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

by J. A. Baker

  This time the answer is closer. She is able to make out hazy sounds and form them into a vaguely coherent response. Thank fuck for that! She’s alive …

  ‘Here,’ the voice shouts as Brenda pounds across the grass, over the gritty, uneven road, onto more grass, through the gorse bushes that snag and tear at her skin, leaving her bleeding and crying out in pain, and eventually onto the long stretch of gravel that leads to the old coastguards’ cottage near the border of the clifftop. Near the edge … RIGHT NEAR THE FUCKING EDGE! Brenda feels her legs buckle at the thought of Maude staggering and falling, limbs flailing, fear consuming her as she cries out for the daughter that wasn’t there, the daughter who didn’t save her.

  By the time she reaches the perimeter of the cottage’s garden she can barely hold herself upright. Tears are blinding her and her arms and legs are slick with blood where the thorns have torn and ripped at her exposed skin. She stops, adrenaline coursing through her system, masking the pain. It’ll hit her later, when she stops, when this is all over. She touches her upper arms and sucks her breath in. She may even need stitches and a tetanus injection. No time right now. She’ll sort herself out later. Right now, she needs to find Maude, who will be freezing and terrified and possibly in need of medical care. How the hell did she get out? Brenda can’t bear to think about it. Her fault of course. She must have left the key in the door. No way did she leave it unlocked. She stumbles forward, driven on by guilt and fear. Moving round the back of the cottage, Brenda lets out an involuntary gasp of relief. An open door. The back door is ajar and coming from it, Brenda can see a long shaft of light that is penetrating the darkness, flooding the step with a spread of yellow. Something catches her eye, a movement, noises, a bundle of shadows. Brenda moves forward, her chest tight with fear and trepidation at what she may find there. Her eyes are drawn to the flickering movements to one side of the light. She stares down, horror gripping her as her eyes land upon an opaque shape on the floor. There, huddled in the dark, is a writhing mass of limbs. Brenda steps forward, dizzy and sick with fear to see two tiny bodies at her feet …

  ‘Mother?’ she whispers, her voice hoarse and ragged.

  The shriek cuts her in two as Maude’s voice splits through the darkness, an edge to it that freezes her blood. ‘She’s dead!’ The tiny voice cries, ‘She fell down and now she’s dead!’

  Brenda feels her head spin as an icy hand reaches out and grabs her nightie bringing her crashing down onto the floor in an undignified, painful heap.

  26

  Alec

  It’s rare for anything to wake him but the almighty racket going on outside Chamber Cottage has dragged him from the deepest of slumbers and he is absolutely fucking furious. What the hell is going on out there? It sounds like a pair of caterwauling feral creatures right outside his bedroom window, a series of howls and squawks that has filtered through his brain, into his dreams and ripped him from the comforting arms of sleep.

  Alec throws back the quilt, suddenly aware that Peggy isn’t there. He reaches over and touches her side of the bed. It’s cold. His brain freezes, caught between the dark realms of sleep induced thoughts and stark reality. He sits for a few seconds trying to make sense of it. Is it morning and she’s already up? He swivels his head round, stares at the clock and waits while the numbers come into focus. It’s almost four thirty in the morning. Four thirty? Where the hell is she and what in God’s name is going on outside his house? The somnolent fog inside Alec’s head begins to clear as he stands up, pulls the blinds to one side and peers out of the window. Nothing out the front but an impenetrable blanket of blackness and the usual rush of the sea. He pulls on a pair of joggers and a t-shirt and stalks out onto the landing to peer out of the window that overlooks the side garden and rear of the cottage. The noise is amplified there. Voices. Shouting. Then screaming. Shit! Alec stumbles downstairs, feet twisting and turning under him, his chest pounding. What the fuck is going on? Images of a gang of intruders, high on drink and drugs, bursts into his brain as he prepares himself for whatever is going on out there. And what about Peggy? What have they done to her? Fire rages as thinks of her tiny frame, how inept she would be at fighting anybody off.

