Terror at the Crossroads by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781592381753
Publisher: Penny Publications, LLC
Published: 2018-10-18T00:00:00+00:00

ALIVE, ALIVE-OH!

O.A. TYNAN

Through the streets of Dublin’s fair city

Here she is again, chasing me with her wheelbarrow through the streets of Dublin’s fair city. I’m staggering under the weight of a skyscraper-high bottle of gin, a pair of emerald green kitten-heel shoes, a thing called an iPhone, and a broken gold shamrock anklet and simply must get to Baggot Street Bridge to throw the incriminating items into the water. Through the fog, I can hear her closing in, because a persistent ding-dong chime shows me a robust woman smelling of fish planked on my doorstep, blaze-red hair aflame. If I go downstairs and open the door, she’ll launch her full bulk into my arms and sink her teeth into my wrist. “Thought you’d get away with it, didn’t you!” she’ll cry. Then she’ll fling back her head, open her mouth, and start to sing, and when she gets to “Alive, alive-oh, Alive, alive-oh, Crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive-oh!” she’ll start all over again. . . .

Her silky auburn hair a crown of innocence

My doorbell is ringing, a persistent ding-dong chime. I continue to dream-doze, thrashing for a cool spot on my pillow. Another chime. And then another. The chimes are real. I fall out of bed, contemplate a quick shave, then opt for a splash of cologne which has an enhancing effect on grey stubble. Wrapped in a paisley dressing gown, I proceed downstairs. I cross the carpeted hall. I see her hazed figure through the frosted pane flanking my front door, hand poised to ring again. Hair not blaze-red but mistily auburn and tied back instead of riotously loose. Figure slim. Young. My heart starts ticking normally once more. Definitely not Molly somehow escaped from her prison and bent on revenge.

I open the door.

“Oh!” The auburn girl snatches her hand away as though the brass bell had suddenly flared to incandescence. “Garda Mary Aisling Ryan from Halpin Street police station,” she says breathlessly. “I was passing and thought I might report there’s nothing new to report about the missing person.”

“How kind,” I say. “Thank you so very much.”

Of course. The day after I’d reported to the police that my fiancée wasn’t answering her mobile phone, the media stopped ringing at my door, the “MISSING MUSSEL MAGNATE” story no longer even back-page news. This, in the five days’ since Molly went missing, is just another supposedly official visit from the forces, each time a different female officer, curious to see what a one-time celebrity looks like now. One of them scrutinized my hairline, another glanced scathingly at the décor in the hall, yet another asked what was the title of my bestseller, as nobody back at the station could remember it.

But the auburn girl on my threshold doesn’t scathe or scrutinize or ask rude questions; she seems content just to gaze at me from soft brown eyes. She wears a neat blouson jacket, a turquoise scarf twisted several times around her neck, and slim jeans only the very young can wear.

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