The Hanged Girl – Seventeen

Posted on April 13, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Kwiatek7

Image credit: Kwiatek7

And Mandy is in her own dream of sorts, though its daylight now, and in this inhospitable place. But she’s elsewhere, gone from there, escaping into the soporific cover of early afternoon. Her mind is wandering to far more pleasant places, and to people she wants to see.

Of course, there’s only one person she wants to see, and there he is, standing right behind her, his arms lifting hers as she handles the rifle, helping her aim for the shoot.

‘It’s all in the balance,’ he’s saying, ‘And in perspective. When you look down the sites and know your target, it’s all the perspective you will ever need.’

His breath is soft and warm against her neck, her cheek. She thinks she feels its force making her hair wave, a billowing welcome to him. He’s teaching her to brave, to stand up for herself, to be the frightening one, not the frightened. His father taught him, he says, and he can teach her.

‘I know how it feels,’ he whispers, ‘I know how it feels to be different, to be alone to have a destiny and a purpose the others can’t comprehend. And I know what it means, you have to be prepared, you have to ready yourself for the moment, the moment you come to be.’

She shoots and hits the target, a natural he tells her, proud. She is brimming with joy to make him proud, to be one who evokes pride. It is something she had never thought she would experience, something she never thought she could be.

‘And again,’ he says, his warmth enveloping her, as though at any moment he might not just help her aim, but take her finally, finally in his arms, the embrace she yearns for, dreams of, needs…

Dreams of…a blanket of darkness falls and the daydream slips to real sleep, and her head nods and she falls from her chair to the aisle between the school desks. When her body and head hit the floor it hurts, the sharp pain waking her, stealing her away from her daydream of Damien, back to the world. When he spoke to her of learning to protect herself she’d felt wrapped in his warmth, and this daydream was just her mind’s way of regaining that sense. But now it brought her something else. First the pain of a harsh floor, then the far harsher pain of being seen by this group, her classmates, none of which looked on her with a moment of kindness.

Even David, she saw, as she struggled to sit back up and stop herself from crying as the harsh laugher rang around her. Even David was laughing this time, any residual sympathy he might have once felt for her disappearing into her own stupidity, her own absurdity. A pratfall makes a prat, after all.

She shuts her eyes, but seconds too late not to see the particularly vicious, triumphant look of Jasmine, and if she could shut her ears she would, just so she didn’t have to hear the words that witch-bitch said next.

‘Might as well stay on the floor, it’s where you belong!’

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Flavour of Spite – Seventeen

Posted on April 9, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: marilyn barbone

Image credit: marilyn barbone

It is working, she can tell. She sees it in his trembling lips, his gentle touch as he comes to her for their next session. The tears in his eyes, the genuine distress he feels in the moment before he causes her more unimaginable pain, again and again. It’s in the tenderness of his voice as he speaks softly to her as he fastens the ties tighter, and places a cloth in her mouth so she can bite down if needed without damaging her teeth or biting her tongue.

She reaches out, with the small liberty of her tied hands, to take his hand for a moment and squeeze, signalling to him her understanding, her care, with her eyes.

With every level of concern she fakes a deeper level of hatred simmers far beneath the surface. Every scintilla of warmth she beguiles and rewards him with is met, in the caverns of her inner, protected self, by a loathing that passes all understanding. She would rather sever his hand than clasp it, but clasp it she does. Every step, every step of the way is a necessary journey and she will not falter, she will not look away.

She knows what is coming in the blistering pain, she knows what signs to look for in the cavernous, electric depths. She knows, also, that everything that is unreal will seem more real than any reality. The horror of an enlarged needle aimed at her eye, piercing as though to lobotomise her, or the sensation and vision of slowly being skinned alive, or the sense of sinew cut and bone scrapped by knives and even worse implements – the dull roar of a chainsaw, the brittle rat-tat-tat of a jackhammer, coming close. All these things as thoughts suggested to her within the pain, caused by electricity, but pain nonetheless. Sometimes when she has woken from this she is surprised to be still whole, uncut and undamaged – physically at least. She does not trust that someday this may not be the case, and some virtual terror is but a brittle mask for a real travesty.

She grows confident, however, of her hold and her plan. What she does not know, cannot know, is how much time she has. No-one ever knows that. A life can be snuffed out in a moment, perhaps the very moment one is reaching most for life, most impervious to any thought of death. She is not so impervious, she knows death, walks hand in hand with it as Dr Green, every other day. And on the other days, she plans.

She does not know how much time she has, and so she must move soon, she must grab an opportunity quickly, before all opportunity is gone.

One day, having read more of her poetry, he comes to her and weeps. He speaks of love and how he returns her feelings but is a clumsy man without such beautiful words. She says, ‘I love to create for you. What I would love more, what I would love most of all..’

‘Is what my dearest Violet?’

‘Is to truly create with my greatest art, to cook, to cook for you.’

She sees his joy, mixed with a warring fear and distrust, but also that the joy will win out. He will agree, and he does. He does.

‘You will have to be tied by ropes, of course, my love, in case you seek to leave me.’

‘I will never leave you,’ she promises, ‘You will never see me walk out your door for a last time.’

‘What will you cook my love?’ he asks.

‘Soup,’ she replies, ‘I will write down the ingredients, and we shall cook together, in your kitchen, in our kitchen.’

He glows with the change of her words, the sense of a shared space. He presses further.

‘You can tie me of course, but I will not run, and I will not call out.’

Something dark and sly crosses his loathsome face. He grins, a sad and failing attempt at shared humour, holding his finger to his lips, ‘Yes we both know you can’t do that.’

And then he wipes the trigger away, moment later, because he wants to hear her voice, and he trusts her. He trusts her.

He hands her the journal and a pen and she writes down ingredients quickly. She knows soups, but more than this, she knows herbs, she knows the alchemy of their impacts, she knows it is possible to make something that might lull him sufficiently into a stupor of sorts, giving her a chance of release. She prays he is not similarly knowledgeable, and waits tensely as he reads the list. But he shows no recognition of the darker intent of this list. He is simply happy.

He sits beside her. ‘My butterfly is emerging from her cocoon, I can see it so well,’ he says.

She leans across and brushes her lips against his hated cheek. The stubble there is rough, like his hands, like his treatment of her. She would like to shave off this stubble, then take the blade, the sweet, sharp razor and cut, and cut…

Her kiss has made him shake so violently she is momentarily frightened and pulls away. Has she gone too far, played her hand too quickly, shown something of her true intent and feelings somehow in this quick fluttering moment?