  Alec looks around as he races into the living room, his head spinning. Everything is normal. Nothing out of place. Eyes wide, he heads into the kitchen, steeling himself for a blow. That’s where they’ll be - whoever they are. Peggy’s laptop is in the centre of the table, its usual place. Another tidy room. The hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention as voices sift through from what he can now see is an open door. How did he not notice that before? An open door … He listens, a creeping sensation working its way up his spine as he hears Peggy’s voice, pleading, cajoling, and then another screeching voice. Something registers in his brain, a familiarity about that sound that he can’t quite place. Alec pauses, his temples pounding, then hurtles outside, ashamed of his reticence and fear. The cold air bites at his bare arms. He lets out a low grunt as he trips and falls over the pile of bodies on the concrete step to the side of the door.

  ‘Jesus!’ His cries silence the other voices as he stumbles over the gravel, pulling at his joggers and dancing about in bare feet, sharp gravel pricking the sensitive skin on the soles of his feet. ‘Fuck!’

  ‘Alec?’ Peggy’s voice is mingled in with a cacophony of sound that has begun to swell once more.

  He stares down at the pile of bodies spread over the floor. Sucking in his breath at the pain that is stabbing at him, Alec leaps back onto the step, away from the tiny, jagged stones.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ He leans down and grabs the arm of another lady and pulls her upright, his face full of fire, ‘and who the fuck are you?’

  The ashen-faced woman starts to shake, her large body barely covered by a short, cotton nightdress. Rivulets of blood snake down her arms. She looks as if she has been clawed by something. Or somebody. She opens her mouth to speak but is drowned out by more shrieks from the small, wiry corpse-like shape on the floor. ‘Home! I want to go home Brenda. TAKE ME HOME.’

  ‘All right Mum, please don’t shout. We’re going home now,’ she says sharply. Her voice is brittle as she flashes a glance Alec’s way. ‘Come on, Mum, let’s get you up.’

  Lifting her arm up, she shrugs herself free of Alec’s clutches, her body trembling violently. Blood covered hands reach down to haul the tiny shadow upright. Alec immediately recognises the shape before him. It’s her - that old lady, here on his doorstep in the early hours of the morning. What the fuck? Peggy drags herself up from the floor and dusts herself down with shaking hands as the old lady slowly straightens up. Peggy’s hair is a wild, dark tangle of curls and her eyes are sunken into her face; grey hollows set deep in her skull. She rests her hand on Alec’s arm and he can feel the tremor from her ice-cold fingers, tiny vibrations pulsating through her skin.

  Alec stares as the old lady unfurls her skeletal frame and stands before him. Her eyes have a sharp, wild look about them, not the look of an uncomprehending, demented old woman but someone who has a purpose, a hidden, simmering anger. An agenda he can’t quite fathom. She thrusts something towards him and for one sickening moment Alec fears it might be a knife or a piece of glass. Any sharp implement designed to hurt or maim him. He takes a sudden step back and watches as she shoves a piece of crumpled paper into his hand. Her palm is cool and crisp like parchment, which for some reason completely repulses him.

  ‘Here,’ she croaks, ‘this is for you.’

  Alec quickly pulls away from her, this ghost of a woman with eyes like coal; the old woman from the farmhouse; the lady who makes his skin crawl. He stares down at the screwed-up paper before straightening it out and squinting at it in the dim light.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ her daughter says, her voice cracking as she speaks, ‘I have no idea how she got out. I can’t apologise enough for this. It’s all my fault. I take full responsibility.’

  ‘She could have been killed out here on h
er own,’ Peggy’s voice has a sour edge to it. She is ashen and Alec can see she has taken a blow to her head as she fell. Fortunately, it looks as if the old lady was underneath her and she afforded Peggy a softer landing than if she had fallen on the concrete but he can see that her head is still sore and she is exhausted and shaken up. In a rare moment of pity, he slides his arm around her and pulls her close.

  ‘I’ll take her straight home and call by in the morning to see if you’re okay. I’m a nurse and I can drive you to a medical centre or your doctor’s surgery if you would prefer that.’

  Peggy hangs onto Alec and shakes her head vehemently, ‘I’m fine. Just need some sleep, that’s all.’

