Hydra

by Matt Wesolowski

  —Yeah they were, but neither of them even spoke to me. It was like something had changed.

  —Did you not ask about what happened?

  —I wanted to ask them, of course. But I have to admit I was scared. I was too fucking scared.

  You know for years after that, for years, whenever I heard a car late at night I used to wake up terrified. To this day I close all the windows at night.

  And that’s why I never got in touch, why I never tried to find her again after that. I was just … scared.

  And when I heard what she did to her family, you know what I thought? This is going to sound insane, but you know what I thought?

  I thought that something must have come back with her.

  It sounds crazy but I thought they must have gone there … wherever ‘there’ was … and something came back with them. But maybe that was a defence mechanism, maybe that’s what I wished had happened…

  Frustratingly, this is as clear as Angel gets. She has no idea what the engine she heard outside was. And she doesn’t even know for sure whether Arla or Anthony or both performed the ritual.

  What Angel does explain to me, however, is that she’s sure something bad happened to both Arla and Anthony that night and she is in some way culpable. And this clear sense of guilt makes me think that there is some finer detail she is neglecting to reveal – something she cannot bring herself to tell me.

  I know by now, though, that Angel will only tell me what she wants to. She’s told me a lot but she’s also left a great deal of spaces between the lines.

  There are, therefore, several questions that have emerged from my discussion with Angel – questions I was not expecting to ask.

  What happened to Arla and Anthony that night?

  Did they perform the Hooded Man Ritual, and if so, did it work?

  Was there something else that Angel is, perhaps, not telling me about? Something to do with her snitching to Kyle? Some reason she felt so bad about that car pulling up; something that made her so scared?

  What does any of this have to do with what Arla did to her family all those years later?

  Angel asks me politely if we can finish and when I look at my phone, I see, as well as several new text-message notifications, that we have been talking for hours. I’d be lying if I were to say I’m not a little unnerved, especially as a ghoulishly timed black cab races past, spraying up rainwater onto the salon’s front window. However, I cannot leave without asking Angel a further question.

  —Angel, in your opinion, why did Arla do what she did to her family in 2014?

  —Man, that’s asking, isn’t it? That’s the big-money question. Believe me, it’s something that I’ve asked myself a few times. Did I have any effect on her? Was there something I could have done or not done back then? But then I think about it, man, and I’m, like, if Arla was gonna do it, she was gonna do it, regardless, right? Like, this is no butterfly-effect shit.

  —Do you have a theory?

  —Man, it’s hard, you know? Because I didn’t even know her well, you know? Me and her were so fleeting … so brief…

  What I do know is a couple of things: that her parents were strict. Like, as far as she told me, they weren’t crazy – like, they didn’t beat her or nothing like that. I mean, she said her mum slapped her, but what’s that? What’s a slap? Plenty of kids get worse than that and don’t kill their family, right?

  And they were into religion, like Catholic or something. But each to their own beliefs, yeah?

  But, I dunno man. Like, it’s easy to look back and say there were signs, you know? There’s always things that get missed. But with Arla there wasn’t. I don’t know if she was even – what would you say these days? – like, mentally unstable? She was just looking for a way to escape this world. She was just looking for a way out.

  Or maybe something did come back with her from those other places she tried so desperately to go to? Maybe she did go there and something came back? Or maybe the real Arla never came back at all? Maybe she lost herself there. I don’t know, man. I just wish I could have done something different.

  I want to comfort Angel, some instinct in me wants to reach out to her, to tell her she’s safe, that it’ll be OK.

  Angel looks up at me. There’s a brief flicker of fear before she disappears beneath her hood and backs away into the shadows for the last time.

  —That’s enough now. That’s enough for me, yeah? You promise you’ll protect my identity, yeah? You swear?

  —Of course I will Angel, what…?

