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It was still dark when Will opened his eyes, pushed the covers back and sat on the edge of his bed. His movements caused a little night light to turn on.
Scrubbing his eyes with the palm of his hands Will looked once around the room before bobbing his head down to check under the bed. When he was certain nothing was going to leap out and gobble him up he set his feet on the floor.
The first thing he did, before heading to the bedroom door, was to pick up Winston from where the soft toy dog had fallen during the night.
He knew it was too early to leave his room but it was a special day, his seventh birthday, so he hoped his daddy wouldn’t be too angry with him. Just in case he raised Winston, shield like, to his face leaving just enough space to see out with one eye and he made his way to the kitchen.
‘Good morning birthday boy,’ greeted his dad from where he stood at the kitchen sink. ‘Would you like breakfast?’
Will lowered Winston to his chest and nodded, ‘yes please,’ he replied.
‘Go sit at the table’ his dad said.
Will pulled a chair back and sat down, placing Winston on the floor because dogs never ate at the table.
With his elbow on the tabletop and his chin in his hand he watched as his dad walked to the cupboard, where the glasses were kept, and then to the fridge. When a glass was brought over to the table and fizzy drink poured out with a glug, glug, glug the happiness in his belly made his legs swing and his cheeks redden. The dark brown fizzy bubbles were placed in front of him but he knew better than to touch just yet.
He closed his eyes, his legs swinging faster and waited for what seems like an eternity.
‘Open your eyes’ his dad said, and Wills eyes sprung open and grew large at the sight of a yummy cupcake. His birthday was the only day he could eat cake and drink Coca Cola for breakfast, and this cake was chocolate with a big blue icing swirl, colourful sprinkles and right at the top was a lit sparkler. Will giggled in delight and although he tried he couldn’t fit it all into his mouth in one go.
“When would you like your presents?” Asked his dad with a smile, wide and slightly wonky just like his son’s.
Will paused from licking his fingers of sticky, chocolatey, crumbs to ask, “Presents, more than one?”
Yep was the reply and Will couldn’t believe his luck he normally only got one and being seven there was only one possible answer to his dads earlier question, “now.”
Will chugged down the fizzy drink as his dad went to one of the kitchen cabinets set too high on the wall for Will to reach and brought out a box.
Wiping his mouth with his Pyjama sleeve, something he wouldn’t normally get away with, Will wondered what was in the brightly coloured box. It looked suspiciously like a shoe box but his dad had never given him shoes as a present before so he assumed there was something else entirely inside. Maybe something his dad had made like a spaceship or a toy car. Whatever was inside he couldn’t help but grab at the box as it was laid on the table.
Lifting the lid he frowned, his excitement turning to uncertainty, he tilted his head up and met his dad’s eyes.
“Did you buy me girls shoes daddy?” He asked.
“No son,” his dad replied as he dragged a chair closer and sat down, their knees almost touching. “They are special shoes. I’ve always said you were special, you see the world in a way others don’t.”
Will nodded and bit down on his lip saying nothing. He didn’t really believe he was special, the other kids called him weird and that was one of the nicer of the insults he heard everyday at school, but he liked that his dad thought it.
“These shoes,” his dad said tapping the box with a finger, “these will protect you.”
“But daddy they are red and sparkly, the others will laugh,” Will wanted to cry at just the thought of wearing them.
“No they won’t, you see they are as special as you. Only you and me can see their true colour to everyone else they will be black or brown whatever colour you want them to see.”
“Really,” asked Will, wriggling his nose, not really believing.
“Yes, after breakfast we will visit Tom and you will see for yourself.”
“Ok” said Will feeling a little relieved. Tom was his only friend, he’d tell Will the truth and not be mean about it.
Taking one of the shoes out of the box Will held it up to the ceiling light.
“It’s pretty,” he said as he watched the light dance amongst the encrusted gem stones.
“When you are grown up,”
“Like you.”
