Patrolling? I didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to think. “And he’s still there?”
“Well, I haven’t heard or seen anything for a few minutes; he’s probably gone by now.”
“Be careful, Will.”
“Sure. I just thought you’d want to know. I’ll text you when I get home.”
“OK, thanks. Bye.”
I hung up and stared at my phone. What on earth could they be looking for in the woods? Were they working in shifts throughout the night or something?
I thought about Will, alone in the forest and narrowly avoiding running into both Connor and Norman. I hoped he got home without being seen.
Climbing out of bed, I walked sleepily along the landing to the dark bathroom, meaning to splash water on my face in an attempt to wake up; I didn’t want to fall asleep before I heard from Will again.
I placed my phone on the side and was just about to turn the tap on when the whole room was illuminated with a bright light.
We had a movement-sensitive lamp outside in the garden and Keaton usually set it off in the night, but I’d just left him curled up on the end of my bed. Opening the frosted window, I leaned out to see if next door’s cat had burrowed its way into our garden again, and that’s when I saw it.
I froze in place as I felt my mouth opening wide in a soundless scream.
In the middle of the grass - blurred by the rain but still visible - was the unmistakable figure of a man. He was holding a black umbrella over his head. His face was obscured from view but I could tell by his posture that he was looking up at the house.
I knew the rain was soaking my face and outstretched arm but I couldn’t feel it. I knew the bitterly cold wind was swirling into the bathroom but I didn’t pay it any attention. All I could focus on was that large, dark silhouette planted in my garden. I had to get out of view, but I just couldn’t.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood staring at him for, but the figure never moved an inch the entire time I was watching.
Eventually my brain kicked in and I closed the window, locked it, grabbed my phone and collapsed on the floor in one swift but shaky motion. I quickly chose Will’s name from my contacts list and waited for him to pick up. I just hoped he wasn’t still in the vicinity of Norman or Connor in case they were alerted to his presence.
I was counting down the seconds as I listened to the phone ringing out; the man in the garden could try and break in at any time, and I was alone in the house. A tear rolled down my cheek while the phone rang and rang. Finally he picked up.
“Beth?”
“Will, there’s someone in my garden.”
“What?”
I nearly yelled down the phone, feeling an insane hysteria rise up in me. “There’s a stranger in my back garden and I’m the only one at home.”
He must have heard the urgency in my voice and understood that I wasn’t messing around. “Stay there, I’ll be over in a minute.” He hung up.
I knew I’d have to go downstairs and unlock the front door for him, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do that. At the moment I was only just remembering to breathe; any kind of movement seemed beyond my current capacity.
With a jolt I remembered the spare key, and I breathed a sigh of relief as I sent a quick text to Will. All he’d have to do was lift one of the plant pots on the windowsill and he’d be able to let himself in. Not the best idea in some areas of the country, granted, but around here most people didn’t worry too much about break-ins.
But then again most people didn’t have a strange man standing in their back garden. What if he started looking for the key before Will got here? What if Will got here and ran into the man, whoever he was? I was just starting to think of more possible things that could go wrong when I heard a key in the lock of the front door. I held my breath as I waited for Will to run up the stairs; I’d told him in the text that I was in the bathroom. If whoever it was stayed downstairs, I’d know it wasn’t Will.
“Beth?” It was Will’s voice.
I breathed a massive sigh of relief.
After a few more seconds he pushed the door open and his eyes fell on me, sitting pathetically on the floor. His wet hair was dripping onto his face and he smelled of soil and rain. “Beth, are you OK?”
I nodded as he leaned down and brought me in for a hug; he smelled of wet soil and mud.
He whispered in my ear. “Is he still there?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know; I haven’t looked out the window since I called you.”
He stood up, and I watched as he reached out to push the window open. This time I immediately felt the cold rush in and I crossed my arms against my thin camisole top.
I waited, trying to read the expression on Will’s face. After a few minutes he closed the window and crouched down next to me. “I can’t see anyone there now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
I had another horrible thought. “Did you bolt the front door?”
“I did. Beth, what exactly did you see?”
I took a deep breath. “There was a man standing in the middle of the garden, looking up at the house. I stood and watched him for ages; he didn’t move at all.”
“He was looking up? Did you see his face?”
I shook my head. “No. He was holding a big black umbrella but I could tell he was looking up at me.”
Will paused. “A black umbrella? Did you notice anything else?”
I tried to think. “Not really, he could have been wearing a long, dark coat. Everything was just black, I couldn’t distinguish much.”
He sat down and leaned against the base of the sink, frowning.
“What?”
He looked at me. “Connor had a black umbrella with him earlier, and he was wearing a long coat. Black.”
I almost laughed. “Connor? Why on earth would he be in…” I trailed off.
“I’m not saying it was him, but it would make sense after yesterday.”
My mind was racing. “Do you think Connor’s got Norman involved with whatever he’s doing? I mean, what would he gain by standing in my garden like a creepy stalker? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe he wanted to scare you.”
