by D I Russell
Samara’s own version of Woe. While the spectre crawled and tore through the Outside films, unable to belong from the pain, lashing out in violence and confusion, Samara had attempted the same through a different medium. As Woe shrugged off her human façade to her next victim, so must Samara, showing the world what lies behind the mask. She was unable to wear her heart on her sleeve, but she could expose it on canvas, and show that it beats, it lives, despite the horror it resided within.
She checked the bus bay again. No way home just yet. No bus, just the girl with the long dark hair standing alone in the road.
Samara glanced down, studying her own boots and the dark spots of ancient chewing gum that still clung to the brickwork between them. Better to do this than catch anyone’s eye, to attract a quizzical stare. She believed her energy had been invested in the painting, and that she had earned a night of peace.
Her personal vampire had moved closer still, examining Samara from the other side of the bus station glass, lurking inches from the large window. The other people waiting for the bus had no clue such a demon also stood in line…but it was only a matter of time, Samara guessed.
A paintbrush wielded like a crucifix had rid her of one fiend. Surely a dash of the holiest of water would again save her from another.
Keeping her face down, Samara tightened her grip on her bag strap and ducked out of the queue. Stepping around other commuters, who hurried to the various bus stands to escape both the cold and their day, she emerged under the appearing stars and twilight sky. A car park was nestled between the bus station and Job Centre. Beside it, the ever-burning and welcoming lights of The Scholar pub beckoned.
Someone she knew had to be in there. While she only considered Lily as a true friend, Samara felt she had many acquaintances on campus. A small college in a working-class town nurtured friendships. Hopefully a fellow art student would be in residence, and they could share their common interest over a drink. Hell, Samara realised, I’d even drink with Vicki if she bought the round. Yes. Her quiet booth, the familiar sights and smells. The same old songs on the jukebox. A little remained in her bank account, but that had come from her grandmother’s passing. Each of the grandchildren had received an even split of the inheritance. Samara had deposited this in her savings account, wanting to save it for something special, something her grandmother would approve of. She reasoned enough loose change rattled around at the bottom of her bag for at least half a Coke. She could leave her demons at the door, at least, for a little while.
She skirted around the edge of the bus station and crossed the car park, heading around to the front of the pub. Through the windows, she recognised familiar faces but no one she’d be comfortable scrounging a drink from. This wasn’t like the night before: she’d had Lily by her side and several Metz under her belt.
It would be perfect if Mike was in, she realised. I could apologise for the other night.
Breath fogging before her face, Samara quickly walked past the wrought iron fencing that surrounded the pub and stepped through the gate. Already feeling a sense of belonging in the light from the front windows, she peered inside.
A couple sat at the bar chatting with the landlord: a squat man with permanent bedhead. Guess if you owned the pub you could look how you pleased. At the tables beyond sat a couple of groups engaged in passionate discussion. One guy stood, gesturing wildly to illustrate his point, much to the amusement of his inebriated company. A small cluster occupied the quiz machine as always, glory hunters always looking for the big score. The jukebox was taken by a tall girl who seemed to be flicking back and forth through the mechanical pages of track listings. She’d decide on the same old: “Killing in the Name of”, “Girl from Mars”, or “All Apologies”, the pub signatures songs. All so familiar and welcoming. Even Lily sat in their usual booth, a half-drank bottle of Metz on the table in front of her, hand stroking Mike’s cheek as they kissed.
Samara watched them, trying to grasp her thoughts that slipped through her mind like grains of sand. Images of the night before, of the fun and laughter she’d shared with Mike, the giggling whispers with Lily, the admissions and confessions.
This is what she deserved for trying to be one of them: this disastrous inevitability.
She turned away from the gut-wrenching sight.
Across the road, just beyond the traffic lights, stood two Victorian era buildings, an ornate stone arch between them, leading to the college gardens. Students rarely used the area, even on pleasant spring days or sweltering summer afternoons. With night almost arrived, no one should be in the gardens, yet a lone figure with long dark hair lingered at the entrance.
Samara had tried. She really had tried.
Her sadistic nature made her take a final glimpse inside the pub, to capture the image to dwell on, to ponder as she felt the real pain.
She met the quizzical stares of Lily and Mike.
“Shit,” she hissed, stepping away from the window and dashing back out of the gate. Following a cursory glance for traffic, Samara bolted across the road, vanishing inside the darkness under the arch leading into the gardens. She paused; sure the deep shadows hid her from the eye of the streetlights, and looked back to The Scholar.
The entrance opened, hinges squealing in the quiet evening. Lily emerged, searching the small area of yard between window and fence. “Sam?”
Surprised you took the time to prise yourself away from him, thought Samara, heart racing. She gulped down a lungful of cold air to try and settle her gut. An aching chasm had opened inside.
Beside her, the girl also stared across the road, pale face almost luminescent.
“Sam!” Lily cried. “Where are you?”
Samara clenched her fists, starting to enjoy the sudden, sickening rush the discovery had gifted her. Her needle barely quivered day to day, but this week had offered dizzying tastes, emotions touching the red line. Like her first orgasm, unexpected from her own clumsy fumbling beneath the sheets, a door to unknown pleasures had opened. The surprise that her own mind could create such emotion rocked her. She grinned in the dark, baring her teeth in an adrenaline smile.
