That Night

This story contains talk of death, mental health and alludes to violence.

It was nearing 5pm and the end of his shift, when he would finally be able to go home and take his badge off for the day, he was writing up the last incident report when someone came through the police station doors. The man who came in was dirty looking, he wore old faded blue jeans and a shirt that looked like it had once been white but was now smeared with dirt and he smelled badly. “I've come to report a crime.”

“What sort of crime?”

“A murder.”

At the word of murder he got up gathering his gun and essentials. “What happened, who is it?”

“I don’t know but you need to come now.”

“I'm coming, where did it happen?”

“Down on the beach.”

The thought of going down to the beach made Dan feel sick, he didn’t know why, he just knew that he wished it was anywhere else, but this was his job so he put aside that feeling and got going. “Ok we’ll drive down there now and you can show me where it is” 

They drove down in the police vehicle. It was Lorsen beach where the man directed him to, a quiet little beach in Hobart Tasmania, not so different from the beach where his parents lived and where he had grown up.

Dan stood on the sand and looked out towards the horizon, for a moment he thought he saw the green of some distant Islands but then it was gone again, he must have imagined it. It was eerily silent, no one else was there, it was just them and maybe the murderer he thought but he didn’t say it out loud, should he be calling for backup? No, he would see what had happened and what was going on first, this would be fine, he could handle it.

Dan hated the beach, maybe once a long time ago he had liked it but now the wind swept sand into his eyes and the sound of crashing waves put him on edge. He looked towards the man who’s name he had still not asked “Ok we’re here now, where is it? Where’s the body?”

“Just a bit further along the beach.”

They started to walk, up along the shore for what seemed like ages and just when he was going to ask if there was even anything there, there it was, he didn’t know how he didn’t see it sooner, it had creeped up on him, one minute there was endless stretches of beach and the next there was a body lying in the sand, it was just beyond the shore and it looked like the waves had already been washing over it.

It was a boy, his blond hair gone grey and dirty from the sea and he was still, cold and very obviously dead. He looked like he had been dead for quite some time, his skin had already gone grey and lost all colour the way that corpses did.

He was going to throw up or faint or something, why was he being like this? He had been doing this job for nearly twenty years and this was not the first time he had seen a dead body, it was not even the first time he had seen one this young.

He looked towards the man who was standing there and looking at the body in a remarkably calm way like he was simply accepting it all.

He wondered for a minute if the man was the killer and if he would be the next victim and end up washed on the beach the same as the boy, he didn’t want to be standing there any longer with a corpse and a potential murderer, he started to walk quickly back the way they had came and then he was running and running as fast as he could.

When he got back to the car he immediately rang for back up.

They arrived within minutes. Rodger and Kate were walking from the car park to where he was standing. “So where is it?” Rodger asked.

Dan pointed down the beach and they began to walk to where he had seen the body but when they arrived there was nothing there.

“How did you say you found it?” Rodger asked.

“There was a guy, he was right here.”

“Ok so let me get this right you left a potential suspect alone on this beach, I would fire you but I don’t think there ever was anyone, was there? There's no dead boy, nothing.”

“There was I'm telling you it was right here, it must have got swept into the ocean.”

“And what about your mystery man.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know where he went.”

Roger was looking at him incredulously, “you know if you needed a holiday you should've just said, you didn’t have to make up some crazy story, Kate missed her flight to Sydney because of you.”

“I'm not making this up, you're not firing me are you?”

“Not yet but you should take tomorrow off, or maybe the whole week, I'm going home you should too.”

That night Dan tried not to think of it, he tried to think of absolutely nothing but it was a failing endeavour. He didn’t bother making dinner, it was too late for that anyway and he kept smelling something strange that made him feel nauseous, what was it? The toothpaste could not hide the horrible taste in his mouth and the music he had put on the stereo could not drown out the sounds and images that kept forming in his head. He was lying on his bed unable to do anything but unable to sleep, the cans of beer he had drowned lay next to him, he hadn’t been paying attention to the music but he noticed when it stopped and it wasn’t just the music that stopped it was like all sound had stopped and the smell grew more intense, it was a rotten decaying smell and he couldn’t stand it, that was when he realised where it was coming from, it was coming from the man that was standing in his bedroom, watching him.

