Her Dark Retreat: a psychological thriller with a twist you won't see coming

by J. A. Baker

  The door is almost taken out of her hand as she slowly pushes it ajar, the roaring wind like a huge, snatching fist forcing it wide open, wrestling it out of her grasp. It bangs against the wall and Peggy flinches as the sound echoes around the cottage. She reaches out and grabs it again, hanging onto it, closing it as quietly as she can. It clicks to and before she can catch her breath, she finds herself being buffeted about by a howling gale, her body bent almost double as it comes at her from all angles, forceful and unyielding, slapping at her face and whipping strands of thick, coiled hair into her face. Peggy turns slightly to the side, the strength of the gusts pushing her back into the wall as she tries to shine the torch around the area by the bins. She’s pretty sure that’s where the sound was coming from. Even with the torchlight it’s almost impossible to see anything. She needs to be careful here. The edge of the cliff isn’t so close but the place is littered with potholes and she doesn’t fancy losing her footing in the pitch black. She stops and listens, the sound of her feet crunching on gravel, filling the night air. Another blast of freezing wind races in over the horizon and sets the sea into an almighty howl. The force of the squall sends her hurtling into the fence and Peggy feels herself falling onto the floor with a thud. She sits for a short while, trying to catch her breath, the cold seeping up through her bones in a matter of seconds. Clambering back up, she stands with her back against the rough wall, small jagged fragments of concrete digging into her spine. Steel fingers claw at her chest as she hears it again. A low moaning sound emanating from somewhere behind her. She visualises an attacker, crouched, ready to hurtle at her, knock her to the floor, do all manner of unspeakable things to her. It’s so dark out here. Nobody around, no-one to help her. The nearest people are Brenda and Maude in the farmhouse over the main road. An exhausted woman juggling a full-time job and looking after a demented old lady. Like they could be of any assistance. And even if the young man is staying over he would be of no use at all. He was a nervous wreck and would blow over in a slight breeze. He couldn’t fight off an attacker if his life depended on it. As for Alec - he sleeps the sleep of the dead. She could be murdered right here on her own doorstep and he wouldn’t even know. Peggy stops and tries to still her thrashing heart that is jumping around her chest, flapping and banging into her ribcage like a tiny, captive bird. Even in this freezing weather she feels hot, her core temperature a furnace of bulging flames, fear licking and burning her skin. She blinks and steadies her breathing. This is stupid. She needs to calm down and get a fucking grip. She’s had far worse than this to deal with before now. What does she expect to find out here for God’s sake? This is hardly the first place a madman would hide, is it? Up on a cliff edge in the dead of night. She tells herself that her fear is fuelled by the darkness and the isolation. The noise is probably no more than some sort of wild animal scurrying around, feasting on scraps of food and anything they can scavenge in the dark. Her breath escapes in tiny, fragmented gasps, her throat suddenly dry and tight. Edging her way along the wall, Peggy scours the area with a thin beam of light, the torch heavy in her hand.

  ‘Anybody there?’ she calls out, her voice a squeak against the howl of the tide.

  A low but definite moan begins to gather momentum. It crashes into her brain and her legs begin to buckle as the sound increases in strength.

  ‘Here,’ a voice crackles through the darkness, reedy and brittle, ‘I’m over here.’

  Peggy wants to weep. Terror twists her insides as she slowly sweeps the torch towards the voice. The yellow light shakes violently as she struggles to hold it still, her knuckles taut, her hands shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘Not there - here!’ the voice screeches.

