Not a killer

Chapter 4

My mother opened the door.

"Oh Zack, where have you been all afternoon? It is now eight o' clock in the evening and you've missed you're tea!" she said angrily.

"Never mind about that, mum" I said "I saw it was quite late when I finished my book, so I just went and bought a sandwich in the restaurant down the road."

This was a complete lie. I hadn't eaten anything for hours, but I didn't have any appetite after all that had happened earlier, anyway.

"I'm tired. I think I'll just go to bed"

"Are you feeling alright?" she asked, worried.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine" I answered "I just need a bit of sleep..."

My mother and I lived in a nice little neighborhood at the west side of the town. I had lived there all my life and I liked the stillness of the place, quite a distance away from the city centre with all its traffic, pollution and noise.

I had no brothers or sisters, and my father had died when I was only three years old, in a car accident which I barely remember. My mother (whose name was Rachel) hardly ever talked about it, and when I ocasionally asked her to tell me something about Dad, she would always change the topic of conversation quickly, or go and do something else.

"Mum, what was Dad like?" I would ask.

"Not now, Zack. Don't you have homework to do?" Her answer would be something like that.

I think she didn't want to talk about it because it made her sad and want to cry, so in the last few years, I have been bringing up the topic less and less frequently.

My school grades had never been very good either. This didn't mean that I didn't try. I would work very hard for an exam, but I still didn't do great. Towards the end of highschool I really couldn't keep up with everything at once, so (to my mother's great annoyance) I ended up dropping out.

The fact that I didn't have any friends just made things worse. When I was small, the other kids used to bully me a bit, but all through highschool everyone just seemed to ignore my existence completely. But I was used to the feeling, and so I always spent my time reading books and watching movies.

Now, I am eighteen and instead of going to university, I spend my time reading books (my favourites are science-fiction and poetry) and going for walks. Also, I am currently looking for a job and trying to get my driving license.

So far, my life had been pretty normal...until I met that stranger.

***

That same night, I couldn't get a wink of sleep. I was going through all the events that had happened to me that afternoon. It was unbelievable. I had witnessed for the first time (and hopefully the last!) a murder. So many questions were appearing in my head. Why did the stranger kill the so-called George? Did they really form part of a group of assassins? If so, how many of them were there? And the list went on and on...

After a lot of thinking, I finally decided two things:

1. I was going to go to the police station to report the murder first thing in the morning, despite what the stranger/killer had said. What did he mean I will end up hearing about it ? He was probably just trying to scare me, to make me not go. Yeah, well, he commited murder, so justice had to be done.

2. I was not going to tell any of this to my mother, so that she didn't get all worried about me and start a big fuss.

After making these two choices, I was able to get a few hours of sleep, matters being settled.