Ted could hardly believe his luck when he spotted the camcorder at the car boot sale.
He'd been keeping an eye out for a Full HD device for months and had seen the Acorn H3 on a couple of websites. It had always been way beyond his price range but suddenly there it was, sat innocuously between a grimy TV/VCR combo plastered with Alf stickers and a tattered and sun-faded VHS Thorn Birds box set.
A Post-It note had been taped to the side of the camcorder with one hastily scrawled word. "Defective".
"What’s wrong with it?” he asked the woman stood behind the table. She leaned in closer to Ted and brought with her the sharp aroma of cheap perfume coupled with a musty tendril of last night’s wine.
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
“The camcorder. What’s wrong with it?”
She looked at him blankly for a moment and then followed his gesture.
“Oh that,” she said pursing her lips in distaste, “that thing never did work right. My Dale was forever fiddling with the damned thing, saying we’d spent too much money to throw it away.”
“Right, right.” Ted said with no particular interest as he checked how much money he had in his wallet.
“If it had been completely buggered it wouldn’t have been so bad. The thing was, it would always show you a picture, it’s just that sometimes it weren’t a picture of the thing you was pointing it at. You know what I mean?”
Ted nodded sagely, certain that this far-from-tech-savvy woman was describing playing a video while trying to record one.
“Used to drive my Dale crazy it did.” She continued.
“Oh yeah, I’ll bet it did. So how much are you selling it for?” She looked at him quizzically.
“I ain’t gonna give a refund or nothing when you find out it actually is knackered, you know?” she said ominously. He smiled.
“I appreciate your candour. I think I might be able to fix it. How much?” She picked up the camcorder and cast an appraising glance over it, then looked up at Ted.
“Forty quid?” she suggested carefully. Ted raised an eyebrow.
“For a camcorder that doesn’t work?” he asked. She grimaced at him.
“For a bloody expensive camcorder that doesn’t work.” She said firmly.
Ted sighed and, after a moment, nodded.
Ted soon realised that the woman had been right about the camcorder. Something was very odd indeed.
After he’d charged the thing he sat down on the couch and turned it on for the first time. All seemed well. He could see his front room on the fold-out screen and he started recording and swung the shot around the room before spinning the camera and flipping the viewscreen to record himself.
“Hello shiny new toy,” he said with a grin, “welcome to your new home”
He stopped the recording and pressed play to take a look at the playback. The screen flickered into life with a shot of the wall in front of the sofa and then panned slowly left and right zooming in and out arbitrarily where he had decided to test the features. A smile spread across Ted's face as he congratulated himself on an absolute steal. He almost felt guilty and was glad now that he hadn't tried to haggle the woman down. The image on the screen flipped round to a shot of the couch and then of the wall behind the couch from an oddly low angle. Ted's smile faded.
"What the...?" he peered closer at the screen. Wasn’t he supposed to be in the recording at this point? After a moment the video finished. This didn't make any sense, Ted thought, he had definitely recorded himself. He'd had the viewscreen flipped round, seen himself on it, he'd been looking down the lens.
Pushing record, Ted set the camcorder down on the table next to the couch and stood up in front of it.
"Hello, you buggy piece of crap." he growled testily waving wide circles just in case it had some kind of screwy lens angle, "Here I am. I exist and everything.".
Watching the playback he found that it was the same story. The room was right, the different angle on the room was right, but he simply wasn't in the shot. It didn't make sense. He was about to switch it off in disgust when the door in the recording's background opened with a sharp squeal and there he appeared. Another Ted. This other Ted sipped from a mug as he entered the room, spluttered slightly and then stopped and looked right into the camera. The recording stopped.
"What. The. Fuck." Ted was officially freaked. He got up and started recording again sweeping the camera around the area of the door for a few seconds before hurriedly flicking to the playback. The door in the recording now stood ajar whereas, in reality, it was actually closed. Also, right at the bottom of the shot, there was an unusual darkness to the carpet with angular flecks of red. Looking up from the camera, the carpet in front of him was virginal in its cleanliness.
This was all getting a little surreal. Ted took a deep breath and decided that in order to fully compute whatever the hell was going on he would require tea. Lots of tea. Leaving the camera down on the table, he made his way through to the kitchen.
As the kettle was boiling Ted's phone buzzed.
"Hey Allen," he answered, absently scrubbing the side of his face with his free hand, "how's it going?"
"Not bad mate, not bad. Everything alright with you?"
