Whispers of the Past

Disclaimer: These characters are MINE, and have been for about ten years now. This story is completely original... the plot and the characters.

Warnings: Character death, rape, adultery, and racism. If these things offend you then don't read. Heck some of them even offend me!


PROLOGUE

Hank blinked, as if awoken from a dream. He felt like he was in a dream. It was the sound of twittering birds that finally woken him up. That, and a hand slipping into his, and a voice he knew he should recognise. But his dull senses also dulled the voice, making it sound distant – far away.

The gun slipped from his fingers and landed softly on the forest floor. Some leaves and fern carpeting the ground cushioned the fall of the gun. He was numb, so much so, that he could not move. He knelt down and began to cry.

The voice spoke again, gently whispering in his ear, but for all the affect it had on him, it might just as well have been a light, gentle breeze blowing through his thick ash-blonde hair. He had now heard it, not it, she; for the voice was soft and light. She was persistent about something. The hand squeezed his shoulder and then tugged at his elbow. He kept trying to shrug her off. He wanted to be left alone to grieve.

Not for the man that he had just killed. Oh no, no grief for that monster; for that evil, hate-filled being that is now as cold as he was when he were alive. There could never be any regret for him.

What he was grieving for were the consequences of his actions. The people he had hurt for what he did. His siblings, his half-brother, and most of all, his mother. He knew he would suffer greatly for the act he had committed. Why did he let that sorry excuse of a human being get to him? Was it really worth it? Was the cost of hatred and venom actually equivalent to the price it brought?

He was sobbing for the loss of his goodness. He was a nice person. He never let hatred get the better of him. He did not want to be friends with spite and his close cousin revenge. He was always very careful to find something good about everybody he met. The very moment he pulled his trigger he felt that he had killed something that he did not want to. He murdered his innocence.

“Come on,” the voice said. Yes, he knew who it was. It was his wife. His beautiful, loving wife. She would probably hate him now. Rachel was the only thing he had ever cared about. Now he would lose her.

“Leave me!” He said angrily.

“No, I won’t, Hank, look that gunshot echoed around the woods. Someone would have heard and called the police."

“Let them come,” he yelled. “I am despicable. I deserve it!”

She would not leave him alone. She tried again to get him to leave the scene, but he would not listen to her.

“Don’t be ridiculous, “ she said plainly. “I would have done the same thing.”

“Rachel, I just killed someone. What makes you think I can’t do it again? You know when some dogs first taste blood it makes them thirsty for more.”

“You won’t, Hank, now get a move on or we’ll be caught!”

“I’m not running Rachel.”

She gave out a rather exasperated sigh and left him alone. His Uncle Mark soon joined him. Hank did not want to talk to him; he did not want to talk to anyone. Mark picked Hank up off the ground, and dusted him down; grabbed his hand, and stared coldly at the dead man, and then tearfully at the other bodies littering the forest floor.

Hank’s grandfather, Rachel’s grandmother, and another friend, all three dead! All three shot dead by that scumbag. All were dear to Hank. HE shot THEM before Hank shot HIM. HE executed them to teach Hank a lesson he could have done without.

Mark hugged his nephew and Hank clung onto him and sobbed on his Uncle’s chest. Mark kept a firm grip on Hank as the young man sunk onto the floor on his knees in desperation, weighed down with guilt. Unlike Hank’s wife, Mark knew what his nephew needed at that particular moment.

Alan, Harold, and Edward picked up the three bodies of their friends and leaving HIS. Hanks cousin, Philip, was sliding down a tree stump cradling his arm against his chest. Blood and froth seeped through and made for a sticky mess on Philip’s hands. Philip’s face was screwed up in dire agony and suffering.

After some time, Hank got up and squeezed his Uncle Mark one more time before he was ready to leave the bloody scene before him.

“The thing is, what can we do?” Hank asked his Uncle.

“Bury the gun first of all,” Mark began, “then,” he looked at the worthless creature, “burn that pathetic dead beat!”

“I don’t suppose a cigarette lighter will be enough?” Alan asked hopefully.

“I don’t really want to burn him,” Edward said. “It would bring back memories.”

“Anyone got any oil?” Harold asked, ignoring his cousin.

Rachel went to her car that was parked near-by.

“Here’s some,” she said, holding a full red plastic square box. She sloshed it around to emphasize that there was enough.

“Let’s have a bonfire befitting a man as sick as he was in life,” Mark said.

Hank turned his face away. He couldn’t take all this, this burning. It seemed a bit too much, but what else could they do? They could not leave him there, and he did not deserve a proper burial. No one would mourn him enough to go to the funeral; except possibly Hanks mother. Besides her there were only two living relatives. Ralph, (pronounced Rafe), his grandson, and a son, Hanks half-brother, whom was too young to know or understand.

“Can I light the fire?” Ralph asked, his tone eager, there was a strange gleam in the young man’s eyes.

“Do the honours,” Edward said, chucking him the lighter. Ralph caught it expertly, and walked up to the corpse.

“You always needed to lighten up oh grandfather of mine,” Ralph said. The dark sarcasm twinged at Hank’s nerves and made him feel ill.

He could not understand how they could do this. He wanted to stop them, but he heard the sloshing of the oil, and the click of the lighter, and then he felt the heat of the flames.

Ralph walked up to Hank; he could sense that Hank was not all right with the situation. He gave Hank’s shoulder a manly squeeze.

“As Rachel said mate, if it weren’t you, it would have been any one of us. We all had a reason to kill him!”

“But would it have been right? Does that make it right?” Hank asked, his voice thick with emotion, thick with anger.

“Right or wrong chum one of us would have done it,” Ralph said truthfully.

“I don’t know whom I hate more now,” Hank said. “Me or him.”

“Well,” Ralph replied. “I know who I hated and who I definitely don’t hate!”

“Yes, but if any evidence is found, fingerprints, that sort of thing – what is going to happen then?”

“You’re wearing gloves,” Ralph pointed out. “Thick black leather ones!”

“O J Simpson wore gloves ‘supposedly!’” Hank sighed. “He still had a trial.”

“Yeah and he was found innocent, Hank,” Ralph answered.

Hank sighed, and wished for the first time in his life he wished he were a smoker, that apparently relieved stress.

“Ralph, I wish none of this ever had happened.”

Ralph just put a brotherly arm around Hank’s shoulder.

“He deserved it,” he said, he then patted Hank’s back and walked away.

They stayed there in the forest, until HE was completely burnt. They watched and waited until HE was nothing more than cinders and ash. They mixed it up with the mud; they wiped the gun clean and slung it into a near-by lake.

Uncle Mark smirked gleefully as he kicked the ashes to the ground, scattering them mixing them.

“You’ve become what you always were, nothing!” he said.

Mark had his reasons to hate HIM. As Ralph had said, they all did. As Rachel said, this would have happened anyway. But that was Hank’s problem. Yes, he had many reasons to hate the man. He had the justification to want to make HIM suffer, but did that make it justifiable? Just because he had the reason, motive, and means was it right to do what he, Hank, did? He felt as if he had sunk into the swamps of depravity, and that he would never get out of them again.

“Come on,” Uncle Mark said. “My son needs to get to the hospital pretty damn quick!”

They all went to their cars.

Hank could not drive, he felt too emotionally drained to do so. He was still in denial, in shock. He was staring blankly out the windscreen, and as the car revved up he literally saw his whole life flash before his eyes, some good and some bad.

As they were driving out of the forest his head was burning with that one question.

Was it right?

Read the story, and make up your own mind.

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