Part One
Crossroads

Chapter 1
The Runner

 

It was that certain type of night. A heavy darkness impeded by a sultry moon, a tangible quiet except for inexplicable and occasional sounds and it was also comfortably warm because it was spring and close on the edge of summer. It was relatively late for suburbia; the latter half hour before midnight. It was not a full moon or a large moon but it was a clear and still night and so the natural satellite cast a subtle silver-blue shade, which fell like ethereal snow on almost everything.

 

The sound of some distant dog barking, shattered the silence before it, too, faded into nothing. A distant vehicle sounded less mechanical and more like a harsh whip of wind and then was gone. Silence fell again. Each rare disturbance was more like the knowledge of trees falling in a forest. It happened, seen or unseen.

 

A random intersection was the initial point of view. No vehicle or person had crossed through the roundabout for over an hour. As if the entire universe had fallen into slumber, this particular location, as well as the surrounding area, remained deathly quiet for an extended period of time. Suddenly, though, as if it were real but not, a noise that seemed there but then not, mysterious and unfathomable and then gone. It was a vibrating thud, a reverberation. Seconds of nothing then a double thud followed by silence.

 

Soon, the distant and sporadic noise grew, pattern-like. Finally its muffled presence became consistent and then louder and then unyielding, as the volume and pace both increased. It was no longer just a sound; it was now a sound approaching.

 

Amidst the sombre and uneventful equilibrium of night, a figure seemed to manifest and grow from the darkness, until a young man in his mid twenties was revealed. He was shirtless and wore only football shorts and runners without socks. It was his runners that caused the reverberating thuds on the black tar of the road. He was running as if his life depended upon it.

 

With the assistance of the silver-blue shade of the moon, his fine, shoulder-length, brown hair, reflected the illumination of the glowing satellite above. Even his body was reflective as his smooth skin produced its tiny beads of heated moisture. His legs cycled hard in their repetitive and rapid movements, which propelled him along at a pressing velocity. They were strong and muscular legs and they filled the sleeves of his old, quarter-thigh shorts respectably.

 

His arms cycled in rhythm with his legs, as his body ripped the darkness open to replace it. His arms, if possible, seemed as strong as his legs, with the forearms big and shapely, angular in their grade from elbow to wrist. His upper arms in combination with his shoulders were impressively defined and round, giving the impression of power in reserve. With that as the case, his chest suggested a repository.

 

With every harmonious dance step between his arms and legs, the muscles of his chest stretched and then flexed, twitching and then rolling and all the while heaving and falling, as his body begged for a consistently larger diet of oxygen.

 

The young man’s eyes were also a force unto themselves. A distinctive and somewhat frightening focus filled them, calling him to some place in space and time. His eyes were brown as well and they sparkled moonlight and streetlight. In fact, they reflected any light that found its way into the large cavities of imprisoned, dismissed and subdued emotion. There was a distinct pain within them but at that moment, it was only what was currently at the surface.

 

It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul and his eyes truly were, however, his was a soul that had been bludgeoned and stabbed and viciously assaulted, until it had been confined. Now he held it bound and gagged while locking its cries and complaints away from the awareness of the world. It was why this young man’s face, which in general life would have been considered as stunning, was in fact, rugged and hard and angry. Still, even with the psychologically produced facial appearance of a battered life, his true handsomeness pushed through.

 

He ran as if a mob with torches, clubs and pitchforks were mere fingertips from grabbing him and driving him into the bitumen or tearing the flesh from his body. He did not look like the type to be afraid or like the type of person who would turn and run. In fact, quite the opposite, he looked like the type who would be doing the chasing. Something about him said he would not hesitate from sheathing a switchblade under the rib cage and up into the heart or lung. Something about him was angry and volatile and someone that people knew not to fuck with.

 

The Nike runners dug into the surface of the road with every step and the grip only served to drive his legs harder, increasing his pace. He believed he had to get away. He believed this because it seemed the only sensible thing to do and he thought there was no other response for it.

 

There was no one behind him. He was running from something but it was not a physical pursuit. Still it was on his heels and he could feel it nipping at them like a wild animal trying to take him down. He could not allow it to catch up to him. He could not relinquish the power to it, the power to ensnare him and to eventually find some fault or undetected secret passage, into his fortress of testosterone and attitude and unflinching aggression. He was a god of the night, a god of the streets and a god of the violence that surrounded his existence.

 

A face flashed within his mind and though it was a seductive face, it was the face of his predator. The face was accompanied by a thought. He believed it was a fucked-up thought. He considered it a destructive thought. His thought wanted his predator to crash tackle him to the ground, to beat him into submission, to hold him captive, depriving him of his freedom and to force his reasoning to concede defeat.

 

“Fuck,” he roared angrily while frustrated at the incongruousness, as some seemingly ancient part of his mind told him to turn around and go back.

