Angels and Rain

After Aciay it was Feadie Dylanger. I suppose that it would have had about the same effect on me as
Aciay’s disappearance, had I not known Feadie since I was four and had he not been my closest
friend. Not a night goes by where I don’t lie awake in bed I recall that dreadful evening. I go through all the details and possibilities in my head. What would it have been like if things were different? What if he had not had such a strong sense of justice? What if I had just been more careful? More modest?

Less like me?

That the worst thing. Despite what everyone says, despite my own desire to hide from the truth, I was,
in every way, responsible for his death.

It was just after I had started working at that damned pizza place. He had been there for a few
months already and was familiar with all of Sally’s little ways. I’d managed to make a total mess of
one of my orders, and Sally was already pissed three ways towards the sun because the future of this
‘restaurant’, her pearl, pride and joy, lay delicately in the balance. She’s too short to physically harm
anyone, unless she bit their ankles, but she has the sharpest tongue which gives way to razor words
every time she parts her lips. Despite myself, my will to be strong, I felt my exterior crumbling and
dissolve into the salty tears that hung and pricked at the back of my eyes.

And like a true friend, Feadie had got it into his feathery head that I was somehow not wholly
responsible for the vegan disaster. He just saw me. That look on his face as he grabbed her by her
shoulders and wheeled her round to face him will always haunt me.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with her?”

Sally turned around and looked up had him (She was a dwarf even to my proportions) and flipped that
bloody bob over her shoulder with her hands on her hips. “Dylanger, she is absolutely incompetent! I
told her quite clearly what to do, it’s written down and if she can’t follow or complete the simplest of
instructions, then it’s no fault of mine! I am not having this sort of stupidity in my kitchen!”

“I’m not saying it isn’t her fault”-He shot me a pitiful glance-“but you have no right to start effing and
blinding at her for a simple mistake, God, you wonder why this place is short staffed, you’re poison!”

Sally had swelled up to epic proportions and looked like she was due to suddenly explode if you stuck
a fork in her side. I had a sudden metal image of her flying round the room like a balloon. The thought
made me giggle uncontrollably.

“Feardorcha Dylanger, you have no right to march in here and tell me how to do my job!”

“But I have every right to stop you assaulting a member of staff, especially a friend.”

She looked daggers at him. “Feardorcha Dylanger, as of this moment, you are officially…”

She never got any further. Feadie already had his coat on and was heading out the door. He span
round on his heel at the last minute to face her. “And you can’t expect to see me here any longer. I will
not work for a woman that has no consent for her staff.”

With that, he turned, coat flying out behind him and, to applause, walked out the door, taking care to
slam it behind him.

And that was the last anyone ever saw of Feadie, my Feadie.

I tore into the black night after I’d ripped myself away from those terrible eyes, nearly upending some
poor man walking his dog and tripping over the root of an inconsiderate oak tree. I felt like standing
and giving the stars a good piece of my mind, making me feel secure. Evil two-timing bastards, I was
better off in London. No place like London.

At night, you feel you can run so much faster. Not that I was exactly slow to start off with, being small
has its benefits, it has to be said, but now I felt as if I was flying. Fear, like a choir of the screaming
dead, hounded my every move. The slithery cobbles eluded me in the lamplight, but I could keep my
footing which was a definite first for me. I was fuelled on fright, high on it, adrenalin making me soar
among the clouds. The image of those amber orbs hanging there had burned into my retinas.
Whenever I shut my own eyes I saw the other, inhuman pair stare back at me. Although, as I could
think clearly and the initial shock had worn off, hadn’t Aciay’s monster had green eyes? Vampire
eyes? That thing wasn’t a vampire. Vampires are gorgeous, creatures of the night from a Dickensian
world. This was from the wildest nightmare of the most diseased mind. I gasped and held night air
within my lungs before expelling it back and forcing myself onwards.

By the time I arrived on my doorstep gasping like a fish and bent double trying to get my breath back I
was in a state. Images of black cloaks and yellow wolven eyes kept circulating within my head. A tiny,
paranoid part of me knew I was being hunted.

I hate this town. You can’t move for vampires and werewolves and bloody gas mask things. I had
loved it at first, the mystery of it all. The warnings to stay off the street at night and the fact that it could
all get so lonely. I could sit in my garden for hours and never hear a single car. Now the loneliness
just scared me. The howls and shrieks of agony that came at night on a full moon. At that moment, I
would have given anything to see someone walking down the wide Edwardian pavement towards me.
I wouldn’t even care if it were a vampire to be honest. At least they were quick.

Yet I didn’t have the Telling.

I raised my head and looked quickly from one end of my street to the other, the wet stone bathed in
yellowy light from the six mock Victorian gas lamps. There was nothing coming. I gave a small sigh of
relief and straightened up, dusting the gravel from my doorstep off my tights. At least it hadn’t followed
me.

I don’t know what made me look up to my bedroom window. You know that feeling where,
subconsciously, you feel you should do something? On impulse? That’s what happened then. What I
saw almost paralyzed me. A tall silhouette with the blackened face of a skull, or was it some kind of
mask?

It was in my house.

I didn’t pause to think how it got in or whether or not my keys were in my bag. I didn’t even think how it
had got there before me. I lived right on the outskirts of town (I hate busy places-not that Monroeville
can be described as busy exactly) and I’d run all the way here. My breath caught in my throat as my
lungs stopped working. My legs felt weak and jelloid. I almost felt like throwing up. Tears stung the
back of my eyes.

I felt my vocal chords work against my will. My mouth opened and words spilled.

“Kiaity!”

Panic voice. Throat spasms. I’d been taught this.

“Kiaity!”

She’s not coming for you, Helaynia. She’ll never come for you. Tell yourself that.

Get away slowly and make sure you don’t make another noise. I was all in black, so I wouldn’t stand
out too horrifically against my night backdrop. The soft orange glow of the streetlamp didn’t give out
much light and that that it did was fairly comforting. It didn’t burn my eyes.

“Kia…”

Kiaity was back at her house. I hadn’t seen her since I left school.

Tell yourself that.

“Kiaity!”

A small sob came from my throat. The silhouette was still there, unmoving, but still there. I didn’t know
what to do at all. I didn’t know what I wanted to. If this were this time last year I’d have run over to see
Feadie for help. There was no-one I knew well enough to stay with here now. The only person I was-or
had been-very close to was Kiaity. But I couldn’t go there.