Mind Terrors 1

by D I Russell

  Dale revealed swollen purple gums and bloodied teeth as he smiled in greeting. A second corpse had shambled into the exhibition hall, stepping through the open double doors from the foyer and taking in the scene.

  Samara had no idea how her former friend could take in the scene. Pulpy cavities stared out across the hall, somehow finding her. Lily’s head tottered, secreting congealed blood from torn arteries hanging beneath her sliced jaw.

  One could cut but not intricately carve.

  Rather than blindly grope after her quarry, Lily slowly turned, finding Dale. She joined him by the entrance.

  “Most of all,” Samara whispered, “it’s my admission.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen! If I can have your attention, please.” Miss Jones stood centre stage. “We’re about to start the awards ceremony, if you would care to take a seat.” Excited murmurs filled the room, temporarily drowning out the gentle music. The suits and dresses made their way to the rows of seats. “Students. I need you up here with me.”

  Keeping her hands deep in the pockets of her hoodie, one gripping the art knife tighter still, the other clenched into a fist to stop the violent flapping of her fingers, Samara followed her fellow students as they drifted towards the stage. She aimed to stand as far back as possible, ideally behind some of the more extroverted members of the class who would shine at the front. Jones arranged the twenty or so bodies in a single line, though, offering no refuge from the penetrating stares of those seated below. Samara took a deep breath and avoided the situation, staring down at the worn boards between her boots. She breathed in the scents of varnish, the cheap paint of the drama sets lined up behind her, and the musty crimson stage curtains. A quick check revealed Lily and Dale still waiting by the entrance as if to block her retreat, macabre guardians determined to see her face this. They both watched the stage, leaking dark fluids down their clothing and onto the floor. Lily grinned and waved. Samara returned to studying the boards of the stage.

  “Thank you,” said Miss Jones.

  The music abruptly stopped.

  “Thank you all for coming today. I’m sure I speak for the very talented individuals standing behind me that we’re honoured to have you all attend on this very special occasion. Most of you have had the chance to enjoy the projects.” She gestured to the twin rows of mounted artwork. A few looked back, as if just realising they were there. “Believe me when I say that every person on this stage has worked tirelessly over the last several weeks to present their very best, some right up until the last minute.”

  Don’t call on me, Samara begged. Don’t call on me!

  “The standard this year has been very high,” continued Jones, “which I am sure will be reflected in the grades awarded at the close of term. Unfortunately for this lot behind me, that means a few weeks of waiting. Don’t worry, guys and girls, it will fly by. Trust me.”

  A few on stage and in the audience chuckled.

  “But grades can wait for the moment as we look to this year’s presentation of the Varden Gleave Art Prize. The college has been awarding this prize for almost twenty years, with many of our recipients furthering their education and making their mark on the world of visual art. It is an honour and a privilege to award the Varden Gleave to one deserving student today.”

  Samara glanced up, sure Dale and Lily would have silently crept to the stage. No one else had acknowledged their attendance, and Samara feared causing a scene. Wouldn’t they love that? To cause her hysteria onstage? She’d done well so far, just another in the line.

  In the back row, three figures sat beside each other. Two stared at the stage with stoic faces, smiling only beneath their chins. They had come, as Samara knew they would. How could they not? They played the social game exquisitely despite the dealing of a bad hand. How would they siphon off the interest in her work? Claim they had supported her, that she inherited it all from them, that they had convinced her to go on? Her parents sat in silence, skin grey, throats hanging open from the knife she clutched in her pocket. In the third seat, wearing a brand-new pink Nike coat, a disfigured Kelly watched the proceedings with disinterest. Not so involved when the day wasn’t all about her.

  Samara looked away and rubbed her thumb up and down the handle of the art knife, seeking comfort in the familiar. Even she struggled to look at her sister for too long.

  Samara imagined Miss Jones announcing her name. How the shock and disbelief would spread across their decaying faces. They’d probably applaud, just like the rest of the backslapping parents. Couldn’t have done it without them. Never doubted her.

