Last Night by Kerry Wilkinson
Chapter One
Tuesday
There’s blood on my windscreen.
It’s in the corner, a few speckled spots and then a thicker pool towards the bottom.
This is definitely a dream; there can’t be any question about that. There’s a hazy grey around the edges of my vision; that blinking, fuzzy sense that everything in front of me is a bewildering construct of my imagination.
The only thing that tells me it’s not is when I yawn. It’s a big one: head back, neck cricked, jaw dislocating, eyes streaming – the works. The type of thing that grips a person and doesn’t let go until there have been multiple follow-ups and apologies, combined with the rapid flapping of hands.
Sorry, I’m not bored of you – I’m yawning because I was up early this morning. It’s been a long day.
That sort of thing.
People don’t yawn in dreams. I don’t think I ever have. Dreaming is for flying and fantasising; reality is the mundanity of yawning.
Then there’s the unflinching stare of the clock. The greeny-grey LED figures beam through the fog of darkness, relentlessly insisting it is 02:41. Then, unexpectedly, 02:42.
That’s another sign. Dreams don’t pass in individual minutes, they move with dizzying speed; jumping from place to place, time to time. They’re everything and nothing all at the same time.
They don’t tick by minute to minute.
But if I’m not dreaming, then how to explain what I am seeing?
There’s a steering wheel, the digital clock, a windscreen. The inside of a car, obviously. An air freshener is jammed into the vent by the window with a grubby chamois stuffed into the well of the driver’s door.
My car – although it takes me a few seconds to figure that out. Everything feels a bit slow, even my thoughts. Like a phone call from a far-flung country in the old days where someone would speak and the voice would sound a few seconds later.
It’s definitely my car, though. A third-hand Kia that has a dent in the rear bumper from where I mistook a concrete pillar for a parking space.
Easy mistake to make.
I’m in my car at 02:42 and it’s dark. Of course it is. I can’t see much beyond the windscreen. The glass is misty and damp with a thin sheen of condensation tickling the outside.
When I try to sit up straighter, I realise the seat belt is across me and I’m strapped in. The overhead light is on.
It’s such a familiar scene and yet so unclear. I get into my car day after day without thinking. Press the button on the fob, driver’s door open, bag behind the driver’s seat, slide inside, key in the ignition, handbrake down, and go. Like a reflex.
This is wrong. Everything’s in place physically: from the half-eaten bag of M&Ms by the handbrake to the sunglasses tossed haphazardly into the space between the gearstick and the cigarette lighter.
The problem is that I have no idea why I’m in my car at what is now 02:43, let alone where I am. It hurts when I try to think, as if there’s something inside my head fighting against me.
I’m not sure if it’s that thought or the actual cold that brings goosebumps to my arms.
The key is in the ignition. It’s when I go to turn it that I realise the condensation towards the bottom of the windscreen isn’t water at all. It’s darker and thicker.
It was the first thing I saw when I woke up but I’d somehow forgotten.
Blood.
Before I know it, I’ve opened the door and I’m leaning over the bonnet to get a better look. So many things occur to me at the same time that it’s difficult to take it all in. The ground is mushy and soft: a field with a slight peppering of grass or plant. I can see that because of the light from the moon. It’s far from full, a sort of apologetic excuse for a crescent, but it’s bright enough to spill white across the field, even through the speckling of clouds. There’s a hedge shrouded in darkness behind me, with an obvious gap of flattened space where the car has come through.
Then there’s the blood.
There are a few splashes on the windscreen but much more spotted across the silver bonnet. It is a shiny black in the moonlight, slick and smooth like oil. The merest hint of crimson gives away the truth. There’s more on the front of the car, spattered across the paintwork and drizzled onto the grill.
Trying to force the memory only creates a fizzing stab of pain near my temple. The familiar prickle from my age-old scar is there when I run my fingers across it. There’s something hypnotic about the sensation and I don’t dare to think of the number of hours I’ve spent absent-mindedly running my fingers along the raised zigzag of flesh. I barely remember a time when it wasn’t there.
At first I wonder if it’s my blood. I pat my chest and abdomen, dig my fingers into my hair – but there’s nothing. I’m not in any particular pain, either. Only that dull, thumping confusion.
The car – my car – must have hit a deer, something like that. I remember it happening to the woman who lived across the road until a few years ago. Sophie or Sonia. One of those shorter names. She was heading home from her weekly big shop. One minute she was driving along the dual carriageway, the next a deer had hurtled out from the bushes. There was only going to be one winner – and it wasn’t the poor animal. There was a thud and a squeal, then Sophie or Sonia’s car slalomed across the highway before slamming into a crash barrier. She woke up in hospital. I suppose Sophie or Sonia wasn’t a winner, either. It took her almost six months to get behind the wheel again. I once found her sitting in the driver’s seat on her own driveway, too frightened to turn the engine on.
That must have been what happened here. I was driving… somewhere… hit a deer and careered through the hedge into this field. That explains the blood. What it doesn’t explain is the gaping hole in my memory.
Holes.
I remember bits and pieces. There was the hotel bed. It was harder than I’m used to, like sleeping on the floor. The sheets were tucked tightly, like they always are in hotels, as if they’re trying to stop people from getting inside.
I was in bed and now I’m here. From there to this.
I do a lap of the car and feel groggy, like the morning after a night on the razz. My mouth is dry but I don’t remember drinking that much. I used to pride myself on not getting hangovers when I was in my twenties, but now, at forty-one, it’s all too much. Not only are hangovers barely a couple of drinks away, but they last entire weekends. It’s not worth it any longer. I wouldn’t have had more than a glass or two. That’s not me.
Once around the car and there’s no sign of a deer.
I do a second lap just in case I missed something and then head unsteadily towards the hedge.
I’m in my work uniform: smart skirt, blouse, jacket – and the flat shoes I keep in my bag that I switch out with my heels as and when I’m meeting a client. It’s what I would have been wearing at the hotel before going to bed.
My shoes are thin, more for comfort than practicality. They slurp and slide across the soft marshland. At least I’m not sinking into the ground.
A road is on the other side of the hedge. It’s crumbling and narrow, barely wide enough for two cars – a typical country lane. I could be pretty much anywhere in rural Britain. I navigate a shallow ditch and then walk up and down the road, looking for any trace of a deer.
Nothing.
No skid marks, no trail of blood, no anything.
There’s not even the hum of night-time traffic in the background, let alone street lights. It feels like I’m, well… nowhere.
After a few fruitless minutes, I walk back to the gap in the hedge – which is the only spot where I can see tyre marks. There’s a slim bump of a ditch with dents in the soil from where the car left the road. From there is a direct trail to the car in the field.