Down with the sickness

It’s never pleasant watching someone throw up. Even an attractive woman.

I understood how she felt. Between the sickening crunch of impact and the way the guy had crumpled before toppling over the sheer edge of the cliff, my McDonalds breakfast was only moments away from its own daring escape attempt.

I took the folded paper from my pocket. I don’t know why. Looking for a reason, an explanation. Trying to cling to a last shred of sanity.

There it was, in black and white. Jenny’s address. And the time – 7pm.

It couldn’t be any later than 6. What did that mean? I wasn’t supposed to be here yet. So I wasn’t supposed to see this? It wasn’t for my benefit?

All thoughts of coincidences, of office jokes, left my mind. This was real. As real as it gets.

Had Jenny planned the whole thing? I couldn’t believe that. Not at first. Until I realized that she had killed someone in front of me. Had she snapped? Was I next? Did she have a schedule of victims lined up, one after the other? Hoodies at 6, me at 7?

Then Jenny looked up and saw me for the first time. I took a step back, crumpling the paper as my hands knotted into fists.

She saw it. She saw the paper and she saw the look on my face.

As she dropped to her knees, tears streaming down her cheeks, I knew she wasn’t behind it. We faced one another in silence for a long moment, her eyes pleading, mine flickering between sympathy, horror, and disbelief.

Then she shook her head and broke the silence.

“No!”

She kept repeating the word, screaming it. Not at me. At the situation. At the world.

I took a step towards her, and now she was screaming at me, crawling backwards, shaking her head. “No!”

I reached out a hand. “Jenny.”

She crawled faster, desperate to get away. From me. From herself. Then she slipped on her own vomit, and before I could take another step towards her she was gone over the edge of Northcliff hill.

I hope this little series helped to relieve some of the boredom associated with the Corona lockdowns. If you want to read the whole short story, it will be released across all online retailers (including Amazon) on the 1st of May. Available on preorder now, for only 99c.

It’s called Book of Faces.

Till next time.

Cheers.