Echoes

He blew open the wooden door and screamed at the top of his squeaky voice, ‘THERE IS A FUCKING MONSTER OUTSIDE. HE’S GREEN AND HAS CLAWS AND A TAIL AND TEETH–HUGE TEETH–AND HE…IS…KILLING PEOPLE. ANYBODY, ANYTHING. YOU HAVE TO LEAVE, YOU HAVE TO ESCAPE. NOW!!’

Tap. Tap. Plonk. Print. Zuuuoooom. File. File. Shuffle. Shuffle. Bleep. Bleep.

‘DID YOU HEAR ME? I KNOW IT SOUNDS STRANGE. IT’S MAD, I KNOW. I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT MYSELF, BUT PLEASE, IT’S BIG AND IT’S SCARY. PLEASE.’

Plonk. Plonk, blip. Blip. Flick. Flick. Tap. Tap. Tap. Stare. Stare. Stare.

Albert clawed his hand desperately through his hair, as though something were creeping up behind him. He spoke again, his eyes frolicking about, rattling in his skull, fantastically psychotic, as though he were a main part in an excellent sci-fi film, ‘PLEASE!!!!’

‘Go home, Albert. Just go home.’ Mr Hurt gave up.

‘Go home? Go home? But there’s a…’

‘It’s because of ignorant people like you that things like war happen,’ Mr Hurt croaked out.

Albert frowned. Confused. Bit harsh. ‘Fine. Fine,’ he managed and went to leave, turned around again. Tap. Tap. Tap. Mr Hurt and his stupid face turned back to the screen. And then he saw his plant on the desk, now gaffa-taped up, rescued. And he took it with him, turned to the room and its grey contents and said, ‘And it’s because of negative people like you that nobody believes in a story anymore, and for that, Mr Hurt, I will never forgive you.’

And he plunged down the stairs, hurtling forward, catapulted himself out of the door and then changed his flurry into a casual stroll, whistling as he popped into a paper shop, then into Costa, and got that coffee he was after. He watched the road, the mums with pushchairs, gossiping, trotting past, the man on his mobile in a rush, the schoolboys laughing with their bags of chips, the cute girl with the beret. Albert picked up his pen and began scribbling down all the ideas he possibly could, excited, he spewed out phrases so wickedly; he could barely get a grip on the pen and he scrawled…

And then the monster got into Limps. He ripped off Mr Hurt’s head, and then squeezed his torso until his guts poured out of the open gash where the neck was meant to be, like a tube of toothpaste and everybody was sorry then.

…even if it was true, if the monster was there, if it did claw its way into the office and begin slashing throats and crunching bones, Albert wouldn’t have minded, he wouldn’t have tried to escape. It would be the most interesting thing that had happened to him. Ever.

Skin It Helps to Keep Your Insides in, Woah, My Skin, So Glad You Were Invented…) (#ulink_f7e544ad-941e-5b01-86b5-8492bca748dc)

Banshel (#ulink_d5211c9c-935c-526d-b780-98c8181f340c)

I often took late walks, especially whilst house sitting for the Barretts. They had a strange little dog called Mozart, friendly, but oddly curious, and I would walk him along the beach and on top of the cliffs. The seaside, at night, is terrifying. Thinking back, I don’t know why we walked that way.

Here, in the night light, the pebbles took on the characteristics of beetle’s eyes. The sea was cold and ringing, the air piercing, the wind howling, burying itself into cracks in cliffs, the loose rocks surveying the emptiness like watchmen. The subtle salt residue clung to the cliff face like leftover tears; the grass took a beating and warned the seagulls of the weather. Beacons lit the land, dusted the beach like the crumbs of a Christmas ginger biscuit. Apprehension hung in the playground like a word on a lover’s lip; ghosts swung on swings, slid down steel and round on rubber, shared kisses, and passers-by breathed invisible cigarettes and bad kids smoked real ones.

Mozart ran to the heath, barking. I threw him a ball but we were both too blind in the darkness to see it. He ran into the night, I watched the end of his tail trail off until I could no longer see him.

‘Come on, Mozart,’ I called, searching for him. The blackness was dense and secretive. It hid the world away from me.

‘Mozart, here boy…come now, boy.’ I heard his barks but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘Mozart!’ I shouted, louder this time. The barks faded. I began to walk towards the heath. My mouth tasted of copper. The wind stirred and I felt pressure behind me, heavy, as though a pair of invisible hands had shoved me forwards.

The darkness had smothered me like a kitten in a trapped curtain. I scrambled but all I could see was the end or the beginning of a dense search.

Now I am as mad as the eye of a rabid crow.

As lost as a missing glove.

As discomforted as drinking tea from a neighbour’s mug.

And my heart is anywhere but home.

At first I thought I was dreaming, as clichéd as it is. I saw her by the sea, a hood over her head, so small and dark that it would have been quite possible to have missed her, if I had wished to. Her elbows were working; I saw her shifting–forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards–as though she were sanding wood.

I should have let her be.

By the light of the beacon I made out the woman in some more detail. What was she doing out so late? I made my way over the stones, the air was cold, deathly cold. The sea hushed in and out, sweeping.

‘Excuse me,’ I began. ‘Excuse me…’

The lady clearly couldn’t hear. I went closer; the air was biting my nose, and a tear ran down my face.

