terristories

In the purple and gray morning I watched as a half dozen burly men scurried between a truck and a small motorboat moored at a rickety-looking jetty. Unaware of my presence, they called to each other, their voices echoing off the steep cliffs that sheltered the cove. As far as they knew, the only other living beings out there were the seagulls dipping and gliding in the still air.

I shifted my weight slightly to ease the cramp I could feel building in my calf. A twig cracked under me as I moved and I froze, willing the shadow of the small bush behind which I was crouched to cloak me. Who knew what they would do if they saw me? They were obviously up to no good; anyone with half a brain would be able to see that.

But it seemed Lady Luck was with me. The heavy closest to me looked around with only vague interest at the sound before turning back to the task at hand. What that task was, exactly, I couldn't be sure, but it involved moving a lot of medium-sized boxes from the truck to the boat, which had puttered quietly in from the open sea about ten minutes ago. I had been in my hiding place for at least half an hour by then, wondering what on earth Trevor was doing at this remote spot, in a strange truck, at this hour of the morning, but not daring to show myself.

I was puzzled. None of the men who were now moving the boxes under his watchful eye were familiar to me. I knew everyone in the district by sight, so they had to come from somewhere further afield. The whole scene below me smacked of something sinister.
Initially I had followed Trevor because I had suspected for a while that he was hiding something from me. I had been expecting him to lead me to Tamara West's house. She was always flirting with him and sneaking glances in his direction when she thought I wasn't looking.
Well, I was pretty sure that Tamara was not on that beach, unless she was hiding in the truck, which I very much doubted. She just wasn't a hiding-in-the-back-of-a-truck kind of woman.
Mind you, Trevor wasn't really the smuggling sort of man either. Was he?

My interest in the goings-on below was beginning to wan. The cramp in my leg was returning and I was getting cold. I wanted to go home and forget I had seen any of this. But with the sky lightening by the minute the only chance I had at remaining undiscovered was to stay put, stay still, and wait until they all left.
Miserably, I began to plan the confrontation with Trevor that would now inevitably have to happen later that day.
I could probably make it home before he did, since he would have to fetch his car from the warehouse where he had met up with the truck earlier, after leaving this place. I would leave my hiding place as soon as they were out of sight, jog back to where my own car was hidden in a clump of trees down the road, and then race home, where I would put on pot of coffee. That way, I would be sitting in the big wing-backed chair in the formal lounge when he walked in, poised and in control.
He would be surprised to see me - I was supposed to be at work still.
I would demand to know where he had been.
He would...

What would he do? What would he say? Would he lie to me?
Probably. He had obviously been doing that for a while. I tried to imagine what story he would come up with when he was caught off guard.

A shout from the beach caught my attention, followed by a sudden flurry of activity. There were more men on the beach now, running towards the truck and the boat. Where had they come from? They were dressed all the same. Was... was that a police uniform? A loud crack split the air and the heavies all stopped dead. It took only a moment for me to realise that the sound was a gunshot. Not a rifle, like the ones we heard in the distance during hunting season. This was different. My breath caught in my throat. Where was Trevor? There he was, halfway between the truck and the shadow of the cliff. He, too, was standing still now. Slowly he turned towards the ruckus on the beach, where a dozen policemen had his henchmen, or whatever they were, surrounded. He swayed slightly and a small gasp escaped my lips as my hand flew to my mouth to stifle it. Looking down at his chest he dropped to his knees and I saw something fall from his hand into the sand where it landed with a thud.
But... Trevor hates guns!

Time seemed to slow down as I watched my husband tumble sideways onto the beach. One of the policemen ran over to him, shouting, but I couldn't make out what he was saying. He kicked the gun away from where Trevor lay and cautiously bent down, putting his hand to Trevor's neck for a few moments. Then he straightened and turned back to the other men on the beach, shaking his head.

As the reality of the situation tried to claw its way into my head only one thought staved off the attack.

I wished I was at Tamara West's house.

The realization slowly dawned on me…

that I was not meant to be there. Everyone and everything around me belonged, like pieces of a puzzle. I was the odd one out - a jigsaw piece that had somehow fallen into the wrong box.

