Sarah England - Baba Lenka - Pure Occult Horror

What had Sophia taught Lenka? What was it? I struggled to remember until the answer appeared. Yes, it was to imagine a cord that switched those channels on and off, and to pull it.

Because the only one of interest was the man behind me, the one whose eyes were still boring into my back.

Nicky stood up to fetch the next round of lagers and black.

“Do you believe in the supernatural?” I blurted out.

She sat down again and frowned. “We ’ad this conversation before, a long time ago, didn’t we? Wasn’t it about you ’aving nightmares when you were little?”

“Yes, and you said your mum did voodoo?”

Nicky looked sheepish. “She told me off about that, said the conversation had come up and you went and snitched. I told you not to say owt!”

“Sorry, I didn’t think you meant your mum.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know what she admitted to, but she did this thing once with her sister. They stuck pins in a doll. Did she tell you that the girl, the victim, got sick?”

“Yes.”

“It were my auntie who told me originally. She said it was important to stay with Jesus, and if you did then you wouldn’t go far wrong. It scared me. I mean, we don’t know what’s out there, do we? We have no idea what we’re messing with. Everyone thinks that when we die we’re dust, so Ouija boards and stuff like that are just a laugh! Anyway, for what it’s worth, I think spirits exist. Some people go mad, you know – when summat bad ’appens?”

My mum came to mind then.

“Are the nightmares still happening, Eva – those with your great-grandmother coming to you? I know you used to be right scared.”

“Sometimes.”

“You have to pray to Jesus and ask him to save you. I’m not kidding. My auntie said after they’d asked the spirits of the dead to help them and stuck pins into this doll, that a shoe went flying across the room and hit the wall. And the lights flicked on and off… all sorts… then they found out what happened to the girl. So, it is real. You’re not doing stuff, are you? Practising black magic?”

“Erm, no–”

She reached across the table and squeezed my arm. “I worry about you.”

“Don’t, I’m fine, honest.” My smile was frozen, though. If she had even the slightest inkling about what I’d done, she would cut the cord between us, and the only friend I had in the world would be forced to turn her back on me. What else could she do?

The conversation put a bit of a downer on the evening, and for another hour or so we just chatted and discussed the other kids in school, boys in particular, and made plans to go and see ‘Stardust’ at the Odeon. Then at ten to ten, we stood up to leave. It’d be a sprint to get back by ten.

By that time most people were rowdy and drunk, and I was following Nicky as she pushed through the throng of bodies towards the exit when it happened. It felt as if an invisible thread was pulling my attention, forcing me to look over my shoulder. I crashed into several people all at once, drinks spilled and someone called me a stupid bitch.

But all I could do was stare.

It was him. The man whose eyes had been boring into my back all evening. This time though, seen through the smoky haze of the lit bar, his face was clearly visible. So, too, the long legs, expensive jacket and the slight stoop due to his height.

My heart fair stopped. No, it couldn’t be. How was this even possible?

He lifted his glass in salute.

It was Heinrich Blum!

In the end, it was longer than a week before we went to visit Mum. Another month, in fact, on a drowsy midsummer afternoon, when the curtains in the nursing home where I worked were drawn against the glare of the sun, and fans had been placed next to the old people’s beds. It blew their fine white hair into ice-cream wisps, many of them staring glassy-eyed into the distant past. Occasionally a gnarled hand would snatch at my arm as I walked past, forcing me to bend down and lock eyes with their lonely bewilderment. I bet they wished they hadn’t, though. Despite their earthly existences now rapidly fading, I swear some flinched, seeing something there that frightened them. They knew. Even those who could no longer recognise their family and could not recall their own names, knew what dwelt within me. Yet the nursing staff did not. Intelligent people often refused to see unpalatable truths, it seemed – their busy, tutored minds suppressing a deeper wisdom.

After the pillow incident, the nurse who’d responded to the buzzer that day told me I’d been standing by the bed ashen-faced and mute. In shock, I’d let her lead me to the staff room amid murmurs of “It’s her first death. She’s only eighteen – never seen a dead body before.”

Hot, sweet tea was made as I sat there shaking. “I just found her like that,” I said “All limp with these staring dead eyes…”

I drank the tea, and they murmured reassurance, but the rest is a blur. The murder had been about as real as Lenka’s satanic initiation – a dream, an illusion, a memory not mine… until about a week after that night out with Nicky, when reality struck hard, and I was forced to wake up.

My God, I was ill. This time, I was to find my hair falling out in handfuls. I’d been having an explicit and highly disturbing dream. In a large bath of blood, there’d been dozens of us rubbing it into each other’s bodies, smearing it into the skin, writhing and chanting, ‘Hail the Dark Lord! Hail Satan!’

On waking up, not only was my hair coming out, but there were patches of vomit on the sheets, and the bed was soaked with urine. In a panic I shot over to the sink and splashed my face with cold water. This wasn’t happening… couldn’t be… But the girl reflected in the mirror was ugly beyond all comprehension. Cracks had opened up around the mouth, the scalp shiny and pink where it was balding, the eye whites jaundice yellow. And the skin… what the hell was happening to it? Backing away, my hands flew to my face. Boils were pulsing underneath it, rising in hot, red lumps.

The room stank. In panic, I ran around stripping off the sheets, opened the skylight, grabbed towels and soap. This could not happen. It was not real. It was not. Please no, and especially not now, when I’d found someone who liked me and who I liked back. I wanted life. I was just sixteen! And what about Luke? That was all I could think. Tears poured down my face. What was I going to do about him? We were supposed to meet again that night!

The man from the pub was not Heinrich at all, he just bore an uncanny resemblance. After the initial shock of that wore off a little, I’d returned his smile and he’d inclined his head, indicating I should go over and speak with him. I couldn’t. Nicky and I were already late and Helen, my new landlady, would give us hell if we didn’t get back for ten. So he followed us out to the car park and walked with us. His name was Luke, he said, and he worked in Leeds, rode a motorbike and liked Punk – particularly the Sex Pistols. All three of us chatted about music for a bit, then when we levelled with Helen’s house, Nicky hurried to the door, while he and I hung back.

“Look, do you want to go out some time?” he said.

Hell, yes!

I told Helen I was going to the pictures, but the following night I met Luke and we just walked to the park and held hands and talked. I had to be back for ten, as before, but the time zipped past too quickly and by the time he was kissing me up against the wall outside the house, I thought it might be love.

That night was to be our second date.

But there really was no way I could go. The only option was to stand him up. I couldn’t let him see me like that. What if he turned up, though? I mean, knocked on the door? That’s what I was thinking. And what about Helen and the kids? They’d all see me, too!