The Darkest Day

The Hunter

The Enemy

The Game

Better Off Dead

Table of Contents

• Also by Tom Wood
  
   
  
• COPYRIGHT
  
   
  
• ONE
  
   
  
• TWO
  
   
  
• THREE
  
   
  
• FOUR
  
   
  
• FIVE
  
   
  
• SIX
  
   
  
• SEVEN
  
   
  
• EIGHT
  
   
  
• NINE
  
   
  
• TEN
  
   
  
• ELEVEN
  
   
  
• TWELVE
  
   
  
• THIRTEEN
  
   
  
• FOURTEEN
  
   
  
• FIFTEEN
  
   
  
• SIXTEEN
  
   
  
• SEVENTEEN
  
   
  
• EIGHTEEN
  
   
  
• NINETEEN
  
   
  
• TWENTY
  
   
  
• TWENTY-ONE
  
   
  
• TWENTY-TWO
  
   
  
• TWENTY-THREE
  
   
  
• TWENTY-FOUR
  
   
  
• TWENTY-FIVE
  
   
  
• TWENTY-SIX
  
   
  
• TWENTY-SEVEN
  
   
  
• TWENTY-EIGHT
  
   
  
• TWENTY-NINE
  
   
  
• THIRTY
  
   
  
• THIRTY-ONE
  
   
  
• THIRTY-TWO
  
   
  
• THIRTY-THREE
  
   
  
• THIRTY-FOUR
  
   
  
• THIRTY-FIVE
  
   
  
• THIRTY-SIX
  
   
  
• THIRTY-SEVEN
  
   
  
• THIRTY-EIGHT
  
   
  
• THIRTY-NINE
  
   
  
• FORTY
  
   
  
• FORTY-ONE
  
   
  
• FORTY-TWO
  
   
  
• FORTY-THREE
  
   
  
• FORTY-FOUR
  
   
  
• FORTY-FIVE
  
   
  
• FORTY-SIX
  
   
  
• FORTY-SEVEN
  
   
  
• FORTY-EIGHT
  
   
  
• FORTY-NINE
  
   
  
• FIFTY
  
   
  
• FIFTY-ONE
  
   
  
• FIFTY-TWO
  
   
  
• FIFTY-THREE
  
   
  
• FIFTY-FOUR
  
   
  
• FIFTY-FIVE
  
   
  
• FIFTY-SIX
  
   
  
• FIFTY-SEVEN
  
   
  
• FIFTY-EIGHT
  
   
  
• FIFTY-NINE
  
   
  
• SIXTY
  
   
  
• SIXTY-ONE
  
   
  
• SIXTY-TWO
  
   
  
• SIXTY-THREE
  
   
  
• SIXTY-FOUR
  
   
  
• SIXTY-FIVE
  
   
  
• SIXTY-SIX
  
   
  
• SIXTY-SEVEN
  
   
  
• Advertisement
  
   
  

Alan Beaumont stepped through the automatic door of his office building and down the broad steps to the pavement. The sky above DC was a monochrome of grey cloud. A light rain fell, but a few drops of water were not going to bother him. Damp clothes? Whatever. Messed-up hair? He had no hair to ruin. That was long gone. Nothing had helped retain those once-magnificent curls. Not pills. Not potions.
Nada
.

He used a thumb and middle finger to snap open his Zippo lighter and lit the cigarette perched between his lips. Smoking was perhaps the only real pleasure he had.

He watched the downtown traffic and the pedestrians pass by, all miserable. Good. He didn’t like anyone to be happy but himself. It wasn’t pure selfishness. Joy was a zero sum game. There just wasn’t enough to go around.

He sucked in a big lungful of smoke and held it in as he closed his eyes and tilted his face to the sky, exhaling as the sporadic raindrops exploded on his cheeks, forehead and eyelids.

‘You look like you’re enjoying that.’

He opened his eyes and looked at the speaker. A young woman stood nearby, dressed in a long cream raincoat, hat and brown leather gloves. She was pale and tall – almost as tall as Beaumont, with wavy blonde hair. Her lipstick was bright red. A bit too much for the office. A bit too suggestive. She must be new then. One of the many drones that serviced the company, he assumed. He had no doubt walked past her a hundred times or more by now. She would know his name, his job, and maybe even how he liked his coffee, but to Beaumont she was no one.

He shrugged and turned away. He was in no mood to chit-chat, least of all with someone whose face he didn’t need to recognise. She was a looker, sure; lots of real estate in the bust and hips, but he wanted to savour his damn cigarette alone, as God intended.

‘I used to smoke myself,’ the woman said, not taking the hint. It sounded like she was from the South. Probably some state Beaumont had been lucky enough never to soil his soles on.

‘That right?’ Beaumont felt obliged to say.

He edged away from her. It wasn’t rude, he told himself. The young woman had intruded on his solitary time.

She did so again, stepping around Beaumont until they were face to face.

‘I smoked for maybe ten years,’ the young woman continued, undeterred. ‘Two packs of Marlboros a day. I had a cigarette in my hand all day long. I started young, you see. I managed to kick it though. Now, I’ll allow myself the occasional cigar. Better than nothing, right? But oh, how I miss a real cigarette.’

She was smiling, but in a sad way, and Beaumont began to feel sorry for her. She reminded him of his daughter.

‘You’re new, aren’t you?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Is it that obvious?’

