Blurred Lines: A box-set of reality bending supernatural fiction (Paranormal Tales from Wales Book 9)

by Michael Christopher Carter

  “Anyway. You shouldn’t be worried if I was. How is Mr Taylor?”

  She laughs, bright red lipstick parting to reveal perfect white teeth. Removing her spectacles, she gives her hair a shake and the golden blonde curls brush bewitchingly against her tanned shoulders. My eyes are drawn from her shoulders to the deep round cleavage only visible because of my superior height, and by the fact she is pulling slightly at the strap.

  It’s almost getting too much, and the temptation to restart our tumultuous affair is draining the blood from my head, impeding my resistance.

  “I’m not interrupting, am I?” And I’m both grateful and frustrated at the arrival of our Australian exchange PE teacher, Mr King.

  I am forced to leave Uma and ‘Bruce’ together and take my coffee back to my classroom. I apparently look harassed as I notice several of the pupils jostle and elbow each other when I walk in.

  “The photocopier wasn’t working,” I excuse, remembering my lie. The bell sounds and a pang of guilt knots in my stomach at leaving them reading for the entire lesson.

  “Homework,” I say, and the class groans, “Finish reading to the end of the chapter.” They’re all pleased with that because it equates to no homework. I have no idea what chapter they were reading, and even if they don’t realise it, they must believe it would be easy to blag me, next lesson.

  My encounter with Mrs Taylor - I’m determined to refer to her that way, Uma is just too intimate - has left me agitated. The bell signals the end of class and preposterously, given my lack of work, break time as well.

  I have to avoid the staff room

  Chapter Two

  Electing to stay in my classroom, I finish my coffee, and sit in my own company under the cover of preparing for my next lesson. I take a sip of what is now tepid, and swiftly becoming cold, coffee and sit back, kneading my temples between my index fingers in an effort to relieve some of the tension before it becomes a headache.

  The situation with Mrs Taylor is troubling me. I wish I’d never got involved. I’m not a serial adulterer. God knows, I have plenty of opportunities. Uma, sorry, Mrs Taylor caught me at just the right time.

  My forty-fifth birthday was looming. I wish it hadn’t bothered me so much. Everyone had predicted hitting forty would pitch me into crisis of the prolific mid-life variety. Maybe I was determined to prove them wrong, I don’t know, I just felt okay with it.

  But something about hitting my mid-forties gnawed away at me. I have a good life, but it isn’t by design. If I’d planned it, this isn’t where I would be. I don’t really know what I’d like to have done or to have achieved, but where I am doesn’t feel like ‘it’.

  Head of History at a mid-sized comprehensive school, I drive a Mercedes-Benz, and not to sound too immodest, I look good. And not only for my age. I have, what has often been described as, a Mediterranean air. Certainly whenever Imogen and I holiday abroad I frequently get mistaken for one of the locals.

  The thing is, I don’t get satisfaction from my appearance. It’s just genetics. My mother is stunning, even at seventy, and my dad and I share our good looks. It pains me to admit that he probably has the edge on me, or at least he did at forty-five.

  And he had achieved what he intended with his life. A wonderful wife and home (and me, of course), and a very successful career as an architect. They both now live in one of my dad’s greatest creations: a house he designed and had built which takes every advantage of the views of mountains and ocean in an unpronounceable village in North-West Scotland.

  And he achieved it all himself. Everything he has accomplished has been from sheer hard work and determination, combined with the skill and talent required to make it happen. Even the story of how he met my mother is one of a heroic struggle of persistence and perseverance.

  Why she had resisted, I don’t really understand, but apparently she was engaged to somebody else at the time.

  I think the only regret my dad has is that I am an only child. It’s a regret I share. Not being an only child, but because I’m in the same boat as my dad. Imogen and I would have loved more children.

  The difference in our situations only underlines my feeling of failure. The reason I’m an only child is that my mother suffered a lot of problems conceiving. Having me seemed to cause extra damage leading to endometriosis and necessitating an early hysterectomy.

