The world is a scary place. Every day
we’re forced to make choices, no matter how small, that may be leading us along
a new path. Whether that path is heading towards something good, like a
promotion or meeting some special, or towards something bad, like an accident,
or even death, we can never know. In the end, that’s possibly the scariest
thing of all.
That’s why I need your help to guide
a character, or characters, through the possible dangers that await them
in #YourHorror, an interactive horror story that
will be shaped by the choices you make. Even I don’t know what will
happen, and I’m the writer…
From Monday to Friday, at
roughly 8pm GMT each day, there will be a new Twitter poll. These polls will ask you to choose between a number of options, each
of which may take the story in a new direction. Sometimes a decision will give
a bit more insight into the character, setting, or backstory, while other times
the decision will solely focus on driving the narrative forward.
Week 9
She wasn’t quite sure how long the ringing sound
lasted for, but she’d shut her eyes tight and rocked back and forth for what
felt like hours. Her throat and eyes stung from the tears and the constant
questioning of “why me?” Once again, the continuing insanity that seemed to
have become her everyday life had drained her of energy, such was the mental
toll it was taking on her.
Her knees protested with loud cracks as she stood up,
and her hands, which had been wrapped around her legs so tightly that they’d
turned white, began to regain their colour.
Although she’d have liked nothing more than to run a
bath and soak her aches, pains and memories away, she couldn’t stay in this
place for a minute longer. Not only did she not feel safe, but she felt as if the
ringing were going to come back in full force at any second – every now and
then she thought she could hear it again. For now, at least, it was only her
imagination.
She picked up her rucksack and hefted it onto her
shoulder. It seemed so much heavier than it had when she had first packed it.
Whatever, she’d make do. She’d complete the damn 12 Labours of Hercules if it
meant she’d get away from this town.
Without even looking back at her new home, she left.
It was a bold decision, driven by events that she didn’t understand, didn’t
want to understand, and honestly wasn’t even sure had happened. However, she
sighed in relief at having made the decision. She’d be back in her real home town soon. Whether they
thought she was crazy, if she even told people the truth, was a bridge she’d
cross when she came to it.
(I’m getting out of here. Hollywood had this so
wrong. Moving sucks.)
With no phone to call for a taxi, no nearby train
station, and a deep dislike of buses (what about being late and strangers that smelled
of cat piss did people actually enjoy?), she decided upon hitchhiking as her
preferred method of travel.
It probably wasn’t an option for everyone, but it
was something she’d done a few times when she’d been in need of a ride to a
friend’s house or a last-minute gig she’d scrounged tickets for. As long as
someone was heading in the right direction and kept their hands to themselves,
there was nothing wrong with it. Especially if, like she was, you were in a
hurry to be on the move.
She kept her head down as she walked towards the main
road out of town. It was late afternoon, the sun still shining but beginning to
dip towards the horizon, and a few others were also out walking dogs or picking
up their kids from school. In her mind, an irrational fear formed. If she were to
catch eyes with one of these strangers, they would know exactly why she was leaving
town. They would point, whisper, laugh, shout, throw things and run her out of
town with pitchforks, torches and cries of “you’re crazy” and “get a padded
cell, freak.” While the latter sounded quite comfortable, it wasn’t what she
needed after the hell she’d been through.
Her pace quickened until she reached the main road,
a dual carriageway with a speed limit of 60mph. After awkwardly stumbling her
way across the side of the road, she found a lay-by near a bright orange
emergency phone. She planned to use the colour as free advertising for her hitchhiking
campaign. Thumb in the air, she waited.
*
Since it was still relatively early, there weren’t that
many cars on the road. Her arm was aching by the time a car slowed to pick her
up. With a groan, she let her arm hang by her side, and gave the car a small
wave with her other hand – the burnt hand. When she realised, she hid it behind
her back.
She walked towards the car. Who was waiting in there?
It could be anyone.
(Why did I think this was a good idea? I start
getting notes and phone calls from strangers… so I decide that I’ll get in a
car with one? Great plan.)
As she approached the car, the window rolled down. A
voice called out:
“Y’alright
there, darlin’?”
She peered into the car, and saw an old man sitting
in the driver’s seat. He was quite thin, with a hat pulled down low over his
eyes. If the eyes are the window to the soul, she thought, his soul is hidden.
Then he smiled at her. It was a big toothy grin, and she found herself
returning it in full force. It would be fine.
He reached over and opened the door from the inside.
“Come on in. I don’t bite.”
So she did, and placed her rucksack between her legs
as she sat down. “Thanks for picking me up. I know a lot of people aren’t so
sure about picking up a stranger on the side of a road…”
He chuckled. “Well, you looked like you could use a
bit of luck.”
She almost snorted. “You have no idea.”
The car joined the road again, and they began
picking up speed.
(Fuck you, town. I’m out of here.)
“So, where you headin’?”
She explained that she was trying to get home, and
that as far as he could get her in the right direction was all she needed. As soon
as his journey and her own took a different road, literally, she’d hop out and
make her own way from there.
“You’re in luck. I can all but drop you on your
doorstep. I’m visiting family nearby, and I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight
if I ended up leaving you next to another road somewhere. Anyone might pick you
up.” Under the cap, she thought she saw him wink in her direction.
“You’re a lifesaver. If you want any money for
petrol, or want to get some food on the way, let me know. I owe you that.”