  Alec stares at the paper, his eyes scanning the unrefined scribbles and marks on there, drawn by the hand of a manic old lady. He looks up to see the pair of them begin to walk away, the elderly woman shuffling along in a pair of fluffy slippers and her daughter in a short nightdress. He shakes his head at the insanity of it all. This is fucking madness!

  ‘Hang on a minute!’

  Brenda turns around to face him, her eyes stricken with fear at what he might say.

  ‘What exactly is this?’ Alec brandishes the paper in the air, his fingers clutched tightly round it as he waves the drawing about angrily.

  ‘I’m really sorry. Sometimes mum gets an idea in her head and it just takes hold. She won’t settle until she sees it through. Completely delusional, I know, but that’s just how she is.’ Her voice sails through the darkness of the night, the final words almost drowned out by a sudden blast of wind that nearly takes the paper right out of Alec’s grip.

  ‘That doesn’t answer my question!’ he barks back at her, ‘I want to know why your mother is out here bothering me and my wife AGAIN.’

  ‘Just leave it Alec, please.’ Peggy’s voice is no more than a whisper, an exhausted plea for him to calm down. But he can’t. He’s awake now and no amount of pleading will make him calm the fuck down. His head is raging, a bubbling cauldron of anger, frustration and fury at being dragged from his bed at such an ungodly hour. This is the second time this silly bitch has allowed her mother to practically terrorise him and Peggy and if she thinks she’s going to get it away with it like she did last time, then she can bloody well think again. Enough is enough. Who is this strange little shrieking woman with her clumsy, overweight oaf of a daughter anyway?

  Alec sees the woman’s face darken. He waits while she decides how best to respond to his question then watches incredulously as she turns away from him and practically drags her mother off over the grass verge and onto the path that leads towards their house. He considers heading off out there after her, giving the pair of them a piece of his mind but knows how Peggy would react to such an outburst, so stands quietly instead, his fist curled into a tight ball, the paper scrunched up inside it.

  ‘Just let them go, Alec. Please.’

  He feels her eyes on him, the pleading expression for him to keep his temper in check. Like a reprimanded child, frustrated by his lack of liberty and angered by the current situation, Alec grabs Peggy’s hand, pulls her inside and slams the door behind them both.

  -

  27

  Peggy

  She can’t even think what day it is. It’s light outside and rain is battering at the windows; tiny torpedoes hammering at the glass. It feels like sharp slivers of ice are cutting deep into her soul. Another cold and miserable day. Alec is sleeping soundly. It’s the weekend. It must be. She reaches over and stares at the clock then slumps back down, slinks under the duvet and shivers, a jumble of horrible images all jostling for space in her head. Did last night actually happen? Or has her frazzled brain added bits on to make it seem more outlandish than it actually was? Peggy closes her eyes again and tries to remember. One thing is certain - the young man was right - the demented old lady possesses the strength of ten men. It took Peggy a good five minutes to get the old woman to release her ankle from her wiry clutches. She moves her foot gingerly dragging it over the cool bed sheets. It’s sore and tender. Peggy feels sure she must have a handprint of her skeletal fingers imprinted on her leg, such was the ferocity of the grip. The pair of them had huddled and wrestled there on the cold step for what felt like an age, Peggy always aware of the old lady’s tiny, willow-like frame, doing her best to make sure neither of them broke any bones. And when the old woman did finally stop writhing about, Peggy tried her best to calm her down, to stop her shrieking like a wild animal in its death throes. She hadn’t been able to get a great deal of sense out of her, but Peggy was able to pick up a few phrases that she had kept repeating like a mantra - Shouting and fighting, shouting and fighting, punctured with the occasional scream of She fell! I saw her, she fell! No amount of soothing and cajoling would stop her, even when Peggy offered to take her inside and give her a hot cup of tea and a biscuit. Nothing worked. She just went on and on, screaming into the darkness. There seemed to be no end to it. Eventually Peggy shut off to her shrieks and accusations, told her brain to ignore it, that sooner or later the old lady would wear herself out.