  Conversely, I am the reason for our lack of fertility. I don’t have very good swimmers, apparently. Now it’s combined, as Imogen is having the first hot and cold flushes of the menopause. But she’s never needed contraception, and apart from falling for Jess, nothing has happened.

  Before I delve deeper into recalling my lifetime of failures, I’m interrupted by the arrival of my next class. My coffee sits neglected on my desk. I pick it up and drink, the last glug of which makes me wince in revulsion.

  And it’s not just my coffee, I have also neglected to make any preparations for this class. And so another half hour of reading is on the menu while I try to remember what I’m doing.

  I’m going to lose my job at this rate, and that won’t help me feel any better. If only I can get a good sleep tonight, and wake early enough to get here on time tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be back on track.

  I cruise through the day on autopilot. I think I did a little better with some of my afternoon lessons, energised after a healthy lunch, and now it’s time to go home, but I can’t face it.

  At the risk of being in even more trouble with Imogen, I stop off at a pub on the way home. It’s not one I usually go to—I rarely go to any pub, but this is one I frequent even less. It’s probably a bit ‘young’ for me; ‘The Saracen’s Head’ is quite lively, but it suits me. I can blend in unnoticed.

  I don’t want to risk drinking and driving, but I’m sure one drink will be fine and will take the edge off my anxiety.

  “A whiskey and lemonade please. And drown it.” The landlord looks disparagingly at me as he ruins the good whiskey with too much lemonade, but I want it to last.

  “Three pound forty, please, squire.”

  Sipping slowly, the lemonade fools my body that this is an innocuous soft drink. I sense the effects and it is the relief I had hoped, but not quite enough. Probably incorrectly, I calculate that another will be okay, given the lengthy time I’ve taken to drink it, and won’t put me over the limit.

  When I feel the need for a third, and then a fourth; and when I’m no longer diluting it with lemonade, I know I’ll be walking home.

  “Shit.” It’s a long walk up a steep hill. A very steep hill. I can’t face it, and even if I could, I’m not capable, so I ask the landlord to phone for a taxi.

  I don’t remember the journey home, but I’m alone in the kitchen. The house is dark and silent. I have Imogen’s note in my hand, explaining how my dinner is in the dog. It’s her joke, doubtless through gritted teeth, and written with a clenched fist. We don’t have a dog. My plate of food is actually congealing in the hostess trolley I bought her for Christmas,

  I remove it and eat, more from respect for her efforts than from hunger. It hasn’t kept well, and that is my fault. My dry mouth just manages to dispose of the even drier chicken and I helpfully put the plate in the sink.

  I pause at the bottom of the stairs, anxious about the reception I’ll get if Imogen is still awake. There are no excuses, other than I’m stressed and needed a drink. She’ll understand. She’s a wonderful, kind human being. But she will be annoyed, or disappointed, I’m sure, and I just can’t be doing with it.

  I take a deep breath, and creep up the edge of each stair, my weight held against the bannister to avoid them creaking. It works. Mainly. One step, halfway up, creaks extra long and loud with my bizarre technique. I whisper a silent “Shit.”

  When I reach the top, the concentration and holding my breath makes me wide awake. I debate coming up with a more convincing excuse, but think better of it.

  As I ease the door of our bedroom open, Imogen is lying with her back to me. Someth
ing in the rhythm of her breathing suggests she’s awake but trying to appear asleep. I go along with her charade and slide into bed silently beside her.

  If she woke up to berate me, I’m oblivious. I am asleep, and I am dreaming.

  Chapter Three

  I’m first aware of a change in my line smile, forced onto my face in an effort to appear untroubled as slumber weaved its web on my thoughts. As the corners of my mouth fall, it signals my heart to drop to my stomach, sending a plume of bitterness up my throat.

  Fighting the urge to vomit, and to run, my determination combines conveniently with paralysis of my legs. Why am I here? What’s happened?

  My eyes recoil at the darkness, and my chest tightens in anticipation of fear and grief. The glint of red catches my eye again. The gowned, faceless figure is stood beside it, ragged fronds fluttering in the breeze.

