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Rape Seed

Lisa Gray

    He would be her last. For millennia. She drew the bright red lipstick carefully round the contours of her mouth and pressed her lips together in satisfaction in the car mirror. He or she. Each life she’d known it could be either. Just like she could be. That’s why it hadn’t been easy. Tracking them down. Age had been a problem. They could be any. When one was a child, she’d experienced a strange pang of regret. But she knew she must never let sentiment get in the way of killing them. After all it wasn’t the body that was important. It was the voice. That was the way she recognised them. Just like she’d vowed she would do. In Egypt. In 472B.C.
    This time it was a he. She felt her chest tighten just as she had the first time he had spoken to her. She knew. She knew he was her last. The last of five. The last of the five who had raped her. Way back then. He could have spoken Chinese or Arabic or any other language. This time it was English. But it would have made no difference. It was the intonation in his voice. The intonation she had memorised. For millennia.
    The dream she hadn’t memorised. The dream that kept recurring. She’d wanted to blot that out. Like she’d blotted everything out afterwards. And she’d done it successfully during the daytime. But it came at nights. Like it always did. The running running of her sandaled feet across desert sand. And the sound of her pursuers. And the darkness that enveloped her when they caught her. She’d blotted everything out after that except their voices. But she’d sworn never to forget them. And she hadn’t. Through successive lifetimes.
    But the headaches had bothered her.
    Anxiety had been the doctor’s definition. And she had to admit to a feeling of anxiety. Not over the killings. But over something she had felt she had forgotten. Long ago.
    But soon it would be over. The mission of millennia. She felt a glorious sense of freedom as she started the car engine and headed out of the city. Her life would be different from now on. And the next life would be different. And the next. She’d settle down. Maybe have children.
    The tightness in her chest seemed to intensify and the pain spread to her head. An asthma attack. She couldn’t afford to have one of those. When she had work to do. She slid her hand into her coat pocket, pulled out the inhaler, took a swig and replaced it in her pocket, wondering what had triggered it this time. Each lifetime she’d had it. That and the headaches. But each lifetime it had been something different that had caused an attack. She looked around. The grey atmosphere of the city had given way to rolling open fields. Of bright yellow. She couldn’t understand it. There was no pollution here. Nothing to trigger this tightness she felt. This anxiety.
    She was just an ordinary house-hunter going to see a house for sale. In the middle of nowhere. That’s where she’d tracked him down to. It couldn’t be more convenient. But would he be alone?
    Well, if not, too bad she thought. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had others to dispose of. Relatives of rapers. She didn’t feel bad about it. After all, she couldn’t let them spread their seed.
    She’d been before of course. To check it out. That’s why she knew the way. She saw the sign and turned off on to a single track road with passing places. Three miles later, with no car to be seen in either direction, she pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the car. It was a nineteen eighties’ style bungalow, low and wide, with a small, neglected garden surrounding it, the wide, open fields of yellow to its rear spreading like some seductive virus slowly swallowing the distant blue hills. It might have been attractive in its day but the forces of wind and rain had weathered and aged it and now it appeared to be decaying fast. She smoothed down her red coat, placed her black patent bag over her arm carefully and slammed the door of the car. She looked for some sign of life. There was none. Her black patent shoes picked their way carefully over the dirty, sparsely granite-chipped driveway, each crunch announcing her arrival. There was no sound. No sound of a dog barking.
    Good, she thought. Animals could be a nuisance.
    She noted the outbuildings to the left of the house and the large, double garage. She stopped and listened, an attractive, black-haired well-dressed thirty-year-old woman, a threat to no-one. That’s how she would appear to anyone who was watching. She put her finger on the bell and waited. There was no sound from within. No twitch of a curtain. Nothing. She pressed again, her nose wrinkling at the strange smell that wafted on the air. Still nothing.
    Odd, she thought.
    She looked at her watch. She’d said two thirty. It was already past that. Surely he hadn’t gone out. She looked around. More likely he was in one of the outbuildings, the garage or the barn. She listened but heard nothing except the low moo of a Highland Cow in the field to the right of the house. She rang a third time, this time knocking loudly on the door. Nothing.
    She picked her way through the gravel round to the back of the house and looked down at her shoes. No sandals. Shoes. Black shiny patent shoes scarred with knife-like scratches. She swore beneath her breath. There was no-one at the rear of the house. Only an ocean of yellow stretching for miles. She wondered briefly what the crop was. She had a feeling she knew the name already but it seemed to be escaping her. So many crops in so many countries. In so many millennia. Whatever it was it was obviously profitable to warrant its spread. Otherwise the farmer would have stopped it. Didn’t he realise there was always danger in things spreading? In things getting out of control.
