Onyx Neon Shorts Presents: Horror Collection - 2015

by Wesolowski, MJ

  That was true enough: Sylvia always wore a black dress and black shoes. She even wore black as a sullen bridesmaid at our wedding. The only actual colour she ever wore was a bright yellow bow in her washed-out blonde hair. It had belonged to her mother. She loves that bow: she would shriek and yell if I took it from her to wash it.

  The figure in her pictures was yellow, too, with the occasional dash of red. The Raggedy Man wore a ragged robe and had a white face with just two black dots for eyes. Sometimes, he stood alone on a sheet of blank paper; at other times, Sylvia would add an expanse of blue to represent the sea or a sort of castle in yellow that she said was his palace. Despite the bright colours she employed, the figure had a sombre, sinister aspect. In that, the figure reminded me of Sylvia herself: she has a sombre countenance and hauntingly-adult eyes that, I admit, I find sinister.

  I’ve tried all sorts of things to distract Sylvia from her art, but nothing works. I’ve tried to get her to draw other things, press flowers, do sports, read books—even watch TV—but nothing works. All she does is draw.

  I’ve got some news for her, though. Cautiously, I climb the stairs. I don’t know why she makes me feel so nervous. It’s silly. She’s just a little girl. I can hear her humming something: Beautiful Dreamer, I think.

  “Sylvia,” I say as I enter her bedroom. She falls silent.

  She doesn’t look up. There’s the slightest twitch of her head. That’s how she acknowledges my presence. She will only look up or speak to me if I really press her.

  “Sylvia, I have something to tell you.”

  She ignores me.

  I repeat myself.

  “What?” She still doesn’t raise her head, and her tone is annoyed.

  “Come sit with me on the bed.”

  “I’m busy.” She is scribbling furiously, colouring in a picture of the Raggedy Man.

  “Sylvia, please, put down your pens for a minute and come sit with me.”

  With a sort of whole-body shrug, she slowly lays down her pencil and stands, steps over to the bed and sits beside me, leaving a twelve-inch gap to prevent intimacy. She sits bolt upright, rigid, hands clasped tightly in her lap, eyes downcast, the image of a Victorian portrait.

  I scoot over to her and slip an arm around her shoulders. Sylvia’s already stiff body somehow manages to stiffen even more at my touch.

  “Sylvia, your Daddy and I are going to have a baby. I’m pregnant, you see, and you’re going to have a little brother or sister. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Somehow, maintaining her stiffness, she shrugs, but still says nothing.

  “Which would you like, darling?” I ask, using my cheeriest voice. “A baby brother or a baby sister?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she tells me in a hoarse whisper. I hate it when she talks like that; it’s a horrible voice, like an old woman’s.

  “Oh, sure it does, Sylvia. I know it will mean some big changes, but I hope you’ll be happy about it.”

  She shakes her head. “No, it doesn’t matter because the Raggedy Man will come to take me away soon.” She pauses for just a moment. “You and Daddy better watch out or he might get you.”

  I can’t help but shiver. “And, will he take us away, too?” I ask.

  Another shake of the head, and she tells me, “No, he’ll just get you.”

  “Okay, that’s enough, young lady. I don’t like you speaking to me like that. You need to respect me and your father. You need to stop this childishness.”

  She stands and pulls away from me. It’s the fastest I’ve ever seen her move. She spins around and thrusts her head out at me. Her eyes blaze from her pallid face, her features a mask of loathing.

  “You’re not my mother, you’re nothing! My mother was a princess, but you, you’re nothing! Soon, I’ll join her and leave this... this… place behind! I hate you! I hate you! Get out of my room and leave me alone! Get out! Get out!”

  I do. I stumble out, tears running down my face, a mixture of anger and fear surging inside me. I stumble down the stairs and wait, shivering, sobbing, for Peter to come home. Above me, Sylvia sits alone in her room, drawing; I can hear the scratching sound of pencils being dragged across paper with great rapidity and force.

  When, finally, Peter arrives home, he refuses to be drawn on his daughter’s behaviour.

