by Nem Rowan
* * * *
I was angry at myself when I knew I shouldn’t be, but somehow this felt like it was my fault. Everything that had happened with David and the horrid encounter at the party. I knew it wasn’t, but I still blamed myself. If I could have gone back in time and changed some of the decisions I had made, things wouldn’t have turned out this way, but it was too late now and I just had to grit my teeth and bear through it. I never would have had a relationship with David and I wouldn’t have ended up going to the party whilst feeling so vulnerable and ending up propositioned by such a vile person. I wouldn’t have isolated myself.
But again, I found myself alone as I walked through the empty streets and along desolate roads lit by orange lanterns. I checked my watch and confirmed it was as late as I thought; I’d been at the party for only a couple of hours but it was still approaching 2am and there were no buses to catch. I had a key to Vanessa’s house so I didn’t have to worry about being locked out, and I figured I’d text her to let her know I had returned home so she didn’t worry about my disappearance from the party. I checked my phone to see if I had any messages but there were none, not even from David. In some ways it was a relief that he hadn’t contacted me because it would be hard for me to ignore him if he did.
It was so dark a night, even with the streetlights and the occasional glow of a mean-faced pumpkin on a doorstep. Unlike America, Halloween wasn’t much of an event in the UK, and that disappointed me because I had always liked it more than Christmas, which had once been a very sober affair with my father around, telling me I should be celebrating Jesus being born instead of getting excited for presents. Halloween was more welcoming to strange little Maddie, the oddball in her group of male friends, the tomboy with scabby knees and grass stains on her clothes, who questioned everything and defied her teachers.
I decided to take a shortcut across the park, a winding pathway that lead to a flight of steps leading to the road below, which would shorten my journey by about ten minutes. The path was lit and there were rows of houses backing onto it, so I didn’t feel unsafe, but even so, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder as I passed through the rusty gate. The wind had blown foggy clouds across the skyline, blocking the moon and stars and further darkening an already shadowy night. As I walked, I felt I had gone into another dimension where there were no people and no sounds, only the muffled thud of my shoes on the tarmac as I passed the vacant children’s play area where a swing was moving silently in the breeze.
That’s when I thought I heard footfalls behind me. I stopped and turned, gazing up the hill towards the entrance I had come from, but found no one. The darkness had swallowed the park in its black throat and all I could see from here were the luminous cat’s eyes of the lanterns and the pools of light beneath them on the pathway.
“Oh, come on, get it together, Tenny,” I muttered before continuing on my way. “It’s Halloween and you’re spooked.”
I started to walk, this time a little faster, even though I tried to force myself into the pace I had used moment’s ago. It wasn’t far to the descending steps, so I sped up slightly, consciously stopping myself from breaking into a jog as it grew nearer and nearer. There were fourteen steps in all, steps I had walked up and down many times and knew so well that I almost never held onto the rust-encrusted handrail that ran alongside them. I jogged towards the waiting stairwell, and as soon as my foot touched the first step, I knew something was wrong.
From nowhere, as if the shadows themselves had taken offence at my presence, hands thrust into the bottom of my spine, and in the blink of an eye, I tipped forward. There was no time for me to reach for the rail, no time to stop myself from falling. The dark was all around me, and I felt every razor’s edge of each stone and step cutting into me as I tumbled, rolling over and over down the never-ending passage until, at last, I hit the cobbled ground.
Seconds passed where I felt nothing, the shock taking possession of my thoughts and feelings, leaving me stunned into silence as I lay on my side, staring forward at the stone wall and the gauntlet I had just run. I took a deep breath and gasped. My lungs wheezed and I began to groan as the pain spread through me, the computer that was my brain notifying me of every spot of damage done to the muscles and bones beneath my skin, all the spreading bruises and scrapes and cuts. I tried to move and felt a firework of agony explode in my shoulder, a horrified scream bursting from my open mouth. I saw a figure at the top of the steps but my blurry eyes couldn’t pick out any details; all I saw was the gloomy silhouette against an even gloomier sky before it disappeared.
I turned my head, trying to figure out what to do next. I was scared and wanted to run, but I commanded myself to remain where I was.
Wait a moment, Tenny. Just breathe, I told myself. Think. Just think and breathe.
Nothing was broken, as least from what I could tell, but my shoulder throbbed madly; my arm must have dislocated as I had tried to grab anything to halt my descent. The rest of my injuries were superficial. If anything, I was lucky I hadn’t broken my neck. I reached into my pocket for my phone as I carefully rolled onto my back, using my uninjured arm to search for Vanessa’s number. She was the closest person to my location and the only one besides Willy awake at this hour, but even so, it took several attempts before I was able to get through.
“Tenny? Where are you? Did you leave the party?” she asked, her voice almost drowned out by the noise surrounding her.
“Yeah, I left the party. I’ve been attacked—I’m in a lot of pain. P-Please come,” I breathed as I attempted to struggle into a sitting position.
“Where are you? Oh, my god! Willy! Willy! Have you seen Willy? Rebecca. Where?” I listened as she began searching for her husband. “Tenny, stay on the line with me, we’ll be right there. Where are you?”
