A Study in Grey

It was a bright day - if a little grey - and white sunbeams were splicing through the window and into Ruby’s living room. The light revealed soft carpet and smooth leather, a glowing fireplace, blankets strewn over soft cushions, and two dead bodies.

Two dead bodies and a puddle of grey. For Ruby, blood was always grey.

Her morning had been quite busy; she’d woken early and made tea, three cups, two of which were cyanide spiked; she’d hoovered the living room (nice clean house but really it was just a way to wake her parents up); she’d finished her painting - rather fittingly called “Grey on a canvas”, though according to her now-dead-mother she had actually ended up using quite a lot of green by mistake; she’d dressed, she’d brushed her teeth, she’d eaten breakfast, she’d murdered her family. As you do.

Her remaining to-do list was rather boring in comparison: get rid of the bodies. Get rid of the evidence. She couldn’t very well leave them in her living room, now, could she?

And so her work began.

She approached the two dead bodies. They were collapsed almost on top of each other, with her Dad crushing her Mum, flashing a golden stab wound and-

A stab wound? I bet you’re wondering why. They hadn’t wanted tea that morning. Ruby had grown impatient. Plan B was a lot messier but so much more… satisfying. She’d gotten to watch as the fear in her mother’s eyes had faded into pain had faded into death. She’d laughed as her family had died. She’d cheered and screamed and grinned maniacally when the warmth had turned cold and fingers had turned blue and smiles had turned sad.

So yes. Stab wound. She’d need to move the bodies. She focused on her Dad first. He was bigger, he was fatter, and he would be much more difficult to move. She hooked her arms under his armpits and pulled. Nothing. Not a single shift. Again: one, two, three, heave! Nothing. Again: one, two, three- there!

Now she’d got her momentum going, it was easy enough to drag him and the grey puddle from the living room, through the hallway and outside, straight to her awaiting van. Open the doors. Push, pull, give a little wiggle, eventually her Dad was skewered between the walls of the van and a pile of building materials she’d ordered for him to complete their extension that he’d now never use. What a pity.

Her mother was comparatively easy. You see, her mother - Diane - was never not on a diet. Sometimes the diet was ‘no carbs’ or ‘sober September’ or ‘only vegetables’ or ‘i’m going to starve myself until I faint’. Sometimes she worked out. Recently it had just been the starving. There was no muscle or fat to have to lug; just skin and bones.
“Thank God for your lack of self care, mother,” she chuckled, dragging the skin and bones from the living room, through the hallway and to the awaiting van.

Ruby rejoiced! Nothing could stop her now! There was no blood to be seen, just grey matter and grey water and grey sweat and the police would never find her, never, never, never, never, never!

Except… she still had to dump the bodies somewhere. They couldn’t just rot and fester in the back of her van.

Where to go? Where to… Ah! She knew just the spot.

And so, with her little picnic of dead bodies loaded in her van, Ruby set off.

The news was on in her van. Had she been listening, she would have heard that someone had spotted her, She would have heard that a neighbour had been cowering in their driveway, half petrified and a witness to Ruby’s gleeful murder. She would have heard the grim voice of the reporter droning on about people being on the lookout for her van. She would have heard and been prepared. Except she wasn’t listening.

Fifteen minutes later (it really shouldn’t have taken that long but there’d been an accident on the M4 which had backed all traffic up right into her little village, a bit annoying, and had left her slightly shaken; she hadn’t wanted to be sat around with dead bodies behind her so long) Ruby made it to her local park. When she was a child, it had been her favourite spot. Even now, she could recall the green of the trees in summer and how they drifted into golden and orange and red, like flames - live flames that would burn with just a spark on their bonfire. She recalled the deep blue of a now polluted lake. She remembered the pink of the climbing frame just at the edge of the grand, green (so much green!) field. She would bring a pink jammy picnic of scones and cake with her and she would eat until she could barely move, sat on a tartan blanket on the green grass and it was wonderful. What a strange picnic she’d brought with her now.

She hadn’t returned here since the accident. Not since that terrible day had left her with nothing but grey. Not since a drunken drive from her grandparents. She’d asked them just to stay over. Her parents had refused.

Revenge.

Ruby backed the van into a shadowy spot of the carpark, conveniently placed above the right corner of the deep lake. What was another few bodies to the chemically corrupted water?

With trees hemming her in - grey, now, all grey, no green anymore - she felt safe. No one would see her here. No one would realise what she’d done.
“Are you alright, ma’am?” Came a voice from behind her.
“Yes, quite fine,” no, no, no! No one could see her!
“It’s just, ma’am, if you don’t mind me saying-”
“I do. I do mind you saying.”
Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? Another voice came this time, “You have a lot of blood on you.”
“No I don’t.”

There wasn’t any blood on her! She’d made sure; she’d washed it off with water and suds, she’d scrubbed and scrubbed until all that was left was the grey of the- oh.

No! And here it was! The end of her plan, corrupted and decayed by her own inability to see the evidence itself. They were going to capture her and lock her up and punish her! She would never go back home, she would never walk freely through a park made of grey again!
“Everything is going to be okay,” they said as the emergency vehicles arrived

Nothing, she thought, is going to be okay.