Her Guardian Angel (Part 7)

Caroline and Mindy graduated and moved straight from their student accommodation into another flat across town. The years went by quickly; birthdays, Christmases and other ‘special’ occasions were scattered among summer barbeques in the garden they shared with the other residents, festive winter markets and other random crap the girls insisted on going to. Cornelius was, of course, a continual presence; hovering around Mindy wherever she went. Caroline still took her day out occasionally and, as promised, I stayed behind.

                One night in August, around eleven thirty, I heard the front door close. Caroline must have expected me to be out because she stopped suddenly when she saw me laid on the bed. “You ok?” I slowly sat up when I saw her expression, as if getting up quickly would scare her away. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What’s with the hoodie? It’s roasting out there.”

“Just felt chilly on the way back so got it at the service station.” She dropped her bag and hurriedly grabbed some clothes and headed to the bathroom to change. She was acting weird. She never acted weird around me. Other people, sure, but never me. I brushed it off. Maybe she was tired or I was being paranoid or something. The girls squeezed in a couple more barbeques before the end of summer then started planning their Halloween party. And, as with every year, Mindy excitedly told me “Oh Adam, you can help!” Because, apparently, being a demon makes you some kind of expert on the occasion. The conversations went on and on, the only thing making them worth suffering through was the distinct look of disgust on Cornelius’ face. The day before the party, Caroline decided to have a day away; she’d usually wait longer between drives but I didn’t think anything of it. When she got back, I was fishing around in the fridge and had decided to ignore the note stuck to a box of beer declaring, in big curly letters, ‘These are for the party, don’t drink (Adam that includes you)’ followed by a little smiley face. Don’t worry, Mindy. I’ll only take one. “What the hell happened to you?!” I asked as I closed the door and saw Caroline’s swollen eye and the graze underneath it. “Some asshole tried to steal my bag.”

“Shit, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. A man nearby stepped in.” I went over and gently lifted her chin to examine her face. “Son of a bitch. Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Absolutely.”

                I thought the near mugging had knocked her confidence because it wasn’t until March that she went out again. I’d decided to go hang out at the pub for a couple of hours and was walking back when I saw her car pull up outside the flat. Caroline quickly got out and rushed inside. When I got in shortly afterwards, the shower was running. I knocked and raised my voice a little. “Hey, Kid. You ok?” I could only just hear her voice over the sound of the shower. “Yep, fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Take your time. Was just checking.” I wondered into the bedroom and saw her bag discarded near the desk. On its cream canvas, next to the silhouette of the Eiffel Tower, were specks of something. I don’t know what made me to take a closer look but when I did, I saw they were red. Deep red. The shower stopped and I quickly left the bag and its miniature splashes of colour. “Have a good time?” I asked as she came through, drying her hair on a towel. “Yeah. It was really good. Nice and peaceful.” Something in her voice worried me. She was acting weird again. “You sure everything’s alright?”

“Everything’s fine. You worry too much.” With that she hopped onto the bed and I joined her. She quickly fell asleep. I, on the other hand, laid awake thinking. What was going on with her?

I hated that I was following her. I felt like I was betraying her. But something was up I was sure of it, something had been off with her for a while and god knows she wasn’t going to tell me so I had to follow her. Just this once. If I was wrong and nothing was out of the ordinary, I’d go back to our original agreement. So far, Caroline had spent her time in various coffee shops and wondering around the city that was two hours away from home. It was just after ten and we’d wondered away from the light of the rowdy bars into an area filled with dark shops and street lamps that offered orange hazy spotlights and little else. Up ahead, a guy was sat on a sleeping bag outside one of the designer clothing stores. His hair was greasy and knotted and his jacket had a hole in the side where the thread had come undone. I was too far away to hear the conversation but Caroline rummaged in her bag before shaking her head. She said something to him, he nodded and watched her walk away. A couple of minutes later, I rounded the same corner Caroline had when I heard battered trainers pounding to road behind me. The homeless guy rushed past with his hands in his pockets and eyes fixed ahead. Caroline glanced back and ducked down a dark alley. Stupid move, Kid. He followed her and I ran after them. I skidded as I turned into the alley and stopped, frozen, as I witnessed a moment that seemed to go in slow motion and fast forward at the same time. The homeless guy was up against the wall with Caroline standing inches away from him. His face was twisted in pain and shock. I barely registered the black handle of my knife as Caroline pulled it from his stomach and drove it into his throat. A kind of gurgle escaped him as blood gushed forwards and Caroline drove the blade into him again and again. When his body slid to the ground and fell over onto its side, Caroline wiped the knife’s blade on a bloodless patch of the guy’s grimy shirt and put it in her bag along with the gloves she was wearing. Dark patches now covered her navy hoodie but she didn’t seem to care, she just pulled up the hood and turned to leave. “Adam.” Her voice was high pitched with surprise. “Kid, what the fuck are you doing?”

