Black Night Orange Day

Black Night Orange Day

by C. E. Turner

Copyright 2016 C. E. Turner

Published by Strict Publishing International

BLACK NIGHT

The night was dark, blanketing the winding, bush-lined road in black. The powerful cars headlights vainly tried to light the driver’s way. Music pounded so loudly that the car vibrated as it sped along. Muffled Rap escaped the driver’s side window that was opened just a crack, allowing cigarette smoke an exit.

Fingers clenched round the wheel, foot heavy on the accelerator pedal, and a light sheen of sweat broke then settled across the driver’s brow and his lightly fluffed upper lip. It was not a warm night; the wind still held a chill. The rain that had begun only seconds ago, lightly, was now coming down in buckets, adding to the darkness of the black night, which, you might have thought, would have slowed the drivers speed but did not. In fact, it made the idiot behind the wheel drive faster. Again, you might wonder why sweat had broken out on the driver’s face when it was cool inside and outside of the car. If you could have seen the old gym socks zipped safely into the one inner pocket of the hemp satchel on the passenger side seat, you might have been thrown. If you unrolled those socks, it would have been plain as day that the driver had sampled some of the hidden treasure inside: dozens of pink, rounded, heart-stamped pills sorted into small plastic bags in lots of ten.

The rain pounded rhythmically. The driver extended a hand to flick the already blasting stereo even louder as he took a winding bend. The pair of glowing eyes seemed to come out of the darkness ahead of him. Entranced, eyes stupefied his drug-addled brain as they grew in size, their fluorescent glow transfixing the driver with such power that he was unaware the car had followed where his eyes were looking, toward the verge of the road. The eyes grew larger. Came closer. And then the driver realized milliseconds too late that they were attached to the back of a jacket, and understanding that only dawned full on his consciousness when he hit something and his unbelieving eyes saw the blurry flash of a red dress and long flowing hair as it flew over his windscreen at 100 km an hour. The powerful car came screeching to a halt twenty meters up the darkened road, stopping only for a moment before the driver threw it into first gear. The car responding, tires screeching, leaving burnt rubber prints on the road as it squealed away.

The driver took only one quick look in the rear view mirror. He could just barely make out a rain-drenched figure shaking a fist. At the figure’s feet was the crumpled result of the car’s impact. The only thing louder than the screeching, slipping tires trying to grip the road was the driver’s mind screaming Murderer! Murderer! Murderer! as the car raced away into the rain-drenched black night…

The driver reached for the console’s dials, turning up the music even louder, pushing his foot harder, leaning forward to peer into the rain to navigate the slick ribbon of road. Desperately, the driver was trying to put distance between himself and the unthinkable mess behind him and, if possible, the growing mess in his head.

He had three major problems. In truth, he had many more problems than just those three, but they were the only three he was currently aware of: one, he had no license; two, it was technically a stolen car; and three, last but never least, at the ripe old age of fifteen he had just become a murderer, and a hit and run one at that.

* * * * *

A lot of people would have told you Joe was homeless. In fact, a lot of people did say that, and truly believed he was. Possibly the local knowledge that Joe lived a lot of his time in the bush land that lined Wakehurst Parkway helped them reach their incorrect conclusions. If, perchance, you met him and you asked him about it, he would tell you he was a man who had more homes than any man could want. If you asked where his many homes were, he would say everywhere and sometimes anywhere. The old guy had places to stay from here to Queensland’s furthest tip, with a few more scattered inland through to the Territory.

Joe liked it best here on the Northern Beaches of Sydney, among many friends made from a lifetime of living there. Joe knew all its bush land better than he knew himself. The bush was essential to Joe. It lent him sanity in a world he saw as having gone mad. It was as essential to the old guy as the blood in his veins. It gave him solace when nothing else could offer such precious gifts. Lots of people considered Joe harmless and, mostly, a sandwich short of a picnic, a conclusion that was dangerously wrong on both counts, but it suited Joe to a T. The old guy did not just think but was damn certain that most of the populace was completely crazy, so immersed in their insanity they now passed it off as being sane. There was any number of topics Joe could school you on, though you would have to be careful, for Joe’s take on the state of the world could make a lot of sense.

On this dark night Joe was currently pondering his eventual resting place for the night. With the drizzle evolving into a downpour, Joe discounted any of the many bush caves that were scattered along the French’s Forest to Seaforth side of the Wakehurst Parkway. He would still need to get his van, but he felt Burt’s might be the best choice. Nothing like a warm bed and an old friend to chew your ear off, Joe thought to himself as he walked the soaked streets of Seaforth whose huge homes blocked views of the ocean below. His old friend even had an Internet hook up, a thought that cracked a wry smile across his bear-like face.