‘The kiss like butterfly wings against my cheek!’ he says in wonder, staring not at her, not at anywhere here really, but at something far away that only he can see. She remembers for a moment he has probably endured this too, and may even in this simple act of false kindness and affection been taken back to that himself, like the very worst of triggers. She has no pity for this, no mercy at all.

And then he jumps up, with her again, and any disorientation is lost and he is simply happy.

‘I shall go and buy the ingredients at once! How I long to taste your food again my love, how I long to taste you!’

And he is gone, forgetting the treatment in his excitement, providing a small, brief relief and some time alone for her to consider her next steps and the brittle tenure of her success.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Hanged Girl – Sixteen

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Amanda Carden

Image credit: Amanda Carden

This time the nightmare is different. It is darkened skies, streaked with a fiery red, like lightning reaching from the heavens has struck something solid and is blazing this fuel across the sky. It is bleeding roads, blood-red, before her, in a world that is lost and forsaken.

Somewhere nearby, across the sky again a falling star, the falling light, screams soundlessly but still she hears. She’s calling for Damien, but he’s nowhere to be found, nowhere to be seen.

And for a moment she sees Susan, waving photos at her, telling her to look for him there, he’s there, he’s there. And then the photos scatter at her feet and are absorbed in the running blood and there’s something in all this, something about her, something she should know. The roads awash with blood, the photos of the tragedies of the past melting with the tragedies to come.

Susan’s long gone, long gone, and she’d like to think good riddance but there are people walking this road with her now, many, many people, and she doesn’t know any of them. They are a procession of grey, slipping and sliding on the red road. She reaches out to one, to have them turn, but she can’t see his or her face, they don’t have faces, not a one, and possibly, neither does she. How would she know?

When one turns to her, its nothingness is a screaming maw of rage and pain and spite. They are angry at her for some reason, they are out for blood, out for blood.

I’m in a photograph, she thinks, one yet to be taken, and one day someone will look at it and wonder, and wonder what happened here and why and what part I had to play.

Then the thought is gone, and she’s alone on the road again, just crying out for Damien, who’s nowhere to be seen. And she thinks, I’ve been here before, I’ve been alone before, calling out to a man whose already gone, already gone.

It’s a pattern of her life.

Then she isn’t alone, there’s a figure coming towards her, quite distant yet. Stumbling, staggering, a girl in dull grey clothes, drab as the sky is bright and jagged. Her hair is stringy and as she approaches she’s mumbling and crying, mumbling and crying. And Lisa is afraid to reach out and touch her, see her face, because she won’t have one, she won’t have one, not her, not anyone.

But as the girl gets closer she’s suddenly afraid, so afraid of her, she wants to turn and run, run and run. You should be afraid of this girl, something is telling her, she’s dangerous, she’s wild, and mad and bad and dangerous.

But she’s drab and staggering and looks pitiful and cold and lost, just like Lisa feels.

And then she’s close, close enough to see, and then the deepest shock of all. It’s Mandy, it’s only Mandy, but she’s changed, she’s different, she’s not the same, not anymore, but Lisa can’t even work out what that means. And there’s this terrible overwhelming guilt and horror that she didn’t even recognise her own child, wandering these blood soaked streets. She didn’t even know her and she was afraid. She was afraid of her own daughter.

Mandy raises her eyes to her mother’s and where she should have tears are drops of blood. She’s weeping blood, holding out her hand, whimpering, ‘Momma?’

And Lisa backs away, backs away and screams and turns and runs and hears her daughter behind her, just calling out, over and over, lost in despair.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Serial Horror Stories, The Hanged Girl | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Flavour of Spite – Sixteen

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Helen

 

Image credit: mizar_21984

Image credit: mizar_21984

Dear Violet asked me for a journal to write in, and some loose leaves of paper for poems and drawings. It seemed she has a creative spirit beyond just her culinary skill and I was happy to oblige. A part of me wondered if she foolishly thought she could somehow get a message outside. If so I could indulge her false hope with some kindness and no concern, for nothing goes up and down these stairs to her room but me, and there are no windows or doors to push a missive out of from this room. Aunt Imogen saw to that, many years ago. The place is hermetically sealed in many respects, it is a world unto itself.

And today, I came down to find her sleeping softly, and to such joy, my heart almost burst in its chest. For there was a poem there, on a fresh sheet of white paper, which had fallen by her bed, as though she had lost her hold on it as sleep overtook her and it had gently fallen, waiting to be found. Found by me, for it was written for me, for me, I know it must be for me, for there is no-one else, and the words in any case could not fit for any other.

I read it once, first out of curiosity, but finding my joy and wonder building with each line. Then I read it three times more, almost stumbling back with delight, and by the third reading her lovely eyes opened and I saw she saw me with the missive and she blushed slightly, unbidden roses on her pale, perfect cheeks.

‘Forgive me,’ I said and then remembered myself and continued, more stern, ‘but I should have made it clear, any writing you do must be available to me to read, you do understand?’

I did not want to be harsh, but my joy could make me seem weak, so I made sure to establish boundaries even as I delighted in her work. She nodded softly.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘For in any case, it is for you. Everything I write is for you.’

And with that she looked at the journal I had gifted to her as well, which lay on her pillow next to her sweet head, and I scooped it up greedily, eagerly.

In the sessions I have been working to instil in her the sense that only through me is there healing, only through connecting and opening to me is there hope of a truer freedom than anything she has known before. We are transfiguring freedom, transfiguring love, from the pale chimeras they were into something more vital and true. To be honest I have been unsure how effective this might be. It has been weeks now, and I have been despairing of a sign, remembering my own tribulations and their passage. Imogen never gave such hope, just discipline and over time the knowledge of the techniques and their necessity. I came to understand and accept, not to crave and need. But I need her to crave. I need her to need.

As I crave, as I need.

I need her to love. And now, with these sweet, dear words, it may be that she does! It is a beginning at least, it is a start!

I turned to leave her, as I could not wait to read the words and drink them in. She seemed disappointed and asked me if I might stay a while, as she was lonely, so lonely here. I told her firm, but controlled, that I would return in good time. If she is to crave, she cannot be sated too often. Even the lover of fine chocolate finds the appeal palls with over-supply. She will want my presence more the more it is denied, particularly in times such as this was, where no session loomed in our immediate schedule.

She nodded again to me, silent. I did not need to trigger her silence then, she was a good, obedient girl. My earlier concerns about our progress were dimming rapidly, for now it was clear that the programming was taking so quickly with her it was breathtaking.

