Ever since she’d moved into her new home with her son Russ, Dianne had been passing a homeless woman, known only as Lady Death. It was impossible to avoid her as the alternate route to her work had been blocked off by road works for months. This woman was insane, clearly. At least a bit eccentric as she often rambled about the unholiness of the world, the land, and the people in it. Every day, Dianne ignored Lady Death, until today. Today she had the misfortune of tripping over her untied shoelace, of which she’d neglected this morning as Russ had lost his favourite toy, a rabbit, not 20 minutes before they would have to leave to get him to school. As Dianne came up from tying her shoelace, she was confronted by the dead serious quivering face of Lady Death. “You!” She drawls, glaring into Dianne’s frightened eyes. “Two days, she warns. Three hours. Forty-six minutes.” Dianne backs away slowly, turns around once the distance feels safe, and continues her brisk walk to the grocery store where she works.
Later that day she mentions the incident to Audrey, her coworker. Audrey suggests the possibility of truth in superstitious claims. After all, her horoscope this week had correctly predicted her promotion. Dianne is dumbfounded, a little disappointed in the woman she thought she knew better. “This is insane! What does Lady Death think is going to happen. How ridiculous is she going to look when in “the end,” nothing happens?” As irritating as this encounter had been, to Dianne, Lady Death was only a woman, an elderly one at that. There is no such thing as clairvoyance. Lady Death was eccentric, nothing more. What harm could she do!
***
Dianne is slipping further into the abyss. She’s been driving for days. Far from home, she can’t go back now, not that she would want to. There’s nothing for her there. She’s on a winding road. Driving is difficult, as she struggles to see clearly through the rain. An old tunnel, where the rail line had once been the only connection between Waihi and Paeroa. Across the gorge, and through the hillside, the majority of cargo was of gold rather than people, as Waihi functioned as an old mining town. She’d brought Russ here about a year ago. They had stopped on the way to see family to explore. While Russ ran through the tunnel, with his Batman themed torch, spoke of the ghosts of old townspeople and the trains that would travel through on some ethereal plane. He was beautiful. The complete unrestrained magnificence of a child’s mind baffled her. He invited her to see the world in a way that no one else could. His father was gone, but she had him. Nothing else mattered. Her existence was absolute. She wanted to go back to that place, but it felt different now. Things were different. She was different.
The storm outside, is torrential. Rain coming down in hard recurrent sheets. Its getting darker now. From the empty seat next to her, she grabs his toy, the rabbit. She exits the car and slams the door shut. The rain doesn’t bother her. She can barely feel anything now. What could the rain do to her that circumstance hadn’t done already. She opens the boot of the car to grab a torch, which luckily contains two working AA batteries. She lifts the false bottom of the boot to retrieve an old bottle of whisky from the space normally reserved for a space saver. She hadn’t touched alcohol since before she’d had Russ. Despite being clean for almost six years now, she’d kept a reserve, in preparation for a crisis she never counted on actually having. She shoves the bottle in her loose jacket pocket, locks the car, and begins short walk to the tunnel entrance.
Dianne lurks in the dark chill of the tunnel. As grief entices her further in, she neglects to turn on her torch. It smells of damp. Water drips off the ceiling onto her forehead. Not knowing entirely when or how she became what she is now, she is compelled further into the tunnel. She slips, toy still in hand. She feels for the wall beside her, then slides down the cold wet muck of the concrete wall onto the floor.
Not bothering to get back up, she scours her pocket for that whiskey. He’s gone. She opens the bottle and takes a swig. She recalls watching as he was lost in her arms. He seemed to sleep, as thought he might wake, his eyes would flutter and the light would return to his once vibrant green eyes. Yet still he lay, limp. So peaceful, calm, but empty. He was gone in an instant. Now nothing more than a shell, a corpse that resembles what was once her boy.
She opens her eyes to the sting of a bright light. It burns, a flashlight. “Hey, who’s there?” Not entirely impressed with her new found company, she’s embarrassed. Covering her eyes in response to the persistent florescent sting, she was protecting more than just her eyes. Like she needed yet another person to see how far she’d fallen. She’s responsible, she knows it. They all must know it. She’s sure he can see it on her face. She couldn’t protect him. There were signs, signs that she’d ignored. “I’m fine…don’t worry, I’m not going to vandalise the place.”
“Didn’t think you were, you don’t look the type. I was passing by and saw a car with no one around…I was worried someone might’ve had a flat tyre.”
Dianne doesn’t respond, she can barely think to move let alone conjure an excuse or hold up a conversation. “Are you lost Ma’am…I can call someone…” Sitting in the cold, the wet, still clutching onto Russ’s toy. She takes another swig. The man leaves, presumably to inform the local police of an apparent mentally ill woman drinking in the tunnel. At this point, despite her initial embarrassment, she couldn’t care less.
Russ. Staring into the darkness, she can see him now. Russ is five and in the midst of playing hide and seek with his friends Darcy and Tim, they hear a knock at the door. “Quick! Hide! Your father is here.” Russ whispers loudly from the curtain to Tim, who like a deer caught in the headlights stands bewildered in the centre of the room. Not a second later the children are racing past Dianne towards the back door, and out onto the veranda. They stop for a moment, their gazes meet, their minds concordant. It goes without saying amongst these three that the only place worth hiding now is the undergrowth of the trees behind the shed.
Dianne had left the kitchen, upon opening the door she discovers it’s not Tim’s father as expected, but a policeman whose expression could only ever hope to bring bad news. She’s disconcerted. She knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t want to believe it. “What is it?” She asks this in a manner that is calm yet defensive. The man stays silent. She waits, hoping its nothing bad. Maybe he’s contemplating whether or not to tell her, but what could he possibly not want to be telling her. But just as he finally opens his mouth to speak, she’s knocked over as if an earthquake was tearing the ground beneath her apart. With a clap of thunder, her inner ears pulsed with an intense pain. Pulling a hand from her ear, she sees blood. She looks up to see the man shouting at her, although, she can hear nothing. He grabs her by the hand, urging her to flee with him. Of course it’s not safe here, but she doesn’t care. It must have been a bomb, and it came from her back yard… Russ! She needs to get to him, now! She clambers over a fallen support beam, she stumbles, pushing past the rubble to get to her son. She claws at the fallen roof of the shed. She smells charcoal, gunpowder, and what she’s hoping to god is not burning flesh. She represses the urge to throw up or pass out. Frantically, with an inhuman strength she manages to move her way through the pile of burning timber to her son.
***
Upon investigation, the remnants of a bomb were found. Traces, that lead back to Lady Death. Her real name was Robin Shavez. A widow who’d lost her husband to heart disease years before, later developing schizophrenia. Robin Shavez, a previous tenant, had been evicted from Dianne’s rental prior to her moving in. Nonetheless, motivated by either spite or the urge to destroy the land she believed to be cursed, this woman, despite appearances, hand planted a bomb that destroyed everything.
-Yours truely, catwritespoetry ❤ While this is far from perfect, a certainly enjoyed writing this one. I hope you enjoyed reading it, and thank you for sticking though to the end :3
Kitty's think space 
This was awesome 🙂 🙂
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