The Sister (18 page)

The doctor recently told him that the amount of cigarettes he smoked would kill him for sure.
That may be so, Doc, but I know someone who smoked all his life. He was told by a doctor to stop, and a few weeks later, he died of a heart attack.
Giving up cigarettes killed him.

"That won't be me," he said, surprised he'd said it aloud.

Around a snaking bend in the road, halfway up the hill, a car park sat among the trees, three sides of it contained by man-made mud banks. A wooden sign pointed in the direction of several footpaths.

He guessed that if anyone were walking today, it would be at the top, to catch the cooling breeze that always seemed to blow up there.

Tired of driving, he found some shade, parked and closed his eyes.

Too hot to settle, he gave up on trying to nap. A coffee might perk him up; he poured one from the thermos. It was so warm outside there was no steam. Fooled into thinking it wasn't that hot, the liquid scalded his lips.
Mother of
Shit!
he spat through gritted teeth, and bunching his left fist, threatened the windscreen with it.

"Jeez!" It took a lot of self-control to stop himself punching the screen out. Now he needed a cigarette.

The coffee made him want to piss. Although there were a couple of other cars parked, and he hadn't seen anyone around, he decided to go into the bushes to urinate. He wouldn't want some old woman to say he flashed his cock at her. A smirk crossed his face at the thought.
Would you be able to tell us what he looked like? "
Well officer, I didn't actually
see
his face." Shaking himself off, he zipped up his fly.

Destiny pulled him along the valley path. He wondered if the stream still ran on the same course… If the woods had changed. The demons of dark desire came alive at the memory of the naked girl and the others he'd met there. He suddenly remembered the boy.
Did I give you bad dreams, kid?
He decided the kid was too young to understand what he'd seen, but the old man . . . he'd given him the creeps. He'd looked straight at where he hid in the undergrowth.
How did he know?
Although he shook his head, he acknowledged that if it hadn't been for that, he might have been tempted to stay, and if he had . . . Y
eah, did me a favour
. He was back today; if any one should ask, he was watching for birds - his favourite pastime.
You never know who you're going to bump into.
The element of surprise was what he loved best.

Half an hour later, he reached the broad shale beach, where the stream flattened out on a bend, before dropping away. The water gurgled, as it darted shiny and silver, through the rocks. The dense woods looked unchanged, except that someone had put up more clooties. This puzzled him; there were dozens of them tied in the branches of a whitethorn tree hanging over the bend in the stream. There wasn't a spring there. What did these damn ignorant, new age, seekers-after-something, think they were doing? Fighting back the urge to tear them down, he lit a cigarette. The smell of the woods set his heart thumping as a parade of memories started in his head, he felt himself becoming aroused. About to embark on a few minutes of fantasy, he unzipped himself, and then almost panicked when he heard female voices carried on the breeze. Tilting his head, he stood still, listening intently, tuning into the direction of the sound.

He moved away from the undergrowth, and stopped in his tracks, retreating into the cover of the shade once more. Three girls were moving away from him. He looked at the stub of the cigarette, took one last drag, right down to the butt and flicking it away, started up the slope just inside the tree line, stalking them.

Higher up, the path moved away from the trees leading to an open meadow of tall grass. From there, it climbed steeply up to the ridge. The stalker closed the gap with surprising speed, halving the distance between them. One girl lagged behind. The other two, clearly engrossed in conversation, marched on ahead, oblivious to the lengthening gap.

He measured the distance to the top and gauged the pace with which they were walking.

It was too risky. If he'd given in to reckless temptation every time the desire was on him, he would have been behind bars long before now for sure.

Outlined by the sun shining through their thin summer dresses, the silhouettes of their bodies bound him in a spell. The leader girls were skinny; he'd no time for skinny girls. The other had fallen behind, now over a hundred yards from her friends. Fully developed, the shape of her excited him; the roundness, the curves, the gap at the top of her legs where the sun glared through the thin cotton dress. His brief masturbation stirred up feelings, which now overpowered him. The two girls disappeared over the lip at the top, out of sight. He knew it was too risky, but if he moved quickly…

The long grass allowed him to creep close to her, just outside her peripheral vision. He avoided looking at her directly, just in case she got the feeling that someone was watching her.

Despite his precaution, she turned quite suddenly and looked in his direction.

He dropped out of sight instantly. A few seconds later, he peered out from his hiding place, heart hammering, and mouth watering.
Too late to turn away from it now.

He broke cover on her blind side, crossing the space between them like a lion closing in on its prey and then he was on her, drawing the cold steel tip of his knife across the skin of her face, she shivered at its touch. Sweet, plump, beautiful, within seconds he was inside her. The realisation she was a virgin drove him crazy; when the revulsion on her face registered with him, she only hastened the end.

He started to choke the life out of her. What happened next took him aback, for a second she looked different, as if someone had swapped places with her. Those few decisive seconds saved her life. As he tightened his grip around her throat once more, a clear commanding voice shouted at him. "
GET - OFF - HER!"
The voice held no fear. It stopped him dead. He looked up sharply; he could have killed all three if he chose. That was what set him apart. He was clever. Sparking a manhunt didn't feature in his plans. Quickly turning away, he took off and ran, crashing and stumbling back to the car, his only thought was to get away. This time he'd fucked up, gone too close to the wire.

It had been too risky; he shouldn't have gone for it; he knew that, but he'd gone for it anyway.
Jeez!
Out of control, head spinning - he couldn't focus. What just happened had never happened before. These were credible witnesses to his crime, not like the kid.

