I hear the footsteps and those unnerving clicking nails on the tiled floor, as it enters my bedroom, but there’s nothing. I can’t see whatever’s in here with me.
“Esmé?” I hear Gramps’ voice over the phone. “Are you there?”
“It’s in h-here with me. I can’t s-see it.” I explain.
Something heavy pounces onto my bed, and I shriek.
It is invisible.
All I see are the indentations across the sheets as weight shifts to one side, then to the other.
I throw sheets over the creature and see that it’s about the size of a large dog, judging from the silhouette under the covers.
I leap out of bed, run toward the door with my cell phone still clutched tightly in my hand, and I don’t look back.
My left leg is caught, anchored to the floor. With my momentum broken, I fall, crashing into the hard tiles before I can soften my landing with my hands. The cell phone clatters out of reach. All of this is accompanied by a banshee’s warning, which I realise is my own scream of disbelief and pain.
I twist around on my stomach and kick out with my right foot.
Flesh meets coarse hair covering solid muscle.
An inhuman growl answers my assault, warning me to “back off,” I guess.
I don’t.
I kick out again, harder, and my foot connects with whatever the fuck’s decided to intrude and do God knows only what to me. This time, I shift its weight enough to scramble away slowly. If I could only get to the bedroom door—
A sharp pain in my right leg makes me shout out in terror. I kick out with my left foot and move forward.
Sticky, thick blood leaks from the long scratches filling my bedroom with a metallic tang. I ball my hand into a fist, ready to throw my entire weight behind a—hopefully, knock-out punch.
Another growl warns me to “not even think about it.”
I don’t think about it; I just do it.
With a twist of my hips, I bring my fist from far behind me to meet the unseen creature where it keeps a firm grip on my leg. My fist impacts with the
thing,
and an audible crack follows.
An animalistic yelp cries out before the weight lifts from my leg, giving me an opportunity to escape.
I scramble backwards.
Nails click across the bedroom, as if the creature is pacing like a trapped predator, sizing up its next meal.
Not wanting to become an invisible creature’s takeout dinner, I lunge forward and grab the door’s edge, pulling it shut faster than I thought humanly possible. I slide backwards, to the other side of the corridor. Ignoring my bleeding leg, I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. I watch the bedroom door through the darkness as the creature—muscle and sinew and coarse invisibleness—throws itself forward in an attempt to escape.
I don’t know how long I sit there watching the door and listening to the chaos before the front door slams open and my grandfather runs to my rescue. It couldn’t have been long, even if it felt like a lifetime.
Crash! Thump!
“Is that the—”
“
Ja
,” I confirm, weary.
“What is it?” Gramps asks.
I shake my head, pulling my shoulders up.
“You’re bleeding,” he says, seeing my injuries.
“I’m fine. It’s just a few scratches.”
“Come on, I’m taking you home.” He stands up and helps me to my feet. “And you’re going to tell me everything.”
Too tired to argue, I allow him to lead me out of my house, knowing he’s taking me back to my childhood home. “Okay, Pops,” I say. “I’ll tell you everything.”
And I do.
I tell my grandfather everything about my screwed up life while he’s bandaging my leg. From Howlen and our stupid two-year on-and-off fling, to the uncreative paranormal activity following me around, what the message
Him
left behind at Abraham Amin’s dumping site meant, to Rynhardt and my one-night-stand. I end it by telling Gramps about the words Rochester Ramphele spoke, in
Him
’s voice.
If Christiaan Snyders is shocked at his only granddaughter’s sordid life story, he doesn’t show it.
By the end of my confession, I’m wiping away tears with the back of my hand.
“Are you disappointed in me?” I ask.
“You know what disappoints me?” he says, frowning. “Trying to communicate with the place of everlasting darkness. It’s disappointing and frustrating to talk some sense into their employees, let me tell you.”
“Do you mean Eskom, Pops?”
“Of course I mean Eskom.”
“Oh.”
“Get some rest.” He tucks me into my old bed the way he used to when I was a child.
I’m not sure if he fully understands the severity of the situation, because he sure isn’t acting like I expected him to. Still, it’s nice to share my burdens with him, instead of hiding everything away. “I mean it.”
“All right, Gramps. Love you.”
“Love you, too, sweetheart.
Lekker slaap
.”
If only,
I think, but fall asleep before I can say anything of the sort.
~
Dread taints the very atmosphere of the block the following morning.
Invisible plumes of malice blot the heavens. Unseen tendrils of anarchy try to infect everything in its wake. A promise of death rolls off the house in waves of unbearable heat.
I’m paranoid, I know, but even from afar something seems wrong when I return the next day.
On the surface, my house looks like my house. The charcoal-coloured roof is intact; the sandstone walls are fine. My garden doesn’t hold any discernible abnormalities in need of immediate attention. It’s a regular middle-class house, situated on a panhandle property in a nice suburb in Pretoria-Moot. My neighbours keep to themselves, as all neighbours do these days, unless they can’t for some reason. Familiar faces pop up once in a while—the preteen boys who kick a rugby ball into my yard every so often, the nosy widow who peers over the wall whenever she feels the need, the teenage girl across the street who gawks at Howlen each time he’s around. As untimely as those faces seem, they show life beyond the walls we’ve built around our personal prisons.
Visually, nothing is amiss at my house, but I sense danger. Regardless of the subliminal warning bells, I walk up to the front door without hesitation.
It’s painfully obvious; my house is not a home.
A home, in my opinion, needs pets. Preferably a tail wagging, tongue lolling, happy-go-lucky beast of a dog accompanied by a yapping pavement-special with a tendency to bite ankles. A home needs warmth, something décor alone cannot provide when nights are filled with nothing but quiet. A home is a sanctuary, filled with love and joy and patience. A home is imperfectly perfect with cracked tiles, sloping walls, sofa stains, and stubborn creaks. A home is where memories are made.
