by Amy Cross
"I know," I say. "I overheard you talking about it once. You said you wanted to combine art and... something, I don't remember exactly."
"Art and critical commentary," she reminds me.
"That's right," I say. "You wanted to combine art and critical commentary. I remember being really surprised when I found out you had this huge ambition." I pause for a moment. "It's strange how we remember certain things about other people, isn't it? I didn't know you very well, but I knew you wanted to be a photographer, and -" Suddenly I realize that something's not quite right about this conversation; something about Donna feels wrong. "When I was really young," I continue carefully, "my dad - I mean, my foster father - got me a little toy camera. It was blue -"
"It was red," Donna says, correcting me instantly.
"That's right," I say, eying her cautiously. "It was red." I pause for a moment. "It was a Christmas gift when -"
"It wasn't a Christmas gift," she replies. "It was a birthday gift."
I stare at her. "I still have it somewhere," I tell her.
"No you don't," she replies. "You dropped it off a bridge once when you were trying to take photos. You got scared because of how high up you were."
"Yeah," I reply cautiously. "That's all true, but how do you know so much about my childhood?"
She stares at me, as if she doesn't understand the question. "It was a red toy camera," she says eventually. "That's just what it was. You said it was blue, and I told you it wasn't."
I take a deep breath, slowly starting to realize what's happening here. "Earlier, you reminded me of what Benjamin told me back in Dedston. You said he told me that Patrick can't love anyone."
"He was right," Donna replies. "Patrick's a monster."
"But how did you know?" I ask. "How did you know what Benjamin said to me? You weren't there!"
"I must have been there as a ghost," she says. "I must have been haunting you invisibly and -"
"You weren't even dead at that point," I tell her. "This was before I came back to Callerton, so... Again, how could you know this stuff? The only person who knows all this stuff is me."
She pauses. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that you're not Donna. You're not a ghost. Gwendoline was lying. You're just an extension of my own consciousness. There's no other way you could know about things that happened in Dedston."
She stares at me for a moment. "If that's true, then you must have lost your mind, because you're sitting here talking to me. What's wrong, Abigail? Don't you want to believe in ghosts?" She leans closer to me. "Face the truth. You killed me. If you hadn't held me captive in the woods, I'd still be alive today. You wanted my blood, and you know what that means... It means you're like him. You're just a little copy of Patrick." For a moment, Donna's face seems to shimmer; seconds later, her appearance has changed and she looks like me, but with slightly different hair. "You're nothing like me," she continues with a new voice. "You might be wearing a dress I had once, but you're nothing like me on the inside, not where it counts." She looks down, to where there's a large patch of blood across her belly. "You're your father's daughter, and you know what your father did to me."
"You're not my mother," I say, trying to stay calm.
"I look like her," she replies.
I shake my head. "You look like how I imagine her, but I've never actually seen her face."
"Same difference," she replies.
Getting to my feet, I hurry over to the door. It's still locked, but that doesn't mean I can't get out. I back up for a moment, before running at the door and trying to smash it down; unfortunately, I just bounce back into the room, landing hard on the floor.
"Where do you think you're going?" asks the image of Sophie, before changing back to Donna again. "You can't get out of here until I decide it's time, and I really don't see that happening any time soon." She pauses. "And if I'm really just an extension of your mind, that means you don't want to leave the room anyway. You want to stay here forever, wrapped up safe where no-one can hurt you and where you can't hurt anyone else."
"You're not real," I say, getting to my feet and crossing to the other side of the room. I take a deep breath, before charging at the door. Once again, however, I thud into it and fall back without causing any damage.
"You're safe in here, Abigail," Donna says, taunting me, "and other people are safe from you. Just accept that it's better if you stay in here forever. No-one needs you out there. You'll just end up hurting people. I promise you, there'll be more deaths if you ever get away from this place. More pain. Just stay here, in the dark, talking to me or to yourself or to whoever or whatever you think I am. You don't need anyone else."