  Peggy turns onto her side and rubs at her face wearily. And then of course there was the piece of paper that she gave to Alec. Not the childish scribbles they had both been expecting; nothing like that at all. It was a dreadful picture, a complete shock for something produced by someone in her state, more like something drawn by the hand of a psychopath. Pictures of broken bodies, blood spurting out of them at all angles. Peggy shivers and feels hot fear begin to rise inside her, bubbling like lava. She thinks of the incident with Alec’s father and the subsequent visit from the police and can no longer bear it. Throwing back the quilt, Peggy practically catapults herself out of bed and heads straight into the shower where she scrubs at her skin until it is almost raw. She needs to feel clean, to rid herself of the horrors of yesterday. This is all too much and she’s not sure she can bear it any longer. The water pummelling her body is the only escape from it all, the only place she feels safe. Steam billows up in front of her face, misting up her vision. She continues to wash and scrub, turning the temperature up as high as she can until it begins to burn her skin and she can no longer stand the pain.

  Alec is still in bed, snoring softly, as she dries herself, rubbing vigorously with the towel. She dresses and heads downstairs, pushing away the thought that there will be two policemen sitting at her table waiting to arrest them both, grinning madly, ready to haul them both off to the police station to question them over the assault on Barry Wilson.

  Heat pulsates from her reddened body as she fills the kettle and stares out to sea. How easy would it be to walk into the water, away from it all, and never return? Be pulled away by the tide, sucked into the vast, black sea where nothing will exist for her anymore. No worries, no fears, no Alec. There was a time when she couldn’t comprehend why people would do it to themselves, but just lately … well lately she has let her imagination run riot. She has a possible future mapped out in her head and she doesn’t care for it. Not one little bit. It terrifies her. The visit from the police and the event last night. Her mother badgering her. Then there’s the matter of Sheryl. Jesus. Talk about everything happening all at once. It’s ludicrous, what’s going on right now, as if some kind of conspiracy has been dreamt up by the powers that be to send her insane. If she doesn’t get a grip and sort her head out, it might just work.

  Behind her, the kettle clicks off. Perhaps they need some time away together, just her and Alec, somewhere in the middle of nowhere where there are no phones, no technology, no distractions. And no policemen or lunatic parents waiting in the wings. Surely, they can afford a short break to salvage what’s left of their marriage? They can use the Visa card to pay for it. What’s a couple more hundred pounds debt, on top of the thousands they’ve already got, going to do to them? Peggy’s agent has high hopes for her latest book. Besides which, isn’t it worth it just to have some time away from all this stress? The money they thought they were going to have to spend on th
e damage to the car is still there. Maybe that’s how she can sell the idea to Alec. Use a little bit of psychology to persuade him they need a short holiday. Just a weekend. That’s all she’s asking for. A couple of days somewhere in a little cottage in the middle of nowhere. She manages an ironic smile. Isn’t that what they’ve got right here? And look how shit that is. She lets out a puff of air, feels a sharp pain take hold in her neck. All she is doing is running away. People are her problem, not the location. And even if they do go off somewhere, all this will be here waiting for them when they get back. All of their problems - her mother, Sheryl’s disappearance, Alec’s dad. The police. None of them are going to simply vanish into the ether in their absence. No, she needs to stay here and face whatever comes their way. She tries to visualise Barry Wilson’s beaten face, a mass of purple bruises and angry, red cuts; his mouth swollen and distorted. Perhaps he lost some teeth in the attack as well, that’s if he had any to start with. Then she thinks of his ailing, old body hooked up to a drip, his bed surrounded by policemen while a frenzy of reporters wait outside the ward, hanging onto the idea of getting a good story, something worth reporting on. A story with a bit of substance to it. A local man, a teacher, no less, viciously attacks his own father. Wouldn’t they all just love that one?

  Peggy bites her lip and thinks about how well Alec handled the whole thing, how calm he stayed while her nerves were jangling. How did he do that? And why did he lie about where he had been?

  ‘Any breakfast on the go?’ His voice startles her. She swings round to see him standing there, fresh faced and smiling. Smiling! She must have woken him up. He was out for the count earlier. Peggy decides to not mention the idea of a weekend away. Pointless, really. What would they gain apart from a break from the accusations currently being thrown their way?