A Candle for Consuela (The Omega Files Quartet Book 1) by Mike Kingston

Author:Mike Kingston [Kingston, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mitre Publishing
Published: 2021-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

Consuela went through the small, terraced house, testing all the window and door locks. Eventually satisfied she went into the kitchen pulling the curtain on the black night that had come in. She opened a drawer. Hesitating at the sight of three sharp knives, she slowly took out two large, serrated blades before climbing the stairs. Her small bedroom was stuffy. She placed the two knives on the small bedside table.

After pulling off her jeans, she lay down on the bed wearing just a T-shirt and white briefs. Yawning, she pulled her arms tight about herself and lay there perfectly still for almost half an hour. Her eyes remained closed as she felt warm air resting gently on her skin, listening to the quiet night as it drifted by. She kept forcing her mind to reject black thoughts and memories of the past day.

Eventually, she felt strong enough.

She moved aside the knives and picked up the small notebook which sat beside One Day of Life, on her bedside cabinet. It opened at the list of names: killed or disappeared. They were all gone now but never forgotten. Each one a small memory left behind, yet eventually changing the way things were. Brave, resolute and impetuous they had plunged into terror and there discovered their ultimate triumph, but they were still lost. Empty chairs at tables, silent smiles where there had once been laughter. They were gone, and now the repulsive creature who had robbed them of life was here. She had never forgotten and had never been able to erase their faces from her mind. Each day plunged her deeper into the feeling of desperate shame she had spent so many years trying to escape.

Suddenly there was a noise.

Scratching.

She lowered the notebook and listened.

It came from somewhere at the back of the house.

Consuela sat up and waited, to hear more, but all was silent again.

She rose, her head tilted to one side, focusing.

Glass.

Glass scratched.

Where was it coming from? She couldn’t locate the source.

All fell silent again.

Perhaps it was her imagination.

She touched the two knives.

Looking at the notebook, at the names of people she had loved, of lives destroyed, she felt no fear.

What she did know was anger.

Fury.

She would not be intimidated.

She lay down again, closed her eyes and waited, and listened.

A whisper came, so soft it was almost inaudible. The bed shuddered.

Consuela shot upright. She moved over to the door and touched the handle. Started slowly, silently, to open it.

Her heart was beating too fast, too loud.

It was the kitchen door. It had a slight, but distinctive squeak.

It was not her imagination.

She opened the bedroom door a crack.

Footsteps, so soft she barely heard, but she was sure.

There was no way out. The muffled sounds were so near, right inside her head along with the screeching resonance of memory. Breathing quietly, she strained desperately to catch any new sound. She opened the door a little more. A streetlight threw faint shadows through a window at the bottom of the stairs.

Empty.

Then a shadow moved.

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