I turn to look at her. She's not real. She's just a projection of my own thoughts; she has to be an illusion. I'm alone in here, trapping myself. I hurry to the other side of the room, ready to try breaking down the door again, but my foot brushes against something. Looking down, I see a shape in the darkness. After a moment, I realize it's a dead body: the skin is withered and dry, and the eyes are open, staring up at me. I step back, and I realize there are others. This whole corner of the room is filled with half a dozen bodies.
"Others have been in here before you," Donna says. "None of them ever got out."
I put my hand over my face, trying to not smell the stench of death that's rising from these corpses.
"You're not real," I say again, turning to Donna.
"Maybe not," she replies, "but they are."
Behind me, I hear a creaking sound. I turn and look down to see one of the dead bodies slowly moving its arm. Moments later, its head turns to look at me, and another body starts to stir.
"Relax," Donna says. "It might seem bad now, but soon you'll be just like them. Won't it feel good to belong? Isn't that what you've always wanted? To fit in? To be like everyone else?"
The first of the corpses gets to its feet, its bones creaking with every movement. Behind it, the others are following suit.
"They want you to join them," Donna continues. "You'll be part of the gang. Won't that feel great? You'll finally be popular."
As I turn and stare at her, I see that there's a window on the other side of the room. My first thought is that there's no way I can climb out that way. I've never been very good with heights and the idea of climbing out onto the ledge is enough to give me cold shivers. At the same time, the door isn't going to break, no matter how hard I run at it. Maybe I'll get strong enough to smash it down eventually, but I don't have time to wait. Donna might not be real, but these dead bodies are definitely real and they're slowly moving toward me. It's taking them time to move, probably because they've been still for so long, but they seem to be getting faster.
"Don't even think about going out the window," Donna says. "Think how high up we are. This is a big building and we're on the top floor. It's a thirty or forty meter drop out there. Imagine perching on the edge, trying to find a way down. You can't do it. You're too weak. You'll fall."
"Yeah," I say, turning and staring at the window. "You're right. I will fall." I know I'll chicken out if I climb out, so I have to take more drastic action. Everyone says I'm like my father, and my abilities seem to be getting stronger every day. I guess it's time to see if I'm really like him. Running as fast as I can, I throw myself shoulder-first against the glass and I feel it break against my weight. I smash through the window, keeping my eyes closed tight shut as I feel my skin getting torn by sharp slivers. Everything seems to go in slow motion as I feel my whole body emerge into the night air, and finally I open my eyes and see that I'm high up above the dark garden. Starting to fall, I try to turn my body so that I'll land on my side. I fall and fall and fall, and finally everything seems to speed up as I get to the bottom and I smash into the concrete patio. Every bone in my body shatters and I let out a scream of pain as I lose consciousness.
Patrick
The journey takes longer than I had expected. Up ahead, the light burns through the night, and as I ge
t closer I see that it's a campfire. There doesn't appear to be anyone nearby, although I'm picking up the scent of someone who has been here recently. Rather than wander straight over to the fire, and into what might be a trap, I walk around the area, trying to work out what exactly's going on. A campfire can't have simply built and lit itself, so someone must be nearby, but there's no way anyone could have come out here without being seen. This is dead land, filled with the scattered bones of dead vampires, and it makes no sense that there would be someone here. In the distance, the lights of Gothos are plainly visible. Why would someone camp here, rather than going down to the house?
"Hello!" says a voice from behind me.
I turn around, shocked to find that a man has emerged from the darkness. Usually it would be impossible for anyone to ever sneak up on me like that, but in my current state I'm not as alert as I once was. The man appears to be an elderly human, perhaps the oldest I've ever seen, with tired, sad eyes but a big smile. He's holding a small collection of wood in his arms, evidently to keep the fire burning.
