The Tens: A captivating psychological thriller about a cult

by Vanessa Jones

  Opting instead for saggy leggings and a faded turtle neck, she plopped herself on a stool in front of her easel. She liked to draw back the curtains when painting. The wide windows that she sat in front of offered her generous light and a reprieve for her eyes and brain when she needed a rest from staring at the small woven squares of the canvas. Her painting area was the sunniest and brightest spot in the house. But she was careful not to fall into its trap of false optimism, the warmth of the sun liked to trick you into thinking that everything was going to be okay.

  Grabbing a jar of brushes, she swirled one around, tapped it on the side and held it under her chin as she contemplated the empty canvas. Her brow furrowed and her face became tense as she navigated her unruly artist’s block.

  Sophie tried to paint away some of the darkness that had been plaguing her. All whilst skirting around the real things that got to her: Alex leaving, the rock from her nightmares, the clown lady... and tried to paint her feelings manifest. There was a convincing sense of whirling in her head, of settled mud been shaken up in a glass of water. So, she painted a bottle of muddy water, sitting atop a featureless person's head. It left her unsatisfied, so she tipped the canvas off her easel and discarded it on the floor. With a fresh canvas awaiting her, she sighed and looked across her front yard trying to squeeze a commercially palatable image to mind that she could paint, something that would look good in a modern Hampton's style or minimalist style home. Although it bored her, the less evocative it was, the better, for mainstream production. She needed to make some money, somehow.

  Through the window, she contemplates her garden. There’s a painful stabbing realisation that she would need to attend to it sooner rather than later and that she wouldn’t have Alex by her side to pull out the weeds with. In between the plump geranium bushes that line the front fence, something catches her eye. A shiny, white van with dark tinted windows sits directly opposite and Sophie swears she sees a flash of light coming from inside. With held breath, she watches it and waits. Remembering her overactive imagination from the clown incident, she rolls her eyes at herself and captures her loose hair back in a hairband so she can go back to concentrating on painting.

  But a figure, dressed mainly in black and khaki, sweeps tactfully from her neighbours' bushes, that border her driveaway, to the opposite side of the road. So swiftly, in not much more time than it took her to blink, the person had alighted the cabin of the van. Sophie didn't catch their face, only a black plain cap. Unsure what to do, she ran to her bedroom where she'd left her phone and pressed open the camera function, only to discover that the van had completely gone by the time she'd reached her front step. This time, unlike the clown, she was sure she hadn't imagined it at all. Although she did convince herself to look for an innocent explanation, to stop seeking the sinister, still very much haunted by the embarrassment of her reaction at work. There was no real reason that anyone should want to harm her or her neighbours. She lived in a middle class, safe suburb and even break-ins were notoriously rare in the area.

  Stepping back from the window and abandoning her painting, Sophie Googled 'increasing jumpiness' and self-diagnosed some anxiety. It was true, her increasing hypervigilance came with, or fuelled, her anxiety. There was no question. She glossed over the words 'active stress response', which made complete sense, since Alex leaving was an incredible stressor on her. One that she felt utterly out of control with.

  Sophie sighed with despair and finally plucked up enough courage to phone Bree. Sophie clears her throat as it went to voicemail. ‘Hey, Bree. It’s Sophie. I know we haven’t spoken in a bit but I…’ Sophie faltered a little. She had no idea what to say or what she wanted from Bree. ‘I… can you call me back when you can? Thanks, bye.’

  ‘It's just a bit of cortisol,’ she told irritably herself as she rummaged through her cupboards for some camomile tea bags. 'Seriously Sophie, you need to relax. You are making yourself insane.'

  With an afternoon yawning before her and a fire inside of her, she scooped her hair up on top of her head and filled a fresh jar with water, thrusting her paintbrushes into it. Sipping at her camomile tea, she focussed her mind on her painting in the hopes it would still her and distract her from her jitteriness. Mindlessly, she squeezed blue, teal, white and grass green worms of paint onto her palette. The strokes came swiftly, deftly and fluidly. The thick streaks of paint seemed to swirl and float back in one itself and made her dizzy. This happened sometimes, she got so focussed on painting that she forgot to eat or hydrate and she'd get dizzy and experience mini hallucinations. She expected this happened to everyone who experienced intense closeness to their work. 'It's no different to people getting swirls in front of their eyes when they stare at a computer screen all day,' she told Alex once. Who just looked at her like she was lying.

  Sophie dropped the paintbrush she was holding when a solid thunk hit the window above her. She looked to her toes, a cobalt splatter marring the cool white tiles. She took her shirt off and used it to wipe up the paint, tense that it had stained. If he were there, Alex would have chastised her for it, further adding to his narrative that she was a careless and reckless artist.

  ‘Grrrr. For fuck’s sake! Those stupid birds need to realise there’s a window there,’ she said to no one in particular.

  Below the window, outside, lay a ball of a blackbird, its head tucked towards its torso. The bird's feathers had fluffed up, to cover its motionlessness. Alex can deal with it when he returns home, she thought. She couldn't be bothered discarding yet another dead bird.