"Yep, yep, all good here."
"Uh huh,” Allen said dubiously, “It’s just, you sound a little frazzled."
"Picking that up over the phone are you? Yeah, no, it's all good, just having a little gadget trouble."
"Ah, say no more, man. Listen, I know you bought a load of weed killer recently and I was wondering if you might have some left that I could steal off you for this weekend's garden reclamation effort. Is now a good time? I could take a look at whatever that doo-dad is that's giving you trouble..."
"Yeah, absolutely, there’s loads of the stuff left. Come on over."
"Sweet. See you in a few."
Ted sloshed water into the mug and began to mash the teabag with his spoon. It didn’t make any sense. Could it be some kind of elaborate prank? Finally satisfied with the colour of his tea, he flicked the teabag into the bin, plopped a swift splash of milk into the mug and made for the cupboard.
“To biscuit, or not to biscuit?” He muttered to himself rhetorically. He scooped up a digestive in a swift and definite motion, split it in two and dunked with practiced efficiency.
He munched thoughtfully while staring out into the back garden. A gloomy dusk was settling and the shed door was swinging idly in the listless breeze. The peculiar grey-orange colour of the brooding clouds above suggested that it might rain at any moment and if it did, it was going to be a doozy. Wait, the shed door was open? It didn’t really matter, he’d have to head out there in a minute to get the weed killer for Allen anyway.
“But first, tea.”
Ted strolled back down the corridor throwing the last of the biscuit into his mouth and swinging the door to the lounge open. The metallic squeal of the hinges set his teeth on edge for the umpteenth time that month. He’d really have to sort that out at some point. Stepping into the room he slurp airily at his tea and accidentally inhaled a combination of liquid and crumbs. He spluttered.
A sense of deja vu seized Ted and he looked up at the camcorder sitting on the table by the couch. His mug slipped unnoticed from his hand to shatter on the floor.
“No fucking way.”
After a moment's pause he carefully sidestepped the jagged shards of his broken mug, he’d pick them up later, strode across to the couch and snatched up the camcorder. He glared at it for a second as if hoping to stare out its secret and then looked up at the clock on the wall furthest from the door. There was one surefire way to confirm or quash the insane suspicion that was blossoming in his mind. He started recording, pointing the camera at the clock. The display showed the time just as it appeared on the wall. But it wasn’t the viewfinder that was producing unexpected results; it was the playback. He stopped the recording and, after a deep, preparatory breath, pressed play.
The clock on the recording was a little more than five minutes ahead of the clock on the wall in reality. This stomach-churning confirmation of his suspicion was compounded by an unexpected sound in the background of the recording. A sound from five minutes in the future. A scream. The audio piping out through the camcorder’s tiny mono speaker was heavily distorted but Ted was certain that the person he could hear was himself. That terrible, gut-wrenching scream was his own. Or rather, was going to be his own.
Fumbling, Ted started the camcorder recording again and swung the shot around the whole room before hurriedly pressing buttons to view the playback. He immediately wished that he hadn't rushed as the picture jerked frantically around, covering the whole of the room but leaving no time to pick out specific details.
From what little he could make out it seemed that the door now stood wide open and the remnants of his mug lay on the floor next to a tea stain that was lighter in colour on the screen than it was in reality. A vase had disappeared from the chest of drawers a little way in front of the door and prone on the floor in the middle of the room Ted saw himself in a black waterproof coat with the hood up and blood pooling on the floor around his shoulders.
Ted felt his heart hammering in his chest as he watched the short recording again.
“Five minutes.” He quietly gave voice to the thought screaming through his mind.
He'd leave. He'd make sure he just wasn't at home in five minutes’ time. Allen could buy his own bloody weed killer.
Or, wait, the shed! Yes, that would be an even better plan.
Hearing the promised downpour tapping against the lounge windows, Ted made his way instinctively to the cupboard under the stairs and fished out his olive oilskin jacket before hurrying out into the garden. As he ducked into the shed he noticed that the rain had crept inside the open door forming a small dark semicircle at the entrance. The piles of tools, old furniture and general scrap might have defied any semblance of order to the uninitiated but Ted had dug through this haystack often enough to have a good idea of where his needle was to be found.
He stepped carefully through the jumble, hopped a lurid green canister of weed killer, straddled a rust-spotted bike that he hadn't ridden for years and leaned into the back corner of the shed to shift an old ladder-back chair to one side. There it was, right underneath, just like he remembered.
