The Girl Who Wasn't There Read online

  Just like the rest of the house, everything in here is as old as Rebecca’s grandma. The furniture looks worn and forgotten. There’s a heavy couch, a rocking chair, a piano and a tall grandfather clock. There’s also an open fireplace completely black from soot, and through a row of dirty windows Rebecca can see the terrace.

  She limps to the garden door and turns the handle. This one opens with a squeak. Rebecca looks back across her shoulder as she hears the bell chime. The dachshund has followed her into the living room and is now standing there, eyeing her expectantly.

  “I’m leaving now,” she tells it. “You want to come with me?”

  The dog tilts its head, but doesn’t move.

  “All right,” Rebecca says. “Bye, then.”

  She steps outside and closes the garden door. The terrace is obviously never used: the garden table is green from moss and weeds are growing tall between the tiles.

  Rebecca staggers out on the lawn and continues toward the hedge. She squeezes through the branches and comes out the other side. From here, she has a clear view over the open fields and forest in the distance. She stands for a moment, hesitant, not sure which direction to go in.

  Does it matter? As long as I get far away from here …

  She begins walking, and—

  And steps directly into something.

  “Ouch,” she moans, steps back and rubs her nose and forehead. She stares at the chain-link fence right in front of her. She didn’t see it before, because the thin, grey metal bands blend in perfectly with the overcast sky.

  The fence is ten feet tall, and at the very top sits a row of barbed-wire, making it impossible to climb over. Rebecca begins walking sideways, following the fence all around the outside of the hedge, her hope of finding a way out dwindling with every yard.

  Finally, she reaches the front of the house, where the hedge ends and the open courtyard begins. She stops and peers out from the corner of the hedge. The fence runs all the way around the courtyard, too; the only place it’s interrupted is by the gate where they came in with the van. Even from here, Rebecca can see the chain holding the gate shut and the metal spikes pointing to the sky on top of the gate.

  She turns to go back to look for another way out, and there, between the hedge and the fence, is the creature.

  It has snuck up on her completely silent, the cigar between its thin lips, the garden shears in its hand.

  Rebecca screams. She ought to flee, but the shock has locked her in place. Instead, she holds up her arms in an effort to protect herself, as the creature comes towards her.

  But it doesn’t grab her.

  It simply walks right by her.

  Rebecca blinks and turns to look, as it trudges out onto the courtyard and into the garage.

  Why didn’t it hurt me? Why didn’t it pull me back inside the house?

  Slowly, things begin to fall into place for Rebecca. There really is only one logical conclusion as to why the creature didn’t mind her being out here: it knows she can’t get away.

  Rebecca panics. She runs back along the fence, ignoring the pain from her feet, searching desperately for an opening or even a tiny hole to squeeze through. But she finds nothing. And less than two minutes later, she’s back by the courtyard, only on the other side of the house.

  Rebecca grabs the fence and tries to climb it. She’s pretty good at climbing trees, and she manages to reach the top. But as soon as she tries to grab hold of the barbed-wire, she cuts her hand, screams and falls to the ground.

  She jumps back up and begins shaking the fence. “Help!” she screams. “Help me! I’ve been kidnapped! Hello! Can anybody hear me? I need he—”

  She is cut short as something grabs her from behind. The creature drags Rebecca into the house, upstairs and into the room with the brown wallpaper. It throws her down on the bed and then repeats the procedure of burning her feet and dripping the thick liquid into her eyes. Rebecca screams and fights back all the way through. But the creature is simply too strong.

  Afterwards, it leaves the room.

  This time, it locks the door.

  DAY 4

  Early next morning, before the sun is up, the door is suddenly unlocked.

  Rebecca is already up, sitting by the window, looking into the blurry darkness outside, when she hears the key turn. She turns to look at the door, which is fuzzy to her, expecting it to open—but it doesn’t. Instead, she hears faint footsteps from the hallway as the creature walks downstairs again.

