Midnight

You kill the engine at the bottom of Carla’s street and turn off your headlights just like she asked. The clock on the dashboard reads 23:58; not long now.  You circled the block three times before coming this far, have been a nervous wreck all day.  The quiet is fucking unbearable, but you can’t put the radio on because she wants you to wait in complete silence.  23:58 blinks into 23:59 and you can’t stop your fingers drumming restlessly on the steering wheel.  Then the clock tells you it is 00:00, and she isn’t here.  She said she would be here at midnight.  What’s kept her?  Has something gone wrong? 

It is 00:05 when you finally see Carla approaching.  Her face is unreadable as she nears the car, and she doesn’t speak as she gets in on the passenger side. Her trembling hands struggle to fasten the seatbelt, so you strap her in like you would a child, then turn the key in the ignition without saying a word.  It’s 00:09 and you’ve driven at least a mile when she finally says;

“This feels too easy.”

“I know what you mean,” you reply, keeping your eyes on the road.

“Not sure that you do, hon.”

She fiddles with the heating vent and rubs her bare legs.  That’s when you notice the tiny dress she’s wearing, and tell her there’s a jacket on the back seat.  She kicks off her heels, curls up on the passenger seat and pulls the denim over her like a blanket.  For all her lipstick and nail polish, right now she could be a little girl.

You soon leave the town behind, turning your headlights to full beam as you hit the pitch black country roads.  She begins to doze, and you begin to understand that, as anxious as may have been ahead of tonight, she has been living in hell. Your flat is in a village nearly half an hour away; safe enough for tonight, but tomorrow you’ll have to take her further.  You have never met Victor Crane, but you’ve heard enough from Carla to know that you never want to.

A deer appears in the middle of the road, and you barely have time to slam the brakes on. The car stops a couple of feet away, abruptly enough to wake Carla from her doze in the passenger seat. You watch her watching the doe, as it dashes out of the car’s beams, keeping her gaze on the spot where it had been even after it has vanished into the darkness of the surrounding trees.  Your hand finds hers, and she grips it as if holding on for dear life.

You pass no cars on the entire journey, and reach the village at exactly 00:45.  Carla gets out of the car and walks barefoot to your front door, high heels dangling from the one hand as she uses the other to keep the oversized denim jacket from sliding down her shoulders.

You close the door, shutting out the cold night.  How many other times have you brought her here?  It’s become your sanctuary, the one place that her husband doesn’t know about.  She lingers in the hallway, and you can tell she is thinking the same thing.  That this may be the last time you both get to enjoy this secret place.

“We did it,” you say, kissing her neck.  “We did it.”

She begins to laugh, as if finally letting herself believe that their night journey has really happened.  You can’t help yourself from laughing too; it is impossible to picture yourself waiting in your car less than an hour ago.  You pick her up, carry her into the bedroom and throw her on the bed.  She squeals in delight, pulling the denim jacket from around her shoulders and throwing it at you.

You lean over her and yank her dress so hard it rips.  Her eyes widen at the sound, and a playful grin transforms her face.  You tug even harder on the dress and the seams at the back come completely apart.  She tears at the fabric, desperate to be free of it, until she is entirely naked and under you.  You haul your shirt over your shoulders while she unzips your jeans.  Now that the two of you finally have all the time in the world, neither of you can wait.  Your lovemaking is rushed, almost panicked, the fear of being found out still hanging over both of you even as the adrenaline of what you have just done courses through your veins.

“Where will we go?” She asks, afterwards.

“I don’t know yet.  Maybe we could hop on a ferry and have a little holiday.”

“I’m serious,” she says, sitting up.  “Once Victor knows I’m gone, he’ll stop at nothing until he finds me.  You don’t know what he’s capable of.  He…”

“What?”

“Nothing.  It’s just that, for years, he had this power over me.  And I could never fight it. Not until I met you.  And even though I’m free now, I can’t shake this feeling.”

“What feeling?”

Carla hesitates, as if deciding whether or not to tell you the truth.

“That wherever I go, he’ll know where I am.”

“Then we’ll go far away.  We’ll change our names and learn Spanish.  I’ll grow a beard and you can shave your head.  We’ll be unrecognisable.”

