The Creeper by A.M. Shine

Author:A.M. Shine [Shine, A.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781801102209
Publisher: Head of Zeus

13

Music had been playing. In the background of Alec’s thoughts there had been strings and possibly piano, comforting in their distance like the ebb and flow of an unseen ocean. Now there was only the cadent tick of the clock and the crackling of hot logs on the fire, its light shivering across the rug as far the armchair’s back legs. He reached for his brandy, deliberated for a moment, and then withdrew his fingers back to their locked position. Alec hadn’t been listening to the music. But the realisation of its absence further accentuated his sense of loneliness. During these fugitive and altogether futile moments he would often reflect upon his parents and the fraction of a life they had given him.

Alec had no children. In light of his life’s experience the man viewed having a family as an act of cruelty. It was no better than adopting a dog only to throw it into a cage. He had never broached the topic with his parents when they had been alive. But he would often ponder how exactly they had deemed it admissible to have a child. What selfish lies had been shared between them? Was it love or simplicity that sealed his fate? They knew of the horror that he stood to inherit, of the curse that was not his doing but his to suffer all the same. Cruelty was too tame a word.

His mother was the first to go. She thought that she could live with it but the restrictions became too much. Alec remembered only her silence and short temper, and the way she used to stare down at him like a metal ball chained to her freedom. The woman’s anger eventually turned to distrust. She came to doubt if any of it was necessary. Her death was proof enough for Alec. He still recalled her screams with crystal clarity, and the turmoil of that night when they were cut short.

His father persevered for some years after, but he was never the same man. The memories he clung to – of a love and companionship never to be repeated – turned cancerous, blighting whatever happiness his life might have held thereafter. He taught Alec how to survive – inspiring in him the fear that was essential – and saw to it that his son was financially self-reliant in the event of his death. That had been the man’s ultimate plan all along: to die, but by his own doing. A rare feat for any Sparling. He drank too much. He ate too little. Eventually, he became reckless and as a result his plan never came to fruition. He didn’t scream like Alec’s mother had done. He went quietly and without complaint, as might a drunk who had lingered after hours by the bar, all too aware that he had outstayed his welcome.

Mr French and Ms Coogan had been carefully chosen from a long list. Alec predicted that their financial circumstances would ink their contracts without great debate.

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