Beneath the Blood Moon

by Darren Wills

  I was suddenly conscious of not being alone out here.

  At that moment, after some searching around the garden, I was beset by an instinct that prompted me to look at the far fence. It was a flimsy-looking wooden fence, formed from thin inter-woven strips, one that would surely one day fall victim to an enthusiastic storm. However, it was the kind of fence that would hide somebody on the other side.

  Somebody was watching me.

  I began to stare at different parts of the fence, trying to work out where whoever it was out there was hiding. Somebody was behind it. I knew this was not my imagination. I had a history of sensing things like this. Once I had sensed that somebody was downstairs in a house I had shared as a student. There were no tell-tale sounds or anything, but I had just had this intuition and the next morning we discovered that the lock on the back door was broken and the TV had been stolen.

  I knew someone was there. I would let him know I knew. I slowly but purposefully left my seat and stood up on the decking. As I moved, I was listening for the sound of footsteps or a sudden burst of energy to get away. There was nothing.

  As I stood there, staring outwards, I knew there was a hole in the fence, a hole that was probably a perfectly natural hole, made by the imperfect growth of a tree many years ago, but it was a hole that provided opportunity, which made me feel suspicious and vulnerable. It was about four feet up from the ground, a convenient height, too easy, for somebody wanting to look in at the occupants of the house and garden. However, as I stepped onto the lawn I wasn’t merely seeing a hole. I was seeing something through the hole, something I should not be seeing. Unmistakably, unless the Jack Daniels was playing tricks on me in the darkness, looking into the garden, possibly, if not probably, monitoring me, there was an eye looking through that hole.

  My heart was beating like some potential victim in a horror film. I was on my own here. The intruder could be armed, and I had no wish to become another statistic, another easy picking for a psycho with a blade or even a gun.

  I considered alerting Laura and calling the police, but that would have made me feel like a wimp. It would probably be nothing. Whatever was going on, the JD inside me was stimulating bravery so I was ready for a fight if need be, although I would watch out for that knife. This was Sheffield, after all.

  I was about ten feet from the hole when, even in this light, I could see that the eye had disappeared. Moving more quickly, I went right up to it, looked through it. I could see nothing, except the open space of the land beyond our garden that stretched right out to the playground and trees of the park. I heard nothing. Hurriedly, I examined other holes and gaps in the fence. These holes gave no sign of anybody or anything. There was an emptiness surrounding our garden, the kind of emptiness that we had seen as a selling point when we had bought the house.

  I stood on tiptoe and looked over the fence. There was nobody. Had I imagined it? I had had plenty to drink tonight and hadn’t slept too well the past couple of nights, so perhaps I had been imagining things. Perhaps I was going all Macbeth on myself and this was my ghost of Banquo, exposing my guilt over past sins. After all, who in the world would want to watch a man having a glass of JD on a veranda, especially round here, where nothing ever happened. Christ, this must have been one of the quietest places in the Solar System.

  I stood there for a couple of minutes listening for any tell-tale sounds. Nothing. I had definitely imagined it.

  I decided enough was enough. I turned and returned to the decking. Purposefully, I picked up the white rubbish bag I had placed down there and took it round the corner to where the bin was. I lifted the bin lid, dunked the white bin bag in there, then replaced the lid unceremoniously. Slightly unsettled by my unproven and therefore dubious intuition, I opted to go back into the house, picking up my glass as I went. Before I entered the house, I took one last look at the fence and put the disturbance of my good feeling down to alcohol, ever my fatal flaw.

  Malevolence

  I intended to look at them closely, listen to them intently, and now I know a bit more. I am always curious. I was especially curious this evening. I just need so much information. I want to know everything about this bitch and him. I am committed to this and I need to prepare properly. Life may have been a mixture of the difficult and the eventful, but here is an opportunity for something quite perfect. The time is right for something dramatic. Now I want to transform and take. I have done my share of being on the receiving end of suffering and recovering from suffering, which have made me stronger. That strength has enabled me to take advantage on so many occasions. Now it is time for some serious wrongdoing. There are no limits to this. I have seen some of what I need to see, added to what I already knew, and there has been food for thought.

  The best way to avoid disappointment and frustration is to be active. It is always better to do things than to sit around waiting for whatever life wants to give you. You go looking for it and do what’s needed like Malcolm X said. “By whatever means necessary.”

  I hate what I know about these two. She is so comfortable and complacent. Doesn’t she just deserve something to happen? He too, like a showroom dummy, looks so easy because he’s stupid. He probably doesn’t realise how stupid he actually is. They are both waiting for me, but they aren’t aware of it yet.

  They will be aware of me soon.

  I will be in their lives in time. In fact, I am already in their lives, but they do not know it. It will be easy for me make the moves. I just need to sort out some of the details. That’s where the devil is, where I am. The ground needs to be made right for the storm that is coming. In whatever time needed, it is time to take a wrecking ball to all they think they have.

  Like most things, all is dependent on timing. It’s knowing when to stick and when to twist so that the world turns nicely and I end up with everything. Winner takes all, and losers don’t always survive.

