52 :

I stood outside the block of flats, her new home. My love.

Somehow I doubted that she was at work. Somehow I doubted that even if she could find a job, she would want to. Somehow I wondered how long the credit cards would last. How long it would be before he found her. Not long though, every credit card transaction, every movement can be found, tracked, traced.

However long she had it wasn’t long enough.

Her hand was warm next to mine. She held my hand, as real, as soft, as any hand I held, her skin a kindred spirit. And so I felt alone, but no longer alone.

Samuel’s eyes glanced down at us, the hands being held, the gesture, the demonstration of something that wasn’t love, but deeper than that as well. Deeper than an animal lust, because we could never truly be consumated.

She knew why I was here. I knew why I was born, and why I died. I knew the answers to questions I never wanted to ask, let alone have answered.

Like loitering teenagers. Long stretches of silence, seemingly infinite in scope, as we ran out of words. There are times when words aren’t enough. But there are times when words are too much. There nothing to say, or nothing to be said.

Samuel and I kicked our heels over, both of us sitting together on cold, hard stone of the ledges outside her block of flats, outside her apartment, outside number 68 there, we could see, the lights mute, the rooms deathly quiet. Beside me, Karen’s features, seemingly innocent, but no more or less innocent than anyone else, stared somewhere. Not at me, nor avoiding me, but somewhere where she didn’t know quite where she should look or why.

We were latchkey kids, waiting for something to happen, waiting to end our exile.

As he spoke, I knew what Samuel was going to say.

“I can’t go in there.” Somehow I knew that not only could he not go in there, but neither could I.

“And I can’t do what you’ve got to do.” The words hung heavy in silent air. Not even the sound of cars, or dogs barking, or children coming home from school existed for this moment.
A hand imperceptably, but definitely tightened around mine.

And I knew what I had to do. But could it be done? And if it could be done, only I could really do that. Do that one simple thing. I knew not. Until the moment it came. Even though by now my mind had been made up. For me, by others. By me, for others.

Samuel stood up, paced back and forth in boredom and tension. Like a sprung up coil ready to explode, awaiting the signal, the charge.

“I gotta go Simon.” He said. His hand squeezed my shoulder, and then, without looking back, he was gone. “I’m sorry,” he said, as he got smaller, until I could barely hear him (or he had lowered his voice). “I know you’ll do The Right Thing”.. I felt him say it instead of heard him. He looked back. But I didn’t see him.

He was waiting for someone. There are times when being alone is the worst thing in the world, and yet, the only thing that one can do.

Not long. It was 3.51. I’d been here an hour already. I sat, forlorn, outside the block of flats. On a knee high verge that demarcated the boundary of the block. I could’ve gone right in. I could’ve walked through that door, seen her new life. The endless rows of hastily packed boxes, the wreckage of a past life, the shitting in fear, the sleepless nights and the endless worry. That every man she meets could be a threat, a killer, the last face she sees.

All these things make life as cruel as it is short.

Karen could feel Him. And so could I. Which is why I accepted what Samuel said. Which is why I could never go in there. I tried it. I tried passing over the threshold. tried ignoring the strange feeling in my soul – after all, so much weird shit had happened to me recently, it was very difficult to accept conventional feelings such as fear and love for what they were.

“There”, she would say, and point. I would dimly see the trace of a shadow move around. A black shape. Something dark and angry and hating and not necessarily smart enough to know why or how it hated, only that it hated.

“Who is it?” I asked.

As if she would know. But I certainly didn’t. Something that used to be a person, in some form, some ancient time not even recorded by history. From another age where the whole world was different ; when the world turned on a different axis and danced to a different drum.

“What is it, more like.” She said.

My head rested down upon her shoulder. It was warm in this cold, lonely world.

“Nobody knows. Nobody cares. We just try to stay away from it.”

It. The dehumanisation of the victim. No longer a he or a she, no longer anything with feelings, just an object. Then again, if that’s how you treat other people, its how they treat you.

And out of the corner of my mind, I felt the fear. The cold hand that gripped my soul and squeezed. He was due.

“Why doesn’t it leave?” I asked her. I wished Sam was here. He would have the answers. Everybody hates a know-it-all…. Well, sometimes.

“I don’t know. Some spirits are just, well, trapped I suppose. Stuck forever by a memory, a feeling, an aura. I don’t know. Whatever it is that keeps them there, they need it. “

We can’t see radio waves : but they’re there. Around us, everywhere and nowhere, constantly changing, fluctuating, moving in and out of range. A spirit like that could be a receiver, trapped forever within the limited range of it’s memory.

“We feel them moving : the air changes. It just vibrates at a different frequency. We stay away.”

Us and them. The nearer I got, the more I could feel it now. Now I know. When I first came here it didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know why or how : it just felt wrong. And now I knew why. Everything explains itself. In time.

“It wants us in there.” She said. “It feeds off us. It hates us and it needs us at the same time – our energy, our fear.”

The air trembled.

“It feeds off fear, hate, hunger, horror. Whatever it was, what was once human, it can never be again, and it despises whatever it is that is virtuous and kind.”

I sat and listened. Her voice made me almost feel as if Helen wasn’t quite as important as she once was. Almost.

I tensed. It was time. I felt something happen. The rumble of tyres over concrete. The slowing vibrations of engine cylinders, spacing themselves further and further apart.

He was here. She stood up. Karen’s hand rested on my shoulder and held it for a second or two longer than it should, and yet, not long enough. She had to go. She leant down, and her lips touched mine. It was more than it should’ve been. Less than love. It was something.

“Be strong”. She whispered. A spark like electricity, like something special, passed between us. The air crackled. The warmth from her stayed near me just slightly longer than it should. And despite myself, I liked that.

And I saw her walking away. I saw the movement of her body. And I saw her get smaller and smaller. And then she was gone.

And I was alone with my murderer.