Silas

The sky was inky red; like the smooth blade of a dagger had cut its belly open, the blood cascading down. The stiff peaks of mountains towered up to greet the sky, framed with an orange glow of the setting sun. Even from this distance, the dappled rays of remaining daylight could be seen filtering through the trees that adorned the mountainside.

Every evening you drove this route home, and yet, every evening, it took your breath away. One might assume that you can have 'too much of a good thing', but this route was etched into your mind; a journey as familiar to you as the freckled back of your hand, and one that you looked forward to taking every single day.

The warm August air trickled in through the open window, dancing with the loose strands of your hair. Your fingers tapped against the steering wheel as the sweet sound of Portishead flowed through the car radio. The soft whoosh of cars passing you on the other side of the road was therapeutic, hypnotic in fact.

This route was so familiar that you allowed your thoughts to wander the realms of your mind; thoughts of no great importance or stature, just the undeniable beauty of existing in the present moment.

Suddenly, and without apology, a loud bang ripped you from your thoughts, the silence torn to pieces like a sheet of paper. The wheels of your car frantically swerved and skidded, erratically spinning the vehicle sideways.

All you could hear was the beating of your own heart. All you could taste was metallic blood as your teeth clamped to the inside of your cheek. Your hands desperately worked against the steering wheel to regain control of the car, but, to no avail.

Your Mustang hurtled off the side of the road and into the shrubbery that lined the motorway. Shades of green, brown and black shot past you like a stampede. An eruptive orchestra of destruction drowned out the car radio as your car burned a path through the woodland with ease. Your foot stamped at the brake pedal, your exhalations becoming ragged and hoarse, the sounds of branches snapping and scratching the sides of your car echoing in your ears. But then, without warning, without a chance to brace yourself, there was no more inky red. Not even green or brown. Just black.

-

Your head wearily lifted from the steering wheel. Immediately, the brutal sting of a headache shrouded your senses; your hands clutching at your temples in a futile attempt to dull the pain. What was once a dazzling sunset was now pitch black all around you, cloaking you in disorientation. You reached for your phone in your pocket, but, instead, found it smashed to pieces by your feet.

As smoke cascaded through the open window, you noticed the front of your car crumpled against the trunk of a tree, wheezing and sighing in its final moments of functionality.

Your eyes bulged and you fought against the caved in car door to exit the Mustang. You gripped at the sides of your arms as you were cruelly introduced to a chillier breeze that had infiltrated the night, not the sweet and warm zephyr of August that had you in a deep relaxed state hours earlier. How many hours, though?

Writing off the front half of your car before even taking a look at it felt like a wise decision at that point. Nothing capable of being fixed, or even easily removed from this forest, would be making a noise like that. Your attention moved to the tyres: the origin of this unexpected nightmare.

Your fingers traced carefully along the edge of the rear right tyre, cold and lifeless, until they reached a slight rip in the rubber. Your brow furrowed as your fingers tentatively proceeded with their exploration of the strange rip, however, your furrowed brow soon became a look of horror. Your fingers dug into the rip of the tyre and felt the smooth metal shell of a bullet, buried deep into the rubber.

Your body involuntarily convulsed in shock, throwing you backwards onto your hands, as if touching the bullet produced a white hot heat you could not withstand. You stared for a moment at the tyre, exasperated. Your hair licked at your cheeks as the breeze picked up its pace; but, you could no longer feel the bite in its chill. Your body had become numb. Could this be a dream?

You were a decent human. An honest worker. A law-abiding citizen. In fact, your life was so extraordinarily boring that the beautiful drive home followed by the crossword in the evening newspaper was the highlight of your day. You had hardly broken a rule in your life, let alone done anything to warrant being hunted by anyone. None of this made sense.

The snapping of a twig behind you halted your thoughts instantly. Your face drained of all colour, leaving nothing but a pale grey shade in your cheeks. Taking a deep, sobering breath, you rose to your feet and turned to peer into the deep black night. The forest floor loomed before you, the suffocating darkness making it look impossibly endless and infinitely small at the same time.

"Hello?" you barely recognised your own voice; so rarely was it entrenched with such fear or uncertainty. After all, a pretty unremarkable life seldom came into contact with trepidation.

Your unwilling feet took a few small steps forward, eyes straining through the blackness for any signs of life. In the midst of the darkness, a rear wheel of a motorbike was just visible through a gap in the greenery, the wheel still spinning ever so slightly, a couple of metres from your car. The smoke emerging from that derailed vehicle merged with your recently deceased Mustang's smoke, intertwining and dancing through the night sky.

