Kill Who You Want

Chapter Fifteen

Plot reminder: Abigail is the obnoxious teenage daughter of Heather Gilchrist, the editor of the local newspaper who chose not to take the letter writer's offer that the game finish with no further bloodshed. With Nathan having failed to commit murder, and thus not having respected the rules of the 'game', his loved ones are in grave danger...

~~~~~

Earpods still in, Abigail Gilchrist continued to nod her head rhythmically as if she hadn't just turned the volume down to zero. She was at the kitchen table pretending to do some homework; diagonal to her line of vision, her mother was perched on a stool at the breakfast bar. She'd been on the wine again, was down to the last glassful in the bottle. Two nights in succession. Something was most definitely going on. Perhaps by furtively eavesdropping her telephone conversations Abigail might glean something...

"I know you said neighbours saw him being loaded onto the ambulance George, but we're sure he's still alive?"

Her voice was strained, wavering in pitch. Not some man thing this time like it usually was when her mother had a crisis. There'd been another murder by the sound of things. An attempted one at least. Just what? - two, three days after the last. Lord oh Lord, things were starting to get crazy around there.

"His son," her mother was now spluttering into her wine. "You're telling me it was the guy's own son?"

Killing your own father. There was a fancy name for that: patricide. Miss Booth had taught them it last year when they'd been doing Macbeth. The guy had tried to frame the sons of the murdered king when really it had been him and that bitch of a wife of his.

The female version was called matricide...

She'd been tempted of course, as any teenage girl with her mother. But no, if she were to get one of those strange letters that were going round she'd have to plump for Michelle Eastwood. How dare she invite like literally everyone in the whole world to her sixteenth birthday party except Abigail herself? Just because Liam Alliston fancied her, Abigail, and not rabbit-toothed, freckle-faced, no-tits Michelle.

So yea, Michelle Eastwood. Either her or that complete bitch Miss Booth. She who expected a better grasp of punctuation from the daughter of the editor of the local paper. Expected a wider vocabulary. Better expression of ideas, more interest in literary heritage. Expected way too effing much, in short.

She wasn't her mother. Why could nobody see that?

She felt like screaming it out at the top of her lungs sometimes.

I AM NOT MY EFFING MOTHER ALRIGHT!

It was just as well too, the state of her at the moment. The telephone call ended, she was onto the Irish cream now. She only ever got the Irish cream out at Christmas.

There was no doubt about it. This wasn't just some passing crisis. The woman was in full meltdown.

*

Larkinson glanced in the rearview mirror at the three dimly lit figures in the back seat. The stepfather was to the left, his face turned to the window. His was a brooding silence, his thoughts no doubt centred on the slab of hashis they'd found in the kitchen rather than the existential turmoil of Nathan Edwardson. A slab of hashis which had been duly confiscated, outweighing as it did by about five bloody stones the usual recognized leniancy applied for cases of personal use only. No stranger to the inside of a prison cell, he could this time be facing up to an entire year at Her Majesty's pleasure.

The mother was seated in the middle - the face-covering palms, the little shakes of the head, at least suggesting some level of remorse. Some vague acknowledgement of her own role in the evening's tragedy. She'd been as stoned as a hippy as she'd opened the front door, but the news had sobered her up as suddenly as a slap across the face.

Then to the left, his face pressed glumly to the gently vibrating window, was the little brother, Marcus. He clearly hadn't fallen for his mother's line that that they were just going on a sort of holiday. It was there in his eyes. A level of comprehension far darker and more profound than any ten-year-old boy had the right to.

Your destination, the silky female voice of the sat-nav now piped up, will be on the right in five hundred metres.

A destination which had been described in co-ordinates, and which resulted as nothing more than a lay-by along the country lane he'd a couple of minutes earlier been directed down. The second car waited with headlights off, was visible only by its thin coat of snow. The ground was a little higher here; on all sides were nothing but cold, blanketed fields. Other than Larkinson's own, there were no headlights anywhere in view.

A pair of figures emerged into the flake-speckled beams as he drew to a halt.

He twisted shoulders to face his passengers, attempted a reassuring smile.

"All change folks. The witness protection officers will be taking you from here."

*

It had been a night of distamt sirens. Of listlessness, self-pitying tears.

Finally, somehow, Sophie had struggled herself to the end of her French homework. She was on the last line of the guided dialogue now: say thankyou to the shopkeeper and wish her a good evening. This one was easy at least. Even Danny Kubič would be able to do it.

Nathan though? Three and a half years now and it was all he could manage to count to five in French.

Absurd.

Yes, she was more convinced of it than ever. The whole thing had been ridiculous. Ill-considered. Quite, quite surreal.

Nathan Edwardson, for heaven's sake! What on earth had she been thinking?

Yet as she scratched pen to paper, still the tears welled in her eyes.

Merci beaucoup madame. Bonne soirèe.

Rising wearily from her desk, she paused for a moment in front of the window to wipe away her tears, watch the falling snow. The stuff still fascinated her, made her feel like an excited five-year-old about to run outside and make a snowman.

Oh, to be that age again. Her teenage years, she suspected, were going to be a complete drag. She just had to get through them as best she could, wait for the social and cultural liberation of university amidst like-minded peers with IQ scores, unlike her current classmates, above 60!

Squinting through the descending flakes, she wondered why was there someone in the window of the abandoned house opposite.

It was only the briefest of thoughts though. She barely had time to register the thin red beam cutting through the snow, buzzing onto her forehead...

There was a sudden explosion of glass infront of her.

And then.

Nothing.

*

Sirens would once more ravage the snow-filled Ravensby night.

There was something harsher to their sound this second time however. Something more urgent, heart-stopping. A great sorrowful wail booming out over the surrounding fields.

An SOS call.

A desperate cry for help.

~~~~~

If you enjoyed this part you might consider clicking on the vote icon (the star) and/or leaving a brief comment of feedback (the speech bubble). Thank you so much for your support.