Flashes: Part Three

by Tim O'Rourke

‘Your mum, Charley,’ he smiled.

  ‘Mum?’ I whispered. ‘What do you mean?’ I felt as if I were going to throw up at any moment.

  ‘Your mum had flashes too,’ he said. ‘And in her flashes she saw what I had done to my friend all those years ago.’

  Although I could barely see him in the darkness, I knew he was smiling. ‘Your mum was sick, Charley. Her flashes made her sick. They tormented her, like they torment you. For days, sometimes weeks, she would slip into a deep state of despair. She drank a lot, to try and block them out, those visions of the dead she claimed to see. But the alcohol only made them worse – more intense she once said. One evening, I came home to find you crying and hungry, while she lay on the sofa, a bottle of vodka half empty beside her. I dragged her to her feet, and it was then she saw what I had done. It was then, in a series of flashes, she saw me push my friend over that cliff to his death. She called me a monster, a murderer. I couldn’t have that. Your mother was always drunk and loose-lipped – who else might she tell about what I had done? She was semiconscious, drunk. So, I carried her to the car and drove her out here. It wasn’t like it was planned or anything . . .’

  Fearing what he was going to tell me, I covered my ears with my hands again. ‘Stop! Please just stop!’ I began to sob.

  He lunged forward and grabbed my hands.

  Flash! Flash! Flash!

  In those brief and fleeting flashes I saw that child again in the car. Tears running down her face as she stared out of the window.

  Flash! Flash!

  Where have Daddy and Mummy gone?

  Flash!

  ‘I was that little girl,’ I gasped, almost choking on my tears. ‘You brought me out here that evening. You left me in the car while you took her down onto the tracks.’

  ‘I couldn’t have left you at home,’ he said indignantly. ‘What sort of a father do you think I am?’

  A large piece of a very difficult jigsaw suddenly dropped into place. ‘That’s why the flashes I had about Kerry had been so strong – so vivid. They weren’t just flashes, they were memories. That’s why I was sitting behind you in that car as you waited for the trains to roll over those girls. I was beginning to remember . . .’

  ‘You were just a baby,’ he said. ‘Five or six. Even I can’t recall, and I hoped you never would. But when you started to tell me what you had seen in your flashes, I knew it would only be a matter of time before you remembered everything.’

  ‘You killed Mum, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Charley.’

  ‘You took her down onto those tracks just like you did with Kerry and those other girls. You left her lying on the tracks.’ I gripped his hand, and it was his turn to flinch.

  Flash! Flash! Flash!

  That train was bearing down on me again, as if it was I who was lying in the middle of those tracks. But it wasn’t me, it was my mum’s eyes I was looking through as the train raced forward. It had been her eyes I had been looking through the day Tom had brought me up to the ruined house. She saw the train coming but was too drunk to move out of its way. My mum snapped her head to the right, hoping that if she didn’t see the train, then the pain wouldn’t be so bad.

  Flash! Flash!

  And there was my father, sitting in the darkness of his car. He was younger looking, just as I remembered him when I was a child. His hair black, yet to be flecked with grey. No tired wrinkles around the corners of his eyes and mouth.

  Flash!

  I was sitting in the child’s seat in the back of the car and crying for my mum.

  Flash! Flash! Flash!

  I snapped open my eyes and looked at my father standing before me in the derelict house. ‘You murdered her!’ I roared, my head feeling as if it had been split open.

  ‘Yes,’ he shouted ecstatically. ‘It was more than those insects, so much more than that fat old tomcat and my friend. To take her life was like standing on the very edge of the universe. I felt like God. I was God. He takes the lives of thousands every day and gets away with it, and so had I. It was perfect. No one questioned what had happened. From the very beginning her death was treated as a suicide. There was no knife sticking out of her back. She hadn’t been gagged and bound. She was drunk, had a history of mental illness – why should anyone suspect anything? The police actually felt sorry for me when they came to tell me that night what had happened.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s sick, not Mum,’ I sobbed, just wanting him to be away from me, but knowing in my heart he wasn’t going to let that happen.