  I have to keep on thinking, re-thinking, then re-thinking some more. This grand scheme of mine needs to happen in the right way.

  It has been a long time coming. I never knew I had so much patience. But patience is crucial. What is going to happen will be classic but I need to keep a sense of caution. It could so easily fail. I must pay attention to all the relevant details and refrain from striking until I am totally ready.

  As It Should Be

  We had both needed something. As we enjoyed the final moments of another delicious episode, our arms were wrapped around each other in a harmonious show of blissful mutuality. We could only congratulate each other in grunts, sighs and tight gripping in recognition of the beauty that we had just enjoyed but that was plenty. Disentangling ourselves clumsily, I enjoyed how Laura’s face glistened from her exertions in our erotic moments as we fell into place, side by side, bodies half-covered by the duvet and impervious to anything that could detract from that.

  Laura lay on her side, looking outwards, away from us. I knew she was thinking about something. “What exactly did you say to Dad tonight?”

  “What I told you I said. I just told him how good we were. It needed sorting, babe, if only to shorten his long face. He was like a miserable horse.”

  “Don’t be so hard on him. It’s only because he cares about me.”

  “I know that.”

  “He knows how much you hurt me.”

  “I think I convinced him that I hurt myself more. I tried to anyway. I know how much he cares about you, babe. But then again, why wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes, he’s a sweetie really. Always there. Mum’s the same.”

  I gently pulled her round to face me, knowing that I was about to steer the conversation in a different direction. “Do you ever wonder what your real parents would make of you now you’re older?”

  She looked at me and paused before turning her head to face the ceiling. “Not really, no.” There were a few silent seconds that were never going to mark the end of the con
versation.

  “Occasionally I think about her, and whoever he was, but wouldn’t anyone? Just a sperm donor, apparently, and she was just a surrogate. Dad and Mum told me everything I needed to know about both of them, to be honest.”

  “They are still people, sweet. Aren’t you more curious about them? I think I would be.”

  She shook her head firmly. “Of course not. For me, the bottom line is this. When she sold me, she gave up every right to be in my thoughts. So, she’s not in them. Not ever.”

  “OK. Do you ever think she might have had a change of heart, though?”

  “It makes no difference to me. Let’s put it this way, I’m not going on ‘Long Lost Family’ any time soon.”

  “What if she was under pressure? What if she felt compelled to give you up?”

  “Who sells a kid or gives it away? I wouldn’t. Not ever.”

  “Oh, right. Is that a reference to our kid, by any chance?”

  “Our kid?”

  “Our kid. The one we’re having in the not too distant future?”

  “Let’s not go into that again. That’s long term and massive. We’ve some way to go before we’ll be ready for that.”

  Now I became lost in my own thoughts. This was just like the previous occasions when she had made the same suggestions about waiting and the timing. For me, the only thing that mattered was how strong we were together and how we had so much to offer. I felt we had come a long way since those destructive days of last year. From Laura’s point of view, however, we still had some way to go before she would be ready. Yet, if Laura said there was more waiting needed, then I would wait. “If you’re sure?”

  “Totally and utterly, babe. We don’t need a baby. We just need to rebuild us.” She gently clasped my hand and looked searchingly into my eyes. “You do understand, don’t you?”

  “I think so. But you’re definitely the right woman for me to have a child with. I hope that one day we’ll be of the same mind.” I lay back. “That’s it. That’s my last mention of a little one for a while.”

  “Thanks. We just need some more time. You’re on the way to being my whole world again, babe, getting there, so you never know. It’s like I was telling Jenny on Facebook the other day.”

  “Who’s Jenny?”

  “This woman who I used to go to school with.”

  “You never mentioned her.”

  “She contacted me a while ago and I accepted her as a friend. To be honest, I didn’t recognize her from her photos but people change sometimes, don’t they? I think she’s a bit lonely. She was really interested in my life, my work and you and we chatted loads about relationships, hobbies and food. Bit pitiful really. She wanted to know how she could make her relationship work as well as ours does. Wanted to know how we made each other happy day-to-day. Her bloke’s a builder, self-employed, apparently, and I don’t think life is very good for her.”

  “Well, it never hurts to touch base with your past. Did she know about your reunion party?”

  “I told her about that, but she wasn’t interested. Not the face-to-face type. Shyness, I think. She does seem like a lovely woman, though. She just wants us to be online friends.”

  “Hey, be careful. She might be a creep who turns up at the house unannounced.” I reached switched off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. “Anyway, it’s sleep time.”

  Malevolence

  In the darkness a dustbin can be almost encyclopedic. Any search in a container of rubbish will surprise in the amount that can be revealed about a person or two. It helps when the darkness inside is matched by the blackness outside, where there is a protective hum provided by the gentle swaying of trees in the breeze. Nothing else stirs. Nobody can see.

  Almost nobody. While some find sleep, a condition I have had problems with most of my life for one reason or another, a determined figure, acting quickly and silently, can operate in the darkness. The plastic lid can be gently lifted and you can find the truth in so much detail.