He leaned further forward bracing himself against the bike and, at full stretch, teased the haft of the tool into his grip. As his hand closed firmly around it, he shoved himself off the back wall of the shed and teetered back to a standing position. He let the haft slide through his hand until the head of the hatchet bumped softly to rest on his thumb.
Heading back out into the rain he threw up his hood and swung the shed door shut before hopping puddles back to the house. As he reached the back door he heard the unmistakable sound of a muffled cry within. A shout from within his empty house. Ted froze with his hand on the door handle. He could slip around the side of the house, catch a bus, stay with a friend, leave events here tonight to unravel without him.
No. He took a deep breath and gripped the rain-slick hatchet with both hands. I’m in control of the situation, Ted thought. This is my home and I won’t be chased from it by visions and mysterious noises. He had to find out who was in his house. He had to take control of the situation. He would not leave some burglar free reign in his home. All his stuff was there. He hefted the hatchet, reassuring himself of his power.
Ted slipped noiselessly into the kitchen and crept into the gloomy hallway. A muffled thud and a snarling voice sounded from the lounge. As Ted sidled up to the door the words became distinct with the unseen speaker nearing the hallway on the other side. The door stood slightly ajar and a huge shadow fluttered and filled the opening, plunging the unlit hall into deeper gloom.
“...my hands on him, I’m going to fucking kill him.” The voice swore vehemently.
Oh God, it was all true, Ted thought as colour drained from his face. The door began to swing open bathing Ted in light from the lounge. Already too late to run; far too late to hide. The scowling figure, silhouetted to a towering threat, lurched towards him. Ted stood helpless, frozen like a rabbit caught in headlights.
A rabbit with a hatchet.
Instinct took over and his arm jerked clumsily up and out, thrashing the weapon towards his would-be assailant. Stunned into submission by the last half-hour’s cascade of surreality, his rational mind could only observe as his mortal fear congealed into a single moment of fight or flight action. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the hatchet whipped from where it had been resting against his leg and arced up in a diagonal streak through the air between them.
Their eyes met and Ted realised with a clinical detachment that the man in front of him was his friend, Allen. Everything fell in to place with sudden clarity. Allen had let himself in on account of the rain. He had taken his shoes off at the door, as Ted had been demanding of him ever since the new carpets had been installed. He had stepped on the shards of the mug just inside the living room door in his stockinged feet. That lurching movement had really been a limp, and the shouting and cursing had been on account of the pain. It was all so hum-drum, so ordinary and so unworthy of this tragically violent finish. But events were in motion now and there was no stopping them. All Ted could do now was watch, soaking in every millisecond in horrifying crystal clarity.
As the hatchet swept up, the haft started to slip with a sickening inevitability from Ted’s hand. He observed dispassionately as the head of the small axe pushed almost effortlessly through the front of Allan’s throat and noted the widening of his friend’s eyes. The hatchet ripped free of Ted’s hand. The haft swung around and, even as Allen raised his hands to his throat, the butt caught him a glancing blow round the side of the face.
Time caught up all of a sudden as Allen spun away in a spray of blood and hit the ground face down, the hood of his rain-slick black waterproof dropping down over his head with a damp flump. The hatchet flew across the room and swept a vase that Ted’s mother had given him from a chest of drawers near the door. The high-pitched crash of breaking porcelain tinkled in Ted’s ears for a moment, like tinnitus, before an oppressive silence settled upon the room.
Wide-eyed and pale, Ted stared down at the horribly familiar scene. Through his own eyes and with time to consider it was clear that the figure on the floor could never have been himself. It was bigger than he was; taller and broader. Why hadn't he noticed that? And the coat. It was black. Ted's own coat was olive green. How could he have been so stupid?
Tears spilled unnoticed from his wide, unblinking eyes. What had he done? Because of him Allen was dead and Ted was totally fucked. As bad as he felt for killing his friend and neighbour, done was done, and Ted felt a greater swell of sympathy as he watched his own life fall apart before his eyes. It was all so stupid. All because of an instinctive act of self preservation, an animal reaction, an honest mistake.
Suddenly he found it just too much to bear, just too unfair. A roar of frustration ripped forth from him; unstoppable, primal and cleansing. And again there was silence. He gasped for breath and brushed unshed tears from his eyes. He was still for a moment, pensive, before his face set into a mask of resolution.
Well, he thought grimly, it’s a good thing I’ve got my waterproof on, because I’m going to need my shovel.