  “So without further ado,” said Jones. “Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  Those gathered in the exhibition hall politely clapped, and the teacher waited for this to subside.

  “Of all the wonderful pieces on display this year, one really stood head and shoulders above the rest. From the early designs and rough sketches, it was clear that something special was in the making. I will admit, I had concerns that the final version would not quite live up to the initial passion I saw in the first drafts, that a constant refining would dull its edge. This student did not just maintain that passion, but bordered on the obsessive, pouring dedication and precision to every brushstroke. Most importantly, this piece of art shows the very personality of this artist in intimate detail, dealing with the darkness, wonder, and concerns of the self we all try and bury. Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of the 1998 Varden Gleave is

  ***

  Samara.

  Samara?

  ***

  She blinked, standing before her painting. Samara remembered painting the face. Her subject had become less the model from the rock magazine, all forced melancholy and conceited stare, with one sweep of her brush. She had worked tirelessly, hadn’t she? Squeezed out every last drop of her skill into her art: weeping eyes in which the viewer could almost see themselves, the parting of skin sharp enough to draw blood and have it drip from the canvas, the dark, ugly forms, twisted and tight, forming the sinew and muscle under the sliding face.

  Yet the subject appeared to be frozen mid-smile. The girl with a torrent of black hair and a porcelain complexion. Not only had she again found refuge from her agony, but now took some pleasure in it.

  “Samara?”

  The joints of her fingers creaked from clutching the knife handle in her pocket, her thumb toying with the switch to pop the triangular blade.

  “Samara, love. Please say something. It’s not the end of the world.”

  She’d missed something, some small piece of the puzzle that had blocked the message of the painting, a tiny detail that stopped the realisation.

  “Answer your mother! Look, you’re upsetting her. I don’t see what the point is. It’s only a bloody college art show! Anyone would think it’s the Turner Prize the way you’re carrying on!”

  What did I miss? What did I do wrong? What are they missing?

  A light hand fell on her shoulder, light and tentative. “Come on, Sam. Please say something.”

  Samara squinted at the painting she had studied for countless hours over the last several weeks, seeking out an errant brushstroke or misdirected line. Horizontal streaks barred her vision, flickering with analogue static. Samara tried to blink them away, to adjust the tracking of her own sight and return to her meticulous search. The agitated lines remained, the girl no longer a subject captured on canvas, but a video nasty, a creature paused on VHS.

  Meeting the eyes of the monster, Samara pulled her hand free of the pocket of her hoodie. The easy blade slid free, aching to be released.

  “What are you doing? Gav? Gav, what’s she doing?”

  Before anyone could interfere, Samara struck deep into her face with the knife, ripping the canvas open along a flickering, electric line. The nose that had taken her a couple of hours to get just right slid in two.

  “Gav! Stop her!”

  Hooking in the knife in a tight fist, Samara struck at the face of the painting again, carving di
agonally, splitting a glistening eye. Another ripping across the top of the head. Another. Another.

  She shared the same smile.

  Her father’s large hand clamped onto her arm. Samara shrugged free and turned, still waving the art knife back and forth, uncaring if she struck canvas or flesh.

  Past the shocked faces, she ran to the double doors, fleeing outside. The cold grey embraced her like an old friend, apart for far too long.

  12.

  Knowing the campus, Samara easily evaded her pursuers. Wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve, she passed through the automatic doors and into the main building. Always a hive of activity, with the shop, office, and students waiting for the lifts, the ground floor provided Samara with ample opportunity to slip down a corridor unnoticed. She jogged past the foreign language classrooms, escaping both the dreary voices of the teachers inside and the call from Lily, who had entered through the main doors. Samara slammed through a fire exit and back out into the frigid afternoon. Turning a corner, she doubled back, reached the street, and crossed the road. Darting around the tall hedges that bordered the playing fields, she finally allowed herself a moment to catch her breath.