“Samara!” Lily stepped through the gate and onto the pavement. She waited at the curb, allowing a couple of cars to pass, before starting to cross.
Samara retreated deeper between the two squat buildings and beneath the arch, emerging from the other side into the college gardens.
She had never visited the gardens at any point during her two years studying art and nearly slipped on sudden steps that led down to a concrete path. Hearing a second call from Lily, Samara quickly righted herself and crept down. She pressed her arm across her bag, smothering the jangle of her various art supplies, and proceeded carefully along the path. It cut between two carefully manicured lawns, or so Samara thought. In the last gasp of daylight, the expansive squares appeared as flat, grey pools. The night had drained the colour from the lush gardens. Rose bushes formed dark, ensnaring clusters. The few trees had become tall, statuesque figures watching over their shadowed kingdom. Samara could appreciate the sombre beauty, the secret face of otherwise vibrant nature, clipped and pruned to preference.
Best of all, the night garden concealed.
Samara passed a park bench and crept on, aiming for a bank of trees to the left. Off the path, she traipsed through flowers, stomping them flat under the thick soles of her boots, and touched the first tree. Careful to avoid tripping on any exposed roots, she edged behind the wide trunk and pressed her body against the rough bark.
“Samara,” Lily cried, somewhere in the garden. “I’m sorry, okay? I called in for a drink after class, and he was just there, and he asked about you…”
You were my friend, Samara thought, her eyes squeezed tight. You knew what this would do…
“Sam, come on! I know you can hear me.”
Samara pulled the strap over her head and laid her bag to rest at the base of the tree. Dropping to a crouch, she opened the plastic clasps and lifted the main
denim flap. In the darkness under the canopy, she searched by touch, her fingers skipping over pencils, balled up sketches, and the few coins she’d hoped would scratch up half a Coke.
“I haven’t seen you today,” continued Lily, sounding closer. “I didn’t know you liked him that much… Come on, Samara, don’t be like this!”
Metal, distinct by its chill, slipped into her palm. Samara raised her treasured implement. The blade remained hidden inside the steel handle, safely stored. Even under the canopies of night and leaf, the triangular blade glinted as it poked free, cutting the cold air.
“Fine!” The sound of approaching footsteps ceased.
Samara slumped back against the tree trunk, the heels of her boots pressing into the soft, rich soil.
“You want to be like this? Go home and make some horrible little picture of me?”
Samara rolled up her left sleeve.
“That’s what you’ll do, right Sam?”
The first bite, the tip of the sharp metal penetrating her skin, always elicited a small gasp. Her flesh warmed around the blade, but she held the tool firm.
“I can’t be your fucking bridge forever!”
The slow progress of the metal, fighting the resistance of taught corpus, blossomed sweet agony through Samara’s forearm. She wiggled her fingers against the electrical tingles that shot through to the tips. A tickle of blood slipped free and glossed across her skin, offered to the roots of her concealer.
Samara closed her eyes, stifling a cry. Tears, hot and salty, cascaded down her cheeks and across her lips.
Lily offered no more explanations and accusations. Samara could feel her moving away. One more, perhaps her last, who had given up hope.
Samara wiggled the blade up and down, sawing through a particularly stubborn patch of flesh, an old scar perhaps, or fresh skin unwilling to give up its virginity. Blood poured from the deep wound, dripping from the underside of Samara’s forearm.
She could almost see Lily heading back through the gardens to the stone arch, casting an anxious look over her shoulder, feeling the eyes on her back.
“I see you…” Samara hissed.
Great strobes of static flickered past Samara’s eyes. She blinked them away and somehow found herself in the archway, blocking Lily’s path.
Her friend stopped. “Sam? Thank Christ. I thought I saw you go in there.” She jabbed a thumb back towards the garden. “Look, can we talk?”
Samara remained locked in place, staring at Lily, a slight breeze agitating her hanging black hair. Her arm still buzzed with electrical sensations from the cutting. The current flowed through the wires and circuits of her bones and blood, sparking in her fingertips. She raised her hand before her face, grimacing from the pain.
“Sam?” Lily tried once more, daring a step forwards. “Come on, mate. This is stupid. We can talk about this.”
Blessed agony kissed a fingertip, just under the nail. Samara brought the offending digit closer still. A hint of shiny silver emerged, poking through the crimson drop of blood that bulged from the distal edge of her nail. Samara smiled, her mouth opening wider and stretching low as more slivers of metal were born from each fingertip. Sharp steel triangles sprang forth in dark geysers, ripping through skin and splitting fingernails.
“Sam?” said Lily. “What are you doing?”
Brandishing two sets of fully protruding claws, Samara raised a lethal fingertip and tapped her bottom lip, contemplating her decision. Her friend had no idea of the grotesque changes taking place in the darkness of the archway. Just as Lily had changed, trying to keep it in the dark, away from Samara. Just as the golden lights of The Scholar had led her to the deception like a beacon, so too would the welcoming glints from her blades offer Lily the same revelation.
