Mary Blake: A Nasty Novelette Read online

  “False awakening dreams are quite common in persons suffering from PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is just your subconscious sorting through problems you haven’t solved yet. Like I say, solve the problem and they will stop. Do you see Mary Blake in your waking life?”

  ”What? No! Christ, I’m not crazy.”

  “I didn’t say you were. False awakening dreams of severity such as yours are sometimes accompanied by something called micro-sleeps, whereby the primary delusionary experience intrudes into waking consciousness. In other words, hallucinations occur. The subject is in a state of hyper-arousal and dreams and reality can become blurred. But I can certainly help you before things might progress to that stage.”

  “How?”

  “The only true fix is to help you completely come to terms with Mary’s untimely demise. But there are still a few cheap tricks we can perform to help control the nightmares in the meantime. For example, I can teach you relaxation techniques and imagery exercises. A common but effective method is to run through the events of the nightmare in your mind before you go to sleep, but to alter a small aspect of the dream. Like you simply do not get out of bed and you roll over and go back to sleep. Or instead of going to the bathroom you go downstairs and pour yourself a glass of juice. This should have the effect of acting as a pre-rehearsal cue in order to remind you that you are dreaming and you should remember to carry out your new task when you are actually in the nightmare.”

  “And that really works?”

  “I’ve had patients report success with this method. Try it tonight, just before you go to sleep.”

  “I’ll try,” she said doubtfully.

  “I think we’re pretty much nearing the end of our session today Casey. We have already opened up a lot of old hurts and I’ve pushed you plenty hard enough so early on in our professional relationship. But there is one thing that I strongly suggest you do. As painful as it may be for you, I advise that you should seek out the others from that night.”

  Casey’s blood ran cold. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, but I am. Deadly so. You need closure, and that is the only way you’re going to get it. Confront and conquer Casey.”

  “But I haven’t told you what they did yet. They’re not people. They’re monsters.”

  “In our next session we’ll talk about that night. And then you can think about contacting them. Face the monsters and slay the monsters.” He smiled. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  And so ended Casey’s first session with Dr Everett.

  CHAPTER TWO.

  That evening Casey was curled up on her sofa in her dressing gown with her laptop balanced on her knees.

  Find the others, Dr Everett’s voice echoed in her mind. Face the monsters and slay the monsters. Just the thought of speaking to them again was sickening. She couldn’t do it, she just couldn’t. With a shaking hand she reached out for the glass of red on the coffee table.

  Yet she so wanted the nightmares to stop, she would surely go insane from sleep deprivation if they didn’t.

  She stared at the search bar on facebook, her fingers hovering over the keys. Facebook seemed as good a place as any to start, the world and his oyster was usually on it. Who first, she wondered. Angel, Doug or Jack? Her heart fluttered a little when she thought of Jack, a hangover from her schoolgirl crush. He was surely the most human of the three. Not that that was saying much. And they had been close, once upon a time, no matter how fleetingly.

  She was trembling so much she was barely able to tap in ‘Jack Durrant’ into the search engine.

  It threw up fifteen exact matches. She scrolled down them with a wildly beating heart.

  Her Jack was third from the bottom and she let out an involuntary little gasp. The thumbnail picture showed a clear headshot of a smiling blonde man. The hairline had receded somewhat and laughter lines fanned out from those pale blue eyes, but there was no mistaking him. Bloody facebook, she thought. It was too easy to find people, she had kind of hoped he wouldn’t be on it, then at least she could have told Dr Everett she had tried.

  She slammed down the lid. She couldn’t do it.

  It was lonely in Casey’s bed. The space her husband used to occupy next to her was a yawning chasm she still dare not cross, even though it had been empty for over a year now. She didn’t miss him as such, but a warm, comforting body with her in bed right about now would be good.

  She thought back to Dr Everett’s advice on controlling her nightmares. What had he called it? Imagery exercises. She got comfortable in the bed, leaving the bedside light on and closed her eyes.

  She pictured the events of the nightmare in her head. Waking up. Needing to urinate. But no, she would not leave the sleepy warmth of her bed, she would cross her legs until morning. She would simply roll over and go back to sleep …

  Casey sat bolt upright with a start. The bedside light was on. I don’t remember falling asleep, she thought. Then, Christ, I really need a piss.

  She was gripped by a strong sense of déjà vu. Her head was groggy with sleep and without really understanding why, she didn’t get up for the bathroom.

  I can hold it ‘til morning.

  She left the bedside light on; it was strangely comforting, and rolled over so she was facing the side of the bed her husband used to fill.

  Was still filling.

  But my husband left me.

  The figure rose stiffly until it was sitting upright in the bed.

  Mary Blake stared down at her with her black smudged eyes; eyes that spoke of untold terror and hatred. The nightmare figure opened her mouth and congealed black blood oozed out.

  In one deft movement Mary Blake straddled Casey’s ribcage.

  “I’m getting stronger Casey.”

  Mary’s voice was cracked and distorted, like it was coming from very far away.

  Before Casey had a chance to even so much as struggle, the knife came flashing down, slicing through her jugular and that unspeakable face dimmed to black.

  Casey sat bolt upright in the bed, deeply uneasy but not knowing why.

  I really need to piss, she thought. Oh well, it can wait ‘til morning…

  She fluffed up her pillow and turned over…

  Casey sat bolt upright in bed, clutching her neck in terror.

  She was drenched in sweat and shivering violently as if the throes of a temperature.

  The digital alarm clock blinked 5:13. It was still dark outside.

  “Fuck it,” Casey muttered, swinging her legs out the bed.

  There was no way she could sleep now.

  Once in the kitchen she turned on the boiler and switched on the kettle. So much for Dr Everett’s stupid imagery exercises. Now that she was no longer in the grip of the nightmares, she could remember each and every one as clear as day.

  She sighed deeply. In three hours’ time she would be at work and she wondered how the hell she was going to get through the day. She thought about phoning in sick, then decided against it. Because she wasn’t sick, and she’d be damned if she was going to act like she was. Besides, she had an appointment with Dr Everett after work. Maybe he would be able to shed some more light onto her troubled psyche.

  And this time she was prepared to go all the way with Dr Everett. She planned to tell him everything.

  Two and a half troubled hours later Casey shut the front door behind her. It was an unseasonably cold morning and she drew her grey duffel coat more tightly around herself. Her sensible court shoes click clacked on the pavement and she buried her chin in her coat and ploughed forward, lost in her own little world.

  She always walked the mile and a half to work, come rain or shine. It helped to keep her figure in check and clear her head of a morning. It also beat being stuck in the London traffic and walking was invariably quicker.

  It had begun to rain. She swore under her breath and edged closer to the shops lining Whitechapel’s broad pavement to avoid the back spray from the thick traffic.

/>   She fumbled in her shoulder bag for her umbrella, her steps slowing.

  A female figure stepped out of the alleyway sandwiched between a newsagents and a launderette.

  Casey paid her little heed.

  Until the woman blocked her path. She was attractive and slim with long black hair. There was also something horribly familiar about her.

  Casey’s blood froze in her veins.

  She looks like Mary Blake.

  “Am I beautiful?”

  Casey heard the words well enough, but they didn’t really sink in. The woman was wearing a long black coat with a bright red scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face, obscuring her chin and mouth.

  “Excuse me?” Casey asked.

  “Am I beautiful?”

  Confusion gave way to fear and a slow chill seeped through her body. This all seemed horribly familiar somehow.

  The woman pulled down the scarf, revealing her mouth.

  Casey gasped and swayed on her feet, the world having taken on a grainy black and white quality that threatened to send her swooning to the ground.

  Both corners of the woman’s mouth had been slit from ear to ear. The wounds had since healed into lumpy and raised jagged red scars but her face gaped open.

  “Am I beautiful,” she asked once more.

  Casey watched in mute horror as the woman reached inside her long coat and pulled out what looked like a hefty pair of garden shears.

  Her paralysis broke and she cried out, half stumbling, half running from the nightmare figure.

  She turned around and the woman had gone. Casey hunched over her knees, trying to catch her breath as she surveyed the street but the woman was nowhere to be seen.

  On shaking legs she continued her walk to work. Half of her wanted to run for home, but right then she was too scared to be alone. What if she was losing her mind? The last thing she wanted was to ponder on that terrifying thought in her own company. A busy day at work might just prevent her from dwelling on such terrors. She would save them all for Dr Everett later.

  The lessons of the morning passed without incident. Casey taught GCSE English at an all girls’ grammar school in Aldgate, aptly named, ‘Aldgate Grammar School For Girls.’

  By the time the lunch bell rang, Casey was feeling almost normal again. It had helped immersing herself in Orwell’s classic 1984 and she was pleased with the progress in understanding the girls in her class had made.

  “Single file!” Casey yelled at the hungry surge of adolescents making for the door.

  They largely ignored her but Casey didn’t mind, she welcomed the normality of it.

  Casey was left alone in the classroom and she sat at her desk with her head in her hands, tears pricking the back of her eyes.

  Maybe she was going mad. There was no way on God’s earth that woman had been flesh and blood; she was a manifestation of her fevered imagination. Didn’t Dr Everett say that hallucinations were a common side effect of her false awakening dreams? But if she told him about the woman, would he think she was crazy? And more importantly, did he have the power to commit her to a loony bin if he deemed her mentally unfit?

  Casey knew exactly what that woman was. She was nothing more than an urban legend conjured up from the darkest depths of her troubled psyche, just one of many such legends they had touched on that fateful night fifteen years ago. The woman in question was the Slit-Mouth Woman, the one who would accost you in the street and ask; ‘am I beautiful?’ If you answer no, she stabs you with the scissors, if you answer yes, she cuts open your face to match hers. The correct answer should be a noncommittal one, after which you run like hell.

  She sighed deeply. These dark musings were getting her nowhere. Her friend Polly Matthews, the gym teacher, would be waiting for her in the staffroom. They always ate together at lunchtime and weather permitting they escaped the sombre grey school building whenever they could.

  Casey stood up and gathered together her notes. She froze, an odd sound drifting her way. It was faint at first, so faint she thought she had imagined it. But no, it was getting louder. Whatever it was, it was getting closer. It sounded like a rat trapped beneath the floorboards, or a cat scratching at a window to get out.

  Casey was instantly on edge. She had a bad, bad feeling.

  Sod this, she thought, I am so outta here.

  She hurried out the classroom and into the long, deserted hallway. The strange scratching sound grew louder still. And it was coming from the direction in which she wanted to go.

  You seriously have to get a grip, she told herself. Even so, she turned in the opposite direction to the funny noise. She would just have to walk the long way round.

  She picked up her pace when the noise grew more intense. It sounded different now, less like an animal scratching at a surface and more like fingernails being scraped down a blackboard. She whimpered, fear slowly shrouding her like a damp cloak. The end of the corridor seemed so far away and she picked up her pace, refusing to break into a run and let panic win.

  What the hell is that noise, she thought.

  Although on some level, she knew. That unmistakable click clack sound invaded her very soul with the truth of what it was.

  She knew she shouldn’t look over her shoulder. She knew that doing so would be tantamount to confronting her own madness.

  Casey looked.

  And screamed. She broke into a run, blind panic and adrenalin driving her forwards.

  Even above her own wildling beating heart and ragged breathing she could hear the thing gaining ground on her.

  Click clack, click clack, CLICK CLACK…

  The woman dragged her legless torso along the corridor at a speed that defied its grotesque physicality. Her insanely long, curved finger nails sent sparks shooting outwards, such was the speed she was travelling.

  Fingernails that were now just inches from her ankles.

  She felt a sharp prick at her ankle bone.

  The double doors loomed ahead of her and she threw herself at them, hurtling herself out onto the tarmac of the teacher’s car-park.

  There were people out here. Real life, beautiful people.

  Her relief quickly turned to embarrassment. These real life people were looking at her strangely. They were looking at her like she was a lunatic.

  They were gawping open-mouthed at the crazy lady on her knees who couldn’t catch her breath and was clutching her heart in terror.

  The legless apparition didn’t burst through the doors after her.

  Of course it didn’t.

  That’s because it isn’t real.

  Just when she thought her humiliation could get no worse, a shadow fell over her.

  “Casey?” said an all too familiar voice.

  Oh no.

  She lifted her gaze and found herself looking up into the steel grey eyes of Frederick Coldwell, her ex-husband.

  “Hello Fred,” she whispered.

  “Casey, what the fuck are you doing? Get the hell up off the ground. I’m trying to show the inspectors round the school,” the headmaster hissed.

  She scrambled ungainly to her feet. She looked down and saw her flesh coloured tights were ripped and the skin on her knees were scraped red raw. Also her ankle was leaking blood, the sight of which brought tears to her eyes. If ‘Click Clack’ had been a hallucination, then why in God’s name was her ankle bleeding?

  It didn’t bare thinking about.

  “I’m fine, thank you for asking.”

  “Jesus Casey, I don’t have time for this, what the hell’s gotten into you today? You looked like a ghost this morning and now your behaviour is downright alarming. I think you should take the rest of the day off.”

  “No! Really I’m fine.”

  “It wasn’t a suggestion Casey. I’ll see you in my office first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Fred, please…”

  “Eight o’clock sharp.”

  He left her standing there with tears in her eyes and went off to join the two, se
lf-important looking middle aged men.

  Less than fifteen minutes later Casey was walking home. She had her mobile phone pressed to her ear.

  “Oh, hello, this is Casey Brown speaking. I was wondering if I could move forward my appointment with Dr Everett… I can? Fantastic, I’m on my way…”

  CHAPTER THREE.

  Casey lay back on Dr Everett’s couch.

  “Try to relax Casey. Tell me what’s bothering you. What’s happened to make you bring forward our appointment like this?”

  Casey was still shaking from the horrors her mind had conjured up. She was torn. She wanted to tell him about the awful apparitions, but at the same time she wasn’t sure it would be wise to tell a shrink she was seeing things. What if he declared her clinically insane?

  For a moment her mind dwelled on the nightmarish image of the ‘click clack’ torso girl slithering after her down the school corridor.

  “I’m seeing things,” she said.

  “What kind of things?”

  She took a deep breath. “Things that aren’t there. A woman in the street. And at school, in the corridor. I was chased.”

  “Who did you see? Who was chasing you Casey?”

  “Just women.”

  “And did these women look like Mary Blake?”

  Ever so slightly, she nodded.

  “I see. Tell me about the apparitions.”

  So she did, sparing him no detail.

  “Well,” he said, when she was done. “I take it you consciously know that you are hallucinations are based on urban legends?”

  “Yes, I know. First of all Mary comes to me as ‘Bloody Mary’ in my nightmares, and now she’s there in my waking hours too.”

  “It is interesting that Mary would appear to you as the Click Clack Girl. Tell me what you know about the urban legend of Click Clack.”

  “Click Clack is an urban legend that transcends many different cultures. In some countries he is a man, some a woman, but the story is always the same. He or she is the victim of a train crash, a legless torso who drags itself along the ground by super-long fingernails, searching for its next victim.”