Day 753

I should probably preface this by saying that my town is on the edge of rural and urban, surrounded by large patches of forest and great farmer's fields while still having most mainstream shops and luxuries at the centre.

Now in the woods by my house there's the ruins of an old 12th century monastery. This kind of crumbling brickwork is fairly common around the town and fairly ignored by both locals and tourists to some extent. The ruins nearer to the town centre are used mostly for teen meet-ups and the occasional small music festival.

In all my years of wandering about the old monastery I've only ever seen three other people around on the regular, one of which I'm fairly certain died recently and had her obituary in the papers for reaching the grand old age 102. Not once had I approached these people or done much past a faint smile and frantic change of direction in case they're one of the local weirdos yet somehow I knew their names.

Mrs McKeenie might have died in her sleep on the 14th of the month but I see her regular as clockwork sitting on the bench by the ruins with her flask of tea and a crossword book. Come to think of it she's been wearing the same clothes for well over three months now. It's entirely possible that she died a fair while before anyone found her, the community around here is scattered and avoidant at the best of times.

There's also the ex army doctor, now known to most people as just Hathersby. He still walks like he's on duty, just like the rest of the soldiers in the neighbouring garrison. Apparently he carries an army issued gun with him at all times but I've only seen him with it once. He was aiming at the back of Mrs McKeenie's head. He stayed frozen in that half-crouched-ready-to-fire position for what felt like hours before he chose to sit beside her instead. I didn't stick around to see what happened next. Guns are hard to come by in England and we're not taught what to do with them outside of army training.

The only other person I've seen by the ruins is definitely dead - she was on the local news and everything. They found her head by the old monastery and the rest of her body in the lake nearby. Her killer was never found but she keeps coming back to where her head was found, at least her body does. Sometimes I can see her fumbling about on all fours by the base of the old stairs, other times I can only hear where she's walking about nearby. I've never seen her head properly yet, occasionally an eye will be peeping out from the autumnal leaves but she never makes a full appearance.