  ‘But can’t you see, Charley?’ he said, trying to stop the excitement in his voice from brimming over. ‘I had managed to do what the other killers hadn’t. I’d killed again and had got away with it. It was perfect!’

  ‘How many . . . ? How many have you killed like this?’ I asked him. In some strange way I needed to know.

  ‘Seven, I think,’ he said thoughtfully. Then, with a soft chuckle he added, ‘Don’t expect me to remember all of their names.’

  ‘Alice Cotton?’ I asked him, already knowing the truth.

  ‘Ah, Alice,’ he said. ‘What a sweet girl. She hadn’t been drinking. It was always better if they had. You see, I’d got away with it for years. I was always picking up drunk girls in my taxi. And drunk was good. The police seemed to question it less if they were drunk. It was like they had staggered onto the railway lines by accident. Perhaps they had missed the last train home, and in their drunken state had walked off the end of the platform, deciding they would walk to the next station. Perhaps they had decided to take a short cut. Who really knew, except for me? They always got in my car because I drove a taxi – they trusted me. But there was always a risk to that. Someone might have seen them get in, seen the company name on the side of the car. I could have easily removed the stickers, but then the girls wouldn’t have got in with me.’

  ‘The police badge,’ I whispered.

  ‘You saw that, did you? Yes, the perfect solution,’ he said, his eyes twinkling in the darkness.

  I nodded my head; I was too numb to speak.

  ‘I picked up a drunk copper one night,’ he explained. ‘As he fumbled to put his warrant card and badge back into his pocket after paying me, he dropped it between the seats. He didn’t realise. But I did. I saw it. I used it. I took the cabbie stickers from the side of the cab. I didn’t need them any more. The police badge worked like a dream with both Alice and Kerry. One quick flash of the badge and they were in the car and out of the rain. No questions asked. Alice even asked me if I was a detective. I liked that,’ he laughed as if remembering a private joke. Then looking at me, he said. ‘What else did you see? Come on, tell me how good you really are.’

  ‘I saw Kerry scratch your car, as you dragged her from it,’ I told him. My head was beginning to pound as if the flashes were coming again.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But I soon got rid of them.’

  ‘The dent to the back of your car?’ I gasped.

  ‘That’s right,’ he smiled. ‘See, Charley, you don’t have to depend on your flashes to see things. I knew the scratches were there and I knew I had to get rid of them. So I reversed the car into a wall. I even fooled your cop friend, Tom,’ he grinned, and I saw his teeth in the darkness. ‘He asked me how I’d come by the damage, and I told him a cock and bull story about how someone had reversed into my car in the supermarket car park. See what I mean, Charley? It’s all so easy.’

  ‘Or maybe not,’ I spat, my head beginning to hurt really badly now. ‘Because I’ve seen what you’ve done, and I’ve told Tom and DI Harker what I’ve seen. That’s why you were pissed off when you found me with them. That’s why you locked me in my room. You didn’t really care that they might be using me. You were scared I might eventually see you in my flashes and I would tell them. That’s why you sometimes smelt of soap when you came back home. You were washing the scent of the girls off you – the smell of your victims. And the constant cleaning of the inside of your car. You were washing awa
y any evidence that might have been left behind. But why take your wedding ring off?’

  ‘I do have some respect for your mother’s memory,’ he scowled.

  ‘You really are insane,’ I breathed, no longer able to recognise the man standing before me. He looked like my father, but sounded and acted like someone else.

  ‘Not insane, Charley, a genius. None of the cops saw what I’d done and you didn’t see me in your flashes, or you wouldn’t be here now,’ he gloated.

  ‘So, what are you going to do? Kill me?’ I shouted – almost daring him.

  ‘No, you’re going to have a little drink or two and then go to sleep on the tracks,’ he said, pulling a bottle of dark liquid from his coat pocket. He saw me glance down at it. With a smile, he quickly added, ‘Just a special recipe of mine. No more pink lemonade for you, Charley. I’ve made you a very special Christmas punch this year. It will blow your mind!’

  ‘You won’t get away with another murder so soon.’

