by D I Russell
“That’s okay,” said Dale, snapping on his seatbelt. “Lucky though. You just caught me.”
He waited until she was also strapped in before easing off the handbrake and turning out of the car park.
“So…” he said. “I have no idea where you live.”
“Oh right. Near Rothie. That’s not too far is it?”
“Completely opposite direction,” said Dale.
“I can get out if—”
Dale shushed her. “Don’t worry about it. I still have that new car novelty and don’t mind the drive.”
He indicated right, and with no traffic, turned past the pub and through the crossing. The girl had gone.
Dale noticed Samara didn’t wear perfume. One of the few conditions of the new car was to operate a free taxi service for his parents. Having raised their children, they believed it was time to reap the benefits. He’d fulfilled his obligations twice, and on both occasions been swamped with the alcoholic kiss of his mother’s perfume. With Samara so close, he detected the slight freshness of her deodorant, her shampoo, the slight saltiness on her breath in the steamy confines of the car. Aware how close his hand lay to hers as he changed the gears. He glanced to the side.
Samara had turned in her seat, looking out of the passenger side window. Dale could barely see the tip of her nose protruding from the mass of hanging black hair.
He licked his lips.
“It’s good, you know?” he said to break the silence. “Having the car. Can fit my amp in the back and everything.”
They passed under a streetlight, the glow sweeping through the inside of the car.
In the dying ebb of the light, the girl with the long hair watched him from the back seat, gone again once they entered darkness.
Tyres squealed on the road.
“What the fuck?” cried Samara, her sketchpad sliding from her lap.
Dale righted the vehicle and stared back into the mirror.
The next streetlight cast its beacon through the car, the haze revealing little more than the sparkling rear window, still coated in the moisture of a cold evening come too sudden. Dale blinked. A crazy reflection between the window, the mirror and his glasses, somehow projecting the image of Samara behind him. He concentrated on the road, wary of a row of parked cars to their left.
His passenger had retrieved her sketchpad, but remained bent over, fussing around her boots. She retrieved a loose sheet of paper from the floor and shoved it back into the book. Dale caught a glimpse of a demonic face howling from the page, all jagged, angry scrawls, the black eyes and mouth intense holes, circled in pencil held by a tight, drilling fist.
“Sorry,” he muttered as she found another tableau of horrors and returned it home.
“It’s okay.”
He peeked into the back seat.
The rear window heater had finally started to work its magic. Clear horizontal streaks cut through the condensation, offering a filtered view of the street behind. His guitar lay across the seat.
Dale slowed, approaching a traffic light that had just turned red. Waiting at the junction, he indicated left. The detour would add maybe another ten minutes or so to their journey, but all the better when escorting a lady home. Yes, a little drive through the countryside. The scenic route…if not for the darkness that smothered all the woods, fields, and farmland. At least they’d be away from the streetlights. Each time they passed beneath the halogen glow Dale caught himself glancing in the mirror and checking the back seat.
With no traffic, the lights promptly changed to green, and Dale eased the car around the bend. Samara had either recovered all her drawings or given up the hunt for now. She sat back in her seat, sketchpad flat on her lap, her hands resting by her sides. Dale changed gear and entertained the image of her suddenly placing her hand over his. And what then? Find a private spot to pull over and see what happens? Or probably just drive on in more awkward silence.
He accelerated down the country road. To each side, lingering in the peripherals of the headlight beams, low stone walls shot by, the last apparent vestiges of civilisation as the vehicle hurtled into the night. The walls dropped away, with only overgrown grass, low hedgerows, and hanging tree branches lining the road. No more streetlights. Inside the car, the glow from the dashboard provided the only illumination, casting a sickly hue across their faces.
Dale sought out any bizarre reflections. Satisfied he wouldn’t be caught off guard again, he relaxed a little. Briefly considering some music, he decided against it. Wouldn’t really create the right atmosphere: a bunch of Californians screaming into a microphone.
