ift.tt/eA8V8J “How are we today Elizabeth?” I nodded, trying to ignore the snake wrapping itself tightly around Dr Johnston’s neck. She jotted something down in her notepad, wiping a series of small crabs onto the floor as she did so. I watched from the corner of my eye as they crept towards me. “I hear there was an incident in the maths exam?” The doctor looked up over the rim of her spectacles. I shrugged, there was no use denying it. To be honest I was frustrated that I had landed myself back here. I had been doing so well. Ever since I was about 6 or 7 I have had what doctors call hallucinations. Except I feel like that is an unfair description of what it is I see. These things that they tell me no one else sees, they are a part of my daily life; as indistinguishable from reality as any other object, any other living thing. Doctors ruled out schizophrenia, seizures, epilepsy, you name it they ruled it out. No one could figure out why I was seeing things. When I was younger and didn’t know any better I used to interact with them, talk to them, touch them. Depending on the manner of the hallucination sometimes they would talk back. As I got older I got tired of visiting therapists and psychologists every other day, frustrated with the reactions of my family and school mates who just could not see what was right in front of their faces. I stopped insisting the things I could see were there, I made a conscious effort to walk through and see through anything that didn’t make logical sense. This led to some unfortunate situations (like the time I drove into a deer during my learners evaluation) but for the most part I was considered “cured” and people left me alone. Until now. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the stress of the exam or something but the figures on the page began to move. It started with an 8, which peeled itself of the page and made a mad dash for the edge of the table. I made a mad stab at it with my pencil, causing a loud bang in the silence of the classroom. The teacher gave me a slight frown, I mouthed sorry and she went back to her crossword. I pushed the little 8 back into place, ignoring a small red stain pooling from the place where I had stabbed it. Next it was a plus sign that I had written myself in the previous answer. I was becoming frustrated, I had studied really hard for this test and I knew the above answer was right. How could I prove I knew the answers if they kept running off the page? Again I pursued it with my pencil, nudging it back with the small rubber on the end. It made little grumbling noises as it went back into position but, unlike the 8, it remained standing on its tiny feet, making a bid for freedom whenever I shifted my gaze. By now 20 or so other numbers and letters had pulled themselves up from the page and were milling around, making what I assumed was small talk. Shaking hands, doing little dances, they were all very distracting. The more I tried to just concentrate on my work the more the little figures moved, some making it successfully to the floor with a tiny splat, some dangling and falling from my pencil before I had time to finish writing them, landing with their arms and legs at weird angles. And then it happened, all the numbers and letters stopped moving at once and formed five distinct lines facing me. There was a pregnant pause as they stood there, seeming to look directly at me, standing stock still. I froze, not wanting to antagonise them, wondering what they were going to do next. A tumbleweed could have passed between us the atmosphere was so like an old west stand-off. And then without warning they attacked, attaching themselves to my clothing, tearing at my skin with their little hands. I flailed like a girl covered in cockroaches, trying desperately to get them off, squealing until I eventually toppled over backwards and knocked myself out. I came to in the nurse’s office, screaming about numbers and scratching at my skin. The numbers had disappeared. “Tell me what happened.” Dr Johnston looked up from her notepad expectantly. Her throat was beginning to turn purple. “Nothing.” I mumbled, looking down into my lap. One of the crabs scuttled across my foot, making me wince. “I just had a bad daydream; I didn’t sleep much the night before the exam. I was studying.” “What did the numbers do?” She asked, not fooled by my uninspired excuse. “I told you,” I had begun to flush a deep pink, fighting back tears; “it was just a dream. A dream about numbers. I don’t remember anything else.” Dr Johnston sighed, placing her pen onto her pad. I heard the crunch of a shell. “Elizabeth, we have been friends for quite some time. You must know that your family and I are just trying to help you. If you are seeing, hearing…smelling things that are not there you need to tell someone so we can keep you safe.” I smiled and nodded, thinking to myself that I would never be her “friend.” “Ok, I know, I will tell you Dr Johnston but really, I don’t see anything.” The snake hissed at me, its forked tongue licking the air. I focused on the doctor’s eyes. “Well ok Elizabeth.” She sounded disappointed. “But