She approaches me, staring down at me, featureless, white face tilted to one side, golden, two-tone hair spilling out around the mask. Another figure joins her, a pale man with equally perfect, masculine proportions and wearing a mask with a wildly extended, screaming mouth.
I recognise him too; the smooth, broad chest, that tiny, vertical slit of a belly button, and small, pink nipples. I glimpse his erection and look away in disgust, remembering the last time this man’s body had brought me so much pleasure. Now all it brings me is fear and revulsion.
All the while, the circle of human flesh continues to chant and sway, a terrifying backdrop to this nightmare straight from Hell.
She wakes, comes Holly’s voice, muffled by the mask. I’ll get her medicine.
Yes, Bill says. But let her see more first. He crouches down nest to me, filling my vision and blotting out the horrors unfolding in the centre of the room. He lifts his mask and rests it atop his head, smiling down at me.
I go to speak, to scream for help, but all that comes out is a pitiful groan.
The drugs have numbed you, although, your senses are not impaired, Bill is saying to me. I want to scream and rage at him, but my throat feels thickened, heavy and useless. We want you to remember this dream, Claire. We want you to remember it forever. We – or I – tried the nice way to make you stop spying on us, to make you stop questioning us, but you couldn’t resist, could you? You had to snoop. Blythe snooped, and look where she ended up. She was in love with Mark, too. She was obsessed with him after they fucked a year ago. You didn’t know that, did you? And she’s been stalking him ever since. She might have found out about us, so she became our sacrificial choice. Someone had to do it. Better her than you, right? I can’t believe that you actually thought those texts were from her; some friend you are.
I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, willing myself to either wake up or sink back into oblivion.
I wanted it to be you, comes Holly’s voice.
I open my eyes, aware of her hovering just beyond Bill. My head is swimming, yet this just feels so real.
Yes, she continues, I wanted that so badly, but we can’t continually shit where we eat. We are the illuminati, we are all powerful, but you are just too damn close to my home.
Something is then plastered to my face and a scream escapes my lungs, but it comes out as more a pitiful expulsion of air. She is pressing a damp cloth to my face, I breathe in the head-spinning odour of harsh chemicals – it reminds me of toilet cleaner, white spirit and toothpaste.
I love my husband, Claire, Holly is saying to me, but I can barely hear her above the ringing in my ears. You think you love Mark, but you know nothing of what love is. I know it, and I’m never giving it up. I’m never letting him go. I lost my father, but I will not lose my husband. My father loved Jasper, too, he would want me to bring him back.
Dimly, I am aware of the cloth being removed from my face, and the room with the nightmare-figures tilts and spins around me. Before the blackness swamps me, I see that the circle had disbanded. I see Blythe and Mark lying on the ground, on top of the Satanic symbol.
Mark is on his back, either out cold or dead. No one is paying him any attention.
Blythe has that honour.
The figures swarm Blythe, some standing over her as onlookers, others on their hands and knees, their masks removed. They are sheened in red. In Blythe’s blood.
Their mouths are buried in her flesh, like a pack of dogs feasting on a carcass.
I don’t want to believe what I am seeing.
And then I see nothing when the blackness engulfs me.
FORTY-FIVE
I open my eyes to the mother of all headaches in a strange, yet familiar bedroom. It takes me a second to place it, such is my thumping head. I am in Mark’s parents’ old room, tucked up in their four-poster bed, still fully dressed but minus the boots.
“Oh God,” I groan, my throat like sandpaper, my brain thrumming like there is electricity coursing through it.
Light seeps through a chink in the heavy velvet curtains, and it is enough to feel like needles piercing my retinas.
Moaning, I haul myself upright, feeling very much like I left my head behind on the pillow.
The most awful, cold, crawling sensation clings to me as I scramble to remember what happened last night.
I went round to Mark’s for pre-party drinks. And then…
And then what?
Mark had passed out before my eyes, and Holly had bragged that she had drugged us. Bill had arrived with some other men, and they had Blythe with them, in a damn coffin.
