by Emmy Ellis
The reverberation from his growl rumbled on her back, shuddered through her, and again he was a part of her, inside her, poisoning, souring, tainting. And then his hand was gone from her face, and she gasped, sucked in the cool night air. He let her hair go, and she pushed forward, the ends snagging on his fingertips. Then she was free, running, running, running, across the road to Henry’s, the only place she’d be safe now until the police arrived.
She whacked on his door, both palms stinging, her throat tight from shock mixed with dogged determination, a mewl coming out of her instead of the scream she intended it to be. One peek over her shoulder, and she was almost undone. Jez lumbered over the road, heading for her, his face set in a hideous expression, one she’d seen before—the one that meant he was so filled with rage he had it in him to kill her.
She bashed at the door again, whispering, “Please, please, please let me in,” and choked on the words, her throat closing, swelling.
“Oi!” Jez shouted, arms bowed at his sides, his biceps and shoulders tensed. “Get the fuck back home.”
She whimpered, weakening—her body, her strength, but never her resolve. No, never that. Smacking at the door, frantic, she kicked it, too, her toes cracking, agony shooting through her foot and up her shins.
“Everything all right, sir?” someone said.
She frowned, momentarily stunned, and ceased her assault on the door.
A uniformed policeman strode over from where he’d stood at the Vine’s gate, towards Jez, his hand on a baton dangling from a belt at his waist.
“Yeah,” Jez said. “The missus is being a nightmare. We had a row. Now piss off.”
“Let’s have a chat about this, sir, shall we?” the policeman said. “See if we can sort this out.”
Then the door opened, and she fell inside the place that had always been her sanctuary, sensing a faint coming on, rising from her toes until it reached her head. She registered Henry’s long-sleeved black top, then down she went, her temple slapping onto the hallway floor—blood flecks on Jez’s temple—nausea swirling, her whole world going dark.
TWENTY-FOUR
Debbie woke from a nightmare of what had not long happened, the images stark and vivid, reliving it exactly as it had played out. Her eyelids, so heavy, refused to open, stuck there. Everything was too much effort. Thinking, moving, breathing. She drifted in and out of that place where reality merged into dreamland, her subconscious hovering there, teasing, taunting, promising to drag her back to the horror imprinted into her brain, to play it over and over again until she woke once more, drenched in sweat and screaming.
It pulled her under now, that place, and she saw herself in his special room at the bottom of the garden, asleep, her body still, the pain gone while she slumbered in the realm called OBLIVION: WHERE NOTHING HURTS. It was like watching a movie, and she stared, fascinated, breath held at what would happen next, knowing the endless, repeating loop of what she’d been through so very recently would start up again.
And it did.
An unseen hand pressed PLAY, and there was nothing she could do but observe.
She woke in the darkness, her position a star shape, the same way as she slept at home. So, it had just been a nightmare then, her going to his house and being taken into his summer house. She breathed out in relief, thankful she wasn’t still there, him with that creepy-arsed wig on, talking with someone else’s voice. She went to curl her arms around herself, but they wouldn’t move. Panicked, she tugged, and her whole body chilled from the outside in.
Something’s wrong.
“Mum?” she called, fear rising, manifesting as a ripple in her solar plexus that exploded up into her chest, constricting her lungs, cutting off her ability to breathe.
She writhed, her shoulders rising then falling to hit a hard surface—she wasn’t in her bed, wasn’t in her bedroom with the pink-patterned wallpaper and the framed poster of Ed above her head. At the point she thought her lungs would burst, they relaxed, and she sucked in air—air that smelt of dried piss—and remembered blacking out as she’d wet herself, the wee hot on her skin, trickling into her Converses, creeping beneath her feet.
So she had gone to his house, she was still there, and everything she’d thought was a dream was her new reality.
Debbie whimpered, her mind working overtime as she tried to figure a way out of this mess. He wasn’t her fantasy man, he was her worst enemy, and she’d bet it was way past ten now, her curfew long gone. Mum and Dad would be crapping themselves about her not coming home. Not angry, no, not that, just scared and worried about where she was.
She wished she’d told them where she was going and again wished she’d said goodbye. What if she didn’t get out of here? What if he was here, standing close by, ready to snuff her life out?
Listening hard, she couldn’t detect any breathing but her own. No other sounds except her ragged inhales and exhales and the speeding thump of her heartbeat, the click of her dry throat when she swallowed.
“Help me!” she shouted. “Someone help me!”
There was a whoosh then a metallic click—something sliding into place? A soft whine, a rustling, leaves maybe, some shuffling, then three footsteps, another click, and the whoosh again, punctuated with a third click.
“Who’s there?” Stupid, such a stupid thing to say. Like he was going to answer her.
If it was him.
“Quiet,” he said.
She shook, fear taking on a new meaning, everything about her cold and slimy, sweat breaking out on her forehead to dribble down her temple and into the shell of her ear, icy, bringing on a sweeping shiver. Her teeth chattered, and she clamped them together, but it didn’t do anything to stop it. Wet heat flooded between her legs, slithered beneath her backside, chilling quickly.
“You were naughty earlier,” he said.
