The Killing Season

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David Webb was a dead man walking — or, rather, stumbling. He was blindfolded, and his wrists were bound tightly behind his back. He could feel the cold, damp wind on his face and he shivered. Dark blood was matting his hair, blood that had left a creeping stain running from the collar on his once-crisp white shirt down to his rumpled trousers that had had military-sharp creases in them just hours before.

‘A dead man walking,’ he muttered to himself under his breath. He knew that much at least, despite what they had said. Perhaps it was all his own fault, retribution for the flouting of man-made laws in which he himself saw no relevance? But he was the architect of his own misfortune and had not been able to stop himself, much as he had initially fought against his desires. Is it not often said that the way of the transgressor is hard? Had he deserved the happiness he had found in the unlikeliest of places? He hadn’t planned to fall in love. These things are out of one’s hands, after all — he of all people grasped that reality. But perhaps this was God’s punishment for it. Yet the memory of her cornflower-blue eyes, her long dark curly tresses, the way she quirked a smile when he made her laugh, and the sweet musicality of that laugh. He knew he had no defences against that. He knew that if he were to live his life over a thousand times he would always be smitten by her purity and innocence and beauty. He had been charmed by her in every sense of the word.

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