No, that part can’t have happened. It had to have been part of the nightmare I had about the Satanic ritual.
The ritual where they ate Blyth…
It wasn’t a nightmare.
Confused, my thoughts racing, I simply don’t know what to think. All I know is I have to haul my aching, protesting body downstairs and find Mark. Ignoring the en-suite bathroom, as desperate as I am for water, I lurch unsteadily for the bedroom door.
*
I stagger into the kitchen, feeling like I am the walking dead.
“Good morning, sleepyhead, did you sleep well?” Mark asks with a bright smile.
I stare at the scene of domesticity with disbelieving eyes. I fancy that the sight of Mark, Holly and Bill, sitting around the kitchen table like one big, happy family is even more terrifying than last night’s nightmare.
It wasn’t a nightmare, pipes up that little voice in my mind.
“What’s going on?” I ask. Or slur, more like, for my mouth feels sluggish and tight, and my tongue is so dry it is sticking to the roof of my mouth like Velcro.
“We’re having coffee,” Holly laughs. “Won’t you join us? There’s still some in the pot.”
“You missed a great party last night,” Bill says. “When I got here you were passed out on the sofa, and me and Mark had to carry you upstairs to bed.”
This is a blatant lie. It is so monstrous, in fact, I don’t even know where to begin with potentially challenging it.
“Mark?” I ask slowly, my gaze fixed on him, and him alone. “What’s going on?”
I take him in, sure that this is a dream – one of those dreams that will swiftly turn to hell. He looks well-rested, dressed far more smartly than usual in a dark brown blazer in a soft tweed material that I have never seen before. Gone are his customary jeans and in their place is a pair of chinos. He is wearing the type of clothes that he would never normally be seen dead in. I also notice how he is sitting more upright than normal. He just looks so different.
“Nothing, my dear. I’m just enjoying a cup of coffee with my family. Oh, the simple pleasures in life.”
He reaches across the table and squeezes Bill shoulder affectionately. To my utter dismay and stark disbelief, Bill tears up.
“I’ve missed you,” Bill says, hastily wiping his eyes.
“We both have,” Holly interjects.
But I can’t stop staring at the hand on Bill’s shoulder, my heart now pumping ice water through my veins.
The middle finger of his left hand is adorned with a ring – a ring in the shape of a snake. I stare at it, numb with terror.
“So, Claire, what are your plans for the day?” Holly asks, lovingly twisting her matching snake ring round in circles on her own middle finger.
“I expect she’ll be busy packing. Getting the ball rolling with putting the house on the market,” Mark says.
Except it isn’t Mark, I know that. The man I love is gone. My heart aches with an empty hollowness that I am in no fit state to address right now.
“Yes, moving is so stressful,” Holly agrees. “Still, it’s better to just get on with it, isn’t it? Rip the band-aid off.”
“Definitely,” Bill chimes in. “And I would say that she’s far too busy to stop for coffee. Lots to be getting on with today.”
I glare at him, thinking how much I loathe his guts. Anything I thought I felt for him has
turned to festering, seething hatred. As if I could ever love anyone apart from Mark. It always was, and always will be him.
Oh Mark, I’m so sorry. I let you down so badly.
I can’t cope with looking at their smug faces a second longer. I don’t want to remember Mark this way.
I turn to leave.
“Oh, and before you go,” Jasper says with my beloved’s voice. “Don’t try anything silly. We have all moved on, you understand? And so can you, if you play by the rules. There are more of us than you’ll ever know.”
I don’t turn around. I get it.
I carry on walking and I don’t look back.
*
An hour later I have finished packing a suitcase. I still feel like death warmed over, but I have to do this.
“It’s just you and me, boy,” I say to Bertie, bending down in the hallway to ruffle his head as I shackle him up on his lead for his final walk in Broadgate, my suitcase on wheels waiting by the door.
He was pleased to see me when I got in this morning – desperate for a piddle, but otherwise just fine.