Change unsettled him. Now it was inevitable. A fury rose within him, and it was hard to control. If he didn't get a grip, he would end up doing something stupid and all the years of meticulous care . . . undone by a few crazed moments. He had to get home; he would shave his face clean, cut his hair and dye it.

He roared out of the car park, out into the country lane. In a daze, driving faster than the road allowed, he pulled a cigarette from its pack, lit it and almost careered off the road.

Deep inhalation, slow exhalation, deep, slow, calming . . . he wound his window down, to get air into the car, to cool down and clear his head.

He arrived at a T-junction and turned left. He was now on a B road headed towards home.

"Be careful now!" he hissed to himself. "Slow
down
. It's the last thing you want, bombing along drawing attention to yourself!"

The police would be out looking soon, and he wanted to get as far away as possible from where he'd just been. He started getting angry, berating himself with a woman's voice. It startled him.
His mother's voice!? Sweet Jesus, am I going crazy?
If she'd kept up with her friends, it would never have happened.

The more he tried, the harder it was to concentrate. He ran through the things he would have to do now. The job he had lined up.
Can't take that now; she's fucked that up for you. No, wait, if you don't . . . Will somebody think . . . No - just get away. You can think it through later.

That night as he lay in bed, he counted the way he always did, to bring his thoughts into order. He drifted afterwards until he thought about all the girls he'd ever known, albeit, most of them he'd known only briefly, playing through the different outcomes that might have been.
It beats counting sheep
. A few minutes of that and he would be asleep, but not tonight. Tonight he was thinking about the one that got away.

In his entire career, it was only the second time there'd been witnesses, but it bothered him. The first time was sheer bad luck, and he never gave it a second thought. How could he have known that a kid would get lost and have half his family looking for him? No, this was different. He'd lost control, gone too far, and that disturbed him.

They were probably all over her body right now, looking for hair, clothing fibres, bits of skin and worst of all – he'd shot his semen inside her. If he hadn't been disturbed, he would have carted her off, and they'd have had nothing. Still, they had to catch him first. He would make sure he was never careless like it again.

He cursed himself. After the kid saw him, he should have just stayed away. It was the old man - who'd been with him - he'd jinxed the place. As he dyed his hair dark brown and cut off his beard, he made his mind up; he wouldn't be going back there again.

Soon, he was back to thinking about the girl. He cursed her under his breath. She'd seriously fucked things up for him. The atmosphere. The associations. The lure had been just too much. Trailing behind her friends like that, letting him know she was lost and lonely. He'd just had to have her. He should have taken her straight down to the stream, fucked her there and then got rid of her. He'd allowed his cock to rule his head. His old man used to say.
You can't let your cock rule your head; it has no fucking brain!
Sound advice and he might have listened if the old man had practised what he preached. He gritted his teeth at the memory of the old man; he hated him and all he wanted to do was forget; that's the trouble with a photographic memory. You don't forget. You bury, but you do not ever forget. He balled his fist and crashed it into the wallboard, leaving a crater there.

He stared at his knuckles - unnaturally white for a second; the torn skin peeled back, turning red as the blood bubbled up and dripped onto the floor.

"FUCK!" The scream silenced the whole camp. The residents outside looked warily at each other. Not one of them cared to knock to ask if he was okay. When he was like that, they knew better than to disturb him.

In the bathroom, he stared at the face looking back at him. Older, but still powerful, a gleam of madness shone in his wild, blood-shot eyes.
I would not want to meet you on a dark night.
A half grin pulled painfully at his scarred top lip, preventing a full smile. He'd not smiled fully since he'd split the scar when he was a kid.

Lying on his bed, he tried to put her out of his mind, but she clung there. Photographic memories, you can't get rid of them; a flashbulb moment of concentration had burned them into his consciousness. He wasn't sure how it all worked, but if it wasn't important to him, he'd forget it. His old man was said, "
You can't even remember what you had for breakfast, yet that little girl with the red hot pants next door, from ten years ago - you remember her like she was here yesterday!"
Now he was older and understood things better, he thought it might be to do with capacity. He'd read the mind works like that, keeping all the important things at the front and letting the mediocre drift to the back . . . forgotten. The more you thought about things, the fresher they kept. An article in a magazine about Ted Serios stated he could create an image in his mind and transmit it onto film, often using iconic buildings and structures. Serios produced images, which, although recognisable, were clearly not photographs, merely impressions from his memory.
Just imagine if I could do that. Somebody walks past with a camera while I'm reminiscing. Then goes into the chemists to get it developed. The technicians see it all on film. Next thing, he's arrested. No other evidence, no body, nothing. The Judge: "How do you find the defendant, guilty or not guilty?" The foreman: "Guilty." Oh, boy, the fun he could have with people that he didn't like, just as long as they carried a camera.
A painful grin stretched his lips; he looked as if he were sneering.
She
was in his head again.

"Don't hurt me!"
The flimsy moment of resistance inside her confirmed she was a virgin as he pushed through. The memory made him hard again . . .

It was a sign, and he should heed it. He'd give it a rest for a while, he'd done it before. It was nothing new. Change - he hated it, but he'd find something else. Necessity, the mother of invention, and the Devil makes work for idle hands. He was getting bored.

He'd always lived among travellers; his bare-knuckle prowess guaranteed him a reluctant welcome wherever he turned up within the community. It hadn't always been like that.

Widely regarded as a nutter, he had no friends, and although he kept himself to himself, he was often heard arguing with someone, or calling out in the quiet of the night. It was for this reason they pitched him well away from everyone else.