  ‘Believe me, Charley, if there was any other way – but there isn’t,’ he said, slowly scratching his chin with his free hand. ‘I’ve thought about what to do with you long and hard. You have to die. It can’t be nice for you suffering with those flashes of yours. I see the pain it causes you. I’ve seen the pain and hurt those comments on Facebook cause you. I know you hurt because you don’t have any friends. Well, I’m your father and all good fathers protect their daughters. So I’m going to take all that pain away, Charley.’

  ‘No one will believe I got drunk alone up here and staggered down onto the tracks. Tom will figure it out.’

  ‘Tom,’ my father smiled. ‘The cop boyfriend who broke the rules by bringing you up here. What a selfish thing that was for him to do.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I screamed.

  ‘A police officer bringing his distraught girlfriend to the place where her mother killed herself,’ he smiled at me. ‘A girl who was so mixed up, she became fixated by the death of a girl named Kerry Underwood who died in the same spot as her mother. A girl so screwed up she believed she witnessed Kerry Underwood’s death in a series of paranormal flashes. A girl who, like her mother, had been in and out of hospitals her whole life claiming to be able to see things.’

  ‘You bastard,’ I cried, tears rolling down my face again. ‘You don’t really believe you’ll get away with this?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter what I do and don’t believe,’ he smiled. ‘What matters is what the police believe. And when they find your dead body on the tracks, they’ll believe you killed yourself, just like your mother did.’

  Then, gripping me by the arm, he dragged me from the old house, down towards that little winding path which led to the railway tracks.

  CHAPTER 36

  Tom – Thursday: 00:23 Hrs.

  ‘C’mon!’ I screamed, pounding the steering wheel with my fist.

  The snow was falling so heavily now that everything was obscured by a white blur. The car slipped forward, every few yards the back wheels spinning against the slippery road. I eased my foot down on the accelerator, desperate to keep pushing on as fast as I could in the direction of the derelict house.

  I peered frantically out of the window to search for any landmarks that might tell me exactly how far I was from the dirt road. But all I could see was a white swirling haze. My heart raced and my breathing was shallow as I tried desperately not to let my fear for what might have happened to Charley consume me. I had no idea whether she had met up with the man who was sending the texts. But what was worse, I had no idea who this man was.

  Charley had not been able to identify him. Had she met with him already? Was she . . . ? No, I refused to think about that. I had to keep believing she was still alive. But however much I focused on that belief, all I could see was the upper torso of Kerry Underwood sticking out from beneath that freight train. One arm twisted grotesquely around her own shoulders, her other arm missing completely and her legs wrapped around the wheels of the bogey, six cars further down the track. When I pictured her, it wasn’t Kerry staring back at me, it was Charley.

  ‘C’mon!’ I roared again, and pushed my luck by pressing harder on the accelerator. The car lurched forward and seemed to shudder. The back of the car skidded to the right. I felt the vehicle slide, and I yanked at the steering wheel, desperate to keep the car on the road. But the speed of the skid was too great for me to keep control. The car spun almost completely around and then toppled sideways into a ditch.

  I was thrown to the right, my head slamming into the window.

  A bolt of pain exploded across my face and I felt the warm gush of blood as it ran across my forehead and into my eye. I wiped the blood away and pressed the flat of my hand against my temple to stop the flow. The seat belt was so tight across my chest it felt like someone was standing on me.

  I gasped, desperate to get air. I fumbled for the clasp, but because of the angle of the car I was trapped and I had to twist my arm at an agonising angle to reach it. I cried out in pain, my fingers brushing over the top of it. All the while I knew time was slipping away for me to get to Charley.

  With my teeth clenched and eyes shut, I twisted my arm again and pressed down on the seatbelt clasp. It sprung free and my chest felt as it was going to explode. I lay on my side and gasped for breath. I hoisted myself around using the steering wheel as a lever, pushing myself up against the passenger door. It opened and a flurry of snow blew down into the car. I wriggled myself into a standing position, then sticking my head and shoulders through the open doorway, I hauled myself free.