With that I hurried up to my lounge-room to settle and read. First, I turned again to the lovely poem I had already read, hearing her recite it in my mind, her sweet voice echoing these unutterably sweeter words.

In silence and in darkness I’m alone
There’s energy ‘neath trembling skin, to bone
All my secrets are mine and mine alone
Separation was the only thing I’d known

But here a path is calling to my name
Its yellow promise like a flickering flame
In this crucible I’ll never be the same
My heart has found the one that it should claim

These eyes that gently turn their gaze to me
A hand that holds with needful cruelty
That is yet love, it’s only what must be
Resolve secure now that shows me to be free

In life before adrift and so forlorn
So lost, all finer feeling I’d foresworn
Yet from darkness shines the brightest, truest morn
I find the face I loved before my soul was born

From all my past I’d now be joyful, happy, torn
To see the face I loved before my soul was born

She knows the quest! She knows! And other writings, some prose, some poetic, spoke of her wonder in understanding the path I am taking her on and its cruel but firm necessity. I am in awe of her revelations, her honesty, and how well this has taken.

But then a shadow fell, a doubt, upon my reverie. Was this too soon and too perfect? Was it a trap? Did I ever do such tom-foolery with Imogen? I can’t recall. Most of my memories of my time with her are of pain and fear and hate. I do not remember if I ever played the trickster to lessen a session or to beguile her into thinking she was succeeding while I stayed aloof. She was not a one to be beguiled, but am I? Does the fact I come to Violet with love make me vulnerable somehow, and could she know?

But this is absurd! No true human could withstand this and stay separate. She would either fall into submission as I did in an apathetic, fearful way until she saw the colder need of it all, or she might go mad.

Sometimes they do go mad, Imogen told me once, and then they are used differently.

But to take even that path would show a deeper grain in her making than someone as fine as my lovely Violet. To be like that would be to be hard in some essential, distant way, almost alien to humanity, and dear Violet is the epitome of humanity. Imogen said that’s the province of true psychopaths but even they are likely to succumb more than they wish. She said that in some circles that’s how they create serial killers – the way of turning the ruined original programming intent into something wild but useful. She said an uncle of hers was like that, and they used him, so he was not as distant or as powerful as he thought.

‘No-one escapes the purifying fire, no-one,’ she had said, ‘Just some take to it differently, that’s all. And those that think they are above it, control it, understand it, those that think they are cleverer than it.. that’s the sign, the sign they are like that, and of what they will become. Which is just what they always were, really, just set free.’

But dear Violet is a cook, a maker of beauty, a lover of life, and now, it seems of me. Our love story is not a tragedy, it is not a horror story, it is sublime. So this cannot be! Her poetry is not proof of her distance and reserve, or of some deeper warp in the weave of her soul, but its complete and lovely opposite.

It must be real! My lovely Violet is finding the way to the impossible love. I am a master, a genius, as I always suspected, always knew, and she will be my lovely bride. My love.

I cannot let my fears and doubts besmirch the perfection of what we are creating together. Love such as this is a fragile flower, which must be tended to with care and belief and concern. Doubt would make it wither on the vine and snatch my wonderful future away from me by sheer perversity. I cannot be the thief in the night plundering my own dreams. I read the wonderful poetry and rose again, to fortify my soul, and allowed myself the simple, complete joy of belief.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Hanged Girl – Fifteen

Posted on March 30, 2015 by Helen

 

Image credit: chippix

Image credit: chippix

‘You need to look at these photos,’ Susan insisted to Lisa as their coffees started to grow cold. ‘I’ve compiled all I can from the history, it’s all here.’

She put her iPad down, swivelling it to be right side up for her friend.

Lisa was getting more irritated by the minute. Almost as soon as they had sat down with their coffees she had started to regret turning the ‘back in half an hour’ sign over on the bookstore door and coming out with her friend, even if the general quiet of the day indicated it was unlikely anyone would be denied access to the store as a result. It wasn’t the lack of business that vexed her, it was that her friend’s obsession with this death theory was growing, not diminishing, and she seemed to be implying something about Damien was involved now, which meant the hyperbole was going into over-drive.

‘This one,’ Susan said, flicking one open in front of Lisa, ‘Is of Carlotta’s uncle and some of his business associates. See the man in the back of the photo, see what I mean?’

Lisa looked grudgingly at the grainy, darkened photo. To see Carlotta’s uncle was ghoulish enough, but the poor quality of the photo overall did nothing to strengthen her friend’s case, or explain her fevered insistence that Lisa involve herself in this fool’s escapade.

There were three men with the uncle in the photo. The one at the back was tall, with dark hair, and his face was partially obscured by the rather unfortunate bouffant hairstyle of one of the other men. But it was true – to the degree that old, black and white grainy photos could make people look like people – there was perhaps more than a passing resemblance to Damien in that photo. If you were of a mind to be imaginative, of course, which Susan was always far too ready to be.

‘That’s someone they call Mr.D Whethers, and it seems he might have been the man who encouraged Carlotta’s uncle to go into the more speculative line of business that bought such ruin to him and his clients.’

‘Whethers isn’t Damien’s name,’ Lisa responded, her voice tight, ‘And he’d be older to be that man, surely.’

‘It’s not just that!’ Susan replied, and then started to flick rapidly through some of the other photos she had stored on her computer. ‘This is the failed author, photographed with someone they claim might have been a possible literary agent, and you can’t see it too clearly, but still, there is a resemblance. Then this, the strong man who died of a heart attack, this is a photo of him with some friends, and look at the man in the corner! Then this one, years before, the priest that committed suicide, a photo of him outside the church with some of his congregation, look at this man there! And worst of all, look at this photo of a group of men and women that were accused of being involved in the satanic cult around the time of the ritual deaths – look at him!’

And with that she jabbed her finger at the photo, at a man who did look a bit like Damien, albeit with a slight beard and mustache that gave the visage a distinct Mephistophelean air.

‘These photos aren’t great, and you said yourself, these are decades between some of these deaths. At the time of this last one Damien wouldn’t have even been born. What are you saying exactly?’