"Now this is something I don't see every day," he continues, grinning as he walks past me and heads over to the fire. "I don't get many visitors up here. In fact, you're the first in a very long time." He drops the wood onto the ground, before bending over and throwing a couple of logs into the flame. "It's so hard to keep a fire going, but starting one up from scratch is even worse. With my old joints, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep it burning." As he stands up straight, I hear several clicks and groans from his body.
Warming his hands on the fire, the old man stares at me for a moment. "You come from the house, don't you? Gothos." He laughs. "Well, it's the only place you could have come from. Tell me, how are things going down there? I've been meaning to pay a visit, but I don't think I could manage the journey. My legs would damn near fall off if I walked more than a few meters at a time. Trust me, being old's not much fun." He chuckles to himself. "Then again, I get the feeling I might be the younger one out of the two of us. How old are you, boy?"
I pause, trying to work out who this old man might be. He looks like a human, he smells like a human, he sounds like a human, he acts like a human... but he can't be a human. There's no way a human could be living out here in the wilderness, among the bones of the vampires. He'd starve to death, for one thing, and then there's the question of how he got here. No human can come to this place, not unless he's invited by someone who already knows the way.
"It's okay," he continues, "I know who you are. You're Patrick. You're not looking so good right now, but I saw you years ago when you were in your prime. I saw you fighting the good fight, all over this land. How many vampires died in that war? Relax, I know the answer to that question. All of them. All except one." He grins. "You must be cold over there. Even vampires can feel the cold, right? Come and warm yourself by the fire. Don't worry, I don't bite."
Walking over to join him, I hold my hands out to feel the heat of the flames. The old man is right: it is cold out here, but the fire quickly warms me. It has been a long time since someone showed me the kind of simple generosity that this man is demonstrating; the last person who genuinely seemed to want to help me was Sophie, and that was so long ago. Still, I must be on my guard. The old man was able to creep up on me, which means I'm losing my faculties. Other creatures could be out here in the dark, and they might notice that I'm getting weaker. It's not inconceivable that one of them will decide to attack me, hoping to score a lucky hit. In my current condition, I'm not sure I could fight off such an assault.
"I was here during the war, you know," the man says. "I saw you vampires killing one another over and over again. The ground is still soft and wet from all the blood that was spilled. I was trapped, but fortunately you were all too busy killing each other to pay any attention to me. I was young back then, and I didn't think the war was ever going to end. And then, just when all seemed lost, I saw you turn and leave the field of battle. I'd been keeping tabs on you for a while, and I knew you were up to something. And then suddenly the war ended, and all the other vampires died because you..." He smiles. "It was so eerie out here after it was over. I'd have left and gone home, but I didn't know how. I tried to send a few messages back, but I doubt they ever got through. Eventually I built this little camp, set myself up and decided to live out my days. It's not so bad. Do you know how old I am? Can you guess?"
I stare at him.
"I'm one hundred and twenty years old," he continues, with a proud grin. "I think. It's hard to keep track. I'm no vampire. I'm not a werewolf, either. I'm a human being, and I've still got all my brains intact. Well, as far as I know. I suppose maybe I wouldn't necessarily recognize it if I'd gone mad, but I'm an optimist and I reckon I'm still alright up here." He taps the side of his head. "You know how to live a long life? Curiosity. Stay curious. Always ask questions. If you don't, you'll lose interest in the world and the world'll lose interest in you, and you'll just kinda slip apart from one another. Being alive's like being married. You've got to put in some effort, or there'll be no magic left." He pauses for a moment. "You hungry, Patrick? I've got some meat I can share with you. There are mice out here in the wilderness, and they're damn tasty when they've been barbecued."
I shake my head. I should be moving on, continuing with my death walk, but the warmth of the fire is too tempting.