 

As he screamed into the darkness, the tone of his voice was deep and its volume was loud. It was not so much a scream as it was a vexed bellow. The word rose up into the night, unfurling as it filled every direction and then died a sudden death. He dug his heels into the surface beneath his feet even harder, straining his muscular thighs as he tried to get more speed from his legs. His eyes rolled at the stupidity, as he wondered if he really believed running away was going to make this any easier. Of course it was not but there was only one thing for it and he had to do it. He could not go back. In his mind, the alternative course would create another victim, perhaps two?

 

“Run! Disappear! Become the ghost you were,” his mind hollered into its cacophony.

 

It was easy. At least it seemed that way. He had done it as a boy at school, running away from the one that hated him and called him a dirty queer, after he had been discovered in the toilets with another boy. The older boy had beaten him up on numerous occasions but soon enough he had learned to run and hide and avoid. It was one of the two things that taught him to become strong and hard, impervious to all the things that could weaken his position within his life.

 

A high sheen of sweat doused his body as he ran along the unfamiliar road, leading him deeper into a place he did not know or recognise. He was not lost as much as he did not know where he was going. The thing was he did not care because at that moment, he just wanted to be somewhere else, somewhere very distant from those feelings that were new and pervasive and an encompassment. Feelings that made him feel warm and easy and peaceful. He told himself those things were all just wrong. It was fucked-up. Shit like that was for other people; people with normal lives, people with puppies and houses and long-term lovers.

 

He ran harder again. He could feel the skin of his toes and heels scraping and rubbing on the inside of his runners. If he did not let up soon, he would rub the skin from his feet. Knowing this, he pushed harder again. It was the male thing to do. To always take it one step further, to shake things off, to be strong and aggressive, even if it was to his detriment.

 

His father had taught him that lesson before he even reached adolescence; a couple of years after he realised his son was not the son he wanted. He was soft and sensitive, he was too good-looking and he did not want to play football or be aggressive with the other boys. It was the time when his father began to beat him while telling him he was not allowed to cry. Telling him he had to become a real man, a hard man and a true man.

 

After reaching the roundabout, halfway through he abruptly turned left. The road drilled into the dark of night, a downward grade heading south. Irrespective of the moonlight, the passage the road created seemed to vanish into some unknown darkness. The shining, charcoal polyester of his football shorts was even beginning to dampen. His bare back and chest were no longer just beading with sweat; rivers were running down every crease and curve of definition. His arms were slick and his armpits reservoirs. His chest was tight and his breathing ragged and raw and his lungs burned. The silver-blue shade of the moon made his body silver-blue, as it distorted the dark tanned flesh of a rugged and yet ironically, a generally fearless man.

 

“Salt,” he thought.

 

It filled the air suddenly and subsequently filled his nostrils in an overwhelming fashion. It was not table salt. It was that smell of salt that could only be found in one place - the ocean. His eyes strained to see deeper and farther into the darkness ahead. Even with the silver-blue shade, the far distant vision of what lay before him was silhouetted but clouded and intangible. He continued running hard. His thoughts filled with a warring battle of regret and certainty.

 

“I have to be hard, I have to keep going, I just have to, don’t I?”

 

He heard a noise beyond the resonant thuds of his feet on the road. It was a noise he had heard before but not for a very long time. Not since he was a young boy. It was a wisp and then a crash and then a thrash that faded before repeating. He focused on it intently as he heard it again.

 

“Waves on the shore of a beach,” he concluded.

 

His eyes tightened on the silhouette. The smell of salt strengthened, the sound increased in volume and then the vision cleared as he realised the unknown road led to water. He had nowhere to go. He questioned turning around and continuing his marathon in a different direction but the scent and the sound and the sight lured him onward. His pace began to ease and the burning in his legs and in his lungs, transformed into tightness, as he approached the coastal portrait of a midnight vista.

 

He walked through a small opening in a fence line, onto a graded, grass-topped headland. It was not a towering landmass with shear cliffs but instead, at its lowest point was only fifteen metres above the surface of the water and the sand of the beach. He reached behind him and pulled a light cotton singlet from the seam of his shorts and spread it on the grass. He sat down and let his back recline onto the material and then gripping one wrist with the other hand, he rested the back of his hand on his forehead and closed his eyes.

 

He was wet with sweat from top to bottom, he was sucking air into his lungs deep and hard and he was still incapable of allaying the fearsome thoughts of his predator, who was stalking him even in his absence, with horrifying tortures to chill the blood and send any man running for his life. Perhaps not any man, perhaps just him. His heart was a vault, never to be unlocked or opened again.

 

He took a couple of very deep breaths while consciously telling himself to regain control. He thought he had been foolish for thinking he had an alternative; thinking for a moment that his life could be anything other than what it was, what it seemed he had chosen, what it had become.

 

In this, yet another moment, as he lay still, he thought he had gained his centre, a peace within. However, he had no idea that another predator, a hidden truth, was rising from the depths of his being. His mind rolled back to the afternoon and to the events that had led him to this small headland and to the screaming hollow in his chest.

 

To be continued...