Anger continued to swell up inside Michael like a balloon being slowly filled with air. He was on
the verge of yelling but knew that would solve absolutely nothing, particularly since there was no
one to hear him scream. Instead he just sat, glass of whiskey in hand looking out the window.
The wedding DVD had long since been stopped, the album closed and his sadness for his
wife"s recent death was manifesting as hatred for every person in the entire village of Kirkfale,
especially the headmaster.
The dark clouds looked heavy as they hovered over the entire village, most of which Michael
could see from his panoramic floor-to-ceiling front window. The rain that fell from each cloud
pounced on everything, smothering it, saving nothing. He could not remember such a bad night
since moving to Scotland. That should never have happened. I should have put my foot down.
I had a good job, a good house, a good life…then. He screwed his eyes to stop him thinking ill
of Mary; he loved her with all his heart and knew his life would never be the same without his
soul-mate.
His laptop blipped. He ignored it, so caught up in his emotional rollercoaster that he had no
interest in its message. Mary, what am I going to do? A tear emerged from his left eye and
found its way over the contours of his cheek and reached his chin before forming a drip, which
then fell into his glass of whiskey. I have to get out of here. I have to leave this place. There
are too many memories.
He stood from his chair and walked to the cabinet. He grabbed the half-filled whiskey bottle
and returned to the chair. Setting the bottle on the coffee table next to the opened laptop, after
pouring another double shot, Michael took the glass and swirled the whiskey round. He hated
whiskey without ice, but since there was no method of making ice quickly, the drinks would have
to do without the „rocks". He looked up at the laptop and quickly read the email titles. Having
checked his emails earlier and deleted anything that pertained to Kirkfale out of spite, a new
arrival with the subject, „Kirkfale 1910", jumped out at him. He deleted it immediately without
opening it. He had had enough; he had already decided to leave Kirkfale behind. His wife was
dead. He was now alone. There was nothing left tying him here. For all I care, Kirkfale and
that bloody headmaster can go to hell.
The laptop blipped again. He downed the whiskey.
***
He opened his eyes unaware that he had drifted off. Licking his lips he realised he was thirsty,
too much whiskey, his head began to pound like a drum, not enough whiskey. He rubbed his
eyes to clear the sleep and yawned, stretching his arms and legs as far as he could. He
grabbed the glass and downed the remainder of whiskey. Placing the glass back on the table,
Michael"s eye caught sight of four unopened emails with the last one in capital letters:
KIRKFALE MASSACRE – READ!!!
He deleted them immediately. He was passed caring. As soon as the messages
disappeared however, another appeared, saying the same as the last one. He was about to
click the delete link when his mobile began to signal a message received. He did not believe in
coincidences, but that spooked him a little.
Grabbing his phone, he sighed at the absence of an ID number and then read, “Open email,
look at image, your friend.” He blinked and shook his head in disbelief. He continued looking at
the text message for a few moments, trying desperately to make sense of it. Who the hell are
you? He looked at the unopened message, but did nothing. “I don"t believe in coincidences.
Whoever the hell you are, how did you get my details?” As he decided what to do, he moved
the cursor over the email link and delete link on his laptop.
He poured another glass of whiskey, and downed it in one. He blinked and coughed before
wiping his mouth and placing the empty glass back on the table. His throat felt warm and his
breath was momentarily taken from him, but it forced himself to focus. He looked at the text
again, as if to confirm what he saw, perhaps to fortify his own belief, he could not be sure and
turned back to the laptop and clicked the email link.
An image appeared of a group of people circling an individual in the centre holding a sword.
He identified the clothes from the early part of the 20th century and the long, slender sword, a
traditional Scottish Warrior sword he guessed, the name of which eluded him, but he could not
think of any reason why anyone would send it to him. He checked again, the sender was
anonymous. Convenient! He had no idea what to make of the image and was about to close
the laptop when he received another text. What the…? Something made him feel uneasy as
he read his phone:
Img 1910, C any1 U knw?
He concentrated for a while, he had not got used to text language, as much as Mary had.
He smirked at remembering the times when she text him using text language and he found it
hard to decipher. At times he had to ask a kid from his class to translate much to his
embarrassment. “Image 1910, c…” he thought for a second, “Oh, see anyone you…” He tried
thinking of something that would fit the last few letters but came up blank every time. I hate text
language. He chose to forget the last word and looked back at the image.
“Image 1910, see anyone…” He concentrated hard looking at the image, starting with the
central figure holding the sword. He could not think of how he would know anyone back in
1910, but everything up until now had been too bizarre not to continue.
He froze.
His breathing stopped momentarily, or at least he thought it did. He consciously felt his
throat and lips become dry. The central figure gradually stood out from the rest, not because of
the sword, not because the person was standing in the middle slaughtering everyone else, but
something far more obvious. His eyes slowly followed the figure"s cloak from his head to the
ground and…“No! It can"t be!” He shook his head and squashed his eyes with the heel of his
hands. What his mind was telling him was preposterous, absolutely ridiculous. The very idea of
the figure being the headmaster was ludicrous. I need sleep.
He rubbed his eyes with clenched fists. The image seemed to have burned itself on the
back of his eyelids and he could see it even with his eyes firmly closed. He opened them again
and pushed the laptop back and stood. Before long the urge to pace was too great and he took
several steps towards the kitchen door and back again, running through everything he had
witnessed and discovered with every step.
After pacing several times he knelt down to the table, turned the laptop and opened the
internet and clicked on a bookmark he saved earlier on. When the page came up he scrolled
down to what he was looking for and read, “Indeed, over the centuries, there have been many
sightings of a figure dressed in a black robe that trails to the ground. The most famous sighting
was in 1910 in the village of Kirkfale, in the valleys of the Grampian Mountains. It is said that
this mysterious black-robed figure slaughtered the entire village except for one and then burned
the village to the ground.” A million things raced through his mind, quickly trying to put the
pieces together, trying to ignore his logical intelligence as it screamed how stupid the whole
thing sounded.
He looked back at the image and just concentrated on the man in the middle and for the first
time he realised his facial features. His hair was grey and short and his face wrinkly. His nose
was nothing special and was dwarfed, not in size but in presence, by his red eyes. Even though
the picture was older that Michael, he could not help but think the eyes were looking straight at
him.
His phone beeped signifying another text message.
“Check out woman on left,
Any1 U know? She’s alive!
“Woman on left?” He shrugged and returned to the picture and searched for a woman on
the left and spotted several, or at least from his copy, it looked like several, a few, he decided,
could be wearing kilts. After scrutinising all the people on the left and almost resigning himself
to how ridiculous the whole thing had become, a face of a young woman popped out from
between two heads. He could have sworn she had not been there moments before, but he
knew that was impossible, since the picture was painted several decades ago.
The face of the woman was much smaller than the others since it was being largely covered
by the bodies of the other people. Michael magnified the section of the painting and waited for it
to refocus. Seconds later he jumped back and continued frantically crawling backwards until his
head hit an object. His eyes did not move from the magnified section of the picture and neither
did he blink. He felt his heart thump in his chest but he ignored it. He froze for several minutes
before slowly moving closer to laptop and picture, as if that would make the picture clearer, “No
it can"t be, that"s too old…” he whispered.
The phone signalled another message but it did not register in Michael"s mind, instead he
was staring, too intently, at the woman on the photo of the Kirkfale Massacre in 1910. Total
confusion reigned. The mass of alcohol would not have helped, although now, he needed more
to grasp what had just transpired. With all his agony, frustration and disbelief, he only uttered
one word…
“Mary!”