The other pieces made up a picture one might see on a postcard or the cover of a children's book. Pa sitting in the overstuffed recliner in the corner, the patriarch looking fondly at his tribe. Ma cooking up a storm in the kitchen. Their three grown-up children chatting amiably as they shared a bottle of wine, while half a dozen of their offspring played with various toys and building blocks that were strewn across the thick pile carpet in front of the glowing embers crackling contentedly in the fireplace. The two sons-in-law were playing a game of chess in the corner, while Claire was on the floor keeping an eye on the little ones, occasionally joining in the grown-ups' conversation with an amusing comment.

Claire, who had grown up in the house next door and was almost part of the family. Claire, who was beautiful and warm and funny. Claire, who everyone expected to become family when she married Andy.

And then there was me. I was the anomoly, the interloper, the woman who had bewitched Andy with my high-powered job and fancy clothes. The woman who was standing in the way of the family being whole and uninterrupted.

It wasn't as if I didn't want to be here. I liked the way the delicious aroma of the Sunday roast filled the house with warmth. It was cosy having the whole family together. But I didn't know how to behave in a manner that fitted in with a large family. Growing up, it had just been me and my mother. She was an actress who had spent much of the time away, leaving me to be raised by a series of housekeepers and nannies. I hardly saw her anymore - she had finally married a tremendously wealthy man and they shared a villa in the south of France. Once a year she came to New York on a shopping spree, and we usually met up then for coffee.

Andy had everything I didn't have growing up. Two parents, two siblings, a house in the suburbs, afternoons in the park down the road and Sunday lunches. He worked in the City now, which was where I had met him. We shared an apartment with large windows and comfortable furnishings. I loved our life, as did he, as far as I knew. We had even begun to discuss marriage.

But now, as I looked on at the scene played out in front of me it was as if I had a moment of clarity. I did not belong here. I could hear it in the way his sisters spoke to me; polite but distant, as if I were from another planet. I could see it in the way they all looked at each other with a special fondness. It was a bond they didn't share with me - a lifetime of memories and background a world removed from my own. I could never belong. Perhaps if we had a child... but that wasn't going to happen. A wretched car accident years ago had put paid to any ideas I might ever have entertained of raising a family of my own.

I caught Claire staring at Andy. She was obviously lost in thought and for a moment her adoration was like a neon sign on her face that announced, "I love you and I'm ready to have your babies!". Clearly, she was simply waiting for his infatuation with me to end so that they could move on with the life she had planned. I got the feeling they all were.

These thoughts all flashed through my head in a few brief seconds that seemed to last for hours. All at once the house felt stuffy and I quietly moved away from where I had been standing near the window and stepped outside onto the front porch, breathing deeply of the crisp Autumn air.
Two young boys went whizzing by on their bycicles, giggling breathlessly. Across the road a sprinkler system was watering a perfectly manicured lawn.
Suburbia. I longed for the comfort of it, but I began to wonder if it would ever be mine. Perhaps, but I was beginning to think it would not be with Andy.

I heard the door open and close softly behind me and then I felt the warmth of Andy's strong arms around me as he stood behind me in a gentle embrace.

This is a little exercise in scratch fiction that I originally posted on Terri's Web Stuff. But since this is supposed to be my 'writing & stories' spot, I figured I'd put it up here for safekeeping.
The rules & stuff are over at Purgatorian. Basically he supplies the first line. Whoever takes up the challenge supplies the rest.
I figured I'd give it a try...

The transom. I forgot the transom…

It was all going so well. The stains on the carpet were gone. Most of them, anyway - there was still a small one that I couldn't get out but I'd moved the bookcase over a few inches to cover it. The rest of the mess had been cleaned up and I had taken the trash out and thrown it away in a dumpster a couple of blocks away. There was nothing I could do about the broken lamp, but I had balanced the shade precariously and could always blame Rosie. She was known to be careless with the feather duster.

By the time they had returned everything looked completely normal, including me. Not a hair out of place, an angelic smile on my face welcoming them back.

But now, as I stood with my arms around my mother, hugging her and telling her how I'd missed her, my eyes sweeping the room just in case I had missed something, it hit me like a blow to the stomach.

I forgot the damn transom!