  The world tilts and Peggy lets out a scream. She feels herself sliding to the ground as emaciated, ice cold fingers clasp around her ankle and grip on for dear life. Fear blinds her as she hits the cold, stone floor and the voice whispers in her ear, ‘You! It’s you …’

  25

  Brenda

  It’s the dream that wakes her. A terrible nightmare of death and terror and things she can’t quite remember clearly enough to put into words. Or at least doesn’t want to. Just a jumble of hideous images that will stay with her for the next few days. Nightmares involving falling and screaming and clawing at wet earth to save herself - plunging into a deep chasm, being unable to breathe properly. Dreadful pictures lodged inside her brain. Nightmares are the bane of her life and she is having more and more of them these days. She lets out a trembling sigh. It’s the stress of work, she is sure of it. And her break up with Stuart. And of course, her mother. It’s always Maude at the centre of things. As if her full-time job as a ward manager at one of the largest hospitals in the north-east isn’t difficult enough. And now Stuart is claiming he wants money from her mother’s house when she sells it. Such a horrible, odious arsehole he is. He knows how bad things are for her at the moment. She’s tried to keep it friendly, be affable and co-operative but he is going out of his way to make the divorce as painful as possible. A pain travels up her neck, lodging behind the rear of her skull, thrashing around her brain. She lies still for a while and waits for the whooshing in her ears to cease, then turns over and longs for sleep to return and engulf her. It isn’t forthcoming but then she knew it wouldn’t be. Once she’s awake, she’s awake. Brenda cocks her head and listens out for her mother. She can usually hear her snuffling and snoring in the room next door. It’s unusually quiet tonight but then the snuffling takes place just as Maude is settling down. She sits up and flicks on the bedside lamp, wishing she was back at home. She always sleeps better there. Being back in her childhood bedroom wasn’t on her list of aspirations at the start of this year. Neither was a messy divorce but there you are. Funny how life can be, waking up one morning realising you no longer want to spend the rest of your life with your feckless, drunkard of a husband, and then being faced with having to watch your mother slip and slide her way into the gaping, ghastly abyss that is dementia. Being a passive bystander, unable to shield her from the horrors that her brain subjects her to every day as it deteriorates and shrivels up until she no longer knows who, or where, she is. Such a cruel, wicked disease.

  The wind gathers speed outside, rattling at the windows and sending the sea into a near frenzy. Brenda shivers and pulls on her dressing gown, wondering if she should get up or stay in bed and read until she starts to feel tired again. She could really do with a couple of paracetamol and a glass of water. Her head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton wool and her throat is as dry as sandpaper. It’s a good job she is off work tomorrow although under the current circumstances it’s actually easier getting up at the crack of dawn and going off to the hospital to do a twelve-hour shift than it is staying here and looking after her mother. Things will be better once she gets this place surveyed and on the market. It’s only time that’s stopping her from getting things moving, or rather the lack of it. A lick of paint and a few touch-up jobs here and there and she’ll put the old place up for sale. It won’t fetch a hefty price - it hasn’t been properly decorated in years - but it will be enough to employ a full-time carer and it will be worth losing a few grand to not have to spend every day worrying about what Maude is up to in her absence. She will be damned if Stuart is going his hands on a penny of this place so he can piss it all up the wall. Not a bloody chance.

  She shuffles her feet into her slippers and tugs her fleecy robe tighter around her midriff then pulls open the door and quietly pads downstairs not wanting to wake her mother. Getting her back off to sleep is nothing short of nightmarish if she wakes in the middle of the night. As well as everything else, dementia has robbed Maude of her own body clock. Once she is awake, she paces the floor crying for her breakfast and demanding Brenda turn on the television so they can watch The King and I for the thousandth time that week. Sometimes for a treat they will have a crack at Fiddler on the Roof or The Sound of Music in order to keep Brenda’s sanity intact, but generally The King and I is t
he one that keeps Maude quiet, helps to soothe her and stop her from getting up to anything untoward in the early hours while Brenda snoozes quietly in the chair.

