Crimson Blood

I found this whilst trawling through old files on my USB pen. It's a short story, written two years ago. It was sort of an offshoot from a task in a writing lesson.

Some of it I like, such as the different voices for the two characters. Other bits I find cheesy or on the nose or I feel just don't work. But I present it to you unedited, apart from a few spelling errors corrected.

Enjoy!

*   *   *

Crimson blood drips from my hands. Now though they just didn’t feel like my hands anymore. I feel like a stranger, staring at someone else’s blood soaked digits. It really is a strange feeling, probably comes from seeing our own mortality in front of us. We, humans, seem so complex, so unique and yet all we are is flesh and blood. Flesh and blood that can be shred with a sword, shot with a bullet. Life is so fragile, like a thin thread dangling, just waiting for some evil force to take out a pair of evil force scissors and *snip*. Why didn’t I even think about this before? Why had it not crossed my mind? Maybe, if I’d known, I would have lived life more fully. I guess all people who deal with loss say that. Truth be told, I would have continued in the way I was going. But now I’ve lost it all. Helen lies before me.

*   *   *

“Come on! I’d like to eat sometime in the next century. You know, human biology and all”

I smile. I know that he is only joking. He does this every time we go out. He knows that nothing he’ll say will make me speed up. Maybe he likes that about me. I like his patience. It’s always good to have a husband who’ll allow you several hours to prepare yourself for a night on the town.

“It seems to me that ‘maybe’ pretty much always means ‘no’” I sing louder than the last line. He knows what my singing means. He’ll probably sit and watch something on the TV. Whatever keeps him quiet.

It’s not as if tonight is any big anniversary or a birthday or anything. Just going to see a film and then have a quiet meal together. But it is special to me. It’s often the simple things that count in life. Every month I look forward to these evenings, just the two of us sharing each others company. I do love his company. I smile in anticipation for the evening ahead. I smile at the thought of a great film, the latest with Julia Roberts in it. I smile at the thought of a candlelit dinner, beautiful food, beautiful ambience and the most beautiful person to share it with.

“Don’t mind the skeletal remains of me when you emerge from the bathroom!”

“I know she loves the sunrise, no longer see it with her sleepy eyes” I sing, which is better than saying ‘Shut up you impatient man!’ any day.

*   *   *

Helen lays in a pool of blood, face down. Even from behind she looks beautiful. From any angle she looks beautiful. Looked beautiful. Damn it! I have to start using the past tense to describe her. I have to say that she had the greatest laugh and that she was the most positive person I had ever known. Always smiling, always happy to see me. Boy it was nice, coming home to her smiling face. The face of an angel. Crystal blue eyes that led into eternity. But now she only was the love of my life. Right now, she’s a corpse, laying on this god-forsaken street in the middle of the night. A tear dribbles down my face as I think about the injustice at it all.

What had Helen done to anyone? I wish someone was here to answer me that. I wish that the Almighty decided that this was the day he would show himself to mankind, just so I could question him on this decision. The tears are coming in floods now. I can’t turn her body over, fearful that her crystal eyes will be glazed over and her angel face contorted in terror. I can’t even touch her because I know that, if I did, she would be cold, lifeless, not how I wanted to remember her. It wasn’t how she would want to be remembered either. She’d want me to move on, meet other people, be happy.

I chuckle to myself, at the memory of Helen and at the absurdity of moving on. Over time it may be a reality, me finding someone of Helen’s equal and settling down. Right now it seemed impossible. I wasn’t even planning on moving. I just wanted to sit here, sit with Helen forever. But the fear of being shot is a very good at motivating the most stubborn of people.

*   *   *

The film wasn’t very good, the company was. I guess that’s the great thing about seeing a film with someone you love. When the plot starts to dip you can just cuddle up to the person next to you and create your own entertainment. And we were entertaining ourselves through most of the two hours. Maybe we can create our own reviewing system: the percentage of time spent cuddling up with the person next to you.

“What are you thinking about?” Taylor asks, always the curious one.

“Looking forward to this meal” I reply. I don’t what to tell him that I was wondering how it’d be possible to measure how long you spent not watching the film. Would hand-holding count?

