Tellings of the Time: Complete series

22. Epilogue

Darkness surrounds me when the moon disappears behind a large cloud. It’s a dry night, but cloudy nonetheless. It’s perfect for what I’m about to do. I prefer the dark. You could even go so far as saying it speaks to me. Poetic things like that don’t hold any power over me.

The branch I’m sitting on is comfortable. It was the perfect find. When I picked her as my newest family member,figured out her routine and started preparing for this very night, I was terribly lucky to find a branch high enough to hold me for hours. I’ve been sitting in this tree for nearly three hours, waiting for her to come home from her shift. She’s working the late shift and lives in the middle of fucking nowhere. It’s like she’s practically screaming for me to come get her, isn’t it?

The sound of tires driving over gravel reaches my ear, letting me know she’s finally there. Something inside of me eases when all the players are in position. She doesn’t know she’s part of the game yet, but we’ve already started playing. I almost didn’t get here in time, being held up like that. But it all worked out in the end. It always does, because life favors me.

She was there. Abigail. Abby. She was there and she was marvelous.

The only one there for the looking, not the taking. That isn’t the case with Miss Coraline Memphis, who is parking her car in front of her house now. She’s there for the taking. She’s there to join my family and fill this emptiness.

With the grace of a cat I climb down the tree, not making any sounds. Being as silent as I am takes a whole lot of practice. It’s an art I’ve perfected over the years. Sometimes I like to think I started to practice when I was a kid and played hide and seek with my mother. My real mother. Janine Egbers. The FBI knows about her now, Abigail knows about her. I’ll gladly share her with Abigail, but the feds can stay away from my mother’s memory. After Janine, nobody ever played hide and seek with me. My practice came from staying out of everyone’s business and not being in the way. There was a lot of that going on.

Coraline is looking in her bag, trying to find her keys. Even through the darkness, I can see her without any trouble. She’s wearing her white nurse’s uniform and it’s like she’s a beacon of light. She doesn’t know that light is about to get dimmed.

Despite this being the first time that I see her in person, she feels familiar. They all feel familiar. They all used to look like my mother, but now they all look like her, like Abigail. It’s amazing what you can find when you know the wonders of the internet. All these databases nowadays make finding what I’m looking for that much easier.

She finally finds her keys, rattling when they come out of her bag. The world around me disappears when I stare at her as if I’m looking through a straw. My heart is pounding and I can hear my blood coursing through my veins. Adrenaline makes me sharper than I normally am. This is it. She tries getting the keys in the door, and that is when I pounce. A well-aimed hit against her temple knocks her out immediately. She drops to the ground like a bag of potatoes and I catch her before she falls all the way down. I don’t want her to get hurt until I decide it’s time. Now that, would be a shame.

I grab her beneath her arms and pull her along while her feet drag through the gravel on the driveway. I’ve already disabled all cameras in the vicinity, so getting away here without being noticed shouldn’t be a problem. There’s a nervous excitement in the pit of my stomach. Some would call it butterflies, but I think there are snakes coiling beneath my skin.

When I’ve put her in the plastic-covered trunk of my car, I press a rag with formaldehyde against her mouth and nose, ensuring she won’t wake up on the ride home.

It’s an uneventful ride. You’d think that snatching someone off the streets and taking them somewhere else is complicated, but the chances of getting caught are high. But frankly, once you know what you’re doing there isn’t much to it.

Pulling up to my house, I park the car with its rear to the service entrance. I grab Coraline, pulling her over my shoulder and carrying her in. Careful not to have her bump her head on the rounded staircase going down into the basement, I slow my pace. The scent of bleach and wood reaches me, making the coiling snakes turn into excited anticipation. It’s funny how much I can feel when it comes to my ritual, while I have so much trouble feeling anything outside of it.

That’s the great thing about having Abby in my life. She manages to make me feel something outside of my ritual too. The day she knocked on that door and walked into my life might be my greatest moment yet. I have no room for silly beliefs such as fate, but if I had, fate itself couldn’t have orchestrated her finding me any better.

I swallow hard and force myself to stop thinking about Abby. Coraline doesn’t move a muscle. She isn’t able to. Won’t be for a while either. Still, I shackle and gag her. My eyes fall on the clock in the corner of the basement. It’s late, but not late enough.

So I take out a chair, and I wait.

Wait for her to wake up.

Wait for me to start my ritual.

Wait for her to take her last breath and to feel the life leave her body.

Wait for the time to come and feel whole.

Just for a second.