  “She’s jealous, that’s all,” he says. “She’s an only child and, suddenly, her step-mum’s pregnant and she worries about the baby getting all the attention. I mean, it’s not as if you and she really get on. She’s Daddy’s Special Girl and she resents you for getting in the way.”

  “I try, Peter. I’ve tried so hard.”

  “I’m not saying you don’t. Maybe, I don’t know, just be patient.” He yawns, and changes the subject. “Right. Now, supper; then, bed.”

  The only reason I don’t throw down his meal and storm off to bed is that I still feel a twinge of irrational fear of going back upstairs, getting closer to her. Suddenly, I realise that I hate the girl.

  In the coming weeks, my belly swells and so does the litany of complaints from the school. Suddenly, Sylvia is no longer the moody little girl who prefers to be an unnoticed shadow. Not any more. Perhaps she’s striking back at bullies; perhaps it’s the hormones of adolescence. Frankly, I don’t care. All I know is that she’s awful.

  “She hit another girl,” Peter says, reading the latest letter from the school. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

  “She’s a vile little girl,” I say.

  Peter looks at me, aghast. “Sally!”

  “It’s true. I know you think of her as your Little Princess and all that nonsense, but you don’t have to put up with her as much as I do. All she does, day in and day out, is scribble those awful pictures. If she deigns to speak to me, it’s bile. I guess she plays up in school because they don’t let her draw all the time.”

  He sniffs. “She’s just artistic, that’s all.”

  “Artistic?” I laugh.

  “Yes. She’s had some very good reports from her art teacher; and, have you seen her pictures? They’re really good. They put me in mind of that artist, oh, you know the guy, did a lot of yellow... Scott...Steve...Steve Scott.”

  It’s my turn to sniff. “He was a lousy artist.”

  “If you say so. Regardless, she’s getting good.”

  “If you say so,” I retort.

  “You’re just emotional because you’re pregnant.”

  My hand falls to my bump. “Oh, yes, it’s all the baby’s fault.”

  “Hey, I’m not saying—”

  “Whatever. I’m going to bed.” I start to stand, then pause, thinking of Sylvia. “No, I’m going to sit outside.”

  “It’s cold outside.”

  “I don’t care!”

  It is cold, but I sit out on the bench on the decking anyway. From above, through the narrow opening of Sylvia’s window, I can hear her humming Beautiful Dreamer again and I wonder just what it is she dreams of: does the Raggedy Man lurk within her dreams?

  There’s a sudden creak, the sound of the gate at the bottom of the garden, and I jump at it. I look up and stare into the shadows, expecting to see something. Am I expecting to the Raggedy Man standing there? There’s nothing, of course, just the gate swinging slightly in the breeze and the branches of the willow swaying. No spooky figure. Why would I think that? Am I going mad? Is Peter right to blame me? To blame the baby?

  I shiver—from the chill, I tell myself—and decide to retreat inside. I wish I knew what to do.

  More time passes and my due date approaches, and Sylvia is suspended after attempting to stab another girl in the eye with a paintbrush.

  “She ripped my picture,” she says, as if that justifies it.

  Peter coos over her and I just don’t have the energy to care anymore.

  “I wash my hands of her,” I mutter. Neither seems to hear me.

  Sylvia retreats to her room to draw. Peter and her art teacher are right about one thing:
she is getting better at her art. I avoid going or lookingin her room now: her portraits of the Raggedy Man seem disturbingly lifelike to me—if a figure in flowing rags and a pale mask can be said to be lifelike. As long as she stays in there, stays away from me and the baby, I can just about tolerate her. At times, I fantasize about leaving Peter, leaving her behind.

  Eventually, the baby arrives. My all-too-brief stay in the hospital is a wonderful respite. Peter doesn’t bring Sylvia.

  We have a nursery ready, but I insist the cot stay in our room for now: I can’t tell Peter, but I don’t trust Sylvia. Might she hurt Lisa?

  She certainly shows no interest in her new sister. Just keeps on drawing, alone, in her room.

  “Don’t you want to see Lisa?” Peter asks.

  “No,” she tells him without looking up.