“Sam, please. It’s cold. Come on. I’ll buy you a drink—”
Samara pressed the sharp tip onto the moist surface of her lip and with a hard-downward thrust, parted her face down to her chin. Blood poured from the wound and splattered the ground, a sudden gory rain that caused Lily to step back.
Her true face wriggling free from underneath the mundane, Samara glared at the silhouette before her, silently begging Lily to see while relishing the moment before the hunt. Lily had been the one; the closest to seeing through the everyday and knowing the real Samara hidden in the skin, the Nirvana t-shirts and the eyeliner, the secrets and the desires.
As Samara swept towards her, Lily stared in horror at the truth, her mouth opening to scream before a flurry of blades descended. Her gargled chokes echoed from the underside of the stone arch as the transmuted tore through her throat. Both girls tumbled back in a glistening heap; Samara’s hooked fingers striking, tearing, ripping. Her pale face melted and sloughed from her skull, revealing her authentic self.
Lily had seconds to see the monstrous visage before the blades, having carved out her throat to the bone, plunged deep into her eyes.
11.
They had spent weeks working along to the local radio piping out of the old stereo in the corner of the studio. Now Miss Jones had opted for something a little more cultured for the visiting parents, college staff, and local dignitaries. Classical music played softly in the background of the exhibition hall, accompanying the quiet mutterings of those perusing this year’s offerings. Rows of perfectly arranged seats faced the stage at the front of the hall. Behind, partitions displayed weeks of hard work by the graduating art class.
Samara failed to recognise a single face. They drifted either alone or in pairs; parents trying to look informed, holding narrow flutes of sparkling wine, pointing out certain parts of each painting; the self-proclaimed connoisseurs, silently studying each piece, judging its worth. Most students stood by their project, happy and eager to chitchat with anyone who ventured too close. Jones had encouraged such interaction. Art does not belong in solitude, she’d told them, but exists as an extension of the artist. Let them know you. Tell them the story behind the art.
Holding the opposite view from her teacher, Samara stood in a corner clutching her own glass of wine, her third already. It was free. While she differed from her parents in countless ways, she too couldn’t afford to pass up a freebie. The alcohol helped to take the edge off, and who knew, a couple more might allow her to actually talk. In the meantime, she was content to hang back and watch from afar.
Miss Jones, as this was her big day, drifted between groups, students, and parents: a butterfly flitting among flowers in another of her long, loose, colourful dresses. Hard to miss, but Samara guessed that was the point. She headed over to Vicki’s parents, shaking hands with each, eyes widening behind her designer glasses. Too many pleasantries, too much small talk. Too much heady perfume to tickle the back of her throat and make her head swim. Samara returned her attention back to her own painting.
She had arrived at the exhibition early to check the paint had dried from the previous day of reworking. The overhead beams glistened in the picture, the college not providing any form of flattering lighting. A cursory dab of her thumb found the new face of her subject completely dry. Satisfied, Samara had stood back to inspect the painting had been hung straight, and that her information pinned beside the piece was correct.
The Varden Gleave Art Prize 1998 entrant
Outside
by Samara Mathers
The hall had started to fill with latecomers filing through the door, seeking out their sons and daughters and a glass of sparkly before wandering over to the waiting works of art. Months of labour, mounted for the most cursory of glances as parents passed. They were keen to see the masterpiece created by their own offspring.
Samara watched with pride as one woman glanced at her painting and stepped away from it, as if the picture and the area around it were tainted. With no parents of her own to gush over her artwork, Samara noticed that “Outside” stood strikingly alone in a room full of sycophants.
However, one figure stopped before it, meeting the now tortured eyes of the model as her re
al face fought to emerge from the canvas. The girl with the dark hair stared up at the painting, unblinking and motionless. Parents and staff passed by, ignorant to her presence, perhaps only scowling as they spied the painting from the corner of their eye. The girl ignored them, consumed by the agony presented in oils.
Samara drained her thin glass, placed it on a nearby table, and meandered through the various guests to stand beside her sole audience. The girl wore the same clothes Samara had selected that morning: black jeans and a hoodie to hide within. She wondered if her counterpart also gripped an art knife in her pocket, hand sweaty from her tight grip. In silence, they both considered the art before them.
“I’m supposed to talk about my work,” Samara muttered, “to tell someone the reason behind its creation. This…torment. It’s my obsession.” She sighed and turned away, unable to look at her own work a second longer.
Next to the doorway, Dale leaned against the wall, watching her. She figured he’d come. Considering himself one of the creative elite at the college, and with the predominantly female art students here in abundance, Dale had to make an appearance. Samara stared back, challenging him to come over, daring him to try. He stayed put, his glasses precariously perched on his smashed nose. The blood had decayed to black, like tar had oozed from the carnage at the centre of his face. His head sat atop his neck at an odd angle, the vertebrae of his spine destroyed and unable to support the weight.
“It’s my confession,” Samara continued to the only one that mattered. A passing woman in a cream-coloured dress cast her a confused glance.