Joe carried a garbage bag that covered an object in one hand, and he began to whistle between his teeth, letting the wind and rain carry the sounds away.

* * * * *

The dark green Holden Statesman pulled out of the drive way of 8 Gilbert Place, French’s Forest at a frustrating 6.25 pm on the stormy Saturday night. Its occupants were on their way for a quiet dinner with relatives at the local RSL club, with their daughter’s parting words still ringing in their ears.

Don’t you come home early. I told you I was having a party. When you do come home, you make sure you stay away from us. No popping in to say ‘Hello’, especially if you have had drinks. None of my friends want to talk to you fossils. They could have stayed home and talked to their own parents if they felt like it.

It irked both the Blakesfield’s that their daughter spoke to them in such tones with such complete disrespect. As usual, they let it slide, neither fancying a head-on collision with their daughter at the best of times, and definitely not as they were on their way out for the night. So they smiled well worn fake smiles, waving to her already back-turned figure. Driving away from their two storey home, both wondered inwardly how their daughter could have gone so wrong, something neither adult ever bothered to admit or discuss. Hence, their daughter had become worse as she got older.

The drive to the club took a wordless eight minutes, and the pair found they were the first of their foursome to arrive. Arnold Blakesfield, known to his friends as Arnie, took in his wife’s pinched, tense face, and sought to make her feel better.

Come on, Love, let’s forget about it for now and enjoy our night out. Arnie had bent toward his shorter wife and placed a finger under her chin, gently tilting her face up to his.

How about we start with one of those cocktails you told me about… We can have one while we wait for the others…

Vicki Blakesfield was still feeling stung by her daughter’s harsh words and maybe more by her tone, but she knew Arnie was making an effort to lift her spirits. See, Arnie was strictly a beer man, but he loved his wife and if having a cocktail with her would maybe bring her smile back, then cocktails it would be.

* * * * *

The spacious garage was finally empty, allowing the tables that would have been set up in a dry back yard to be erected at last. The food was already prepared, the punch her mother had made easily spiked. Plastic glasses, paper plates and napkins were placed on the tables that had been freshly covered in blue cloth.

The stereo and speakers took more effort, but the music flowed within five minutes of her parents leaving. Lorry Blakesfield surveyed herself in the full-length mirror hidden on the inside of her wardrobe door. The plaid, pleated mini skirt showed off her young thighs and shapely legs that ended in spiky black heels. The brilliant emerald green top plunged generously, showing her push-up bra assisted cleavage before hugging her down to her hips. This left a slithering band of skin between the top’s finish and the miniscule skirt’s start. She shook her hair, allowing her long red-tinged fringe to fall, shadowing her angular face, softening her slightly-too-long nose, while darkening her already smoky grey eyes. She puckered her lips, admiring their glossy cherry finish and for a moment, only a slight one, she experienced an unfamiliar emotion. The emotion that was gripping the seventeen-year-old girl was as old as time itself, and she was not the first nor would she be the last to try to sidestep its effect. The emotion Lorry was experiencing, sadly only for a short moment, was the powerful emotion of guilt, because the lovely Lorry Blakesfield had more than a party planned tonight for herself and her friends. She had also organized for there to be some entertainment. The entertainment the delightful teenager had arranged to arrive at the party at precisely 7.15 was not only unaware that the party started at 6.30 but even more that he was to be the centre of attention. In fact, the entertaining guest thought his luck had changed, so young and besotted by the lovely Lorry that he never stopped to ask himself why the most popular girl in school would ask him, the new kid, to one of her exclusive parties. Maybe he could be forgiven because he was new in this area, and maybe there were not any girls like Lorry where he had moved from, girls who were so pretty on the outside you missed seeing the venom on the inside until it was too late. Or, maybe, it was a simpler, more biological kind of thing. Like all young teenage men, the unwitting guest-to-be was understandably ruled more by other parts of his body than his brain when he accepted the invitation from the smiling Lorry at school late on Friday afternoon. Whatever the reasons, that unsuspecting guest was on his way, walking through the dark night with his partner beside him.

Lorry did not like the feeling of guilt, nor the way it creased her brow, and she instantly started to justify tonight’s entertainment in her mind. You see, Lorry was not the type of girl to let a little guilt ruin her fun. Good Lord, if Miss Lorry Anne Blakesfield grew a conscience, she would turn into a whole new person, and Lorry liked herself far too much as she was to ever let that happen. So, naturally, she was able to find reasons for her to go ahead with her nasty plan. It was his fault, she told herself, shifting the blame easily. I mean, come on, she thought, taking in her reflection again, it’s