  The next morning when I open my eyes, it is to see the Raggedy Man standing in our bedroom doorway: Sylvia has recreated him, life-size, across several sheets of paper that she has stuck to the door.

  “I did it for Lisa,” she explains, gaze downcast, but with the slightest twitch of a smile that tells me the scare was deliberate. She wanted to frighten me.

  Peter pats her head, indulgently—a blind fool.

  “He’s nearly here,” Sylvia whispers to me as she leaves.

  Shuddering, I leave as quickly as I can, return to our bedroom and tear down the hideous portrait—rip it to shreds. I fall to the floor sobbing, which wakes Lisa and starts her crying. Peter is downstairs and doesn’t care.

  The next day, Peter leaves on business. Why won’t he listen to me? Why won’t he stay? Why do I stay?

  That night, the bedroom door creaks, rousing me to wakefulness.

  “He’s here,” I hear a hoarse whisper from the doorway.

  I look up to see the silhouette of Sylvia framed in the moonlight. I hear a footstep on the stair. I pray she means her father has returned early, but I know she doesn’t.

  Lifting Lisa from her cot, I hold her close, sobbing, silently praying that He will leave us alone. There is the sound of swishing rags, then a shrill cry, then the house falls silent. Is Sylvia gone? Is He?

  I daren’t look. I daren’t move at all.

  I hardly dare breathe.

  Something Nasty In The Woodshed

  Tracy Fahey

  Ten days after

  Everything in my life falls neatly into two divisions: before and after I saw something nasty in the woodshed. When I look back on it, with gentle nostalgia, before is a bright vista of trips to the beach, pleasant, humdrum dates, a wedding as decorous and pretty as a Rococo picnic. Before evokes visions of a pristine kitchen table, dappled with yellow-green sunlight and neatly laid with folded napkins. Even if there were long days of physical pain, they were filled with love, and soft pillows and hand-holding. After? Well, after is a different story. After is a dull, grey landscape of dreary loneliness, a land of permanently spitting rain, a place of suspicion, a phone off the hook and a doorbell I’ve had to disconnect.

  Before and after. Sometimes I wonder. The web of circumstances that led me to it seems infinitely fragile. The unexpected pain relief that made me decide I was well enough to carry a basket of washing. The silence of the garden, the still air on that beautiful summer day, as I hummed to myself and pegged out clean, damp laundry on the washing line, enjoying the bounce and sway of shirts around me in the light, warm breeze. The angle of my head that showed me that slight, bare flutter of movement in the shed window?

  And I ask myself—what if I hadn’t investigated? What could I have done? Knowing it all now, what should I have done?

  Five days after

  I keep talking about before and after, because, you see, the time between the two states was so short. I had… maybe a few seconds in total of that liminal state, wondering am I going mad? Am I seeing things? I remember how the feel of the old bolt in my hand, shiny and oiled and heavy with danger, and how my fingers curled around it like a claw, trying to pry it open…

  But I’m getting away from the point. When something cataclysmic happens, time works in funny directions. It crawls, then stops dead, then fast-forwards until it slows to a stop again. Sometimes I think I’ve been cloistered in here for weeks, until I realise it’s only days. I play solitaire, both soothed and irritated by the inevitable rhythm, by the pitter-slap of cards on the kitchen table. Minutes, hours pass, till the brightness eases into a more forgiving twilight, and another day is done. Time for my pills. I take them carefully, first the important ones, the methotrexate, the corticosteroid tablet, and finally, my treat, the sleeping pill. I lie down, fully-dressed on my bed, curtains drawn, with only a dull blue finger of light poking through at the corner, and take the pill like Communion on my tongue. I wait for the moment when my muscles melt and my head slurs into a warm, dark blur. This is my favourite bit of the day. The moment when her face disappears into sleep. Her face. Her dirty, bloody, frantic face.

