The Blood Lives (In The Blood Book 1), Page 2

  The man stopped in the street. Ben pulled his car to the side of the road and watched. He heard the sound of a car door opening, and wound his window down, craning his neck out to see what was happening. The man had stopped by a car. An old woman was struggling to get out of it and rise to her feet. The former prisoner did nothing to help her. Ben watched as they embraced, the woman doing most of the embracing. He just stood there whilst she draped her frail arms around him and held him as tight as her thin limbs would allow.

  The man said something to her, and her grip on him loosened. He got in the passenger seat and she lowered herself back down into the driver's side, struggling to close the door on herself.

  His mother, Ben thought. The anger was bubbling away, greater than it had been all day. Because this man – this monster – still had a mother, after taking his. And worse, he appeared to be taking her for granted. Somewhere in the midst of all the anger that was pulsating through his cortex, Ben felt something else. He pictured an imagined face. What his mother might have looked like, had she not been taken from him. She was in her late thirties when she gave birth to Ben, probably a similar age to her killer's mother.

  The imagined old lady smiled at him, with big, kind eyes. She didn't approve of his intended actions, but understood they needed to be carried out. His whole life had taken a wild turn at such a young age. Everything had spiralled out of control that night, and everything he had done, everything he had lived through in the years since, had been building up to the moment of enacting vengeance.

  But the plan would have to change. The mother driving her murderer son from the prison saw to that. Ben wasn't worried. If there was anything he had at this point, it was patience.

  6

  Ben spent the day following the man and his mother on several stops they made from the prison. The first was to a greasy spoon. He sat on the opposite side of the cafe with a coffee, pretending to read a copy of The Daily Mirror whilst he watched his quarry shovelling food into his mouth, as if the former inmate hadn't eaten in all that time behind bars, putting on the weight by osmosis.

  It was him. He was certain of that now. The face was thirty years older, had lines and wrinkles, the hair was long and scraggy and thinning, but the face was unmistakable. He could feel pressure building in the lower-middle of his skull as the parts of the man's face slotted into recognition from the memories he had of him. Not from the nightmare, the dream narrative was exactly that, a fantasy. His memories of the face were from the weeks that followed. The killer left his DNA at the scene, the smallest drops of blood on the window that was shattered upon gaining entry to the house. He probably didn't even notice the scratch on his arm, but the police found that small patch of crusting dried blood on the shards left in the window frame, and discovered he was already in the system.

  His face was plastered all over the television and newspapers; James Carter, know to his friends as Jamie, that's how they put it in the newspaper, alongside his photo, and a photo of the house from outside. Police tape around the scene, the door's window smashed in at the centre. There was a description of his crime, which Ben didn't read until years later. Under that was a description of him; 5”11, 10st, short hair, dark blonde. Ben didn't understand why they needed a description when they had a colour photo of him, but apparently it was enough information for people to come forth with sightings of him. He was arrested within a fortnight.

  Ben's grandparents assured him that he was safe, that the man who 'took' his mother would pay for his crime. He didn't believe it, needed to see it for himself. Without his father around to object, they took him to the trial. Ben watched the man, James Carter, sentenced to 30 years for manslaughter. At the time, it seemed like a fair punishment. But as Ben grew older, it felt less and less fair. The charge, manslaughter, didn't sit right with him. It might not have been premeditated, but it wasn't an accidental death. He took her life, and brutally at that. It seemed only fair that the state should take his life in return – even if it was a life spent in prison rather than capital punishment. He grew even more angry as he researched prison life. Sure there was violence, but there were also perks. Luxuries, that just riled Ben up even more. He spent the best part of those thirty years learning to hate this man and the system that was rewarding his crime with a complimentary stay in what seemed like nothing more than a secure holiday resort.

  After leaving the cafe, James and his mother went to a series of charity shops. Her entering, whilst he loitered outside, chain smoking, looking increasingly angry at having to waste his first day back out on a pointless scavenger hunt.

  Ben sat in the car, watching as James paced back and forth, ducking into an alley. It was the first time he had left his mother's sight and moved anywhere remotely private since getting out of prison - the perfect opportunity to strike.

  He turned, looked at the crowbar sitting on the seat next to him, then looked back at the alley. There was a security camera hanging from a wall at the mouth, staring down, recording everyone who stepped in or out. Ben let out an angry sigh. He promised himself he wouldn't be rash, wouldn't do anything stupid. Rushing into the alley, being caught on camera, that would be more than stupid.

  He took a deep breath, waited for James to walk back out, his mother to exit the charity shop, presenting him with a carrier bag. He took out the contents; a big fluffy jumper, and stuffed it back in the bag, with a scowl crawling down his face. He spat some words at her and marched back to the car, the old woman struggling to keep up.

  Ben waited for them to drive away before he fired up the car again, resigning himself to waiting until they stopped at their final destination, and then waiting for night to fall. At that point, and only at that point, would he end this. With sixteen holes ploughed deep into the flesh of the man who destroyed his childhood, leaving him trapped in a life that had been stuck in a state of suspended animation for all these years.

