AntipodeanSF - "The Empty Swing" by Richard Ridyard

Richard Ridyard works for Bang and Olufsen and lives on the Wirral, England. An A level graduate, he is 19 years old and his interests include reading, visiting art galleries, musicals and lawn tennis. His literary passion is rapt towards the creation of speculative tales that stay with the reader.

The little girl loves to play on the swings. She always goes to the secluded park in the village where she lives. No other children play there. Just her and her best friend. They each have their own swings that only they go on.

The little girl is only nine years old, but she knows blood when she sees it. She remembers the day she fell off her bike in the park and grazed her knee.

She has been visiting the park with her best friend for a long time, now. Nobody pays them much attention when they arrive. The others don’t know her name is Lucy and they don’t know her best friend’s name is Chris, nor do they care that her mother is not with her. It doesn’t matter though, because Chris protects her. The others are all more interested in why their quiet little town has suddenly been visited by such carnage.

A crowd gathers quickly beside the empty swings, but nobody notices Lucy or Chris. Soon every person in the village is wondering how eighteen-stone Harry Lowe from Citrus Street managed to get up there.

One of them calls the cops.

Another is physically sick.

Above the ground, Harry's body droops from the frame of the swings, his torso sliced from sternum to pelvis. Spaghetti guts hang down and glisten in the winter sun like a ruby river.

Chris had told him not to touch Lucy. Chris is very protective of her, and he had warned him not to do it. Twice.

And twice he had laughed; his brown teeth resembling broken headstones; his hands sandpaper against her skin.

Lucy watches as the grisly rain of blood drip-drips from the frame of the empty swings.

Harry isn’t laughing now.

One of the villagers finally notices Lucy talking to Chris.

"What are you doing there, little girl? Who are you talking too?"

"Oh, no one, no one at all." says Lucy, who turns and smiles at Chris.