Jack stood above the bodies, watching
them. Neither one of them breathed. He kept his eyes on them, not blinking for
a second in case he missed something. The club was still in his hand.
Molly was gone. He couldn’t see where
she was; it was dark all around him. There was a street lamp about thirty yards
up the path. In its light he raised the branch: the makeshift club which they
had used to beat him and that he had used to kill them both.
He couldn’t believe it had happened
again. He hadn’t meant to kill; he had meant only to protect Molly and himself.
He thought about Lucy and about
Molly. He thought about his miraculous survival and the destiny he had started
to really believe was waiting for him.
The metaphorical darkness was like a
hurricane, coming closer and closer to those around him. He couldn’t let it
touch them. He couldn’t let it touch her.
He looked at the bodies one last
time, felt a shudder of crushing regret, like his life was going completely out
of any semblance of control, then he moved away. Only three days earlier everything
had been normal.
He started jogging along the path the
way Molly must have run, calling her name, the branch still in his hand. There
was a pond on the left of the path, covered in leaves and rubbish, trees
hanging low all round it close to the water. He paused in his search for her
and threw the branch as hard as he could out into the middle, then he went on
calling her name, only briefly considering the ease into which he had started
covering this dark part of his life up.
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