“He … I was …” She looked around as if an explanation would fall out of thin air, then when it didn’t she dropped her head and stared at the ground. Laughter made me look towards the road. A couple were walking our way so I grabbed Caroline’s arm and yanked her out the alley.

Neither of us said anything until we were back at her car. As we neared the passenger side, I whirled her around. “What was that back there?”

“He attacked me.”

“Don’t lie to me. You just killed that guy, Caroline!” She pulled herself out of my grip. “So? You kill people.” She hissed. “I kill people to protect you! That’s the only reason I’ve killed anyone in nearly twenty years. For you!” My voice echoed off the empty offices that surrounded the car park. “Get in the fuckin car.” She obeyed with a slam of the door. I paused at the driver’s side, rubbing the back of my neck. I never thought I’d be dealing with something like this. “Fuckin hell.”

                After an hour, Caroline finally spoke. “I’m hungry.”

“Tough shit.” My knuckles were white on the steering wheel. “You’re seriously judging me?”

“You just killed someone in cold blood. And from the smile on your face afterwards, I’m guessing you enjoyed it.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t like doing it.”

“I’m a demon. I’m made of evil and violence, of course I enjoy killing. But you, you’re a human. You’re one of the good ones, you’re supposed to feel guilt and … and remorse for hurting someone.” She stared at the rain that had started pouring from the starless sky. “How many?”

“What?”

“How many have you killed? I presume they’re all homeless so no one misses them?”

“Yeah, they are.”

“So how many, Caroline?”

“Seven.”

“Seven? You’ve killed seven fuckin people?!” We continued the rest of the journey listening to the monotonous sound of the window wipers as they tried frantically to clear our view.

                The flat was dark when we walked in, Mindy was probably staying at her boyfriend’s which would give us time to discuss things. Not that much ‘discussing’ went on. I snatched up Caroline’s bag as she tossed it onto the bed and rooted through it for my knife, gesturing with it when I removed it. “So, you took my knife every time you went on a drive, murdered someone with it, cleaned it and put it back where you’d found it?”

“Yeah.”

“That bruise you came back with that time? You picked someone a bit too big, didn’t you?” She nodded. “And the hoodie before that. It was covering up blood, wasn’t it?” Then another question popped into my mind. No, she wouldn’t have. Would she? No, no way. Ask her anyway. “The guy back in university didn’t try to rape you, did he?” Don’t say it, Kid. Don’t say it. “No, he didn’t.”

“Fuck, Caroline! I thought he’d … Do you know what it felt like to think I’d failed to protect you from that? And you just …”

“I’m sorry. I’d wanted to do it for a while.” She paused. I waited. “Then he came over. At first I didn’t want to talk to him but then I thought that’d be my chance to do it. I left my bag behind so you’d go get it for me and leave us alone and I made it look like …”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I’m here to protect you and guide you. You don’t think I don’t know what it feels like to have the urge to kill? I could have helped you get over it or something, instead of you murdering someone every few months. You could have been caught. What if the police found out? You can’t just disappear like me; you’d have been arrested, you’d have ended up in jail.” She just shrugged, unaffected by my words. “I’m going out.” I grabbed my jacket and left her standing there with her arms crossed across her chest, leaning against the door frame. The rain seemed to have followed us home, kind of like one of those poetic visual things you see in movies. What the fuck was I supposed to do now?

Copyright Anna Smith 2020