I shiver. It is getting dark earlier now, being winter and all. The streets also seem to funnel all the wind down the one road, freezing you quicker than should be expected. Taylor’s arm around me tightens and I’m dragged into his warm body. Not only an entertainment machine but also a heating unit. Boy does this guy surprise me. I smile for about the billionth time this evening. Taylor has always liked my smile. He says it reminds him of an angel and I remind him that he has never seen an angel. At that point he’ll smile himself and say that no angel would set foot in our apartment for fear of being outshone by my beauty. Always the charmer. I smile some more, thanking the heavens that I’m here tonight, next to the man I love. Also next to the restaurant. I’m starving!

*   *   *

I thought he had gone. I figured that after shooting Helen he would flee, both the police and any vengeance that I would rain down upon him. But he had remained, a menacing shadow standing above me. He must still have his gun, he’d only used three shots for Helen, so depending on the make he had at least three more for me, maybe more. I didn’t wait to find out. Although I’m usually a curious guy, the risk of dying tended to drain that out of me. I would have liked to know who the killer was but I was not going to be the cat that let it’s curiosity kill it. Scrambling to my feet, I flee down the street. I never once turned my head back, that would slow me down.

On and on I run, never dropping in pace. I don’t know how I was doing it, probably adrenaline. Maybe it was the numbness I already felt at Helen’s death stopping me from feeling any pain. I don’t question it. I just run. After several minutes, I didn’t count exactly how many, I begin to slow. I never heard a noise behind me, no heavy breathing or footsteps that weren’t my own. So I stop, prepare to continue if he remained behind me, and peer back. Only a dark empty street greeted me. This didn’t mean anything. He could have hidden behind the corner and was now waiting for me to double back and find Helen again. He might have travelled a different route and was now sneaking up behind me the other way. I spin around to make sure. No murderer, not even a moth attracted by streetlights. I was alone. Alone and lost.

Scanning my surroundings I realised that the previous judgement was false. I wasn’t ‘lost’ at all. Oddly, although I guess my body took me here as a source of comfort, I was in my neighbourhood, less than a hundred metres from my apartment. Our apartment. Just because Helen wasn’t here didn’t mean that the place didn’t belong to her as well. And right now it was my safe haven, the place I needed to be. I could get my head together, call the police, grieve. I needed to be home, so home is where I went. I look over my shoulder to make sure the shooter wasn’t waiting for me.

*   *   *

The restaurant was stunning. We try to go to a different restaurant each month, trying to try new things. Occasionally we’d not be bothered and would go to a restaurant that we’d been to before and really loved. Tonight wasn’t like that. This was an Italian restaurant, run by an Italian family. It was very small-scale but this gave it the perfect amount of atmosphere but privacy as well.

“You’d think that after all these years we’d run out of things to say to each other” Taylor says. I finish my mouthful before speaking. I forgot to say: the food is exquisite.

“Not with you being a writer. You’re the master of words”

“And yet I can’t find the words to describe your beauty”

I smile. What a corny, but very very sweet line. I can feel my face blush bright red and look down into my plate of pasta. Taylor can see my reaction and he laughs, a small chuckle. It always brightens my spirits when I hear that chuckle.

“You’d also think that after all these years you’d let me complement you with becoming embarrassed”

I wasn’t embarrassed at the compliment, I was embarrassed at how cheesy the line was. I don’t tell him this of course, but I don’t lie. I just look at him and smile, then get back to my food. The night wears on and the conversation stays perfect, conversations often do when you’ve been married so long and know what your partner is thinking. The pasta becomes slightly colder but not enough to spoil our evening.

*   *   *

It hit me like a bombshell sending me reeling to the floor in more floods of tears. I was home now. I thought I would be safe here. Physically yes, I was safe. The gunman could probably fire through the window but to do so he would have to climb three stories. He appeared to just be a common mugger but people could do crazy things to avoid witnesses. I had moved far away from the windows just in case. He wouldn’t kill me here. Yet I was on the floor, in pain. Surrounding the room were pictures of us, of Helen. She looked happy, her smiling faces were staring at me. What would once have been happy memories had warped into taunting images of what we should have had if fate hadn’t been so cruel. It was then that the emotion hit me, crippling me and sending me to the carpeted floor. I hadn’t let it out before, hadn’t felt that I could. Now, in familiar surroundings, it all exploded out of me.

Grief, anger, love, all escaping at once in a mess. My body couldn’t cope and betrayed me. As I lie on this floor, memories of our times together swim through my mind. We were here, in this room, just a few hours ago, talking about the trivial things that mattered at that time. It all happened so suddenly. One moment she was laughing at my joke, probably a lame one but she always liked to make me feel special. The next moment she was on the floor. Not a second to think, not a second to comprehend what had just happened. But now I was comprehending it all at once.