“Yes like me. If you are ever in serious trouble they will take you to a safe place, take you home. But,” and he tapped Will’s knee to make him listen, “if the other kids call you names or hit you you run home to me, these are for when you are big. But you can wear them now so they get to know you. Do you understand.”
Will nodded, “yes for when I am big.”
OoOoOoOo
The hotel room is quiet and clean and the bed is comfortable but Will has not slept. He’s kept awake as much by the imprint of killers as he is by the absence of the familiar, comforting smell of his dogs.
He has sat for a while, he’s not entirely sure how long, in a chair by the small table next to the window. Night has turned to morning light breaking through the gap in the thin curtains which he has yet to open.
Today the adventure will be his alone as Jack Crawford, his boss, is caught up with some urgent work on another criminal investigation. In all honesty Will prefers it this way he’ll feel calmer and more confident without Jacks over bearing presence. He’ll also, and this is something he only ever speaks in the confines of his own mind, probably get through the enquires quicker if he’s not constantly questioned and pressured by Jack.
It’s not as if Jack has let him loose in dangerous terrain, all he is doing is making enquiries at construction sites. It’s a whole load of paperwork and grouchy administrators and he gets through the morning with a coffee cup in one hand and the details of faceless employees in the other.
There is nothing truly exceptional about the personnel file which makes him stop and think but there is something. It’s that something which has him leave a message on Jacks phone before he gets in his rental car and drives to the home of Garrett Jacob Hobbs.
A teenage girl opens the door, she’s very mall of America, and Will knows.
He knows too that’s it’s too late, the die has been cast and there is an inevitability about it as he strides over the threshold.
Death comes quickly to what had been a quiet family scene, it starts with a scream, sharper and shriller than the blood which thunders through Will’s veins and there is nothing he can do for the woman who falls lifeless before him.
And like a film on fast forward what happens next is so fast, there’s the sound of bullets, one after the other and there’s blood.
Tiny red droplets land on Will’s lips and in his hair, he’s blooded not by his first kill but by the life force of the girl he’s not going to be able to save.
Will’s hands are not skilled enough to dam the blood flowing from the wound left by her own father but he tries.
It’s quiet as he sits there with her, his hand on her neck he can’t remove it even though it’s of no use any more.
In slow motion the chain of events runs through his head. The moment the car engine turned over was when all of this became inevitable. If he’d waited for Jack perhaps things may have turned out different. He wants to apologise to her and to the woman he assumes was her mother but the dead have no need for such things. Even so he knows he’ll be asking forgiveness of their ghosts for the rest of his life.
Will knows he won’t survive this and there’s peace in that knowledge.
His father had made him promise that only if he knew deep down that he couldn’t survive, only then and only then should he seek the protection his shoes offer.
His heels click together almost of their own accord, “there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.” He repeats it over and over again.
OoOoOoOoO
Will finds himself sitting on the floor of what appears to be a kitchen looking up at a man who is looking back at him.
He sees that the man appears to have frozen mid movement. A butcher knife is hovering over some food that Will, from his low position, cannot see.
The man cocks his head in a motion Will’s subconscious interprets as quizzical, and slightly reptilian.
Will feels an instinctive need to push himself up off the floor and at the same time disappear into the wall. It seems though that his body is just as incapable of movement as his mind is of coherent thought. So he just sits there trapped without breath or thought.
A hand is the first thing that moves, the man opens his palm displays the knife and then puts it down. Moving slowly he comes out from behind the counter and stands before Will.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Stumbles out of Will’s mouth.
“Can I come closer.”
Will nods.
The man comes down to a crouching position.
“Is any of this blood yours?”
Will looks at his hands, they are covered in blood as is his shirt and, from the metallic taste on his lips, his face. He shakes his head.
“Good, I suggest a shower and a change of clothes whilst I fix us a drink and then perhaps you can tell me how you came to be sitting here.”
The man doesn’t smile and Will is fine with that it would feel wrong, false somehow. There is though interest, curiosity and something else shining in the brown eyes observing him.
Will is offered a hand he takes it, and he knows what that other thing is, it is home.