  The floorboards creak under her feet as she shuffles along, trying to dodge the noisy ones she knows will let out a squeal. She stops outside her mother’s room and considers going in, just popping her head round the door to make sure Maude is okay, but decides against it. She doesn’t want to run the risk of waking her and putting them both through any unnecessary stress. Anything involving her mother is an ordeal these days. Brenda is relieved at the silence that greets her as she waits and listens. A guilty thought steals through her mind. She swats it away and admonishes herself for even entertaining the very idea that Maude might have died in her sleep. Because there are days when she wishes it. God, how it would help ease some of the stress in her life to get up one morning and find her mother has departed this life for another one. A life where she can remember her own name and spend her days with Brenda’s father; happy and dementia free. And then Brenda snaps out of it and has to deal with one of Maude’s rages, or clean up the bed sheets after Maude has soiled herself during the night or be faced with any number of scenarios that her mother’s condition throws her way each and every day as Maude’s mind slowly shuts down, leaving her a shell of her former self. It’s hard to believe, looking at her now, but there was a fully functioning Maude before dementia got its claws into her and tore her brain to shreds. She was an amazing mother and wife, a pillar of the community, a schoolteacher loved and admired by pupils past and present. And now she thinks the Germans are still flying overhead, bombing the shit out of the north-east of England and that her father is working as a stevedore at the local shipyard. Sometimes Brenda finds herself staring at her mother’s face, scrutinising it for signs of the woman she once knew, the woman whose sparkling, dancing eyes once had fire in them. The same lady, whose eyes are now rheumy, glazed, uncomprehending. The woman who spends her days wandering around the house tearing up bits of paper and stripping down to her underwear in the middle of the living room. Dementia - the eater of people, the dark destroyer of the human soul. It has torn the heart out of Maude, and Brenda has to clean up the mess it has left in its wake. If there is a God, Brenda is sure he is up there right now, laughing at her predicament, making her pay for every teenage misdemeanour she ever perpetrated.

  She quietly heads downstairs, figuring it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie. At the bottom of the stairs Brenda stops, flicks the light on and opens the door into the living room. She stares at the sight before her and feels the blood drain from her head. The living room has been completely ransacked, cushions overturned and thrown on the floor, papers scattered everywhere. A lamp in the far corner of the room is turned on and Brenda stops, barely able to breathe as a cold blast of wind whips around her legs, stopping the blood in her veins. Tugging at her fleecy robe and struggling to control her breathing, Brenda shuffles towards the kitchen, fear consuming her. The draught increases in strength the closer she gets. A ribbon of fear wraps itself around her head. What if there is someone in the kitchen? Poised to attack behind the door, knife in hand with demonic intent? Heart jumping around her chest, Brenda takes baby steps past the dining table toward the open door that has started to creak as it moves slightly in the gathering breeze. She can barely breathe. Her chest aches and her skin is clammy. Reaching out she uses the flat of her palm and quickly pushes the door fully open, steeling herself for a blow. The door slams into the wall, the clatter causing her toes to curl. Brenda stares through at an empty room. No burglar, nobody rooting around looking for items to steal so they can feed a raging crack addiction. Nothing amiss. Except for the back door which is wide open, a gaping mouth allowing the night to creep in and drape itself around the room like a heavy shroud. She doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or horrified. Why is the back door wide open? Stepping forward, Brenda quickly slams it shut and locks it, scanning the room as she turns to head back into the living room. The thought of somebody prowling around makes her queasy - somebody down here, searching, touching their things, turning the place upside down while she and her mother were asleep upstairs. Something flickers in her mind, flames licking at her exhausted brain. Maude. Taking the stairs two at a time, Brenda tears upstairs, visualising a madman leaning over her mother’s bed, peeling the covers back to reveal her tiny, frail body. A helpless victim, unable to defend herself. Bile rises in Brenda’s throat and tight fingers grasp at her windpipe leaving her struggling to breathe properly as she opens Maude’s door, no longer caring if she wakes her or not. She will sit up all night watching any number of musicals as long as her mother is safe. Light from the landing spreads over the bed in the centre of the room. The room spins. Vomit rises. The bed is empty. Brenda stalks across the floor, her footsteps now heavy and panicky. Flinging open wardrobe doors and dragging drawers out onto the floor in a blind panic, Brenda begins to scream out,

  ‘Mum! MUM!’

  Her voice reverberates around the bedroom, bouncing off walls and accentuating Maude’s absence as Brenda tries to stop her hysteria from bursting out and sending her into a complete meltdown. She has to keep cool and composed, use all of her professional training, remain calm in the face of adversity. There is a rational explanation behind all of this. There has to be. Terror yanks at the back of her brain, scaly fingers squeezing all logic out of her thinking process. She fights it off, wishing she had a decent husband or a sibling to help her. It’s not easy being alone, having to make all the decisions, facing all the terror on your own without anybody to turn to for help. She stops, sweat coating her face, fear prickling at her scalp. The rest of the house. She begins to search it, stalking from room to room before it suddenly dawns on her.