Carla smiles, although it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.  You decide that it’s okay; you have the rest of your life to make her smile properly.  You switch off the bedside lamp, and then you do what you’ve wanted to do for months.  You lay your head on her stomach and close your eyes, knowing that she will still be there come morning.  

~

Extract from a work in progress.

"Little Death" Extract 6: Haunted (continued)

"Your coffee, sir."

"Thanks," Zach takes the proffered cup with one hand and digs a folded, Xeroxed photo out of his jeans with the other.  "I don't suppose you've seen this girl around, have you?"

The teenager behind the counter squints at the photo for a couple of seconds, then shrugs.

"Don't recognise her.  But we get tons of people in here."

"Alright, well thanks anyway."

The sheer logistics of the task before him begin to dawn on Zach.  How many people will he have to flash this picture to before he can say in good conscience that Georgina isn't in Bellevue?  When he'd first accepted this peculiar job, he had planned to check into the hotel room that the Forresters had booked on his behalf and spend a couple of days drinking the local liquor before reporting back that there was, well, nothing to report.  It wasn't like he owed Quentin and Eleanor anything.  But his own morbid curiosity had reared its head, and first thing this morning he had located the phonebooth from which the Forresters' mystery calls had been made.  To his misfortune, the culprit had not been loitering nearby with a placard that said "It Was Me", and so Zach had taken to canvassing.  If he found no trace of Georgina after a few days, he told himself, he would return to Florida, cash his cheque and hop on a plane to Jamaica.

“So you’re saying you don’t believe in ghosts?”  The urgent, almost shrill nature of the question makes Zach falter on his way to the door, unsure if it is intended for him.

“Not necessarily,” a second, lower voice says.  “I just don’t think places are haunted in the way that you think.”  The speaker is a pretty young blonde.  Her companion is a swan-necked redhead with a pixie cut.  Zach backtracks and sits as inconspicuously as he can at the table next to theirs, facing the front of the cafe so that their conversation takes place in his peripheral vision.

“What do you mean?”  Asks Thin Red.

“I just imagine that if the dead were going to hang around, it wouldn’t be places they were drawn to,” says Honey Blonde.  “It would be people, don’t you think?”

“Not places, but people...  People are haunted...”  Thin Red says, seemingly rolling the concept around on her tongue.  “I like it.”

“But either way, to answer your original question – no.  Truthfully, I do not think there is anything wrong with our place, or with you, that couldn’t be cured by a couple of sleeping pills and a glass of whiskey.”

The trace of impatience in her voice makes Zach smirk.  This girl speaks sense, and he gets the impression from their brief exchange that she is often talking this girl down.  He is taken off guard by a sharp, unexpected pang; how long has it been since he had this kind of casual, throwaway conversation?  Out of nowhere, he is filled with longing for Jacksonville, for dinner with friends, for drinks and human company in general.  He’d withdrawn from everyone and everything after William died, and one by one his friends had stopped trying to reach him.  Not that there were many of them at all; he and Will had always been something of a closed club.  Except, of course, for when it came to Georgina.

“Well either way, that dreamcatcher didn’t work one bit.  You might as well return it, get your money back.”

Honey Blonde hums noncommittally, and drains the contents of her cup before picking up her bag and standing.

“Are you working tonight?”  Thin Red asks, following her out of the booth.

“Yeah, the new girl quit so I’m stepping in.  Although I’m not sure it counts as quitting when she only showed up for a handful of her shifts.”

“Excuse me,” Zach says to the two girls, and they both pause, turning to him in unison.  “Sorry for interrupting.  I was just wondering if...”  He fishes the folded picture out of his pocket yet again.  “...If either of you has seen this girl?”

They both give the photo their full attention, more than the cretin behind the counter had done.  The redhead squints in such a way that suggests she would be better off wearing glasses, but is prevented from doing so by vanity.

“No, sorry,” she says, and the blonde shakes her head.

“Nevermind,” he says.  “Thanks anyway.”  These words already feel carved onto his tongue after just one morning. 

“Are you alright?”  The blonde asks as he turns away.

“Peachy,” he says, with a smile that isn’t convincing enough for either of them.

***

The rest of the day is spent at the police station.  He is told by the desk clerk that somebody will be with him shortly.  “Shortly”, in Tennessee, apparently translates to “never”.  After he has watched the clock for what feels like an eternity, after he has examined every pamphlet on the coffee table and read every poster on every wall of the reception area, Zach goes back to the woman behind the desk.