  —OK, bye now. Bye. I’ll let you out. Don’t call me…

  We will, I assure you, find out more about the night when Arla and Anthony were planning to play the Hooded Man Ritual. We’ll also uncover a few more nuances surrounding the Macleod Massacre. Then, of course, you’ll be able to start connecting these frail endings – weave these frayed edges together to create a semblance of what was going on inside Arla Macleod.

  This has been Six Stories.

  This has been our fourth.

  Until next time…

  TorrentWraith – Audio (Music & Sounds)

  Type Name

  Audio Arla Macleod Rec005 [320KBPS]

  Uploaded 2 weeks ago, Size 53.6 MiB. ULed by JBazzzzz666

  The new meds are … I don’t know…

  I don’t know if they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Like, yeah, I’m not seeing things as much when I’m awake – shadows in the corners, eyes in the dark. But when I sleep…

  Do you remember when your son was little? Did he have nightmares – monsters that only you could get rid of? I’m a grown-up and I still get monsters at night. Even with the new meds. Does that mean they’ll never go away? What hope is there left for me, then?

  I can hear them crying. And when I sleep, oh when I sleep, they all come trickling out of the cracks, out of the folds in my brain. In fact, I’d be dreading going to sleep if I wasn’t so tired all the time. Sleep’s like a marsh, a muddy bog that sucks at my feet. My life’s like walking through this endless swamp.

  I sleep where I fall, let the mud and the water close over me. I don’t want to but I love it, it’s like a hug.

  Then I dream.

  Last night it were that house again – me and Anthony looking over at that little house on the cliff top, in the middle of the field. We’re side by side, passing a fag back and forth.

  I’m a crow again. I’m a big, scraggly old carrion crow. Anthony’s gone. I can feel my beak poking out of my face, can feel the tick-tick of my eyes as I stare round this human world. I can smell meat – old wiry meat on old bones. I can feel the fence post beneath my claws, my three toes, scaly like the feet of some dragon, some monster. Imagine that, though, if you’ve never seen birds before and you look at their feet. Scary as.

  I’m sat on that post and it’s suddenly dusk. Night’s fallen and the long grass – the green, unripe corn or whatever it is – it’s not moving. Anthony’s gone and I can smell … I can smell the wind. It’s sweet, carrying the traces of the wild flowers and the hedgerows. I can hear the evensong of nature – the rustlings and fussing of creatures in their beds; the hum of hungry mouths from concealed nests.

  Anthony’s gone.

  All of this passes me by cos there’s something else. My crow eyes flick and catch something.

  Three of them. All holding hands and stood outside the front door of the little house. It’s like something from a story book – some image from a long-forgotten story – and I ruffle my crow feathers. The windows of the little house are dark – curtains pulled, no lights, no music thumping. I wonder if Anthony’s in there.

  They’re waiting, still and silent as the hunting animals; the silence before the spring of a cat; the stillness before the rush of an owl. All ending with claws and beaks and blood and teeth.

  I want to cry out, to caw, to croak my rusted song across these skies – the ruffled purple clouds like furrows on a frown. I want to rise up, clatter my wings in wa
rning. That poor little house, those closed curtains. I want to say no, I want to say, Beware, beware! My beak, though, it’s all gummed up, all dry and sticky and it hangs heavy. My wings feel a sudden weight, heavy and hanging from me in a sodden coat.

  I know they’re waiting for their moment, those three black-eyed ones – their eyes like mine: birds’ eyes, carrion eyes.

  There’ll be a signal, there’ll be a call. And I know who it’ll be from. It’ll be from one of them, from somewhere deep inside them. Pale, flawless skin on the outside, but inside, horrible keening mouths, like little birds reaching from a nest. That’s what it’s like inside them; that’s what it’s like inside – all mouth, all desperate hunger.

  When the time’s right, they’ll open their mouths and they’ll cry, they’ll wail and all the sorrow of the world will come spilling out of them like blood.

  If Anthony’s in that house he’s fucked … he’s dead.