  Rebecca gets up from the chair, then flinches at the pain in her feet. The new wounds hurt worse than the old ones, making it even harder for her to stand up now. In an effort to dull the pain, she wrapped her feet in plenty of gauze, turning them into clunky lumps. She also bandaged the hand she cut on the fence.

  She goes to open the door and finds the hallway empty and almost completely dark. The stench of the creature is still in the air, but so is something much more inviting: the smell of food.

  Rebecca is starving, but the last thing she can think about is food. She hardly slept last night; she just sat by the window, watched the moon rise and set again, and waited for the sound of sirens which never came.

  She doesn’t get it. What’s taking them so long? She’s been here for three days now. They must have begun looking for her by now, so why aren’t they coming?

  Rebecca doesn’t feel like waiting anymore. She’s going to do something about it.

  The stairs are too big of an obstacle for her throbbing feet, so she has to sit on her buttocks and climb down one step at a time, like a toddler would do it. It takes a little longer, but it gets the job done.

  Once she reaches the bottom, she limps out into the kitchen, supporting herself against the wall. She immediately sees the creature; it’s sitting by the table, eating from a plate, its back to her. A second plate is laid out across from it. She can’t tell what’s for breakfast using her eyes, but the unmistakable smell of eggs and bacon makes her mouth water.

  Rebecca has no intention of joining the creature. She stays in the doorway and stares at the blurry outline of its bald head, her heart throbbing in her throat—both from fear, but also something else.

  “Sit down, Alice,” the creature says with its rusty voice, not turning to look at her.

  “I’m not Alice,” Rebecca says, feeling anger arise. “And I’m not going to eat your nasty food. I don’t want to be here. I want to go home.”

  The creature doesn’t reply. It just keeps eating calmly.

  “You’ll go to jail for this, you know,” Rebecca says. Tears are starting to form in her eyes, and her voice trembles. “Once the police find me, you’ll go to jail for the rest of your life.”

  The creature still doesn’t look at her, but it hesitates a second before it continues eating. “Sit down and eat your breakfast, Alice,” it says.

  “I’m not Alice!” Rebecca shouts. “Now take me home!”

  “No.”

  “Take me home!”

  “No!” The creature only raises its voice slightly, but it’s enough to startle Rebecca.

  “Fuck you!” she retorts, and turns to leave.

  The creature reacts with frightening speed. Rebecca hears the chair screech across the floor, four quick footsteps, and then it grabs her from behind.

  Rebecca screams as she’s lifted up, then put down onto the chair.

  “Sit,” the creature growls in her ear, pressing her down so hard it hurts. “Now, eat.”

  It lets go of her, and Rebecca immediately goes to get back up, but the creature slams her down once more, this time hard enough for Rebecca’s teeth to clamber.

  “Eat your breakfast, Alice,” it demands.

  This time, Rebecca stays seated as the creature has made its way back to the other side of the table. It sits down across from her, picks up its fork and resumes eating like nothing has happened.

  Rebecca fights back tears, breathing in through suppressed sobs. She looks down at the plate in front of her, her
appetite completely gone now.

  She just sits there, defiantly not touching her meal, while the creature finishes its own. Rebecca doesn’t want to look directly at it, so she keeps her gaze low, listening to it chewing.

  When it’s done, it looks across the table, sees her plate still full, and asks with a mild tone of surprise: “Not hungry, Alice?”

  “No,” Rebecca says firmly. “I’m not hungry. And I’m not Alice.”

  The creature is looking right at her, and despite her fuzzy vision, Rebecca can see its demeanor change. “Watch your tone, Alice,” it says in a low voice.

  Rebecca crosses her arms, trying not to show how scared she feels. “Can I go now?”

  The creature looks at her for a moment longer, then it says: “Yes. You can go, Alice.”

  Rebecca gets up and limps upstairs, her feet sending painful jolts up through her legs with every step. She slams the door to the room, throws herself on the bed and cries into the pillow.