“All I want is for somebody to take a look at this photo,” he says, holding it out to her.  “I just need to know if anybody has seen her.”

The impatience with which the woman looks at him suggests that Quentin Forrester’s constant calls have made them intolerant to out-of-town missing persons cases.

“I’m sorry sir,” she tells him.  “I wish I could help.  But I’m telling you, honestly, there are no officers here.  There’s been a...”  Her previously hard face creases and softens as she holds back a sob.  “Something terrible has happened.  To a girl.  A local girl.”

Her message is clear.  They cannot spare a man, or a single moment, for Georgina.  And Zach silently agrees.  He mumbles something that might be an apology, or a condolence, and leaves.

Back at the hotel, he tries to sleep, but the sun is still painfully bright as it descends behind the houses.  The sky is orange and violet, like that of some alien world, when he leaves his room again, driven out by pangs of hunger.

The manager at the hotel had recommended a place just a few blocks away, and Zach is grateful for the closeness.  Despite having done little more than sit since he got up this morning, he is exhausted.  As he approaches the restaurant, he spies the pretty blonde from the cafe this morning through the window, working.  Not a complete write-off, then, he thinks of the day.

His shoulder collides with that of somebody hurrying out of the entrance.

“Sorry,” he begins, just as the other man barks:

“Watch yourself!”

Their eyes meet for a second before the man turns away, striding off, and Zach’s heart leaps into his mouth.  The face looking back at him had been a perfect mirror image.

“William,” he utters, before logic or reason can tarnish what he has seen.  But his double has already disappeared around a street corner.

“William!”  He shouts, running after him.  His legs are weak when he turns the corner, but there is nobody in sight.  What had he been wearing?  Is there a doorway he might have vanished into?  Somebody gets out of a parked car, and Zach almost jumps on them, before forcing himself to think rationally.  What would he ask?  Had they seen anybody around who looked exactly like him?  Somebody who had been dead for over a year?

“I’m losing it,” he whispers, and the sheer act of talking to himself again makes him cry out in despair.  He sinks to his knees on the pavement, face burning with rage and the threat of tears.

Not places, but people.  Laura’s words from earlier that day sound in his ears.  People are haunted, says a voice in his head, and now he can’t stop hearing it, echoing and ceaseless, like a prophecy fulfilled.

"Sweet Tooth" Sneak Peak: The Girlfriend

“Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.”
- Sir Walter Scott

It begins with a takeaway. The food itself is of no real importance, but on the evening that Paul decides not to cook dinner, a certain chain of events is set in motion. There is the walk down the road to the Chinese, there is the smile and hello from the tiny lady behind the counter, and then there are the five most depressing words in the English language: "Set meal for one, please."

Paul is certain the pint-sized proprietress has a certain smug, knowing look in her eye as she hands over the plastic bag and takes his money. Those five lonely words form a circle around his heart during the walk back to his flat, squeezing the breath out of him. A dead screen is the only thing that greets him when he opens the door, and he eats his chop suey straight from the container in front of Eastenders.

Half an hour of cockney melodrama plays out, and Paul doesn't recognise a single authentic moment. Where in this monster of a capital is there a single street, let alone a whole community, where neighbours know each other by name? Oh, London; Paul can't help wondering if anybody else but him can manage to feel so utterly alone whilst sharing the same polluted air and tube system as seven million other people.

There's nothing on, so Paul switches the telly off. After a while, with nothing to keep him company other than the sound of his actress neighbour loudly reciting lines through the paper-thin ceiling, he decides to go to bed. For an indeterminate time he stares at the ceiling and considers getting a cat, but the thought is perhaps as equally melancholy as the set meal for one. Having a Gizmo or Tibbles around would be making too much of a statement, like giving up on human contact all together. And Paul is still holding onto a sliver of hope that he will end up with a companion of the female variety, and not the feline.

The next day is a Tuesday, and that evening, the second domino in Paul's series of events begins to topple. After an impossibly long day of fielding abusive phone calls at the centre, Paul meets his friends for a much needed drink. Paul's immediate friends consist of two couples; Lee and Tara, and Shaun and Daisy. Happy, good looking people – Paul does sometimes have trouble remembering why they're mates with him, or vice versa. The subject of tonight's conversation is his seemingly perpetual singleness.