Cautiously approaching the wreckage, you felt your body quivering in fear. The wind whipped through the branches of the trees, mimicking the sound of torrential rain, drowning out the sound of distant cars on the motorway.

"Hello?" you call into the void once more, unsure of whether or not you even wanted someone to respond.

Crouching down by the bike, you examined its state. The metal was scuffed and scratched, the greenery in which the vehicle laid felt like a burial site; and, just as you suspected, a bullet was lodged deep into the rear tyre.

What the hell was happening?

The sudden and shrill sound of a ringtone echoing through the forest had your heart hammering against your chest like a beating drum. Your mouth became so dry that it was hard to swallow. After a moment of composure, you tentatively began following the offending sound, its origin seeming to be deep into the thicket beyond the motorbike.

The cracked screen illuminated a small patch of the night, the pool of light attracting a couple of moths, dancing about the glow. Bending down, you picked up the phone and wiped it clean, reading the name that adorned the screen.

SILAS was calling.

Using the illuminated screen of the phone as a torch, you looked around at your surroundings. Pieces of the motorbike were scattered about the bushes and trees, but there was no sign of a driver at all. The light of the phone bounced off something shiny nearby, glaring into your eyes like the sun itself.

The shiny black surface of a briefcase was wedged between two rocks, clearly it had been flung from whomever was atop the motorbike in the crash. You stood for a moment, nibbling nervously at the tip of your thumb, gazing almost dumbly at the briefcase. Something within you begged you to open it. The intrigue of these events swallowing you whole.

It took a number of tries to un-wedge the briefcase from between the rocks, but on your third attempt, it came loose and sent you tumbling backwards like a cartoon character. Sitting back up onto your knees, you traced its edges with your thumbs, letting them glide across the brass clasps that kept its mysteries sealed. Something within you was calling to open it. It was as though the case was vibrating in your hands; its energy radiating from your fingertips into your bloodstream.

The soft pops of the clasps opening echoed through the silent forest like gunshots, followed by a small gasp escaping your lips. Your eyes grew impossibly wide and your mouth agape; you could feel a trickle of sweat threaten to drip down the back of your neck. Inside the briefcase was eight neat stacks of bills, of all different sizes, and a small black notebook. You stared at the money, completely dumbstruck. It was easily twenty thousand. Never in your life had you seen so much money at once.

With shaking hands, you turned your attention to the small black notebook. Its cover was worn and scratched up, it looked as though it had been snatched out of desperate hands more than once. Flicking through the pages, you noticed the book was all but empty, save for one page at the back. A list of names. Corinne. Damion. Salvatore. Frieda. Elliot. Amelia.

Wait. Amelia. But, that was your -

The sound of a gun cocking behind you made you freeze. The sweat that once threatened to spill down the nape of your neck now drenched the collar of your shirt. The darkness of the forest throbbed around you. Or maybe that was the beating of your rapid heart.

"Drop it." a voice as rough as gravel rumbled through the air like the rolling of tyres. The smell of a cigarette and too much cologne suffocated the night.

You didn't drop it, though. You stayed motionless, your entire being frozen to the spot.

All of this time, all of this life spent wasted on nothing particularly remarkable, and yet, someone brought you here tonight. Someone knew who you were. Someone was after you, and you had no idea why. The knowledge that someone so unremarkable could have such an extraordinary death was strangely comforting. The unlikely hero at the end of the comic book. The oblivious and painfully ordinary citizen caught up in a horror story.

"I said, drop it." the man's voice had become notably gruffer. He began taking purposeful steps forward.

"Are you Silas?" you whispered.

His footsteps stopped almost as quickly as they started.

"How do you know my name?"

"Did you shoot my car? Did you write my name in this book?" Your voice quivered and lingered in the air like the air itself, threatening tears, you chastised yourself for how afraid you sounded, but how could one with a gun to her head respond any differently.

The faint sizzle of the cigarette being toked filled the suffocating silence. Your heartbeat began speeding up once more. You squeezed your eyes shut, but all you could see was red. Inky red.

"You think I'd waste good bullets on that piece of crap? The last place you want your name to be is in that book, Amelia. There's a price on your head."

Your breath caught in your throat. The inky red started turning black.

"Someone is going to kill me?" you choked out like a contagious cough.

A toke on the cigarette. A gravelly chuckle.

"Not on my watch."