  This wasn’t my first time exploring human residue. It was the sort of necessary evil that often gave an advantage. Theirs was no different. This had been my fourth attempt to stealthily delve into their filth.

  I had learned from previous raids that the bitch liked Clarins make-up products, was on the pill and had eight thousand pounds in her bank account. He, pretty stupid if you ask me, read football and music magazines, and drank too much Jack Daniels than was good for him. Great. I didn’t mind him dying from liver failure, whenever that might happen. In fact, his dying in the not too distant future was fine by me.

  I placed valuable and informative items in my black rucksack. I was constantly alert, ready to run, or strike if discovered.

  On this particular evening, just like the other times, nobody witnessed my activity. I slowly lowered the lid and made a swift exit. I was getting good at this.

  As It Is

  For Laura and me, everything had an edge. When we were together, there was such an intensity, such an understanding that everything we did carried its own excitement, whether it was shopping or watching a film. “We’re just kind of magical, aren’t we?” she had said to me one evening while we were curled up together watching a movie. Of course, there was always such a good feeling generated when we were side by side. We were such a good fit. The sex was tremendous and was as magical as it could be, while the emotional side always kept us feeling good in its way too. We just knew exactly how to optimize pleasure for each other, and we would both become lost in our conversations, cuddles and intimacy.

  We had been walking. There was an early evening breeze in the air, but it was warm enough for neither of us to need a coat and for the beer garden to be an attractive proposition. We walked towards the road that adjoined the common, holding hands and only interested in each other, just as we had always been. We kissed each other as we walked, and I was thinking that we would have all the foreplay done before we reached the car.

  “Hey, that car’s there again.” Up the road, about fifty yards from our two vehicles, was a metallic blue Ford Fiesta, just like the one I had owned ten years ago. “It was there the last time we were here. Abandoned?’

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. Who would abandon a car here?”

  “Do you think somebody could have had a heart attack or something?”

  “I doubt it. It will be some dog-walker. They probably used the other entrance and went towards the fields rather than the woods. If it’s a woman, she will have preferred that. Safer.”

  Laura laughed. “You make me laugh. I bet there hasn’t been a crime committed here in the past ten years.”

  “Except for the crime of you refusing to let me give it to you against that tree.” I pointed behind me.

  “Since when was being careful a crime? I want to come here again.” She looked at me. “Oh, there’s a bit of lippy on your neck. Stand there.”

  I stood there while she cleaned me up with a wipe from her handbag. I looked at my watch. Six-ten. By six-thirty, I would be back at Dewhurst Close and giving my wife the good news. We just had to get home first.

  Malevolence

  The TV is great, for most people. It gives so many of the sad bastards and bitches entertainment and a buzz. To me it gives nothing but a deep negative feeling and a need to do something to make my situation better. I hate television. I get sick of seeing smug smiles, false expressions from artificial people. They don’t know what tough is. I have a serious loathing of the things that people get off on from on that screen full of shit. Besides, too much on there is emotional stupidity and nobody gets anywhere by being emotional. Emotions just get in the way of the good stuff.

  Popular television is awful. In fact not much on any of the channels is better than utterly shit. Programmes show a world that’s nothing to do with me and if I force myself to watch them, they make me want to declare war on all human
ity there and then, which I guess I am partly doing anyway. People on shows have been too lucky, avoiding obstacles and discomfort that are necessary in life, and they end up offering pathetic ideas to equally pathetic people and making everybody think that victories are achievable where they are not. I hate people.

  I don’t dwell on it, but my life, particularly in the earlier years, has been a troubled kind of soap, one that could and should perhaps be shown late at night. People need to see the horrible stuff that can influence a life, rather than the shitty storylines in dramas and documentaries that just make me sorry that they and me supposedly share the same world.

  A great storyline is present in my mind right now and it’s about to unfold. I only regret that I’m not very good at writing things down.

  And then there is the news – The News! Supposedly, it is interesting but it always features people who don’t deserve life, arrogant idiots who need to have their existence ended, whether they be the smug survivors of disasters, selfish politicians and leaders of countries, or people in the strange world of the celebrity who have done nothing good but feel that they have done everything. I will be doing my bit. I am bringing some fab news to my favourite couple when the time is right. They might not survive the disaster I am bringing, and they may even achieve celebrity status like the victims of Jack the Ripper, only with more suffering.

  It could be worse. The Jack and Jill of my murder rhyme could be in advertising. I become particularly violent when I think about advertising. I have wanted to kill after seeing the unreal squeaky-clean sugar-coated world presented to me by the commercial moments between and within programmes. Mars is more like where I live than the world that they try to show me. Nobody who puts on a smile while they sell the qualities of a cooking ingredient, a toothpaste or a fizzy drink should have to cope with life. They have presented a version of living that is a totally stupid and which needs a reaction. They needed to see my life growing up and then make their advertisements. After these two, I will go looking for people in the world of the false image.