Hold My Hand

I am lying in my bed, alone, and somebody is holding my hand.

It's been this way for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, and smaller, the hand fit mine perfectly. Now I am grown, and the cold little hand squeezes mine for warmth. 

I have never turned my head to look at who is lying next to me, who has shared my bed for all these years. Fear has always stopped me. Not fear of my silent bedmate, who has never given me cause to be frightened, but rather, for fear that if I turned my head to look upon them, they would vanish, go away forever, and I would be left to sleep here all alone in the dark.

Of course it is silly, for an adult to be scared of the dark. But I feel I have just cause, I believe there is something out there we would be wise to fear. For what else could have spurred my invisible friend to reach out for my hand that first night, and to keep reaching, to keep holding onto me ever tighter, every night after?

Flash Fiction #14: Mab

Bad dreams become something you live with.  Like insomnia, they are a sickness that invade your waking life, fraying the edges of everything around you.  They make colours duller or too bright, noises become so high that you wince and flinch at the slightest sound.  Shadows seem to move of their own accord in the corner of your eye.  Christie could pretty much write the book on the subject.

She's not always been this way.  Up until a few months ago, she'd slept like a baby most nights.  The nightmares began gradually; at first she put it down to stress.  Then they became more and more frequent.  Christie would wake every night drenched in sweat, her chest tight with terror.  Specific details evaded her - what little memory she had was of a pair of eyes always watching her.  Hazel eyes that should have been beautiful, but weren't.

This last week, it's got worse.  Christie has woken sobbing.  Angry red marks on her arms and legs show that she has been scratching herself in her sleep.  No amount of makeup can counter her deathly pallor or the shadowy bags under her eyes.

She dreads coming home each day.  The house itself has become a part of the disease; her unmade bed is like an albatross in the back of her mind, waiting for her to lie down and close her eyes each night so it can torment her until sunrise.  And always, they are there - the eyes that should be beautiful, but aren't.

Tonight, Christie takes more sleeping pills than the bottle advises.  Not enough to harm herself, she's no idiot, but hopefully enough to take her down deep enough, below the night terrors.  Darkness and silence, for just a few hours, are all Christie wants.  Sick of all the herbal teas that have failed to work, she washes the pills down with a glass of whiskey.  There.  A deep, restful sleep should be no problem now.

When she collapses onto the bed, still in her clothes, the mattress feels more comfortable than it has in months.  The sheets are softer, more inviting, than ever before.  Christie allows herself a smile as the ceiling fades above her.  Her eyes drift closed.  The beams and floorboards which occasionally creak in this old house are silent tonight.  Christie exhales quietly, feeling weeks of tension and anxiety leave her body.

She feels something cold against her cheek.  Her eyes snap open.  Another woman kneels over her on the bed, leant so far forward that her face is level with Christie's.  When she sees Christie's eyes open, she claps her hands silently.

Black hair.  Hazel eyes.  Thin lips, so pale they are almost white.  What Christie had felt on her cheek were long, slick-looking fingernails, painted black.  Christie thinks of the scratches on her arms and legs.  This creature, this woman - she was responsible.  They were never dreams.

She is unable to cry for help; the breath freezes in her throat.  All she can whisper is: "Who are you?"

"Mab," the woman says, stretching her thin white lips into a smile.  It is the unkindest thing Christie has ever seen.  "I'm your faery godmother."

"I don't believe in faeries," Christie rasps.

"Oh, you beautiful thing," the faery laughs quietly.  "You beautiful, wretched thing.  What difference does that make?"

Christie tries to move, but it is as if she is paralysed.  Sitting atop her, Mab weighs nothing at all; but beneath her she is powerless.

"I'm scared," she says.

"I know," answers the faery.  "They always are.  But I'm going to make your wish come true."

Terrified before, now Christie is puzzled.

"My wish?"

"Darkness and silence," Mab whispers in her ear.  Her ice cold breath makes Christie shiver.  Then; "Wish granted."  She smiles, and kisses Christie's cheek as gently, as lightly, as if she were made of gossamer.  "I'll take you down, sweetie.  Deep, deep down."

Christie opens her mouth to scream, but Mab's white lips are on hers.  The room around her vanishes into blackness.  The bed seems to drop from beneath her until she is falling, or floating, no shapes or sounds around her - just the cold impression left by Mab's kiss.

~

Book Review: Blueeyedboy by Joanne Harris

Joanne Harris rocketed to fame with her culinary fairy tale Chocolat, which is to date the title that readers associate her with.  What many people seem to be unaware of, sadly, is her work in the seedy thriller genre.  While her latest offering, blueeyedboy, claims on the cover to be "From The Author of Chocolat", it has much more in common with her darker novel Gentlemen & Players.  For one, both books are set in Malbry, Yorkshire - a not entirely happy place.  St Oswald's, the grammar school that acted as chessboard and battlefield in Gentlemen & Players, is obliquely mentioned, although it is by no means necessary to have read that book in order to enjoy this twisted little fable.

B.B. is approaching middle age and still lives with his mother.  His inner life is played out in comfortable anonymity on the Internet, where under the nickname blueeyedboy he blogs about his troubled past.  His posts are part fiction, part confession, almost always revolving around the same themes: his formidable mother, daydreams of murder, and a growing fixation with a girl in a red duffel coat.  A girl that blueeyedboy seems to know...

To say anything else would be to give away a number of the twists and turns in this novel.  It is safe to say that Harris is on form here, taking pleasure in yanking the rug out from under the reader time and time again, and populating her sad story with a host of entirely believable characters, from the mannered Dr Peacock to the ridiculous hippy Feather, and angry, troubled shells like Nigel and Bethan.

The unreliable narrator here brought to my mind American Psycho, and while Harris's style couldn't be more different from Bret Easton Ellis's, blueeyedboy does make a suitably British companion piece to that novel.

Book Review: Apartment 16 by Adam Nevill

Some books you love.  Some books you hate.  And then, there are some books that you struggle with.  For me, Adam Nevill's Apartment 16, a tale of otherworldly suspense, began as a joy, then became a labour to finish.  And here's why:

 

The story is told from two perspectives; that of Seth, the nightwatchman at Barrington House, and Apryl, the girl just off the plane from America, here in London to claim her late aunt's estate.  The opening is promising, with both narrators providing a compelling account of their experiences in Barrington House - Apryl discovers that her aunt banished all picture frames and mirrors from her walls, while Seth is at first drawn to, and then obsessed by the sounds coming from behind the door of the abandoned Apartment 16.

 

Then events move from the sinister to the more explicitly unnerving.  Seth is approached by a young boy who nobody else can see, who seems to know a lot about Seth's life and the apartment.  Apryl becomes convinced somebody is watching her while she sleeps, and decides to research the history of the building.

 

Without giving too much of the plot away, the second half of the novel is almost unbearably tense as the author slowly reveals layer upon layer of detail.  The former occupant of the apartment was a troubled genius, the building may or may not house an ancient consciousness, and both Apryl and Seth are more constantly plagued by horrific, Lovecraftian visions.

 

Minor Spoilers Ahead!

 

My main problem with this novel (apart from the occasionally clunky dialogue on Apryl's part) is the denouement.  I had begun the story rooting for all of the characters, only to find that one of them has been transformed into a villain.  Also, following the climactic scenes in Apartment 16, I was left with the feeling that nothing had been resolved.  This could well be Adam Nevill's plan, either setting the scene for a sequel or simply leaving the reader with a bleak sense of terror, as good has not triumphed over evil, but merely retreated.

 

This is definitely a book for lovers of the horror genre, with several moments of genuine suspense and mostly excellent prose that never descends into hokum or cliche.  Its city setting, and often depressing depictions of central London as an urban hell, ground the story in reality and make it all the more affecting.

 

I'll give this one 4 out of 5, as I really liked Nevill's writing style, but felt that he made too obvious an effort to get the reader to empathise with Apryl, when Seth was by far the more interesting character.