When I tried to ease it gently from her grasp, she murmured and held it fast.
“Crap.” The moths were still there, under the light. They mocked me, orbiting my head like sparks of failure. “Get her out of here, put her on the sofa or something.” Wide-eyed, Tari carefully scooped up her daughter, duvet and all. I drew a breath and swallowed.
Crouched down.
This is Rob. He married your best mate. You threw confetti at their wedding. You snogged him at a party once and were coiled in shame for days. You were there to greet him when he brought home his daughter. There’s nothing to fear.
Sick to my stomach, I steeled myself to look into his sucked-empty face.
He didn’t move.
But… Jesus…
His skin was fissured like sunbaked soil. His lips were shrivelled and dry; they fluttered faintly, flakes of skin shivering as though he was trying to form words. Determined, I rocked forwards to take a closer look, to assure myself I wasn’t dreaming, that this really was the man I’d known for the last ten years.
The lights that were moving in his eyes were not the child’s moths.
There was something in there.
Then a shriek from downstairs nearly stopped my heart for good.
In the front room, Tari was standing stock-still in the centre of the rug as if rats had surrounded her. On the couch, Lyn was muttering, one hand twitching as if she fought something, or tried to push something away. The other held her doll to her chest.
Tari pointed, wordless and terrified – but I’d already stopped., my mind screaming somewhere between denial and incomprehension.
I can’t be seeing this – I can’t be seeing this!
The little girl’s nightdress had pulled down over one of her pale shoulders and in her skin there was a tattoo – an angular and chaotic design of raw, hard colour, bright and savage. While my mind told me, stupidly, that there was no way Tari and Rob had inked their six-year-old, my eyes could see the colours in her skin.
And they were moving, nonsensical and crazed, a harsh pattern of light and warfare that I had no way to even grasp.
There was a fight being raged on – in? – the girl’s little body, a screaming tumble of advancing lines and fractal detonations, explosions of shards and flesh and armour that were rippling across her shoulders, up the sides of her little neck and into her face. Her skin was a screen, alight with a war from another world.
If this was a nightmare, then it was alive.
It was the same thing I’d seen in Rob’s blank eyes.
Tari was hands over her mouth, muttering ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God’ as though she could do nothing else. And I stood there, dumb, numb and baffled, while the colours grew swifter and more ferocious, while a silent, screaming rage of multi-coloured conflict glared from the little girl’s skin.
What the hell is this?
My head was pounding, my hands shaking, my mouth as dry as hopelessness. I had no idea what was happening, never mind how to fix it.
This is insane!
Tari’s hands covered her face. She slid down the wall and started sobbing. “Please,” she said, “Make it stop, make it go away.”
Then, as suddenly as it begun, it was gone.
Dark.
Calm.
The raging in the little girl’s skin had snapped out of existence as through someone had thrown a switch. The room was dark, quiet but for Tari’s sobs. As I stood there, fighting an urge to knot my hands in my hair and shriek confusion, Lyn gave a deep sigh, cuddled her toy to her, and was asleep in a bundle of sparkly-pink, her little face all childhood peace.
Tari was crying, hope beyond despair. “Kate! What did you do? Is she okay--?”
“I’ve got no bloody idea.”
Little Lyn was a picture of innocence, sleeping in front of me. In the space of a split-second, she’d gone from hell-spawn to cherub and I was trembling with tension.
Distrust.
Tari crawled to her sleeping daughter on her hands and knees, stroked her little face, held her hand. “But you must’ve done something?”
Her question was a plea. Tell me you did something!
Robbed of breath, of anything resembling understanding, I could find nothing to comfort either of us. I stared at the little girl, sleeping contentedly, as though the whole damned thing had been in my head.
Had it been in my--?
No. Lyn’s nightdress was tugged down over her shoulder and the tattoo – whatever it was – had gone, her skin was soft and clean. But I’d seen it, I’d seen her nightmare made manifest.
