The Dark Man

The walls seemed to vibrate from the echo inside the village hall. Every second inherited another boom, and then a crackling fizzle as the cheap speakers failed to keep up with the bass.
Crystal had had enough. At 16 years old she knew it was strange not to enjoy the party life style as all of her friends from school did. Mandy had practically forced her to the ‘leaving school party’.
“Come on it will be great!” She had shouted at her down the phone that evening. “There will be a lot of cute lads there”. No there will be the same lads from school, she had thought. But Mandy could normally convince Crystal to her way of thinking. It was Mandy who had said two years ago a couple tokes on a cigarette would be cool. Now as the party inside continued, Crystal sat outside on the wall surrounding the village hall smoking her second last cigarette.
Her one and only regret in life was starting smoking. Mandy who had seen college boys walking through the park smoking thought it would be another status incline if she joined them. Her initial approach of asking for a cigarette failed on the first two attempts. But the third group had given her one to try. After standing with them for two minutes it was clear she was annoying them and they left her standing there smoking something that tasted foul.
The next day she had asked Crystal to go with her. She remembered the same group of lads from the first group that had rejected her. Only this time as she walked with Crystal, they all stared in their direction. Poor simple minded Mandy had thought they had had a change of heart. Only seeing Crystal in her short school skirt, long tanned legs and her bulging chest from her over developed breasts, even at 14, one of the lads immediately offered her a cigarette as she walked past. The rest of the lunch hour involved both girls being circled by college lads as they smoked cigarettes. The lads main focus on Crystal.
The winter chill made Crystal shiver as she finished her cigarette and stubbed it out on the ground. She looked at her phone again. 10.30pm, another half hour before her dad picked her up. She loved her dad more than anything. He was right about everything, as a dad should be, and when she had told him she was addicted to smoking she wished he had shouted and screamed at her. Instead the disappointment in his eyes hurt her the most. After a long talk he helped her try to give up the habit. Only she got stressed and her grades suffered. Life became a misery as she had smoked for one and a half years and it wasn’t going to be an easy habit to give up.
She was sat at home one night six months ago, having tried and failed to give up when her dad walked through the door and gave her a big cuddle. They always had a close relationship since her mother died. Her dad was a huge man, spanning 6ft 4. He had a chest as hard as iron from the years of labour work. He was pale, had beach blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes. Her deceased mother was black, slender, small and delicately beautiful. Complete opposites that worked brilliantly.
Crystal had inherited both sides of her parents’ best genes. She was Caucasian, but always had a nice tan effect in her skin. She too was slender, with her mother’s long slim legs. But she had her father’s shoulders that gave her an authority presence. She also had his brilliant blue eyes and his beach blonde hair that fell down to the middle of her back. On several occasions when she had been at the beach, photographers had offered her money for a chance to take photos of the landscape with her modelling in it to improve their tourism trade. She was outstandingly beautiful. The only strange gene she had inherited was her breast size. DD’s at 14 and they had grown since then. Her father’s jokes at her breasts never ended, usually bringing in a made up Aunty that had breasts so big she could no longer get out of the house.
As her father finished giving her a cuddle he brought out a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. “When your exams finish,” he had said. “You’re coming off these.”
Six months later the exams had finished and Crystal was sat on a cold, mossy wall in an expensive skirt that was ‘too long’ compared to what the other girls were wearing, but it still was 6 inches above her knees.
“Come on dad,” she muttered. It was a very cold November evening in the Midlands. She didn’t want to go back inside though. Her arse had been grabbed more than enough times for one evening and the boys in there seemed to get closer and closer to her as they walked past. It had reached the stage that enough alcohol was in their systems that drunken hands were coming up and grazing against her low cut top as they walked past.
Her phone bleeped and she quickly scrambled for it in her bag hoping that her dad was around the corner. SORRY SWEETY FINISHED WORK LATE, COMING NOW BUT I DONT THINK I WILL BE THERE FOR ANOTHER HOUR. – DONT HAVE TOO MUCH FUN. LOVE YOU
Too much fun, she thought, yeah right.
She decided to have her last cigarette with a cider. It was a BYO party, bring your own beer, but she had known since she started smoking that all it took was a slightly bent over eye lash wave and any male would give her what she wanted. She felt sleazy at first doing it but eventually she learnt that all boys are idiots. Not only that, but car salesman, wholesalers, estate agents all lie through their back teeth to get what they want. To get somewhere in life you have to use what you got.
As she made her way past the echoing walls she suddenly stopped and listened. She swore she heard voices and tried to filter away the noise from inside the village hall.
She backtracked the way she had walked, following her footsteps in the mud to the hall where the grass had grown wild. She slowly peered around the corner of the wall and jumped backwards as she saw two figures no more than 3 feet away.