It was the man who showed him the body. “Who are you?” Dan asked

The man smiled but it was not a nice smile. “Don’t you recognise me Danny, I'm all grown up now, or at least I would have been, he laughed, I thought you would recognise your own face, but I understand, I wouldn’t be able to look at myself either if I was you.”

Danny he thought, no one had called him that since… Then something clicked, what the man was saying, he had the same face, the man was not the same as him but the facial features were the same, it was the same blond hair, the same blue eyes, and he appeared to be the exact same height.

He knew who he was, he just hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself, he had worked so hard to bury this memory.

“You wanted me gone, it’s what you always wanted isn’t it. You're a liar Danny, you always have been but this is the biggest lie you ever told, you lied to yourself and you lied to mum and dad, you made them think that you were the good one, but you did this, you did this,” his voice rose to an inhuman shriek.

He didn’t know what to say, what do you say when the ghost of your long dead twin brother who you had forgotten till now, confronts you in the middle of the night.

“I’m sorry I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Sorry won’t bring me back, you have to tell mum and dad, you have to tell them what you did, now.” He started to make the terrible high pitched noise again and the dead decaying smell was getting worse.

Dan could hardly breathe. “Ok, ok, I'm going now.” And before he thought about what he was doing, he was grabbing his keys and heading for the car.

The night air was cold and the usually busy streets were silent and deserted, he couldn’t see Luke but he knew he was there because of the smell.

Before long he was driving up small winding roads and the smell of salt and seaweed was in the air, the landscape changing between ferns and small shrubbery bushes, all native to the delicate Tasmanian terrain.

He pulled up in his parents driveway and looked towards the manor house which was an enormous hulking structure in the dark.

He knocked on the door, quietly at first and then louder.

There was the sound of scuffling and footsteps and then his mother opened the door, her eyes widened at the sight of him. “Dan, what are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry I needed to talk to you, can I come in?”

She silently moved aside and held the door open for him.

He walked into his parent’s enormous living room which was still in darkness. “Where's dad?”

“Asleep, like I just was.”

“Can you get him please? It's important.”

When all three were sitting in the living room with hot tea in their hands, Dan looked at his parents and said, “I need to tell you something, It's about Luke”

At the sound of Luke's name he saw the blood drain from their faces. His dad asked “why talk about him now?”

“I need to tell you what happened, do you remember the night he went missing?”

“Of Course I remember his mother said quietly.”

“We were on the beach, standing on the sand, there was a storm, remember? One of the biggest we had seen, I dared Luke to take the dinghy and go to the Islands, he’d never rowed to the Islands himself, I had but only on very calm days, I told him that if he didn’t do it he would be a coward and a loser, so of course he did it, I knew he would, I always knew how to get under his skin. The storm was getting worse, the rain was flooding the beach and I was worried about the lightning, so I went back to the house, I got into bed and I never gave a second thought, and then of course in the morning you thought that he had run away.”

His parents were silent and wordless and then his mother said “so that's where the dinghy went.”

His father dropped or perhaps threw the mug that was in his hand. “How could you do this? How could you do this?” He was shouting, and silent tears rolled down his mothers face.

Dan couldn’t stand to be in the room with them any more, after what he had just told them. He went out the door slamming it behind him.

He was outside and he realised that it was raining, the clouds massive and black, a spark of lightning struck the sky and only seconds later was the great rumble of thunder, he ran, he didn’t know where he was going, it was like he was being pulled forward into action, he was running across his parents gravel driveway and then he could feel sand squishing between his feet, he stopped in his steps because it was there, that old dinghy, he didn’t know how it was there but it was, it seemed it had been swept back onto the shore just for him. He moved closer, dragging his hand along the rough wood and green algae that clung to it, it was just how he remembered it, and before long he was hauling it to the sea, to where it would always belong, he was pulling it through the water, the water was past his knees, then he was getting in, holding the oars in his hands and plunging them into the frigid water. He wondered if this was what Luke had felt on that night.