  But, like last time she went to inspect a fallen bird, she noticed something beside it. A thin, creamy matchbook lay next to the bird’s slackened beak. Admiring the ornate design on the cover, she picked it up and then pocketed it.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  'Fly.'

  A disembodied command woke her up. The air around her yellow and thick. It was afternoon and she had nodded off after leaving her painting half done. The unfinishedness of it replicating how undone her mind and life felt. Her thick slumber was helped by the painkillers she had unearthed at the back of the fridge, leftover from when Alex once had dental surgery. She didn't care whether they would make her more miserable, as long as she got snatches of sleep where she could. A nervous energy had been bound to her, swirling her around the house each day, pushing her to half complete simple tasks. A half-emptied dishwasher, empty toilet rolls spilled through the bathroom, three separate grocery lists had begun and were dotted around the house. The couch housed baskets and baskets of laundry that she felt too heavy to put away, sometimes too tired to even push off the couch, so she just laid on top of. The mail piled up in the letterbox and she had no intention of changing that. His mail was still coming, letters addressed to them, with both their names printed boldly across the front like they were still a family. Which they were most definitely not. It made her sick to think of his current address. Where was he? Who was he with? And the recognisable wash of anxiety scraped through her. Annoyed that the voice demanding that she fly had poked through her rare bit of rest, she rolled over, wanting to slip back into the chocolatey sleep. The TV stared silently and dully back at her, waiting for her to alight it with their familiar routine. She reached her foot towards the curtain, trying to hook it with her toe and push it back, wondering if the voice came from someone outside. Was he back?

  Sophie leapt out of bed hoping that he had used his key but she didn't even need to look in the kitchen or lounge room to know he wasn't home. The air was still with loneliness. That icky still feeling when you know that no one has entered the room in a while.

  Sighing with despair, she shuffled around the house wearing nothing but greying socks and a faded blue t-shirt, looking from window to window to window, hoping to see anything... but really hoping that her will would be strong enough to bring him to her.

  A tiny sparrow collided into the window she stood facing, reverberating as she jumped her socked feet together as if by pressing her legs toge
ther she could stop the impact. Outside the window, the clump of bird lay still, folded in on itself. The fluffy plumage stood up in spikes and it could have been mistaken for a baby hedgehog. Sophie left the dead bird— yet another— on the ground as a symbol of all that was dying, was dead, within her.

  Suddenly it hit her. The birds, the voice telling her to fly, the pent up angst inside of her. In somewhat of a trance, she knew what she had to do. Sophie flung open her wardrobe and wriggled into a cobalt blue dress and shiny heels.

  The tinny beats exploded and made the rest of her body reverberate as she pressed her earbuds firmly into her ears. With each vibration, she felt like she was shaking off a demon, one that followed her everywhere. That demon was the wincing, squeezing pain of anxiety: a twisted stomach, chilled blood and broiling cheeks. The music and the rapid pacing helped to blast away some of the noise that sat in her head and she didn't have to hear her own breathing. The chaos of strangers and her first real foray into this urban wilderness—aside from going to work— provided an unexpected comfort. She timed each beat with a footstep to shake off the chills that the sunshine couldn't touch. But the more she walked, the more she became alert to something uncanny. There was something building inside of her. It felt like sagacity. It pushed aside any need to know where Alex was and why he left. Or why she couldn’t get a handle on her nightmares. It was bigger than that. And suddenly, it started to make sense. Slapping her palm to her forehead, she admonished herself for being so daft and resisting a knowledge that was there all along.

  Her eyes scanned the open-air mall, darting from shop to shop, building to building. Which was the right one? They all looked similar, not fit for her purpose. But there was one, at the mouth of the mall. One that she'd looked at many, many times before. In the past, it was nothing more than familiarity to her ordinary, everyday scene. An invisible prop on a set. But today, this building was something different to her. It was a catalyst. Again, she was embarrassed that something so obvious had been sitting in her mind and she hadn't bothered to listen. Too busy being obsessed over Alex's whereabouts to understand what had been flourishing inside of her this whole time.

  A soft mist started to fall, despite the crisp sunshine still out. She felt it hit her skin but didn't feel its dampness or coolness. Her skin was aflame with purpose when her eyes travelled upwards to her chosen building. She remembered visiting the rooftop bar many times, years ago. The fake plants held in concrete planters lining the balcony desecrated with countless cigarette butts. The Friday evenings she would visit would be awash with mid-tier corporate dickheads, with tight suit pants, pointy brown brogues and shirts all the shades of a bruise: lilac, blue and violet.

  As she travelled up the clunking, smelly elevator she felt elated at the possibilities of who she was becoming. Or, rather, who she’d missed that she’d been all along. The elevator doors pulled open and presented her with the empty bar and the wide balcony. A bartender had his back to her as he contemplated the rows and rows of bottles lining glass shelves and one bored waiter slowly laid out one knife at a time on the perfectly set tables. The balcony doors were open, despite the threat of the sunshower and the white curtains billowed inwards, an invitation from the angels.