I have to warn you, this is serious. If you see anything again you must tell me. And if another…incident like this occurs we might have to take steps to ensure your safety, and the safety of others.” I picked up my bag and left silently. I knew exactly what she meant. I had only spent a summer at Dulestones but it was the longest summer of my life. Men in white followed wherever I went, I couldn’t even go to the bathroom in peace. Half the time everything was a blur, the medication they had me on made me sleepy and food tasted like ash in my mouth. When I was alert enough to ask when I could go home the answer was always the same. “It depends.” The more time I spent there the more I understood that for some of the patients “it depends” never came. That’s when I really decided to start ignoring my strange visitors. The next morning I woke up to a scream. I groaned, I hated when they woke me up. I pulled the covers over my head, willing whatever it was to go away. It was Saturday morning for pity’s sake. “Please, no don’t!” It was a woman, by the sounds of things, right below my window. I wanted to ignore her but doubt crept in, mine was the only window on this side of the house. What if someone really was in trouble? Thoughts of the deer as it made a sickening crunch on the windshield wandered through my head. I got up and padded to the window. My house is in a fairly quiet street just off the main road of the town. My town is small, four schools, two churches, one hospital small. There is an ally that runs below my window, between my house and my neighbours backyard, although when I say ally I mean it more in a, nicely paved with flowers sense rather than dark and full of trashcans and drug peddlers sense. I looked down, catching the glint of blonde hair in the sunlight. I couldn’t see her face but she was wearing Lorna Jane workout gear and carried a gym satchel in her hand. And, bearing down on her, a man in all black, a beanie covering the dome of his otherwise shaven head. And in his hand a knife. I caught the glint of the knife too, right before he plunged it into her heart. I dashed down the stairs, tripping over myself in my eagerness to get outside. When I reached the lady she was dying, blood seeping into the lush green grass beneath the neat little bushes that lined the pathway. She was breathing heavily but by the way she was grasping my arm I could tell she was trying to say something. She managed a few gasps, a strangled stream of groans and then she died. Bloody footprints led up the right of the ally. I felt tears gather beneath my eyelids, falling on this beautiful woman’s face. What could I do? Was it real? That was my first thought. She seemed real; her hair smelled of strawberries, her clothes felt rough, yet silky. Her gasps had been terrifyingly real, cutting right through my heart. And she hadn’t faded. That was one thing about my hallucinations; once they had lived out their mad, sporadic storylines they faded. Some of my saddest moments had been when a friendly hallucination faded before my eyes, and I was finally certain they had never existed at all. Not all my invisible friends were terrifying. My second thought was, should I tell someone? Well obviously if I had been anyone else, the answer would be yes. Yes, of course, call the cops, scream for your parents, let them take care of the mess you were never supposed to be a part of. But what if it wasn’t real? Dulestones. The word screamed itself over and over in my head. There would be no way of talking myself out of this one. Suddenly I heard footsteps pounding towards me and it seems like the choice was going to be taken out of my hands. I closed my eyes tight, hoping that if it was the criminal, he was just a figment of my imagination, and waited for the inevitable. “My God.” The boy was about my age, with floppy blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He was tall and strongly built; his shadow obscured the sun across both me and the woman in my arms. It was only just dawning on me just how suspicious I looked, but to be honest I felt relief. His reaction told me, in a moment, that this was real. It was both a terrible and a wonderful realisation. “What happened? I heard a scream while I was running.” I looked up at him, realising he was also wearing running apparel. What was it with this town, it seemed like everyone was obsessed with being perpetually healthy. “I-I-I.” I had not expected to have trouble with words until I opened my mouth and gobbledygook came out. I realised that I was shaking. He bent down beside me, looking into my eyes. It was then that I realised I has seen him before. Flashbacks of the back of his head in a school uniform chased themselves across my mind. I knew he was in one of my classes but couldn’t remember exactly which one. I hoped hard that it wasn’t math. “Hello?” He said waving his arm in front of my face. I snapped back to reality, zoning in on him. “Do you have a phone?” He asked gently. “We should call the police.” I didn’t bring my phone. Idiot, idiot idiot! Of course a phone would have solved all my problems, an anonymous