THE BEAST ─ five hargreeves

[ 001 ] good morning! you're going to die

I.

g o o d   m o r n i n g !  
y o u ' r e   g o i n g   t o   d i e

1993

—IT WAS SHORTLY BEFORE midnight on a chilly October evening, and swirls of mist obscured parts of the dark, narrow, tree-lined country road in South Africa.

Not far from Cape Town, a foghorn sounded its melancholy boom automatically every few moments. Occasionally, the distant barking of a dog could be heard, and the eerie call of a night bird.

What few houses there were along the road were about half a mile apart. On one of its darkest stretches, the road turned, passing a magnificent three-storied house standing well back from its spacious garden. It was at this spot that a car sat, parked in the very front.

The driver emerged from the vehicle, slamming the door behind him. He was a somewhat thickset, sandy-haired man of about thirty-five, with an outdoorsy look about him, dressed in a rough tweed suit and dark overcoat and wearing a hat.

Using a torch to find his way, he began to walk cautiously across the lawn towards the house. It was a magnificent eighteenth century building, cloaked in darkness as the man approached the french windows on that side of the edifice that faced him.

After turning back to look at the lawn he had crossed, and the road beyond it, he walked right up to the windows, ran his hands over the glass, and peered in. He knocked tentatively. There was no response and after a pause he knocked again much louder.

When he realized that his knocking was not having any effect, he then tried the handle. Immediately, the french window opened and he stumbled into a dark room.

Inside the room, he paused again, as though attempting to discern any sound or movement.

"Hello," he called. "Are you there, Lucille, dear? I'm home. Why are all the lights off?"

Flashing his torch around the well-furnished study, he saw a figure sitting in an armchair in the centre of the room.

"Lucille," he said, "you've put the little one to bed, I hope. It's very late. Oh, and I've left the window open. I'll close it—don't you worry."

Continuing to mumble apologetically as he moved, the man turned back to the windows, shut them, and closed the curtains. "Damn these windows. We ought to buy new ones, I think."

There was no reply.

"Are you asleep?" he asked, once again facing his wife.

Still receiving no answer, he shone the torch on the face of the chair's occupant, and then stopped abruptly. The woman in the armchair neither opened her eyes nor moved. As the man bent over her, touching her shoulder, the body slumped down into a huddled position.

"Oh God!" he cried out, releasing a choked sob.

He paused momentarily, as though undecided what to do next, and then, shining his torch around, found a light switch by the door and crossed the room to turn it on.

The lamp on a desk lit up. The man put his torch on the bureau and, looking with teary eyes at his wife, circled round. Noticing another door with a light switch by it, he went across and flicked it on—thus turning on the lamps on two occasional tables placed strategically around the room.

Then, taking a step towards the woman in the armchair, he gave start, noticing for the first time an attractive, white-haired woman of about thirty, wearing a cocktail dress and matching jacket. She stood by a book-lined recess on the opposite side of the room.