  ‘Fuck!’

  Tearing down the stairs, Brenda wrestles with the lock on the back door, her palms clammy as she attempts to turn it, the cold metal handle slipping out of her grasp until she eventually manages to snap it open. She hurtles out into the freezing night air, her breath misting up in small, grey wisps before trailing off into the ether.

  ‘MUM!’ her voice disappears into the night - a small, inaudible whine drowned out by a sudden howl from the sea down below.

  ‘Mother! MAUDE!’ She grabs her dressing gown and gathers it up, holding the folds of fabric in her clenched fists as she gallops across the garden, desperately scanning the area for any signs of movement. It’s useless. Her eyes strain against the darkness. She needs a torch but can’t even think whether or not there is one in the house. There must be. They had them when she was a child growing up here but can’t recall seeing one anywhere while she’s been staying here and she doesn’t have the time to go searching. Her mother is out here somewhere. Brenda thinks of the cliff edge and the black sea below and feels hot pins stab at her face. It was only a matter of minutes ago she was wishing her mother dead and now … a heaving breath catches in her throat. She swallows hard and rubs at her eyes wearily. She should call the police. Maude is a tiny, vulnerable old lady. Even without taking into account the location, she could freeze to death out here. And to think she was initially furious with Andrew for letting her escape out here weeks back and now here she is, in the same position, except this time it’s worse. It’s four in the morning and Maude is nowhere to be seen. An involuntary sob escapes before she has chance to stop it. Hot tears begin to flow, misting up her vision. She rubs her face with her sleeve, a gelatinous mixture of snot and salty tears smearing over the fabric leaving a glue-like residue.

  ‘Come ON, Mum! Where the hell are you?’ Her voice wafts through the night, a thin streak of nothingness. She turns back to the house. She has to ring the police and she has to do it right now. Every second she wastes puts Maude further in danger. Whether it be from the sharp night air or a fall down a rabbit hole or, God forbid, a tumble over the edge of the cliff down to the deep, treacherous water beneath. Brenda’s breathing increases, coming out in heaving, rattling gasps, her chest heavy with des
pair.

  ‘MAUDE!’ This time her voice has some substance to it; a bellow that travels across the garden, filtering through the hedgerows and piercing the night air. A lull in the weather has caused a momentary silence. The sea has ceased its almighty crashing; the wind has dropped to a slight whisper and Brenda can at last hear the echo of her call trilling in the distance. She stops, a hiccup caught in her throat as she listens. Did she imagine it or is there a sound coming from somewhere beyond the garden? Or is it just that she is wishing to hear something and her imagination is playing tricks on her?

  ‘MUM! Where ARE you?’ She waits, her ear attuned to the reverberations of her own calls.

  There it is again. An indistinct but definite sound. Unable to keep hold of the yards of material bunched up in her fist, Brenda shrugs off her thick, fleecy robe. It drops to the ground at her feet and gathers in a soft mound. Wearing only a thin nightgown and a pair of slippers, Brenda takes off at a gallop, darting out of the garden and into the blackness beyond. There is no light anywhere, the opaqueness of the night complete, but she’ll keep on going, follow the sound until she reaches her.

  ‘MOTHER!’ She screams Maude’s name over and over again and stops only to listen for a response. It’s there - faint and light, a whisper on the wind, but somebody, somewhere is calling back to her. Heart pounding at her ribs like a battering ram, she sets off once more, not caring whether she falls over; not concerned about the danger that may lie ahead. She has to find her mother - poor, tiny, helpless Maude who somehow managed to find her way out of the house and is currently stumbling around in the dark on top of a cliff, wearing God knows what and with God knows who. The faster Brenda runs, the further away the sound seems to get. She stops and hollers once more, ‘MUM!’