Secrets - Confrontation (2)

A fresh downpour has started. I make my way down the hill, stopping when I hear footsteps. Nothing. I continue on through the icy wind to the clearing where I've parked my car. The dog's barking gets louder in the distance. Nearby, more branches snap. Silence again. The white van is still parked a few yards from my car.  

I feel it then. An invisible presence, the same one I felt a few nights ago near my flat in London. I hear movement in the trees that separate the clearing from the deserted field and I shine the torch in all directions.

A figure slithers through the mud, towards me. I see the man's smile and my bravado slips away.
It's him.

Vince Macarthur, your killer. One of the most hated men in the country.
          
'Hello, Alan,' he says.  
            
He's wearing a long winter coat and rimless spectacles, the sort I would expect a maths teacher to wear. Crazy, the type of mundane thoughts that pop into a person's head during a moment of real danger. Like, who cares if he looks like a maths teacher rather than a lifer just out of prison? Most of his hair has gone, the remaining strands damp and combed back. He looks surprisingly fresh faced, much different from the mental picture I've built up of him, but it's him all right. The bulldog nose gives him away.
            
'Little liar,' he hisses at me, stopping just yards from me. 'I lost the best part of my life because of your lies to the police.'

'I didn't lie. I told the police what you did. You killed my best friend. You destroyed his family and mine. And now you're threatening my girlfriend.'
            
Then, I see the crowbar and regret speaking back to him. What are the options? At six foot two, I'm capable of doing a lot of damage, but I hadn't bargained on the crowbar.
            
'You 'ad the lot, didn't you?' he goes on. 'Nice home, loads of friends, hard working parents, plenty of pocket money – but you were not satisfied. You had to 'ave more, didn't you? You had to go round telling stories. Stories that cost me the lot.'
            
He takes a step towards me.
            
'Stand back,' I say. 'Don't come any closer.'
            
He starts to shout and shake the crowbar at me. Hoping to wind him, I kick him in the stomach with all the force I can muster, but it makes no difference. He's already too pent up with fury for the kick to have any real effect. The next moment, he strikes my knees with the bar. Howling in agony, I tumble to the wet ground.  
            
'I'm an innocent man,' he screams at me. 'I didn't do anything to anyone. I shouldn't have gone to prison. It's all your fault. You, and them police officers for stitching me up.'  

Hurling obscenities, he brings the crowbar down on my head. Searing pain rips through my body, like fire. Blinding hot pain tears at the back of my eyes, ripping them out of their sockets, and I taste blood. Innocent, innocent, innocent, he keeps screaming.
            
The blows continue, but Macarthur's no longer there.

A stranger has taken his place.  
            
Another man with a long winter coat and rimless specs.