Matt Shaw: A Sting in the Tale: A Collection of Short Stories

“What? No!” She screamed and pushed past him, running up the stairs. Seconds later and a door slammed shut.

“Shit,” Esslee mumbled as three officers rushed after her. He followed.

“What room is this?” one of the officers asked as they crowded around a door.

“That’s the bathroom.”

“Is there anything in there she can hurt herself — or us — with? Do you have any firearms in the house?” the officer continued. His words immediately proving he thought of her as dangerous as opposed to mentally unwell.

“It’s the bathroom for Christ’s sake and — no — we don’t own a gun…”

One of the officers was knocking on the door, asking for her to open it. He didn’t sound kind. He sounded authoritative. This was not a man who was messing around but rather one who sounded as though he often got what he wanted.

“She’s under a lot of pressure at the moment,” Esslee explained. He started to tell them about their own missing child again — a story the officers had heard already — but no one was listening. That much was very obvious. All they wanted was to get into the bathroom and take her away before she hurt anyone else.

They all stopped at the sound of something smashing on the other side of the door. Esslee immediately pushed past the officers and started banging on the door, “Jade? Jade? What are you doing? Talk to me! Honey?!” She didn’t answer though. He could just hear her crying.

One of the officers — a large man — pulled Esslee out of the way. His colleague — without hesitation — kicked the door as hard as he could. The wood splintered around the lock and the door swung open. Esslee could see Jade standing there with bloodied hands. The mirror on the medicine cabinet was broken, shattered into pieces — some big and some small. One of the bigger pieces was in Jade’s hand. Tears still streaming down her face. The officers didn’t take the sight as one of a woman needing help but instead looked upon it as a woman about to threaten them. They pulled their weapons and started shouting for her to drop the glass shard. She was not listening though. She just was standing there, shaking her head and sobbing uncontrollably.

“I want to see my son,” she screamed suddenly. She raised the glass shard and plunged it into the side of her neck. The officers screamed for her to stop and lowered their weapons — rushing forward, finally seeing that she was a woman needing help. Esslee screamed for her to stop too but she didn’t. Before the first officer managed to get to her she’d dragged the glass across her neck, a jettison of blood pouring from the slit she’d cut. She fell into the first officer’s arms, gagging and choking, as the glass shard fell to the floor — shattering into many tiny pieces.

The third officer held Esslee back as the other two tried to save the poor woman’s life. One man held her throat, trying to stem the flow of blood but the artery was severed. There was no stopping it and all they could do was watch as Jade slipped away from them. Her final sight — not one of her son welcoming her — but one of panicked and upset faces desperate for her to hold on.

Within the week — when all preparations had been made — there was a funeral service. Not many people attended as most were too upset that they hadn’t been able to help her. They hadn’t seen what was coming on the horizon — that bastard black dog that had plagued Jade for her whole life and, at various points, tried to make her do stupid things had finally beaten her — driving her crazy in the process.

That day two caskets were buried in the local cemetery. In one of the caskets was the body of Jade — fixed up as best as possible by the undertakers running the service. The second casket was empty with the exception of Aidan’s favourite teddy bear and a small colour photograph of him and his mother sharing happier times; both of them smiling, both of them loving life.

Esslee watched as the caskets were lowered into the earth. He wiped a tear from his eye and hoped that — if Aidan was up there somewhere — they’d find each other.

T H E E N D

Kirsty’s last shift for a fortnight — working the tills at Tesco — was over with. Her bath was almost full to the brim with a Lush bath product fizzing away close to the surface of the warm water. Her husband, Dylan, was downstairs fetching her a much needed cup of tea. Her favourite pyjama bottoms were hanging over the radiator, ready to slip into as soon as she was dry from her bath, and 90s music filled the room — blasting from the small, yet powerful, speaker on the back of her iPhone. Tomorrow — six o’clock in the morning to be precise — she would be flying off to an exotic climate for some much needed rest and relaxation upon the sandy beaches of what most would call a paradise island and yet — despite all of this — she wasn’t feeling happy.

She leaned forward in the bath and reached for the taps. A quick twist and she stopped the flow of water before laying back down. The water swished back with her and splashed over the top of her neck and shoulders. She reached for her phone, taking it from the side, and killed the music. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes momentarily, trying to enjoy the peace and quiet. Ethan — her twelve year old son — was busy blasting through another level of Assassin’s Creed in his bedroom and Dylan was pottering about in the kitchen; hopefully searching out one of the many takeaway menus they had lying around to save her from having to cook when she got out of the bath. Despite her surroundings, the fact she was on holiday, and the obvious tranquility in the house though Kirsty was finding it hard to relax properly, or even be happy. Yes, she wanted to go on holiday. Yes, she was happy to be off work for a fortnight. And — yes — she enjoyed the quiet moments offered by the house but none of that helped to distract her from the thought that — tomorrow — Kirsty was going to have to board a plane…

There was a little knock on the bathroom door before it opened. Dylan was standing there with a cup of tea in his hands, “Here you go,” he said. He walked in and put it on the side.

“Thank you, manface!” If you had asked Kirsty, she couldn’t tell you why she called Dylan ‘manface’. It had just been one of those names — said once in jest — that seemed to stick. At first it bugged him a little but — now — he was so used to it he barely registered it and at six foot three, there were worse names he could have been called — such as ‘lanky’.

“And I’ve ordered a Chinese,” he said as he about turned back to the door.

“Our last meal, a special treat indeed!” Kirsty said.

Dylan froze momentarily before turning back to her, “Are you still stressing about tomorrow?” He sighed. He knew she hated to fly but they both wanted a holiday and — if you wanted a nice holiday — that tended to mean you needed to get on some kind of aircraft, if only for a few hours. Neither of them wanted a holiday in this country, although it would have been easier as it meant no flying and they would have been able to take Willow, their three year old labrador, as opposed to leaving her in the kennels for a couple of weeks. “How many more times? It is perfectly safe to fly.”

“Oh really?” Kirsty sat up, causing another mini-wave to roll to the other end of the tub and splash against the taps and bathroom wall. “Perfectly safe?”

“Well — yes — pretty much. I mean — yes — accidents can happen but they are few and far between.”

“What about that plane that got shot done over the Ukraine? Did you know they blamed that on the Russians? Yep. Apparently they aimed their anti-aircraft guns up in the sky and blew that plane to smithereens.” she said. “A commercial jet that — for some reason — they took a dislike to and, for the people onboard, that was that. Gone. Game over. Dead. No more. Thanks and see you later.”