by Amanda Fleet
Finn read over the brief and leafed through what I’d been working on over the afternoon.
“They’re just my initial thoughts,” I said. “It got too busy when the accident happened.”
“I know. Why these colours?” He held up the sheet showing the design palette of dark greens and greys.
“I was trying to capture the vintage feel. British racing green and all that. You don’t seem convinced. Is that because you’re not convinced or are you still pissed off about the wedding?”
“Both.” He grinned. “I am still pissed off about not getting invited to Patrick’s wedding but I’m also not sure about these colours. They’re too gloomy. Some of these dresses are bright polka dots and stuff. I mean, yeah, the trousers fit the darker colours, but it feels too serious for the whole range they do.”
“Fair point.”
Finn turned the page to find the drawings I’d done following the accident. “What’s this?”
Puzzled blue eyes met mine and I swallowed. “Okay. This is going to sound like I’m crazy.”
“Well… You are crazy.”
I punched him lightly and he dipped his head and kissed me soundly.
“So what’s this for?” he asked as he moved back, pushing the sketches towards me. “Is it a storyboard or something?”
“The old man on the ground… that’s the guy who was knocked down.”
“Uh huh. And what’s this thing?” He pointed to the creature made of shadows.
“I don’t know. I saw it. Just after I put towels on the guy to keep him warm. That thing was on the other side of the man. It saw me and shushed me – like it didn’t want me to react to it – and then it reached into the guy on the ground and pulled out a ball of light.”
Finn’s brows had almost reached his hairline. “Yeah. You’re right. You do sound crazy. Are you being serious?”
“Mm.”
“So this thing takes a ball of light. Then what?”
He clearly didn’t believe me. I took a deep breath. “And then it tucked the light under its cloak and vanished.”
Finn chewed his lip. “Did anyone else see it?”
I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so. It seemed surprised that I could see it, to be honest.”
I rubbed my brow. Now I’d said it all out loud, it sounded ridiculous, but I knew what I’d seen. The fact I had seen it creeped me out, and sweat dampened my armpits.
He said nothing for a few breaths.
“Finn, I swear to you, that’s what I saw!”
He took a swig of beer, his focus on the set of sketches.
“Okay. I believe you think you saw this. I just don’t believe it’s real,” he said eventually.
Wrong words. Too close to things that Helen and John had said: “We believe you think that Stephen is blackmailing Sarah; we just don’t believe that he is.”
I stood up, brushing Finn off, hearing him sigh behind me.
“Rea…” He followed me to the kitchen. “Rea…”
I faced him square on. “It’s what I saw.”
“Okay.” He still didn’t seem convinced. “So what do you think it was?”
“No idea. The way it reacted to me… it was scared of me.” I was sounding crazier with every word so I stopped. “Forget it.”
Finn made to rub my shoulder but I swatted him away.
“Okay. It’s what you saw,” he said, his voice soft.
“Don’t say it unless you mean it… Your mum told me not to wear too much make-up for the interview.”
He blinked at the change of topic. “Um… She might have a point. I don’t know what the company’s like but maybe you should swap the nose-ring for a stud and cut back on the eye make-up? Look like you do for reception. And maybe only wear a couple of earrings? You do give the impression of ‘fuck off and leave me alone’ sometimes. Maybe dial it back a bit?”
He meant it kindly but I scowled at him, still burned by the earlier remark. He held his hands up in peace. “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. Just saying.”
“Well don’t. This is me. Why should I pretend?”
He screwed his fingernail into the corner of his eye. “Everyone pretends in an interview. Wear what you want once you have the job.”
He was right, but I wasn’t ready to let him know that yet.
My mind ran back over what I’d seen outside the gym. I knew why Finn was sceptical and I had no explanations for what it was I’d seen. But I’d definitely seen it. How would I react if Finn told me he’d seen something like that? I sighed. Probably exactly the way he just had.
“Oh, nearly forgot. I asked Rick and Billy if they wanted to come over tomorrow evening. Do you mind?” Finn broke through my thoughts, dragging me back to the kitchen.
A few years older than us, Rick worked in the tattoo place and had been Finn’s best friend since they met. He’d decorated both mine and Finn’s skin over the years. Billy, our boss, was Rick’s partner. Finn had introduced them, albeit inadvertently. When Finn had gone to get his first tattoo – the Celtic knotwork that circled the top of his right arm – the two had ended up talking about fitness and training. By this time, Finn had started his course and needed a case-study to write up and offered to train Rick, which then led to Rick joining the gym and meeting Billy.
I rested my back against the chipped worktop, glad of the change in topic. “No, it’ll be good to see Rick. Haven’t caught up with him in ages. Is he after any designs?”
I’d given Rick numerous designs for tattoos over the years, but he normally asked in advance rather than turned up hoping for some.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, I think he’s only coming for beers and craic, but if you have any, he’ll buy them off you. He said someone had been asking for my dragon again.”
Finn’s dragon tattoo stretched across half of his back, its wings spreading over his shoulder blades, its tail coiling down his spine, its body made up of Celtic knotwork, the intricate knots tangling and resolving perfectly. It was one of several tattoos that decorated his back and the tops of each arm, all in simple black with clean, crisp lines. I’d designed them all.