He'd been keeping an eye out for a Full HD device for months and had seen the Acorn H3 on a couple of websites. It had always been way beyond his price range but suddenly there it was, sat innocuously between a grimy TV/VCR combo plastered with Alf stickers and a tattered and sun-faded VHS Thorn Birds box set.
A Post-It note had been taped to the side of the camcorder with one hastily scrawled word. "Defective".
"What’s wrong with it?” he asked the woman stood behind the table. She leaned in closer to Ted and brought with her the sharp aroma of cheap perfume coupled with a musty tendril of last night’s wine.
“What’s that, sweetheart?”
“The camcorder. What’s wrong with it?”
She looked at him blankly for a moment and then followed his gesture.
“Oh that,” she said pursing her lips in distaste, “that thing never did work right. My Dale was forever fiddling with the damned thing, saying we’d spent too much money to throw it away.”
“Right, right.” Ted said with no particular interest as he checked how much money he had in his wallet.
“If it had been completely buggered it wouldn’t have been so bad. The thing was, it would always show you a picture, it’s just that sometimes it weren’t a picture of the thing you was pointing it at. You know what I mean?”
Ted nodded sagely, certain that this far-from-tech-savvy woman was describing playing a video while trying to record one.
“Used to drive my Dale crazy it did.” She continued.
“Oh yeah, I’ll bet it did. So how much are you selling it for?” She looked at him quizzically.
“I ain’t gonna give a refund or nothing when you find out it actually is knackered, you know?” she said ominously. He smiled.
“I appreciate your candour. I think I might be able to fix it. How much?” She picked up the camcorder and cast an appraising glance over it, then looked up at Ted.
“Forty quid?” she suggested carefully. Ted raised an eyebrow.
“For a camcorder that doesn’t work?” he asked. She grimaced at him.
“For a bloody expensive camcorder that doesn’t work.” She said firmly.
Ted sighed and, after a moment, nodded.
Ted soon realised that the woman had been right about the camcorder. Something was very odd indeed.
After he’d charged the thing he sat down on the couch and turned it on for the first time. All seemed well. He could see his front room on the fold-out screen and he started recording and swung the shot around the room before spinning the camera and flipping the viewscreen to record himself.
“Hello shiny new toy,” he said with a grin, “welcome to your new home”
He stopped the recording and pressed play to take a look at the playback. The screen flickered into life with a shot of the wall in front of the sofa and then panned slowly left and right zooming in and out arbitrarily where he had decided to test the features. A smile spread across Ted's face as he congratulated himself on an absolute steal. He almost felt guilty and was glad now that he hadn't tried to haggle the woman down. The image on the screen flipped round to a shot of the couch and then of the wall behind the couch from an oddly low angle. Ted's smile faded.
"What the...?" he peered closer at the screen. Wasn’t he supposed to be in the recording at this point? After a moment the video finished. This didn't make any sense, Ted thought, he had definitely recorded himself. He'd had the viewscreen flipped round, seen himself on it, he'd been looking down the lens.
Pushing record, Ted set the camcorder down on the table next to the couch and stood up in front of it.
"Hello, you buggy piece of crap." he growled testily waving wide circles just in case it had some kind of screwy lens angle, "Here I am. I exist and everything.".
Watching the playback he found that it was the same story. The room was right, the different angle on the room was right, but he simply wasn't in the shot. It didn't make sense. He was about to switch it off in disgust when the door in the recording's background opened with a sharp squeal and there he appeared. Another Ted. This other Ted sipped from a mug as he entered the room, spluttered slightly and then stopped and looked right into the camera. The recording stopped.
"What. The. Fuck." Ted was officially freaked. He got up and started recording again sweeping the camera around the area of the door for a few seconds before hurriedly flicking to the playback. The door in the recording now stood ajar whereas, in reality, it was actually closed. Also, right at the bottom of the shot, there was an unusual darkness to the carpet with angular flecks of red. Looking up from the camera, the carpet in front of him was virginal in its cleanliness.
This was all getting a little surreal. Ted took a deep breath and decided that in order to fully compute whatever the hell was going on he would require tea. Lots of tea. Leaving the camera down on the table, he made his way through to the kitchen.
As the kettle was boiling Ted's phone buzzed.
"Hey Allen," he answered, absently scrubbing the side of his face with his free hand, "how's it going?"
"Not bad mate, not bad. Everything alright with you?"
"Yep, yep, all good here."