    The silence was beginning to irritate her. She picked her way towards the barn. He had to be there. The gravel was gone, replaced by hard-packed earth. She felt the first few drops of rain on her face and cursed. That’s all she needed. A downpour would turn the farmyard into a miry swamp, difficult to escape from. She quickened her pace.
    She could see he was dead as soon as she reached the barn. Whoever had killed him was a professional. Someone who’d killed before. In fact the angle of the knife thrust was very like her own work. She had to admire that. Though she still felt cheated. Someone had done her job for her. And she didn’t like it. Any more than she like the smell that was wafting through the open barn door. The smell that started her nose running. She put a hand in her coat pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. That’s why she didn’t see the figure. The small, black figure highlighted with a halo of yellow standing in the frame of the barn door.
    Damn, she said to herself, as she spotted him. You’re getting careless. The raper’s relative.
    Then she laughed to herself. This one would be easy to deal with. He was only a kid.
    Still she felt uneasy. And she felt the tightness gripping her chest. The tightness she always felt this way when kids were involved.
    “Oh, you poor kid,” she said, walking towards him. “You shouldn’t be seeing a thing like this. I’m the lady who came to see your house. I’ve just found him. Is it your dad?”
    The child nodded dumbly but didn’t speak. He was small but neatly dressed in a red pullover and black jeans. She liked his style. But she knew she couldn’t let sentiment get in her way. She opened her black, patent handbag and her hand wound slowly round the handle of the knife. She was close enough now. One thrust and it would be over. It would all be over. The mission of millennia.
    But she was wrong. She knew that the moment he spoke.
    “He was my dad!”
    For she recognised the voice. Like she’d recognised the others. Had she been wrong? Were there more than five? Or was the man on the floor of the barn not one of them?
    The voice went on as if he knew what she was thinking.
    “Yes, he was one of them. I knew from the first time I was born into this incarnation. From the first time I heard his voice.”
    She gasped. He was like her. There was something she needed to remember. Something from 472B.C.
    The voice went on.
    “But I waited. I waited for the right time. Then I killed him.”
    The voice was like the others but there was something different. Some other intonation. She pulled the knife from her bag but her eyes were streaming. Streaming. She couldn’t see. Was it tears? What was wrong with her? And there was an overpowering smell. She had to finish it. If only she could see. One thrust was all it would take.
    The voice went on.
    “And the time is now. You see I recognised your voice on speakerphone. Mother!”
    She’d been right all along. It only took one thrust. From a professional. But it wasn’t over. She realised that as she felt the searing pain in her chest where he’d stuck the knife. Yes, a true professional. Like her. Her son. For now she remembered. Remembered what she’d heard in his voice. Her intonation. And she remembered what she’d forgotten. The child she’d borne after that night. Millennia ago. The child she’d wanted no part of. The child she’d abandoned.
    She staggered past him. She had to get to the car. To the hospital. If she didn’t die, she could stop it here. Stop it like she should have done long ago. She knew he was following her. Following her down the wet, now muddy track that led to the car. If she could only reach it. She’d be safe. There was still time to save herself. And her son. She knew the rain had stopped and the sun had come out for she felt the warmth on her face. But she couldn’t see. Her eyes were streaming and she couldn’t breathe. The tightness in her chest was expanding. The knife wound or the asthma? She had no time to question. Until her hand closed on the handle of the car door and she slid inside.
    She lay gasping on the seat. She was safe now. She’d only to start the car and reach the hospital. She could heal and she could heal her son. She could stop it like she should have stopped it millennia before. Her hand wrenched the collar of her coat from her neck. She couldn’t breathe and her eyes seemed sticky. Her hand fumbled for the gear stick. But something was obscuring her vision. She looked at the windscreen. It was covered in yellow.
    That damn crop in the field, she thought. It had left its deposits. Deposits that had spread. All over her windscreen. She wished she could remember its name but somehow it escaped her. She turned on the ignition and the wipers. But she still couldn’t move. For standing in the path of the car was the child. Her child. She couldn’t kill her child. She couldn’t start a new cycle of revenge. She felt the pain tighten in her chest and she knew soon it would all be over. But not the way she’d planned. She turned off the windscreen wipers and the car engine and watched, with a glorious sense of freedom, as the yellow dust spread over the windscreen. And then, as her airways struggled for a final breath of clean air, she started, for she suddenly knew it wasn’t over. It would never be over. And it was all her fault. For she could have stopped it. Now it was too late. What had she done? And as her chest sucked in one final painful gasp of air, her mouth opened and slackened as if she wanted to say something. For she’d finally remembered. Remembered her son. And the name of that cursed yellow plant that now covered her like a coffin lid.
    Rapeseed.

