Escapade - Larry Stylinson (Re-write)

XXXVIII - October 12th, 1980

"Poppy! Poppy, look! Something's on the railway. Poppy!"
"I can hear you, Harry, don't shout. What is it?"
"A large black something. I think it's moving."
"Moving? I think you're right. Come, let's look. Diana, stay with me. Come."

The four children from Rosewood Gardens ran up to large black something. It was sprawled across the track's wooden bars, where it must have gone to rest sometime after eight A.M., which was when the latest train had rode past on its usual trip to Canvey Island.

As the children approached, they saw that the large black something was not as alive as they'd thought.

"Oh, it's just tarpaulin.." Diana said, swinging on her heels as she held Poppy's hand, "Fucking sucks. I thought it was an animal."

"The wind must have blown it here." Poppy replied, moving Diana away from Jack to stand in between her and Harry instead.

Jack noticed, and said nothing.

"Do we shift it?" Harry said, lighting a cigarette. He gave one to Jack and threw him the pack of matches. "Next train's due soon."

He walked up to it, bent down, and tugged the sheet. He paused. He stood up and walked back to Diana's side where he'd originally been standing.
"We should leave it.. Tell Mister Newitt, he'll shift it."

"Why? It's just a sheet." Poppy said, lifting her white dress so it wouldn't drag on the ground. She carefully stepped over the stones surrounding the tracks and bent over to pick up the corner of the tarpaulin. She paused. She stood up and turned around to the three children who watched her with blank expressions.

"There.. is a body beneath this sheet." She said, quite calmly. Her face had paled, however, and continued to do so when those green eyes of hers shifted to Jack, "Who is it?"

Jack's eyes glistened with interest, and a smile lifted the right corner of his mouth. He nodded to the sheet and raised an eyebrow as if to say, 'take a look'.

Poppy swallowed, glancing back to Harry and Diana who remained as still as before. She lifted the sheet. She did so slowly, at first, as though ripping a bandaid off, before giving it a hard tug to lessen the anguish.

The body beneath was indeed fresh, so much so that the limbs still flopped limply over the tracks; and the lips were still a rosy pink; and the eyes a baby blue. The body was the first the children had ever seen, and it stared back at them so they'd remember it.

"Jane?" Poppy said to herself. She looked to the three children standing beside one another with the same empty face. "This is my friend. My best friend. You killed my best friend."

Jack did not reply. Harry and Diana say nothing, either. They merely watched their eldest sister as she began to weep into the white handkerchief that her mother had given her.

"You killed my best friend!" She shouted, pointing at Jack, "It was you! You'll go to prison for it, I swear on my life that you will! You'll pay for it!"

Jack tilted his head to the side, putting the cigarette to his lips and inhaling deeply. He continued to watch the young woman scream and cry for a while until her suffering became more of a bore than the amusement it was previously. He walked up to her and the body, and she backed away—afraid. She quietened her whimpers, muffling them in the handkerchief as she looked at Jack with terrified and teary eyes.

Jack stepped over the body, leant down beside it and smiled at Harry who stood ahead of him with Diana. He leant down to Jane's face and kissed her on the lips.

Harry and Diana watched, still not a single flicker of expression, while Jack pried the girl's mouth open to kiss it eagerly. He took a knife from his pocket, smiled at Poppy, and sliced Jane's shirt and bra right off her. He did not stop there, prying hands all over the cold skin, removing clothes until the body was bare.