by Ross Turner
Arthur was gone.
Wallowing in what could only be described as the disappointment of great loss, Johnathan sighed wearily and answered the door.
“Are you okay?” His sister, Maddie, immediately asked, concern clearly painted across her face.
“Yes, I’m fine.” He replied automatically, though his expression and his tone spoke volumes that his words did not.
“What’s happened?” She persisted, clearly disbelieving. Something had happened, even in the short time since they’d returned home. She could sense it.
“Nothing Maddie.” Her brother tried to reassure her, though falsely admittedly. “I’m just tired…”
“No!” She demanded, stamping her foot, refusing his weak explanation. “That’s not it! What’s happened!?”
Johnathan took a breath at first, wondering what on Earth would convince his sister. But then, after a moment or two, he exhaled with a deep sigh, giving in to her. She always saw right through him, and besides, he didn’t really want to keep this from her.
She was the only one he could talk to about it.
“Come on.” He said then, beckoning her into his room.
“What…?” Maddie questioned, but he just hurried her inside with a quick motion of his hand.
Confused, she obeyed, closing the door behind her, at her brother’s insistence, and allowed him to stand her in front of his mirror. She knew it had once belonged to her grandfather, but other than that, and the fact that it was pretty, there wasn’t really anything special about it.
Maddie stood there for a minute or two, feeling inwardly rather foolish, as her brother looked on expectantly, and she hadn’t a clue what he was waiting for.
Eventually she grew impatient.
“What are we looking at?” She finally asked, frowning at her own reflection and glancing up at her brother, standing almost a full foot taller than her.
Her brother frowned then too, disappointment flashing in his eyes, momentarily overtaking all the expectant hope that had filled them just seconds ago.
“I saw a man…” He attempted, examining the mirror ever more closely, running his fingers over it, checking for something, anything, Maddie had no idea what.
But then again, neither did he.
“A man…?” She queried.
“Yes.” He confirmed. “It was my reflection. But it wasn’t me. He was there instead of my reflection. He looked like me. But I’m sure it wasn’t me. I felt like I knew him.”
Maddie looked at her brother, admittedly very worried now. He wasn’t making any sense.
“Are you okay?” She asked seriously, reaching out for his arm.
“Yes!” He exclaimed. “Maddie I’m fine. I promise you, there was a man…”
“There’s no man Johnathan…” His sister said gently, pursing her lips worriedly.
“I’m not crazy Maddie!” He almost begged then, turning to her, admittedly a little crazily. His eyes were slightly wild and confused, as if trying to decide indeed whether or not he was going insane.
Maddie looked at her brother then, pulling him away from the mirror and holding him firmly by the arms.
“Johnathan! What’s happened!?” She urged, frightened by her brother’s insistence. “Tell me!”
Suddenly then, for some reason, Johnathan’s trail of thought flickered to something seemingly entirely unrelated, and words began to tumble from his mouth that he had no control over.
“I’m sorry that I did those things to Brock. I never meant to hurt anybody. I was only trying to protect you. I never meant to scare you. I would never want to scare you…”
Maddie opened her mouth to reply, admittedly a little taken aback. Then she closed and opened it again, not knowing quite what to say.
Eventually, deciding it would make no difference what she said, one way or another, she sighed and hugged her big brother tightly, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing with all her nine-year-old might.
“Don’t be silly…” She finally whispered, smiling gently with her head rested on her brother’s shoulder. “You didn’t scare me. I was worried about you, but I know you were only protecting me.”
Johnathan said nothing in reply, and only hugged his sister even more tightly. She was truly the only person he had ever always been able to count on, even in their lives so short.
But the falseness in her words, even just the slightest trace of it, he detected, sensing with some morsel of his subconscious the fear that she was hiding. It was nothing malicious, but it was fear nonetheless.
Fear of uncertainty.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of what was yet to come.
That night the sky purpled and blackened menacingly overhead as the winds whipped themselves into an invisible, blurred frenzy. Its ravenous teeth bit at the exposed leaves on the trees and snapped at the icy surface of the river that struck so piercingly through the innocent little village of Riverbrook.
All around, besides the shrill feet of the wind pattering through the shrub life, not a cry nor a squawk nor a peep could be heard.
So, when the scream rang out through the shrill darkness of the night, single and piercing and desperate, it was heard in eagerness and earnest all around.
Maddie shot bolt upright in her bed, her heart racing and her breaths shallow and frantic.
She was sure she had heard a scream.
She had been dreaming, though for some reason she couldn’t recall what about, when the sound had awoken her so abruptly.
Besides the sound of her own breathing however, no matter how hard she strained to listen, she could hear not a sound. All was quiet in the Davies household, and all were sound asleep it seemed.
But something felt not quite right to the young girl. In fact, the sweat on her palms and the shiver that was racing up and down her spine told her that something was terribly wrong.
She crept silently from her bed, rubbing her bare arms from the tingling cold, and tiptoed across her small room, dim and black, to the door allowing in a single beam of light through the slightest of cracks.