She smiled in a manner that said the office coven had not welcomed her with open arms. He saw her loneliness and had a strange flash of the future, when he was an old man a couple of decades from now, fat and divorced with a daughter and a son who didn’t bother to call him because he had never bothered to take them to the park. Would he be so in need of human contact that he would ignore a stranger’s efforts to cold-shoulder him, because any interaction was better than none?

‘How are you settling in?’

She wrinkled her nose and shrugged.

‘That bad, eh?’

She didn’t answer.

‘Say,’ Beaumont began, ‘would you like a smoke? For old time’s sake. It’ll make you feel better.’

He forced himself to smile.

The young woman’s face lit up as if she’d won the lottery and Beaumont felt even sadder for her. He rooted for the packet.

‘No,’ the woman said, holding up a palm. ‘I’d better not have one. I’ll only start again. One’s never enough, is it? But I wouldn’t say no to a single drag, if you don’t mind.’

She gestured at Beaumont’s precious cigarette. Beaumont looked at it too. He wasn’t a sharing kind of guy, even if there was a hot chick half his age involved. He glanced up at the tall young woman. He looked at her bright red lips. She didn’t appear to be sick. She didn’t look like she was carrying some flesh-eating retrovirus. The hope in the woman’s eyes tore down any resistance Beaumont had, and reminded him that he wasn’t quite as soulless as he’d thought.

There was no reason not to, but if a man was asking to share his cigarette he would tell the fool to take a hike. But it wasn’t a man asking.

Maybe if he let her put his cigarette between her lips she would let him…

He offered the cigarette and the young woman took it between two fingers of her left hand. She brought it up and set it between her red lips with surgical precision, puckering around the filter and tensing them, but she did not inhale. Beaumont watched, entranced.

‘That was close,’ the young woman said, taking the cigarette away, but this time with her right hand. ‘I almost caved.’

Before handing the cigarette back, she rolled the filter between her gloved fingertips for a moment.

‘Holding it was enough,’ the woman continued, as Beaumont watched.

‘Your choice,’ he said, taking the precious cigarette back.

A trace of lipstick was smeared on the filter. He took a drag.

The young woman watched him, something in her eyes. She removed the gloves and placed them into a pocket of her raincoat. She held out a palm to catch raindrops and when her fingers were wet wiped them across her lips several times. She took a handkerchief from a pocket and used it to wipe her lips clean.

‘Washing away the taste?’ Beaumont asked, a little aroused.

The woman smiled at him, but said nothing. She looked pleased with herself. Smug, even.

‘So,’ Beaumont began. ‘What’s your name?’

She didn’t answer. She just stared.

‘Hello? Anyone home?’ Beaumont waved a hand before her face and laughed.

No response. No wonder she was having a hard time fitting in when she was bat-shit crazy.

‘Right,’ he said with a big exhale, erection retreating, and regretting allowing this weirdo to intrude into his private time. He felt the annoyance building inside him, anger making him feel hot despite the cool rain pattering on his scalp.

‘All right, honey. I’ve humoured you long enough. You can stop eyeballing me and be on your way. There’s a good girl.’

‘Soon,’ the woman said, staring.

‘Whatever.’

Beaumont turned away, loosening his tie. Damn it, he was really fucking wound up now. His heart was hammering. He reminded himself never to feel sorry for anyone again. Ever. People were scum, always looking to take advantage.

He tried to swallow but his throat felt like sandpaper. This pissed him off even more. The smoke made him cough. Face red, he tossed the cigarette away. Was it sweat he felt on his forehead amongst the raindrops?

He turned to head back into the office, only to see the young woman still standing there.

‘Haven’t you fucked off yet?’

‘Soon,’ the woman said again.

‘Listen, you’ve ruined my “me time”, so why don’t you —’

Beaumont felt faint and reached out a hand to brace against the woman’s shoulder.

‘Are you all right?’ the woman asked, without sympathy. ‘You’ve gone terribly pale.’

‘I…’

Beaumont had no strength in his legs. If he wasn’t standing straight up with his hand on the woman’s shoulder, he wouldn’t have been able to stay on his feet. His mouth filled with water.

‘Oh,’ the young woman said. ‘That can sometimes happen if one’s constitution is weak. I think we can probably blame the cigarettes for that.’

She stepped away from Beaumont and eased him down to his knees. Beaumont threw up. He watched vomit and blood sluice away in the rain.

‘What… did you do to me?’

‘I can’t claim all the credit, much as I would like to. My chemist is quite the genius, no?’

Beaumont didn’t answer. He toppled forward, face first, into the pool of vomit and blood. His breathing was shallow, his pulse weak and irregular.

‘I’ll be on my way then,’ the young woman said. ‘Adieu.’

The last thing Beaumont saw was his extinguished cigarette, lying on the pavement, soaking up the rain.

The tall woman walked away while Beaumont was taking his final breaths on the pavement. When she had passed beyond the wide-angle lens of the security camera overlooking the entranceway’s exterior, she removed her cream overcoat, turned it inside out in a practised move that took five seconds to complete, and slipped her arms into the fire-engine red coat it had become.

Half a block away her patent leather handbag was dumped into a rubbish bin. She dropped the blonde wig into another bin at the end of the street.

Five efficient wipes with a solvent-soaked cotton pad removed the pale make-up from her face. The blue contacts came out next. The clip-on earrings followed. Pads from her bra joined them. As did ones from her hips. She stopped and lifted one foot to her ass. She reached down and twisted off the detachable four-inch heel from her shoe. She did the same with her other foot.

Less than a minute after Beaumont’s heart had stopped, she boarded the 1115 bus to Arlington looking like a different person.