Read WHO FOLLOWS: a gripping, dramatic, intense and suspenseful thriller Online
Authors: Diane M Dickson
I stretch my legs under the warmth of the Duvet and poke at my pillow. Without really emerging from sleep my mind registers a strangeness. Where’s my other pillow? On the floor or pushed up against the headboard? I fumble above my head, still lost in my sleepy fug. No it’s not there, on the floor then. With a sigh and a lazy shuffle I trail an arm over the edge of the bed and search with my fingertips. Damn, still no pillow.
On the verge of turning and leaning out of bed to find it, my senses climb to another level. I hold my breath as my body freezes. This isn’t my bed, no need to open my eyes, this just isn’t my space. Above that knowledge lays another even more frightening, I’m not alone. A thrill of fear trickles along my arms and down my back. I open my eyes a tiny slit and roll my eyeballs sideways. Where the hell is this?
Some sense of self-preservation has overtaken me and kept me immobile as I force my thoughts back to the last memory. I was in Amy’s house and I had plonked down on the settee for a moment. That’s the last thing that I remember. Is this another blackout like the one that landed me in the woods? If it is, where has my unconscious self taken me now?
I hear breathing. I peer through the dim light. A tall figure is outlined in the light from the partly opened doorway.
“Christ.” I jar my neck shooting upwards in the bed. Amy has moved into my room from the landing.
“Hush now, it’s okay, don’t be afraid. I heard you cry out in your sleep and came to make sure that you were alright.”
“Amy, no that’s not you. Amy.”
“Of course it’s me, why who else would it be? Are you alright? Were you dreaming? Shall I bring you a drink? Water, warm milk?”
My hand is scrabbling desperately at my side for the lamp on the bedside table. “Amy, you’re dead, it’s not you. What the hell is this? Shit, where’s the light?”
“My goodness Hannah, you have had a nasty dream. I’m sorry my dear I forgot to plug in the light, here let me turn the room light on for you.”
“NO.” I didn’t want to see her, she can’t be here. This is a dream, it has to be a dream. I fling myself from the bed. This is Amy’s house, the room that she had prepared for me. My perfume on the dressing table and a cream shawl just like mine laid on the end of the bed. I look down, I am fully dressed, I even have my shoes on. What the hell am I doing in bed with my shoes on?
My eyes are adjusted now to the dimness enabling me to peer at the figure in the doorway. She stands with a hand stretched towards the light switch, her face turned sideways towards me. It is Amy. Cold, clammy sweat makes me shiver as I try to make sense of what’s happening. I take one terrified step towards her. It’s Amy, there’s no doubt. She’s dressed in the clothes that she was wearing when we went to the woods to find Maria’s grave.
I can’t speak, it’s impossible to make sense of this. We’re a tableau, still life for several moments as my mind spins and roars with fear and bewilderment, and yes, with hope. Could it be that I’d dreamed it all, could it be that we hadn’t gone to the woods and so I didn’t shoot her after all? As the thought takes hold my subconscious self grasps at it. Is this a second chance? I step forward reaching my hand towards her. She moves towards me, she is limping.
As she moves across the carpet towards me the light from the doorway increases and as it does it gleams on the sticky mess that has formed around her feet. She trails the darkness after her, it seeps from the top of her leg and slithers down to her foot where it pools around her feet as she makes her stumbling way across the room.
Am I dreaming now, had I dreamt before? She holds out her arms. “Hannah, my dear. You must come with me now. I must have you, surely you know that. You will be mine, it is destiny. Come with me now, don’t struggle any more. We can go together, I will help you.” She has reached me and she touches my face with frozen fingers that are slick with blood. I scream, I hear myself scream. I hear the screeching spiralling upwards as a great dark cloud descends and blessed oblivion takes me away.
I’m cold and cramped, one leg is twisted under my body and has lost all feeling. I’m slumped on the floor at the foot of the bed in the dark. The smell and the cold and the horrible emptiness overwhelm me. I push to my feet and stagger stiffly for the stairs.
I have no idea how long I’ve been unconscious in the horrible bedroom but it must have been a while to leave me so shivery and out of sorts. As I clatter down the stairs and across the hall I struggle to push back the memory, the awful, terrible memory of Amy standing in the doorway bleeding onto the carpet and then dragging her wounded self towards me. I can still feel the imprint of her cold, dead fingers on my face. I scrub at my cheek to obliterate the phantom feeling.
I try to blank it. What happened? I cannot, will not face it. She seemed to have been there but I know it’s not possible, I heard her speak, I felt her touch me.
I throw open the door and fall into the real world. Slamming the wood back into the frame I hear the Yale lock click into place. Down the narrow pathway and off down the street still struggling against the pictures that want to show themselves to my waking self.
I could go tomorrow and see Mrs Harker, for sure I need help. Wait, what can I say, how can I explain it? I know they’re already worried about me, they think that I can’t cope, think that I am losing my grip. If I tell them that I’ve been at the house, that I was searching for answers then they’ll definitely sign me off longer from work and it will show on my record. I have worked hard to get where I am, I am not giving it all up for the sake of my imagination; that’s all this is, imagination.