Susan stopped a moment, as though only just realising this in her fervour. ‘I don’t know exactly. You’re right it can’t be him, that’s impossible, but maybe a relative? Maybe it’s something in his family? You have to admit it’s a hell of a coincidence’

‘A coincidence is exactly what it is,’ Lisa said, impatient and beyond caring for her friend’s finer feelings any more. Obviously Susan didn’t care much about hers. It didn’t matter to her she knew Lisa was smitten with her new neighbour – even if it was the first positive link Lisa had had to a man for so many years, and that definitely counted the last desultory years of her marriage before the divorce. Susan didn’t care about that, clearly, if she had this scent of some frankly absurd conspiracy story. Lisa’s happiness was clearly nowhere near as important as her new obsession. So why should Lisa care too much for how Susan felt?

Makes you wonder if she’s really a friend at all, Lisa thought grimly.

‘It’s too much, and it seems whoever these men are, they are far too close to all this, so I’m frightened you might be in danger of some kind.’

That was too much. That was it.

It was time for the truth, stripped bare of any friendship propriety. It was time for the gloves to come off, and damn the consequences, this was just too much. Lisa had spent so much of her life as the good girl, the nice girl, the tolerant one: sucking up the dramas and needs and histrionics of friends and lovers. Always being the one who was kind, who cared, who thought before she spoke. That’s what she was taught in her home, growing up, and like there, what did it get her, in the end? It seemed sometimes that when people asked you to be considerate of others, all they really meant was for you to be considerate of them, and that in this consideration you gave them complete license to never consider you.

Never consider you. It was enough. It was time.

‘No you’re not. You’re just obsessed with a story, with the drama of it all. Really, you always have been like this, and I’ve tolerated it, never wanted to hurt your feelings with pointing this out, but this time it’s too much. You want to hurt me, or at least you don’t care if I’m hurt by all this. You know how I feel about Damien! You know! So don’t pretend this is for my welfare. You want a mystery, and you don’t care what it costs anyone else, and frankly that’s just nasty, that’s just unkind. Even for you!’

She stood, throwing money from her purse on the table for the coffee.

‘So don’t come asking me to use up my precious spare time just to indulge your latest obsession. And really, just don’t bother me at all unless you come to some sense and see what you’re doing here. I’ve had enough!’

Susan looked at her stunned, unable to respond. Lisa just shook her head, her face telegraphing an awful mixture of dismay and repulsion, and then she turned, stalking out of the café.

‘Lisa! There’s something here, you have to see it! You might be in danger that’s all..that’s all I’m concerned about, that’s all!’

But her words were lost to Lisa, who had slammed the door of the café as she left, and so only the other patrons heard it, looking at the display with some amusement or puzzlement. Susan felt suddenly adrift and ashamed, embarrassed publicly. She was a journalist here, and well-known, and had a reputation to defend, and in one fell swoop of trying to protect her friend, she could destroy that respect.

Trying to protect her friend, her friend who spat out such viciousness in response: just like the mere thought of Damien being questioned could bring out the warrior within. And as Susan stared into her coffee cup rather than meet the eyes of her fellow café patrons, a new terror emerged.

She’d only come to the bookstore to get Lisa to come out for the coffee. It hadn’t been on her mind to even discuss her research because she knew Lisa thought she was chasing shadows. But then she’d seen Damien, she’d seen his face and she’d known, deep in her bones, the photos were telling the truth, not lies.

And the man in them that looked like Damien was central to so many of the deaths before they occurred, almost like he was a catalyst of some sort. Or the family of men, if that was what made more sense. So she’d had to warn Lisa, she had to. She had no other choice as a friend.

But if that was the case, what depths of control from this shadow figure made others bring about their own ruin in his or their midst? And what might that mean for Lisa, if the slightest question of Damien, his background or his motives was raised and such fury came in its wake? Was she already under some kind of spell? Was that was it was?

And what might that mean?

And how could she help a friend who so violently and completely refused her help? What could she possibly do? And was it already far, far too late?

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Serial Horror Stories, The Hanged Girl | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Flavour of Spite – Fifteen

Posted on March 26, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Oksan Kash

Image credit: Oksan Kash

And you just standing on the stair
Your finger raised soft to your lips
Showed full to me my true despair
No murmur of my terror slips
I’m silenced by your fingertips

She has too much time on her hands. Poetry is forming in her brain, different ways of seeking out the truth. It seems a softer way to face certain truths, as though in rhyme and metre the full awfulness is somehow kept at bay.

She knew her true weakness then. Earlier today the crack in the framework of her plans, the chimera she had been nursing so close to her breast was so cruelly exposed. With one small movement he silenced her, and she could not even whimper till he returned and raised his finger once more to wipe it across his lips, erasing his admonition to silence with a single move.

Single move. And how many of those were there? She remembered things like this from the reading she did on conspiracy sites. They were called triggers: words, movements, signals. They all symbolised something else and forced a programmed person to obey, despite whatever internal provocation to deny this power existed. They made you powerless.

Powerless.

How many ways? How many ways?

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways

Another poem for a gentler time, written by a true poet, not a girl trapped in a frightening cage by an even more frightening lunatic. Still it comforted, the simple rhythms of the phrases, and kept her from her darker thoughts for moments at a time, till she inevitably returned again.

Those conspiracy sites say that symbols rule the world, much more than money, much more than politics, they speak to the unconscious that enslaves us all. Well, they certainly rule her world now.

She struggles to try to remember any other symbols that might have been implanted in her mind during the sessions. So few details remain in her conscious mind, but she has been practising her own control in those infernal sojourns and has found she can recall things she concentrates on in moments when his horrible voice is no directing her. She can imprint some small memories that she can have access to out of the state.

This has proven successful to a degree. She recalls his allusions to her in terms of food. She knows he is the doctor. She remembers animals and creatures that might have come from fairy-tales, and in sorting through them in her conscious hours, sees how they are the symbols of those childhood stories, and can understand some of the ideas he may be trying to imprint as a result. A white rabbit is adventure, and intrigue, a bear is something frightening that she needs protection from, a cat is cruel games and a dog is a friend, guiding her along the difficult path. The first he uses to draw her in, the second to terrify and subdue her will, the third to apply the cruel messages and riddles to confound her and the last to provide a false comfort and connection.

And the doctor, of course, universally a symbol of care and wisdom and demanding of respect. There may be many reasons he enters this world in that guise but the greatest of all would be to portray himself as the healer of her faults. The one that will cure her. Cure her of being her, and make her into something better, something ‘whole’, something healthy.

Her aim is to rip these symbols of their power. Symbolism works in the unconscious. When unmasked it is like a magician on a stage where a curtain has risen too quickly and the mechanics of the trick are on display to all.

This is her little hope.

And her greater hope?

