First Kiss, Last Breath

  Cover Copy

  A better man would act.

  Andy Rowly fears the demon in his painting is real, but the very real fear of being totally alone makes his existence hell.

  Death and darkness torment Andy, and his descent into madness seems inevitable until he meets Nor. Bold and funny, she is everything he is not, and offers him a chance at a life filled with love and light.

  But before they can share their first kiss, he must overcome his demon, lest the demon overcomes him first.

  WARNING: Moderate scenes of gore and violence.

  Teaser

  Glib was crouched in a new position on the mural.

  Andy jolted, frozen in his tracks.

  It was slight, subtle even, yet it was enough for Andy to notice. The air bristled with a sudden density that hadn’t been there previously. It was an evil presence stealing the oxygen from the room. The demon’s smile seemed wider than before and its cruel eyes shone with amusement.

  Andy didn’t move. He imagined Glib leaving the wall for him, claws outstretched, lips pulled back with razor-sharp teeth on show.

  His first kiss.

  Andy sickened again, but then something curious happened. Anger, hot and unfamiliar, surged in him. The fatigue, the underlying fear and the frustration; it balled into a power as yet unrealized.

  Andy spied the tins of emulsion lined up meticulously on the bottom shelf of his battered old bookcase. He grabbed the red paint and wrenched open the lid. Blood thundered between his ears.

  “It’s your fault you little bastard!”

  Hot with rage, Andy dunked his brush, drowning it in red. He raised it like a saber and approached the wall.

  First Kiss, Last Breath

  By Lee Mather

  First Kiss, Last Breath

  9781616504120

  Copyright © 2012, Lee Mather

  Edited by Nerine Dorman

  Book design by Lyrical Press, Inc.

  Cover Art by Renee Rocco

  First Lyrical Press, Inc. electronic publication: October, 2012

  Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  eBooks are not transferable. All Rights Reserved. This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE:

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  Published in the United States of America by Lyrical Press, Incorporated

  Dedication

  For Jen. Not my first kiss, but certainly my best.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank my brother, Scott, for reading an early draft of the novel and providing me his feedback. I would also like to thank my editor, Nerine Dorman. Nerine’s meticulous eye for clean prose has helped take this story to another level. Finally, I would like to thank Renee Rocco for publishing my writing.

  Chapter 1

  Andrew Rowly stared into the Emerald Forest. Smears of black reduced the first trees to nothing more than smudges and shade. Only Glib, the blue-skinned demon, remained untouched, crouching in the foreground, his two fierce yellow eyes burning into the room. Andy couldn’t bear to look at the monster for more than a few seconds, yet he was too afraid of the consequences to take a paintbrush to the miscreant–his miscreant. As such, the demon remained unblemished, bloated and proud near where the paint faded at the edges of the mural.

  Andy shifted where his right foot had fallen asleep, his legs crumpled beneath him on the disheveled single bed. He wiped the mess of tears from his face and returned his attention to the painting. He hardly recognized it anymore. The huge stain appeared to come from its very center. It was a dark heart with poisonous arteries. Blackened roots bled from the heart, ensnaring the nearest trees. He had never painted the stain or the serpentine tendrils. At least he didn’t think so. It was as if the darkness possessed a life of its own. He squirmed as he tried to recall what had happened. There was so much he couldn’t remember. It was as if the blackness on the wall was inside his head too, and it was getting bigger, flooding him and drowning his memories. He couldn’t be sure whether the cancer in the mural had started with the nightmares or after he painted Glib, but one thing was certain, painting the demon had only made things worse.

  Andy stared at the wall and knew the demon was to blame, only he couldn’t face it, couldn’t accept that he had brought the monster to life.

  How could Glib be real?

  His head hurt to bursting point just considering this.

  Eyes throbbing, Andy continued to regard the blackness. His thoughts sharpened, piercing the undercurrent of unease until he felt lucid. He remembered the day Grandpa encouraged him to paint the mural. Back then he had felt happy, weightless even.

  Grandpa.

  Andy rubbed his face and tried not to think about Grandpa. Instead he thought of his parents, of what another life might have been like. The notion kept creeping in. It had always been like this. What if? He didn’t want these thoughts, not one of them. Grandpa had been so good to him, but things had changed. The blackness was spreading everywhere.

  The alarm sounded and Andy blinked, startled. The numbers on the clock came into focus. It was seven AM. He had no idea how long he had been sitting there staring–minutes, hours, maybe longer.

  When was the last time he had even left the house?

  Andy numbly watched the jumping clock play out its hysterics. He should move, switch it off, but he didn’t. What had he been thinking when he set the alarm? He wasn’t ready to go back to Aquinas yet. It was too soon. His gaze returned to the mural. The alternative was another day here. He sighed and, shaking a little, reached out and shut off the wail.

  Dazed, he climbed off the bed and staggered around his room like a zombie until he found clothes that would suffice. He pulled on the faded jeans and the Trainspotting t-shirt Grandpa had bought him last month. Grandpa had wanted to see the film, and Andy suspected the t-shirt was intended to motivate him to leave the house. He hadn’t. He couldn’t bear to think of himself in the darkness of a cinema with so many people close by.

