Blink {Featured}

Chapter Ten

(17y) APRIL 2005, 00.44

The double date was everything he could have wanted. Many kisses from Samantha, multiple leg and arm touches, whispered words into each other's ears, and some movie he couldn't be bothered recalling. Much later that night, after a good snog session in the back of the taxi on their way to Marty's and getting lost on the way back to his new house, John lay in bed looking up at his ceiling and smiling. Things couldn't get better. Sleep came slow and sweet and he drifted on its honey cloud.

Drum, drum. Drum, drum,

John turned over in his bed, groaned half awake, his one eye twitching.

Drum, drum. Drum, drum,

'Huh?' He lifted his head from the soft pillow, a bit of dried spittle on his one cheek pulled at his skin.

Drum, drum. Drum, drum,

What the fuck was that strange noise? Sounded like someone drumming their fingers on a desk top. He sat up, bleary eyed. 'Dad?' The drumming stopped. John rubbed at his eyes and tried to focus. A dark figure sat in the corner of his rather large bedroom, the moonlight from his much bigger windows glowing in the background.

'No, I'm not your Dad John Finnie born 22-07-1987.'

There was a long pause, as if the figure had something else to say, and shivers travelled up John's spine. Fear seized him and he tried to bolt out of bed but found his muscles wouldn't work. All he could do was watch the figure.

'No. I'm not your father. I couldn't be your father. Why, John Finnie born 22-07-1987. Why couldn't I be you father? You know the answer. So tell me why?'

No smart answers came to him. In fact, he was so terrified he couldn't speak at all. A strangely comforting musty odour followed the cloaked figure who walked over and sat on the edge of his bed. 'I'll tell you, John Finnie born 22-07-1987. I couldn't be your father, because according to my list your father is dead.' The figure flipped its hood back, and John gasped. The hooded figure's face was that of a normal young-ish man, not at all what he'd expected.

'Who are you?' John said, though in the pit of his belly he feared what the answer might be. Normal people didn't pop into your room in the dark hours of the night uninvited. The man turned to him and his eyes were a cold grey blue, cutting like shards of ice and dead like piles of ash. 'Someone you should not be seeing for quite some time, John Finnie born 22-07-1987.'

John's heart thumped in his chest as if a demon chased him, but he gritted his teeth and felt anger pumping along with the fear. Who was this prick? He'd had enough. He took a breath to shout for his dad, but the man in front of him put his fingers on John's lips.

'Shhh, John Finnie born 22-07-1987, now is not the time for shouting and yelling.'

'Dad!' he thought, mouth gaping like a fish but no sound came out. Being unable to move or speak has a way of putting terror in the deepest part of you, in your bones, and it filled John until he thought he'd froth at the mouth any moment. The man put his hands back on his own lap as if everything was okay. They both sat there for a few minutes in cold stark silence, and John fought against the terror in his mind and the numbness in his limbs.

The man looked out the window at the moon, then at John's slack face. 'I have here a list.' In an instant, a parchment hovered in front of John's face. 'You see the list, John Finnie born 22-07-1987.'

John nodded so slight that he was sure nobody would've been able to see it, but the man did.

'You see the name in red, John Finnie born 22-07-1987.'