  I hit the ground and rolled onto my back. Hot blood streamed down my face. The back wheels of the car were still spinning as it lay on its side. I staggered to my feet. I felt dizzy and disorientated. With legs like putty, I went back to the car. Reaching in, I grabbed the radio handset from the dashboard. It crackled with static as I switched it on.

  ‘X-ray-five-zero to control, I need urgent assistance.’ As soon as the words left my mouth, my legs buckled beneath me and I slid down the side of the upturned police car and into the snow. Everything went black.

  CHAPTER 37

  Charley – Thursday: 00:33 Hrs.

  Even though my dad had hold of me, I slipped and went sprawling onto my back. The base of my spine exploded with pain as I hit the ground. The surrounding bushes, although covered in soft flakes of snow, had sharp thorns and brambles which snagged at my hair and clothes.

  ‘Please!’ I cried out.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he hushed, taking hold of my arm again, pulling me to my feet. And as soon as he touched me, the flashes came again.

  Flash! Flash! Flash!

  My mum. Twilight. The nearby branches snatching at her clothes, as if trying to keep hold of her. Save her. She wasn’t struggling. The smell of booze on her breath. She was drunk.

  Flash!

  ‘Where are you taking me, Frank?’ she slurred.

  He didn’t answer her. And I could see his face. Hard. Cold. A close up of his eyes. Excitement burned in them.

  The flashes disappeared.

  ‘Dad, you’ve got to stop,’ I said as he pulled me towards the tracks. ‘Despite what you think, Tom will figure out what you’ve done to me.’

  ‘Do you really believe that?’ he smiled, shaking his head.

  ‘That other taxi driver, the one that drove me up here . . .’

  ‘Will say what?’ he snapped. Wisps of breath escaped from his mouth and drifted away like dragon smoke. ‘He’ll say he dropped you up here, alone. He’ll say you seemed troubled, or why else would a young girl want to be left out here on her own at night and in the snow? He told me he offered to wait for you, but you said no. Sounds like someone that had no intention of ever coming back from here. He was so worried about you, he called me up. Knowing that the last time I had seen you, you had been upset by those two meddling police officers, I came rushing out here in the snow only to discover I was too late. Poor little Charley, believing she had been communicati
ng with the dead via her so-called flashes, she decided to join them by running out in front of a train.’

  ‘But . . .’ I started, then slipped again.

  ‘But nothing,’ he hissed, pulling me up and dragging me back through the undergrowth. ‘What you’ve told the police about some man bringing those girls out here means nothing. There is not a scrap of evidence to suggest those girls were murdered. Apart from that idiot, Tom, who else would believe a word you say? You’re troubled, Charley, everyone knows that. Christ, there’s an army of professionals, doctors and teachers who know that.’

  ‘Please, Dad,’ I cried.

  I heard the sound of a train scream past in the wind and the snow. It was so close the branches of the nearby trees swayed. ‘Please,’ I begged him, but just like I had seen in my flashes, his eyes sparkled with excitement. ‘Don’t do this, Dad. I’m your daughter, your little girl.’

  ‘I know,’ he smiled. ‘And that’s why I want to stop you from hurting, Charley.’

  Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light in the night sky. At first I thought it was the flashes coming again, but I only ever saw them in my head. The night sky lit up again, luminous blue, then white. Over and over again the sky flashed in the distance. Lightning? In a snow storm? No. I peered over my dad’s shoulder, and my heart raced faster and faster in time with those flashes. They were emergency lights, the type you get on top of a police car.

  ‘Tom!’ I screamed. He was coming for me.

  Dad glanced back over his shoulder and saw the blue lights blazing in the distance. Then, the lights were joined by the faint whoop whoop sound of sirens. He turned back to face me. His look of excitement had faded. Now I could see uncertainty and fear in his eyes.

  ‘Tom believes me,’ I said to him. Then, at the top of my voice, I screamed, ‘Tom’s coming for me!’

  Clamping his hand over my mouth, he dragged me the last few feet through the bushes and to the hole in the fence next to the railway tracks.

  CHAPTER 38