  His attention drifted to the small circular mirror fixed to the chimney breast beside the mural. It was designed to resemble a porthole on a ship and beneath it sat a dust-covered fire made from cast-iron, set back in an old, brick fireplace. Beside it was a bookcase where he mainly stored his paints and art supplies. He felt a sudden urge to cross the room and face the mirror, to run a comb through his hair and find some semblance of style. Instead he remained rooted to the spot, his bare toes curling into the carpet. He sighed, and purposefully avoiding his reflection, collected his sketchpad, pencils, brushes and the frayed Gerald Brommer textbook. He bundled them into his rucksack but already his breathing felt shallow and doubts crept into his head about whether he could get through the day. His trainers were by the base of the mural. He focused, enough to put them on, making sure he didn’t look at either the black stain or Glib.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, Andy told himself as he continued to get ready. He knew if he didn’t go in then people from the college might start asking questions. He couldn’t afford anyone snooping around here. Plus he enjoyed art. He might be able to lose himself for a while if he got to paint.

  Andy put on b
lack socks then knelt and tied the laces of his trainers. His resolve faltered as the whispers of his old classmates at high school returned to him. Grandpa was a pedophile or a dinosaur or a day away from death. The noise inside him was relentless, and it was as though a tear in his chest had reopened. He sniffed, bit hard on his lip and fought off the tears. He hadn’t felt like this for years but these last days had been different. Still, college was easier than high school. He was anonymous there. They would simply ignore him. He could handle that, would welcome it.

  Andy stared at the door until he felt dizzy. This was normal sometimes, as if nothing was real, as if he looked at everything too hard, so hard his vision blurred into something corrupted. He became aware he was leaning on the wall, the dark stain just inches from his fingertips. Shivering, he withdrew his hand, gave Glib one final sideways glance and gathered his rucksack. He left the bedroom, descended the stairs on trembling legs and paused in the hallway. The curtains were drawn in the sitting room, the lights dipped. It was gloomy, a nest of shadows. Channel 4 played quietly on the TV, something about Orangutans. Grandpa stared ahead.

  “Bye, Grandpa,” Andy offered as best he could, the swollen ache excruciating in his chest.

  Grandpa didn’t answer as Andy left the house.

  Chapter 2

  “The gig’s this weekend mate!” Mark Horne said.

  Stephen Pritchard smiled. “Can’t wait. There’s still tickets left y’know?”

  “Fuckin’ unbelievable. Thought at least the Saturday show would have sold out. It’s gonna be mental,” Horne said.

  “I know! It’s the first time they’ve played Manchester since they made the big time. Coming home at last,” Pritchard said, an inane grin eclipsing his small face.

  Andy lurched near them as the bus pulled away from the stop. Horne and Pritchard stared at him like he was a piece of chewing gum stuck to the bottom of their shoes. They paused their conversation until he passed, their action orchestrated carefully as an assault. It was a well-rehearsed routine and, over the years, Andy’s presence had sent many a discussion into a whisper behind a hand. Horne and Pritchard were two of the few at Aquinas who knew him from back at high school and, not long ago, it would have been normal for them to say something nasty to him, usually about Grandpa then explode into laughter. But that hadn’t been the case for a while. Andy couldn’t remember exactly when it stopped mattering, when the emotion poured away from him like leftover paint swirling down a drain, but when he ceased caring, so did they. Andy hadn’t bothered with idiots like Horne and Pritchard for so long, but one wound had opened another, and today their disdainful look caused a terrible sting beneath the armor of his skin.

  He stumbled into the seat behind them as the bus turned a corner. Horne gave him a lingering glare then restarted his hushed conversation. Andy hesitated, but then strangely felt compelled to listen in. He craned forward just as the bus braked, almost throwing him into the back of the pair. For some reason he couldn’t place, he wanted to hear something normal, something banal.

  “You’re a lucky bastard,” Horne continued, quieter. “How long is it after the Oasis gig before Euro ninety-six?”

  Pritchard shrugged. “A couple of months. If England wins the group then I’ll see them live in the quarter final!”

  “I hope we don’t win then!”

  The two boys laughed mindlessly and Andy regarded them with a little envy. He sighed and sat back in the seat. The ache inside worsened. He stared out of the window and the blur of the passing street made his head throb like he was hung over. He blinked a few times, and was soon nodding thanks to his recent lack of sleep. He closed his eyes and saw Glib creeping slowly in the darkness, limbs stretching to cast a monstrous shadow on the wall. He whimpered softly as the demon reached the back of the armchair.

  The bus stopped sharply and Andy returned to the morning with a jolt. He looked around quickly, embarrassed. If anyone noticed his sleep-twitch they didn’t offer him the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

  The double doors at the front sucked inward and more students piled noisily onboard. A tall blond girl wearing a short denim skirt was last on. Pritchard nudged Horne and they both shared a grin.