"You don't know how lucky you are," Daisy tells him. "I mean, you've got your flat, and all to yourself, no less! Do you have any idea how hard it is, trying to find a starter home?"

"It's hell," Shaun agrees, "having to stay with my parents until we get a place of our own that we can afford. If it ever happens..."

"Tell me about it," Lee cuts in. "Tara and me had to live apart for months until we found somewhere, didn't we babes."

"It was awful," Tara nods and snuggles even further into the crook of Lee's arm. "Although, it made the flat's christening even more fun..."

Paul amuses himself with a fantasy of what it would be like to drown in his lager at this particular moment.

"Still," Shaun grins at Paul, "it'll be a good stretch before you need to start worrying about all that, ey!" He says it in a way that is probably supposed to sound pally, but it just sounds obscenely cruel, and Paul has had enough of this hard-edged friendship lately.

"Shows what you know," he mutters.

"What was that, sweetheart?" Daisy leans forward.

"Actually," he finds himself saying, "I'm seeing somebody." The moment the lie leaves his lips, he knows he has made a huge mistake. There's no taking this back, no laughing it off, not with this crowd. Oh dear.

"Really?" Tara's ears almost visibly prick up at this new information. "Well Paulie! Since when? What's her name? How come you didn't tell us?"

"We've not known each other long," Paul says. He can feel his face reddening; he's never been much of a liar. "Her name's, er, Caroline. I met her the other week, she works in a shop..." He silences himself with a swig from his beer, before any other hastily made-up facts can come spilling out.

"Look at him, he's blushing!" Daisy squeals, eyes wide with surprise and pleasure. "That is so bloody sweet, Paulie!"

And so Paul's imaginary girlfriend is born. Daisy and Tara try to elicit more information from him, but he feigns shyness and says there's not much to tell.

"We've only been out a few times," he says. "I don't want to jinx things." After that, the subject is deemed closed, for tonight at least...

The remainder of 'The Girlfriend' can be found in "Sweet Tooth", available from the Amazon Kindle store now.

"Little Death" Extract 3: Sunday

“That you, Death?”  The Haitian calls out in response to the clink of the bell over the door.  “You’re a little early.”

Marley smiles.  Sunday is perhaps the oddest man she has ever met, which means she has an awful lot of time for him.

“Just me,” she replies, “sorry to disappoint.”

Sunday chuckles from behind the shop counter and spreads his arms wide, gesturing to his little kingdom.

“And how can I assist such a beautiful disappointment today?”

Marley casts her eye over her surroundings.  They are eclectic to say the least.  The walls are lined with shelves, which are themselves laden with books, candles, figurines and carvings of just about every pagan deity one could imagine, beautifully coloured glass jars which hold less pleasing contents, and in one corner she even spots a small animal skull.

“You’ve redecorated,” she exclaims in mock surprise.  “Where did the wall hanging of the goddess Kali go?  I was looking forward to getting another eyeful of her blood-stained boobs.”

“Alas, somebody bought good old Kali,” Sunday shakes his head.  “I’m going to miss that woman.  Anyway my lovely, what brings you here?”

“My roommate.  She’s convinced our house is haunted.  I told her I’d come get some good vibe incense.”

“What makes her think it’s haunted?” 

“Well, she’s highly strung and more than a little superstitious.  So, that.  And she says she’s not been sleeping too well lately.”

“Ah!”  Sunday vanishes under his counter and reappears a moment later.  “Here,” he hands Marley a small frame which vaguely resembles a spiderweb, adorned with feathers.  “Dreamcatcher.  Native Americans swore by the things.  Pleasant dreams and restful sleep assured.”

“Fantastic,” Marley digs into her purse.  “How much?”

“On the house.”

Her blue eyes widen.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as syrup.”  He grins and instantly looks younger.  Marley has never heard that expression before, and it makes her wonder just how old Sunday is.  She has never been so bold as to ask.  She imagines he would go all coy on her.

“Well thanks,” she tucks the dreamcatcher carefully into her battered handbag.  “You just made my roommate’s day.”

“Anything for a pretty thing like you,” he says, in a way that manages to sound not at all lecherous.  “What does the rest of the day have in store for you?”