I took a deep breath. “Well, he succeeded.”
My head was spinning. Could it have been Connor out in the garden? Half of me felt relieved at the thought; having a name and a face to put to the figure should have made it less scary somehow. But after Connor’s little Main Street showdown, I was more convinced than ever that he wasn’t the nice Irish boy he claimed to be.
Will got to his feet and offered his hand out to pull me up. “Let’s get to your bedroom, OK? It’s cold in here.”
We walked to my room, and he waited while I got into bed and pulled the covers up to my chest.
“I can go outside and check the garden if you want.”
The thought of being left alone was too much, not to mention the horrible idea of Will bumping into the intruder. I reached out and grabbed his hand. “No!” He jumped slightly at the unexpected volume of my response. “I just don’t want to be here on my own. Would you stay here tonight? Please?” I was far too scared to care that I was now begging Will to stay.
He smiled. “Of course I will.”
I smiled too, relieved. “What about your parents?”
“Don’t worry about it. They get up early and go out to work, they never come in my room. They’ll just think I’m in bed.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem.” He paused. “So, do you think we should call the police?”
I thought about the man outside. “I’m not sure… he wasn’t actually doing anything, and I couldn’t tell who it was. I don’t see what they could do.”
“He’d had to have walked around your house and opened the gate to your back garden; that must be trespassing or something.”
I shook my head. “Whoever he may be - we don’t know for sure. I’d rather not tell them,
they’d probably just say I was imagining it or something.”
“Well…” Will had his head cocked to the side and his eyebrows raised.
“Well what?”
He gave me an apologetic smile. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine it?”
I stared at him for a second in disbelief then shook my head. “Of course, crazy Beth, she’s hallucinating again.”
“I didn’t mean…”
I looked him dead in the eye. “I know exactly what you meant.” With that, I turned away from him, fuming too much to look at his face.
Will’s voice was sounding more desperate every time he spoke. “I just meant, like the guy in the road the other day. And, you know, the whole Emma thing, do you really think…” he trailed off, unable to say the words.
“I didn’t imagine either of them, they were there. And so was the man in the garden. The movement-sensitive light turned on!”
That stumped him. For about two seconds. “Surely an animal or something could have set it off?”
I turned back to face him. “Look, Will. I know we don’t exactly see eye-to-eye on some of the things that have happened recently, and that’s fine. But please don’t try and convince me I’m losing my mind.” I lowered my eyes and started fidgeting with my bed covers, before adding quietly, “I’m already starting to wonder that myself.”
My trembling voice made Will come and sit next to me, putting his arm around my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything else.
“So, you got a blanket or something I can use on the floor?”
I nestled into his arm, feeling safe there despite our little row. “You can just stay here. We can watch TV for a while; I don’t think I can sleep yet.”
He nodded silently as I grabbed the remote and turned the box on. A late night movie was just starting, some ‘80s film called ‘Murder on the Moors’. I rested my head against Will’s shoulder and watched the opening credits, trying to block out the image of the man in the garden. I fought to stay awake but could feel my eyelids getting heavier.
After a while I reluctantly gave into my exhaustion and fell into a deep sleep.
***
I was sitting in the middle of Screen 2 in the Little Forest Picture House, waiting for the film to start. It was extremely cold and I pulled the frayed ends of my sleeves over my numb hands. Staring at the black screen, I shuffled in my seat, trying to get warm.
Getting more and more exasperated, I turned to ask Will if he was cold too, but Will wasn’t there. I turned around to look at the rest of the room, but no one was there. A chill went up my spine as I tried to recount the steps that had led me here. My mind was as blank as the fifty-foot screen in front of me.
I was just about to stand up when the already dim lights got even darker and an image flickered up in front of me. I watched in surprise as the picture focused to show a garden - my garden - with the usually vibrant colours subdued in the darkness.
A single solitary figure stood amongst the long grass, a creepy silhouette in the half moonlight. He was standing under a large, dark umbrella.
At first, I couldn’t take my eyes away from that flickering image; I was scared that if I did, the picture might have changed when I looked back. He might have moved. He might have disappeared.
As it was, the image didn’t change, save for the odd glimmer of light on the wet grass, or when the figure’s coat flapped slightly in the wind.
I couldn’t be completely alone; with a cinema this old, there had to be someone in the projection room. I prized my gaze away from the screen and looked over my shoulder, seeking the small square of light coming from the back wall. When I saw none, I turned round fully in my seat, desperately searching for an explanation.
I rose slowly from my chair, careful not to look at the screen again, and just wanting to get out of this place. I walked as quickly as I could - which for some reason wasn’t quick at all - towards the door with the word ‘Exit’ floating above it in glowing red letters.
I knew before I got there that it would be locked. I tried putting my full body weight against the heavy doors, but with no luck.
Keeping my head down, I walked towards the emergency exit that led out onto the street, but again it was locked and again the force of my weight did absolutely nothing to budge it.
