by Tej Turner
I quickly made my way down the stairs and saw a silhouette of a girl with strawberry-blonde hair through the glass of the door. I opened it – it was the weird girl I met in the club. I stood there for a moment with my mouth gaping open. What the hell was she doing here?
“Hi, it’s me,” she said. “From earlier, at Janus. Fran. You remember?”
“Yeah...” I mumbled, unable to hide my surprise. I was just opening my mouth to ask her what the hell she was doing here when she interrupted me.
“Sorry,” she said. “I’m a friend of Nigel’s – he texted me your address. I need to see him.”
“Oh...” I muttered, suddenly realising that I was standing in front of a complete stranger wearing nothing but a towel. “I guess you better come in then... he’s in there,” I said, pointing towards the living room. “I need to get dressed...”
I sped up the stairs as she walked into the living room. This was all getting very weird, and I felt an urgency to get back downstairs so they weren’t alone. I hurriedly dressed myself and walked back down.
Should I knock? I thought as I hesitated outside the door. They could be having a private conversation.
After debating with myself I stepped inside, but they weren’t there. I cast my eyes around the room and quickly realised that the door to the spare room was open. I walked up to it and heard a gentle sigh on the other side.
When I saw them squirming against each other on the bed, with their hands exploring and their lips joined, I could only stare in horror. Nigel looked at me and smiled. It was a knowing smile, it was conniving, and told me he knew exactly what he was doing.
He had planned all of this. All those words he had said to me, and all the kindness, was part of a plan which led to this moment.
I slammed the door shut, and sat myself down on the couch. Nigel groaned loudly, making sure I could hear that he was having sex with a stranger in my friend’s house. Enjoying the humiliation it caused me.
They carried on throughout the night as I sat there on the couch. Inside I was screaming. I didn’t make a sound. I wanted to disappear.
Eventually it stopped. There was silence. I sat there. I didn’t move. Nigel might hear me. I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of knowing I was still there.
I saw something in the corner of my eye.
At first I ignored it. It must be the pills, I thought. Maybe I am just dreaming. Please can this be a nightmare?
It stayed there, no matter what I thought. I stared straight at it. It was a girl. Standing by the window. Her outline was translucent and glowing faint blue. She had a haunted look in her eyes.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
“I am like you,” she said, softly.
“Like me?” I muttered. I shook my head violently to try to dispel the illusion, but she was still there.
“We are all like you...” a second voice whispered.
I jumped at the sound. There was another girl beside me, on the couch. She was skinny and her bones clung to her skin. I couldn’t see her face because she was leant forward. She was beset with the same ghostly hue as the other girl.
“We know him.”
A third voice. Another girl huddled in the shadows in the corner of the room. She was petite – couldn’t be older then sixteen – and clad in black. I could barely see her cadaverous eyes between the lank strands of her ebony hair.
“What’s going on?” I gasped. I was trembling with fear but too scared to move.
“We are the shadows which follow him,” said the one standing by the window. “And we all have our stories.”
Stacy’s Story
I once had a happy life. We lived on a nice estate on the suburbs, and my father was in the Navy. One day he sailed away and never came back. My mother said he had docked his ship into a more desirable harbour.
She changed after that day. Slowly, but surely. Her voice became a haughty rasp of bitterness, and sometimes she would go into a helpless rage and beat me. The first few times she did it she woke me up the next day with a bar of chocolate and a teary, regretful apology. Over time this became less frequent. The beatings increased.
At school I was the girl who ate my lunches in the toilet and spent my breaks in the library. I was humiliated daily, and when my mother noticed bruises on my body which were not hers, she beat me for refusing to tell her where they came from.
I met a man on the internet. He was older, but kind and gentle. He made me feel special. Wanted. I poured my heart and soul out to him. In a life of despair he brought a glimmer of hope. Nobody could hurt me anymore because I would just close my eyes and think of him. He told me we would meet in the flesh and run away together. That he would do anything for me. And I believed him.
One day I came home, and it was one of those rare occasions my mother was in a good mood. She was actually smiling. With a glimmer of light in her eyes, she told me about someone special in her life she wanted me to meet.
The moment he walked into the room, there was no mistaking that it was him; I looked at pictures of that face every day. I even had a print out of one of them in my purse. I stood there in shock, not believing my eyes. I wanted to scream.
My mother placed an arm around his shoulders and scorned me for being rude to her new boyfriend. I was forced to compose myself, and shake his hand. He smiled.
From that day he was always in the house. At night I used to have to bite my pillow to stop myself from screaming when I heard them making love in the room next door.
Once, when my mother was away, I heard my door creak open in the middle of the night. I looked up to see him in my doorway with a mischievous look in his eyes, and a smile on his face which I hadn’t seen for weeks. The smile I used to believe belonged only to me.
He said he was sorry.
That he loved me.