A huge spidery crack split the smooth surface. It wouldn't be long before one of them saw it. I couldn't very well blame that one on Rosie, could I? She was only 4ft tall, there's no way they would believe she had broken it. I had to keep my parents out of the room until I could figure out what to do. Who could I get to fix it at such short notice?
Alan would know.
Alan. Would he even want to talk to me after what had happened?
Never mind that now, I would deal with it later.
I had to get my parents out of the room.

"Here, let me help you get these bags upstairs," I said with a bright smile, leading my mother by the hand, carefully trying to keep eye contact with both my parents in an attempt to stop them from looking up.

I would have made it too, except my mother went and made some comment that made my father roll his eyes. That was when he saw it.
His eyes stopped mid-roll and his brow furrowed in puzzlement.

"What happened there?" he asked and my mother turned to follow his gaze.

Like a deer caught in headlights I froze, unable to come up with a reasonable explanation.

An image flashed through my mind: the flash of a blade as it caught a shaft of moonlight streaming in through the pane of glass above the front door. It struck me that it looked different in the light of day, with birds twittering sweetly outside. Two nights ago it had been the only source of light in the house. The memory of the shadows playing on the wall ran like a film in my head. Alan's shadow, as he had held down the silly pizza-delivery man, and my shadow as I had plunged the knife deep into his chest, again and again, until he lay perfectly still, like a child at rest.
The shadows had all stopped moving then as Alan and I had looked at each other with a mixture of horror and exhileration. Alan's horror and my exhileration. My pulse quickened and my breathing became shallow.

"Caroline, are you alright?" My mother's voice broke through and I returned to the moment.

I plastered a smile on my face and lied.
"I'm fine. I was just trying to figure out where that crack came from."

Certainly not from someone flinging a heavy bunch of keys across the room in a blind panic, I thought and the movie in my head continued as if uninterrupted.

Our moment of bonding had quickly turned to something else. Alan had panicked. He had wanted to call the police. It had taken all my guile to convince him otherwise. Of course, he was still under the mistaken belief that the pizza-delivery guy had tried to attack me. I was not about to enlighten him. Eventually I had convinced him that it would be best if he left, and I promised to contact the authorities as soon as he was gone. There was no need for him to be involved, I explained. It would only damage his chances of getting his scholarship.
So he had left.
And I had cleaned up the mess by myself.
But I couldn't bring myself to make the call. The cops always found out the truth in the end, didn't they? I had read enough books to know that. I couldn't take the risk of being found out. I had only just started, only just discovered the secret to the ultimate high. The feeling of power over another human being, over life and death, was intoxicating. I wasn't ready to let that go.

"It looks as if something banged into it," my father was shaking his head and stroking his beard the way he always did when he was trying to solve a problem.
The twittering birds outside began to get on my already strung-out nerves.

And then I smiled for real. The birds!

"You know, Rosie mentioned that a pigeon flew into the house the other day - perhaps that's what caused it? Maybe she used a broom to try and shoo it out? You know how clumsy she is - she must have been knocking the broom around and broken the transom in the process."

My father's hand dropped to his side and my mother laughed.
"That's quite possible," she chuckled. "I've seen her run around the kitchen screaming because of a little field mouse. Oh dear, poor little woman. Not to worry dear, I'll call the handyman to come and repair it tomorrow."

I picked up her suitcase again and began heading upstairs, eager to distract them from discussing it further. I would have to be more careful next time. No more games at home. And next time I would have to figure out a way to do it on my own.

Also, I would have to get rid of the little memento that I had kept. The lock of hair in the little wooden box in my room was unremarkable, apart from its colour. I didn't know anybody with red hair and it was too obvious.
If someone discovered it...

I heard the sirens at the same time as the doorbell rang. A confusion of voices floated upstairs behind me - my father, who had answered the door, and another that I didn't recognise.
And... was that Alan?

"Caroline," my father called.
"Caroline? There's a detective at the door who wants to speak with you."

In a daze I moved to the top of the stairs and as I peered over the banister I saw the reflection of the flashing blue lights of half a dozen police cars outside.

Alan was standing next to a large man sporting a crew cut. Our eyes locked and I searched his for some clue, some confirmation of solidarity. I sensed trouble and I needed an ally. But all I got was accusation.
And in that instant I knew only one thing for certain. If I managed to get out of this, I had found my next victim.