And he was right beside her, she sensed it. How had he been so silent when walking over to her? She wished she could see, to gauge his facial expression and what might be coming next, then she hoped she could stay in this darkness, blind to whatever the hell was going on around her.
“I want my mum,” she said—and she did, God she did, more than anything in the world.
“Too late for that,” he said. “You didn’t act the way you should have. You upset my sister. I can’t have my sister upset.”
Was she here, his sister, standing somewhere in this infinite blackness?
“I did-didn’t mean it.” Her stuttering brought home just how scared she was, how young, how ridiculous she’d been to think he was interested in her, in building a life together, their love story being told for generations to come, how the younger girl and the older man had fallen in love despite the odds, despite the warnings that it would never work.
“Apologies are supposed to be heartfelt,” he said. “You don’t sound sorry.”
“But I am,” she said, hating the whine in her voice, the way she’d shown her age, how petrified she was. “Here, listen: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Now you’re just being facetious.”
What does that mean?
“I’m not, I swear. I’m sorry—really. Please. Let me go home. I won’t tell anyone what happened, I promise. I’ll just pretend I stayed out late, and no one will ever know where I was, and I’ll never come here again or speak to you, so no one will suspect you of anything.”
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” he said.
Hamlet. God, she’d do anything to be reading that, Miss Boring as Fuck warbling on, raising her voice at Debbie to listen, to pay attention, will you?
“No, no, I’m not lying, I’m telling—”
The slap on her leg sucked all the air out of her, and once again she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t function. Her body went rigid, blackness oozed into the edges of her mind, and if it weren’t for wanting to be with Mum, Dad, and Squiggly, she’d die right now, just to get away from him. Then she breathed again, her leg stinging
, her chest hurting from how much her heart banged.
“I have to end this,” he said. “You could have learnt a lot from me, you know. I said I’d teach you things, didn’t I, but you messed it up. Once I’ve sorted you, I’ve got Charlotte to deal with. The pair of you are nothing but pests. Fuck’s sake…”
“What did I do to deserve this?” she wailed.
A beat of time, another, then, “You sucked your hair.”
“I…I don’t understand…”
A brilliant blue, orange-tipped flame lit up the darkness, stretched taut by the force of whatever powered it. She gasped, unable to fathom what it was beyond being fire. It rippled and wavered at the top, and the faint vision of his face lurked behind it, pushing away some of the shadows to reveal his mouth and nose. She sucked in a breath, which caught in her throat and tickled, bringing on the urge to cough. She arched her back, yanking at her arms and legs, trying to free them from whatever they were tied to.
Got to get out. Got to go home.
The flame moved towards her, stopping on the right, and it turned in the gloom, the end pointing at her upstretched arm.
“This is going to sting a bit,” he said. Chuckled. Belly-laughed.
As the heat bit into her arm, she screamed, the sound infinite, the smell of her singed skin, her melting skin, like Sunday roast pork left in the oven too long. She convulsed, her mind refusing to work, her head filled with nothing except the knowledge of how agonising this torture was.
Then nothing.
She woke to her arms feeling on fire, her legs, too, the pain roaring back into her limbs, the stench of burnt meat overwhelming. She screamed again, but it came out silent, and for a microsecond she acknowledged she’d screeched so much before she’d passed out that her vocal cords now refuse to function.
Then nothing.
Debbie’s eyelids fluttered, and she opened her eyes. There was the flame again, so close the heat from it warmed her cheek. When he brought it closer, she knew what he was going to do, that this was the end.
And she welcomed it.
She pulled out of the dream world now, her face, arms, and legs still so hot she imagined they continued cooking even though the flame wasn’t there. Her lungs crackled with the effort of breathing, small intakes of air that came out as short, limp puffs. She stared at herself from the outside in, fascinated that her eyes had melted, her lips gone, her teeth exposed, her braces dull silver, her face a red raw…mess.
It wouldn’t be long now, and she’d be gone. Away from here at last.
She thought of Mum, of how she’d always said that if anything happened to Debbie, she wouldn’t be able to carry on, life wouldn’t be worth living. And Dad, how he’d said he’d kill anyone who hurt her, and it was funny, odd, made no sense, but she hoped he didn’t go after him—no, Dad needed to make sure he didn’t end up in prison for trying to right this terrible wrong.
She thought she was grown up before. She’d been wrong. Now she was grown up, mature, and it was too late for her to do anything but wait for that last breath.
It came, seeping into her without any sense of purpose, as if knowing it wouldn’t do anything worthwhile. Debbie hoped for Heaven, for peace, and no more pain, and that final exhalation tiptoed out of her, the very core of her snuffing out.
Gone.
TWENTY-FIVE
Charlotte blinked awake, greeted by a darkness so deep it chilled her to the marrow. Disoriented, she mentally checked her body parts, and the only thing that hurt was her head and face. She reached back to feel her skull, the blood dry in places now, her hair hard with it, but a soft, spongy section had her stomach churning. She didn’t probe to see how deep the gouge was. She didn’t want to know.
Where was she? She’d blacked out from fear in Henry’s hallway—she recalled falling, fainting, hitting her temple. She checked it now, patting gingerly, and winced at the sharp pain of a bruise, imagining a purple knot the size of half a golf ball, going by her careful exploration and the shape of the lump.
