Sam Carrington - I Dare You

Four days ago. The same period of time her mother hadn’t left the house.

The vision of Muriel’s front door swam in front of her eyes.

And the doll’s head hammered to it, its relevance now achingly obvious.

All her good intentions of sitting Dom down, telling him about her past, went out of the window with one phone call. Now it would have to wait.

Lizzie shoved her hastily packed bag into the boot of her Vauxhall. She was due to upgrade her poor car, had saved for the last three years, but hadn’t quite been able to part ways with her trusty old friend yet. They’d done a lot of travelling together – she knew every inch of this car, knew how to handle it. Trusted it, despite its obvious failings: the driver’s side window didn’t go fully up or down, had been stuck in a halfway limbo for about a year; the wheel trims had long since been ripped off, and the bumper was practically held on with luck. Dom chided her, begged her to get it seen to, but it wasn’t high on her list of priorities – as far as she was concerned the faults were purely aesthetic. Knowing she was likely to change the car anyway, she’d said it was pointless spending money on it. Then she’d kept stalling on actually looking for a better one.

Some things were hard to let go of.

With an open packet of rhubarb and custard sweets on the passenger seat within easy reach, her travel mug with coffee in the cup holder and the radio on, Lizzie set off. She hoped the butterflies currently swarming her stomach would abate once she pulled onto the motorway. But then, there was a strong chance they might stay with her until this ‘job’ was over.

Singing along to James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’ as loudly as she could bear, Lizzie attempted to focus on the road instead of her destination – and what she’d find there. Who she’d find there. Within twenty minutes she’d joined the M5 motorway traffic. Now all she had to do was follow the signs to Devon.

Friday 21st July

‘Now, this is important. Tell me exactly what you saw.’

She sat on her hands. They’d begun trembling when the policeman had first started asking questions; now, after what felt like hours, he was still asking her stuff and a funny tingling had filled her belly. Why did she need to go over this? She’d told him again and again. Maybe he didn’t believe her. She’d have to say it in a stronger voice.

‘The truck stopped in front of where we were walking—’

‘Which was Elmore Road,’ he interrupted.

‘Yes, I thi— I mean, yes. It was.’ She mustn’t say ‘think’; it seemed to make her mum and the policeman a bit jumpy. ‘I held back and was going to turn around and take the cut-through to go to the park instead, but before I realised, she’d gone.’

‘Gone to the truck?’

‘Yes. I don’t know why she did that. Why she left me.’ Her eyes stung with fresh tears.

‘And what did this truck look like?’

She was somewhat relieved at being asked this; at least it was a different question to the other ones he’d been constantly getting her to repeat.

‘It was a red one,’ she said with conviction. ‘Dad says those types of trucks are called pickups because they have all that open space at the back to put things in.’

‘And what else? Was there anything else about it you can remember?’

‘Oh, yes.’ She felt confident about this now. ‘It had a yellow stripe all the way across the side. And as it pulled off, it turned so it almost went past me. I couldn’t move. I was scared he was coming for me too.’

‘But he didn’t try and take you?’

‘No, I don’t think so. The truck slowed down, but it didn’t stop. But I did see something weird.’

The policeman sat forward in his chair, his round, ruddy face lighting up. ‘Yes? What was that?’

‘I could see something stuck on the front, on the bit that those red noses for cars go for Comic Relief.’

‘The grille,’ the policeman said as he scribbled in his notebook. ‘But it wasn’t a red nose?’

‘No. I could see a face. It was a doll’s head. Just its head.’

Saturday 13th July

Pulling up outside her mother’s house again, Anna noted the doll’s head had finally been removed – holes from the nails the only sign something had been there; the only indication she hadn’t imagined it. She wished that had been the case. Because the alternative was far more disturbing.

Anna cautiously entered the house and rested the bag of groceries on the kitchen worktop. She didn’t speak to Muriel; for the moment she was rehearsing the possible permutations of the conversation she needed to have with her mum in her head. It was a difficult subject to broach, and it required thought. The weighing up of the consequences of opening Pandora’s box weren’t only for her mother’s benefit, she too had to be careful. Years’ worth of self-preservation could easily be unravelled with a single poorly worded question.

As Anna slowly stored each item from the carrier bag into the cupboards and fridge, memories forced their way into her consciousness. She squeezed her eyes up tight, an attempt to prevent the images taking root. As she opened them again, she turned to where her mum was sitting. Muriel was staring at her.

‘You heard then,’ Muriel said, her eyes wide, unblinking. ‘The gossips at the shop, no doubt.’ There was a flatness to her tone; resignation.

At least Anna was let off the hook of being the first one to mention it, the first to dredge up the past.

‘Yes. I heard. It was on the front of the paper too.’ She was going to ask if that’s why her mum had immediately called her, as soon as she heard the news. But she hoped, by not embellishing, that Muriel would carry on the conversation without the need for Anna to intervene with questions. Possibly the wrong questions – those that would hurt and upset, rather than those that would help tease out her fears. Although Anna wasn’t sure she was the right one to be doing that, or, in fact, whether she could offer any real support at all. Because her mum’s fears were more than likely the same as her own. How helpful could she be if she was scared shitless too?

‘It could still be a coincidence, or kids thinking it’s funny?’ Muriel said.

‘Yes, it could.’ Anna tried to feel encouraged. ‘Obviously everyone knows the tale – I expect it’s been told to all the children as a warning over the years. Some teenagers are bound to have thought it was funny to pull this kind of prank. Yes, you’re right. Probably harmless fun.’ A false lightness attached itself to her words. It could be kids, it really could.

‘That’s what I was hoping. Of course, that isn’t what I thought when I first saw it. But I talked myself down, eventually. And once you got here, I felt a bit better about it.’

‘Okay then. Look, it’s not ideal that he’s out, but like Robert said, why would he dare come back here?’

‘Nell’s son Robert?’

‘Yes, he was the one who served me.’

‘No Nell this morning, then?’

‘Ill apparently. He said she’d been feeling under the weather.’

Her mother’s gaze turned to the window as she gave a hmmm sound.

‘You think she’s also worried?’

‘What?’ Muriel’s attention snapped back to Anna. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone since I heard.’

‘Who told you, then?’

Muriel heaved herself up from the chair and wandered into the living room.