The savage battle living in her skin.
Outside, a car’s headlights shone briefly against the closed curtains and then turned away. The world was still out there; life went on. Time stumbled into motion.
“Okay.” I heard the creak of my own voice. “Okay.” My thoughts coughed and stuttered; I fought to focus. I had to get ahead of this, work out what the hell was going on. “Tari – are you okay to stay here by yourself for ten minutes while I shoot home?” When she didn’t reply, I turned to look at her, stroking her daughter’s hair back from her little face. “Tari. Stay with me.”
She looked up at me, expression torn by hope and dread. “Yes,” she said faintly. “Yes. Ten minutes. You’ve got your key? I’ll just stay right here. Please…” her voice caught “…please, Katy-Kat, don’t be long.”
I knew I shouldn’t have left her, but I went anyway.
When I came back, the house was quiet. In the front room, Lyn was awake, sitting watching a DVD as though nothing had happened. She was nestled in a fleece blanket and still cuddling the odd grey doll.
There was no sign of her mother.
“Aunty Katy, can I have some squash?”
“It’s very late, darling, you can have milk.” The answer was automatic. I pushed open the kitchen door, then looked into the study.
No Tari.
What?
My skin crawled, crackled and froze.
“Lyn?” My voice struggled for calm. “Where’s your Mum?”
Her answer was absolute innocence. “I don’t know.”
Oh, Jesus. On the drive home, I’d just about managed to convince myself that this was all in my head. Now, it was more real than ever; it was laughing, harsh and cold and utterly bloody insane.
I don’t know.
Where the hell was Tari? There was no way she’d have left Lyn’s side.
My words seemed to come from someone else. “Stay there, darling, I’ll get your milk in a second.”
Fighting nausea, my skin alive with the chill softness of moth-feet and my hand hitting every bloody light on the way, I took the stairs three at a time. I checked the upstairs rooms; took a long, steadying breath before opening the door to Lyn’s bedroom…
Her slumped, sucked-dry father had also gone. Gone. Other than myself and Lyn, the house was empty…
At least, I bloody-well hoped so.
Oh, my fucking God.
In the room, the soft ghosts of the moths were still circling endlessly, wisps of forgotten nightmare.
Don’t tell me he got up?
For a timeless moment, I stood there terrified, staring at the space where Rob had been. Where the hell was he? Was he loose in the house? Hiding? Had Tari – maybe she’d taken him to the hospital? No, the car was still in the drive.
The radiators juddered as the heating kicked in and the flash of terror nearly made me fold.
Where the hell had he gone?
Explanations circled like the moths, crazed and endless, zig-zag loops around the light. I felt like I was grabbing for them, helpless. I had no answer – I only knew that I couldn’t leave Lyn.
Lyn!
One wing-beat too close and a moth was in my hand; images of crushed fragments floating to the carpet.
Something about the lights in her skin?
Whatever had happened to Tari and Rob – Jesus, was there anything in here I could use as a weapon? – I had
to stay with the girl.
If there was an answer, it was Lyn that knew it.
When I went back downstairs, the little girl was yawning, cuddling further under her fleece and blinking sleepily at the cartoon on the plasma. Her skin was calm, shadowed. Other than the blue light of the television, the room was in darkness.
Scared to my soul, feeling faintly ludicrous, I picked up the ornamental poker from beside the fire. It was cast-iron, a dead weight in my hand, and cold.
I tried to visualise myself, smashing skull and face into blood and bone. My friends--
A noise in the kitchen made me start, my heart hammering, my hand tightening on the poker’s sharp, metal grip. For a moment, I stood petrified, the stillness at the centre of my own screaming terror.
What was out there?
Was that Rob, dead and parched and cracked and hungry? Was that Tari, corpse or victim or scrabbling for help?
I couldn’t leave Lyn!
But--!
The indecision was timeless, breathless – I felt as though the world were spinning round me, oblivious of the tumult that thundered in my temples, roiled in my throat.