"Uh huh,” Allen said dubiously, “It’s just, you sound a little frazzled."
"Picking that up over the phone are you? Yeah, no, it's all good, just having a little gadget trouble."
"Ah, say no more, man. Listen, I know you bought a load of weed killer recently and I was wondering if you might have some left that I could steal off you for this weekend's garden reclamation effort. Is now a good time? I could take a look at whatever that doo-dad is that's giving you trouble..."
"Yeah, absolutely, there’s loads of the stuff left. Come on over."
"Sweet. See you in a few."
Ted sloshed water into the mug and began to mash the teabag with his spoon. It didn’t make any sense. Could it be some kind of elaborate prank? Finally satisfied with the colour of his tea, he flicked the teabag into the bin, plopped a swift splash of milk into the mug and made for the cupboard.
“To biscuit, or not to biscuit?” He muttered to himself rhetorically. He scooped up a digestive in a swift and definite motion, split it in two and dunked with practiced efficiency.
He munched thoughtfully while staring out into the back garden. A gloomy dusk was settling and the shed door was swinging idly in the listless breeze. The peculiar grey-orange colour of the brooding clouds above suggested that it might rain at any moment and if it did, it was going to be a doozy. Wait, the shed door was open? It didn’t really matter, he’d have to head out there in a minute to get the weed killer for Allen anyway.
“But first, tea.”
Ted strolled back down the corridor throwing the last of the biscuit into his mouth and swinging the door to the lounge open. The metallic squeal of the hinges set his teeth on edge for the umpteenth time that month. He’d really have to sort that out at some point. Stepping into the room he slurp airily at his tea and accidentally inhaled a combination of liquid and crumbs. He spluttered.
A sense of deja vu seized Ted and he looked up at the camcorder sitting on the table by the couch. His mug slipped unnoticed from his hand to shatter on the floor.
“No fucking way.”
After a moment's pause he carefully sidestepped the jagged shards of his broken mug, he’d pick them up later, strode across to the couch and snatched up the camcorder. He glared at it for a second as if hoping to stare out its secret and then looked up at the clock on the wall furthest from the door. There was one surefire way to confirm or quash the insane suspicion that was blossoming in his mind. He started recording, pointing the camera at the clock. The display showed the time just as it appeared on the wall. But it wasn’t the viewfinder that was producing unexpected results; it was the playback. He stopped the recording and, after a deep, preparatory breath, pressed play.
The clock on the recording was a little more than five minutes ahead of the clock on the wall in reality. This stomach-churning confirmation of his suspicion was compounded by an unexpected sound in the background of the recording. A sound from five minutes in the future. A scream. The audio piping out through the camcorder’s tiny mono speaker was heavily distorted but Ted was certain that the person he could hear was himself. That terrible, gut-wrenching scream was his own. Or rather, was going to be his own.
Fumbling, Ted started the camcorder recording again and swung the shot around the whole room before hurriedly pressing buttons to view the playback. He immediately wished that he hadn't rushed as the picture jerked frantically around, covering the whole of the room but leaving no time to pick out specific details.
From what little he could make out it seemed that the door now stood wide open and the remnants of his mug lay on the floor next to a tea stain that was lighter in colour on the screen than it was in reality. A vase had disappeared from the chest of drawers a little way in front of the door and prone on the floor in the middle of the room Ted saw himself in a black waterproof coat with the hood up and blood pooling on the floor around his shoulders.
Ted felt his heart hammering in his chest as he watched the short recording again.
“Five minutes.” He quietly gave voice to the thought screaming through his mind.
He'd leave. He'd make sure he just wasn't at home in five minutes’ time. Allen could buy his own bloody weed killer.
Or, wait, the shed! Yes, that would be an even better plan.
Hearing the promised downpour tapping against the lounge windows, Ted made his way instinctively to the cupboard under the stairs and fished out his olive oilskin jacket before hurrying out into the garden. As he ducked into the shed he noticed that the rain had crept inside the open door forming a small dark semicircle at the entrance. The piles of tools, old furniture and general scrap might have defied any semblance of order to the uninitiated but Ted had dug through this haystack often enough to have a good idea of where his needle was to be found.
He stepped carefully through the jumble, hopped a lurid green canister of weed killer, straddled a rust-spotted bike that he hadn't ridden for years and leaned into the back corner of the shed to shift an old ladder-back chair to one side. There it was, right underneath, just like he remembered.
