Instructions

Trevor chewed at his nails as the outside world started to take its form again. Stillness, as the whirring around him came to a halt. Voices began to echo through the carriage. Small talk, mostly.

"I’m back."

A quick glance the digital clock that was strung up warned him of the time, the neon blue lighting up the faces of those who sat under it sequentially as it flickered in the dim yellow light of the station. It was late now, just before midnight, and though tired he had not come back here simply for the hell of it.

His decision to just suddenly get up and leave wasn’t a hard one, if anything it were the total opposite. Feeling trapped, and with freedom calling his name he had left in the dead of night, and it seemed as though he were in the back room of a musty smelling hostel two-thousand miles away in the blink of an eye.

Four months, or had it been five?

He had lost track by now.

Stretching their legs, others on the train stood around him, their faces fatigued as they glanced through the dim light at the strangers they’d shared hours with yet knew nothing about. Most, he imagined, would be finding the closest bed that they were able to fall asleep in. He wondered, for a moment, if any of them had thought about him in the way he did them. Dissecting them, their clothes, their voices, their thoughts, their choices.

“I – pardon.”

“Excuse me…”

“Do you mind?”

Voices continued to echo, shuffled footsteps dulling the voices as the carriage came to life. Trevor didn’t move as they gathered their things around him. Seldom for a tattered, black, leather-bound journal that had arrived on his doorstep on the evening of what he saw as the strangest day of his life, he had nothing. Any other baggage he had once possessed, whether it physical or emotional, was left in the arms of the open road – he’d scattered parts of himself across the greedy hands of late nights and alcohol and cruel strangers on the same path as he was.

Trevor had wanted to forget.

Thinking about it, he then pulled it from his pocket, and flipped through the pages, running his fingers over the pen marks as though they were risen, in the hopes that he could make more sense of the words. Nothing seemed to help, and nothing made sense.

But there were instructions that he had chosen to follow.

In all ways, he had never wanted to return to somewhere that held so much pain, but along with the delivery came an invisible tether that bound him to the city – or at least, a specific person that once resided there.

“I’m being idiotic…” Sideways glances from others were shot at him as he mumbled aloud. “This is stupid.”

Lifting the hood of his jacket over his head, he moved from the carriage, and realised how badly he regretted his decision to return. Something about this felt strange, and though it should have been obvious as to why, it was not why he felt this way. Something was off. It wasn’t as though he was a suddenly changed man, but for the first time in a long while, he felt strangely at peace. But why? Under these circumstances, here was here on the instruction of her.

An individual that was, by all accounts, alive no longer.

For a brief moment, his mind wandered to his destination, their old apartment – as far as he were concerned now, there were ghosts in those walls that would never let him be.

As he sauntered through the back streets of the city, his surroundings suddenly became familiar to him. The walls that closed in around him weren’t as frightening as they had been the first time he had set foot in the city, they welcomed him, the streets twisted in a familiar maze that he now found comforted him, the walls surrounding him.

Security.

Still walking, he glanced up at the sky, the half-moon hanging above his head, casting a dull glow on the puddles of the cold streets, the only noise coming from the sound of his waterlogged shoes and his rasping breath as he paced.

Serenity.

It must have been past midnight now, surely, but he wasn’t sure, as he hadn’t worn a watch since he’d left. Before he knew it, he was there – the house he knew so well, the house he’d practically made his own – and the girl he wished he had. Last time he was here was just before Christmas, though he was gone before Christmas Day. In fact, the month or so before then had been a blur. He hadn’t left on the best note, but his lust for freedom was overriding his logical thoughts. Now that was more or less silenced for now, she was the one thing on his mind. The one reason he was drawn back to this city, the one reason he felt any desire to return. Quickly, he made his way up the stairs, his stare fixed with confusion on the lock, the padlock, and at what to do next.

Noticing the slight light of a lamp glimmering through the window, he was surprised the power had not been cut yet. Reaching up, his hand went for the window - and upon fiddling with the lock, it swung open.

“Typical.” He muttered. She never could remember to lock those damn windows, and she must have known this – there were no directions to keys left in the instructions.

A chill passed over him as he crawled into the apartment. Cold air like long fingers wrapping around his throat, reaching into his lungs holding onto him from the inside.

His breath was short.

Internally, it was devoid of any emotion the walls once contained - flashbacks of the terracotta tiles lit by candles and laughter accompanied by soft music and the bluebird voices of children visited him only but briefly, dancing like a waltz over his vision. It was surreal, really, how he had never noticed how dull the place could be in winter.

Reaching into his pocket, the notebook fell onto the floor – and has he bent down to pick it up, the letter fell out.

‘Burn after reading!’

It exclaimed proudly, with a smiling face written on the front of the sealed envelope. The letter had come inside the journal – and though he had read it back to front, all Trevor had learned was of the spiral her life had become since he left. Still, he moved on, ripping the envelope open. Scrawled across the page, one that had been torn from the notebook, was her writing once more.

‘Behind the microwave. You know where.’

Trevor paused, breath caught in his throat. He wasn’t sure what this would bring him, and the anxiety was growing rapidly inside of him like a weed, blocking him from the sun. Stunting his growth.

Making his way over, he moved the microwave, pushing it to the ground. It shattered, not that it mattered. The apartment was worth nothing to him anyway.

He still had the key, and as he opened the small safe they had burrowed into the wall his eyes lit up. Hopeful, or hopeless, he wasn’t sure – but his heart dropped. A stack of notes, accompanied by a newspaper clipping. A chilling headline, followed by the fine print.

‘$20,000 reward for information on the whereabouts of Trevor Huntley, prime suspect in the murder of wife, Iris Huntley, and their daughters, three and eight.’

Looking back at the letter now, he shuddered.

He could have sworn that was her handwriting.