  It stoops, and the bone-white finger slowly extends, pointing to where my attention already fell, confirming its significance. I frown, a spark of recognition igniting an explosion of emotion. Racing to full throttle, the booming of my heart is so loud, it seems it might echo through the night.

  What I’m peering at is a strange plastic triangle; a shard of brittle colour, and I know what it is—it’s the broken tail light of a car. A car I know.

  My pounding chest, siphoning blood from my brain, leaves me faint and nauseous. Arms stretched out at my sides, I fan my fingers in my efforts to steady myself, but I end up on my knees.

  The Reaper circles above, like a solitary vulture waiting for death before it can feast.

  My heart pounds harder, I need to do something to stop it, thoughts crash into one another in my panic to be effective. I force my focus onto the scene, determined to understand. I have to.

  With a resolute sigh, I see more debris: plastic, glass, and pieces of bent metal, are scattered all around, like an over-enthusiastic ASM has set the scene on stage. Black tyre marks scar the road and the still air is filled with the stench of spilled fuel.

  Still on my knees, my vision beyond a few feet is, again, only a haze, but there is no doubt I’m at a serious accident.

  Tiny stones of asphalt dig into my palms as I hunker on the tarmac, clueless as to where I should turn. How can I help if I can’t see?

  Rubbing my temples with my middle fingers massages my thoughts to some sense. I don’t even know if I’ve been involved, or if I’m merely a bystander. Filtering the putrid air through the corners of my mouth, I glance around, trying to take it all in without it overwhelming me.

  The atmosphere is truly terrible. I reel my attention back to my skull, unable to cope with the heavy dread. I swoon as my heart races so fast, yet struggles to pump sufficient life-affirming oxygen to my brain.

  Tears sting the back of my eyes like nettles forcing their way through a cracked pavement. I want to scream, but I don’t have any words.

  My eyes squint in recognition of the importance of calling out, but I can’t. My silent mouth falls openxxxxxxxxx; a pit to my emotions, exposing a well of fear which threatens to explode like a seismic geyser.

  Choking, the raucous buzzing jolts me free from my vision again and I am back in bed, drenched in sweat, shivering and uncovered. The digits on the clock are a blur. I can’t focus on the time, but my attempt grounds me back in reality at least.

  I suspect I’m late again because I’m on my own. Memories of my drunken return home last night knot in my stomach squeezing bile up my oesophagus and into my mouth. I rush to the bathroom and vomit.

  A shower is my only hope of feeling better. I must have fallen asleep again as I wake sitting on the floor, the cubicle full of foggy steam. I can’t remember if I have washed, and so at the risk of repetition, I lather up. After shaving, I brush my teeth and my tongue tastes revolting.

  When I finally arrive downstairs, I’m not surprised the house is empty. Nor at the tone of the note I find beside my cold, hard toast.

  I have had to take Jess to college-again!

  Sort yourself out, El.

  Where is the car?

  No ‘love Imogen,’ no kisses. Where is the car? I remember with a flash where the car is. I’m going to be even later than I anticipated. I phone the school citing ‘car trouble’ as my reason. Alix makes sympathetic coos down the line, though she might be suspicious—Mercedes aren’t known for being unreliable.

  The walk down the hill is almost as hard as a walk up it. It is so steep, my toes are squashed into the point of my shoes. It does afford me a delightful view over most of Ware, and of The Meads that connect our little town with the larger adjoining county town of Hertford.

  Morning sunshine shades the scene, giving an oil painting quality. The Victorian water tower stands majestically beside the snaking River Lee. A diesel goods train saunters along the tracks, seemingly noiseless from my high vantage point.

  I reach the Mercedes and it blips into life. As I pull out behind a police car, I fret that I might not pass a breathalyser. The squad car turns off presently and I relax a little.

  I enter the school with appropriate tuts and raised eyebrows. I relieve Mr King, who has taken my class in my absence.

  “Gooday, Mr Armstrong,” he says with a grin, his use of stereotypical Australian quite deliberate. “I just got them to read their textbooks for now.”

