Brett McBean - Tales of Sin and Madness

The spot on her body had grown since this afternoon. It now ran from the top of her left breast to the center of her chest — a sort of oblong patch roughly the size of a matchbox. She had no idea what it could be: cancers didn’t grow that fast, and it didn’t hurt like a bruise would.

Had she picked up some disease from the house?

She didn’t want to go to the doctors — they terrified her. She wanted to tell Claire about it, but not tonight. Tonight she just wanted to lie in bed with the photo. It was the one thing that gave her comfort, the one thing that kept her mind off the heat, the writing and the blemish.

She smiled at the family in the photo, pretended they were smiling back at her. She had named them — the man was Sebastian, the woman Heather, the boy Craig and the dog Sammy. Silly, she knew, but she didn’t care. There was something about the photo, something special. She was drawn to it.

She still wondered who they were, where they lived and what the photo was doing in the house. But those questions seemed less important now than the photo itself, the energy and solace it gave her.

She turned on to her back and blinked hot sweat from her eyes. The heat was getting to the picture too. A small portion of the photo was completely gone, as if what used to be there never existed in the first place.

Where did you come from? she wondered, placing the photo against her chest. It felt hot, hotter than her skin, yet she didn’t take it away. There was something calling her, something or someone, she was sure of it, and just as she was about to open her eyes to see if it was coming from outside…

There were fairies and elves and wands everywhere, only they were tainted now by evil. The room was dark except for a solitary candle, and it not only flickered against the dirty old mattress with the horrible smell, but something else, something small and shaking. A human form, with long golden hair and dirty clothes. The person’s head was buried in the mattress — seemingly asleep. Then a sound, a thumping sound, and the candle wavered, as if something moved very close, causing the light to flicker over the fairies and elves and wands. A man. Tall, large, hairy. He enters the room, holding a bag, smiling and then the person with the long golden hair wakes up, looks towards the man and starts to scream. It’s a girl and she screams and tears are flowing down from her eyes as the man starts forward, eyes glowing with evil lust…

“Julia!”

Julia awoke, body bathed in sweat, breathing in quick gasps, unsure if the person calling her name had been part of the dream.

Dream? Fuck, that wasn’t a dream, that was a nightmare .

“Julia! Hey you up there!”

Julia sat up and the photo fell off her chest.

It was Cindy.

Hopping out of bed, Julia walked over to the window and pulled aside the curtains. Two stories down standing on the sidewalk were Cindy and Belinda.

“We’ve been trying to reach you all night,” Belinda called. “What’s up?”

“I’m not feeling too well guys. I’m going to have to give tonight a miss.”

“Okay, suit yourself,” Cindy shouted.

“Say, this isn’t a peep show hon,” Belinda said. “We all know you’ve got a great body, but you don’t have to make us feel bad.”

“And you’ve got a tattoo now? When did that happen?”

Julia looked down and saw the blotch had grown again. It was now double the size of a matchbox.

Oh Christ.

“What is it?” Cindy called. “A love heart?”

“A Unicorn?”

“I know — the Stars and Stripes?”

“I have to go, sorry guys. Have fun.” She shut the window, pulled the curtains closed then dashed into the bathroom. She switched on the light and gazed at the blotch that covered half her chest. “Oh God,” she whimpered. “What’s happening to me?”

She stepped closer to the bathroom mirror and examined the growth more intimately.

She suddenly felt dizzy.

“It can’t be possible.”

She saw the photo reflected in the mirror — a faint and blurry image, but there was no mistaking the house and the trees and the three people and dog. They were all there, smiling at her, the man and mutt broken by the crease.

She dashed out of the bathroom and over to the bed, to the photo that lay on the sweat stained sheets. She picked it up. The picture was almost entirely faded.“What’s happening!” she cried and fell to the floor, clutching the photo to her chest, the photo folded on its crease as it was meant to be.

The phone rang.

Not Belinda or Cindy this time.

Julia got up and staggered to the phone. With an unsteady hand she picked up the handset. “Hello?”

“Jules it’s me. Are you okay? You don’t sound too good.”

As much as she wanted to tell her sister everything, she just choked back tears and answered, “I’m fine.”

“Okay. Listen, I’ve got something really amazing to tell you.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Julia said. The photo was hot in her hand. All she wanted was to savour its energy, be with it and nothing else. She didn’t want any distractions.

“But Jules…”

“Just leave me alone!” She dropped the phone, the receiver dangling off the coffee table by its cord. “No more,” she sobbed and fell to her knees.

Am I going crazy?

She wanted answers. Needed them.

The image on her chest meant something. It wasn’t just some cancerous growth or mutant bruise — it was a sign, it had to be.

“Tell me, please. What do you want?”

Clutching the photo to her heart, as if it were her lifeblood, she saw…

The little girl screams and tears are flowing down from her eyes as the man starts forward, eyes glowing with evil lust. “I have something for you,” he croaks. He digs into the bag and pulls out an old rag and a knife. The little girl screams and begs the man to leave her alone. She tries to run, but the man grabs her by her golden hair and punches her in the face. Sobbing now, the little girl lies still on the mattress, while the man shoves the rag into her mouth. He clutches the knife in his hand and with his free hand, undoes his pants, freeing his erect penis. “I have something else for you. Something you’ll really enjoy.” He grins and laughs and kneels down, pulling the little girl’s nightgown up around her waist. “Don’t worry, this won’t hurt. Just stay quiet and it’ll all be over soon…”

She is the girl. She’s hurting, scared and afraid. She knows the bad man that’s been hurting her and touching her. But she doesn’t want to think about that now. As the bad man presses down on her, she squeezes her eyes shut and thinks of Mommy and Daddy and Sammy and, yes, even her rotten brother Craig. Of last summer when they all went to the beach and swam and played volleyball and Mommy kept on hitting the ball into the water. She made Daddy go in and get it. Sammy was running around chasing the gulls, silly doggy.

As the pain rips through little Amanda, she keeps a firm hold of her photo and tries to block everything out. Everything except the good memories. Like the day she took the photo. The one she managed to grab before the bad man had taken her. The one that he hasn’t found yet, because she keeps it hidden, keeps it folded and hidden so the bad man won’t find it and tear it up. She clutches the photo hard and tries to remember the day, the very first time Daddy let her use his camera and Daddy and Mommy and Craig all stood outside their house while she waited for them to stop kidding around so she could take the picture. Even Sammy managed to stay still long enough for her to take the picture. “Cheese,” she had said, then pressed the little button. After they had gotten the photos back, Daddy had said that hers was the best one out of them all and he let her keep it in her room, beside the bed, which is where it stayed until the bad man came. But she still has it and keeping it close to her heart makes her feel that Mommy and Daddy are close and that everything is going to be okay. They are going to come and take her away, because the mattress stinks and she wants to go home, away from all the fairies and elves and magic wands…