The Dark Place (#FrightFest2016 Gold Winner)

The Dark Place - Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

1

Trying to sleep in the car was so uncomfortable. Every time Penny felt herself dozing off a crash of thunder would shock her awake again. Her mother just sat there looking at the water pelting against the windscreen, saying nothing. They didn't even have the radio on for company. Penny looked down at her watch only just able to make out its face in the poor light.

8:42 p.m.

They had been sitting in the same spot for almost two hours but it had felt much longer. Penny's mother yawned and looked at her own watch. "Maybe we should start walking up to the Big House," She said, rubbing her eyes.

"You've got to be kidding mum; it's raining harder than ever out there. If we start walking now we'll drown before we get half way."

"So what do you want to do Penny? Do you want to spend the whole night here in the car?" her mother shouted.

"At the moment I think it's our best option, don't you?"

Penny watched her mother take in a deep breath. It seemed to calm her.

"I'm sorry sweetheart, you're right, it would be silly to go out into that," her mother made a gesture towards the windscreen. There was silence for a moment before she asked, "What do you think your father's up to right now?"

"To be honest with you I couldn't care less," Penny answered, "Whatever it is, I hope that he has a shit time doing it." With that she reclined her seat a little more, closed her eyes and listened to the storm.

2

Alan Stephens sat exhausted, but still shaking with anger, on the living room floor. He raised the whisky bottle to his lips only to find that he had drained it entirely. "Fuck!" he shouted, throwing the empty bottle against the wall on the other side of the room.

The booze had kicked in long ago. He was light-headed and numb but he needed another drink. There were more bottles in the kitchen, all he had to do was go and get one, but he couldn't be bothered to scramble over all the wreckage. It had taken him the best part of two hours to smash up every stick of furniture in the house after the bitches had driven off to god knows where. Well, that didn't matter to him anymore. They would have to come back at some point, and when they did they would find out that two could play at their little game of throw away, only he would go one better than they had. Those bitches will soon learn their place and that's a fact, he thought to himself, and he smiled as he imagined the expressions on their stupid faces when they got back and saw how he had redecorated the house in their absence. He had ripped, broken and smashed everything belonging to them. Every book, ornament, compact disk, every single item of clothing they owned had been destroyed at his hands and was now strewn across the back lawn like rubbish. Yes, he was looking forward to seeing their faces when they saw what he had done to all of their precious things, just before he kicked the shit out of the two of them.

He looked around the room until his eyes came to rest on the family portrait, the only photograph that remained in tact, and at that moment he wished that he still had the bottle in his hand just so that he could use it to knock that picture down.

Why had he married Donna in the first place? Why hadn't he just led her on the way his one-night-stand of a father had led his mother on nearly forty years ago? Why had he kept his promise instead of just taking what he wanted and then moving on to the next girl to throw herself at his feet? After all, his mother always told him that all men were the same, and as he was growing up, all those years ago, he had learned to understand what she had meant. For her, a long line of unpleasant relationships stood as testament to her words and, as a little boy he had seen it all at close quarters. One failed affair after another seemed to be par for the course. In the end, when his latest Uncle Tom, Dick or Harry had finally tired of beating her up and pissed off back to wherever it was that he had skulked out from, she would turn all of her pent up anger towards him.