Sweetest flower and feathers blue
All the dreams embed in you
Impossible love can be yet known
All pre-conceptions overthrown
So when you take the good doctor’s hand
This and all else you’ll understand

The flowers and the feathers, the colour blue, and what they symbolise. His dream, his hope, the clear intention of all the programming: that from this pain and terror is born a love as complete as it is indiscriminate. Symbols as emotions, imprinted deep in her psyche: he wants her to be a slave, but a love slave, a slave in love with him.

And knowing this, she feels she has one small victory already. She will never love him. He may be able to tie her down, literally or psychologically, silence her with a move of his fingertips, make her do unspeakable acts at his command when under his spell, but she is already above his greatest aim.

But that does not mean he needs to know that yet. Not yet.

She senses that this is his greatest weakness. She is an experiment of sorts. There is perhaps no guidebook for him to make love from pain in this way. Not real love, which is what he craves. At best he might achieve a shadowy Stockholm Syndrome over time, but she will rally against that also, with all her conscious will. He is not her friend, not her dog, nor her healer, the good doctor. He is a fiend, and she knows it.

Perhaps he knows it too, though he won’t fully admit that to himself. And perhaps that’s why he calls it impossible love, because he somehow knows that is not part of the design of this process. Perhaps it is even antithetical to the whole design. Yet still he is Don Quixote, tilting at this windmill, determined to make this more, and make the impossible possible.

It is in what we need most that our true weakness lies and is exposed. She must give him hope, build his hubris, to a point that he is vulnerable and more choices open to her. And she must do this quickly, before more signals are embedded in her and any escape becomes impossible, no matter how she tries.

It might already be too late, but she cannot think of that, or she will go mad. She can only think of her resolve, and the things from her past that prove she can be as ruthless as is required, she can doing anything. But to think too much of that past would make her go mad also, so it is all about balancing thought and emotion, planning and relief.

And poetry helps. It will help with both. If he wants impossible love made possible, she must start to give him that. And what better way than poetry?

She will write him a love poem, while awake, while alone, and if that works, many, many more.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Hanged Girl – Fourteen

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: ronfromyork

Image credit: ronfromyork

A dismal, slow business day at the bookstore was beginning to make Lisa fight off sleep at the store’s counter. She’d not been sleeping well of late. She was still plagued with strange, disturbing dreams, and Susan’s hyperbolic stories of a tarot litany of deaths – no matter how absurd and so Susan-like that was – did nothing to help dispel the thrall that the nightmare world held over her. Like before, she remembered little of dreams and terrors in the night, just brief glimpses, and from time to time the presence of Damien in the dreams, like a guiding light to lead her out of the darkness.

Like the darkness of boredom, she thought, as the door opened to the bookstore, sunlight leaping into the room like a message from the gods, like that light-bringer in her nightmares, and she saw – so fittingly it was almost poetic – the very welcome figure of Damien in its halo.

‘I was passing by,’ he said, ‘Taking some time out from work to do a bit of retail therapy. And what better therapy would there be than to come and visit you?’

‘Come right in, you’re a sight for sore eyes’ Lisa replied.

‘Oh?” he asked, solicitous, now up at the counter near her, so close she could smell the somewhat musky scent of his aftershave.

‘Slow day,’ she said, ‘And I’m still having those nightmares.’

‘Terrible,’ he said, ‘I find nightmares come in clusters, like they feed off each other. We shall have to think of some more enjoyable things to do that might break the cycle and chase them away.’

The message in the words, the undercurrent, was very clear and she shivered with anticipation and delight.

‘Mandy is going away on a school excursion in a week’s time’ she found herself saying, ‘So I have the house to myself. Why don’t you come over for dinner and we can see if you can help me with that then?’

‘Delighted,’ he agreed, as the message was clearly conveyed between them, ‘Speaking of Mandy though, she came to visit me a couple of days ago.’

The hackles on the back of Lisa’s neck rose suddenly and his words. She felt a cool, harsh, complete anger at Mandy, way beyond the redness and heat of rage into something far older, far deeper, which she did not fully recognise herself. She did not realise she had gripped the counter at his words and was even then pressing down hard, her own fingernails close to breaking from the pressure.

‘Oh?’ she asked, her voice tight.

If her anger was obvious to him he did not show it. He just continued on, ‘Yes, seems she is having a bad time of it at school. She was looking for a friend.’

Lisa felt guilty suddenly, on so many layers, crowding in on her. She knew her daughter was suffering at school, but Mandy was maddeningly withdrawn about it all, and if Lisa was honest, a part of her liked it that way. If Mandy didn’t share, she didn’t have to think about what this might mean about the longer term prospects of staying in this town, and looking at Damien in this moment she knew how much she wanted to stay here.

Even if Mandy suffered, even that. We all have to make sacrifices, after all. Sacrifices…..

‘I talked to her for a while, tried to teach her some ways to defend herself, that sort of thing, ‘Damien was continuing. ‘I was bullied when I was young.’

‘You were?’ Lisa asked, genuinely surprised. Damien was a tall, well built man who exuded a kind of calm resolution. It was hard to imagine any bully sizing him up and deciding to strike. Plus, the thought of Damien as young seemed incongruous somehow. There was something about him which was ageless, or suggested an age beyond mere years. It was hard to picture him as ever being a child or even a teenager.

‘I didn’t grow to my full height and build till my late teens, so I was a slow bloomer. Those things count at school. So I learned ways to defend myself, and, when needed, to even make people frightened of me. My father taught me. It was sort of like, first make them afraid, then you never actually have to do anything. So I talked to Mandy about that – the importance of how to appear, and then also the need to able to follow though if needed. In combination it usually means you never have to.’

‘What did you suggest, some form of martial arts?’ Lisa asked, a bit horrified at her daughter setting herself up to be frightening. Deep within Lisa admitted to herself there had always been something a bit disturbing about Mandy anyway, a sense of an uncoiled spring, a serpent in the garden, about to strike. She wasn’t sure she wanted anyone to put such thoughts in her morose daughter’s head, not now.

And even less that this come from Damien, meaning he was perhaps unconsciously indulging her daughter’s crush. That could only lead to a bad outcome, no matter how noble his intent.

‘No,’ he said, ‘That would take too long. And in any case, I doubt she really has the athleticism required for that. I mean no offence, but I don’t think that your daughter’s best weapon is herself, not in that sense.’

‘True, and no offence taken, ‘ Lisa agreed, a bit inwardly ashamed of her small pleasure of the mild censure implied about her daughter’s physicality. She did not think to ask what method of defence he had suggested instead. She only said, ‘Do be careful though. I think Mandy has a crush on you, and I don’t want to see her get hurt.’

