62 :

And for just a second, there was silence. Beautiful, serene. One could close your eyes, see nothing, smell the freshly cut grass of the autumn playing field she had cut down to save a few minutes, that rare lapse in consciousness, believing she was safe, that no one knew where she was.

Rufus – sorry, Cliff, looked up at The Beast.

“She’s Out”. He said.

Hands shaking, almost invisibly trembling with fear, he knew that whatever had happened, whatever had taken place, there was no way back from this, no way of unpeeling his sins, that this was another moment that will remain unforgivable, unforgiven, and that all things had changed. There was no way back from here.

The path of love is difficult to follow and hard to fathom to those who do not love.

He let out a sigh, exhaled with relief. You can’t go home anymore.

His hand reached out to her, stroked her calm, soft, comatose hair, and whispered the three words that can change lives, that when utter from the right lips can make hearts leap with joy or sink with fear.

“I love you.” I heard.

“WHAT?” I shouted. “What the fuck are you doing you goddamn fucking idiot?”

The rage, the fury of the impotent. If my rage could be made real, I would be invicible.

Inside the van they heard nothing.

“Can you hear that?” Cliff asked.

Gobbling pills, he replied - “Hear what fuckhead? “

“I dunno boss, I thought I heard someone.”

I heard someone. I heard me. My fist connected with the side of the van in precise, focused rage.

“YOU FUCKING CUNTS”

A dull thud echoed around the van. My mother would be so proud of me. Wash out my dirty mouth with soap.

“What was that Cliff?” He asked. His hands trembled again, whatever it was he had just had two 25mg pills of had obviously done no good. They normally take about 15 minutes to seep into the bloodstream, but he was hoping for some calm, some peace, and now.

For a second I was no longer one of the dead, but I was alive, more alive than I had ever been.

“Shit boss, I dunno.” He looked scared. Something, someone, was out there. That noise had come from somewhere or someone. But who? And where?

“Well go outside and check”, he said, looking in the mirrors, seeing nothing.

Where was it, what was it? What could it be? A torch peered out from the drivers window, exposing nothing in the falling daylight, nothing but dew and grass and discarded cans of Coke and soggy condoms.

Cliff fumbled in the dark, in the inside of the van, looking for a – he picked up a baseball bat. The door opened a crack, an inch, then flung open, he poked his head out, a torch peering into darkness, looking for wherever the sound came from.

Careful boy, don’t blow it now, there’s too many people here.

“Nobody here Boss”, he said. And he was right. There was nobody there. The place was quiet. Deserted. The only thing left here were the memories, the ghosts of former lives.

“OK, well,” he said, his voice trembling with the first sign of fear, “let’s get the fuck out of here. Someone may have seen us.”

The engine ticked over, Cliff climbed back into the back of the van, and the door slammed shut. Time was running out. Wheels turned, grinding over gravel on the stone and dirt, careful not to leave tyre marks upon mud and grass, or traces of any human contact.

Except Cliff’s trainers. Several sets of designer bootprints imprinted upon the mud were forming, waiting for someone, or something, to come and immortalise them, as the fossils of a past life, a bygone age, they already were.

In a few months time, these too would be evidence.