—————————————————

    “What do you think, Jim? Self-defence?”
    Detective Jim Malone nodded.
    He looked at the little boy who stood with his back to the field of yellow.
    “Poor mite! He must have been terrified! Attacked by a complete stranger who came to view his house. A woman too. What are the chances of that?”
    “Yeah, you never know who’s out there, do you?”
    Sandy Gallagher put a sympathetic arm round the boy.
    “We’d better take him with us.”
    The two detectives bundled the little boy into the back of the police car.
    He sat silent and morose between the two men.
    “Shock, I expect,” said Sandy, on the journey back to town.
    Jim nodded.
    It was as they were passing fields of yellow that the little boy suddenly spoke for the first time.
    “Can you open the window?”
    “Open the window! What for?”
    “He probably needs some air,” said Sandy.
    Jim nodded and pressed the button that lowered the window. A strange smell drifted through the car. It seemed to affect the kid too for he put his hand in his pocket and pulled out an inhaler.
    Poor kid, thought Jim. Asthma.
    He knew what that was like. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get back to the city. His asthma was always worse out here in the country. He couldn’t understand it.
    You’d think clean, country air would be good for me.
    He felt an unexplained anxiety and his head hurt.
    The little boy in the back seat of the police car couldn’t wait to get back to the city too. For he had work to do. On his mission of millennia. When he was a she, he’d concentrated on killing. Women. Through successive lifetimes. But now he was male. He looked out at the fields of yellow spreading its sickly seed over the countryside. A field of rape. Just like he’d be. Spreading himself all over the countryside. And through the millennia. A raper’s relative. Always producing more raper’s relatives. With no-one to stop it. Out of control.
    Jim Malone pressed his lips together in satisfaction. He would be his last. For millennia. He experienced a strange pang of regret. But he knew he mustn’t let sentiment get in his way. He was a child. But the body wasn’t important. It was the voice. That was the way he’d recognised him. Just like he’d vowed he’d do. In Egypt. In 472B.C. He’d felt his chest tighten as soon as the kid spoke. The intonation in his voice. The intonation he had memorised. For millennia. Her intonation. The intonation that had made him hate women and kill. Through successive lifetimes. The dream he hadn’t memorised. The dream that kept recurring. The dream that came at nights. Like it always did. The running running of his sandaled feet across desert sand. Away from her. And her bastard. She’d let him down. She’d asked for it. Like all women did. And he’d punished them all from that moment. In his search for her. Through successive lifetimes. But he’d never found her.
    She’s probably dead, he thought. Like that poor woman.
    But he’d found the child. And he would be his last.
    Soon it would be over. The mission of millennia. He felt a glorious sense of freedom. His life would be different from now on. And the next life would be different. And the next. He’d settle down. Maybe have children.
    He glanced at the boy sitting next to him, swigging the inhaler as though his life depended on it. The boy who’d lost his mother. Like he lost his lover. In Egypt. In 472B.C.
    No, he couldn’t do it. He pressed the button to roll up the window. The environs of the city were fast approaching. He was feeling strangely better. His chest was easing. His head no longer hurt. He could stop it. He could stop it now. Like he’d stopped that damn smell.
    Rapeseed. He’d remembered the name.
    How apt, he thought.
    “You can stay with me, kid,” he said suddenly.
    The boy looked at him strangely.
    “I can?” he said.
    “Sure. After all I could have been your dad.”
    He laughed.
    “In another life.”
    “Or my sister. Or my brother,” went on the boy, excited, as if remembering something.
    “Yeah, we’ve got a lot in common,” said Jim, taking out his inhaler and waving it in the air. “After all, we’re all just one big family, aren’t we?”
    The boy smiled. The fields of rape had vanished, swallowed by the pollution of the city. But for some strange reason, he felt his chest ease for the first time. And his head no longer hurt. He looked down at Jim Malone’s feet. At the sturdy, black patent shoes.
    “I like your style,” he said.
    Jim glanced down then turned and smiled at him.
    “Yeah, it’s a whole lot better than sandals, isn’t it?”
    And they both laughed.

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