I explained my location, relieved that someone was coming to my rescue. As I lay there listening to her and murmuring weak responses, I fought back the tears but they still found a way of trickling free. I should have stayed at the party. Another dumb decision.
I sat waiting on the cold concrete for ten minutes before bright headlights lit the nearby street and Vanessa’s dark blue Toyota roared alongside me, the brakes screeching as it pulled up. The next thing I knew, both the doors had been thrown open and Willy was rushing to lift me; he’d shed his high heels and wig, instead wearing an expression of worry on his face.
“My arm!” I gasped as he hauled me up.
“Tenny! Can you get up? Are you alright?” Vanessa clamoured as she helped her husband bring me to my feet. It must have been nerves that made me do it, but seeing them in fancy dress out in the middle of the street, with Vanessa painted green like She-Hulk and Rebecca being wig-less, I couldn’t help but let a strangled chuckle escape through clenched teeth.
“My arm, I think it’s dislocated,” I whimpered, clutching my limb to prevent it from hanging at my side. “I can’t lift it, it hurts so much.”
“Let’s get you to hospital,” she declared.
Chapter 10
I was beginning to feel like a burden to Vanessa and Willy, especially now that my arm was in a sling and all I could do for a few days was slouch around the house, feeling sorry for myself. Having my arm returned to its correct position by a doctor was traumatic despite the medication they’d provided to sedate me, and getting to sleep at night was difficult without popping pills to dull the ache in my damaged shoulder socket. The police had come to the hospital to speak to me shortly after treatment and I had told them exactly what had happened, including my encounter with the creep at the party. They said they would look into it, that they would find the guy and check him out, but in the meantime, there wasn’t a lot they could do about it. Just like the stalking, without evidence and without personal details, they couldn’t arrest anyone. It might not have even been the guy at the party that had pushed me; I hadn’t been able to discern what the figure had been wearing. All I’d seen was a gloomy silhouette. Yet whomever it was, I couldn�
��t believe it had been David, but I still told them I believed he was the one who had been stalking me in the first place.
A few days later, the police told me that David had an alibi, therefore, he wasn’t the one who’d pushed me down the steps. A little spark of joy blew up inside of me, and as soon as it died down, I felt ashamed of myself. First for thinking that David could do something like that, and second for implicating him in the stalking. Maybe I was wrong. The stranger in red I had seen might not have been him. I still didn’t know what to do.
“Tenny!” Vanessa shouted up the stairs.
I was curled up on the sofa in the living room, my half-closed eyes staring at the television as I watched a game show, and when I heard her calling my name, I muted the sound. “What is it?” I shouted back.
Seconds later, her feet hammered up the stairs and she came rushing into the living room with a sheet of paper in her hand.
“What is that?” I frowned, glancing at her wide eyes and open mouth. “Oh, no, not another one…”
“This is getting serious. I’m phoning the police,” she exclaimed as she placed the photo on my lap and rushed to the landline.
I looked at the picture before me. There was the duvet as before, and another photo of me placed atop it. Arranged around the print was a selection of hunting knives, a machete, and a small handgun. There was no writing on this one; it didn’t need it. The message was loud and clear. I felt my heart sink further inside my chest.
* * * *
I pulled up outside Gerard’s house, parking my car beside his on the grass-fringed driveway outside his tiny, beige-bricked house and gazing through the windscreen at the open front door, where he stood waiting for me. Gary was in his arms and he stroked the grumpy cat’s head.
“Hey, Tenny,” he greeted as I climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut behind me, my keys jangling as I stuffed them into my coat pocket. I’d had to use my injured arm to change gear on the road, and my shoulder was so stiff and angry from the repeated motion.
“Hey,” I replied, unsure of where to begin. We had spoken briefly on the phone after the police had come to Vanessa’s and advised me to move to Gerard’s in the hopes that the stalker wouldn’t know I was living somewhere else. In the meantime, David was being reinvestigated.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” he asked, helping me pull my suitcase from the back seat.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” I confessed as I activated the car alarm and wheeled my luggage towards the front door.
“Go and sit down in the front room. Let’s talk.” He allowed Gary to leap from his arms and tiptoe along the hallway.
I can’t say I really felt safer in my brother’s home, but I definitely felt calmer in his presence, which was something he had always been capable of doing to me. I always went to him when something was stressing me out, and today was no different, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty I was bringing trouble to his door.
Gerard made some tea and we sat in the living room; even though I hadn’t really felt like talking, and I had already informed him on the phone of the basic facts after I had left the hospital days ago, he somehow coaxed the full story out of me.
As usual, Gerard was confident that everything would be alright and that he would protect me. I couldn’t help but smile. I was lucky to have my big brother looking out for me all the time.
With our empty mugs placed in the kitchen sink, we headed upstairs and I helped him to clear out his spare room as much as I was able with one good arm, taking boxes into the loft and putting fresh sheets on the bed. The simple act of carrying out these chores was therapeutic and helped to ease my nerves, so I began to feel a lot better. The spare room looked so empty without it full of junk, and I was able to put away my clothing in the small wardrobe near the door, Gerard leaving me in peace while I sorted out my belongings so he could do some washing up.