call and then even if it was a “hoax” they could never trace me. But I didn’t have one. “Well look,” the boy said when I shook my head, apologising over and over again. “I guess we can just borrow hers.” The look on my face must have suggested horror because he let out a grunt. “Come on, she won’t need it anymore. I’m James by the way.” He passed me the phone. “Unlocked and everything. Come on, hurry up or we’ll never catch up.” The police were on their way and I was running…away from the crime scene. I had wanted to wait for them, tell my parents; anything but James had insisted we go after the guy. “We can’t just let him get away!” His stance had been full of angry energy. “By the time the police get here he will have escaped. Let’s follow his footsteps, come on and bring the phone with you.” “No.” I shook my head firmly, unwilling to leave the poor woman alone. He frowned at me. “Look, there is nothing you can do here, ok? Come with me, I’m not asking you to put yourself in danger, we’ll just find the guy, wait and see where he goes and then alert the police to his location. Besides I can’t go alone, I didn’t see him. No way will I be able to know for sure I’m tracking the right guy.” He pulled my arm, gently but firmly, pulling me to my feet. “Come on.” His eyes were full of energy and I was too shocked by the whole situation to complain, I took his hand, he helped me up and we went after the guy together. “So where do I know you from?” I was gasping, trying to keep up with his quick jog. We had covered about three blocks so far and the blood trail was running thin. It looked like the guy was headed for the main road. “School.” He replied, keeping his eyes focused straight ahead. “I’m in some of your classes.” Damn. I knew that much already. I decided to bite the bullet. “Maths?” The word came out as a squeak. He frowned slightly looking over at me. “I don’t think so.” I couldn’t help smiling. “But I heard about what happened.” The smile dropped from my face as easily as it had broken upon it. “I’m not crazy.” It was all I could think of the say. “I know.” He kept jogging. “Are you sure?” I was looking right at the guy from the ally, following his lazy steps as he walked nonchalantly down the boulevard. He had some milk in a bag, milk of all things and he held a soft serve, ridiculously tiny in his oversized hand. He also had blood dripping slowly from just above his hairline, covering the largest portion of his face but I was guessing if James had to ask, it wasn’t really there. James frowned, never taking his eyes from the guy. “He’s creating an alibi.” James watched my face. I nodded. “He’s collecting receipts from the time of the murder. I bet he didn’t expect anyone to find her so soon.” I got the phone out. “Should we call now?” I asked James. I don’t know why I was looking to him for guidance but he had an air of casual confidence that was hard to resist. He frowned. “I better.” He said, taking the phone from me. “No offence or anything but we don’t want to make it look like you were somehow…involved.” I felt a rush of anger surge through me but I swallowed it, he was right. He made a quick call, I heard him describe our situation to the police. “Ok officer we’ll hang around until you get here.” He hung up the phone and looked at me. “Care for an ice cream?” Even though we were tracking a killer it was kind of nice hanging out with James. Although in recent years I had pretended to stop seeing things word had got around the (small) town and I was known as the “weird kid.” I’d made my peace with it, there wasn’t much I could do about the rumours in any case but one of the nastier upshots was I didn’t have many opportunities to win people over. They weren’t interested in my baggage. The best I did at school was the goth kids, who liked the macabre insinuations surrounding my condition and to be honest I never really fit in with them. It’s funny, once you see enough terrible things you stop wishing the world was full of dark and start searching for the light. In a way I was jealous of the goth kids. “So what do you do for fun?” The question was unexpected. We had been eating in silence; I had assumed James was focused on the hunt. “I crochet.” I know it was a lame answer but it was the truth. “Huh, my mum likes to crochet.” James didn’t say anything more. “I like the things that come out of the wool.” I regretted saying it even as the words came out of my mouth. “It’s hard for dark things to hide in bright fluffy places.” James gave me a look. “So the rumours are true then?” I shrugged. “Not all of them.” “It must be…interesting.” “It’s never dull.” James got up as the man entered a shop opposite us. “Come on, we better keep an eye on him.” He was gone. James swore. “He must have run out the back, maybe he noticed us watching.” “Where are the police?” I was becoming stressed, the music in the small café sounding weirdly distorted in my head. When I was stressed my imagination always got worse. “I dunno but they’ll lose him if they don’t turn up soon. Maybe we should go find a vantage point, somewhere hidden…” Just then a siren sounded behind us. “Oh thank God!” I said, sighing with relief. I looked over smiling at James but he had turned pale, his face set. “James what’s wrong?” He backed away from me. “I’m sorry, I have to go, I-I have to find this guy!” Without another word he ran out the back, the last glimpse of his shoe almost transparent. “Elizabeth Fogart.” A megaphone blared through the doorway. I should have known. It’s like a dream, sometimes you’re having a dream and even though what’s happening is totally nonsensical it makes perfect sense to you. And then you wake up and think ‘did I really just dream that my cat was an acrobat? How did that make sense to me?’ James should never have made sense to me. But he did. Maybe because I wanted him to. “Hello Elizabeth my name is Detective Sorder but you can call me Mary.” A young, sweet looking lady sat down opposite me. We were in the town police station. I could see half the squad staring at me through the glass walls of the office. Mary’s large purple hat wobbled dangerously. I groaned, they’d sent a nice one. This was really serious. “Is everything ok, do you have enough to drink, would you like something to eat?” “Am I being sent back to Duelstones!” The words escaped my mouth in a panic. Mary shook her head. “No, you did really well Elizabeth, we are all very proud of you.” I sat still in shock; this was unexpected. “We had sergeants on the trail of the man several minutes after you contacted us from the ally. They had the café surrounded before the perp ever entered the store. ” I continued to sit very still, watching the hat waver upon Mary’s head. “Without your quick response we could not have caught him Elizabeth so thank you.” The woman’s smile was genuine. “However we do need your account of what happened in the ally, just to make everything is airtight.” I sighed forcefully. “Look Mary, you can sugar coat this situation as much as you like but I know what you’re trying to do I….” Just then the door to the precinct opened and another officer stepped in, holding the shoulder of a tall youth with blonde hair. It was James. “James!” I yelled, looking across the station towards him. “That’s James, Mary, he helped me catch the killer.” Mary frowned. “Yes it’s James. He is detective Morrow’s son. What did you just say about him?” I looked back at her smiling. “He helped me catch the guy. The guy from the café. The guy with the shaved head. Did you bring him in for questioning too?” The officer had brought James closer by now and I gasped in shock, looking at the handcuffs that held the hands behind his back. He smiled at me like I hoped he would but his expression was different somehow. “Elizabeth.” Mary said the word gently, bringing me back to the table. “James is the killer. He found you in the ally way, calling the police. He took you hostage. I shook my head, my eyes widening. “No, he suggested I call the police, he suggested we track the real killer.” “No, Elizabeth I’m sorry.” Mary looked at me sadly. “James killed Mrs Firestone after an argument at the gym earlier. We have the footage. Apparently they had been carrying on an affair.” They let me watch the interrogation. I stood next to his dad behind the two way mirror while another officer asked the questions. I could feel his shoulders shake but I never looked up at him, out of respect. “James you are accused the murder of Mrs Firestone and the subsequent kidnapping of Miss Fogart.” James only nodded. “So you agree that you did do it?” “I did not.” James’ expression did not waver for an instant. “Would you care to explain, then, why you were found leading Miss Fogart into a café, through which you could lead her into your friend’s apartment?” My eyes widened, I had not realised the café attached to anything. James stared straight ahead. “We were following the real killer, everything else was just coincidence. You can ask her yourself, she agreed to come with me.” “James, were you or were you not having an affair with Mrs Firestone, meeting her every Friday night in that same apartment?” A frown creased James’ brow. He sighed. “Look. I am not saying I am completely innocent. Yes, I was carrying on an affair with Mrs Firestone. Yes, we did meet every Friday night. Yes, I did argue with her Saturday morning, in the gym, the footage of which I am sure you have already secured. Yes I did seem violently upset. Yes I was asked to leave. Did I follow her? Yes. I followed her because we had not finished our conversation. Did I intend to hurt her? No. Did I kill her,” and here his voice became deathly quiet. “No.” The officer sat back in his chair, folding his hands across his chest. “So you expect us to believe that between 8:32am when you were seen following Mrs Firestone out of the gym and 8:45am when Miss Fogart placed the emergency call, someone else, with some other motive, came along, in a quiet ally, knowing exactly where to find Mrs Firestone, despite the fact that you and her kept your meetings secret and stabbed her in the chest. AND that same someone,” the officer was becoming heated, “Left a trail of bloody footprints, in your shoe size, in a pattern that matched your sneakers, leading