Then she remembered coming round to the sound of a voice—Jez’s—and another. The policeman? Yes, that was right. He’d asked if she was okay, and she’d nodded, then realised that although she was technically all right, she wasn’t safe, not with Jez around. Before she’d been able to tell the policeman she needed help, to ask him to contact Kane, a shout had gone up over the road, and he’d run off.
More voices, Jez and Henry talking.
‘I’ll deal with her.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m fucking sure.’
Then sweet oblivion.
Now this never-ending blackness and no idea where she was. No idea which one of them had said they’d take care of her, as their voices had blurred, floated off, her not able to work out who had said what.
She sniffed, her nostrils assaulted by the scent of something burnt. Was she in the kitchen at Jez’s, the smell lingering from where he’d tried to cook something in her absence? Whatever it was, it had been singed to a crisp, and her stomach contracted at the strength of the odour.
Charlotte managed to stand, going a little dizzy, her head spinning, and she felt sick. She reached out in an attempt to feel her way across the space, and her hand brushed the corner of something. Sharp, it scratched the undersides of her fingers. She hissed, clenched her teeth, waited for the sting to pass. A moment slipped by, segueing into another and another and so many more after that. She steadied herself and patted around for that corner again, smoothing her fingers over something cold until a hard, lumpy surface halted her exploration. She felt it, moved her fingers along it, and it reminded her of how the dried-out part of her head had felt.
Her stomach churned.
She moaned, and it sounded so unlike her she wondered if it was someone else. Was she even alone? Had Jez been the one to take her, locking her up somewhere, sitting in the corner now, waiting?
She shuffled away from that…thing she’d touched, hands out in front of her, and came to what she assumed was a wall. She pressed her palms to it, walking sideways, to the right, waiting to reach a window frame, a door, anything to give her hope. Her pinky bumped into what she guessed was plastic, and she ghosted her hand farther across.
A light switch.
She pressed it and blinked in the harsh brightness, seeing nothing for a good while. It took several seconds for her vision to adjust, and then she stared at a metal wall. Confused—where the hell am I?—she spun to face the other way.
And wished she hadn’t.
A body—oh God, a burnt body—rested on a metal table, unmoving, and she knew then that was what she’d touched, that charred flesh, that hard and lumpy surface she’d likened to the gash on her head. She retched, slapping her hand over her mouth, and squeezed her eyes shut.
If she opened them, the body would be gone, and she’d laugh because this wasn’t happening, it had been a figment of her imagination. Hadn’t it? Wasn’t that the way this was going to go? It was, because this sort of thing didn’t happen, not in this town, her world. Except it did—Mrs Smithson—and Charlotte dreaded facing this nightmare she’d found herself in.
So don’t open your eyes then.
She ignored herself, of course she did, opening them—the body’s still there, still there, still there, oh my God—and looked around in panic for a door, a window, some way to escape. But she was in what amounted to a metal-lined box, a room, with that steel table, a desk, a filing cabinet, a huge wooden wardrobe, and—
What?
What?
A mannequin in the corner.
Her life had turned into a nightmare, and living with Jez, enduring all she had at his hands, paled by comparison. Charlotte shuddered, one that racked her whole frame, her nerves strung taut, and she rushed to the body, thinking to check for signs of life but knowing it was futile. Whoever this person was, they were long gone, their torment over.
She took in the limbs, so wrecked, and the face—no features, no eyes�
�the torso unmarked, a cerise bra covering the small breasts.
A cerise bra…
No.
No, it couldn’t be. It had been in her bag—she’d put it there in the hotel, and it had still been there when Henry had given her the mail, then her bag had fallen from the seat in the taxi, and that man had picked it up and…
What was it doing here?
Had the man stolen it?
She choked on a sob, gasping for air, her mind clouding from lack of oxygen. Grey shadows converged at the edge of her vision, growing by the second, eventually obliterating her sight until she stared at blackness again. She fell and sank into the abyss which pulled her down, her conscious mind shutting off, leaving a void behind.
****
She’d been awake, nosing about, inquisitive, but now the dopey tart’s out of it again. Prone to fainting, that one. Her curled-up image is grainy on my phone, but it’s best I watch her from here. Can’t be doing with being bored in the den, waiting for her to wake up.
Someone’s knocking at the door, and I’ve half a mind to ignore it. Normally I would, but with things going on in the street tonight, down at the Vine house, I’ll be better off showing my face, letting people know I’m around. That I can’t possibly have taken Debbie.
Hahaha.
I switch off the camera app and slip my mobile into my pocket. Glance around to make sure everything’s looking okay, then make my way to the door. I turn on the outside light then swing the door inwards, schooling my expression to one of confusion as to why someone would be calling at this time of the morning. I mean, come on, it’s past two o’clock.
A copper stands there, the same one from earlier, the one who’d gone knocking on doors about Debbie, then had come back again to help Charlotte, running off when Xavier had called him for help. Ursula had fainted apparently—what is it with women doing that?—and Xavier was worried she’d done herself some damage.