I suddenly thought of the windows in the girls’ toilets next to the screen and turned to face the empty cinema room.
The image had changed.
It was still dark.
It was still raining.
The colours were still muted in the moonlight.
But the man was gone.
No, not gone. He was just nowhere on the screen.
He was in the room.
I jumped and a pain shot through my right arm. Real pain. Something seemed to be coming to my mind but I couldn’t quite think what.
I battled with hazy thoughts as I looked at the figure who was now standing in the middle of the chairs; he was in the row I’d been sitting in just moments ago. I backed away towards the emergency exit and looked down when the sharp metal of the door handle dug into my back.
It didn’t hurt.
When I looked back to the room the figure was still there amongst the seats, but now he was back on the screen as well, a sinister dual image. I watched in horror as both of the figures started to lower their umbrellas in unison, inch by inch, knowingly torturing me.
I braced myself to see Connor’s face, red and sweating, a suspicious glint in his eye. Seeing two of Connor’s face would just be too much.
After what seemed like a lifetime, the umbrella on the screen and the umbrella being held by the man in the seats were both lowered enough so I could see the faces beneath. And it wasn’t Connor.
It was Norman.
Norman, with his hair spiked up and his face a mottled grey colour. Norman, with a giant joker-smile plastered onto his skin and the darkest eyes I’d ever seen on anyone.
I lifted my hands to my head, pulling at my hair in despair. And there was that pain again, shooting up my right arm.
I lowered my arm and looked at it, but there was no sign of anything wrong. When I looked back up, the image on the screen was of an empty garden again, but now there were two Normans in the room, and they’d moved forward a few rows from where the first figure had been standing.
I could see their faces more clearly now, and I really wished I couldn’t. I stood, transfixed, as the two Normans turned to face each other, their identical and abnormally wide smiles getting even wider.
I took my chance while they weren’t watching me and started running towards the toilet door. But of course I wasn’t fast enough, and before I reached it, something grabbed onto my hair and pulled me backwards. I was still reaching out with my painful right arm for the door as I went crashing down.
I saw the scarily wide smile of both of the Normans as I was falling, and just as I hit the floor with a thud, an image of the old woman from Renfield loomed at me through the fading tatters of my dream. I woke up in my bed with a thumping headache and that awful pain in my arm, and the first thing I saw was blood.
There was blood all over my covers.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, something I hadn’t been able to do in my dream, and yelled again when I realised someone was moving next to me.
I looked to my left and saw Will - who had obviously been woken by my shrill shouting - wide-eyed and terrified. He glanced down at the blood as my scream disintegrated into stunted sobs, and he sat up and leaned over me, looking at my arm. I looked too, finally realising what the pain had been.
There were pieces of glass embedded in my skin, and looking at my bedside table, I saw that it too was covered in glass. I must have knocked my tumbler of water over while I was flailing about in bed. The shards had embedded themselves in my arm.
The dream.
I never usually remembered my dreams, even straight after I’d woken up, but I remembered
every single second of that particular cinema horror. I tried to push it away while I concentrated on the red stained covers.
Will had moved round to my side of the bed and was now kneeling down to survey the damage. I’d never been brilliant with blood, and I could feel myself getting light headed as he cleared the glass off the bed.
“Beth, are you OK?”
“I’ll be fine,” I replied, my voice quiet. “I had the weirdest dream…”
“Dream? Can you not see the blood?”
I lifted my throbbing arm and inspected it. “Oh.”
There was one particular shard of glass, about five centimetres long, sticking out of my arm. I couldn’t tell how far it had gone in but the dull pain was getting worse with every passing second.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Will looked scared, whether of the blood or potential vomit, I’m not sure.
“Oh my God… Beth, don’t move. I’ll phone for an ambulance.” He started running off.
“No, wait.”
He stopped mid-stride. “Beth, we have to get you to A&E.”
“Phone for a taxi, it’ll be quicker.” As stupid as it sounded, my giant clumsy gene meant I’d had lots of experience with getting to Willowton hospital, and my parents never stopped talking about the slow response times of the emergency services. “I don’t think it’s too bad anyway, not enough to involve ambulances.”
I watched as Will nodded and ran out of the room to make the call before looking back at my damaged arm. There were at least four cuts that I could see, one of them very near to my wrist. Taking a deep breath, I thought how this would look at the hospital.
I glanced towards the window and could see the early morning light filtering in through my purple curtains. At least it wasn’t still dark; I couldn’t face going outside when he - whoever he was - could still be out there, lurking in the darkness of my garden.
I didn’t have long to linger on that thought as Will raced back into the room to get me ready.
“You sure keep things interesting, Beth.”
If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I would have punched him on the arm.
***
I’d been to the Willowton Hospital A&E quite a few times in my life, and I hated it more every time I went.
There was something about hospitals that never failed to make me feel physically sick, and the air at Willowton Hospital always seemed sour, somehow; I never felt I could breathe properly when I was inside the building.