towards the town center, where we later intercepted you attempting to mislead Miss Fogart?” My stomach churned, I felt suddenly sick. I focused on James’ calm face as he stared down the detective. “Believe what you want.” He said quietly, folding his arms and inclining his head toward the floor so that a shadow fell across his eyes. “That is what happened and the only witness you have backs my story entirely. I am innocent of this murder, I swear.” The officer banged his hand on the table so violently I started behind the glass. James did not flinch. “Son, the poor girl was confused!” His accent became more pronounced when he spoke in a rage as he did now. “She has a history of psychosis. She was probably so stressed from witnessing the murder that you could have told her any old and lie and she would have believed it! She didn’t want to believe she was in the company of a killer! You lied to her, led her on a wild goose chase and you thought you could do away with her too, to clear yourself!” “I can describe him to you.” James’ quiet, controlled voice was a stark contrast to the officers, which still reverberated from the walls. I felt officer Morrow’s hand on my shoulder and realised I had been shaking. “What?” The officer spat the word, as if he was tired of the charade. “I can describe him. I saw him. Elizabeth never told me what he looked like but I saw him and I can describe him because I watched him on the main street. You are wrong about me posing a threat to Elizabeth.” His voice was still calm but his chest heaved, his breathing laboured. “I meant her no harm. I meant him harm. Whatever you know or think you know about my relationship with Mrs Firestone, I loved her. And if you let me out of here the first thing I will do is track and kill the man who took her from me!” Finally his vice had begun to shake, his hands clenched white upon the table top. “Ok I think we’ve heard enough.” The police officer pushed his metal chair back, signalling for reinforcements. “There is no point speaking to you if you insist upon this fanciful version of events.” Two blue uniformed officers had made their way into the room and grabbed James by each arm but he was struggling, snarling. “Six foot two!” He yelled at the officer’s retreating back. “Caucasian. Plain black clothes, black beanie. Sneakers, like mine. He had a small scar on his right cheek. He was bald. When we watched him from the street he was holding milk and an ice cream cone. You saw the cone on the floor when you arrested the wrong man. “Yeah yeah sure, I’ll put out a call on Jaws shall I?” The officer chuckled. James stopped struggling as quickly as he’d started and looked, deadpan, into the mirror, right at me. I felt his father shudder beside me. “Six foot two.” He repeated quietly. “Black clothes, black beanie. A scar. On his right cheek.” My head reeled as I pushed my way outside. I couldn’t breathe. I put my hands on my knees as they tears came. Was I really that crazy? I knew the things I saw weren’t normal but could I misunderstand a situation that completely? For the first time in my life I understood what Dr Johnston meant when she said they might have to send me to Duelstones for my own safety. “Elizabeth, are you ok?” Mary’s voice came from behind me. I stood up, unwilling to show her how upset I was. I looked out across the park and my eyes locked…with the man from the ally. It was crazy I hadn’t seen him standing there from the beginning; he stood staring right at me, mere feet away. His cruel mouth was turned up in a sarcastic, shit-eating grin. “That’s him!” I screamed. A few birds flew off the pavement in alarm. “That’s the real guy, that’s the murderer!” I tried to run towards him but Mary pulled me back. “Elizabeth no!” She called for backup. I struggled, something hit me and everything went black. They let me out of Dulestones after a year which I thought was very lenient all things considered. For the first six months I didn’t even want to be released, even though the new medication they had me on meant I wasn’t seeing weird things anymore. But then one day I just felt…ready. And “it depends” became my sweet reality. When I returned to school no one said anything, when I returned home nothing had changed. My parents let me keep my old room when I asked them to. They had wanted me to switch with my sister but I insisted I was fine. They were just happy to have me home. One thing has changed though, since I came back. He stands outside my window, in the ally, every night. He watches me from within the recesses of the dark shadow cast by his beanie. He waits, for what I don’t know. But he stands there every night. In the years that I was forced to ignore my hallucinations I became really good at pretending things weren’t there. Wonderful things, weird things, terrible things. Things could live and die in front of my eyes and I would not bat an eyelid. I tell myself every night that I can do the same with him, pretend he isn’t there. Just for one more day. Just one more day. I’m not going back to Dulestones.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 00:27:15 +0000