by Lauren Algeo
It was only when I met his gaze that I realised his eyes were black. I’m aware he was partly in shadow, and logically they could have been dark brown, but I know they were black.
The second our eyes locked, I felt that strange rustling sensation in my head. The exact one I’d felt on my way back from the shops the other day. It started low down in my mind and I knew he was going to start whispering to me again. Try to urge me to continue with his murderous plan. I shut my mind firmly against him with a yell and he seemed to flinch back in pain. Then he was moving, driving his car at high speed down the road and out of sight.
I was still on the floor, and stayed there for a while with the shock of it all. I didn’t even think at the time to memorise the car’s number plate and model. Eventually I managed to get shakily to my feet and go back inside the house. I raided the alcohol cabinet immediately and poured myself a neat measure of Jack Daniels. I’ve had a glass in my hand ever since.
I’ve been sitting here for the last few hours, going over and over what happened in my head. The voice has definitely gone now and I’ve checked out of the window a few times to make sure that man… thing, hasn’t come back. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the voice I’d been hearing belonged to him.
Somehow he was able to talk to me mentally. Some sort of mind control? Everything under his influence didn’t seem real; it was as though I was in a trance. Is it possible that he was brainwashing me? I don’t want to consider the alternative – that he was somehow controlling my actions – it’s too terrifying for words. Surely that’s impossible, even in this day and age of advanced technology. The human mind can’t be read or manipulated… can it?
I’m not too proud to admit that I’m scared. I’m terrified about what happened, and the thought of that man outside my house sends shivers down my spine. The only thing I can see when I close my eyes are those black pits, staring at me with so much hatred. Everything else about his appearance is starting to fade from my mind. I know he was wearing a light shirt because I wrote it down, and had felt sure a few minutes ago, but now I’m beginning to question it. Had he been wearing a shirt? He could just have been a pair of floating, dark eyes for all my useless brain is coming up with.
Maybe I should stop drinking. I really don’t want to do that though, it’s currently the only thing keeping me sane. My fingers are itching to pick up the phone and dial Marcus’s number. To have someone tell me that it’s all ok, but that isn’t likely to happen. Marcus will think I’ve cracked under the strain of everything and try to book me in with a psychiatrist. I couldn’t bear to see the pity in his eyes at the state of my mental health. They would all whisper about me at the station, I could never go back there.
Looking up at Karen’s face in the photo is helping to calm me a little. She prevented me from going through with it after all. Do you believe in life after death? I never have before. I guess I don’t really think that’s what it was this time either. It’s more likely that I heard her voice from inside my own head – a part of me that couldn’t act on the plan and needed to jolt the rest of myself out of it.
I’d like to believe in heaven and an after life, and all that eternal happiness and peace, I just can’t. I’ve seen too much tragedy over the years. It would be nice to think of Karen in some utopian garden, waiting for me to join her some day, yet every time I try my brain torments me with flashes of her appearance towards the end. Her frailty and pain. I try not to remember that period of time; it’s easier to forget.
Even getting this down on paper makes my heart ache for her. I feel completely drained of energy and my head’s full of sand. Everything I thought I knew doesn’t make sense any more. Maybe I’ll be clearer once I’ve had some decent sleep.
20th April 2009
I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s been three days and I can’t get the image of those black eyes out of my mind. Everything else about that day seems to have faded, like the remnants of a nightmare you can’t quite remember, but the eyes have stayed. They can’t possibly have been black, can they?
I wasn’t sure I would write in this notepad again however it’s the only thing I can do to stop myself from going insane. No one else would believe me if I said I’d heard a man’s voice in my head, persuading me to cause a potentially fatal car accident. People are worried about me enough as it is.
Speaking of my mental state, I called Marcus and the Super at the station yesterday to apologise for my behaviour the other day. Work have told me to take some more time off to grieve, and they want to book me some appointments with a counsellor. I have no intention of going, and the last thing I need is time by myself right now. I’m going mad. ‘Thanks’ was all I said on the phone though. I can’t tell them why I’m scared to be alone.
It’s a lot harder to convince Marcus that I’m ok. He insisted on coming over last night with a concerned Trudy in tow. They brought round a family-sized lasagne and some food shopping for me. I’d tidied the house but Trudy still went round neatening everything up and fluffing cushions. No doubt Marcus had filled her in on the state of the place when he’d come knocking on Crazy Day. They’d perched on the sofa and given me their gravest ‘worried’ expressions. Apparently me sitting in the dark with a bottle of Jack Daniels and an empty kitchen was not healthy.
Marcus asked me to go and stay at their house for a while with them, but I can’t do that. They have a toddler at home, Ella, my goddaughter. She’s only two years old and doesn’t need to be exposed to the evil that haunted me this week. It seems to have left some sort of mark on me, tainted me somehow.
I went to the off licence yesterday to get some more alcohol. It was the first time I’d ventured out of the house since it happened, and something was different. The people in the shop seemed particularly wary of me. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t shaved for a few days and looked pretty rough, or if they could sense the danger that had been inside my mind. Either way, everyone gave me a wide berth, and one dog even barked at me on the pavement outside.
It can’t have been a coincidence. What if that thing has somehow cursed me for life? People will forever be scared of me and I’ll end up a reclusive loner. It sounds dramatic but that’s what has been going through my head. That black-eyed man has changed me for good. I was empty and depressed enough before he came into my life and now everything seems even bleaker.
I think it’s because I discovered what I’m truly capable of. That I’m not the man I thought I was. I never imagined I could consider doing the horrific thing he had in store for me. I guess no one fully knows the depths of their soul. What they would do if they were pushed to the limit. I certainly didn’t.
I can’t sleep for thinking about it. I’ve lain awake for the last few nights, just listening for that voice. Terrified I’ll hear it in my mind again. Throughout the day I find myself constantly on edge, searching everywhere for him. I check out of the front windows repeatedly and scan every car on the road, looking for him.
It seems a little odd, but I’ve been trying to research what that man could have been. What being would have the power he possessed? I’ll be honest with you I haven’t gotten very far yet. The black eyes would be characteristic of a demon, but surely that’s ridiculous? A demon walking the earth – they’ll ship me off to the psych ward for sure if I mention that to anyone.
Another idea I Googled was scientific experiments. Maybe that man-thing was the result of some genetic mutation gone awry. There could be scientists in labs somewhere working on the concept of mind control. In the cold light of day though, that seems ludicrous too.
I don’t want to refer to him as a man because surely he wasn’t… what should I call him, or it? A monster, a beast, a demon, a lab rat? None of them feel right. I can start with what he did to me. Maybe a mind-controller? But it wasn’t like he was only controlling me; he was inside my head with me. He’d somehow hitchhiked inside my brain… a hiker? That sounds a little better.
I think I
might take a trip to the local library tomorrow to see if there are any answers there. Maybe in some dusty old horror book, buried at the back of an unused shelf. I haven’t actually been in a library for years – it’ll feel as if I’m back researching during my training. True crime and forensics were my favourite topics back then, I guess this is a little different.
I’m hoping I will get some answers, some sort of relief from the incessant questions and confusion in my mind.
15th May 2009
Oh god, it happened again. I heard another voice in my head. Only this time it was a woman’s voice. I thought she was talking to me at first and I almost collapsed in shock.
I caught the train into Central London earlier to go and pick up a book from a shop I’d seen online. It was one on mythology to continue my research, although I never made it that far.
I was walking along the busy pavement when I heard a sort of scratching sound. I ignored it at first, over the rest of the street noise, but then I realised it sounded like someone whispering. There was no one that close to me, and they weren’t paying me any attention. I’d almost convinced myself that I was imagining it, that the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach was just hunger, then it all became clear.
Her voice was suddenly loud in my head. She said that I should ‘keep walking this way’ and that it was ‘almost time’. I never expected to hear anything like that again. My legs buckled and I had to sit down on the edge of the kerb, with my head between my legs to keep from fainting.
I realised seconds later that she wasn’t talking directly to me. She was speaking to a woman yet I could somehow pick up the words. Don’t ask me how, but that’s what happened. How could I hear something that this hiker woman was saying inside someone else’s mind?
I panicked that she would know I was listening and come and find me, but there was no indication of that. She kept talking to this woman about how she should make her husband pay for having an affair. She didn’t say how although I’ve got a fair idea that it would involve death or pain, judging by what that male hiker said to me.
I nearly hyperventilated on the floor and a woman passing by gave me a bottle of water. A couple of people were concerned by how ill I looked and wanted to call an ambulance but I had to brush them away. How could I tell them what was really wrong with me? That I was scared to death.
All the while I could hear her whispering constantly in my mind. As soon as my legs would support me, I staggered to my feet. I covered my ears as I stumbled down the road, anything to try and block out the sound of her voice. It was no good. She was inside and there was no way to shut her out. The best comparison I can use to describe it is a radio. It was like my mind had tuned into a radio station and I didn’t know where the off button was. I still don’t.
I thought the man who’d whispered to me was a one off, but now there’s another one. And it’s a woman. So if there are male and female ones, does that mean they can reproduce? Breed a whole army of these mind-controlling hikers? The idea makes me feel sick to my stomach. Just how many of them are there? Are they just limited to London, or the whole country… the world even? I feel like I’m having a panic attack.
Ok, I’m back. I’ve had some water and checked the house is secure… not that one of those things would need to break in – it could just get into my thoughts and make me open the door for it. They must not need to be very close to control you. I didn’t see anyone strange or agitated-looking on the street earlier when I could hear that voice. They could have been roads away from me. The whispering hadn’t faded fully until I’d run for several minutes away from the place where I’d collapsed. What must their range be?
I wish I could talk to Karen about this. She was always the more rational out of the two of us. My heart longs to hear her soothing voice, telling me it will all be ok. To have her comforting arms around me and to smell the sweet scent of her hair. I miss her so much. She would be able to put everything into perspective. It just seems too much for me right now.