  7

  The house was nothing like Ben imagined. When he thought of the place a murderer might be raised, he pictured a broken home, figurative and literal. The house James and his mother returned to was an off-white semi detached in a suburb. There was a hedge around the front garden, which had long since been left to grow wild. But other than that and the cracked crazy paving of the path up to the red front door that was in need of a repaint, this house wasn't even close to being 'broken'.

  The way the old woman doted on James seemed loving. A love that even a murder couldn't put a dent in. His rebuking of that affection seemed almost like teenage rebellion, as if he never made it out of that phase, going to prison as a late-stage adolescent and never quite getting out of that mindset.

  Ben never had childhood rebellion. All he had was a dead mother, and an absentee father. As the sun went down over the house, Ben scoffed. He was actually experiencing jealousy for his mother's killer having the opportunity to go through the normal phases of growth, even if her son was a killer who seemed stuck with the attitude of a sixteen year old.

  They ate at the dining room table, seemingly in silence, then moved through to the living room to watch television. A routine was making itself apparent. Every thirty to forty five minutes, James would pick himself up, leave his mother's side and go to the back garden for a cigarette. He smoked it down to the butt, expressing an annoyed sigh that it was over so quickly. Then stubbed it out on his boot, flicked the butt over the fence into the neighbour's garden, and went back in to the house, locking the door behind him. That was where Ben would strike, as soon as the mother was asleep.

  He continued to watch them, as he put on the hoodie, the gloves, the shoes. The credits rolled on whatever they were watching, and the mother turned to James, saying something. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, leading her to turn the television off; first with the remote, then on the set itself, then again at the switch on the wall. James said something, a wry smile on his face. Ben took this as him mocking his mother for her actions. She smiled politely, tried to give him a hug that he shook
off, and started climbing the stairs.

  Ben got out of the car, picked up the crowbar, and made his way to the back of the house. He watched from the back gate as a light went on in the upper floor of the house. The mother's bedroom, he presumed. Through the ground floor windows facing the garden, he could see over James's shoulder as he plugged the television back in and turned it on, flicking hastily through the channels until he found some softcore porn.

  Slipping through the gate, Ben walked across the lawn, slinking to the side of the garden to hide in the shadow of a tree that was hanging over from the neighbour's yard. He kept one eye on the light on the upper floor and the movement in the room, the other eye on the movement of James's right elbow as he relieved himself to the images on the screen.

  The light upstairs went off first. James's frantic movements ending not long after. He cleaned himself up and took a cigarette from his pack, lighting it in the house.

  A muffled shout came out from the top floor. Ben heard it as something like “Don't you be smokin' in the house!”

  He watched, breathlessly, as James thudded his heavy feet from the living room, scraping the toes of his boots across the floor as he stomped out to the garden. James stuck to the paving stones that were dotted across the grass, kicking at the occasional pebble he came across. Ben froze, standing perfectly still as his quarry walked right past him, entirely unaware that he was hiding in the shadows.

  There was a tingle in the lower back of Ben's skull, that grew into a pulsing wave. It sent the arm clutching the crowbar aloft, high above his head. His other hand grabbed hold of the base, and with all the strength in both arms, brought the curved peak of the weapon crashing down on the head of his mother's killer.

  James fell to the floor with the might of the blow, a gash in the back of his head lazily dribbling blood down his neck. He groaned. Down, but not out.

  Ben changed the placement of his hands on the weapon, bringing them higher, one below the other just before the curve of the head. He raised it up again, readying himself to drive the sharpened teeth at the base down into the soft, fat flesh of his victim's back.

  “Please!” James gasped, with a soft wail. “Don't kill me!” He cried softly over the words.

  “Is that what she said, when you knocked her to the ground and drove sixteen holes through her?”

  James turned, eyes wild and full of tears. “I didn't!” he squealed. “I didn't kill anyone!”

  “Thirty years, and you're still denying it?” Ben grunted.

  “I broke in, that's all! Like I said in court, like I've been saying all this time! I broke in but I didn't kill her!”

  Ben gripped the crowbar tightly, it felt hard and painful in his hands. There was the faintest of tingles in the middle of his head, a vague memory lost to the years. He didn't know if it could be believed. Memory was fallible, he knew that all too well. But right now, it was feeling more real than anything in a long time.

  In the memory, James was in court, pleading guilty to breaking in, but not guilty to the murder. They talked about it in words his young mind couldn't understand, but now, he knew what they meant. There was physical evidence of the break in. His footprints were found by the body, but there was no weapon discovered. James declared himself as working alone, and every other potential suspect, related or otherwise, had an alibi. So he was convicted of manslaughter rather than murder. A voice came with this memory, his father's voice, from somewhere way back, long buried under the sands of time.

  “Letting the anger spill out will never bring you peace.”

  He took a step back, then another. The crowbar was feeling heavy in his hands. He backed away towards to gate, retreated out of the garden, leaving the weeping killer alive on the lawn with a dent in his skull.