My house is a shell. A promising shell, but a shell nonetheless.
I have no pets. There is no method to my decorating. No sentimental value lingers in the rooms of my house. If I wanted to, I could leave now with only the pyjamas on my back and not care.
This is not my home.
The front door inches open.
I inhale a gust of sour air and my resolve to enter crumbles into nothing. Last night returns in flashes, the fear I experienced of the
thing
makes me tremble.
What lies beyond that door? Is it still there, waiting?
Grandpa pulls me behind him and takes the first step inside.
I imagine the entity will jump out and devour him whole, and my fear multiplies. I grip his wrist and he looks back at me, concern marring his forehead.
“Please don’t die,” I whisper to him.
Pops smiles. “Would it make you feel better if I said I don’t intend on dying today?”
“I’m not joking. Be careful.”
He winks and turns to face my living room.
I let go of his wrist. His bravado seems careless. Who knows what lurks behind the doors and furniture?
Gramps scans the living room, fearless.
I follow him inside when he’s out of view and everything in the living room looks the same as when I’d left. I glance into the corridor as he peers into the kitchen.
“Looks clear,” he says.
I follow him into the corridor, directing my gaze to the ceiling as I try to find traces of the creature. I don’t know why it would be on the ceiling, but it’s better to be safe. Luckily, there’s nothing there. I didn’t imagine the attack last night. It was here. I’ve got the scratches on my leg to prove it.
I look to my grandfather where he stands in the passageway of my bedroom, his face unreadable. I move to his side, expecting the worst.
“There’s nothing here,” he states. “Perhaps—” Gramps stops himself, smiles, and shakes his head. “It appears we’re both in dire need of a holiday.”
“Seems so,” I lie, looking around my bedroom. Objects have moved from their original positions. Drawers are open, their contents spilled out of their respective places. The closet doors are ajar. Something had clawed at and thrown itself against the bedroom door until the wood cracked. To me, my bedroom is undeniable proof that I’m not going insane.
“Do you want me to wait for you?” Gramps asks.
I don’t answer. I walk inside and inspect my room with a quick glance. Something more is off. Something more is still here. But I don’t want to concern Gramps or Father Gabriel with this when I can handle it myself. I’m not a toddler anymore.
“I’m fine, thank you,” I finally say. When I turn around to face him, a smile is already plastered to my face, but it’s fake. “I’ll see you at work?”
“No, actually,” he says, stern-faced. “We’re going to see Tweedledee and Tweedledum, today. Get dressed.”
“Who?”
“I can’t pronounce their real names,” Gramps says as though it’s obvious why he calls the unfortunate souls Tweedledee and Tweedledum. “Get on with it, we’ve got a long drive, and we still need to make sure we have a proper case against Human-Tooth-Necklace-Guy before we go after him tomorrow. Chop-chop,
pop
.” He claps his hands together, twice, and walks out of my bedroom to give me privacy.
I grab a pair of cut-off jeans and a black tank top from my wardrobe, underwear, some cowboy boots (to cover the bandages on my leg), and head to the bathroom for a quick shower. Once I’m under the waterfall, I close my eyes and try to focus on anything except my catastrophic love life. After coming clean to my grandfather the previous night, I can’t help but recount all of my mistakes and the things he still doesn’t know about.
My first “real” boyfriend was a scrawny, emo IT student at TUKS, named Gareth. I was seventeen. A late bloomer, I know, but I wasn’t going to continue the family tradition of reproducing early in life. I mean, Gramps was twenty when he had my dad, and Dad was sixteen when I came along, so it’s safe to say we’re a rather fertile family if not responsible. Gareth and I had fun for a while until he realised I wasn’t going to be fooled into his bed anytime soon. He broke it off, and honestly I didn’t care too much apart from the fact I didn’t have anyone to take to my high school’s matric dance. Luckily, I had Leila, who gave her date the boot and said we’d go as the school’s first bi-curious couple.
After high school there was Martinus, Jason, Marc, and Rudolph, all university students who ran for the hills as soon as it was apparent I didn’t put out. Again, I didn’t care too much.
When I graduated, things changed.
I met Pierre, a handsome clinical psychologist, seven years my senior, at the gym. His wavy brown hair and deep green eyes made me melt whenever he glanced my way. His smile lit up his whole face, drawing me in like a moth to an electric bug zapper. That’s a nice analogy, really, considering I was the moth and he the electric bug zapper who broke my heart. As insensitive as it sounds, if I’d known Pierre was crazier than his patients, things might have worked out differently, but he was and probably still is a lunatic. His crazy didn’t show immediately, of course. No, he bided his time and wooed me like a gentleman for months.
He was truly everything I wanted in a guy: kind, sweet, supportive, understanding, intelligent… The illusion was pretty fantastic, especially to a naïve girl in love for the first time. It didn’t last, obviously.
After we moved in together, his personality changed so quickly I suffered from whiplash. He hit me once, only nine months into our relationship. Stunned, I didn’t know what to say or do at that moment, but when the shock wore off, I left Pierre and I pressed charges against the bastard.
I have too much respect for myself to let a man threaten, let alone, hit me.
Gramps doesn’t know about Pierre. Neither does my father. If they did, Pierre would probably be dead by now. Detective Mosepi, on the other hand, is all too aware of him. God bless him for keeping my countless secrets.
After Pierre, I didn’t actively seek out another boyfriend, but I found one anyway. It happened sooner than I expected, too. Barely broken up for two months, John stepped into my life. He was nice, in a brutish kind of way, and though he wasn’t necessarily the smartest man in the world, he was hopelessly sweet. The rugby player had the nicest smile (among other things).