“I made her promise to wait until you'd finished school. It was the only way to be fair to both of you. We were just setting off back when she…” he sighed, the words coming out more slowly, “she slipped in the water and hit her head on a rock. I would never have hurt her, I promise. I ran for help but it was too late."
He began wringing his hands together as I stood up. "So she was dead already?"
"Yes, no, I don't know. I ran through here and there was a rock fall behind me. It was so loud I thought my eardrums had burst. I turned round and waved away the smoke as best I could. The rocks had fallen right where she was. I didn't know what to do Mark so I-" he looked down again, his voice barely audible, "I was a coward." His lip quivered as if holding back floods of tears. "I just kept quiet. I'm so sorry Mark." He looked up, hands outstretched towards me. "Please forgive me."
"It's all right," I smiled, patting him on the shoulder. "I only wanted the truth and you've told me the truth now haven't you?"
"I swear to God I have," he replied. Trial over. Now punishment. "Can we go Mark? Please?"
"Of course," I said, moving behind his wheelchair and pushing it back inside the cave.
"Wh...where are we going? Why aren't we going back to the car?"
"Oh I haven't shown you the special thing in here yet. Let's go have a look together."
I pushed him back to the waterfall, ignoring his protests as I grabbed the rope that had been dangling against the rock wall beside me.
"What...what is it you want to show me?" he asked, sounding nervous again.
"You won't be able to see it from down there," I said, looping a noose over his neck and yanking the rope backwards. "You need to be higher up."
He tried to fight as he was wrenched up into the air, his hands digging frantically into the knot round his neck, gasping for breath. "Can you see it yet?" I yelled over the sound of his struggling. I fed the rope through my hands, the end coming to rest by the washing line. John dangled in the flow of the waterfall, the drips falling onto his head as he glanced round him, his eyes bulging. I looped my end of the rope round a rock and tied it in place, looking up at the latest addition to the washing line. It looked sort of funny, an old man dangling down between a child's shoe and a teddy bear just like a wet coat hung out to dry.
"I've got to be going now John," I said. "Can't hang round here all day. One last question for you before I go." I looked up at his struggling form, his arms starting to sag as his strength began to fade. "If you told me the truth and she was buried in a rock fall like you say, then what's that over there?" I flicked the light switch in the metal box next to the waterfall. A spotlight clunked into life, shining on a statue that had been hidden in the shadows. The statue was made of the same rock as had coated the trinkets. It looked a lot like a person except for one broken section roughly where an arm would be. From the jagged stone a skeletal hand dangled down where I’d chipped the rock shell away.
"You used to tell me that waterfall could turn anything to stone given enough time. You said that on the first day I started here. Do you remember? You said all it took was time. Well you've got all the time in the world now John. And like I promised, I'll come and see you much more often now."
I walked away and left him swinging gently back and forth, his bulging eyes staring at the statue and then at the wedding ring still attached to the bony finger. There’s four months until I'm due to open for the summer. Will he have turned to stone by then? To be honest, I don't know. I just want him to feel how my mother felt when I hung her from the waterfall. She used to touch me like John did and when he let me become winter caretaker all those years ago it was the perfect chance to punish her.
She used to tell me what she did was normal, washing away my sins with the love of mummy dearest. I washed her sins away for six months as she hung under the waterfall, drip by solidifying drip. John must have gotten so used to lying, he wasn't even capable of telling the truth anymore, making up that story about the rock fall. I thought about the time he and my mother had brought me to this cave, the things they did to me here, how petrified I was when they'd forced me to keep still, made me stop fighting them, threatened to throw me off the cliff. Well now it’s their turn to be petrified.
Meeting the Ex
He didn't bother to mention Marion until we were sitting in the back of the ambulance. The paramedic was wiping the last of the blood from my face as I looked out at the wreckage of our car, the car Marion had destroyed, the crash she'd caused.
I couldn't believe that either of us had made it out of there alive. I took in the stoved in windscreen, the torn hunks of metal scattered across the road, the police milling about talking into their radios as they crunched through the fragments of glass and I marvelled at how lucky we'd just been.
I met Stan three months ago through one of those online dating websites. I'd been a paid up member for six months and had been on one awful date after another. There was the trip to a Soho cinema playing ‘specialist films’ that did not endear me to Barry who'd seemed so normal online. Then there was the trip to the owl sanctuary to watch Kevin weep at the "beauty of the raptor form" as he put it. He only picked me because my profile photo looked like an owl apparently. Stan was the first normal person who took me for a normal meal with normal wine and gave me a normal peck on the cheek on the doorstep when he dropped me off afterwards, not like John who'd tried to put his hand up my skirt during the meal, apologised and said it was an accident only to then try and do it again in the taxi on the way home, all the while maintaining wonderfully bigoted conversation with the taxi driver.
When Stan asked for a second date I was over the moon. We went for a seaside stroll, made our way along an old railway line and called in at a rustic little pub in a village in the middle of nowhere. It was blissful and this time I let him kiss me properly when he dropped me off.