  Andy ignored them, watched instead how a couple of boys tried to engage the girl in conversation as she paid the driver. She quietly acknowledged both before finding a seat. Every student nearby regarded her as she sat. The girl didn’t seem to go unnoticed by anyone.

  “She’s going too, y’know,” Horne said.

  “Who, Caroline Harper? Didn’t know she liked Oasis?”

  Horne continued to gawp at her as he replied. “Doesn’t everyone? She’s so fuckin’ fit. She could be on Baywatch.”

  Pritchard laughed and said something in reply, but his words were lost to Andy as the bus started again.

  Andy sat back a little, watched Caroline Harper. People around her were tilted, maybe even subconsciously, toward her. It was as if she was the most important person on the bus and, on some level, everyone knew it.

  The bus moved off slowly then started to gain speed. In the windows behind Caroline Harper the colors of the day melted into one. Andy, mesmerized by the changing textures, relaxed a little, tension drifting from him like diffusing smoke. His brain ticked along as he considered how he might paint Caroline Harper. He rarely painted people, because he much preferred places–new worlds. But it wasn’t Caroline Harper who magnetized him. It was her influence, the invisible hold she had on others. She represented somewhere else, a place Andy had never been to. It would be good to paint her and maybe make sense of her. He smiled distractedly as he imagined Caroline Harper as a flaming sun, her features a swirl of brilliant light. Everything else around became the darkness of space, faces nearby were spinning planets, trapped in a circling orbit. The bus jerked and Andy’s solar system shattered into pieces of reality.

  Andy blinked and sat upright. They had reached their destination. The clock beneath the shining silver sign for Aquinas College showed it was eight thirty five AM. Art wasn’t until eleven AM.

  Students filtered from their seats. His headache gone, Andy made the decision to cut media studies while he waited for the vehicle to clear. He grabbed his sketchpad and rucksack. Caroline Harper had made him feel like he had a heartbeat for the first time in weeks. He felt inspired, ready to paint some far-flung universe.

  Chapter 3

  Frustrated, Andy slapped his pencil down hard on the desk. The screech of drilling bored into his skull. He brushed aside his fringe, leaned back on his chair so it reared on its hind legs like a startled horse, and stared out of the window at a morning as blank as the empty page before him. His inspiration was gone and the familiar anxiety was creeping back in its place.

  The student library was new to Aquinas and it represented a one million pound investment–a reward from local government for the college’s sustained spell on top of the district’s league tables. It was only half-finished, a shining metal-clad dome with brilliant white walls. It looked more like a hospital wing than a home for the printed page. The books, thousands of them, reference and fiction, were crammed into polished steel racks within one half of the library. The remainder was little more than a ten thousand square foot building site that would ultimately house a gluttony of state-of-the-art computers and pods of workstations all crammed together like cages in a battery farm. Once the construction was completed, the library would be majestic, but so far the project had limped along for what seemed like months. At present it was a shining enamel tooth behind an ugly metal retainer. The noise and cement dust were intolerable, and each of the walkways was crowded with busying builders in fluorescent vests and hard hats.

  Andy found it difficult to watch the men at work. There was so much bustle, detail and depth. When he stared at them he couldn’t process much, and he would feel unsteady in his seat. When he felt like this he needed a wall painted in one color, something flat and bland to settle his eyes on, to calm himself, to stop his brain ac
hing. Instead he found the nearest window, beyond which were the sports fields, where a mixed cricket match was in operation. He saw her then, Caroline Harper, the girl with the gravitational pull, jogging in the sunshine to retrieve a trundling red ball. He stared absently, smiled and leaned back–too hard. The steed bucked and Andy fell with an almighty crash that could be heard even above the constant hammering of the power tools. Red-faced, he scrambled quickly to his feet, instinctively anticipating the howls of laughter from those few attempting to read. Nothing. A couple glanced over briefly, chided quietly to themselves then returned to their studies. He blushed harder. He was an inconvenience unworthy even of their derision.

  A chill settled on him as he returned his chair to upright. Maybe he was a ghost?

  Andy felt sick then.

  He told himself he wasn’t a ghost. It was real, all of it. His parents, Glib, Grandpa... It rose in him like a swirling whirlpool of molten heat. He felt overcome, like he could vomit, faint, scream or run to the window and jump.

  He tried to stifle the wail that grew from deep within. The anguish bloated and expanded to bursting point.

  Andy exploded into movement. He spilled his stationary into his rucksack and grabbed wildly at the jumble of his sketchpad and his Understanding Transparent Watercolor textbook. He raced from the library, bursting into the morning like a sprinter breaking the finish line. He didn’t stop. He kept running until he hit the edges of the sports fields. He doubled, dropped his rucksack and propped himself up with his hands digging into his thighs as he frantically tried to suck in breath.

  Andy’s legs buckled and he sank to his knees, weeping with his head in the hands. It was like the enormity of everything had only just hit him, a thunderbolt to the heart. And while those around him carried on with their lives, happily ignorant, he was left with the simple, awful truth.