I’d only spent a short time learning
his routine. I wasn’t even sure what I was hoping to achieve by following him.
Maybe just confront him and tell him to leave, but I’d become more desperate.
It was a chilly night. A cool change moved in late in the evening and brought
with it a downpour of summer rain. I was rugged up from head to toe—black
puffer jacket, black beanie and gloves. I blended into the night landscape.
He never saw
me coming.
I hadn’t
meant for this to happen though. It wasn’t premeditated, as they’d say on the
cop shows. But as I followed him, images from my past flashed before me. A
calmness took over. I knew what I had to do.
The blow was
fast.
He was
jogging, like he didn’t have a care in the world. As though he had no idea how
many lives he was destroying. So, when he stopped for a moment to check his
phone, something in me snapped.
He tapped
away at his screen. He couldn’t hear me with those headphones on. Then I lifted
the cricket bat and knocked him for six. He fell instantly.
Now, I look
down at my gloved, shaking hands, splattered with blood. Lying at my feet is a
cricket bat, a fitting weapon. Not planned as such. But the bat was lying on
the backseat of the car, and I didn’t feel safe going into the parklands at
this hour with nothing at all.
Next to the
bat, his unblinking eyes stare up at me. A pool of crimson spreads out from
underneath his head and mixes with the puddles of muddy water.
I take a
deep breath to calm my shaking body. I look around. It’s hard to see far at this
time of night. Only a few distant lampposts cast light on the parklands. I’d be
surprised to find anyone else out here at this time or in this weather. There
aren’t many people like him who mess with the normality of day and night.
I pick up
the bat and leave. There is nothing else that ties me to this incident and the
bat will be easy to chop up and add to the Coonara. I take one last look back
at the body and then break into a jog.
It’ll be okay, I keep telling myself.
Stephanie Hazeltine is a contemporary fiction author who writes about fearless females as they fall in love, navigate motherhood or tackle mysteries.
She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her husband, two kids and two cavoodles.
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