I was going to puke.
Then, in a snap decision that roared silent defiance, I lunged for the hatchway between living room and kitchen. Poker at the ready, I shoved open the doors.
Oh yeah? Come on then!
The kitchen was dark; the only light the LED on the microwave that told me it was 3:29. I stared though the hatch for a moment, was about to turn away when the noise came again, a plastic clattering, back and forth.
For a split-second, my heart screamed in my chest. Something moved, swift and close to the floor.
Shit!
Then Lyn’s little grey cat, creatively called Smoke, blinked at me and meowed for food.
Letting out my breath in a gasp, I swore softly – relief flooding me like warm water. My knees folded. I was staggered, almost laughing – damned beast! The cat was a jittery creature at best and, where there was Smoke, there was unlikely to be fire – or the zombified bloody remains of its family.
My own ghastly pun made me laugh, teetering on the edge of hysteria. Fighting for control, I pulled the hatch shut – didn’t want its open blackness behind me – and turned back to the sofa.
Get a grip, Kate!
“Lyn?”
The little girl was glued to her DVD.
I’d not seen this one before, and I blinked at it, slightly confused – it seemed like an odd choice for the girl who played Princesses. On the screen, bright and raw with colour, there was a great battle, a harsh clamour of detonation, a rage of silver machines.
But Lyn wouldn’t take her eyes from it; she followed its every flicker and flinch, the doll clutched hard to her chest.
I said again, oddly nervous, “Lyn?” She didn’t react. “You should probably turn that off, now, love, it’s very late.”
She muttered sulky refusal and gripped the doll tighter. As I came closer, the plasma-light was shining from its face. It seemed to be looking at me.
Eyes cold as steel; hard as an edge.
Bright as a blade.
The world shrank to a single, sharp focus.
The bloody doll.
A flicker of elation thrilled my nerves; chased the fear right down to my tingling fingertips. Whatever the hell all this was, it had something to do with the doll, the doll and the harsh lights of the cartoon…
The lights in Lyn’s skin.
The lights in Rob’s eyes.
I was shivering now, tension rising, a fusion of terror and realisation. As the little girl yawned and snuggled lower under the duvet, the war-light played across her face. Something in my head screamed at me, ‘Don’t let her go to sleep!’
It was strident, loud as shriek, but it still didn’t quite make sense – not yet. Groping for an elusive, impossible truth, I stood in the centre of the room, iron poker forgotten, bright animation glaring from the television screen.
The doll. The lights. Don’t let her sleep.
What the hell had happened to Rob?
Lyn yawned again; wriggled further down. Her thumb was in her mouth and her eyelids were closing. Her other hand huddled the doll, close as a parasite.
The lights were playing in its face just like they’d played in the girl’s skin; a horrifying familiarity.
I swallowed, hard. Tried to concentrate.
My head was full, full of panic and insight and disbelief and growing certainty. I shook Lyn’s little form, shook her harder. “Lyn? Love? You need to stay awake, now, there’s a good girl. I’ll get you that squash you wanted. Maybe there’re some biscuits, hm? Good girl, wake up now.”
Don’t let her sleep!
Trembling, I lunged for the light-switch, flooding the room and making her blink. Grumpily, she sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her lower lip quivered and her little face started to screw up – but something in me shrank from touching her again.
I held her as a baby, I remember…
I knew I should go and get her food – sugar, anything to keep her up. An answer was growing in me; a rise of energy and fight, but the pieces were not all there, not yet. I knew only that she mustn’t sleep. Whatever dream that damned doll had planted in her head, in her skin, it must not be let loose.
Or it would drag me down, tabula rasa.
The thought made me feel sick.
The idea of the little girl left here on her own, with the doll, made me feel even sicker.
What the hell would happen? There’d be no-one here to care for her. And what if she and her doll and her nightmare got out?
Jesus!
I knew it didn’t make sense, but I didn’t care, I didn’t care. How long could I keep her awake? Today, tomorrow? How long before she started to hallucinate?