We are going to catch the train to Cornwall. St Ives, to be precise. I’ve booked us into a B and B that allows dogs, and from there we’ll look into finding something more permanent. I have plenty of savings to tide us over until I can sell The Atlantic View.
I can’t think about it all right now. If I do, I’ll go crazy. I’ll think about it tomorrow; I am lucky they gave me that much.
The End.
Hello, dear reader, you have reached the end of Two Doors Down. I hope you enjoyed the tale.
Broadgate is a world that I have explored in greater depth in numerous other novels and novellas under my horror name. Initially, I wanted to keep my horror pseudonym and my real name separate, but I desperately wanted to set Two Doors Down in Broadgate. I spent my formative years in a place just like it, and it left its indelible mark on my soul. It was only fitting that I wrote a full-length thriller set in this fictional town.
Plus, it must be said, the metafiction possibilities of including my horror name within the story itself were just too juicy to resist. Ask any writer – we love multiple stories within stories, these nested stories. It becomes a funhouse hall of mirrors, a multi-layered maze that plays with our perception of reality. When you see yourself, watching yourself, via a distorted reflection. It is catnip to an author, obscuring the boundaries between fiction and nonfiction, between art and life…
I have written this author’s note, not in an effort to steer you towards my horror books, but rather away from them.
Sure, this novel had dark undertones, and it went to a few scary places, but it isn’t extreme horror. It isn’t even horror. It is firmly a psychological thriller with a supernatural element.
Extreme horror, or splatterpunk is an acquired taste. You have to love horror to appreciate it. And I mean love it. It is not a genre for everyone, and this is how it should be. If something in my writing sparked your interest in reading more from me, then I gently recommend that you perhaps pick up another thriller from Collette Heather, rather than dive into the hard stuff.
Unless, that is, you love all-things horror with a fiery passion, then you may want to check out my horror name, too…
On the flipside, if you are one of the readers who have followed me here from my horror books, thank you so much for your continued support of my work. I appreciate you all so much, and if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be writing fulltime today. You guys rock and help me to continue to grow as a writer. I am so grateful to you.
Below, I have enclosed a sample of another recent novel, From The Inside.
Thanks for reading, and I hope we meet again some fine day.
Until next time,
Collette.
FROM THE INSIDE
A PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER
BY
COLLETTE HEATHER
PART ONE
DAISY
CHAPTER ONE
He comes to this coffee-house chain in Liverpool Street most mornings, on his way to work. I don’t know why. One would think, with him being at the higher end of the food chain in the financial sector, he would have access to a kettle.
Today, he has company – a man, slightly younger, a little taller, but a clone of him. Both are dark, handsome and wearing suits from Saville Row. Luke’s grey suit came from Saville Row anyway – I know this because I followed him there once. They carry themselves with all the entitled arrogance that only the more successful in life were able to do.
“You haven’t forgotten about The King’s Head after work, have you?” the younger man asks him as they queue up for their coffee.
“No. I can’t stay for long, though. I promised the wife I’d be home at a reasonable hour.”
“Got to keep the ball and chain happy, I suppose.”
I don’t catch Luke’s reply as the queue has moved forward slightly, further away from my window seat where I sit perched on a stool at the long wooden bar that runs the length of the front window overlooking the busy street.
He doesn’t see me. He never does. Not to my knowledge, anyway. I can blend when I need to. Today, I have my expensively highlighted hair scraped back in a ponytail and tucked into my green parka, a dark beanie pulled down to my eyebrows. A woolly cream scarf hides my chin. I am invisible.
I don’t care that I’m going to miss the rest of the conversation – I’ve heard everything that I need to know. This is what one might call my lucky break. He never goes out after work hours. Not without her anyway, and not in the two months that I’ve been following him.
Finally, things are going my way.
Finally, I can put my plan into action.
*
I stare at my reflection in the full-length mirror of the wardrobe door in the cramped bedroom. I look good – a far cry from the way I look when I am secretly watching him. Most women have that power, I think – women, far more so than men. The average woman can look like two different people; there is the dolled-up version and the slobbed-out version. Men always still look like themselves, just a scruffier or smarter version thereof. I like that about my own sex. Our chameleon abilities.