‘Excuse me…’ I tried again. ‘Sorry to bother you, but you haven’t by any chance seen a dog around have you? My dog has gone wandering.’

Again, the lady ignored me. Strange.

I left the lady and walked away from the sea. I would go to the top of the heath and call for Mozart there; I would be at an advantage from the height. I felt oddly obscure without Mozart’s company, wilting, and my panic was slowly translating to tiredness. With each hoof up the heath, I figured I could see him, his little body, wagering, but it was my mind playing tricks, until he howled a scuffed, scruffy moan from the end of the Barretts’ home and he was there, chewing something in between his clawed paws.

‘Good boy,’ I ruffled his back. ‘What you got there, boy? Let me see.’ Mozart snarled as I put my hand forward. ‘Come on, boy. What have you got there?’

The dog growled, angrier this time, his eyes like yellow flames put my hairs on end. I reached in again. ‘Show me, boy, come on, Mo. GAH!’

The dog bit my hand, not as hard as he could have but a bite all the same. That was unlike him. I felt as though I wanted to cry from sheer shock, it was too unusual, unusual behaviour indeed.

‘Okay, boy. Home.’ Too tired to shout at him, and not wanting to aggravate the animal even more, I headed back to the house. We’d have tea; he always had a mug of tea poured into his bowl, sometimes he liked a slice of toast too. But tonight he didn’t seem interested. He sat in the corner of the kitchen, crumpled round the cupboard chewing on whatever he had as I washed and saw to my wound. The tea I had poured for him in the bowl went from hot to warm to lukewarm to cold. I decided to leave the damned canine, and sort it out in the morning.

In bed, the wind swept the windows, rumbled the glass rooted into the ledge. I tried to sleep. My eyes wouldn’t stick to their lids. I couldn’t relax, my dispute with Mozart was playing on my mind, I felt the bandage around my hand, the throbbing ache beat with a pulse of its own. I had to go downstairs and see what it was he had.

I let myself out of the bedroom; the corridor was dark and cold. The floorboards felt like planks of ice under my milky trembling toes, black-wired hairs standing on end. I could hear the water boiler, filling, trickling and churning. When I got downstairs, Mozart was snoring in his corner. I squeezed in through the crack in the door, not wanting to wake the dog with the un-oiled muuuuu of the hinge. Light flooded in, a luminous box of shadow darted over the kitchen tiles. The dog’s ribcage was going up and down, up and down, up and down. I squinted my eyes in adjustment, trying to focus, to get a better look. A slice of silver glimmered, shone at me like a chink of light. I went over. In between his paws was the object. I carefully put my hand forward, I didn’t want another bite. The dog flinched. I moved back quickly, breathed, and tried again, my hand quivering in its forwards move. I grasped it–ha!–and escaped quick as can be into the hallway to look at my prize.

It was a comb. A small silver one, antique. Beautiful. Each prong as perfect as the next and the design butterflies engraved into the silver, heavy, not too heavy as to break hair, but not cheap. He was a funny old dog, sensitive old fool. Still, he could hurt himself on the comb so I decided to keep it upstairs with me. Much more relaxed now, I went to bed and lay down, within moments I was sleeping, heavily.

I awoke at around four to an alarming noise; it was Mozart, that silly dog, missing his comb. I could hear him at the bottom of the staircase, crying his needy little heart out. I thought about not getting up but he was really upset, he had a real wail going. ‘Okay, boy,’ I reassured. ‘I’m coming.’ I put on my housecoat and made my way downstairs to tend to the dog.

But the dog wasn’t at the bottom of the stairs. He was asleep, sound asleep. The wails were still going, screaming now, like a crazed fox or a deranged woman. I searched the house; it sounded the same distance away everywhere I searched. Piercing, it was, screeching. The house shook, the ornaments rattled, falling off the mantel, the knifes rang in their block, the pots and pans on the ceiling harness jangled, murmurs whistled through the keyhole from the treacherous wind. My ears were bursting and I covered them with my palms as I ran round the house. Mozart was awake too now, his tail down, his heavy salty eyes the size of snooker balls. I scooped him up and took him to the bedroom where he trembled in my arms. I put him into the bed with me and pulled the blanket over the top of us. Our bodies shaking in rhythm together, squeezing him closer I felt his tiny heart flattering. I tried to calm him with my voice, soothe him with a stroke; the noise was unbearable, it made me nauseous.

Then, at last, the screaming stopped. I let out a heavy sigh. I slowly pulled back the blanket and peeped my eyes out from under the quilt. It was as though nothing had ever happened.

Until I saw her.

At the window was an old woman. Toothless, black-eyed with white wirey hair, a tatty black shawl round her haggard shoulders. She looked me dead in the eyes, her bony arm slowly lifting upwards, and that was when I realized she was hovering.

‘AWAY!’ I shouted.

My mouth clammed up once more. Her arms reached higher and higher until she rolled her fragile hand into the shape of a fist, about the same size as a small plum and she knocked.

And knocked.

And knocked.

Three times in total and then pointed her finger, straight at me, her nail shooting into the glass like a warning. I looked down the bandage around my hand I had used to cover my wound from Mozart–it was drenched in thick red blood. A tremendous pang weighed me down, filling my larynx with a cloggy bogginess, unsure of what this feeling was leading me to believe, it crept up on me like hands in the dark and something made me think–it was my turn.