  Her feet are hurting worse than ever. She can feel the fresh wounds bleed again. She cries and cries as she thinks about her family and Andy who heard her knocking from the van, she knows he did, and he’ll tell the police, and the police will find her, she’s sure they will, but maybe it’ll be a little while, and she cries because she doesn’t want to spend another minute in this house, but she can’t get away, not on her own, because there’s no way she can climb the fence.

  Her thoughts go on like that for a while, until they finally lose speed and without knowing it, Rebecca drifts into sleep.

  In her dream, Rebecca sneaks out into the garden, which has suddenly grown much, much bigger—in fact, it looks more like the park. But it’s still hemmed in by the fence, and the fence is way too high for her to scale it.

  She looks up at the house—except it doesn’t look at all like the house, more like a big, black castle, like the one Dracula lives in. She can’t see the creature in any of the windows, yet she knows it’s in there somewhere and that it might look out any minute to see her trying to escape, which means she needs to hurry, so she turns to the fence, and to her surprise sees Andy standing there right on the other side, holding his bike and waving at her.

  “Come on, Becca!” he calls to her. “Come out here!”

  “I can’t! The fence is too high, and there’s barbed-wire at the top.”

  “You don’t go over it,” Andy says, grinning and shaking his head the way he always does when he finds her silly. “You go under it!”

  Rebecca looks down and sees a small hole in the lawn right up against the fence. It looks like a cat or maybe a fox has dug its way under the fence.

  She throws herself down and begins widening the hole by digging eagerly with her fingers. It’s a lot easier than she thought; the ground is very soft and comes away in big chunks.

  Soon the hole is large enough for her to crawl through. And so she does, squeezing under the fence and jumping to her feet.

  “I did it!” she exclaims with joy, looking around. “I did it, Andy! … Andy? Hey, where did you go?”

  Her brother is nowhere to be seen. Suddenly, the day seems a lot darker, as heavy, black clouds have covered the sky above.

  “What are you waiting for, Becca?”

  Andy’s voice makes her turn around. To her astonishment, she sees Andy grinning at her from the other side of the fence.

  “Quit messing about, Becca,” he says, his smile faltering a little. “Come on out here.”

  “What are you talking about?” Rebecca says. “You’re the one who—” She stops talking when she realizes she’s still in the garden. She must have crawled back by accident somehow.

  She gets down, squeezes through the hole, gets back up, and …

  And is still in the garden.

  “Seriously, Becca,” Andy says from the other side—he’s starting to sound scared now. “It’s not funny anymore. Just come out here, okay?”

  Rebecca crawls under the fence again. And again. Each time she does, she ends up right back in the garden.

  “Hurry up, Becca!” Andy shouts suddenly, pointing towards something behind her. “It’s coming for you!”

  Rebecca doesn’t have time to react before a strong, cold hand grabs her shoulder, and she

  awakens with a gasp. She sits up in bed, breathing heavily, as she remembers where she is.

  In the room with the brown wallpaper. In the creature’s house.

  Outside, the sun is setting. She feels like she was only gone for twenty minutes or so, but once again she slept most of the day. The pain in her feet has lessened. Instead, her stomach aches from hunger.

  She rubs her eyes and looks around to test her vision. It’s better, but not perfect. She sniffs at the smell of food and sees the plate on the desk.

  She gets up, but sits back down again right away, as lightning shoots up from her feet. She can’t walk, so she gets down on her hands and knees and crawls to the desk, climbing up onto the chair.

  Rebecca eats the whole meal. It’s mashed potatoes with bacon bits just like yesterday, and it lands heavy in her belly. There’s also a big glass of milk. It’s lukewarm, but she downs it all in one go anyway.

  Then, she leans back in the chair and sighs deeply. Somewhere in the house a melody is playing; it’s probably the radio.

  She recalls the dream she had. She can’t remember it exactly, but it was something about Andy. She spoke with him. His voice sounded so real in her mind. She bites her lip to keep back the tears.