“No chance. I designed that for you and no one else.”
Finn grinned. “That’s what I told him.”
“Are they needing food as well as beer?”
“No, they said they’d bring pizza.”
“Grand. You ready for dinner? I’ll finish up while you text your mum.”
***
As I was drying the last of the dishes, dance music started up in the lounge. I went through to be met with the sight of Finn dancing like a muppet and singing along in completely the wrong key. Several wrong keys actually as he couldn’t hold a tune if it only had one note in it. He beckoned me over to dance with him. I shook my head but he caught my hands, dancing with me with no relationship to the beat of the music or style, just holding my hands and waving them around, looping his arm over me and twirling me randomly.
“God Finn, you’re a loon,” I said, joining in as well as I could but finding it hard to anticipate what would be coming next. Jiving? Tango? Seventies bad disco? Random dancing of the kind you do with five-year-olds at a wedding? Nothing that bore any resemblance to a dance I knew, but it was hilarious fun.
The music moved on to something slow and he frowned. “I’m not sure how that fits in with ‘disco shuffle’, but hey.”
We slow-danced before a completely cheesy track came on and Finn began boogieing as if he was demented. I was laughing too much to dance once Finn began his Saturday Night Fever routine. It morphed into his Pulp Fiction routine which could have been quite cool if he hadn’t been hamming it up so much. He grabbed my hands and I gave up and joined in, abandoning any pretence of hip sophistication. We danced, if that’s the right word for it, for about an hour until I was sobbing with laughter.
And then I was just sobbing.
Deep, shuddering, wailing, snot-laden sobs against his broad chest while he rubbed my back a
nd held me close, and utterly inappropriate frothy disco music played on behind us.
“Finn, I’m sorry.”
“Shh.” He kissed my temple. “Let it all out.”
“I was having so much fun dancing.”
“It’s fine.”
When I was finally composed enough to draw back, his top was soaked with tears and snot.
“I’m sorry.”
“What for?” he said gently.
“I got snot all over your top.”
He leaned back so he could look at me. “S’alright. It’ll wash.” His hands locked at the small of my back. “You okay now?”
“Yeah. I don’t know where all that came from.”
“The fact you’re stressed about the interview. That Stephen is getting released. Thinking about Sarah.” He canted his head to one side. “Close?”
Spot on. He stretched his arms up and flexed his shoulders. “Come on. Bed.”
“Yeah… Finn?”
“Mm?”
“Don’t ever change. You’re perfect.”
“Apart from the grotty socks and footie addiction?” He raised a brow as if being snarky, though he looked bone-deep happy.
“Yeah. Apart from that.”
6
I am coming for you.
I cried out as I woke, my breathing ragged. Finn stirred next to me, drawing me tighter to him, but didn’t wake. I steadied my breathing. It was a dream. Just a dream. The pinkish glow from the night light revealed an empty room and I rubbed my hair back from my face.
I
Am
Coming
The voice was in the room. Somewhere in the room. Snarling, malevolent, rasping. And in the room.
For you
The voice was so close to my ear that the breath brushed my skin. I screamed.
“Jaysus! What? Hey, Rea, Rea… it’s okay. It’s only a dream. Come here,” Finn soothed, pulling me back to him.
“Finn, it’s in the room. It’s in the room!”
“Rea, it was a dream. Shh. Shh.”
“It’s in the fucking room! It said it’s coming for me!”
Finn reached across and switched the bedside lamp on, squinting in the brighter light. “Rea, there’s nothing here. See for yourself.”
I stared around the room, my heart racing. Which would be worse? Seeing something or seeing nothing? The bedside light chased the shadows from empty corners to reveal a perfectly normal room.
“It was in here,” I insisted.
“What was?” said Finn, still half full of sleep.
I didn’t know. I just knew it was coming for me.
“Will you check the house?” I asked.
He opened bleary blue eyes, looking at me as if I might have lost my mind. “Check the house? What for?”
“Please, Finn?”
He groaned. I caught sight of his wristwatch and guilt flooded me. Almost a quarter past three.
He pushed his hair back and rubbed his face, sighing heavily. “You won’t go back to sleep unless I do, will you? Want to come with me? Or stay here?”
I hadn’t even considered that. If I went with him and it was there, it could get me. If I stayed here and it was hiding, it would get me as soon as Finn was gone.
“Come with you.” I figured that if there was something out there, Finn would murder it rather than let it get me.
We padded around the house, switching on every light. By the time we were in the lounge, I felt completely stupid. Finn put the lights out and I tailed him back into bed.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“It was just a dream,” he murmured. “Go back to sleep.”
I rested my cheek against him and listened to his breathing as it slowed and settled. His grip on me loosened marginally and I knew he was fast asleep again. I started on some relaxation exercises, focusing on my breathing, trying to match my breaths to Finn’s.
As I was finally dropping off, a voice whispered in my ear.
I. Am. Coming. For. You.
And then it laughed.
***
I never got back to sleep. The slightest sound in the house made my heart pound and my eyes spring open. I’d swear the voice in the night had been in the room, right next to me, despite everything. What the hell was coming for me? That creature with the old man? Except that thing – whatever it was – had been scared of me. Stephen?
