by Eoin Smith

Blood. I hate blood.

These four words circled in her head, as she clutched at the bloody hole in her chest. She fell to her knees: winded, scared, alone. Her attacker, the man with the ski mask, walked slowly towards her. He crouched near her head, and she could hear his shallow breaths. Had his actions had no effect on him?

He sniffed the air, only for a second, but long enough to unsettle his victim. He stood, wiping the knife with a white cloth. He glanced down at her, lying on the ground like an animal basking in dirt, and threw the blade over her body, the pier creaking as it rocked with the momentum of his pitch. He stripped his hands, tossing his gloves onto the floor with the handkerchief. He pulled out a small can of lighter fuel and doused the fabric. He paused, searching for something; a matchbook. Taking it out, he carefully removed a match, struck it, and inhaled the sweet smell of smoke.

She heard a soft crack as he tore out one of the matches from the book he held in his now-bare hands. The noise seemed faint; distant. She knew it would soon be time. He struck the match, and it flickered into life. He watched, as if in a trance, as he dropped it onto the material. The warmth hit her hard, the burning cloth only inches from her face.

She felt her life slipping away, flashing by her eyes on its meandering path to the afterlife: falling off her bike when she was four; Danny, her first love; sneaking out to parties as a teenager; her first drink; shooting up behind the supermarket; rehab; marrying Craig. Sure, it hadn’t been an ideal life. But it was her life. And she wouldn’t have changed anything. Well, almost anything…

She could see the headline in the Sun already: Call Girl Slain in Beachside Brutality!

But she wasn’t a whore, dammit. Just a girl caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

She’d been out with the girls – a night on the town, like they did all the time. Every month, without fail. She’d got talking to this guy, kind of cute: not her type, just a bit of light flirtation. Not as if Craig would ever find out. Her friends had left, bored, and she’d tried to find them. Stumbling along the cobbled streets, her stiletto gave way and she tumbled to the floor. She had tried to get up, but… a shooting pain in her left shoulder. She turned her head: a masked man standing behind her; a knife-hilt protruding from her shoulder.

The wind whistled all around them: the hooded man and the limp girl lying dazed beside him. The man stole his gaze from the fire to watch her shivering body. He considered the poetry of the moment, and watched, bemused, as she pooled her energy into reaching out towards him: her eyes pleading for help, her hand reaching towards his. He recoiled, scared by the humanity. He hadn’t counted on this. Hadn’t counted on his feelings to get in the way of what he was doing. But things would change. It would get easier. It had to.

She mustered up all of her strength, commanded her body to rise up against the pain, to stare her assailant in the eyes, to try and reason with him; understand him. She coughed and spluttered, her throat burning as she tried to speak. Anything at all would have done, even a simple “Fuck you”. But… nothing. She let out a silent sigh and slumped back down onto the rotting wood. Crack. A plank beneath her splintered and fell away into the churning ocean below; the water ebbing, as her life flowed away.

Thunder cracked somewhere in the distance, and he turned round to once again stare out to sea. He watched the storm clouds edging ever closer, ominously threatening to explode at any moment. He liked the danger, the tension; the noise, the atmosphere, the fear all exited him, took him to a better place.

She watched as his eyes, which had seemed vacant, flickered with excitement. Anticipation. Ironic, she thought, how he can be so full of life, as mine slips so quickly away from me. She watched as his eyes, flitted between the storm and her body. Back and forth. Back and forth.

He turned back to look at her and watched the life flooding out of her body. A flickering streetlight somewhere in the distance caught his eye. Startled, he snapped back to reality. He glanced quickly down at his watch; the square digits blinking monotonously back at him: 00:24. He’d had enough. It was over.He crouched down beside her. Reaching out, he touched her forehead: her skin, soft and slick with sweat, was warm and comforting. He knew he shouldn’t, but he just couldn’t resist. Her fringe, plastered to her forehead, was brushed aside with ease as he leaned in close.

She felt his breath, cool against her burning forehead, gentle and… somehow calming. She looked him dead in the eye, and he paused.

He stared at her, unblinking, asserting his power, his control over the situation. He was in charge. He planted a soft kiss onto her forehead.Standing up, he walked back towards his beaten up Honda Civic. The rusty paint and dirty lights harked back to normality; back to real life. He buckled himself in and stole a last look at the girl lying on the pier. Starting the engine, he drove off, heading for home.

She watched him walk away from her; watched her last hope of survival vanish into the darkness which constricted her. She felt helpless. And alone. All alone. She willed her body to struggle against his lips, to fight back at the man who had stabbed her over and over again, to force her skull into his face, to make him bleed, to make him pay. But she couldn’t. Her body had failed her. She looked around: empty nothingness. She heard him slam the door of his car, the rumbling engine disappearing off into the distance. All alone. She closed her eyes, willing the pain to leave her body, to vanish into thin air.

A creak; the pier swayed in the now-howling gale and the sounds of the ocean below calmed her, a lullaby in this tragic fairy tale.

Tears trickled from her eyes as she imagined how long it would be before someone found her. She felt weak and useless; her strength had left her long ago, her body refusing to react to her mind’s protests.

She closed her eyes once more, and, as the darkness encroached, her life slipped away into the water below.