Yet…would it? He’d often seen Samara around the college, usually hanging out with Lily on the wall out front, chain-smoking like a couple of old women at the bingo. Had he caught her at one his gigs? Another pale face in the crowd, watching him from the shadows at the back of the room? He tried to picture the other places he might have glimpsed her, but her face melded into so many others. He always came back to the low wall outside the college and the booth at The Scholar, where the two girls could often be found.
Just talk to her!
He imagined long tendrils of wires and twisted tubing, emerging from his skull and snaking over the short distance to his passenger, penetrating her brain. How he would download what he needed, learn her passions and how to break this awkward barrier. She came across as clinically timid, introverted to the point of a mute. Why had she even accepted a ride home in the first place…
It was cold, he reminded himself. She’d missed the last bus.
Desperate times.
In the absence of his desired mind-reading apparatus, the atmosphere in the car hung as dark and fogged as the road on which they travelled. It sat, an unwanted back seat passenger, leaning forward to grin between the two in the front. A living obstruction, causing an area of dead space between the two. Dale thought about those devices used to block radio signals. A jammer. Samara had smuggled a jammer into his car, and no matter how much he wanted to make small talk—
He couldn’t read her mind, but perhaps she could read his. She turned further from him, gazing out of the window.
“Hey…” he tried, the word hanging in the claustrophobic space. “So what…” He cleared his throat. “What do you think of the car, then?”
Stupid. So stupid.
Samara either didn’t hear his pathetic attempt at conversation or chose to ignore him. He guessed the latter. Here sat an artist, a macabre and bizarre artist, certainly not one who would be impressed by a Ford Mondeo. He had to be clever about this.
“Lily told me about your painting,” he said, desperate for any response. “Said it’s real good. Might win the big prize at the art show. You…you are going to enter it, right?”
For a moment, he thought she’d fallen asleep.
Samara sighed. “We have to. It’s compulsory.”
Getting somewhere…
“I’d love to see it. Tomorrow, maybe? If you’re around.”
He glanced to his left. Samara still hadn’t moved. Transfixed by the night rushing by.
On her lap the sketchpad rocked from the motion of the car. One of the loose pieces hung out. He wanted to mention it, to reach forwards and grab the picture before it fell back down into the footwell. The beast on the paper leered from the book, its face half-hidden by the hardback cover amidst a nest of wild hair, wide eyes with irises like spirals challenging him. Reach for me, it beckoned. Reach down, tuck me back in, touch her, have your fingers brush her skin…
Dale turned back to the road. Even if he did accidently touch her by saving her drawing, she was covered from head to toe. No chance of skin on skin. Under her miniskirt she wore thick black leggings.
Touch me…
He eased his foot off the accelerator, gently controlling the speed of the car as it graced along an easy curve in the road. The headlights cut through the night. Not long now. Perhaps another ten minutes before they emerged on the edge of Rothington, and then she�
��d be out of the car. His chance over.
The road straightened, and Dale gripped the steering wheel with his right hand, reaching down with his left.
“Your drawing…” he said, almost at the paper. His fingers brushed her sleeve by her wrist.
Her hair swept back as she leered at him, eyes like dart pits, face impossibly long as the mouth stretched open like a snake swallowing its prey.
Dale jerked back in his seat, his right hipbone striking the door. His free arm thrust up in defence from the deformed creature that reached for him, fingers elongating into thin talons, twisted, gnarled twigs ending in black, polished nails.
It wailed, blasting him a scream that reverberated in the car interior.
Dale stared at the horrific stretched face that bore down upon him, growing teeth pushing through pink gums, tongue a frantic pink slug that curled back against the growing sharp incisors, squirming with anticipation.
The pedals under his feet rumbled, the tyres of his beloved car trembling as the vehicle left the road and mounted the thin strip of vegetation before meeting the dark forest proper.
His forearm pressing against her face, Dale looked through the glass. In the bright headlights, a thick tree trunk filled the windscreen.
