Bloody Ice Part 4: Final Decisions
"I need to go now Mr. Todd." Sylvia started to sidestep him then she remembered that Nathan Todd still had the keys to the door. "Please," she said, holding her hand out to him. "I need the keys. I need to go now."
Todd peered at the outstretched hand before him. His heart told him to let her go, to believe she knew nothing. However, his mind screamed otherwise. He did not want to hurt her but he had to protect himself, his future. He had worked too long and too hard and too long to create his new life to have some teenager steal it away from him. Before he could change his mind, he grabbed her arm, pulled her to him, and brought his fist crashing down on her skull.
It was as if a dark cloak suddenly enveloped Nathan. He became void of emotions. The fire that was ignited in his eye, the flare of his nose, the devilish smile on his lips, and the ice in his blood had transformed him into a very different human being. Snickering, he knelt over Sylvia's limp body and raised his fist again.
Professor Lyndham shook his head and took a deep breath. The past four weeks have been anything but good. The professor sat back in his chair and looked around the department at the lecturers who were talking about the latest, and probably the only, interesting thing that had happened in their quiet little town.
Missing from the group was Nathan Todd of course. No one had seen or heard from in two weeks.
Professor Lyndham spun his chair around and faced the wall so no one could see him. He did not want anyone to see him cry. He did not want anyone to see his hurt and anger.
Lyndham remembered the way his body trembled when Joseph Parkins had called him on Sunday morning to give him the news. Sylvia's bloody lifeless body had been found in the storeroom of the Chilankoly Seventh Day Adventist Church. She had been beaten to death.
A lone tear ran down Lyndham's cheek as he remembered the heart wrenching crying on the phone as Joseph told him what had happened. Failing to find Sylvia at home, at her friend's house, or anywhere in the town, Joseph and a few men had kicked in the door to the storeroom where they found his little princess.
It had not taken the authorities long to find a suspect. The only problem was that they had no way to identify him. As far as they knew, Sylvia's killer had locked the door to the storeroom and thrown its key back inside through the window. The cameras from the street had recorded a tall man in a turtleneck and dress pants coming out of the bushes and onto the road at the back of the church. Another camera aimed at the traffic at the front of the church captured the same man entering the churchyard minutes before a silver Honda Civic drove out.
Nathan Todd stared up at the red light that hung above the street. The fiery glare in his eyes seeped away and the ice in his veins melted away. The realization of what he has just done dawned on him. He could remember clearly, what had happened. However, it was as if he was watching someone else in his body doing all these horrific things.
By the time he got home, Nathan was a nervous wreck. He did not sleep that Saturday night. He sat up, going through every detail of what had happened.
By Sunday, he had concluded that he had achieved the one goal he had set for himself. Even if he had little to no control over how it happened. All that matters now was that he was safe. No one would know about his bloody icy past and no one would pin Sylvia's death on him because Nathan Todd was not real.
A week after he had killed Sylvia, he decided he could no longer stay. Professor Lyndham was acting suspiciously towards him (or maybe he was just being paranoid). To top it off, Lyndham had begun questioning his credibility and his past.
Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" echoed in the empty room. The scorching sun beat down on the zinc fence. The Caribbean Sea lopped and skipped on the beautiful white sand. Nathan Todd sat on a makeshift bamboo seat on the verandah of his new house, which was an abandoned cook shop on the beach.
He lifted a fresh sheet of paper from the pile before him and wrote the signature of Phillip Stephens. He had already filled two sheets of paper with his new signature but still he practiced.
