999

In one smooth motion he pulled the blade across. His hand was no longer shaking as it had been, but the small beads of sweat remained on his forehead. Typically it helped if he vomited before he began, and tonight was no exception.

It helped too, if had had a few drinks. Strengthened his hand, he often thought. Made it steadier. And that was how he found them. At Bars. Waiting, waiting for men with fat wallets. But he was waiting too, and his waiting was a lot more pleasurable. Now that the deed was done, he felt a stirring, a sense of elation, not unlike the feeling of an athlete at the end of a winning race. He wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Wiped the blade of the long scimitar-like knife on the grass and proceeded to cover the body with rocks.

He set the last one in place, then surveyed the scene. A job well done flooded him with satisfaction. He didn't have long to enjoy the feeling. Fingers clamped his ankle in a grip as unforgiving as a pit bull's jaws. He stared, uncomprehending, at the hand jutting from a gap in the rocks. The fingers increased their pressure until he heard himself whimpering. The knife glittered, just beyond his reach. Her voice was cold and dark as wrought iron, nothing like the breathy warble she'd used earlier. "Dolt! My kind is not so easily killed. Remove these stones ere I grow truly angry."

For a moment he thought he was hallucinating: this wasn't possible. The cut he'd made into the carotid artery was always fast, always fatal. He made to move away, but found he was pinned to the spot, like a butterfly stuck to a board. The grip on his ankle increased, threatening to break it. Then, a hideous scraping noise at the rocks as filthy fingernails clawed their way to the surface. He looked down and saw rock after rock being dislodged. A second, almost feral hand emerged from within, dismantling the carefully arranged mound. He pulled away even harder, but the grip never faltered. At the back of his mind he could hear alarms wailing, growing closer, more insistent.

He awoke with a start, his alarm clock wailing its plaintiff cry of morning. Sweat clung to his body like shrink-wrap on a piece of meat. A nightmare. He'd had a nightmare.

He went into the bathroom and splashed his face with cold water. The night terrors he'd been having lately had never been as vivid as this one. This was a whole new level of nightmare.

Could he manage work? He’d have to. They’d noticed a fair bit at the office. Nervous stammers, glazed looks and the odd clammy palm. It was only a matter of time.

He thought of her now in the fading darkness. The bed felt cold and silent. She and the baby. They had been so happy together. Why didn’t she tell him? Why did she keep her secret? Of course, he would have understood. Of course, he wouldn’t have stopped her.
That’s what he'd told her softly in those frozen final minutes.

He remembered her startled __expression when she saw him. Making his way to her in the crowded bar. They were playing La Bamba. She looked like she was waiting for someone he didn’t know. Waiting, sipping a cocktail and swinging her legs. “Darling, what on earth?” She appeared shocked but had smiled quickly. She had tried to fix her lipstick, adjust her skirt. Her hair looked straggly and grey. Once she had been a stunning blonde. Once she had promised only him, her kisses in the moonlight. He had been adamant. Perhaps if the baby hadn’t come…Perhaps.

But no matter how she had changed, no matter her dark secrets, everyday he saw her smile on other women's faces, saw the light of her eyes in theirs. She haunted him. Tormenting him from her grave. All he wanted now was to be left in peace. To move on with his life. To create some sort of new beginning for himself. But it was as though she was holding him back – a hand from a grave.

"Damn you," he muttered, trying to push her insistent memory away.

He gazed at his reflection in the mirror. A haggard face stared back at him. Eyes bloodshot and ringed with grey. He splashed more water on his face and watched as it trickled through his stubble.

He shook his head. "Get a grip," he told himself.

He turned away from the mirror and stopped. He stared at the knife lying in the bath. How had that got there he wondered, bending down to pick it up.

The rock smashed down hard on the back of his clammy head, and he fell dazed and disorientated into the tub. Momentarily he thought it was filling with warm water but quickly realised it was blood oozing from his damaged skull.

He laughed. So this was how it felt. This is how it felt to be killed. He’d watched so many die close up.

As his eyes cleared he saw her face. She was blonde again. Young and pretty like she used to be. But it couldn’t be. She was dead. He'd made sure of that all those years ago when he buried her beneath the garden rockery. An angry, drink-fuelled rage when she told him the child wasn’t his.

She leant forward and picked the blade up from the bath. She smiled at him like she used to. Long before the child had changed everything.

He felt the blade cut slowly across his throat.

She pressed her face up close and sniffed his fear. He could smell the cigarettes and vodka on her warm breath. There were tears in her blue eyes.

Blue eyes? Hers had been grey, like her name, Sky. And then he realised. Finally, dying, he realised his mistake after all these years. The child should have died too.

Blog Owner's Note: This is the final product of the collaboration between the seven authors in the order listed in the previous post. I'm very pleased with how well it turned out. Thank you very much for contributing! I really enjoyed reading the additions as they came back, which happened well in advance of the Monday deadline I so arbitrarily set. It came in at 999 words, and I only tried to correct any paragraph breaks that looked as though they were corrupted in transition. Wonderfully done everyone.