***
A pale hand stretched out, the fingers flexing, testing their movement. The internal light of the car, now bright with the passenger door open, reflected in the glossy black nail varnish. The thumb hung loose, hanging on by a bloody shred. The digit spun on the thread of skin.
She sat straighter, somehow still held fast by the seatbelt, first examining her ruined hand, then staring down to her feet. Some of her sketches had tumbled loose in the crash. She reached down and grabbed a fistful, stuffing them back within the hardcover, the distorted ink-swept smiles and malevolent charcoal glares sliding inside the pages.
In the driver’s seat, Dale lay slumped against his crumpled door, his glasses thrown from ruined face. That’s the problem with second-hand cars: no matter how much daddy paid for it, sometimes parts just didn’t work. Like airbags. The bridge of his nose had slammed into the steering wheel on impact, his neck snapping. Faint bubbles popped in the mess spread across his face, his last breaths, struggling through collapsed airways and streaming blood.
She cast a final, disinterested glance in his direction.
Now she’d have to walk.
She spied one last drawing, down by her bag.
Samara reached down and lifted it free from between her boots. A mock-up, an initial idea of the work that would eventually become Outside. While the final piece beamed from the canvas in rich colour, this entity peered out from the rough paper in subdued pencil grey, the modesty of technique failing to diminish the seething that broiled from the sheet of paper.
She grinned, placed it back with its brethren. Reaching for the rear-view mirror, she angled it in her direction and blinked, meeting her own dark hazel eyes, framed in thick, dark mascara. Her mouth, small, tight, almost sealed, just as it should be, just as demanded.
Samara released the mirror and flexed her fingers, all five now attached and healthy.
***
Stop.
Eject.
5.
Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what she thinks into it.
Brenda stared into the full-length mirror fixed to the back wall of the fitting room. In the next booth, another woman huffed and grunted, trying to squeeze into her potential purchase, with clattering hangers and the pull of a zipper.
Brenda had changed into the top she had chosen for the supermarket Christmas party. Better to get it in now at sale price before the prices went up for the festive season. A high neck, lantern sleeve, deep green blouse. She grimaced at the arms, the slight transparency of the fabric revealing her skin. She lifted an arm and shook it, examining the slight sway of flesh hanging from her tricep. That hadn’t been there a few years ago. Too many ready meals grabbed from the freezer on her way home.
Ah, she could get away with the dress. She rarely treated herself, and not like Gavin would surprise her with a new outfit for the Christmas party. He didn’t even want to go. But half-price. Clearance. He couldn’t complain, what with the money he put behind the bar and in the bookie’s pocket every Saturday afternoon.
God, I look tired, she thought, peering closer at her reflection. Bring back the eighties, the hairspray, the overblown makeup, the cocktails sporting little umbrellas. Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. Where the hell had the time gone? The hours spent standing behind a supermarket checkout had gradually sipped away her youth. It wasn’t meant to be like this. It was never meant to be like this.
Brenda turned from the mirror, quickly changing back into her t-shirt and sports coat. She would buy the party top. Half-price. Clearance. He couldn’t complain.
Not if he never found out. Not like he’d notice a new top in a few months. And if she put it on the credit card he knew nothing about…
Stepping out into the shop, she scanned the racks for her daughters.
Kelly had needed new underwear. Brenda had thought this a quick job: just grab a cheap multipack on their way through. Her youngest had argued for something a little more…adult. Brenda, refusing to acknowledge the request, grabbed a pack of white briefs and quickly moved her on.
Thankfully Kelly had not returned to the underwear section and had found a couple of friends. They stood chatting near the first of the shoe aisles.
Samara was an entirely different problem.
Brenda started towards her youngest daughter, looking left and right down each aisle she passed. Impossible to miss Samara. With her huge boots and layers of black clothing, all splashed with the image of some awful band, or even worse – a horror film, she didn’t exactly blend in.
Kelly caught her approach and held up a coat by the hanger. “Mum! How about this?”
