I cross the train tracks, strangled with overgrowth, and climb the incline towards the rusting bridge that crosses over them. The covering arch of the bridge lets in slivers of dawn light through holes worn away by wind and time. I put on my mask. I wait for Him here, standing over the reeking pile of His other corpses.
He arrives soon after. I have figured out He comes back at midnight and it usually takes Him six or seven hours to find me. Nowadays I almost always wait for Him here. A wide, painful grin waxed onto His face. He’s carrying a rotten plank of wood with some nails sticking out of it at broken angles. He usually has some kind of weapon. A brick or a pipe. Something He’s found on the way. He advances steadily, neither rushing with anticipation nor approaching slowly with caution. Neither matters to Him, I suspect.
He raises the plank to strike me. Already I have swung up the axe in my hand to catch Him under the chin. He staggers back, blood pouring thick from the cleave in His jaw. He’s still grinning. He raises an arm and I hack it off, down to a few tendons. He swings His plank in a wide arc and I jump back. His severed arm continues to twitch and grasp. I knock the plank from His other arm and stand over Him. One, two, strikes to the skull. The bone gives in and the brain inside is mulched. That’s how you kill Him. That’s the only way to kill Him. At least for now. He’ll be back by tomorrow.
I pack up my things and head along the rural tracks into the city, leaving His body with His others. I sit on a corner by a café and ask for change. In the afternoon I sit with some friends and talk about nothing to pass the time. In the evening I get some soup and bread from the refuge and sit and eat with the others. Then I head back to my spot by the tracks out of the city. Not too close to the bridge, but close enough. I sleep for a little while. Then wake myself at midnight. I know it takes Him a few hours to find me, usually. But this is how He almost got me the first time.
I woke up to Him baring over me with that grin of His. I had no idea what was happening back then. Still don’t now, really, but I have a better idea of how He works. I had to kill Him for the first time then and it was messy. No use in going to the police. They’d just lock me up. So I hid the body and spend the day diffusing the haze of trauma that buzzed through me. Then I had to kill Him the next day. I thought it was different people back then. He comes with different bodies. Always a man. Always with that grin. But the bodies are always different.
It wasn’t until that fourth or fifth day that I realised this wasn’t going away. That this thing. This Him, would be coming for me each and every day. And I would have to go on killing Him each morning. I don’t know how. I don’t know why. Almost a year has passed since then. There must be over three hundred corpses in various stages of rot on that bridge. The mask keeps out the worst of the reek but not all. It infects my nostrils throughout the days.
I stay awake from midnight until the dawn. Then I head back down the tracks, cross them, and head up the incline onto the rusted bridge. I put on my mask, unpack my axe, and wait for Him.
Paddy Dobson
17th December 2021