We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
It always began in the dark. Not the crepuscular velvet blue of romantic nights but the sort of total blackness one would find deep underground – a coal-black cleft where one wrong move might mean stepping out into a bottomless void.
Darkness heightened every other sense, even the rank smell of fear prickling skin that was already damp and chill. And there was something else; something foul and rank as though some dead creature was buried underfoot.
The sound of a heartbeat hammering within a tightening chest was the only sign of life until… until that voice called out, soft and heavy within the thick blackness.
Then a sigh, relief that he had come again. That it would soon be over. Knowing he was here was better than the anticipation that had made this feverish sweat trickle down between thin shoulder blades.
Knowing he was here made what was to happen next inevitable.
The fingertips touched an unresisting throat, moving slowly in a mock caress. Then a pause, as though to consider the next move. But it was only the hesitation of a cat toying with its prey.
That was understood.
With a suddenness that never failed to shock, the hands encircled the small white throat and squeezed hard. '1'hen harder.
As ever, dark turned to red, raging behind each eyeball, protesting soundlessly as he pressed the carotid artery, cutting off breath and life.
Afterwards, blessed silence and a flicker of light from the street lamp outside as eyelids opened on the familiar room.
The bedside clock registered two a.m. Four long hours until daylight returned and life could resume its pattern; hours that would be witness to a creature fearful of sleep, desperate for rest.
It was always two a.m. when that nightmare act of murder was disturbed by wakefulness. And with it, the belief that one day it would finally happen.
The sound of the doorbell ringing was just part of an unremembered dream, wasn't it? Eyes still gritty with sleep, the man turned over but the noise continued to drill into his brain, commanding the wakefulness that he resisted.
Thrusting the covers from his body, he felt the cold floor on the bare soles of his feet. The red figures on the bedside clock told him it was still the middle of the night. Bad news. It was always bad news when someone came ringing your doorbell.
He thudded downstairs, one hand on the wall to steady himself, wondering what was wrong. Whoever stood there, one finger pressed on the doorbell, wanted his attention. Now.
Bad news. Wasn't that what his parents had always told him?
The call in the night. The scream of an ambulance through the darkness.
He fumbled for the light switch but somehow his hand didn't find it and he opened the front door instead. Wanting to stop that incessant ringing. Curious to know what was wrong.
Out of the dark came a figure then a flash of white as his head exploded in a moment of agonising pain, kicking him through time and space.
Then darkness descended for ever.
The man with the gun shook his head at the body on the floor.
Bad news, indeed.