Dark Winter by John Hennessy

did.” Curie rose to his feet, and gestured to Beth to do so as well. Her head still hurt from the blow.
     
    As she got up slowly, she realised her shoes were back on her feet, albeit with the straps still undone.
     
    He touched me, the filthy bast –
     
    Curie picked up the axe. But Beth had freed a hand, and struck a finger at the caretaker, right into his eye. He howled in pain and clutched his stricken socket, and Beth pushed past him, almost skidding into the splits on the fifth floor of her former school.
     
    She ran down the stairs, barely making contact with any of them.
     
    Click-a-clack, clack-a-click-a-clack.
     
    The sound echoed into the night.
     
    You were wrong Beth. There is no boy here. Just you, Curie, and an axe. His axe.
     
    Beth pushed the door open and flung herself into the openness of the school grounds. She would make it to the gate before Curie would, there was no doubt about that. She saw the gate up ahead and breathed a sigh of relief, before a figure holding an axe stood in front of her.
     
    Curie. How the hell did he get here so fast? How. How. How?
     
    No time to think about that. Beth about-turned and ran to the other side of the school grounds. The crescent moon cast wicked shapes on the ground, and the trees looked like their branches might sweep her off her feet and crush the life out of her body at any moment.
     
    Beth had few options. There was no second gate, but there was a high wall that, if she ran at it with enough speed, she might, just might be able to climb over it. The probability of failure was not worth thinking about.
     
    The wall ran alongside the part of the building she had just came out of. Beth was going at such a high speed, that she tripped over the bundle in the ground. She fell, but not as hard as she thought she would.
     
    She cursed herself for looking back, but she had to, just to see what it was that had felled her.
     
    There was a big black bag on the ground, and a child’s hand lay limp between the zipper.
     
    Two will die, Beth. Best get a move on.
     
    With tears streaming down her face, her heart banging out of her chest, Beth launched herself at the wall. If she missed, Curie was just a pace or two behind her.
     
     
    *                             *                            *
     
    The wall was wet from the heavy night’s rain, but Beth had made it to the top. She dug her fingernails in, and yanked herself up. She could see a garden hedge in front of her, about six feet below.
     
    Curie was yelling at her to get down. He was brandishing the axe at her, and threatening the police would come for her.
     
    Of course, he won’t call the police. Nor will you, Beth. After all, what would you tell them?
     
    Giving her crucifix a kiss, Beth flung herself on the mercy of the hedge below. “Be gentle,” she whispered, as her body careered downwards.
     
    She landed softly. Beth was free.
     
     
    *                             *                            *
     
    Picking the leaves out of her mouth, Beth scrambled clumsily from the hedgerow. She could hear Curie cursing her name in the distance, but it didn’t matter. She was free of him. The boy, or whatever it was in that black bag, was not free, and would not wake to witness another dawn. Whilst this saddened her somewhat, she had to get away from the school, and towards the relative safety of Toril’s house.
     
    Relative safety.
     
    No, Beth knew it wasn’t safe to go back there. She decided to go to the nearest hospital, and hoped that Toril, Jacinta, and perhaps their parents too, would be there.
     
    Beth took a look back towards the school, and even in the distance, the sheer size of the wall that she had somehow scaled, looked too awesome in height and scale for anyone to have achieved it.
     
    Thank God I was good at hurdles, thought Beth.
     
    Her relief was tempered by another