  Even if he’s hiding, the black-eyed ones know it and that’s why they do it. That’s why they make that noise, that cry.

  There’s no escape for him in that little house.

  I know because I’m the crow – feathers and feet and scales and beak. The smell of blood, blood, blood. It’s all me.

  Yeah. That was the dream. Does that count?

  I remember when we last had a meeting, in your office, you said that the more I recorded this, the more we’d be able to find out the triggers. And I wonder … I wonder if you’re any closer? I’m just wondering – and I know it’s brand-new techniques and that, and you’ll say it’s too early to tell and all that – but … but I just … I’m scared. I’m scared of next time I go to sleep that I’ll see the next bit. I’ll see what happens next.

  That door will open and they’ll let them in. It’ll be all lit up inside like there’s a fire and they’ll be let in.

  Maybe that’s what happened back then. Maybe that’s what the dream’s trying to tell me?

  I’m scared I’ve started something I can’t stop. A runaway train. That’s what Mam used to call me sometimes – a runaway train. ‘Arla!’ she used to say. ‘You come in here like a runaway train.’

  I remember that because it was the time I’d won best effort in swimming. I had a sticker and certificate – a proper one with that gold stuff on it – and I came in to show her, and that’s what she said.

  A runaway train.

  I’d rather dream about the dancing boys than them. The dancing boys in their thud and pulse of light. I remember that so deep, so hard. If I close my eyes I can see it, feel it again and again. The taste of cigarettes and … and what was it they used to mix with the vodka? Coke or Pepsi, one of those. I once drank a can of that when I was twenty. I just picked one up when I was in the shop. I felt the little warning flash through me but I ignored it. She wasn’t there, but I could hear Mam sighing and muttering, ‘You don’t think do you, Arla, you just do.’

  I remember that tight feeling in my chest, when I used to choose sweets on the way home from school on a Friday. Her sigh when I took too long and how much it mattered, how much it really fucking mattered if I got a white mouse or a bon-bon, and how she used to harp on at me afterwards. How it had made her look daft in the shop cos there was a queue behind us. How it never mattered in the end whether it was a white mouse or a bon-bon cos they both tasted like chalk. I could feel her eyes on me when I was eating it later.

  ‘Alice doesn’t even like sweets.’

  A paper bag in the bin, sad face of a white mouse poking out.

  The taste of chalk and guilt.

  So I bought that can of Coke and I was sick, all down myself. I washed my clothes myself so Mam wouldn’t see.

  When the dancing boys were there they watched me too. When I was on the other meds and the dancing boys came, they watched and there was no scowl, just the smoke from their cigarettes and their teeth flashing in the pulsing light. They watched me when I danced and they nodded and they nudged and they never told me to hurry up or told me that I made them look daft. They said keep going, that I was beautiful.

  The taste of tongues, of cigarettes, of Coke and vodka.

  I’m frightened if I go to sleep again that that’s what I’ll see – the black-eyed kids being let in, disappearing into that house, where there’s music and cigarettes and tongues and hurting. I’m frightened that that’s their world and that I’ll be taken back there too.

  Episode 5: Empty

  —We were on the beach.

  Stupid really. Me, that is. So stupid. How on earth had I not worked it out till then?

  It was evening, late afternoon. All the cliffs were way above us and we were walking back towards the hotel. It wasn’t that hot anymore, just nice, calm. You could smell the sea. There was loads of families still playing on the sand. Dads and little lads building up the defences for their sandcastles. The smell of salt and sun cream, the tide encroaching further and further up the beach.

  We were by the caves though, far away from all of that.

  I could hear the others sniggering, and I sniggered too, as you do. Like you do when you’re joining in. It didn’t matter what we were sniggering about, did it? We were just happy under that dappled sky with the harshness of the sun all but gone.