And what would that do?
What the hell had she done with her parents?
I desperately needed help but had no clue where to look…
Jesus H Christ and little fucking fish, this is madness!
My phone was in the bag of overnight things I’d brought from home – but who the hell did I call?
I gripped the poker like an anchor for my sanity. I was starting to wish it had been a bloody zombie infestation after all – hell, I’d seen enough movies to know how to cope with that one.
“Stay with me, Lyn, c’mon now.” Sparking my courage, I shook her again. “Sit up now. You can’t sleep, there’s a good girl. Come with me into the kitchen and we’ll find some biscuits.”
If the girl went to sleep, the nightmare would be loosed. I’d up like Rob – brain-wiped and staring, the flickers of lights in my eyes the only hint that I’d ever had life…
Shit!
The thought made me retch; there was a mouthful of sickness and I swallowed bile. I have to get help. I can’t leave her alone! My throat burned with fear.
I rallied, shook her again, started to strip the blanket from her and make her sit up. “Lyn! Come on, now!”
Don’t sleep. C’mon, little one, don’t sleep. Don’t do this to me!
She started crying, fought me to stay under her covers. When I tried to take the doll from her, she gripped it like a lifeline and her face creased round a full-on howl.
The doll…
The damn thing was warm. Not flesh-warm, it was smooth, more like heated metal. Its material reflected the light of the television screen; the battle had gathered in the needles of its sewn-on eyes.
Oh, this was just too fucking much. Annoyed, freaked, I let go of the doll and grabbed the remote. Turned the DVD off.
Right then! Enough!
The film didn’t stop.
Oh, no, no, no, no…
There on the flatscreen, the conflict continued, explosion and fury, flooding the room with harsh angles of rage. Sounds of gunfire and combat clashed in my ears, surely louder than they had been, surreal and all-encompassing. On the screen, there were huge, lumbering animations, grey and shining like the doll in the little
girl’s hands. Their light raced round the room like the headlights of the car that had passed earlier, like the maddened moths upstairs.
And somewhere, I could hear Tari screaming.
The sane part of my mind bawled that this was impossible, ridiculous; I jabbed the button repeatedly as if determination alone could shut the damn thing down – then dropped the remote altogether and slammed the poker into the television’s ‘off’ button.
Nothing happened.
“Stop, damn you, stop! For God’s sake!”
I wasn’t even aware I’d spoken aloud. The room was alive with it now, the figures on the screen were reflecting around the walls, dancing massive, like shadows in firelight. I could hear Tari calling me, “Kate! Kate!” The figures flickered, fought, raged and detonated – the sounds swum for a moment and then snapped sharply into focus.
“Katy-Kat, I’m here!”
The battle was all round me.
I could hear screaming, voice and engine and tortured metal. I could hear orders barked in a harsh, female tone. The machines were close now, grinding and massive, ever more real – almighty versions of the grey doll that Lyn still clutched to her skin.
Lyn!
I remembered where I was, shook the images from my head, fought to breathe, to think, to reach the surface.
On the sofa – yes, there was room, a sofa, a fireplace – the little girl was asleep, her body slumped and her skin blazing with her dreaming, with the fight that now raged around me, around the room. “Lyn!” I was aware that I was screaming at her, my burning throat was full of the noise. Her nightmare was manifest; she shone with brilliant, angular animation. As I touched her, she made my hand tingle with electrostatic shock.
I didn’t care. I shook her harder, was screaming in her face. Fell to my knees beside the sofa, though the room swam round me. “Lyyynnnn!”
The doll’s stitched eyes shone cold.
Lyn didn’t move, was barely breathing. Her skin was alive, a kaleidoscope of motion, some huge tattoo of light that writhed across her body and face, reflected out into the room. She was node and projector, nexus and focus – the screaming colours that pulsed and exploded in her skin were the warfare that now thundered around my ears.
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