  Six days after

  I put the phone back in its cradle. It still rings, but I don’t bother picking up. My hands are acting up today: my left one has curled up, immobile, and I’m getting shooting pains down my right. Besides, I know it’s only a journalist, or an abusive caller, or even more horrifying, a former friend calling just to check in. ‘Checking in’ is code for trying to ask: ‘Did you ever suspect anything?’ The only person who’s made sense in this whole surreal show is my mother. She rang me on my mobile when she heard. ‘My little girl’ she said, and her voice was so warm and tender I wanted to cry. ‘Thank God he didn’t harm you. Are you feeling alright? Come home and be minded.’ Although I haven’t been home in over a year— home being Donegal, a five hour drive away—I hug my knees to my chest and feel and intense longing for the smoky turf smell of the kitchen and the yapping of the dogs. I can almost smell her sweet, homely smell, a mix of talc and warm hair, as she hugs me, soft and strong all at once. But I’m too infirm to drive, and the ordeal and of public transport is too great for me to manage on my own, never mind the risk of being spotted.

  I’m inside all the time now. I shop online. The bright spring days have vanished in a blanket of fog. Now that I’m on my own I treat myself with great care; I’m fragile like an eggshell. I wrap a shawl round myself to keep warm. I wear gloves. I use my TENS machine to relieve the pain when I need it. I count my medicine bottles carefully. Enough for another few weeks at least. At the moment I don’t even want to see my doctor. I keep quiet, making little noise, curtains drawn against the ring of photographers standing outside. They’re cold and bored. The smoke from their cigarettes percolates in through the cracks in the door sealant. I can hear them talk about me; it’s audible even through the windows.

  “Feck her, she has to come out sometime.”

  “Guilty as sin, that’s why she’s hiding.”

  “Not even a visitor. Wonder why?”

  I hear it all. It hurts a little, but their insults are casual, almost throwaway. I can’t stop thinking of what real people are saying about me. My friends. My neighbours. I picture their expressions, torn between excitement and horror as they discuss my husband in hushed tones.

  He was mine. In the commonplace joy of marriage, he was unique and known truly only to me; and now he’s everybody’s. What was just-him-and-me is now public domain. The papers keep using one photo that they got from someone (a former friend?) which shows him at a barbeque at home. I’ve seen it on the news as a background still, with a grave voiceover. In it, his eyes are squinted up against the sun. He is wearing a stupid apron with a cartoon character dancing across it. In the background, familiar yet impossibly alien in this context, are our deckchairs with those floral tie-on cushions. He looks as he always looked, sandy-haired, polite, and slightly awkward.

  Seven days after

  Today I see her again, this time on TV. Her hair gleaming, but she has the same scars, the same tense, hunched shoulders. She is wearing layers of clothes, a woollen cap, a scarf wound tight as a ball of string o
ver her lower face. She’s standing at her gate, with an older woman, probably her mother, hovering over her. There’s an army of bristling microphones in her face. They’re shouting questions, her mother answers, putting one arm protectively around her daughter. “We’re delighted to have her back. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes. We have nothing to say.” Her face looks drawn and deep-lined, her hair untidy. I imagine it’s been a long time since she even thought about her appearance. They try to push forward, to leave, but the journalists hem them in, still shouting. I can sense the growing agitation of the press pack. This isn’t the spectacular media event they had waited for. Finally one persistent woman manages to jab a microphone in the girl’s face. Her hard, lipsticked mouth shouts, “Did you try to call for help? How did it feel to be rescued?”

  There’s no answer. The girl bows her head under the onslaught.

  She persists “What exactly happened to you when you were in there?” At this final, intrusive question, the girl snaps to life. She straightens up. A red flush crawls up her face.

  “You want to know?” Her voice is muffled by the scarf, but still perfectly audible.

  “The public does. Everyone cares about you. They’re watching you right now.” The interviewer stretches out a hand and grabs her shoulder to position her in front of the waiting camera. That touch, those words are the tipping point.

  The girl’s eyes are alive with rage. She pushes the journalist, hard, until she stumbles and falls, splay-legged and ridiculous on the ground.

  “Fuck you and fuck them! What do you think happened to me? Why the hell do you want to know? If you’d put this kind of energy into finding me, maybe it wouldn’t—” she chokes and stops, a snorting sob erupting, grating and phlegmy, from deep in her chest. The scarf has fallen down to expose bandages over her jaws, her lips. Her face crumples like old newspaper and her mouth opens in a red howl.