  She’d left her bag back in the exhibition hall. After a second of panic, she felt the familiar bulge in the pocket of her jeans. Digging out the half empty pack of cigarettes, she plucked one lose, raising it to her lips with a trembling hand. Her lighter was poked inside the box.

  “Fuckers,” she muttered around the butt. “Fucking goddamn…”

  She lit up and returned it all back in her pocket. She’d need more smokes before the day was out.

  Where now?

  Her present and future all seemed behind her. The painting. Miss Jones’s inevitable shock, disappointment, and resulting grade. Her parents. Lily. The stares and comments from the good little students in her class. It was all done. Now only one question nagged her.

  Where now?

  Her wallet, attached to a shiny silver chain and stashed in her rear pocket, held nothing but her bank card. A little remained in her savings account. What else would she spend it on? More supplies? A fresh canvas?

  She dragged long on the cigarette, almost laughing.

  I’d slit a throat for a drink.

  Samara started across the field, head down against the cold and the sight of the lone girl, who watched her from beside the far goalposts. She ignored the mud on her boots and tugged up her hood against the chilly breeze. Smoke curled about her numbed face as she exhaled through her nose. Yeah. A drink. A drink would warm her up just nice.

  ***

  The Scholar would be the first place they’d look, so once Samara had made her withdrawal from the bank, every last penny, she headed to the centre of town. A forgotten relic from the industrial revolution, making its name from mills and canals, winding streets and alleyways composed its nucleus. Samara ducked off the main street and into one such lane, with empty beer cans smashed flat and a discarded takeout burger box blowing across the cobbles to ruin its nostalgic beauty. A flash of inspiration hit Samara, a piece of art ruined by the consumerist hunger of the modern world. She quashed the thought, envisioning the crippling cycle of creation and disappointment.

  Another pub, one that she’d seen a few times walking past this alley, poked out of the haphazard buildings about halfway along. No one would think to look for her here. She wasn’t even sure if Lily even knew of it. A good, secret place.

  Through the window, she spied a young woman who’d already started her day’s drinking. Sitting alone on the other side of the glass, she raised a shot to her lips, tipping back the clear spirit and demolishing it with a single swallow. Her long black hair hid her face, but Samara saw enough. The girl placed the glass on the table, and a second later, raised a second.

  Samara stopped in the middle of the lane, watching the second shot hit home.

  “I tried,” she said.

  The bashful sun slunk behind the pallid clouds, slipping on its funereal mask. Premature darkness filled the narrow, cobbled street.

  Samara froze from the caress drifting up her spine.

  “You know how much I tried.”

  The gentle touch separated, and slender fingers, ending in needle-thin ebony points, drifted over Samara’s shoulders. Even through the hood, she could feel the cold, foul tickle of breath at the base of her neck.

  In the window, the girl tucked her hand inside her sleeve and wiped her eyes. A plump woman holding a tray of empty pint glasses stopped by her table. Face almost cracking with concern, she grabbed the girl’s empties and placed them on the tray. Asked if she was okay.

  “I don’t need anything,” said Samara. “Other than a drink.”

  The girl crafted of agony tightened her grip.

  She had found the answer to her one question. Where? This was as good a place as any.

  The barmaid released the woman’s shoulder and with a final reluctant glance, carried her tray back to the bar.

  “I thought, if I showed the world, it would all come together. The fractured pieces,” said Samara. “There’s always been a schism between worlds, ours and theirs, and I hoped… I hoped that if they could see it laid bare…” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “But it’s never about the art. Always about the artist.”

  The girl in the window started to tremble, racked with sobs. From the empty bar, the older woman loaded glasses into the dishwasher, keeping an eye on her sole young customer.

  The dark entity gripped tighter, resting her head against Samara’s back.

  “To what you gave me,” toasted Samara. “My admission, my confession, my obsession.”

  She lifted a shot glass full of vodka, grinned, and tossed the fiery liquid down her throat. Number three. She looked over her shoulder and through the window.