I finally crawled out of bed long after Finn had gone to work. In the kitchen, I laughed at the fridge magnets, neatly arranged into two messages – one telling me Finn loved me, the other a selection of rude words. While the kettle boiled, I rearranged them, smirking. It had become a competition between us as to who could leave the filthiest string of words for the other. Finn usually won.
I scrolled through the messages on my phone. Lena had got back to me: Nope. I didn’t leave you a bracelet. You around for coffee this week? I texted her back to say coffee would be great and put my phone back in my pocket, my skin prickling. If Finn hadn’t left the bracelet and Lena hadn’t, who had? And how the hell had they got into the house? There was no way Finn would have left the door unlocked. I stirred my coffee, trying to shrug off the unease that had made itself at home between my shoulder blades, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Come on. There’s no one here. Get your arse in gear and get ready for Monday!”
My voice bounced off the walls. The solitude of the house didn’t comfort me. I checked the back door was locked. It was. So was the front door.
I blew out a jittery breath, grabbed my coffee and took it through to the lounge. There, I settled down to try to work on the brief for the interview, playing with the colours. I sighed as I stared at the new version, pretty sure I’d now overcompensated for my darkness and made it too light and frothy. I tore the page out of the book and crumpled it up. Dejected, I texted my old tutor from college – Maggie – to see if I could go over and throw some ideas around with her. We’d stayed in good contact since I left college. A sensible, dependable woman, she’d not only be great to help me wrestle the brief into some semblance of order, but she might just calm my shattered nerves. She replied almost immediately, suggesting we meet that afternoon.
By lunchtime, I was clean out of inspiration and the floor around me was littered with screwed up paper. It was bright and sunny out – perfect to take the bike out for a spin once I’d been to see Maggie. Except Finn had it. I called him.
“Hi, Rea. Everything okay?”
“Fine. Sorry to call you at work. Can I come and get the bike after I’ve been to college? I’ve been drawing all morning and I want to blast some air through my lungs. I’ll come back and pick you up when I finish.”
“Sure. I’ll be done by half five. That give you enough time? I can always pump iron if not.”
“Plenty. I’ll call you after I leave college.”
***
By half three, I was out on the open road. Maggie had been enthusiastic over my designs, allowing me to feel a tiny bit more confident about the interview, and now the fresh air was clearing my head and lungs, blowing away images of wraiths and the memory of insidious, creepy voices.
I turned away from the town and on to a quiet road that had few bends and even fewer speed cameras, accelerating hard up the hill behind the quarry, adrenaline fizzing through me. The rain from earlier in the week had gone and my heart soared as I opened up the throttle and let rip. The most fantastic view over the valley burst into sight, right at the top of the hill. I turned the bike in to a lay-by and peeled my helmet off, drinking in the scenery. The lights from the fracking site twinkled benignly and I wrinkled my nose. I would rather they weren’t there. The main process was due to start any day, if it hadn’t already and this glorious view could be ruined forever if there was as much gas down there as they hoped. I rested my weight back, feeling the tug of the bike as it shifted beneath me, and the crisp spring air chilled my nose as I sucked in deep lungfuls.
Fields hazed with the almost luminous green of wi
nter barley criss-crossed the valley below me and sheep dotted the hillside. Lambing wasn’t far off. Down in the south of the country it would already have begun but the hill-sheep needed the worst of the frosts and cold to be over before bringing fragile new life into the world. It was a Spartan existence with few barns for mollycoddling lambs in up here.
The bright sun held the promise of warmth. When the clocks changed in a couple of weeks, the evenings would stretch out, inviting me and Finn to sit outside in the shelter of the cottage, sipping beers into the sunsets. Yeah, life could be good sometimes.
From the fracking site came a low boom, and the earth shuddered and settled as if it had coughed. I scowled. Whatever they found down there, it wouldn’t be worth it. I stretched my back and gazed at the rural scenery, hoping that the tremor would be enough to shut the plant down for a while. Or permanently.
A tractor chugged across a field, a flock of birds trailing it, searching for food. A dark shadow crawled over the valley and I squinted upwards, trying to work out which clouds were creating it. The sky was almost clear and I turned back to the valley, frowning. The shadow had passed the tractor and was inching inexorably over the fields towards me. As I peered at it, I realised it wasn’t a shadow. It was mist. Black mist. It hugged the ground, undulating its way up the side of the hill, reminding me of the way mercury moved. Mist normally filled space but this was a tight ball, only a few metres in diameter, its boundaries sharp.
Ice trickled through my veins and I chided myself. I was being irrational. It must be the shadow of a cloud.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and sweat slicked my palms as the black mist kept on coming, but I was transfixed, my heart racing as the light in front of me blinked out inexorably. As soon as the blackness touched me, it rocked me backwards. My head filled with the sound and fury of a pitched battle; my ears filled with screams. Whether my eyes were open or closed, all I could see were clashing swords, spurts of blood, people lying slain on the ground. The stench of blood and death filled my nostrils.
“I invite you in.”
Had I said that?
