Chapter 7

Jim looked at his watch, saw that the time was two thirty-three. He took in a deep breath, stood up and refilled his tea cup. He leaned against the doorway of the shed, just close enough to see out but far enough in to avoid further soaked feet. He quite liked the emptiness. It was very quiet, aside from the beating of the rain, which he had now compartmentalised in his mind as some sort of soothing white noise. He looked at the trees and wondered if kids had ever climbed them. He knew that he would never have kids of his own. He was far too selfish, broken and moody for that, although he had not yet told Claire of his feelings about parenthood. He hoped she felt the same, but knew deep down that she would probably feel her biological clock ticking soon enough.

Suddenly, his attention was drawn to a window on the mansion's upper floor. A light was on in the window at the far end. Not a ceiling light, but a candle-lit lamp. As clear as day. He was sure it had not been on earlier, but could not say for certain. He wondered if the gardener had lied to him about nobody being in, or whether he simply had not known. Maybe there was nobody in and he had simply missed the light before. No. He was sure everything had been dark when he had made his initial attempt at grabbing someone's attention.

As if to give him the confirmation he needed, a shadow appeared briefly on the wall by the lamp. Jim could not tell what figure the shadow represented, but it was certainly something tangible that skimmed over the wallpaper. Briefly, he considered running over to the door and banging on it again. Then he remembered Gerald's words: 'Even if they're in, they won't answer the door', he remembered the old scarecrow saying. Despondent, Jim sat back down on the sacks of compost, finished his stewed tea, and remembered he had a text message to finish typing. He pulled his phone from his pocket and got back to typing it. He knew Claire would have tried contacting him and he had a lot of explaining to do. As he finished, an exclamation mark appeared next to his long and wordy message, with the text 'Cannot send. Try again later'. He assumed it would get sent as soon as a single bar of signal trickled through his phone's antenna. Hoping that was the case, he slipped the phone into his back pocket. 'Move', he ordered his legs, standing up with renewed determination. Time to go. No more procrastinating. Sadly for Jim, upon standing up, he had not accounted for the fact there was a thin wooden shelf directly above his makeshift seat. He cracked the back of his head on the corner of it and immediately bent over in pain. It felt as though his skin had been pinched in a vice. The sharpness of the sensation made him crunch his upper body muscles together all at once and, just for a moment, it looked as though he'd inhaled his own neck. Breathing slowly, he relaxed, and the initial pain subsided into an ache. He touched his thinning crown with his fingers and felt wetness. Given that his hair was already wet, this was no surprise, but this new wetness was sticky. He looked at his fingers and saw bright red blood on both of them. After a few seconds, he felt it trickle behind his right ear and onto the back of his neck. He wiped it away, which only served to make his hand even stickier.

A roll of toilet tissue was on top of a set of shears next to Gerald's Thermos, so he ripped off a hefty portion and held the welfare bandage to his wound. Cuts to the scalp, no matter how small, always seemed to produce a decent-sized flow of blood. Pressing harder caused another sharp, stabbing pain to envelop his skull. He stood still, closed his eyes, pressed harder and thought about being asleep. Maybe he could sleep standing up whilst in pain and bleeding. Dreams could come true. He removed his hand from the top of his head and peeled the tissue away. Looking at it, he was almost impressed with how red it was. Movie blood is a lot darker than this, he thought, remembering something that was once said about movie blood being made from corn syrup. This was anything but sweet. His fingers smelled of rust and the blood on them was already caked into the creases of his skin. For some reason, he licked the tip of his stained fingers and rubbed them with his thumb. The powdered claret became liquid again and he slowly retracted his thumb, pulling with it a string of red like a bloody spider's web. There was no obvious rubbish bin in the shed, so he left the tissue on the offending shelf in mini protest at its assault against him. He stood in the doorway once more and looked out at his intended route. His destination was clear, and he was ready to brave the storm. He just needed to borrow a few things to help.