‘Nor do I,’ he said, gentle, touching one of her hands – both of which had now relaxed their grip on the counter, ‘I am very aware of, and careful about,the influence I have on her, do not worry. I only mean to help, and no more.’

The moment was broken by the door opening again, and the enthusiastic sound of Susan, announcing herself as she entered the store.

‘My god I needed a lunch break, or at least a coffee!’ she said, ‘Can I lure you away Lisa? At least for a coffee?’

As she came up to the counter she seemed to register Damien, though he had his back turned to her and she did not see his hand on her friends hand, so she must have thought him a customer, because she added, ‘As soon as you’ve finished serving your customer of course.’

As she finished speaking she’d reached her destination and Damien had turned to her, smiling.

‘I’m not a customer, I’m a friend, and you are not disturbing us. Please feel free to help our mutual friend escape this place for a break.’

He smiled openly at Susan, but she had stopped still, a slight frown on her face, looking at him.

‘Have we met before?’ she asked. ‘You look very familiar somehow.’

‘Susan, this is Damien, my neighbour, who I might have mentioned’ Lisa said, emphasising the last point of her words to tell her friend clearly not to give away how much she might have mentioned him already.

Damien held out his hand, introducing himself, and waited for her to return the compliment. After a couple of uncomfortable beats, she responded in kind.

‘You just look very familiar,’ she said.

‘Perhaps I just have one of those faces,’ he replied, smooth, unconcerned, dropping her hand, and turning to bow slightly to Lisa, ‘I will bid you good day then, till we next meet.’

Lisa blushed at the gentlemanly formality, and watched him go with some regret, barely disguising her slight pique when she looked back at her friend. But Susan did not notice, as she wasn’t looking at Lisa at all, instead watching Damien retreat with a frown of puzzlement, slightly shaking her head.

The door of the bookstore closed behind Damien, and in so doing seemed to extinguish a light in the bookstore, robbing the day of its glow with his departure. The light-bringer was gone.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Flavour of Spite – Fourteen

Posted on March 19, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: Umit Erdem

Image credit: Umit Erdem

I am delighted with our progress. Things go more smoothly and quickly than I had anticipated. Aunt Imogen had always said that it took easier with children, so perhaps there is something childlike in my dear Violet, for she is the perfect pupil: attentive, needful, wanting to please.

I have let her bonds be looser over time so she can traverse her room with more ease when I am not with her. She does not buck against my rule, nor does she try to parley for more freedoms. She seems to know her place and accept it. Of course, she could be trying to fool me, I know, for I recall how I would try to cajole and convince Imogen that I was obedient and programmed so that the sessions might lessen or stop. But there is no fooling in the process, nor shortcuts to ending it before it is complete.

We must continue, therefore. Her senses will be so attuned only to bearing the pain, dissociation and survival, that no trickery or strategy can remain within. I am purifying her with fire and pain, and soon if she does dream of freedom, that concept will be transformed and she will realise the only way to true freedom is through me, to be with me, for us to be one.

You may think, of course, given my hatred for Imogen that no love can arise from this process. You might say that I never reached that point of acceptance, so neither will Violet. But this is not true. I do embrace the process, I do embrace my generational, blood requirements, I do see the need and I am a better person for this process. I just hated Imogen because deep within she was mean. Her cruelty was not from the process, from dire necessity, but from preference. Had she not been in this family she would have been cruel in any case: a torturer, a killer, of a more banal kind. As I said, her flavour was spite.

My flavour is love, at least where Violet is concerned. And perhaps I am also the base line flavour of a fine stock for a soup, necessary as a grounding for the greater work. I have my purpose and I accept it, and this is partly why Violet is so perfect for me. Our union is the recipe, the greatest recipe of all. In time she will come to see this and embrace it as I do.

I do sometimes catch her watching me, though, as I prepare and I sense that she is trying to calculate something. A part of her still rebels, and I understand that. All those years with Aunt Imogen I wanted her dead, I wanted it over, and indeed I planned and waited. So I am aware she might do so with me.

But Imogen bred hate. She had no finer feelings. Apart from the very real pleasure she personally gained from causing pain, the process was just a requirement of our family, not a soothing meant to draw us close. I doubt Imogen was close to anyone really, and possibly I am the only one who could truly be said to have come close to her. But not in the way she intended, not in the way she dreamed. Just in the way she deserved.

That’s how I won with her, that need to know her flavour. So I must remember, dear Violet is a chef, and so she will have similar sensibilities, and so I am not so confident as to be foolish. And I know the process must take its time at any rate, even when coloured by love.

Still, Imogen’s tools and processes are refined in my use, using the quickening element of love. I know Violet knows. I can see she understands this, understands my love and my longing. Sometimes I think she tries to flirt with me, to draw me in, but it is too soon and I know a flattery when I see it. Just as I will know when it is real, when her arms open to me, a flower blooming from the dark pit of her pain, seeking the succour and comfort of my unalloyed affections.

I saw the calculation again today, however, which gave me pause. I had just strapped her down to the bed, saying soothing words as I reached for the machinery. Having watched her convulse with the electro shock therapy so many times now, I also knew the fear that attended these simple preparatory rituals: fastening her bonds more tightly than usual, wheeling the machinery from its dark corner to the side of the bed, placing the electrodes to her temples. I could see the alarm in her eyes. Every time. I supposed this was how I looked to Imogen, but she did not look at me with the kindness and concern that I look at dear Violet. She did not whisper the soothing words I use, lulling her down, coaxing her to shut those frightened eyes and welcome the passageway to the dark. Oh no, Imogen was clinical and cruel, where I am exacting but kind, or as kind as I can be in this process at any rate.

Just as I was about to begin, and she had finally closed those dear eyes to surrender to the process, a loud banging at my door above splintered the air. In truth it was more a profound vibration through the roof of the room rather than a noise as this sanctuary is almost soundproof.  But still, there it was. Her eyes shot open and I could see her thinking, rapidly, how strange this was – for no-one ever came here – and then, perhaps, whether this might help her gain freedom.

I was largely unconcerned. She could cry out now, but given how soundproof the room is it would have little effect – it has to be able to quell such little rebellions, given the activities done within. The only window of opportunity would be when I opened the door to go upstairs and see who has the temerity to call and disturb out work. I could ignore the knocking and I presume the visitor would leave, but I wanted to test something, see if my programming had taken properly, if one of the key visual triggers worked. It was a risk, but a small one – if she did cry out I’d quickly close the door behind her and tell the visitor I was watching a horror DVD of some sort. People don’t care to get involved, as a general rule, and so that would satisfy any minor curiosity her cries might arouse.

