Never Look Back

Who: Mathias and Rachel
Where: Chicago
When: Late summer, 1995

It had been a home-coming to remember - he'd called her from the airport, the moment he'd landed and she'd been waiting for him by the door as his taxi pulled up. It felt like he'd never been away, even though he hadn't seen her in nearly four months and he'd pulled her into his arms in the doorway and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. Now, several hours later, they were sprawled in her bed as the sun set, naked and sated, Mathias half way through a cigarette as Rachel propped her head on his chest and ran her fingers through his hair and they talked about nothing and everything.

This was a world away from his life, he knew, and he always loved coming back here - why she waited for him, he had no idea. Maybe she didn't. Maybe she had other men in the long months he was gone. Somehow he didn't think so, but he didn't ask either and if she did, he didn't want to know. There was a long of not asking in their relationship. She didn't ask where he went, she didn't ask him not to leave, she didn't ask where his money came from. She took him on the terms he offered and he loved her for that. Their time spent together was little and rare, but it was intense and passionate and Mathias lived for those moments. He couldn't, wouldn't give up his other life, knowing that he'd go mad if he had to be caged into a 'normal' life, but these days, these scraps of something else he could have, were precious to him. She gave him the best of what he'd chosen to leave behind.

Eventually, though, he kissed her and rose from the bed, pulling on clothes, explaining that he had to go out for a few hours. Rachel, of course, tried to dissuade him - and, to give her credit - she succeeded for a while, but eventually he won out, dressing and standing. Promising to bring dinner back with him when he came. He closed the front door to the sound of her shouting a joking phrase to him and he headed for his car with a smile on his face.

The apartment was dark when he returned, but it was late - later than he'd anticipated. The bag of chinese food was in one hand as he walked to the door. He paused on the doorstep, stopping as he realised the door was open.

"Rachel?"

His voice echoed into the darkness as he pushed the door open, beading to place the food on the doorstep. He pulled out his knife as he crossed the threshold, calling for her again.

He was met only with silence.

There was a light, up ahead - coming from the bedroom - and he moved towards it slowly, cautious at every opening in the small apartment. He breathed, a strange, half-familiar scent filling his nostrils. One that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, his breath catch in his throat, but he wasn't stupid - the smell of blood was not going to make him rush in. He was cautious - that was why he was still alive. yetMathias's 'cautious' speed was somewhat faster than most and he moved quickly through the apartment, before he pushed open the bedroom door. And stopped.

The lights were on in the room - all of them - the bedroom a blaze of light out of the darkness of the rest of the apartment, the walls and sheets had always been white, but now thy were anything but. No, now they were speckled, splattered and streaked with blood, everywhere, covering the floors, the walls, even on the ceiling. And in the midst of it all hung Rachel - strung up and disemboweled above the bed, her yes open, her long dark hair matted with her own blood as she hung suspended by a system of ropes by her arms and legs, over the bed, her intestines hanging still further, curling on the former white sheets below.

And there, along one wall, daubed in rough letters was simply the word 'Mathias'.

It took his seconds to get her down, though he didn't make a neat job of it, slashing through the ropes that bound her so that she fell onto him, covering him with the blood he's seen elsewhere, with the detritus from her intestines as he and the body collapsed onto the bed. He didn't know at what point he started to cry, didn't realise he'd been begging for her not to be dead, telling her he was sorry, that this was all his fault, until sometime later when he realised he had his face buried in her blood-matted hair and was cradling her broken body to him.

He let her go, slowly, and the body rolled away, misshaped and ill formed where they'd obviously tortured her. Part of him hoped the damage had been done after death, but the realist in him knew very much that she'd been alive. At least when they'd started. Bruises around her mouth told the tale of how they'd gagged her so that she wouldn't wake the neighbours during her ordeal. He fumbled for his cell, dialling the number of the only person he could think of that he'd trust to help him right now - his mother.

The voice of the nineteen year old Mathias was chocked and broken as he related where he was, what had happened, to his mother down the phone line and her response was immediate and non-nonsense. He was to pick himself up and stop crying - crying wouldn't help anything. He could cry later if he really had to, but right now he was to stop it and think - couldn't think straight if you let emotion get in the way. She told him to leave her and to go and get himself a drink - water, whiskey, whatever he needed to clear his head. Take five minutes and then ring her back.

Always the good son, he'd done as she asked, drinking a couple of waters and several shots of whiskey before he felt stable enough to deal. He'd called her and done exactly what she said. Calling the police wasn't an option - this was clearly a revenge killing, this was because of something he'd done. She was very clear on that front - she didn't pull any punches. This was his fault and so he couldn't ring the police. He had to get rid of the body. Only then could he be safe. Any other way and he'd be implicated in something. She could guarantee it.

Mathias listened to her. Every step of the way he listened. All night he listened as she told him how to wrap the body, how to get rid of identifying marks so even if she was found, she couldn't be identified and so traced to him. He drove her out of the city, he dug a shallow grave and he buried her, before returning to the apartment and clearing everything out. It was just before dawn - he'd worked all night - the sun was about to rise when he lit the carefully prepared fire, the first licks of flame shooting their way up the inside of the building. It was an old apartment block, tiny really - two up, two down. Rachel had always said that they'd had trouble letting the other apartments - she probably didn't have any neighbours anyway. Mathias wanted to believe that. He would always believe that.

The building was totally alight as he drove off, headed into the night.

He didn't look back.