My mind was flashing forward, picturing a life without Helen. A life without her happy singing voice in a morning. She used to sing Jack Johnson songs to herself whilst getting ready to go out. A life without her comforting words when I felt my writing wasn’t working. She’d always have kind words to say about the most awful of my poems and the worst selling of my novels. A world without her kiss.

I stop myself, stomach tightening with emotion. I’ll never kiss her again. I’ll never feel those soft ruby lips touch mine ever again. I’ll never hold her body to mine. I’ll never see her smile. My eyes examine our house, full of things that would give up just to hold her one more time. I try to remember the last thing I said to her. I think I asked her what she wanted to eat tomorrow. I close my eyes, to shut out the world. A world I don’t want to be part of. Not without Helen.

*   *   *

If you had told me that the evening would have been ruined five minutes ago I would not have believed you. I would have dismissed you as crazy and told you that nothing in the entire world would have ruined the evening we were having. Which was a very naive thing to say. There are an awfully lot of things in the world and I’m sure that at least one of them would have ruined our evening if it tried. I would have been tempting fate by even thinking that. Maybe that’s why I stand here now, facing down the barrel of a gun.

“Give me your money!” he had screamed. He seems frightened, kind of weird considering that he holds the gun and I hold a handbag full of make-up. He had had the element of surprise as well. We were just talking about what our plans were for tomorrow. Taylor wanted to order some Chinese food in, I wanted to cook. Guess that says something about my cooking. We weren’t expecting anyone on these streets at this time of night, especially not a crazed gunman. I feel like I’m in a batman comic, but we have no son to become a caped crusader at the sight of our deaths. That might explain why I don’t feel scared as Taylor removes my purse from my handbag and starts to remove his wallet from his trousers. It just seems too surreal, like a children’s adventure story. When we get home I’ll probably break down in tears when it hits me that we could have died here. The money isn’t really a problem, Taylor sells enough books to keep us living a comfortable lifestyle. It’s a shame that this event has ended a perfectly good evening.

I look across to Taylor. He seems to be in a stand-off with the gunman. Taylor can’t give him the money unless he steps a few steps towards him but it doesn’t seem that the gunman wants this kind of closeness in their relationship. Bad planning I guess. You’d think that if someone was going to do this they would have figured things like this out. Eventually he tells Taylor to throw the two items down onto the ground, something that Taylor quickly does. I should note that for the future. When I want Taylor to take out the rubbish I’ll threaten him with a gun.

“Don’t move.” The gunman shouts. Obviously he isn’t a man of words, but we have to follow his monosyllabic commands or risk a bullet in the chest. We stand there silently as he bends down towards the money. Neither me or Taylor look worried, we’re both smiling and he still has his arm around me, protectively now. The night air is cold and the wind hasn’t relented at all during the evening. The gunman has reached the wallet and the purse and has shoved them into his trouser pockets. I shiver, the chilly night air cutting through me. As if by instinct Taylor hugs me closer.

*   *   *

I hear a key turn in my lock. I don’t know how long I’ve been blocking out the world and I’m not sure if the sound I heard was real. Probably just my tired brain playing tricks on me. Then the door to my, our, apartment opens. Someone is here. Only me and Helen have a key. Unless, oh my god! The gunman could have gone back and searched Helen to find her key. He could be here now, ready to kill the last witness to his crime. My body suddenly fights all grief and I quickly and quietly pull myself up and pin myself against a wall, shielding myself from the intruder. I wait and listen.

The only sound coming from the doorway is crying, a soft sobbing. Killers don’t cry. Listen to me, my wife is shot down and suddenly I’m an expert on killers. Maybe guilt has caught up on him and he’s crying over the loss of Helen. The bastard deserves no sympathy, no matter how much he regrets his actions. Anger floods into me and I almost step out to the door to confront the Angel of Death himself but my actions are halted by the sound of the door slamming shut. Footsteps are coming my way and I stop breathing.

A soft feminine figure steps into the main living area, tears running down her beautiful angel face. Helen. But it can’t be. Helen is dead, I watched her get shot and saw her dead body. I know this, but my mind is in denial. It is creating images of my love to ease the blow that her loss will cause it. This Helen isn’t really. Although her body and face look angelic enough, her embrace will be non-existent. She is air, imaginary. But I can’t help but cry out to her.