And I could see her thinking about trying. While this was disappointing, it was not unexpected: far less unexpected than the visitor was. The banging happened again – they were not going away. Her eyes were wide now, flicking to me, then to the door, and I could see her wondering, willing that I go, calculating whether she could call out. I dimly wondered if she’d realised the room was effectively sound proof, for she was silent now, or whether my proximity and the machinery made her afraid to try anything till I was up the stairs at the doorway to this room.

In either case, I moved away, heading up the five stairs and turned, lingering at the doorway, looking back at her. And then I tested the trigger. I held my right hand up to my face, my index finger extended over my lips, and softly said ‘shhh’. It was a trigger to silence. She blinked. I did the trigger one more time, to be sure, then opened the door.

No sound came from her. I looked back as I was about to shut the door behind her and I saw a stricken look on her face. The struggle to call out and her complete inability to do so was dawning on her, but with knowledge came no release and no way out. The trigger had held well. Confident, I actually left the door open as I went to see who had arrived. I knew she would not be able to call out, even with me gone, and the knowledge of her complete capture by the trigger would imprint in her even more strongly as she lay helpless all this time.

When the visitor turned out to be a Jehovah’s Witness coming to tell me how I could be saved, I laughed in his face.

‘There’ll be no saving here today,’ I announced, closing the door in his face, amused by the double meaning of my words.

I hoped dear Violet could hear us from up here. I thought she might appreciate my jest.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Hanged Girl – Thirteen

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Helen

 

Image credit: Ysbrand Cosijn

Image credit: Ysbrand Cosijn

Mandy’s school had a hallway with student lockers that reminded her quite strongly of the school scenes in Twin Peaks. They were shabbier, a dull grey colour, and some in need of repair, so nowhere near as sparkly as those in the show, but still they were similar enough. This delighted her, as did any connection, however slight, to the television show, and by extrapolation, to the time spent in Damien’s company watching that pilot episode.

And so it was that she spent hours on the internet, trawling for other associations, buying clothes and makeup with her small, but adequate allowance, that Audrey might well have worn on the show, in that mythical town of Twin Peaks. When her purchases arrived a week or two later her mother did not see the connection, did not know to look for it, and just seemed happy to see her daughter was favouring something with colour and flair as opposed to her usual choice of drab blacks and greys. She encouraged Mandy to buy more, offering her some additional money to do so, to their mutual delight.

And so it also was, that in this school that did not demand school uniforms, but allowed their students to dress as they chose – though most were in a uniform of black of their own communal, subconscious choice – that Mandy found herself days later, twisting slightly as Audrey did in the television show, coyly putting her books in her locker. In her mind she was Audrey, born again and Damien was Dale Cooper, and all was wonderfully right with the world.

The only difference being, where her further viewing of the program from Damien’s DVDs had shown Audrey did not manage to ignite a relationship with Dale, Mandy felt far more positive of her own prospects. If only her mother would just give them some time alone.

After all, Damien had given her his DVDs for her private viewing, establishing a personal connection between them. It was like when boys at school might lend you books, or DVDs, or CDs – it meant something.

It meant everything. And for Mandy, whose life was otherwise dark and rather frightening with her increasing school isolation and sense of dis-connectedness to everything else, the everything that Damien meant was great indeed.

Deep in her private replay of Audrey’s mannerisms and life, and feeling a wonderful – albeit fragile and only early blooming – sense of beauty and womanhood in these luxurious clothes, Mandy did not hear the laughter aimed in her direction for many moments. She was too busy putting her new high heels in the locker, from which she would take them later, pretending she was going out as Audrey might, for a coffee and a dance to music played on the jukebox at the Twin Peak’s diner. Or even better, that those heels would accompany a visit to such a diner where she would find Damien, just like Dale, savouring the coffee and waiting for her.

Finally she shut the locker door, as Audrey would also do, with a slight, mischievous slam, and turned, her happiness about to dissolve as quickly as aspirin in water. For standing watching her was Jasmine, her arm draped casually around David’s waist, and she was then surrounded by a group of her friends, or followers more accurately, a dark halo around the demon queen.

They were all laughing – laughing at her for some reason it was clear – except, mercifully David, who just looked at her uneasily for a moment then looked down to the ground.

‘I was just saying,’ Jasmine spat at her, as though she was rude at not having heard the earlier conversation, ‘That it’s probably right for a ghost girl to look like the past, but the 1950s is stretching it a bit!’

And of course, her white and green floral patterned, full skirted dress and her cute yellow bolero, plus her shiny patent green pumps, did combine well for a 1950’s look, just like Lynch’s vision in the show. The internet fashion houses she had visited had been ‘retro’ and some even blatantly targeted this look. She’d been deliberate in getting this, and now she stood, a victim of her own fashion sense.

A fashion victim.

Only someone confident, someone popular, in a school can challenge sartorial convention in this way. Someone like that would not only pull it off, but set a new fashion trend others would follow. But Mandy was none of those things, so how could she have presumed?

In that moment she was speechless, completely unable to think of a smart retort, or to how to regain the ground. Her little joys had been so personal, so private, so early and brief and so precious, that to have them shatter at her feet, with only her own internal castigation for her foolishness to see them to their rest, was a complete undoing. Her one moment of climbing out of the pit of her life over recent years – away from her parent’s divorce, and moving home and losing the few friends her young life had known, and then being here in this hell hole, and all the myriad of anguishes that are simply being a teenager – now crushed down upon her in its sheer pointlessness. Life was reminding her she couldn’t win, would never win. She was never, ever to be a winner, ever at all.

Tears came unbidden to her eyes, causing further shame and embarrassment, and she suddenly was nothing but movement, running, running past them and away: away from them, away from the school, scuffing her new pumps on the pavement as she tore out of the schoolyard and just ran, and ran and ran. And for a long time she thought she still heard them laughing, even when she was streets away from the school, and it was only when that faded finally and mercifully that she slowed, catching her breath between sobs.

And it was only then that she knew where she was headed, instinctively, needfully. It wasn’t to her mother’s bookstore, there was no comfort there, she was sure. And it wasn’t just to her empty home, as she might have unconsciously expected, but it was close to that. She turned into her home street with a sense of revelation and calm. Of course, of course there was a place to go. There was only one place to go.