Peering carefully with one eye pressed to the gap between the door and its frame, Maddie peeked out onto the landing.
All was still.
She could see perhaps a few feet in each direction, and just to the top of the wooden staircase that led downstairs.
There she stayed for a few minutes, not really knowing quite what she was looking for, but looking all the same.
Perhaps it had been nothing after all.
Maybe the sound that had woken her had actually been part of her dreams?
Suddenly a figure loomed in front of her, blocking her view and startling the wits from her tiny frame. She reeled back and clasped her hands over her mouth. It was all she could do to keep from screaming in fright.
Whatever it was blocked most of the light that crept in through the crack, and cast her into almost total darkness.
For a moment terror consumed the young girl, and all manner of horrible thoughts fleeted through her mind.
But then, just as suddenly as the figure had appeared, it vanished, and her racing heart quietened ever so slightly.
From somewhere deep within her then, Maddie plucked up the courage to creep back over to the door again, and once again peeked out onto the landing, holding her breath tightly. She looked left first and saw nothing, but then glanced right and immediately laid eyes upon the figure that had sprung up so terrifyingly before her.
It was Johnathan!
She exhaled with heavy relief and pulled the door slowly open. It moved with an almost inaudible creak, but of course her brother heard it, and he whipped round in barely a moment to face her, his eyes fierce in the dim light.
Maddie froze and her breath caught in her chest yet again, for some reason fearful even still.
When he saw that it was his sister who had startled him, Johnathan’s eyes softened slightly, but even in the darkness of the landing, Maddie, scared by what she saw, co
uld see that the expression her brother held wasn’t his own.
Johnathan slowly raised a hand and lifted one finger to his lips, motioning for her to stay silent.
She inherently obeyed.
Terrified.
Her brother slowly turned back away from her, standing perfectly still and staring across the landing at their parents’ bedroom door.
Still there was only silence, and after a moment Maddie realised she’d been holding her breath and exhaled slowly. Grateful for the release, the stabbing pain in her lungs subsided and her eyes continued to adjust to the sight before her, though yet she didn’t understand it any further.
Suddenly another scream pierced the darkness, though this one was more of a stifled cry, and Maddie’s heart almost leapt from her chest. Her stomach knotted horribly in both shock and fright, and it took her a few seconds to recover before she managed to stir her young body into action.
“Mother!” She cried, rushing forwards, careering around her brother, still stood motionless and unmoving on the landing, and she almost threw herself against her parents’ bedroom door.
Immediately she tried the handle, but the door was locked, and almost in the same moment as she tried it, she heard her mother’s heavy wooden dresser being pushed in front of the door, blocking any chance she might have had of opening it.
“No! Mother! NO!!” Maddie screamed then, banging her fists against the door in a sudden frenzy, petrified, not knowing what was happening.
All of a sudden another shriek rang out from beyond the locked, barricaded door, shrill and afraid and desperate.
“No! Please!” Emily’s despairing voice begged from beyond the blockade.
Her words were fraught with danger and all the strength and fight seemed drained from them, as if years of abuse had worn them down; as if there was simply not enough will left in her to fight any longer.
Silence pierced the night again then. Maddie strained her ears against the deafening quiet, and strained her body against the immovable door, pushing with all her might, but not able to budge it even an inch.
A creaking floorboard shattered the soundless darkness then, and Maddie whipped her head around, only to almost leap from her skin yet again. She yelped and choked as she turned to face her brother, his face barely inches from her own.
“J…Jo…Johnathan!!” She cried and spluttered, trying desperately to find her petrified words. “Do something!”
But Johnathan didn’t reply.
He stared at her almost blankly for a moment, before slowly raising his gaze above his sister’s head and staring coldly at the door to their parents’ bedroom.
“Johnathan…?” Maddie started, fear overwhelming her now.
His eyes were level and serious.
Whoever he was, whatever he was thinking, he wasn’t her brother.
Maddie backed away slowly, moving to one side and out of his line of sight, terrified beyond belief.
But her movement drew his attention yet again, and the figure that looked like Maddie’s brother, but wasn’t, turned back to her. The veil had well and truly descended over him, and as he advanced upon her, looming above her, Maddie once again held her breath tight and squeezed her eyes closed, horrified of what was to come.
However, regardless of what she’d expected, she hadn’t a clue, what happened next astonished her.
She felt her brother, or his body at least, wrap its kind arms around her, and in that moment, it was as if Maddie regained something that she had lost so long ago, and in some strange way, she felt almost a step closer to being whole again.
The young girl hugged the figure tightly back, for a second feeling somehow entirely safe and secure and content.
The way a girl so young should feel.
And then it passed, and the fear returned. The figure gently released her and eased her back slightly, away from the barricaded door, looked at her for a second with its level and steady and terrifying gaze, a gaze that saw right through her, and then turned away.