“I’ll be heading straight to work now, the new girl called in sick.”

“She has a hangover,” Sunday says.

“I guess so...”  Marley nods slowly, unsure what to make of this.  He didn’t sound like he was guessing, or making a joke.  He just... knew.  She is about to probe him on this, when her eye catches a particularly phallic statuette, and her question turns into an embarrassed stammer.

“Well, thanks again, Sunday.”

“And once again, you’re welcome my sweet.”  This too sounds innocuous, fatherly and not sinister.  Sunday, she decides, is the world’s strangest gentleman.

Once the door has closed behind her, Sunday’s genial expression sags somewhat.  That is the third dreamcatcher he has felt compelled to give away in as many days.  Bad for business, for sure.  But he also fears it is a sign.  A portent of something malign settling in Bellevue, making its home here.  This evening he will make an offering to Baron Samedi and pray for the safety of Marley and her friends.  Something in that girl brings out his gentler side.

“By the twiddling of my thumbs,” he sings out loud, in an effort to lift his spirits.  “Something wicked this way comes!”

"Little Death" Extract 2: Zachary

It has been dead for so long that Zach can hardly even make out what it used to be.  A fox perhaps, or maybe a dog?  Its corpse is so mangled by passing traffic, its appearance so far removed from anything alive, it is impossible to tell.  He carefully manoeuvres the car around it and continues down the highway.

“Scratch out all your prayers,” a voice croons on the radio.  “Tie ‘em up with barbed wire and push them down the stairs.”  Some raspy old booze hound that tickles a crook in Zach’s memory.  The name is on the tip of his tongue when the car hits a pothole and it is gone again.  He curses under his breath.  Then, upon remembering he is the car’s sole occupant, he swears loudly.  The entire day seems to be conspiring against him.  The hot-as-balls Southern weather, the glare of the sun that manages to permeate his convenience store-bought aviator sunglasses, the endless fucking road ahead of him.

He eases his foot off the accelerator slightly while he checks the map.  Unless he has gone seriously wrong somewhere, he should reach Bellevue in a little over two hours.  After a whole day in this fine vehicle, a rental with air conditioning that gave up the ghost a mere forty minutes after he started his journey, two more hours sounds like an eternity.

“Then with my double barrel shotgun,” the radio taunts, “and a whole box of shells...”

The words get to Zach in a way that they shouldn’t.  He punches the radio and the station switches to evangelical choir music.  He lasts half a minute before turning the stereo off altogether, resolving to spend the rest of the drive in peaceful, meditative silence.

His stare never veers from the straight I-75 before him, but in the corner of his eye he cannot help but see Georgina.  Her picture lies atop the maps and documents that have spilled out of his folder onto the passenger seat.  It must be the heat, or fatigue, or some combination of the two that makes Zach think she is looking back at him.  He bites his tongue twice to prevent himself starting a one-sided conversation with the photograph.  It’s the most recent one of her that Georgina’s parents could find, taken just days before her twenty-first birthday.

“Isn’t she pretty?”  Her mother had asked, when she handed Zach the photo.  He had wanted to laugh in her face, at the sheer ridiculousness of the question.  For her to ask him whether he thought her little girl was a keeper, after what had happened.  For her and Georgina’s father to be asking him for help finding their daughter, after everything she did.

But something in Mrs Forrester’s eyes had stopped the words from coming.  He wanted to tell her how much he hated Georgina, that he was glad that she was missing and he hoped she died a horrible, painful death.  But the faith the mother has in the daughter is a curious, powerful thing.  Georgina’s mother hardly seemed aware of the facts surrounding her daughter’s disappearance, and what little she did know, she used in her own unique narrative that cast her girl as the innocent.

“Please, Mr Hall,” Quentin, the father, had said, taking him into the conservatory of their home in Florida.  “You and I both know...”  His voice trembled slightly, but he maintained his composure.  The famous military background Zach had heard so much about.

“You and I both know,” Quentin said, “that my daughter is probably dead.  But her mother –”

“She thinks Georgina is alive?”

“She doesn’t just think it, Mr Hall.  She is convinced.  Obsessed.  Eleanor has always had a somewhat... frail nature.  Recent events have only served to exacerbate her already anxious condition.”