  Ben dumped the crowbar in a recycling bin on his way back to the car, took off the gloves and threw them into the passenger seat foot well. He brought the engine to life and drove with no destination in mind. Tears streamed down his cheeks leaving damp, pale leylines on his skin. A map of all the emotions he had buried, left to build up over the last three decades.

  He was angry, but he was also sad. Consumed by hate, but could also feel empathy. He wanted to smash something, lash out and destroy everything within reach, just like he did as a child. But most of all, he felt fear. He was terrified that he was becoming the monster he always believed James to be.

  8

  Ben burst through the door of his house, stepping out of the oversized boots on his way up the stairs, throwing the hoodie to the floor as he entered the bedroom. He lay in bed all night, begging the universe for sleep, but it would not come. His brain was on fire, pressure bubbling away in every region. The wealth of emotion, the memories, the senses, everything was building and building, waiting for an outlet. Ben wasn't prepared to let it out. The forgotten statement from his father was still ringing through his head; “Letting the anger spill out will never bring you peace.”, over and over again.

  He knew his father wasn't there when he left a trail of destruction through his grandparents' house. Yet that statement seemed connected to that day, so he must have been, to leave that nugget of advice.

  The alarm on his phone screeched at him, informing him it was six. Time to get up. Time to get ready for work. He hadn't thought about work for the days leading up to James's release, taking the week off on holiday time, convincing himself that it was a holiday away from himself. When he returned, Ben expected to have the closure he had spent most of his life wishing for.

  He rolled his eyes at the naivete of his past self. The guy who thought re-enacting the murder of his mother upon her killer was going to be anything close to cathartic. That past version of him was an idiot, but this present version wasn't much better off. Now rather than being a cold and troubled 30-something teacher, he was awash with a barrage of mixed emotions, and harbouring a lot of hate for himself.

  For a brief moment he considered calling in sick. But he couldn't do that to the kids, not after already leaving them for a week to some supply-moron who had probably resigned themselves to teaching them the intricacies of finger painting rather than the syllabus.

  He forced himself from the bed, showered, got dressed and thought about eating. Once again, his stomach disagreed with the prospect, the knots returning at the mere motion of it. He grabbed the gloves from the passenger foot well, and used them to pick up the hoodie and the boots, flinging them into the boot before starting the short drive to the school.

  As he drove through the suburban streets he wound the window down, letting the cool breeze wash over his face in the hope it might force him into a more waking state. It didn't seem to work, and he was still exhausted as he pulled up into the teachers' parking lot.

  Donning the gloves, he grabbed the boots and hoodie, throwing them in different bins round the back of the school before he entered. As soon as he was through the doors he found himself accosted by the beaming faces of children running through the hallways, and the glances of parents and teachers alike. He tried to force a polite smile, but it felt false. His lips seemed reluctant to participate in the lie, his eyes even more so.

  Fighting through the pint-sized crowd, he made his way to the teachers' lounge, aiming straight for the coffee machine.

  “How was your holiday?” asked a voice from the other side of the room. Ben glanced over and couldn't see the source of the voice.

  The speaker registered his confusion, and a thin, bony hand, attached to a thinner, bonier wrist shot up from the couch. The arm held aloft lead back to a scrawny compact upper body, from which poked a long neck like a giraffe, and a tiny face with a shock of over-gelled brown hair that stood five inches up on the top of the man's head. It was Andrew, the new year three teacher. Ben had only exchanged polite chit-chat with him over breaks, and was put off by the guy's overly relaxed attitude. Something to do with being Australian, Ben supposed. His current pose was a perfect example of this; slumped down on one of the couches, his feet re
sting on the table between them.

  Maybe it wasn't just the way he presented himself. There was something about the man that Ben just didn't like. Maybe it was how disproportioned he was. The majority of his height was taken up by long stick-like legs. And even though he was slouched down and sunk deep into the chair, with his feet resting at almost at the same level as his head, Andrew still seemed obscenely tall. When he stood up to his full height, the man who was almost ten years younger than Ben still had a foot and a half on him. At one point he said he was seven feet tall, which Ben didn't reckon was true, but didn't have a reason – or truly care enough – to doubt it .

  “Yeah...” Ben grumbled, as he poured coffee from the machine into a mug that was covered in pictures of too many smiling animals for his current state of mind.

  “Where'd you go? Don't look like you got much of a tan...”

  Ben sighed. He didn't want to have to explain himself to the few people he did like, let alone the one person at work he was thoroughly indifferent to. “Staycation.” he mumbled. “Just needed some time to myself.”

  “Binge-watch week. I get'cha!” Andrew said cheerfully, as the bell rang.

  Ben looked down at the steaming coffee in the mug and was tempted to knock it all back. What was the worst that could happen; a scalded oesophagus might be a good excuse to not have to talk to anyone.

  He didn't act on that thought, taking the mug out of the room without so much as a goodbye to Andrew. It was time for class, and that would be as good an excuse as any to get out of any further conversation.

  9

  Hey dad,