There’s no one I can talk to. Not Marcus or Trudy, not anyone at the station, especially not a counsellor. I don’t really have any other close friends I’d trust with something like this and I have a very small family, who are scattered all over the globe.
My parents died several years ago – my dad in a car accident a little while after I met Karen and my mum a few years later of a heart attack. They lived in Hastings and I didn’t get down to visit them as much as I should have. There always seemed to be work commitments or other plans.
Karen was my rock after they died. I’m an only child so we took on the funeral responsibilities, first for dad as mum was too distraught, then for her, but I couldn’t have done it without Karen. She understood, having lost her own father when she was young. Then I had to arrange her funeral too.
That was the hardest day of my life. It was a cold, bright day; one that Karen would’ve liked. She used to love going for walks on crisp days like that then curling up next to a warm fire afterwards. She said the chill of the wind made her feel alive. Marcus was by my side for the whole day and Trudy had helped to arrange everything. I could barely acknowledge them.
We’d had some time for Karen to choose what she wanted for her final resting day. There were lilies at the altar (her favourite flowers) and she was buried at the same cemetery as her father. Her mother, Sue, was distraught during the service but I was too absorbed in my own grief to be much of a comfort to her. The wake was held at Marcus and Trudy’s house and it was all a blur to me. A room full of sombre figures in black who could never have loved Karen as much as I did. They couldn’t fully know my pain.
Going back to our house alone was one of the most difficult parts. That final realisation that she was truly gone. We moved to a three bed, semi-detached house in Clapham a couple of years ago. Karen was so excited when we moved in. The place is everything we wanted but now it just seems so big and empty. Cold, somehow, like all the warmth was sucked away the day she died.
It still smells of her in our bedroom. A faint trace of her perfume lingering in the air which could be real or just my imagination. I haven’t packed up all of her stuff yet. There’s always a split second when I open my eyes in the morning where I believe that she’s lying beside me in bed. That nothing has changed. Then I remember. It’s been a couple of months since she died but that feeling is as strong as it was the first morning after. The gut-wrenching agony and overwhelming sense of her loss.
I’m sorry for the depressing read, if you’re still with me. I hadn’t intended to divulge so much but writing about her is cathartic in a way. I haven’t exactly opened up to anyone else about my grief. I guess you can be my shrink instead.
I’m supposed to have a meeting at the station tomorrow, to discuss my counselling needs and hand over a couple of the cold cases I was working on. It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to catch burglars, rapists and murderers, people who are capable of atrocious things, and I never once realised there was something even worse out there. Hikers that can make a person commit these crimes.
It’s made me question everything I thought I knew. That male was going to have me kill people in a car crash, and the female wanted the woman today to take some sort of violent revenge on her husband. Just how much could these things be responsible for? A handful of murders? A dozen? Hundreds? More?
I haven’t got a clue how to begin finding out. The most perplexing question is why. What’s their motive? What could that black-eyed man have possibly gained from me killing myself in a road ‘accident’? Answer me that.
29th May 2009
I’ve really lost the plot now. You won’t believe what I did today – quit my job. Yep, that’s right, I’m now an ex-Detective Inspector. Unemployed. Free to pursue my mental whims whenever I wish.
It was inevitable, I suppose. I’ve spent nearly every waking moment of the past two weeks either reading or watching the news. I’ve avoided contact with everyone and purpose
fully missed an appointment with an assigned counsellor. I’ve gone completely off the rails.
Last week I tried to have one normal day. I woke up telling myself that this was all in my head and I was going to get my life back on track; re-join the real world. I got up, I showered and shaved, I got dressed in a smart jumper and jeans, and I had a decent breakfast for the first time in days. I was all geared up to call Marcus and the station as soon as the clock ticked around to a reasonable hour. It didn’t last though.
I switched on the TV and caught the end of a news report about a violent murder and that’s as far as my will power went. The motive was suspect. I immediately thought of the hikers and all my good intentions flew out the window. I’d picked up another book on monsters before the news was even finished.
I’m still no closer to finding answers to all my questions, I need more time. I guess I have nothing but that now. Marcus was at the station today when I formerly resigned. He cornered me as I was packing up my desk. He sat down in my old chair and gave me a look of utter despair. I’ve never seen anyone so disappointed. He asked me if I was sure about my decision and I told him that I was. Then he shook his head and seemed on the verge of tears. He said that he didn’t know how to get through to me any more, that I’d closed myself off from the people who love me most.
His words hurt. I’m not trying to push them all away intentionally; I just need some time to myself. And I need to find out more about the black-eyed man. I can’t do that with people questioning me all the time, wanting to know how I’m coping.
I didn’t exactly have much to pack up at work. A photo of Karen and I from a holiday we took to New York a while ago, a mug she’d bought me last Christmas with a moustache on (as a mocking of the wiry tash I’d grown during Movember last year), a couple of notepads. My entire working life didn’t even fill a box. I had to hand in my badge and security passes. Every case file I had piled on my desk.