It all started to go wrong on our third date which was both just this morning and a lifetime ago. He came to pick me up and I directed him into the countryside not too far from my house. We parked up by an old farmhouse, the roof caved in years ago.
"How did you find this place?" he asked, looking out at the rolling hills sloping down into a wide valley beneath us, the lambs bleating nearby, jumping about, full of the joys of springtime.
"Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful."
"Oh I am glad. But wait until you see what's coming up."
He slipped his hand into mine and my heart skipped a beat. I was grinning from ear to ear as we took the track into the wood and out the other side, stepping round a pile of fallen branches to reach the plateau. From here you could see all the way to the valley bottom and the sparkling ribbon of blue that marked the river, curving softly between two dry stone walls. Beside the river was a heritage railway line and luck was again on my side. A train appeared from round the bend as we looked, chugging into view with steam pluming from the top.
We sat on a flat rock and stared out at the view together. "Let's live here," Stan said, turning to smile at me. "It's perfect." The train whistled, a gentle sound at this distance. Above our heads a single wispy white cloud drifted slowly by.
"Planning on moving in with me already?" I said.
"No, I'm not suggesting-"
"I'm teasing you Stan. Don't worry."
We sat there for a while before continuing our walk along the ridge, curving back through fields of green pasture, the startled sheep darting away at our approach before staring at our retreating forms. We reached the car about an hour later while still finishing off a delightful conversation about Baroque music.
I turned to ask Stan if he'd enjoyed himself when his expression silenced me. He looked furious. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"Did you do this?" he asked, striding past me and pointing at the car.
"Did I do what? What are you talking about?"
He glared at me, clenching his fists. "The car, the bloody car. Did you do it?"
I looked,
trying to spot a scratch or a chip but I couldn't see anything wrong with it. "I don't see anything. What am I supposed to have done?"
He spoke through gritted teeth, drawing out each word. "It's facing the wrong way."
I looked at it again. "Are you sure? Maybe you turned it round when we got here."
"I think I'd remember." He paused, thinking then his voice grew quiet as if he was talking more to himself than to me. "It’s her. That bitch is at it again."
"Sorry, what?"
He looked up, the smile back on his face. "Nothing, never mind. Forget it. Shall we get going?"
I sat in the passenger seat and thought to myself. It had all been going too well. Of course he was insane, he'd been far too normal to be normal. Maybe it was time I cancelled my subscription to the dating website and resigned myself to a life of spinsterhood. It had to be less stressful than this. I honestly couldn't remember which way the car had been facing but his reaction scared me, making me realise just how little I knew about him. He drove in silence as we approached a bend. Instead of braking the car seemed to speed up, racing round the corner.
"Would you mind slowing down?" I asked, gripping the door handle.
"I'm trying," he replied, sounding more scared than I was. I looked down at his feet, he was pressing the brake pedal to the floor but nothing was happening.
"What's wrong with the car?" I asked as we continued downhill, the slope pushing us down faster and faster. An oncoming car flashed its headlights at us as we tore past, barely avoiding the side of us as it was forced up onto the verge.
"She's cut the bloody brakes," he said, panic evident in his voice as he began banging his foot up and down on the pedal, gripping the wheel so tightly his knuckles had turned white. I glanced at the speedo, it was nudging past eighty. Far too fast for this road.
"There's a bend coming up," I screamed, pointing in front of me.
"Okay, okay," he replied, wrenching the wheel to the side as the road curved. I felt my side of the car lifting into the air as we almost made it.
"Can you tell me what happened miss?"
I was brought out of my thoughts by the police officer standing over me in the door to the ambulance, notebook in his hand. The steam rising from the ruined engine behind him made it look as it his head was on fire. I had to stifle a hysterical giggle that bubbled up inside me.
"I don't really remember much," I said, my head starting to throb behind my eyes. "The brakes weren't working. We tried to go round the bend but we were going far too fast. I remember the side lifting up and then I think we skidded or spun or something. We hit that tree and next thing I know I'm sat here, having this gentleman take my pulse.”
Stan stood behind the officer. "Are you okay?" he mouthed.
I nodded and the paramedic turned to the officer. "We should get her to the hospital. Just to be on the safe side."
"You're lucky to be alive," the officer said. "I'll come and see you there okay?"
Stan climbed into the ambulance and we set off. "Marion did this," he said, looking into the space above my head.
"What? Who's Marion?"
"My ex. I thought once it was over she'd leave me alone but I should have known better."
He went quiet, the paramedic sat behind him filling something in on a clipboard, pretending not to hear us.
"Your ex tried to kill us?"
"It's not the first time. She's done other things. I thought when I moved that she'd give up-"
"Sorry to interrupt," the paramedic said. "Can I get a few things down before we get there?"
I answered his questions about allergies and things like that and by the time he was done we were pulling into the hospital car park. I spent the next few hours under observation but they finally concluded there was nothing much wrong with me apart from the cut on my forehead and I was allowed to leave. Lucky me.
Stan was waiting for me in reception. "They've booked me a taxi," I said. "Do you want to share?"
"No, it's fine," he replied. "I need to go look for a new car. But I wanted to make sure you were okay first."