Brenda noticed the similarity with her own coat, which was not too thick but warm enough for the coming winter months. Kelly had chosen a version in light pink. Practical, but…
“Oh yeah,” said Brenda. She nodded and smiled to Kelly’s friends. “Hold it up.”
Kelly placed the hanger under her chin and grinned. “Well?”
“Looks good. Doesn’t it, girls? Bit like mine, only…pink’s not really my colour. How much?”
Kelly grimaced and turned around the dangling price tag.
Jesus!
“My birthday’s coming up…”
Her daughter’s friends looked away, diverting their gazes to the nearby shoes.
Brenda’s smile froze.
Feeling awkward are we, girls?
Brenda released a long slow breath through her nose, staring at the amount on the price tag, mind racing with figures.
“You do need a coat before it really starts getting cold,” she said, handing her party blouse to Kelly. “Hold this a sec.” Striding to the rack housing the coats, the pink garments squeezed together on the metal rail, Brenda riffled through them, eventually finding one the same size and colour. She plucked it free and held it up for inspection. “What do you think of this one?”
“Mum…it…” Her daughter pointed to the price tag. Not half-price. Not on clearance. Nor would he ever find out. “Mum, it’s twice as much as this one.”
“Yes,” agreed Brenda and pointed to the label under the inside collar. “This one’s Nike.”
“But it looks like the exact same coat.”
Now her friends were interested.
“But this one’s Nike,” Brenda repeated. “You need a coat. Put that one back.”
Kelly frowned. “Okay…” She glanced at her friends.
One of them shrugged. “Get it. It’s a nice coat, Kel.”
Appearing wary, like she expected her mum to withdraw the offer at any moment and burst into laughter, Kelly returned her first coat to the rack.
Brenda handed her the new choice, swapping it for the green blouse. She gave the thin garment one last
look and dumped it over the rail holding the pink coats.
“Mum?”
“It’s okay, love,” she whispered. “I have plenty at home.”
She straightened, smile beaming from her face. She hoped it blinded these two bitches. “Let’s get that bought. Then I guess we have to find your sister.”
***
Samara had snuck out of the clothes store the moment her mum had vanished inside the changing rooms. She had clothes, why would she need even more? Not like they sold anything she’d be interested in. She pictured the model she’d based her painting upon, glowering from the pages of the metal magazines in leather corsets, tartan miniskirts, fishnets, and spiked jewellery. The mail order companies she represented, now there was a shopping experience Samara could get into…not that she had the money, or a credit card. Most of her clothing was bought from a stall in the indoor market, run by a creepy guy affectionately known as Sweaty Steve by his teenage customers. Metallica, Coal Chamber, Nirvana, Cradle, Tool…he stocked them all. Dodgy knock offs, but within her limited budget.
It was her budget she cursed now, flicking around the few coins in her purse in the futile hope of finding more hidden beneath. That bloody quiz machine. If she hadn’t let Lily convince her to play… Once again, she’d missed out because of what others expected.
The bookshop had called to her like a siren. Why waste your time pretending to browse lacklustre clothing, my dear? I am but a few stores away. We have all your friends here, girl. King is here, and Koontz, Barker, and Laymon. Come and see, Samara! Come and see!
Kelly had of course bumped into friends, just real. She did every time they left the house. Samara had used the distraction to nip out of the clothes store and venture deeper into the shopping centre. Like The Scholar, the second-hand bookshop at the end embraced her with its familiarity. Straight to the horror section. The thrill of seeing the shelves restocked. What gems would she find today?
Her mum and sister always took forever when they went shopping. She’d have time. There and back. New novel under her arm.
She caught herself scratching through the fabric of her long sleeve shirt, pulling the sleeve higher up her arm. Another iffy item courtesy of Sweaty Steve. Her nails penetrated the thin, black cotton to attack her forearm. The seam was already starting to come apart from the regular onslaught. She cursed and pulled the sleeve back down to her wrist.