“Nah, don’t worry about a thing like that. I enjoy
the company, and I’ve done a lot of driving in my time. It won’t be more than a
few hours, give-or-take some for traffic.”
He began to tell her about long journeys from his
childhood, and she smiled and nodded along. She relaxed into her seat a little.
Outside the window, trees and signs blurred past. A smile crept onto her face.
The town was getting further and further behind her, and the memories it held
would begin to blur too, in time.
*
(And, unfortunately, Dissociative Identity
Disorder! This is what happens when old man/woman are voted for in equal
measure, but then you only choose for there to be one person in the car. Do you even know how hard this was to write? Do you?)
*
A revving engine
snatched her back from the brink of sleep; startled back into the passenger
seat of the old man’s car.
(What’s happening?)
As far as she could
see, her eyes now regaining focus, there was no other car around. Another roar
of the engine made her gasp. She looked across to the driver’s seat. Something
was wrong.
The old man was
gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles had turned bone white,
and every 30 seconds or so his right leg seemed to spasm. When it did, he was
forced into pushing down on the accelerator and the engine screamed, almost
like it was in pain. They were going 70mph, but, for some reason, he had left
the car in 4th gear. It wasn’t happy. He didn’t even seem to notice.
She placed her hand
on his shoulder.
“Hey… are you okay?
Do you want to pull over for a second? You’ve been driving for a while.”
He didn’t say
anything. The spasms continued. Back and forth the car jolted as the speed
increased and decreased. This wasn’t safe.
She shook him a
little. When it changed nothing, she shook a little harder.
“Hello?”
His hands seemed to
relax on the wheel, and the revving stopped. She could almost hear the car sigh
in relief, and it wasn’t alone. He shook his head, and it felt like he was
present again.
“Oh, honey. I’m so
sorry about that. I think I switched off there for a second, didn’t I?”
She began to reply,
planning to hide just how much it had scared her – he was probably more scared
than she was. He didn’t deserve a hard time about what had just happened.
Before she could, he continued:
“It happens more and
more now. Sometimes it’s in the car, or when I’m gardening, and I can’t for the
life of me remember how I ended up on my knees in the soil. I can’t even count
the amount of times I’ve let the bath overflow. Don’t even bother with sorting
the ceiling in the kitchen anymore, it’s soaked through so many times.”
She offered up a
small smile, unsure of what she could even say.
“I just thank the
lord that they took my ovaries. The last thing I’d have needed was a bunch of
babies I can’t remember crawling around, sticking their fingers in plug sockets
and floating face-down in the bathtub.”
(Well, that was dark.
Wait… ovaries? Am I missing something? Is his voice higher than before… maybe
softer, too?)
The old man removed
his hat. Greying hair spilled down, almost to his shoulders. Where had he been
hiding that? It was shaped into some kind of bob, which seemed strange for a
man to choose.
(Is… is that
make-up?)
In the shadows that
the hat had cast over the old man’s face, there were a pair of eyes, speckled
green in colour, surrounded by make-up. His eyelashes were long and curled, and
his eyes were enveloped in a dark blue eye-shadow. It wasn’t a colour she would
have used, but it did contrast well with his (or her?) eyes.
He ran his fingers
through his hair, pushing it up at the end. It looked like shampoo advert for
all ages. He was trying to give himself “maximum volume.”
What followed as
they drove along this one road was a conversation with a completely different
person to the man that had first picked her up. He had a new personality, a new
life – as a woman. He told her about getting married, about his wedding dress,
about discussing children but never getting around to it.
At some point, most
likely during that episode with the spasms, Paul Hollywood had been replaced
with Mary Berry.
He clearly had some
sort of personality disorder, and maybe schizophrenia or something similar, but
that didn’t mean he was dangerous, right? Not everyone was lucky enough to grow
older with their mind completely intact, and considering the last couple of
days, she could completely empathise. She’d be lucky to made it to the end of
that week feeling sane.
No, she wasn’t about
to lump him into some sort of “danger to society” category. He was a person,
hell, two or more people, and he
deserved the same respect from her that he’d had even before he mentally switched
between the two.
Even so… she didn’t
know how to feel. Whatever was happening to him, it wasn’t his fault, but she
also couldn’t help but feel concerned for her own safety at the same time as
worrying about his, or now, hers. She hated herself for that, but certain
events had her on guard. There was nothing she could do about that.
This disappointment
in herself quickly turned to fear as the driver spoke again:
“Yes.
We’ll drive. Not too far, though, not too far. That’s not what they want. They need you. We do their bidding. You, my dear, have been chosen. There
is no escaping that.”
Neither the man nor
the woman was leading the show now; it was both of them. Somehow, they were
involved in what had been happening to her. She closed her eyes.
(No. Not again. I’m
getting away. I’m getting home.)
The driver began to
laugh, and it was as if two people were fighting for their right to do so. From
one set of vocal chords, she could hear a man and a woman laughing at the same
time. Naturally, the car door was locked, otherwise she’d have jumped from the
car just to escape that awful sound. It overtook the sound of the engine, the
sound of the wind rushing past the car, and the tyres against the road as they
sped forward.
She’d thought she
was getting away. They’d known all along. Whoever they were. They were
watching, they were waiting, and they knew every single step she was making.
No comments:
Post a Comment