PF Trick-or-Treat Street Entry: The Haunted House
Name: ctquill
Title of work: Echo
Rating/warnings: PG-13. A couple of references to religion
Summary: Always right behind you.
Author's/Artist's Notes:
Ivy parted, sending small things scurrying on thready legs. Sara dragged her hand across the pitted stones and shuddered.
They'd called it the Devil's Gate. The stumps and hooked finger that remained of the arch poked out of a mound of greenery and bees at the bottom of the slope behind the school. Once a year men had come to clear back the growth, exposing raw stone and earth and roots, making it look like a wound with a claw jutting out.
Sara had hated days that ended with swimming. The ruined arch stood sentinel between the pool and the school, and when they were on their way home, no teachers in attendance, all she could do was hurry with her head down and try not to get caught. It had been hardest when the earth was bare; no-one was safe on those days. The usual ringleaders would dare each other to dance through the arch, to risk their souls and prove their superiority in a fit of shrieks and giggles. If you couldn't get away before they moved on to selecting victims, you might find yourself harangued and jeered at and finally shoved bodily through the Gate.
That day, it had been Sara's turn.
She'd tried to ignore them, then tried to protest, tried to struggle, but they'd pitched her forward at the stones. Her school shoes had slipped on the dirt. She'd fallen onto her hands and hip in the hot, torn space under the apex of the arch. Her chlorine-wet braid had slapped across her face. The smell of exposed soil made her think of blood. And her skin had sparked, like a flint had struck all of her nerves at once.
After a stunned, uncertain moment, the ringleaders had recovered control of their circus. Gleeful, doom-laden 'ooh's chased her out of the archway, back to her spilled bag, and away through the grass.
"Bad luck," they called after her. "If you fall under the Gate, the Devil puts a mark on your soul forever, and no matter what you do, you go to Hell when you die."
Stupid, spiteful children. They'd had no idea what they were playing with.
She'd run through the emptying school, her footfalls crashing, echoes following behind like a hunter, out onto the street and into her mother's car, shaking and struggling for an explanation of her dirty hands and books.
That night, for the first time, she'd lain in bed listening to the breathing.
It came from no identifiable source. She couldn't say she was used to it, even after all these years, but she no longer lay shivering in the dark, or buried her head under pillows, or searched the room obsessively until dawn. That first night, though, she'd listened to someone she couldn't see draw breaths just out of time with her own, and she'd screamed for her parents.
The next morning, that same someone had scraped their spoon on their bowl a few seconds after she did; they'd set their glass down just after she did; they'd pushed their chair back to follow her into the hall. Her parents couldn't hear it. No-one else could. There were always footsteps a few paces behind her own, but whenever she turned, no-one was there.
After years of hearing tests and psychologists and missed days of school and failed exams, after medication and six months in an institution, Sara and her echo walked out of an ultrasound room. There were now three heartbeats thumping in counterpoint through her skull.
A few days later, the gap between her steps and her shadow's changed.
Something was growing. A deadline was advancing. Her eternal pursuer was catching up.
Sara drove slowly down the old streets to the school. It was a Sunday and hers was the only car in the row of parallel parking spaces. With each stride, the swish of her jeans against the grass was followed almost instantly by another. The breathing was louder, harsher. Clothes rustled. Her back had been crawling for days.
The bushes hadn't finished growing back after the last clearance. Sara pressed her trembling hands to the arch. The air pressure seemed different here, heavier, urgent. Her doubled breathing thundered in the stillness, gasped inhalations almost overlapping, filling the spaces between stones. Bees thrummed around her.
She felt a regular, hot breeze stirring on the nape of her neck.
"Enough," she whispered.
Words had never echoed. The hunter had nothing to say. It didn't need to. She knew its patience had run out.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Sara stepped through the arch.
Title of work: Echo
Rating/warnings: PG-13. A couple of references to religion
Summary: Always right behind you.
Author's/Artist's Notes:
Ivy parted, sending small things scurrying on thready legs. Sara dragged her hand across the pitted stones and shuddered.
They'd called it the Devil's Gate. The stumps and hooked finger that remained of the arch poked out of a mound of greenery and bees at the bottom of the slope behind the school. Once a year men had come to clear back the growth, exposing raw stone and earth and roots, making it look like a wound with a claw jutting out.
Sara had hated days that ended with swimming. The ruined arch stood sentinel between the pool and the school, and when they were on their way home, no teachers in attendance, all she could do was hurry with her head down and try not to get caught. It had been hardest when the earth was bare; no-one was safe on those days. The usual ringleaders would dare each other to dance through the arch, to risk their souls and prove their superiority in a fit of shrieks and giggles. If you couldn't get away before they moved on to selecting victims, you might find yourself harangued and jeered at and finally shoved bodily through the Gate.
That day, it had been Sara's turn.
She'd tried to ignore them, then tried to protest, tried to struggle, but they'd pitched her forward at the stones. Her school shoes had slipped on the dirt. She'd fallen onto her hands and hip in the hot, torn space under the apex of the arch. Her chlorine-wet braid had slapped across her face. The smell of exposed soil made her think of blood. And her skin had sparked, like a flint had struck all of her nerves at once.
After a stunned, uncertain moment, the ringleaders had recovered control of their circus. Gleeful, doom-laden 'ooh's chased her out of the archway, back to her spilled bag, and away through the grass.
"Bad luck," they called after her. "If you fall under the Gate, the Devil puts a mark on your soul forever, and no matter what you do, you go to Hell when you die."
Stupid, spiteful children. They'd had no idea what they were playing with.
She'd run through the emptying school, her footfalls crashing, echoes following behind like a hunter, out onto the street and into her mother's car, shaking and struggling for an explanation of her dirty hands and books.
That night, for the first time, she'd lain in bed listening to the breathing.
It came from no identifiable source. She couldn't say she was used to it, even after all these years, but she no longer lay shivering in the dark, or buried her head under pillows, or searched the room obsessively until dawn. That first night, though, she'd listened to someone she couldn't see draw breaths just out of time with her own, and she'd screamed for her parents.
The next morning, that same someone had scraped their spoon on their bowl a few seconds after she did; they'd set their glass down just after she did; they'd pushed their chair back to follow her into the hall. Her parents couldn't hear it. No-one else could. There were always footsteps a few paces behind her own, but whenever she turned, no-one was there.
After years of hearing tests and psychologists and missed days of school and failed exams, after medication and six months in an institution, Sara and her echo walked out of an ultrasound room. There were now three heartbeats thumping in counterpoint through her skull.
A few days later, the gap between her steps and her shadow's changed.
Something was growing. A deadline was advancing. Her eternal pursuer was catching up.
Sara drove slowly down the old streets to the school. It was a Sunday and hers was the only car in the row of parallel parking spaces. With each stride, the swish of her jeans against the grass was followed almost instantly by another. The breathing was louder, harsher. Clothes rustled. Her back had been crawling for days.
The bushes hadn't finished growing back after the last clearance. Sara pressed her trembling hands to the arch. The air pressure seemed different here, heavier, urgent. Her doubled breathing thundered in the stillness, gasped inhalations almost overlapping, filling the spaces between stones. Bees thrummed around her.
She felt a regular, hot breeze stirring on the nape of her neck.
"Enough," she whispered.
Words had never echoed. The hunter had nothing to say. It didn't need to. She knew its patience had run out.
Squeezing her eyes shut, Sara stepped through the arch.