“Helen?”

She doesn’t reply. She just sits and holds herself, crying. That settles it. If this was the real Helen then she would have looked up. She would have seen my face and would have glided over to me and held me in her soft, elegant arms. She would have smiled her winning smile. This pseudo-Helen didn’t even seem to hear me, she just sat there crying. She was just an impostor created by my brain. I needed some water, both to drink and to splash on my face. I needed to clear my mind. I needed to get the blood of my loved one off my hands.

*   *   *

I don’t know what the gunman saw in my shiver or in Taylor’s protective hug. In his paranoid mind we could be plotting to charge him and steal our money back, using his gun against him. We could be using a phone to secretly ring the police. Whatever the gunman thought we were doing he wasn’t happy about it. His mouth curled into a half-smile, half-snarl and he raised his gun at our chests. I heard the first bang extremely loud, like the heaven cracking open. I’d always thought that I would not be that bothered by gunfire after all the action films that I’ve seen but the real thing was so, well, real. I don’t remember what happened after that. I just remember hearing two more gunshots fill the quiet night air.

*   *   *

The bathroom seemed claustrophobic, the shadows were haunting. But I wasn’t going to stay here long. I just needed the blood off my hands and some water on my face. The cool touch of it would help me think and when I went back to the living room the imaginary Helen would be gone. Only memories would remain. I reached for the tap, reached for relief. My fingers stopped and I noticed something that terrified me.

Above our sink we have a mirror. Every morning Helen is found in front of it, applying make-up to an already perfect face and brushing her silken black hair. I would often sneak in behind her, half my shirt on, and hug her and hold her from behind. She would smile and lean back into my arms. The two of us together created a picture of happiness in that mirror. But that image had gone now, the two of us would never fill this mirror together again. What should have been there now was an image of sadness. A man with red bloodshot, an image of pure unhappiness. But nothing was there. Only a reflection of the room behind me. My face wasn’t staring back at me.

I close my eyes. This must be my drained mind again, playing stupid games on me. I would open my eyes and see myself like I should. I’ll probably look tired, drained, but at least I’ll be there. I open my eyes and tiles stare back at me. Where was I? Why was I not shown in the mirror? My breathing is getting heavier, I’m starting to panic. What is going on?!

An icy hand on my shoulder stops all thoughts. A deep voice behind me announces a fact.

“It is time”

My mind doesn’t understand what the voice is saying. Well, I understand the words, but not the meaning. What is it time for? I ask the voice this.

“Time for what?”

“You know” it answers cryptically.

The voice seems certain that I should know what it is time for. But I don’t. My mind is such a mess I hardly feel I know anything right now. I wrench my shoulder free of the icy grip and turn to face the intruder. I would tell them that I didn’t have a clue about what it was time for. And I turned, and I found out that I did know what it was time for. My mouth opened in shock, then contorted into a face of acceptance. I couldn’t fight the inevitable. Before me stood the dark shadowy figure from before. But now I could see his face. It was a skull. It’s eyes and mouth seem to be grinning at me but I guess that’s just his neutral expression. If this was who I thought it was, then I would have to follow him. I needed a way to make sure though. Maybe he was another figment of a shattered imagination.

“Look down” he commands, sensing my thoughts.

So I do look down and the sight confirms everything. In the front of my body are three bullet holes, seeping with crimson blood.

*   *   *

Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! The world seems to swirl around me, everything happening so fast. I fall to the ground trying to hold on to it. Maybe if I can grab the pavement I can stop things spiraling out of control. Maybe I can go back and stop him. Stop the gunshots.

He is long gone now. He has scared himself, didn’t believe he could fire one shot, let alone three. Now it is just me and Taylor. But Taylor isn’t Taylor anymore. He’s a lifeless shell where life once lived. What am I going to do? In five short seconds my whole life, Taylor was my whole life, has been ripped away from me. I never realised how fragile it all was. I never realised that it could be taken away so...so easily.

I have no control over my body now, my emotions have taken over. It shivers with sadness but there is no Taylor to hold me closer. So I hug him. Not worrying about the crimson blood that lines his shirt I kneel down beside him and hold him close to me. He is still warm but the last breathes of life are draining quickly from him. A single tear drops from my eye, a sign of things to come. And I lay here, motionless.

I love you Taylor.