I knew deep down that it was a load of crap, but when you have nothing to live for you will settle for a fleeting moment of happiness – even if it is false.
I slept that night in his arms and for the first time in weeks I was smiling. But when I woke in the morning there was a space next to me which was cold and empty. I never saw him again after that, but one day my mother received a letter in the post. After reading it she screamed and dropped it to the floor.
She ran at me with a knife.
Steph’s Story
I ran away from home when I was sixteen because my stepfather abused me. To survive I became a whore, a beggar. Anything that meant I would never have to go back to that place.
One day a man offered me a warm bed for the night and a meal. It was winter and I was freezing – how could I turn that down?
The first time we had sex I thought it was just part of the deal: I was used to letting men utilise my body in exchange for creature comforts. But there was something different about this. It wasn’t the usual mechanical thrusts from a glassy-eyed man staring guiltily at the sky that I was used to experiencing. He was kissing me. Looking at me, rather than through me. Making love to me.
After staying there for a few days he said that he loved me and wanted to help me.
My life had meaning again. I stayed in his flat and, a few weeks later, I got myself a job. It was only temporary, in a supermarket to help with the holiday season, but it was the first time I felt like I was worth something and I was so happy. I raced back to the flat to tell him, only to find he wasn’t there and everything was gone: the TV and furniture, his clothes, his possessions. I was baffled, confused. God spare me: I was even worried about him.
At first I was in denial to the truth that was all around me. He had not left me. He loved me. He would be back soon. There would be a perfectly good explanation for all this.
I stayed there for two days and eventually a man burst in through the door, claiming to be the landlord. He accused me of squatting and threw me out onto the streets.
“Nigel Harris doesn’t live here anymore!” he screamed. “He left weeks ago!”
I am no
t quite sure what happened to me after that. I just wandered the streets, unaware of where I was going. Not caring. I wanted to die.
Jenka’s Story
I didn’t grow up in a troubled family. I don’t have a story of abuse which compares to those two girls. I was just the weird girl in school that no one liked. People confused me. I felt alien. Depressed. Insecure. Lonely. Outcast. Lost.
I used to slice open my skin to reach into that place where I felt hollow, and every time I would wish I had the guts to push down harder. Make my wrists run red rivers and gush the light out of me.
I met him at Janus, and he filled that void inside me. He told me that the mere sight of me brought butterflies to his stomach. When he saw my scars it didn’t scare him away – he said he wanted to help me.
I gave my virginity to him. He devoured my body and cast me aside. He would ignore me for days at a time, but always come back for more eventually. He would say anything to get me back: that he was sorry, that he got scared, that it was only because he liked me so much and he didn’t know how to handle it. But it was only so he could hurt me again.
And each time, I believed him. Each time, he would take another piece of my soul and then pretend I didn’t exist, until he wanted more.
Until he vanished completely.
That night, I cut down harder.
“This is the beginning of your story,” Stacy said. “Can’t you see, Elaine? He wants to hurt us. He enjoys it. All those nice things he did and said to you tonight were just leading towards that,” she turned her eyes to the door of the room where he had sex with that girl.
“But why?” I whispered. “Why would someone want to do this? You’re all dead! How could he do that?”
Jenka shook her head. “There’s no reason for it, Elaine. Some people are just sick. Sick in the mind and soul, and sometimes there is no cure for them. It is just the way they are.”
“It is time to end this,” Stacy said, as she lifted herself from the floor and floated towards the doorway. Jenka and Steph followed her. “Come, Elaine,” she implored, turning around to face me. “You need to be here.”
I silently got up and followed them towards the bedroom. They opened the door and I saw him lying there on the bed next to Fran. I narrowed my eyes. Could it really be that he did all those things to these girls? That all of the things he did to us where just schemes to cause us pain?
He was sleeping so soundly. He looked satisfied and at peace.
“Wake up, Nigel,” Stacey said.
“Nigel!” Steph cooed.
He stirred from sleep and slowly opened his eyes. For a moment he just looked around the room in a dream-like haze. But when his eyes cleared and his mind began to gain clarity, his face twisted in horror.
“What!” he gasped, shifting, turning his head to stare at each of us in turn. “What’s going on?”
“We are really here, Nigel,” Jenka whispered, leaning over the bed and smiling at him menacingly.
“We never really left you,” Stacy whispered.
“No!” his hands went to his face and he rubbed his eyes. He looked up again. They were still there. “This isn’t—”
“It’s really happening,” Steph interrupted him, floating to his side and placing a hand on his shoulder.
The other two girls closed in on him – he was surrounded. He tried to get out of the bed and run but their glowing hands pushed him down.
Suddenly, the figure next to him floated out from the bed sheets and I gasped when I realised it was Fran. She was translucent and ghostly, now. Just like the other girls.
“I am Francesca,” she said, looking at me. “And I am his girlfriend.”