"I'm fine," I said as he glanced at the stitches on my forehead. "Just a scratch. Don't look so worried, it was only an accident."
"Listen," he looked more worried than ever. "I understand if you don't want to see me again but I really like you and I hope-"
I couldn't bear to look at his puppy dog eyes any longer. "If I say yes, will you try and give me a smile?"
The taxi pulled up and I climbed in. "I'll call you tomorrow," I said. By the time I got home my headache was worse and I went straight to bed, reliving the accident in my dreams but with time with this Marion woman standing by the roadside like a modern Mrs Danvers, holding a huge pair of fabric scissors and making snipping motions as the car skidded into the bend.
By the next morning my headache had faded a little and I went for a walk round the block for some fresh air before ringing Stan. We met up at a cafe in the town centre, near enough for both of us to walk there. When I arrived he was already inside but something wasn't right. I pushed open the door and saw him sat at a table by the counter, his hands on his neck, his face turning purple. He scrambled to his feet as a huge man stood up and ran over to him, grabbing him round the middle and pulling him upwards, lifting him into the air, once, twice and then a third time. A hunk of something flew from Stan's mouth and splatted onto the counter top. The man let go and Stan fell to his knees, gasping for air.
"Are you okay?" I asked as I reached his side, helping him into a chair with the waitress the other side of him.
He coughed loudly before he could answer. "Marion," he wheezed. "It was Marion."
"He'd only had a breadstick," the waitress was telling the sea of staring faces, as if she were on trial for trying to kill a customer.
"Is he all right?" the huge man asked.
"I think so," I replied, looking up at him. "Thank you. If you weren't here-"
"It was nothing," he shrugged, turning away and heading back to his table, leaving me to try and comfort a terrified looking Stan.
"She's trying to kill me," he whispered as the waitress handed him a glass of water. He sipped at it as I slid into the seat opposite him.
"What do you mean?"
"Cutting the brakes didn't work. Now she's poisoning my food."
"But you weren't poisoned were you?" I put my hand on his. "You just got some food caught in your throat."
"No," he snapped, pulling his hand away. "She's trying to kill me. I know she is."
"I'm sure nobody wants to kill you Stan."
"You don't know her like I do. She used to text me at work, ten times a day. She wanted to know where I was all the time." He fiddled with the cutlery on the table as he talked. "She was paranoid, deleted all my friends online, changed my passwords, accused me of sleeping around every time I was late home from work. It boiled over in a blazing row after I had the audacity to go for one drink with someone from the office who was female, how dare I?"
"What did you do?"
"What could I do? I ended it. Told her it was over, I'd had enough."
"How did she take it?"
"How do you think? She went mad as a box of frogs. I nearly had to call the police. She smashed up the house, told me she was going to burn the place down, kill me, kill my family. You name it."
"Oh Stan," I put my hand on his again as he took another sip of water. "That sounds awful. I'm so sorry."
"I thought they were empty threats. I didn't think she'd actually do it but after this, I don't know." He stared into the distance. "Do you mind if we go? I don't feel hungry anymore."
"Try and get some rest," I said as we walked out of the cafe. "You look exhausted."
"I'd love to but the police are coming round to interview me this afternoon."
"What about?"
"The crash of course."
"Oh right, sorry. Listen, you can call me afterwards if you need a chat."
"Thanks," he smiled before tur
ning and walking away. I'd just set off down the street when I heard a screech of brakes behind me. I spun round in time to see Stan flying through the air. The van that hit him slowed but as Stan slammed into the pavement, it hit the accelerator and raced away, weaving through the traffic and disappearing round the corner.
I ran and knelt down beside him, the sounds of the traffic dying away as he opened and closed his mouth, blinking up at me. "Just keep still," I said, grabbing his bloody hand and squeezing it. "You're going to be okay, I promise. I'm right here."
I wasn't allowed to ride in the ambulance with him and had to hail a taxi to the hospital. By the time I got there he was already in surgery so all I could do was wait, biting my nails as a succession of people came and went around my chair in the middle of the A & E reception.
It was nightfall before I was allowed to see him in intensive care. He looked awful, half his body in plaster and the other half in bandages. His eyes were closed, a drip running from the cruck of his elbow to a stand by the bedside. A doctor was examining the drip, muttering something to the nurse beside her.
"Are you related?" the doctor asked, turning to look at me.
"Not really. We were dating. It was our third one, I-" I trailed off, already sure I was rambling.
"I see. Well don't expect too much. He won't wake up until at least tomorrow morning but you can sit with him for a while if you like."
"How is he?"
"Oh he should pull through. He's definitely a fighter."
After he'd finished consulting with the nurse I was left alone, slumping into the chair beside the bed to take Stan's hand in mine, stroking his fingers through the bandages.
I jerked awake. What? How long had I been asleep? And what was that beeping sound? I glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was nearly nine in the morning. There was the sound of running footsteps outside the room as I looked at Stan. Something was wrong, what was it? I was too sleepy to work it out at first but then I realised. His chest wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing.
Night Terrors: 16 Horror Stories Page 8