"You look like a chap with a lot on his mind," the old man continues. "You look troubled. Fortunately, I'm a man with no place to go and plenty of time to sit about yapping. Care to talk about your troubles?" He laughs. "I mean, I know you haven't been able to talk for a long, long time, but that's all over now, isn't it? You can talk now. After all, you're almost dead." He leans over and pats me on the back. "I can see it in your eyes. You're on your death walk. I've studied vampire culture for a while. I know how it works. You've come out here to die alone, like an animal. Humans like to die with others around them, but most other creatures like to die unattended. I'm not planning on stopping you. I just figure you might as well hang around for a while and chat some shit with a fellow old-timer."
Pulling my hands back from the fire, I turn to walk away. It was weak of me to stop and talk to this man, and I should keep going. The mystery of his appearance in this land is one that can detain other people, after I'm gone.
"You don't want to wait for little Abigail?" he calls after me.
I keep walking. Abigail is locked in the room and unlikely to ever find her way out. No-one has ever managed to escape from that place. During the war, vampires would go in there and face themselves, hoping to learn their fate. They all died where they stood.
"You're making a mistake," the old man shouts. "You're going to destroy that girl, the same way you destroyed Gwendoline!"
I stop in my tracks. This man is a fool. I didn't destroy Gwendoline; she was born weak, and I merely recognized her failings before others took notice. I gave her chances to improve herself, and she failed every time. Abigail and Gwendoline are so different, it's useless to compare them.
"I was there that day," the old man shouts over to me. "I was watching when you killed the deer and she ran. You were too harsh with her. She was just a child, and you tried to make her grow up too fast. I can't imagine what she's like now, but she's lucky if she hasn't been permanently scarred. Perhaps I shouldn't be too harsh, old boy, but you weren't a very good father to her. She had potential. I hope you've done better with Abigail."
I turn to face him. This man is trying my patience. I still have more than enough strength to kill him.
"I hear things," he continues. "You'd be surprised how news travels around here. I hear whispers in the dark. Gwendoline needed you to help her, to support her. Instead, you cast her aside and moved on to find your next child. If you're thinking of abandoning Abigail in the same way, you're doubly foolish and you should turn around and go back to her. What do you think's going to happen? Do you think these girls are going to be born ready? If you want one of them to t
ake your place, you have to spend time with her. You have to show her what to do, and you have to train her. Walking away is never going to solve anything."
Pausing for a moment, I start walking back toward the old man. He's stepped over a line and it's time to punish him.
"Are you going to kill me?" he asks, his voice fracturing a little. "I suppose it's time. I've been out here long enough, alone. I want a quick death, though, if you don't mind." He reaches up and unbuttons the top of his shirt, exposing his wrinkled neck. As he holds the collar open, his hands shake a little. "I should have been killed the moment I set foot in this place. I've been living on borrowed time for long enough. I imagine my blood must be very weak by now, but you're welcome to take what you want." He strains his neck, trying to tempt me. "Come on," he continues, "we're both old men. I've studied vampires all my life. I might as well die at the hands of one, and you're the last chance I'll ever get. If you don't kill me, what's my fate to be? I'll just keel over one day while I'm collecting wood. Better to go with a bit of a show, huh?"
Realizing that he's not worth the effort, I turn away and resume my walk into the darkness. No doubt, the old fool is watching me go and pitying me, judging me for my past. It's easy for him: he can pass comment without having to really experience the crushing disappointment of discovering that your children will never live up to their potential. The truth, though, is that I did my best. Gwendoline was a weak little idiot from the start, and I should have killed her when she was a child. Abigail showed potential, but she allowed herself to be tricked by her half-sister, and no-one can escape from that room. Even I would never have been able to get out of that place, if I had been foolish enough to let myself get lured in there in the first place. I did everything I could with both Gwendoline and Abigail, and they failed me. All that's left for me to do now, is to go into the darkness and keep walking until I can walk no more. Leaving the old man behind, I walk for hours, with the night air getting colder and colder. Soon I will be able to walk no more, and death will claim me. I can only hope there will be no ghosts to greet me when I pass.
