White Phantom: Chapter Thirty One

Chapter Thirty One

She walked down Springfield Road, passed two schools and went by the train station. Her mind was riddled with thoughts and questions. Her best friend was dead, lying in the Kitchen of Swarthdale Hall. Maggie was in full view of anybody walking in to find her in hours, days, weeks or months. She thought about Maggie’s children. Their father had vanished into thin air. Now their mother had done exactly the same. It could be a long time before Maggie was found. Unless she’d told Graham where she was going, that would speed it up, of course. Beth doubted that she’d said anything; Graham wouldn’t have let her go to Swarthdale alone if that were the case. Beth should feel guilty about the children, but she didn’t feel anything. She thought about Colin strangling Jennifer.

She hadn’t checked to see if she was dead, but she had looked as dead as any fish she’d ever seen on a mongers block. She tried to analyse how she should feel about Jennifer’s death. She certainly felt nothing at all and she didn’t know she should be on the subject. The girl had held her to ransom for over six months and she had taught Beth just what hatred was, and yet at times, Beth had felt close to her. It was a classic case of Stockholm syndrome. She turned left and onto the main road around Ulverston town. She’d walked out of the vault and had left Colin handcuffed to the bed.

He’d starve to death, lying in his own filth. Beth wondered how long that would take. She knew that dehydration would get him long before the lack of food. She remembered the story of a man trapped in a mountain crevice when a rock had fallen on his hand. He’d hung there for days before hacking through his arm with a penknife to escape. She tried to remember if there was anything to hand that Colin could cut off his arm with. Maybe as he emaciated, his hand would be wasted enough for him to slip it through the cuff, but surely, without food or water, he’d be dead long before that moment came. Marc, Maggie, Jennifer and Colin were all in that house, already dead or slowly dying and she had just walked away and closed the door behind her.

Things were starting to dull. She was tired, but wasn’t aware of it. As she passed the canal, she did consider suicide again, she knew it was for the best, but she just kept walking. If her feet had stopped while she considered it, she would have drowned herself, but they had continued, one in front of the other, and the canal was gone. In space, nobody can hear you scream. It occurred to Beth that if nobody found the bodies for a long time, then maybe it would be as though it had never happened. On her next question, when she asked herself if anything really did happen, she knew that her mind was broken. She imagined a hole in her brain where all the nastiness was leaking out. The thoughts were calming down, and then stopping altogether, leaving her mind one by one. She embraced the emptiness. She began to hum. It wasn’t a song, just a droning, tuneless noise. She walked and hummed and eventually the humming stopped. Her mind was completely blank and only the walking remained.

At Greenodd it started to rain, she had walked over ten miles, but she didn’t notice either rain or distance. She put one foot in front of the other and walked.

Hours later a car drove along the darkened road. She was close to Newby Bridge; the road had no pavement and no street lighting. Cars had to rely on cat’s eyes to guide them on that piece of country road. The man saw her at the last second when he was almost on top of her. He swerved to miss her and his tyres squealed loudly. She didn’t notice. She kept her gaze ahead of her, on the horizon, and continued to walk. The man drove ahead and pulled into a lay-by a hundred yards further on. He was shaken and his legs nearly gave way beneath him when he got out of his car to confront the stupid person in the road.

As soon as she came close enough, he shouted at her. ‘Hey you, Are you mad? You nearly got us both killed there.’

She kept on walking towards him. ‘You lady. What the—’ The woman walked towards him. He spoke to her but she seemed not to notice. She walked by him without as much as glancing his way. He wondered if she was sleepwalking, she gave that impression. ‘Jesus Christ, this is crazy,’ he said aloud. He reached out his arm and grabbed her, but she just kept on walking out of his grasp. She seemed to be in some kind of trance. ‘Hey lady,’ he yelled after her,’ Hey you, you’re going to be run over. Oh shit.’ He rummaged in his pocket for his phone and rang 999.

***

Cheryl prided herself on always being cheerful. It didn’t help the nuts if you were all solemn and down on yourself, now did it? Today she was especially happy because it was Friday and she was going clubbing that night. She only had one teensy little eight hour shift to get through, first. She had been given the job of breaking in a new temp, who was due to arrive at any minute, and she was already behind on Morning routine. If she didn’t begin the drug round in the next ten minutes, the doctors would be coming and she’d be for it. ‘There now, dear,’ she said to the mute in the wheelchair. ‘That’s you all washed and clean. Not that you care one way or the other. Shall we take you out to the conservatory and let you look out of the window. It’s too cold to go in the garden today, but the sun’s trying it’s best, it’ll be nice for you in the sun room,’ she said as she wheeled the patient into the conservatory and parked her in front of the window overlooking the front of the hospital. At least this one wouldn’t be any trouble. The world could come to an end and this one wouldn’t notice. She’d been at Dane Garth for four months now and hadn’t said one word. She was a nurse herself, apparently, and a damned good one, according to her colleagues. Took time off work one day and just never returned, then a few weeks later, she was found wandering alone in the middle of the night, in the pouring rain. What could be so hard about her life, she wondered? She had a good job, a nice house and car, some people had it all. Cheryl would never understand some people.
Beth slumped in her wheelchair and gazed straight ahead. She didn’t see. She didn’t look. She just gazed.

A figure walked up the drive, a nurse, in a short pink uniform. She had black spiky hair, cut severely. She carried a satchel style of rucksack over her shoulder with a lightning design and the words White Phantom emblazoned across the front in spiky writing.

Beth hadn’t made a sound in months. She opened her mouth and screamed. Cheryl had been parking another patient in the opposite corner of the room. She almost jumped out of her skin. Running to the side of Beth’s wheelchair, she crouched down beside her.

The woman’s eyes were wide and bulging. She pointed feebly, the only hand movement she’d made voluntarily in all the time she’d been there. She looked terrified. Cheryl followed her gaze out into the garden. ‘There, there love,’ she soothed. ‘There’s nobody there.’
The End