Burgundy - Updated

Raindrops, huge and insistent, assaulted the dark glass behind him. He stared at his rear-view mirror, and it looked like the dark was chasing him down. He braced himself, shrugging his jacket closer, hoping the camouflage might shield him against the enveloping danger. The howling wind cried a tearful lament; a wail that clawed at his ears, signaling impending doom, warning him to turn around, to veer off the unlit winding road where the only thing standing between him and the edge were tiny concrete pillars and the warning bells ringing in his head.

"F*#k!" he thought, as a loose stone shot off his wheel and hit his windscreen with a jarring crack. "F*#k!" He drove on, knowing he had trespassed against all reason when he got in the car in the midst of a storm from hell, turned the ignition (which had the sense not to start on the first try), and headed towards Signal Hill.

Why on earth had she suggested they meet there? The area was renowned for its lack of mobile signal, its unlit trails, and the kind of dodgy corners where people got up to all kinds of unsavoury business. But it wasn't just the physical danger that gnawed at him. Signal Hill. The name itself mocked him. It was a place for communication, for connection, for sending out a warning signal. But tonight, he was driving into a void where no signal could escape, no cry for help would be heard. The very air felt heavy, suffocating, carrying the scent of damp earth, pine needles, and something else—a faint, metallic tang that made the hairs on his arms stand up. Every gust of wind seemed to whisper her name, an insidious lullaby drawing him closer to an inevitable end. The darkness pressed in on the car, a thick, palpable weight, as if the world beyond his headlights had ceased to exist, swallowed whole.

He was angry at himself for jumping at her request.

"Dammit!" he called out loud in the freezing car, his aircon on the fritz. "Why does she still have a hold on me?"

Her message had come through as a disappearing text on an encrypted messaging app, catching him off guard. It had been 9 months since he had last heard from her. 9 months to his rebirth; more damaged, but stronger. Or so he thought.

Her words rattled him. “Unfinished business…” she’d written in a level, almost chillingly calm tone.

"We're done," he had screamed at her the last time he'd seen her, scared by her craziness, alarmed at her neediness, afraid that she would drain the life out of him. "I can't take this anymore," a note of sadness had crept into his voice; he was still crazy about her. Her eyes darkened in an instant, turned pitch black. She squared her shoulders and looked at him with venom: "Done!" she'd shrieked. "I'll say when we're done!" She shoved past him, leaving him reeling, and walked off without looking back.

He'd expected to hear from her again; expected to bump into her; expected to hear rumors, or titbits of her new life that would break his heart. He tried stalking her on social media - even there it was as if her life had faded to black.

Nothing... It was as if she had fallen off the face of the earth.

Slowly he didn't expect, didn't wish, didn't feel. Slowly he healed, forgot, forgave. Slowly he moved on, fell in love, fell forward towards the light.

And then it came, the message, summoning him. He didn't respond, didn't need to; she knew he'd be there... 10 PM... Signal Hill... in the heart of the Cape of Storms. He was afraid seeing her would reel him back in, back to her, yet he raced there, his car knocked about in the storm; raced forward to meet his beautiful nightmare face-to-face.

He could barely make out her car, parked at the furthest end of the parking lot, its single tail light blinking erratically like a dying eye. The darkness out here was absolute, a hungry, shapeless entity beyond the reach of his headlights. It was a darkness that swallowed sound, that absorbed light, leaving only a suffocating void. As he drew nearer, his headlights fell on her tiny frame, leaning up against the car. She stood in the wind and the rain, her phone a glowing rectangle in her hand, its screen casting an eerie blue light on her face. The only other sound, besides the storm, was a faint, rhythmic creak, like tortured wood, that seemed to emanate from the unseen trees.

He came to a stop, kept his headlights switched on, and stumbled over branches and pine cones in the darkness. Nearing her, he noticed she was wearing burgundy heels, 6-inch stilettos the color of warm blood. It was out of place, nonsense shoes for the terrain and the weather; shoes that belonged in the bedroom on the feet of a seductress. It puzzled him, threw him off his stride. Adrenaline was coursing through his veins, but he plodded on.

"I always loved that jacket. Can I have it?" she said, her voice nearly drowned out by the wind, but amplified slightly by her phone, which she now held up to her mouth as if recording.

"No hello?" he asked, removing his jacket like a puppet on a string.

She took it from him with a smile; his white T-shirt became soaked through in a second. Her smile died on her lips. Her eyes were black, soulless pools, and her dark hair was plastered against her face. He watched her, transfixed, looking for signs of the old her, the woman whose laughter stirred his passion and drove him crazy with her eyes.

He saw her bending down, saw the sharpened spike of her stiletto flashing in her hand, and watched her raising it above her head... But he was transfixed, rooted to the ground like a giant Pine. She lunged at him, her ungodly scream piercing the night as the heel pierced his heart... again and again.

Lying on the ground in a river of burgundy, she sat astride him, dripping rain and blood. His phone, which had been in his jacket pocket, was now uselessly pinned beneath her. He had no way of calling for help. It would’ve been too late anyway… And as the blood drained from him into the ground of Signal Hill, she leaned forward, her face illuminated by the faint glow of her phone's screen, and whispered: "Now we're done."