  Sophie stepped out onto the balcony, alone, as the curtains whipped around her like she was in a music video. She placed her handbag underneath one of the curtains' hem and stepped towards the balcony rail. The planters were still there, possibly would always be there and she lifted herself onto one, balancing on the thick edge on the balls of her feet. Once she felt the slight rain, only then did she truly feel it— every single sprinkle that touched her skin. She didn't even know that you could feel so much sensation at one time, yet distinguish every tiny pinprick. Her hair whipped back behind her and her navy dress tightened around her thighs as if they were thick horse reins being pulled on. Sophie leant her torso forward and was relieved that she had finally learnt something so obvious. Yanking her earbuds from her ears, she took the fullest breath she felt she ever had and look upwards. She could fly.

  'Ahh no, you don't.' A firm but jovial voice commanded her from behind. Sophie felt her dress pull tight against her as someone grabbed hold of it and pulled. She pushed one hand into the railing and leveraged it to turn around and see who was tugging at it. Lemon juice and musk hit her nostrils as a rigid arm shot around her waist and pulled her backwards, a shoe falling off to the side of the planter box. Instinctively, Sophie sucked in her stomach and she felt another arm snake around her, clamping her in between them. Her earbuds toggled around her neck, jostling together.

  'I got you. You don't want to do that.' Her skin had lost its tingle and her tongue had lost its words. Confused, she looked at where her shoe had fallen and the clamping arms awkwardly shuttled her towards the otherwise of billowing curtains, where an empty Chesterfield lounge awaited her.

  Blink, she told herself. You must remember to blink. Otherwise, they will suspect something. All her efforts were focused on trying to blink naturally, normally. But it felt like she was relearning to blink again.

  'What's your name?' The arms released from her waist and a man with blonde curls appeared in front of her face. She noticed his hand was clamped down firmly on her forearms, though.

  Blink.

  He cocked his head and Sophie could see he almost wanted to smile at her.

  Blink.

  'Come over there to the bar with me? I need someone to try my new cocktail.' He pointed to the marble bar with his chin.

  'Soph... ie.' Blink. Her words were soft and she yearned for the startling lucidity that she just had. He nodded like her name was no surprise. Now that the electrifying clarity had left her, Sophie's shoulders hunched forward, her chest collapsing with despair. She looked down to her lap, then her feet; one shoe on, one foot bare. Her heart ached for that fleeting invigoration to come back and her mind flashed to the absence of her husband.

  'Come and have a drink, yeah?' His hands slid to cup the underside of her forearms and he lifted her and she felt weightless, like the curtains that still danced behind her. The waitress sidled up to them and presented her shoe as if she were Cinderella. 'Here you go!' she said proudly, tugging at her waistcoat with one hand. Sophie didn't say anything but did let her place the shoe in front of her foot, whilst the bartender didn't break his grip on her arms. She slid into her shoe and followed him meekly to the barstool he pointed towards.

  Gratefully, she sucked up the syrupy orange drink he unhurriedly prepared for her. Three sips were all it took before she was crushed under the weight of her dismay. Her eyes prickled and filled with tears. 'What do I owe you?' Sophie asked politely after she moved the third drink towards her crestfallen chest.

  'Absolutely nothing. Pull out your phone.'

  Sophie shook her head, fearing he was going to ask her out.

  'Just do it. I want you to call a friend in front of me to come pick you up.'

  The relief of avoiding being asked out made her willingly call Bree to come collect her.

  Bree answered almost immediately. ‘Soph! So sorry that I have missed your calls. It’s late… everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah. No. Hey listen, I know it’s an inconvenience but is there any chance you can come pick me up?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Err… Hotel…’ Sophie looked around her as the bartender mouthed the hotel’s name at her. ‘...Richton.’

  ‘I’m not far away. Be there in a few minutes.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  'Have you ever been to therapy before Sophie?' Carla was just the right shrink for her and Sophie was captivated by her from the very first moment. Bree had picked her up, no questions asked and as she dropped her home she pressed the therapist’s card into her hand urgently and simply told her, ‘it’s time.’ Sophie was awash with awkward vulnerability telling Bree about the balcony incident but knew in her heart that Bree was right.

  The lemony clean voice of the therapist made her feel terri
fied and safe at the same time and she wanted to give herself all over to her, tell her everything, spread out her hands and vomit in to them. Carla made you feel like if you could just place it all in her hands, if only for a moment, she would wash your soul sterile by taking your cares and throwing them off a cliff.

  Sophie contemplated holding back on her answer. But knew that she’d only be cheating herself. 'Once. When I was five.'

  'Oh?'

  Sophie’s eyes travelled around the room and then land on Carla. Sophie reasoned that she might as well jump in. 'Well, I don't want us to get derailed by this information because it's not really why I'm here. But when I was five, both my parents were killed in a car accident. I had a few sessions with a child psychologist, of which I cannot remember much about. I remember he had a bright orange fluffy puppet with angry eyebrows that sat lifeless in the corner, though. But that's it. Ruth, my guardian, said I had threatened to run away if she made me go to any more sessions. And since I was a fairly compliant child, she didn't see the need for me to keep going.'