Coldly – clinically – I assess myself in the mirror. I derive no real pleasure from my relatively newfound perfect figure, it is merely a means to an end. A weapon of destruction, if you will. I don’t consider myself arrogant, just honest.
I work hard to look this way. It is an ongoing, expensive and time-consuming project that has taken exactly one year, it being exactly one year ago that I had made the decision to change. To change into this, for him.
Smoothing down the knee-length, long-sleeved, tight black dress over my firm curves, I stare dispassionately at my flat stomach. Any red-blooded man would notice me – he would have to be blind or gay not to.
Mind you, I need to look this good, if I am to compete with her. She may have a ten-month-old child, but she has kept her figure. And I could never attain her tall, naturally willowy figure, no matter how many surgeons I consult, or gym hours I put in. I am bigger boned, wider hipped, and five feet four, which is almost five whole inches shorter than her.
But I still look good. It all comes back to the whole chameleon thing. Any woman can become beautiful, I truly believe that. Deformities notwithstanding – and even those can usually be glossed over, provided they aren’t too extreme – all women are capable of appearing beautiful.
Happy with my choice of clothing, knowing that this dress will look great with the shin-length, dark-brown boots and the leather jacket in the exact same shade, cropped short so that he won’t have the chance of missing the sight of my well-squatted derriere, should I be wearing said jacket at any point during our encounter – I make my way into the bathroom, which is just off the small bedroom.
If I was feeling generous – and somewhat imaginative – I might describe this bathroom as en-suite, but the truth of the matter is, my flat is just tiny. I live in a ground-floor apartment, situa
ted in a four-storied, Victorian terraced house in the heart of Brixton. It’s a million miles away from the three-bedroomed, semi-detached I used to inhabit with my ex-husband in Brighton.
I lean over the small sink, peering at my face in the mirror. The surgeon who performed rhinoplasty on me deserves a medal. You would never know from looking at me that I’ve had work done. I haven’t had much done, just a few minor tweaks, but it’s those tiny little imperfections that make or break a woman’s face, that lift it from ordinary to extraordinary. Or so I think, anyway.
I stare at the smooth bridge of my nose – I had the small bump taken out of it, and now it’s a vastly improved nose. I still think it’s a shade too large, but I guess it gives my face character and a certain strength. It stops me looking plastic and fake. I’ve also had Botox injected into my forehead and the tramlines that used to run parallel to my mouth. I may only be thirty-five, just a year older than her, but a year of solid crying took its heavy toll on my face. I’ve had my upper lip enhanced with fillers – only the absolute minimum, but it makes such a difference. I’ve also had my teeth fixed. It’s amazing what a Hollywood-style smile does for a face, how the veneers work to fill out the jaw area and lend my face far more structured angles. That, coupled with the weight I’ve lost, and the whole series of facials and chemical peels I endured, my face is now more Kiera Knightly (if Kiera Knightly had a larger nose and was a blue-eyed blonde) and less puffy housewife.
I didn’t always look like this. Far from it, in fact. I used to be what you might call mousy. Plain at best, flat-out ugly at worst. I was one of those mumsy types. Overweight, harried, not especially interested in my appearance.
Unless I was going somewhere nice of course, and then I would have a meltdown of sorts in the bedroom because my clothes were rubbish and I couldn’t fit into most of them properly, anyway. I was a size fourteen back then, instead of the neat(ish) size ten to twelve I used to be pre-Lucy, and a far cry-cry from the worked-out size six-to-eight that I am now. I never used to use nice beauty products, and my prematurely greying, mousy-brown hair was dry, frizzy and unkempt, falling to my shoulders in a one-length, cheap and unflattering cut. Back then, I didn’t know my Clarins from Poundland. I would’ve argued with you that all beauty products are the same. I have since found out that they’re not.
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