Damien opened the door of No 6 Mercy Lane and gazed at her in a kind of wonder and concern. She must have looked bedraggled, a stray cat wanting to come in from a stormy night.

She thought, thank god he is home. And then, of course he is because I need it, I need it so much so he had to be here.

He understood of course, he understood immediately, without her needing to talk to explain, he just knew. She could tell, from his first kind gaze, that he knew. She felt it deep in her bones, a kind of acceptance that brought relief, belonging and sanctuary. He shook his head slightly at her, and reached out and touched her shoulder, brief, tender. She shuddered, knowing this truth even deeper, in her most private wells of feeling.

‘Come in,’ he said, ‘You look like you need a friend’.

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

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The Flavour of Spite – Thirteen

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Helen
Image credit: andreivc88

Image credit: andreivc88

As more time passes, she is more resolute in her decision to see this as a challenge, like a boot camp for her mind, even though during this same extension of time the sessions make this increasingly hard to do.  But it is her mind that is the contested territory here, she realises this both intellectually and emotionally.  In her more lucid moments in this cell she sees it with a perfect clarity.  She had read about things like this, on conspiracy websites she thought were for the happily deluded.  She might even have laughed about the theories, but she is not laughing now. 

Trauma based mind control, that’s what they called it.  And he was a practitioner of this, and if that was right, and the rest of the theory was right he would also have been a victim of it too. A handler, as he might be called now, would have been a subject before.  Years of abuse, through generations, because he was skilled, and so it wasn’t just someone who’d read about it to and decided to do it on someone.  He knew what he was doing, and this must be from personal experience.

Not that this elicited one scintilla of sympathy for him.  She felt nothing for him but hatred when she was lucid, and when not she was too frightened to contemplate what he might be able to make her feel.  Still, he was a lone operator.  Her mind told her, there was no sense of a bigger machine behind this. There was no sense she was one of many in a program.  He seemed like a lone operator in all things in life, and so here he would also be one, captured by his own fixed desires and delusions. And this must be a good thing, because if she managed to divine a way out of here it was far less likely there would be others to hunt her down.  If he was doing this solo, then escape meant escape from him, and not from something greater.

Well, she hoped she was right about that.  It seemed to fit with only him being with her, and the singularity of his focus and the fact that she thought the aim was to make her love him, a kind of Stockholm Syndrome induced by chemicals, electricity and pain.

But what if that was wrong?  What if upstairs there were others, involved, perhaps guiding him through his endeavours?  What if her sense of him being a loner was just a trick because he kept his friends, his special terrible friends, well hidden?  Thinking of this shut down her mental acuity in her fragile mind, as though anxiety rose as a primitive shield to further analysis so that she could just feel the rest.  As though that would be better somehow.

Of course, it was not. Emotions were large, shadowy threats around her, flickering in the lamplight, singing terrible songs to her down the electric wires he would attach to her temples, over and over.  Like Pavlov’s dog she felt the pain these days even before he turned on the machine, taken to that place by the mere suggestion of his presence and his awful rituals.  And emotion took her there almost as quickly as the stimulus of seeing him approach.  Emotion and pain seemed linked, far more than thought.  Emotion was therefore the enemy.  So she tried to stay with thought, and avoided any lines of analytical enquiry that would trigger emotion. It would take discipline, the discipline of an athlete in training.  And in many ways she realises that was exactly what she is.  Now.

So she continues to try to remember more of what occurs in the sessions.  Most of it remains vague, but some images and feelings – often terrifying – increasingly stay with her.  They even seem to come alive, as hallucinations before her from time to time in this shadowy place.  Sometimes, when this happens with the ‘doctor’ she thinks she has had visit from him, but the image is insubstantial as mist in the air, and when it is gone it is clear he is not there, and has not been.

She remembers winning her first cooking competition in her small, provincial hometown.  She burnt her hand on the stove top just at a pivotal moment, and the pain had been searing.  She still had the burn scar to remind her of the moment, all these years later. And in that second she could have faltered, the whole dish could have been destroyed, and she would have lost. And that could not be, so she pushed through the pain, using it, and brought the artistry to a whole new level.  Later, at the hospital, they were amazed she could even function. Third degree burns apparently. But they didn’t know her.  Not her. And neither did he.  She had known how to use pain then, instinctively, and now she needed to use it consciously, to combat its impacts on her subconscious that he was trying to elicit.

She was a winner then, and she must be a winner now.

Sometimes she worries that what she remembers as random hallucinations are really just sessions she has forgotten even occurred.  How can she know how often he comes in reality, or with what purpose?  But again, these are useless, dangerous thoughts, she tells herself. She has too much time to think here, when she is alone, and she needs to use that time more wisely and not be overwhelmed or just give up.  Like the sense of weariness an athlete might feel just before they get their second wind, she must stride through these fears and not give in.  She cannot, cannot give in.

Yet the doctor holds the secret.  The things he says tell her more and more of what her captor wants.  He wants her.  He wants he body and her soul, and something more.  He speaks of wanting her flavour, her taste and she can understand that.   In some essential way that makes sense to her. All her virtues and all her deficits are told to her by him in terms of food. A mind as scrambled eggs, a heart as a fillet steak, her lips as cherries, but overall the recipe is a mess and needs refining, needs fixing.  Some of the ingredients don’t fit, are wrong, and need to be replaced.  So that the dish is properly designed, so the flavour is right.  And that is his work, their work, together.  She can see his line of thought, his aim. She understands it as a cook.  And in understanding it, there may be a key.  Perhaps if she can appear to be what he wants, he will unwittingly provide her with the way out.

But what he wants, if she understands it completely, is so terrible, so complete, that thinking to this point makes the emotion the fear, rush in, and her lucidity is gone. Because what if it’s not enough to be the perfect recipe?  What if the ultimate aim is to consume?  What would a madman do with that, with her, if he thinks he’s got the ingredients right?

And then she’s castigating herself, telling herself somehow she deserves this. That she has brought such darkness upon herself from her own darkness within.  She remembers Christine, her childhood friend.  Christine and Francine, the ‘Cineteens’ as they were called, mimicking the similar but subtly different ending of their names.  They were the once inseparable duo that were ultimately far too easily separated in the end. And in this lies her guilt, her belief, the darkness from which she has run, run, run all her young life.

But she can’t think of that now.  It was another life, another age, another story. It has nothing to do with this, with now.  It has no place…. it has no place…. and she cannot think of Christine now…………

(c) Helen M Valentina 2015, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Serial Horror Stories, The Flavour of Spite | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment