→ Soaring. Arms spread like wings. Exhilaration. Magic. Momentary delight. I feel invincible, like a–
Smash!
The backyard fence cuts short my flight. I hit the ground hard. Come up groaning and wheezing. Right elbow cut where I rocketed off the rough wood of the fence. Woozy. I stagger to my feet. Feel sick.
I remember the demons. My eyes snap to the dog flap. I turn to run…
…then stop. No sign of them. Ordinary night silence.
They aren’t following.
I stare at the dog flap — tiny – then at my arms and legs. The three red ravines gouged out by Vein. My shirt and jeans ripped from where the demons snagged me. My left shoe missing — it must have come off mid-flight. But otherwise I’m unharmed.
No way! Even if the dog flap had been bigger, I couldn’t have dived through it at that speed without scraping myself raw. How did…?
All questions die unvoiced as I recall the horror show of the bedroom.
“Mum,” I sob, staggering towards the back door. I pause with my hand on the handle. Almost turn it. Can’t.
I get down on my knees. Cautiously poke open the dog flap. Peer into the kitchen. No demons — but the many bloody prints on the tiles are proof I didn’t imagine the chase.
On my feet. Again I try to enter. Again I can’t bring myself to do it. Memories too terrifying. The demons too threatening. If I could help my family, perhaps it would be different. But they’re dead, all of them, and I have too much sense (or not enough courage) to risk my life for a trio of corpses.
Stepping back from the door, I stare up at the house. It looks like all the others from the outside. No webs. No blood. Normal walls and windows.
“Gret,” I mutter mindlessly. “I never said sorry for the rat guts.”
I think about that for a moment, stunned, sluggish. Then I raise my face, open my mouth and scream.
It’s a wordless scream. Pure hatred. Pure sorrow. It builds from somewhere deep within me and bursts forth with the same impossible force I summoned when lobbing the telephone at Artery and diving through the dog flap.
The glass in the windows shatters and explodes inwards, ripping curtains to shreds, littering floors with jagged, transparent shards. The glass in the houses to either side also explodes. And in the nearby cars and street lamps.
I scream as long as I can — perhaps a full minute without pause — then lapse into a silence as all-encompassing as the scream. It’s an isolated silence. Almost solid. No sounds trickle out and none penetrate.
After a while people emerge from the neighbouring houses, shaken, making their cautious way to the source of the insane howl. I see their mouths moving, but I don’t hear their questions, or their cries when they enter my house and come racing out shortly after, faces white, eyes filled with terror.
I’m in a world of my own. A world of webs and blood. Demons and corpses. Nightmares and terror. The name of the world from this night on — home.
DERVISH
→ Lost, spiralling time. Muddled happenings. Flitting in and out of reality. Momentarily here, then gone, reclaimed by madness and demons.
→ Clarity. A warm room. Police officers. I’m wrapped in blankets. A man with a kind face offers me a mug of hot chocolate. I take it. He’s asking questions. His words sail over and through me. Staring into the dark liquid of the mug, I begin to fade out of reality. To avoid the return to nightmares, I lift my head and focus on his moving lips.
For a long time — nothing. Then whispers. They grow. Like turning up the volume on the TV. Not all his words make sense — there’s a roaring sound inside my head — but I get his general drift. He’s asking about the murders.
“Demons,” I mutter, my first utterance since my soul-wrenching cry.
His face lights up and he snaps forward. More questions. Quicker than before. Louder. More urgent. Amidst the babble, I hear him ask, “Did you see them?”
“Yes,” I croak. “Demons.”
He frowns. Asks something else. I tune out. The world flames at the edges. A ball of madness condenses around me, trapping me, devouring me, cutting off all but the nightmares.
→ A different room. Different officers. More demanding than the last one. Not as gentle. Asking questions loudly, facing me directly, holding my head up until our eyes meet and they have my attention. One holds up a photograph — red, a body torn down the middle.
“Gret,” I moan.
“I know it’s hard,” an officer says, sympathy mixed with impatience, “but did you see who killed her?”
“Demons,” I sigh.
“Demons don’t exist, Grubbs,” the officer growls. “You’re old enough to know that. Look, I know it’s hard,” he repeats himself, “but you have to focus. You have to help us find the people who did this.”
“You’re our only witness, Grubbs,” his colleague murmurs. “You saw them. Nobody else did. We know you don’t want to think about it right now, but you have to. For your parents. For Gret.”
The other cop waves the photo in my face again. “Give us something — anything!” he pleads. “How many were there? Did you see their faces or were they wearing masks? How much of it did you witness? Can you…”
Fading. Bye-bye officers. Hello horror.
→ Screaming. Deafening cries. Looking around, wondering who’s making such a racket and why they aren’t being silenced. Then I realise it’s me screaming.
In a white room. Hands bound by a tight white jacket. I’ve never seen a real one before, but I know what it is — a straitjacket.
I focus on making the screams stop and they slowly die away to a whimper. I don’t know how long I’ve been roaring, but my throat’s dry and painful, as though I’ve been testing its limits for weeks without pause.
There’s a hard plastic mug set in a holder on a small table to my left. A straw sticks out of it. I ease my lips around the head of the straw and swallow. Flat Coke. It hurts going down, but after a couple of mouthfuls it’s wonderful.
Refreshed, I study my cell. Padded walls. Dim lights. A steel door with a strong plastic panel in the upper half, instead of glass.
I stumble to the panel and stare out. Can’t see much — the area beyond is dark, so the plastic’s mostly reflective. I study my face in the makeshift mirror. My eyes aren’t my own — bloodshot, wild, rimmed with black circles. Lips bitten to tatters. Scratches on my face — self-inflicted. Hair cut short, tighter than I’d like. A large purple bruise on my forehead.
A face pops up close on the other side of the glass. I fall backwards with fright. The door opens and a large, smiling woman enters. “It’s OK,” she says softly. “My name’s Leah. I’ve been looking after you.”
“Wh-wh… where am I?” I gasp.
“Some place safe,” she replies. She bends and touches the bruise on my forehead with two soft, gentle fingers. “You’ve been through hell, but you’re OK now. It’s all uphill from here. Now that you’ve snapped out of your delirium, we can work on…”
I lose track of what Leah’s saying. Behind her, in the doorway, I imagine a pair of demons — Vein and Artery. The sane part of me knows they aren’t real, just visions, but that part of me has no control over my senses any more. Backing up against one of the padded walls, I stare blankly at the make-believe demons as they dance around my cell, making crude gestures and mimed threats.
Leah