In short, Eleanor Forrester was a fruitcake.  Zach wanted to enquire as to whether this sort of thing ran in the family, but stopped himself.  It would be cruel, not to mention hypocritical.

“I’m not sure I understand,” he said.  “Recent events?  It’s been over a year.”

“Yes,” Quentin said, more than a little defensively.  “The worst year of our lives.” Zach flinched, and he grimaced in regret.  “I apologise, Mr Hall.  You must think me insensitive.”

“Just a touch,” Zach replied coolly.  “But your astounding insensitivity aside, I honestly do not know why you called me.”

“A little over a month ago, Eleanor and I started receiving phone calls.  Whoever is on the other end doesn’t say a word; they simply wait for a few moments and then hang up.”

Zach felt his patience thinning.

“Prank calls?”  It came out slightly louder than he intended, and his next words were hushed for Eleanor’s benefit.  “Are you serious?  You got me to come over here, because some kid is yanking your fucking chain?”

“My wife believes Georgina is trying to pass on some kind of message,” Quentin lowered himself wearily into a wicker armchair.  “She has come to anticipate each call, even look forward to them.”

“And this involves me because...?”

“I have a friend in the sheriff’s office who has been able to trace the area code of the incoming number to a town in Tennessee.  Bellevue.  A call has been put in to the police department up there, but I don’t think there’s any great degree of urgency to a year old disappearance.”  Quentin didn’t say anything for a moment, and for the first time Zach heard the way he struggled for breath.  Neither he nor Eleanor were old, but what happened last year aged them.  Withered them both in different ways, from the inside out.

“William often spoke of how you majored in investigative journalism,” he finally said, and it was so out of the blue that Zach didn’t immediately know how to respond.  Until now, neither of them had said William’s name out loud.

“That’s right,” he nodded.  “Why?”

“Let me be frank, Mr Hall.  As much as it breaks my heart to say it out loud, I hold very little hope for Georgina’s safe return.  And I certainly do not believe that it is her calling us at all hours of the night.  My wife, however, cannot let her go.  If somebody were to go to Bellevue and investigate these calls, find out who is making them, it might finally force Eleanor to believe that Georgina is not coming home.”

“And you want me to do this for you.”

“I understand if you do not want to, given everything –”

“That’s something of an understatement,” Zach said, and he knew that his temper, already riled, would not lie still for much longer.

“I am, of course, willing to offer a substantial fee for doing this favour, Mr Hall.”  The anger in his stomach twisted and knotted around itself; Quentin was playing that oldest of Forrester cards.  Money.  It had always been made crystal clear, for as long as Zach had known Georgina, who had it and who didn’t.

“I am aware of certain debts you have incurred over the last year, Mr Hall.  I am giving you the chance to start afresh, with a clean slate and a handsome sum.  Do this one final thing for my family, prove to me that Georgina is not still alive and tormenting her mother from a backwater town in Tennessee, and I will be eternally grateful.”

Zach felt the loathing he had long nurtured for the Forresters suddenly turned upon himself.  It was truly an offer he couldn’t refuse.  Not simply for the money, but also for a chance to lay Georgina to rest, and expel her from his mind forever.

In the photograph on the passenger seat in Zach’s rental car, Georgina is smiling.  She is, as her mother rightfully claims, very pretty.  A button nose and heart shaped mouth, stretched into a smile.  One edge of the photograph is slightly perforated.  Somebody next to Georgina has been very carefully been cut out of it, most likely by Eleanor Forrester.  A young man.  Handsome, twenty-four years old.  The same hazel eyes as Zach.  The same whole damn face, for that matter.

William.  His twin.  Dead for over a year now.

“Turn around, Zach,” he mutters to himself.  “Just turn this car around and go the fuck home.”

Except he’s no longer sure he has a home to go to.  Any sense of belonging he may have once had went up in smoke thirteen months ago, on the same day that William died and Georgina went missing.  Home had always been where his brother was, and it is only now that Zach realises how good it feels to get out of the swampy grave that Florida has become since Will’s death.

When he finally passes a sign welcoming him to Bellevue, the name of that song on the radio comes to him, as does the crocodile-voiced singer.  Tom Waits.  ‘Wrong Side Of The Road’.  He laughs humourlessly.

“Tom, you have no idea.”