I turned my eyes to the floor. There was me thinking that I was the victim of all of this but it turns out that I was the woman on the side.
He had played us so well.
“My story is not important,” she spat, shaking her head. “We are all one story. His story.”
He opened his mouth to say something.
“Shut up!” she snarled. “This is ending right here, Nigel! Right now!”
“It will!” he groaned, with desperation in his eyes. His gaze fluttered between the ghostly apparitions around him.
“Your crimes must be dealt with,” Jenka said flatly. “We cannot let you do this anymore.”
“It is time to end this,” Steph concluded, nodding her head.
“It will!” Nigel whimpered.
“Death is not enough punishment for him,” Stacy said, turning to the other girls.
“He needs to suffer.”
“We need your help, Elaine,” Steph finished.
The four of them turned to me expectantly.
“Me?” I gasped.
“We need your permission,” they said in unison.
“Why?”
“It’s just how it works,” Fran said, simply, shrugging her shoulders. “We can’t do this unless you say yes.”
This must be a dream... I thought to myself.
But I knew by now it wasn’t.
I looked at Nigel. He was now cowering in fear. He looked so pathetic now I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
But then I looked back at the other girls and remembered their stories and all the things he had done to them. The calculated and perverse pleasure he got out of their suffering. Did such a person really deserve to live?
“I am Elaine,” I said, my voice shaking in cold anger. He looked me in the eyes. Imploring me.
“I am the last girl you ever fucked with.”
A look of joy crossed the girl’s faces and they smiled. They all turned back to him while Fran reached into a bag on the floor and retrieved a shining blade.
“We will be together forever, Nigel,” Jenka whispered as she and the other girls straddled him. He tried to push them away but his hands just slid through their transparent figures. The girls began to giggle.
“And forever together.”
I closed my eyes. I did not want to watch this.
“It hurts, but only for a moment. Then all the pain is gone.”
“It will be over soon, Nigel.”
“You will be with us forever.”
A scream. His scream. The scream of a man. I did not know a grown man could scream like that.
The four of them started giggling again.
“Just like you always said to us.”
Another scream.
“Come with us, Nigel.”
The screaming softened to a passive wail.
“We will be together now.”
The girlish laughter reached a heavy climax.
“Together forever.”
“Just like you always said to us.”
The laughter suddenly died out and all I could hear was silence. Eventually I dared myself to open my eyes and his bloody remains were spread across the bed. A knife was protruding from his chest. The girls had vanished.
Charlene was racing down the stairs.
5
Shadow Sisters
This tale begins with a dream.
I lay back with my limbs stretched out on a bed of grass. A gust of wind blew the reeds and they swayed before my eyes and tickled my face.
I sat up and saw there was an endless landscape of green hills around me, and the sky was a welkin of bleary, merging colours.
“Where is the sun?” I whispered, realising I could not see the source of light which lit up this world. A dim haze seemed to exist everywhere. I did not know where I was or how I had got to this place
There was a girl beside me. She was a slight figure with black hair and a bird-like face of small features, a pointed nose, and azure blue shimmering eyes. “You are searching for the source?” she asked, looking at the heavens. “If you want to find the source, you must first find their place.”
She circled a finger around us. There were animals grazing. Plump sheep with woolly coats and cattle with their heads buried in the grass as they devoured the vegetation. Some of them were m
ore outlandish species that I could not distinguish and their forms flickered like candlelight in the wind as I tried to decipher what they were.
“Discover their purpose,” she challenged.
“That is no problem,” I said. I reached into the fold of my dress and pulled out a flute. It was carved from wood and of simple design. When I held it to my lips and began to play, aureoles of blue and orange rippled around me as my song filled the sky. The heads of animals perked up and they fixed their eyes on me as I skipped along the hillside, twirling a spiral dance around the meadow.
“I have rounded them up,” I said, appearing before the girl with a trail of animals behind me. “Where do you want them?”
She shook her head.
“The task wasn’t to lead them,” she said. “It was to guide them to their purpose.”
“What’s their purpose?”
“That’s not for you to know,” she said. Her eyes became angry and she snatched the flute from my hands and dangled it in front of my face. “You should be more worried about your own instrument.”
“My instrument?”
She smiled, brought the flute to her lips, and blew a breath into the wooden tube. A piercing shrill swept across the air and tingling sensations crept through my body, making me quiver. I looked down, realising that her song was causing a burning desire between my legs.
I gasped. She blew harder, and my hands went to my crotch as I became horribly self-conscious of the strange effect her song was having on me. I looked up at her, begging her for mercy.
She smiled and carried on playing.
I woke up that morning with a sharp intake of breath and wetness between my legs. My eyes opened wide at the revelation that it was all a dream.
Funny how you only ever realise how bizarre dreams are after you wake up.
With a heavy sigh I pulled my hand out of my knickers and rested my head back on the pillow.