He told me he was going out with Growler this evening, which meant I’d have the house to myself from five o’clock onwards, reassuring me that if I got scared, I could call him and he’d come back straight away, but I reassured him that I’d be fine.
When he eventually did leave the house, after showering and putting on some of his fancier clothes, I sat in the living room with Gary on my lap, playing video games to try and take my mind off things. There was a niggling desire to hear David’s voice and it didn’t go away, no matter how hard I tried to force it out of my head.
Finally, approaching six o’clock, I paused the game and looked at my phone on the sofa next to me. Gary had curled up on the arm of the sofa and appeared to be zoning out completely, but I didn’t mind. David hadn’t contacted me at all since the day I had told him I didn’t want to see him again. I must have hurt him pretty bad. My heart yearned for him; I missed his voice, his smile, his soft eyes and caring hands. Even if he was stalking me, I still wanted him and I knew that was wrong. I knew that Vanessa and Gerard would be frustrated and angry with me if I confessed it to them.
I continued playing Halo for a while, then paused it again. I looked at my phone once more. Swallowing hard, I unlocked it and searched for David’s number, but I waited for a moment, staring at the green button that would start the call. Finally, I tapped it.
I waited and waited.
“The number you have dialled is not available at this time. Please try again later,” the robotic woman’s voice spoke to me before the call ended.
I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed. I left it for a few minutes, unfreezing the game and shooting a few aliens before pausing to try again. As before, there was no answer. Maybe he was in the shower, or maybe he was upstairs and his phone was downstairs.
I took a break to make myself some food, slipping some cash in Gerard’s coin-filled cookie jar to contribute before I dug into a plate of mac and cheese. Half an hour passed and it was pitch black outside, so I closed the curtains, still checking my phone every now and again to see if I had received any text messages, but there was nothing waiting for me. I tried calling David a few more times, but he still didn’t pick up. Was he ignoring me? Was he intentionally not answering because he was scared? The police had been to see him several times. I must have scared him. I must have made him too afraid to even answer.
“What should I do?” I asked Gary, splayed out on the coffee table as he thoroughly cleaned his back leg. “You’re not very good at advice, y’know that?” The cat appeared not to hear me.
After a moment, I figured I’d try calling David tomorrow. Maybe he’d change his mind when he saw how many times I had tried to reach him and eventually call me back. Even after I had gone to bed, I was restless and kept checking my phone until I finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
* * * *
Three days passed before I started to believe something wasn’t right. I didn’t mention to Gerard that I had been trying to get through to David, and my anxious behaviour was attributed to everything that had been going on.
Even though I was dying to vent about it and ask Gerard what he thought about David not responding to me, I still managed to keep it under wraps, though I’m pretty sure he saw me obsessively checking my phone for anything new. There never was.
My arm was much better and I knew it wouldn’t hurt using it to change gears while driving; as long as I didn’t do anything drastic, I was able to move around as normal, although I was still on pain-killers like before.
Gerard had returned to work and so I was alone again during the daytime, which made waiting for a reply from David seem even worse. It was on the morning of the third day that I had finally had enough. I showered and dressed, had some breakfast, and went to the car.
* * * *
The windscreen wipers pushed aside the spattering droplets as they hit the glass, creating rivulets down either side that framed my view of the hazy road. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, but at least the streets were clear as I had timed my journey shortly after rush hour, enabling me to z
ip straight through town and pop into my house to search for the envelope with David’s address on it.
I hit the road again, taking the short drive to the street where he had directed me that one time, my heart beginning to beat rapidly against my rib cage. I was nervous that he would be angry about me turning up unannounced; either that or he wouldn’t answer the door when I arrived.
I searched for somewhere to park, cursing as I strained my shoulder when I pulled up the handbrake. The downpour was too heavy for me to see the house numbers from the street, so I’d have to look on foot, but I wasn’t overly keen to be walking around in this kind of weather. Still, I had my jacket on, and before leaving Gerard’s house, I’d borrowed one of his umbrellas, plus it wasn’t windy, so theoretically it meant I should be able to stay relatively dry.
I put up the umbrella before clambering out of the car, the rain pattering loudly against my fabric shelter and my headlights flashing as I put on the alarm. The road was empty but I could hear the roar of traffic on the main road two streets away.
David’s house was number 17. I walked alongside front gardens, passing low wood fences and red brick walls as I searched the row of numbers. I saw a particularly dilapidated semi-detached home and began to feel even more anxious as I got closer and closer. Surely he didn’t live there? Eventually, I stopped outside it. The hedges were so overgrown that it was almost impossible to see most of the building, and the front garden was a jungle of tall grass and old kitchen appliances. Heaps of black bin bags full of who-knows-what created a mountain of trash that concealed the front window and was starting to overtake the front door, too. Still, I saw the correct address above the door. I had known there had to be a reason why he hadn’t let me come to his house, and perhaps this was it.