As it took a step closer to the door, Maddie was convinced for a second that the figure before her was no longer a boy, but instead a full grown man, for it loomed tall and powerful, though of course that was impossible.
Her brother’s body placed its outstretched hand on the door to their parents’ bedroom, resting its fingertips gently upon the wooden face. Nothing else happened for a moment, and the silence cut through the air like a blade with murderous intent.
Maddie’s thoughts raced, yet said nothing, all at once. All she could comprehend was the dark silhouette of her brother in the dim light.
Then the muffled sound of a cry escaped the quiet all around, creeping meekly through the barricade before them, followed by the sickening sounds of a heavy smack and a dull thud.
A sharp gasp completed the deathly sequence.
It was undoubtedly their mother, of that Maddie was certain, and tears coursed down her cheeks involuntarily.
And then she saw Johnathan change, unmistakeably. Even in the dark of the night, it was all too obvious. If he hadn’t been her brother before, he most definitely wasn’t now.
She saw it descend upon him as if another person took over his body completely, and in that moment her dear brother became something that the young girl did not know, but somehow also, strangely, at the same time, something that she recognised.
But there was no time for her to decipher what she saw, for Johnathan’s veiling was complete within seconds, though it felt like long, torturous decades, and his fingertips resting upon the door slowly clenched into a fist, resting its knuckles against the hard, offensive, abusive wood.
Then the onslaught began.
With the strength of a man, though it seemed that in his terrible rage Johnathan had even the strength of a great bear.
He smashed his fists into the wooden door before him, catching the doorframe too with his mighty blows, shattering and splintering wood in all directions, splitting the door almost directly in two as it buckled and divided and screamed beneath his mighty rain of blows.
Maddie sheltered her eyes from the shards spraying all over the place, raising her arms to protect herself.
As the door turned to splinters, the heavy dresser beyond it was revealed, but that too was no match for the man stood before Maddie now. The figure that once was her brother didn’t even bother to pummel the massive dresser to pieces. He simply placed his hands at the base of it, catching the bottom lip with his fingertips, and with inhuman strength and simply impossible ease, lifted the massive oaken cupboard and launched it across the bedroom, smashing it into the wall at the opposite end of the room.
It exploded into a million shattered pieces that careered off in every direction, spraying them all with its fallout.
“WHAT THE…!?” Richard started, yelling with both anger and shock.
But before he could finish, the man that stood in the place of Johnathan stormed through the shattered doorway to face him.
The tension that radiated all around then was something to be rivalled, and the sight that beheld Maddie when she followed her protector through and into her parents’ bedroom sent her knees weak and cast great sobs from her chest.
Their mother lay upon the now splinter covered floor, shaking and writhing weakly, bleeding, her nightclothes ripped and torn and tattered and stained red.
Johnathan too beheld the sight, no longer entirely as a man that Maddie didn’t know, but at least partly as himself, and disgust rippled through his body like a great wave.
Emily glanced up in horror to see her children, or at the very least one of them, revealing her face freshly bruised and tarnished. Tears streaked openly down her cheeks as she opened her mouth, straining desperately to speak, but no sound came out, and her chest and ribs heaved and strained in agony.
Emily Davies looked entirely broken and defeated; as if there was no physical pain that she could possibly suffer worse than the emotional torment she was already living.
She
was a broken woman.
Maddie’s so-called father however, Richard Davies, stood by the side of the bed, fists clenched also. He was topless, and his scrawny, exposed chest was cut and grazed and bleeding by scratches staining his skin here and there across his torso.
His eyes were not wild, as one might have expected, but instead focused and concise and purposeful.
There was no love here.
There was only cruelty and hatred.
There was only evil.
Chapter Eight
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING!!??” Richard Davies bellowed with all his might, almost shaking the walls with his voice alone, reigning with terror alone it seemed.
It was perhaps the most fearsome his pathetic frame had ever been.
Without waiting for a reply, the evil man reached out for Johnathan’s throat, imagining the life draining from him even before he had reached his target.
“RICHARD NO!!!” Emily screamed up from the floor, still unable to move, but dredging every last morsel of strength she had left to try to protect her children from this monster.
It didn’t help though, and still Richard advanced, barely moments away, and still the figure that had once been Johnathan had not moved.
Finding desperate strength from somewhere, God only knows where, Emily exploded up from the floor. It was desperation found only in natural parental instinct.
She launched herself into her husband’s side and knocked him away with all her remaining strength, throwing him off balance for a few precious seconds, sending him reeling over the already bloodstained bed.
“Go Johnathan!!” His mother hissed to him, dropping to her knees in exhaustion, but reaching out for him in desperation, wild, crazed fear and despair in her eyes. “Take Maddie!!” She urged. “Go!! Find Father Peter!!”
But that was all there was time for her to say before her husband was once again upon her, this time most definitely filled with rage.
He grabbed her from behind by her hair and she screamed wildly and involuntarily, clutching at his wrist too powerful to fight, her hands too weak to resist.