He leaned further forward bracing himself against the bike and, at full stretch, teased the haft of the tool into his grip. As his hand closed firmly around it, he shoved himself off the back wall of the shed and teetered back to a standing position. He let the haft slide through his hand until the head of the hatchet bumped softly to rest on his thumb.
Heading back out into the rain he threw up his hood and swung the shed door shut before hopping puddles back to the house. As he reached the back door he heard the unmistakable sound of a muffled cry within. A shout from within his empty house. Ted froze with his hand on the door handle. He could slip around the side of the house, catch a bus, stay with a friend, leave events here tonight to unravel without him.
No. He took a deep breath and gripped the rain-slick hatchet with both hands. I’m in control of the situation, Ted thought. This is my home and I won’t be chased from it by visions and mysterious noises. He had to find out who was in his house. He had to take control of the situation. He would not leave some burglar free reign in his home. All his stuff was there. He hefted the hatchet, reassuring himself of his power.
Ted slipped noiselessly into the kitchen and crept into the gloomy hallway. A muffled thud and a snarling voice sounded from the lounge. As Ted sidled up to the door the words became distinct with the unseen speaker nearing the hallway on the other side. The door stood slightly ajar and a huge shadow fluttered and filled the opening, plunging the unlit hall into deeper gloom.
“...my hands on him, I’m going to fucking kill him.” The voice swore vehemently.
Oh God, it was all true, Ted thought as colour drained from his face. The door began to swing open bathing Ted in light from the lounge. Already too late to run; far too late to hide. The scowling figure, silhouetted to a towering threat, lurched towards him. Ted stood helpless, frozen like a rabbit caught in headlights.
A rabbit with a hatchet.
Instinct took over and his arm jerked clumsily up and out, thrashing the weapon towards his would-be assailant. Stunned into submission by the last half-hour’s cascade of surreality, his rational mind could only observe as his mortal fear congealed into a single moment of fight or flight action. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the hatchet whipped from where it had been resting against his leg and arced up in a diagonal streak through the air between them.
Their eyes met and Ted realised with a clinical detachment that the man in front of him was his friend, Allen. Everything fell in to place with sudden clarity. Allen had let himself in on account of the rain. He had taken his shoes off at the door, as Ted had been demanding of him ever since the new carpets had been installed. He had stepped on the shards of the mug just inside the living room door in his stockinged feet. That lurching movement had really been a limp, and the shouting and cursing had been on account of the pain. It was all so hum-drum, so ordinary and so unworthy of this tragically violent finish. But events were in motion now and there was no stopping them. All Ted could do now was watch, soaking in every millisecond in horrifying crystal clarity.
As the hatchet swept up, the haft started to slip with a sickening inevitability from Ted’s hand. He observed dispassionately as the head of the small axe pushed almost effortlessly through the front of Allan’s throat and noted the widening of his friend’s eyes. The hatchet ripped free of Ted’s hand. The haft swung around and, even as Allen raised his hands to his throat, the butt caught him a glancing blow round the side of the face.
Time caught up all of a sudden as Allen spun away in a spray of blood and hit the ground face down, the hood of his rain-slick black waterproof dropping down over his head with a damp flump. The hatchet flew across the room and swept a vase that Ted’s mother had given him from a chest of drawers near the door. The high-pitched crash of breaking porcelain tinkled in Ted’s ears for a moment, like tinnitus, before an oppressive silence settled upon the room.
Wide-eyed and pale, Ted stared down at the horribly familiar scene. Through his own eyes and with time to consider it was clear that the figure on the floor could never have been himself. It was bigger than he was; taller and broader. Why hadn't he noticed that? And the coat. It was black. Ted's own coat was olive green. How could he have been so stupid?
Tears spilled unnoticed from his wide, unblinking eyes. What had he done? Because of him Allen was dead and Ted was totally fucked. As bad as he felt for killing his friend and neighbour, done was done, and Ted felt a greater swell of sympathy as he watched his own life fall apart before his eyes. It was all so stupid. All because of an instinctive act of self preservation, an animal reaction, an honest mistake.
Suddenly he found it just too much to bear, just too unfair. A roar of frustration ripped forth from him; unstoppable, primal and cleansing. And again there was silence. He gasped for breath and brushed unshed tears from his eyes. He was still for a moment, pensive, before his face set into a mask of resolution.
Well, he thought grimly, it’s a good thing I’ve got my waterproof on, because I’m going to need my shovel.
Awesome !
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