  I was thinking about her, that girl. I don’t even know how we’d done it, but we had. Talked to them I mean. The girls. Those local girls. There was probably nothing else for the people who lived round here to do anyway save to talk to the likes of us at a bus stop.

  There was only three of them. Those girls. All older than us. We thought we were playing them against each other but they had their pick. They knew it too.

  Why did I even…?

  Why did I even think I had a chance?

  Oh fuck. Sometimes, I wake myself up at night cringing at this, you know? That cringe has got harder as I’ve got older, if anything.

  She was called Anna, that girl. I remember that. I remember her name. She wasn’t ugly or anything, I just didn’t have any attraction to her. I guess she wasn’t my type. But back then, I didn’t even have a type. Anna was the only one the others weren’t sniffing around and that made her mine. It didn’t matter anyway cos she was actually talking to me. Me. I think I was talking back as well, like a real proper person, like a fully functional human being. Nothing interesting, just chat, you know. The sort of chat when you’re sixteen and you’re hanging about a bus stop in fuck-knows-where-ville on the south coast. I remember there being palm trees everywhere, and it didn’t matter what she looked like because this was a holiday – this might even be a holiday romance. Suddenly all the songs, all the records that my dad played me, all of it started to make sense.

  And Anna was pretty. I mean, it might be rose-tinted glasses and stuff, but she was. I thought things had finally changed for me.

  Like I say, I was stupid.

  So we were on the beach, beside the caves, sniggering, and I remember holding my tongue before I said something stupid about how happy I was. I nearly blurted out that I’d never had friends like this before and how we could all meet up again here one day, like, when we were older. Like in that song.

  I’m so fucking glad I never said any of that. Imagine. That sort of cringe would never ever go away.

  I remember all three of them, but the one who sticks in my mind the most was Jack. An apt name. I often wonder what he’s doing now. For me, he’ll be perpetually fifteen – tanned, hairy legs, tight blonde curls and a round face, straight out of the Hardy Boys.

  I remember how he looked at me, out of the corners of his eyes, turning from the others.

  ‘Which one did you like?’ he said.

  I remember his voice was reasonable, sincere, and his face betrayed nothing. He said it again: ‘Which one did you like then?’ And I could read nothing in those eyes of his.

  The others – Kyle and Greg – were scuffing sand at each other.

  ‘Anna,’ I said.

  This was it, this was talking about girls with other l
ads. This was finally what’s supposed to happen.

  ‘Anna, eh?’ Jack said and his smile widened. I remember thinking, what did he have that I didn’t? He still looked like a little boy, apart from his hairy legs, that is. Did girls like hairy legs?

  Jack turned back to the others and we were starting to move now, sloping off towards the cliff path that led up back to the hotel. Kyle and Greg were gobbing up in the air, letting them fall like bird droppings, trying to shove each other underneath. The sea was whispering in the background and I could feel this sudden uncertainty come over me. I remember suddenly being aware of my clothes, how my jeans clung to my arse cheeks, how my belly pushed at the bottom of my T-shirt. How my belt buckle pressed against it. I became aware of a layer of sweat under my black beanie hat. Why the fuck was I wearing a beanie hat when it was hot? Why was I wearing a hoodie as well? It all hit me right then.

  I looked around and Greg was doing something with his trousers. He was wearing jeans too – these skinny ones – and he had them pulled up over his stomach.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Greg was saying.

  Greg, the quiet one with the sandy hair and that smell of aftershave or cologne, the T-shirt that clung to his arms, showing off his muscles. Greg who’d been the only one to kiss one of the girls, who had sat with his arm around Kirsten, like they’d been together forever. Greg was waddling around with his jeans pulled up. Jack and Kyle were laughing now, really laughing.

  I felt everything begin to slide.

  I tried to laugh and nothing came out. Just air, like a cough. My mouth was really, really dry and I was suddenly aware of my whole body. I could feel my flesh hanging off my bones. I remember praying – praying – that Greg wasn’t doing an impression of me.