirty feet. I saw the universe shift into the abyss and roared with one last effort.
I didn’t see the drop below us.
I didn’t care.
I used the last remaining strength I had to fling my useless body at his and take us over the edge.
The last thing I remember is the sound of shock escaping his lips.
And then, it was only screaming into the abyss.
Later
I don’t know how I’m still alive.
It took a long time to accept I wasn’t dead. That I am lying in a hospital bed and not on the concrete at the bottom of that hotel. Lying next to Chris, experiencing the same darkness he is. Every time I fell asleep, I kept expecting to never wake up.
When I wake, Alexandra won’t tell me what happened. She says I have to wait. That we can talk about it another time. All that matters, she thinks, is that I get better. I lost a lot of blood, and the important thing is to make sure I’m well enough to go home.
I know I won’t go back there.
Everything is tainted now. All my life has a dark stain on it.
I won’t be able to live in a place where he was so present.
She seems okay. She knows I did it to save us both, even if I will never be the same person I was before.
I killed a man. I somehow survived. I didn’t go over the edge of the roof with him. It was only luck that saved me.
I was prepared to go over that abyss with him.
There have been questions from those in authority. Men and women in uniforms, with doubting faces and suspicious expressions. Most we can’t answer. We have told the truth as much as we can, but there are some we haven’t given the full story to.
We want William Moore and his son to have justice, but when it came to it, we couldn’t accept the blame.
There’s no one left but us now.
Stuart is gone. Michelle and Nicola. Chris. The group that had once existed is now only the two of us.
I don’t know what the future will be.
Mark Welsh was found an hour ago. On the television in the corner of the room, Sky News has a yellow ticker running along the bottom of the screen. A woman is standing in front of crime scene tape as a uniformed police officer stands guard. The woodland behind them looks normal from my hospital bed, but I know what secrets it holds.
They would find more.
A picture of Chris appears on-screen, and I close my eyes to it.
Too painful right now.
They found Michelle’s body buried on the farmhouse grounds. They were still digging around the property, I imagined. Soon, they would find Nicola and that would be it. I told police that Chris told me a few locations when I found him there. They intimated they had more evidence after combing the farmhouse and his own home.
I’m waiting to see if any of it comes back to us.
He was my friend.
He was a serial killer.
I wonder how I can make those two disparate ideas work in my mind. How I can live with the knowledge of them both.
We both wanted to know he was gone. That he wasn’t going to come back. They assured us there was no doubt.
He is dead. His body is in the morgue. There is no coming back.
No one can survive a fall of that height.
I should have gone down too.
I am a killer. Just like him, I felt. We should both have been found on the pavement.
I am not sure what will happen next,
but for the moment, I just want to sleep.
Alexandra is sitting next to me, watching the television and holding my hand. I don’t know how long we’ll be allowed to do that. I don’t know if we’ll be allowed to be free.
I don’t know what will happen to us next.
I do know there will be no more candles.
I know there will be no more death.
No more lies.
No more silence.
Now
In the beginning, there was a girl.
She met a boy in school and fell in love. Teenage love, of course, but that only grew into something more over those first few years. Until she couldn’t imagine a life without him in it.
The cell phone she had bought earlier that day vibrated in her pocket. She had set it up with a pay-as-you-go SIM card, downloaded a few apps while she waited, and charged it up in the lobby.
She was waiting for him.
That’s how we live our lives now. A series of moments, interspersed with cell phones vibrating or dinging away to let us know what is happening around the world. We’re instantly contactable. When the world ends, we’ll find out from a breaking news notification, she imagines.
And that’s all it was. A news notification. She didn’t look at it straightaway.
She was alone and running away. From the life she had once had. That she worked hard to build and never wanted to change.
If everything had gone to plan, like she knew it would, then they would think she was already dead. They had planned well for this moment. Had an escape route worked out. A way out if it all fell apart.
She had dyed her hair and put in colored contacts. At a cursory glance, a change of hair and eye color would be enough. Every day would be a struggle, but she was well prepared for that.
If he didn’t come, she knew what would happen. They would want her secrets. They would ask her questions and demand answers. She would be on the front page of every newspaper, talked about online, accused of being the Rose to his Fred. The Carr to his Huntley.