  “Thanks,” I say. And when he leaves I tell the class they might as well carry on.

  I slump into my chair and begin the familiar treatment of massaging my temples.

  “Are you okay, Mr Armstrong,” a studious looking girl asks, glancing up from her book. I flash her a smile and assure her.

  “Yes, yes. Just had ‘one of those mornings’,” I say with air quotes. When she looks back at her work, I allow the smile to slip. What is wrong with me?

  I shudder at my recollection of my terrible nightmare. That’s what’s wrong. It makes sense. I was shaken; traumatised, and definitely confused. Of course that’s what’s unsettled me. My life isn’t falling apart. I simply need better sleep.

  The opportunity comes sooner than planned when the bell rings for break, and I stay in class once more. Shuffling through papers in my briefcase, I pluck a few coloured sheets from within its dark interior and squint at them.

  I’m sure I don’t need glasses. Not glasses! Moving the words closer and further away doesn’t help, but I’m sure my eyes are fine. Just as good as ever. I’m just tired.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and slump back in my chair, attaining as much comfort as the hard wood allows. I don’t plan it, but soon I have drifted away into a deep slumber and I am dreaming again.

  Mercifully, it’s not my recurring nightmare this time. Instead, I am troubled with memories of when Uma Yazbeck first entered my life.

  Imogen had been exceptionally busy. The G.P. practice she’d joined had asked her to become a partner. It meant more income for our household, and more responsibility, prestige and hard work for Imogen.

  News of it arrived at rather the wrong time for me. I didn’t consider we needed any extra money. Imogen’s G.P. salary was already high, and she came from a well-off family, anyway. We’d never gone short.

  The new position represented a significant hike in pay which was more than my entire salary. Imogen had even suggested I might like to stay at home; become a house husband. She meant well; even thought I might be excited. Of course, I felt emasculated and worthless.

  More so, because it came on the back of my own news: that I had failed to get the deputy head position I’d waited months to hear about. Twenty years I have taught at this school. And I’ve been head of History for the past fifteen of those. I thought it was time for a move up. I believed I deserved it, that it was my time.

  Mrs Monotone liked me, I thought. But not as much as she liked a man ten years my junior from another country. He flew into our middle-class community from Cardiff and certainly made a name for himself. Now there’s even talk of him leaving us to take the peak position in a school up North.

&nb
sp; I hate him. Largely out of jealousy I’ll admit. But on top of that, he truly is an insufferable, authoritarian git. But my dream isn’t about him. He’s merely a fleeting memory to add to my failings.

  I recall the only consolation being the three-pointed star between my hands on the steering wheel, repeated when I looked down the long bonnet in the Mercedes-Benz mascot. I remember, because that day the joy in it was short lived.

  My Mercedes was always the nicest car in the car park. It stood out among the Citroens and Renaults and Fords as something a bit special. But this day it didn’t look quite so exceptional because there was a much newer, larger Mercedes already in my space.

  Parking next to it served to outline the difference between the E-class and the S-class. I seethed about it all day. And when it was time to get back in and go home again, I saw the owner of the larger car for the first time—it was Uma Yazbeck.

  The dream shifts, as dreams are prone to do, and I’m in the now familiar hazy scene of the sickening road traffic accident. Or, rather, before it has happened, I sense.

  Perhaps influenced by the dream this evolved from, I notice the three-pointed star between my hands again. It’s captivating, fascinating. Stroking fond fingers over the emblem, I’m pleased with myself.

  Then suddenly the contentment leaves me and I’m horrified, standing in the road, peering with unbending bewilderment at the amber plastic of the broken tail-light again. It’s so familiar. Squinting, I puzzle where I’ve seen it before.

  With a dramatic change of light, which might provoke an orchestra hit of sustained strings were it in a film, my attention is wrenched to another dark form. Not plastic this time, and darker than anything else in my field of vision.

  Shifting shape organically, fascinating me like a cadaverous kaleidoscope of but one colour—blood red.