  Outside, the lane was empty. Not many people ventured down this far.

  ***

  Her grandmother’s money was all but gone, now safely behind several bars through town. She’d moved from place to place, always choosing establishments off the beaten track, those hidden away that would happily take her money. She’d slowed from the straight spirits to her usual bottles of Metz, but the taste brought back better memories, deceitful memories, of fun times back in The Scholar. She washed them away with a gulp from a flask-size bottle of cheap vodka, bought from an off-license, just small enough to fit in the wide pocket of her hoodie.

  She’d successfully fled the day. Shops began to close for the night, with sales assistants dragging down noisy metal shutters and heading to the bus station. Packs of kids in high school uniforms hunted entertainment through the dark streets, loitering around benches to swap jokes, smokes, and saliva. Samara staggered on.

  Passing a closed kebab shop, she lurched into an alleyway at the side, nearly slipping in a puddle of old grease leaking from a skip bin. She pressed a hand against the worn brick of the opposite wall to steady herself.

  A woman marched down the street, her heels hammering out a steady, echoing rhythm on the concrete. A mother and child hurried past the entrance to the alley. She’d burrowed deep in her coat, eager to be out of the cold, while he chatted excitedly, keeping step at her side. Walking the opposite way, a balding middle-aged man in a brown leather jacket, a cigarette poking from his lips, cast Samara a curious glance. He pressed on, deciding she wasn’t worth it.

  She ventured further into the alley, desperate to be out of the light and away from prying eyes. The rich and salty stench from the used cooking fat tasted sweet on the air, barely masking the reek of rotting meat. Samara pressed the back of her hand across her mouth and closed her eyes, forcing herself to overcome her rising nausea. Her eyes were useless, swamped in shadow and blurring further with every step. She managed to reach the corner of the building before flopping down to the grimy cobbles, her legs collapsing under the sudden weight of her body. Slumped against the wall, she grimaced in the shadows and plucked the bottle free of her pocket. Samara focussed on the cap to unsc
rew it, and took a short, sharp drink of the foul liquid. She winced and sucked in a harsh breath through her teeth. Replacing the bottle, she tried to wash the vodka down with a cigarette. Her packet came up empty. She flung it across the alleyway and fell back against the wall.

  “I jus’ wanted,” she told the dark. “I jus’ wanted them to see.”

  Her head flopped forwards.

  “But everyone else better. No matter…” She swallowed. “No matter what I do…”

  She wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve.

  Samara grunted and fought the mass of her head, throwing it to the side and looking down the tight lane.

  The streetlights cast a comforting glow through the narrow entrance, and people still hurried past, their breaths fogging before their faces. They all ignored the figure standing between the buildings, long arms bridging the gap, silhouetted against the well-lit street.

  “You,” said Samara, her head drooping back down. Her chin rested on her chest.

  ***

  Her eyelids fluttered, fighting to stay closed. A sensation persisted: a dancing stroke across her left cheek. The dainty tickle gently pulled Samara from her slumbers, and surrendering to the ongoing caress, she opened her eyes.

  Below, the girl stared up at her, her face barely visible through hanging, dark locks. Samara believed the girl was on her knees until she stepped back. In a long-sleeved shirt, black jeans, and thick leather boots, the girl considered Samara for a moment. Apparently satisfied with what she found, she turned her back. With her pale face hidden, the girl was swallowed by the dominating shadows. She had returned to the abyss, the featureless darkness. A single point of illumination formed an island of light in the opaque, and Samara hung suspended below it, the only actor on an empty stage.

  She tried to step forwards, to chase after the girl, to grab her and spin her around and not be left alone in the desolate. Her body refused.

  My legs, she realised. I can’t feel my legs!

  For a sickening moment, she savoured the knowledge, for she had become living proof, a real work of art. To try and exhibit such horror and suffering, to stab through the reassuring cocoon of modern life and touch that nerve, the part in all of us that still remembers and buries it down, so far down! The fear of pain and injury. Of death.