Hydra
Page 28
—What do you mean, closed it?
—The … the ritual. She should have closed it! That’s why all this happened … [Hysterical sobbing] … That’s why they’re here. That’s why they’re here right now. They’re always here!
—OK, OK. What was it that young Arla did? What is it that she should have done?
—The … the ritual. The Hooded Man! You see, when you do that, when you open up the worlds like that, it lets things in. It lets things in and … Oh God I…
—‘She’…
—Yes, sorry, she … When she got back, she felt so dirty, so dirty, she just lay there in bed – dirty, filthy … just lay there instead of closing the ritual, and that’s why they came. That’s why they’ve been following her…
—What about Alice? Did she know what had happened to young Arla? Did she know what they did to her?
—She knew, but she couldn’t tell. She’d never tell. She told young Arla that night that she’d never tell cos of what Mam would do. Cos Mam would blame them both and it would only make things worse. Dad would think they had devils inside them and he’d kick them out the house. She would ruin it for Alice. Alice was the one doing it right. Alice was taking her chance and Arla … she couldn’t ruin that for her. So young Arla, she just held on to it. All this time, she’s been holding on to it.
—Does … does young Arla ever want justice? Does young Arla want those people to pay for what they did?
—Yes.
—What about older Arla – Arla who knows that she was taken advantage of? Does she want it made right?
—I don’t know. I can’t feel … I can’t feel it anymore. I just want them to go away. The dancing boys, the kids, the black-eyed kids. Why can’t they just take me? Why?
—Who are the dancing boys, Arla?
—They were just dancing with me at first. Then … then they started doing things to me. I were screaming at them. Oh God, I were screaming at them to stop. I were begging for them to stop, but they just kept going. They were hurting me! It were hurting so bad and I were screaming and they wouldn’t stop! They were laughing and they wouldn’t stop…
—What were their names, Arla? Can you tell me their names?
—What? It doesn’t matter. Why does it matter?
—Please Arla. Their names, please try.
—I remember one of them was called Kyle; he was the one. He were dancing. They were all dancing and laughing – even afterwards … like I didn’t matter. Like I was nothing.
[Indistinguishable – sobbing and movement]
—Arla, we can make this right. We can make all of this go away.
—You can’t! You can’t make it right! No one can! No one can anymore! It’s done!
—I’m sorry Arla.
[Long silence, punctuated by faint sobs and heavy breathing]
—You don’t need to be sorry, Doctor. It’s not like you did anything.
I’m OK. I’m fine. I’ll be fine.
—I’m truly sorry. I’m so sorry.
—Doctor? What’s the matter?
—I’m going to tell you something, Arla. A long time ago my son came to me, just like you came to your parents and he told me about something he’d done. Something he couldn’t keep inside himself any longer. He told me he knew I would understand. Because of what I did for a living, he knew I’d be able to help him.
—Why did you become a doctor, a therapist, whatever? Why did you want to help people like me? Put broken people back together again?
—I’ve always believed, Arla, that people can be put right. My son … let’s say he had some problems, began hanging around with bad people, terrible people. Let’s say those people got inside his head, made him do bad things, terrible things. Let’s say I knew that there was good inside him, despite what he’d done. Let’s say I knew I could help him. Give him a new start somewhere else, cover his tracks. You can always try to put wrong things right.
—Is that what you tell your son, Doctor? Is that what you tell him when he does stupid things? Do you tell him it’ll be alright? No one ever told me it’ll be alright.
—I told my son a long time ago that it’d be alright.
I told him, ‘Kyle, I’ll do anything to protect you. That if anyone starts digging around, I’ll show the world that there are worse things than the things you’ve done, that there are people out there who’ve done much, much worse things than you. I’ll do anything to show people that. Even if it means the end of me. Anything.’
And that’s what I did.
That’s what I have done.
THE END
Acknowledgements
My gratitude extends to all those who made this book possible – as well as much else beyond: Sarah Farmer; Luke Speed at Curtis Brown; my family; my friends; my fellow Orenda authors, who have welcomed me into the fold; Karen Sullivan, the eternal, unrelenting and gracious heart at the core of the organisation; West Camel, the man of eternal patience and editor extraordinaire; and Mark Swan, the genius of cover design.
Thanks also to Lesley Roll, Helen at Forum Books, and all the other authors, too numerous to mention, who have encouraged and graced me with their wonderful company (on panels as well as beating me at football!).
A special mention must go to the phenomenal book bloggers who bequeath us wings out of their love of literature.
And as always, my boy Harry. It’s all for you…
Everything.
About the Author
Matt Wesolowski is from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the UK. He is an English tutor for young people in care. Matt started his writing career in horror, and his short horror fiction has been published in numerous UK- and US-based anthologies such as Midnight Movie Creature Feature, Selfies from the End of the World, Cold Iron and many more. His novella, The Black Land, a horror set on the Northumberland coast, was published in 2013. Matt was a winner of the Pitch Perfect competition at Bloody Scotland Crime Writing Festival in 2015. His debut thriller, Six Stories, was an Amazon bestseller in the USA, Canada, the UK and Australia, and a WHSmith Fresh Talent pick, and film rights were sold to a major Hollywood studio.
Follow Matt on Twitter @ConcreteKraken and on his website: mjwesolowskiauthor.wordpress.com
Copyright
Orenda Books
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London SE21 8HU
www.orendabooks.co.uk
First published in the United Kingdom by Orenda Books, 2018
Copyright © Matt Wesolowski, 2018
Matt Wesolowski has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–1–910633–97–7
eISBN 978–1–910633–98–4
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.