  There was something else in the dream. An idea. It’s floating around right at the outskirts of her memory, threatening to dissipate forever. She concentrates hard.

  What was it? Something about the fence, I think.

  She slips down from the chair and crawls to the window, pulling herself up by the arms. There is no moon or stars out this evening, as the sky is cloudy, so everything is very dark out there. But she can still make out the hedge separating the garden from the surrounding fields. And she knows the fence is right on the other side.

  I had an idea. A way to get past the fence. What was it?

  Then it comes to her. She dreamed she crawled under the fence instead of over it. She dug a hole—no, a tunnel, actually, just like inmates would do in old-school movies when trying to escape prison—and then squeezed through it.

  Rebecca feels invigorated. It’s a good idea. It just might work.

  But not yet. Not until tonight. When it’s sleeping.

  Rebecca stares out of the window a little while longer, then she crawls back to bed, heaves herself up and rolls onto her back.

  She just lies there, waiting for night to come, listening for the melody playing downstairs. Now she doesn’t feel quite as hopeless. Now she has a plan.

  DAY 5

  She must have slept some more, because when she suddenly sits bolt upright, it’s even darker in the room. And the house is completely silent.

  It’s time.

  She swings both feet to the floor, gently putting weight on them. The feet immediately object with painful jabs, and it makes her hesitate. The mere thought of making her way through the house, downstairs and out into the garden is enough to almost make her postpone the plan. Maybe it’s better to wait a few days—just until the wounds have healed enough for her to walk again.

  “No,” she whispers, gripped by a sudden determination. She won’t spend one more night in this house. Even if it means she has to crawl out of here.

  So, she gets to her feet and limps to the door. She opens it tentatively and looks out into the dark, empty hallway. She walks to the stairs, leaning on the wall as she does so, then scales the stairs using her toddler-method.

  She heads for the scullery, walking slowly and stepping carefully, trying to make as little noise as possible. As she crosses the hallway, she picks up a whistling snore from a door standing ajar. She peeks in, holding her breath, and sees a large bed with a thin figure lying under a blanket. At the foot of the bed is a dark lump which suddenly comes
to life and lifts its head. It’s the dachshund, looking over at her.

  Rebecca puts a finger across her lips in a silent shushing. The dog probably doesn’t understand the gesture, but it stays put anyway and doesn’t make a sound.

  Rebecca’s heart is pounding away by now. The creature is probably very easily stirred awake, so she needs to be extra careful.

  She slips out into the scullery and places her hand on the knob. It won’t move. Instead, she turns the lock very slowly. It clicks with a sound like a gunshot. Rebecca freezes and just stands there for ten seconds, listening.

  Nothing happens. No sounds from the bedroom.

  Once she’s satisfied the creature is still sleeping, she opens the front door and is met by a breath of fresh, cool night air. She steps outside and closes the door behind her.

  The sky is no longer cloudy, and the moon shines bright enough for her to see.

  As she steps out onto the gravel, her bare feet—which are hurting plenty by now—give off renewed shots of pain as the pebbles press up into the bandages. But there’s no way back now.

  She looks to the gate. It’s closed and probably also locked, although she can’t see the chain from here; still, she knows it would be a waste of valuable time to go check it.

  Instead, she heads for the garage.

  The walk across the gravel is the closest thing to torture Rebecca has ever experienced. She attempts to place the weight on her heels, but it only reduces the pain a tiny bit.

  When she finally reaches the garage and steps onto the cold concrete floor, her feet are turned into a couple of burning lumps, and tears are running down her cheeks.

  She wipes them away and looks around in the dark, blinks and strains to see. There is a lot of junk in here, and a long table filled with tools, but she can’t see what she came for. Perhaps it’s not here. Perhaps the creature doesn’t even own a—

  Then she sees it. It’s hanging on the wall right next to her along with a few other garden tools. Rebecca reaches out and carefully takes the shovel off the hanger.

  She limps back out of the garage and around the back. This time, she can use the shovel as a cane, leaning on it to take some the weight off her feet.