I have to admit that I haven’t been able to cope with this as well as I would have hoped. When I first went undercover and we set up the Humming Bird Offices and the whole plan to attract her and to trap her I was really keen, excited. I thought it would be a breeze. Well it wasn’t as if she were some sort of drug cartel or terrorist cell. One woman, one woman who we all believed was a murderer, but one woman none the less.
It was the shooting that threw me. I had never understood what that would be like. The blood and the sight of her lying on the ground shaking, and knowing that I had done that. No matter what else happens with my life, no matter even how this turns out, I did that. I need to get to grips with it, to face it and to put it in perspective and then all will be fine.
I don’t believe in spirits, hauntings, premonitions, it’s rubbish. No I don’t need to see anyone about this, I’ll just sort it myself.
My flat welcomes me like an old friend, she has never been here, her presence hasn’t tainted this atmosphere. I take a shower, a big whisky and wrap myself in the comfort of my duvet. Tomorrow I will start to come back from this, tomorrow I will put her behind me.
“So, are you okay to do this, Hannah?”
“Yeah, ‘course I am. I told you, Sarge. I’m absolutely fine. I don’t know why I’m not at work. Anyway I’ll be glad to get this out of the way. Once the enquiry is over we can move on, can’t we?”
“Well, we have to be guided by the psychologist and she thinks that you need more time. To be honest you do look bloody awful. I know you said you’d been sleeping but I don’t believe you, you’ve got bags under your eyes and you just don’t look good.”
“Aw thanks that’s just what I want to hear.” I try to laugh but it’s hollow and only serves to increase the worried expression on Bill’s face. I resist the temptation to pace back and forth in the grey corridor but the effort to hold my hands still in my lap and to sit quietly on the chair is immense.
The shooting was righteous, I know it was. My life was at risk, I had no choice. The general feeling in the office is that this will be a quick formality, all the evidence has been examined and nobody can find any reason for me to worry. They have all dropped little notes into the mail – support and encouragement and kindness. Still, I am tormented and anxious.
I am tormented by my failure. I know we’re all supposed to be in a team, no individuals, all for one and blah blah but it seems that I’m the only one who feels that we’ve failed. I have left Maria, she is still alone in an unmarked, lonely grave and I’m dreadfully saddened whenever I think of her. I’ve told myself there is no more to be done, it’s over. We know now for certain that she’s dead. Her family have been informed and by all accounts have begun to grieve and accept.
I never even met her, I didn’t know her and yet she has my life in a stranglehold. I need, desperately, to find her and to lay her to rest with the dignity and recognition that she deserves.
At the start of the whole thing she was just a name on a piece of paper. Even after I met Amy and the whole thing had fallen into place so beautifully she was simply the reason behind it. I can’t say when it changed but at some time during the weeks that we followed her murderer and in the final days and in those dreadful last hours I became so very close to her.
When I knew that Amy had fallen completely for the plan and that even more than that she had become infatuated with me, the way that she had with Maria, then I felt our lives intertwining. I could have been her. She had died at the hands of a twisted and disturbed woman and I could have met the same fate but for the grace of whatever kindness watched over me in the dark woods.
On top of all of that is Amy, she watches me. I feel her near me constantly. I should talk to Mrs Harker about it but I’m afraid to. She won’t understand, I don’t understand and I am very afraid because I don’t know what to do.
Bill’s right, I’m not sleeping. I’m afraid to close my eyes because whenever I do I risk her coming through to me. She wants me I know that she is still waiting for me. I sound mad, I know I sound mad and I don’t know what to do.
The enquiry is behind me. It was as everyone imagined and I was exonerated. The board accepted that I had no choice and I acted in self-defence. There will be a coroner’s inquest about the death of Maria. Now that we have the statements made by Amy and we’re sure that Maria is dead then the formalities can go ahead. I must put it away. I have to accept that I’ll probably never find her.
I am so very tired. Sleep is an unreachable luxury. Each night I close my eyes and slide into the tantalising drift and the nightmare starts. I see the woods, the clearing and the humps and bumps in the earth. Usually to preserve my sanity my instincts for self-preservation pitch in and suddenly I’m sitting bolt upright. As the nerve endings in my arms and legs tingle and hum, my heart pounds with fear. I haven’t bothered with the bedroom for a couple of weeks now.
I have a duvet on the couch in the living room. I read or watch the television until my eyes are closing. I drag the cover over me and let my head fall back. Soothing darkness envelopes me, my muscles start to unwind and warm and I drift. As I reach this stage the dream begins.
In the dream the wind howls in the tree tops, the moonlit clouds scud in the silver grey of the night sky and great black branches reach and bend towards me. It’s always the same. Each time I fall a little deeper and stay longer, before my brain forces me back home.
I’m alone in the clearing in the stormy night, the leaves and grasses are darkened and monotone. Standing in the centre of the grassy area I spin slowly, my eyes raking the undergrowth. Round and round peering into the gloom searching for the grave.
Last night my dream self stepped forward two paces. The grass under my feet moved as the ground heaved and bucked. The leaves dripped and shone with moisture. White roots gleamed and the trees leaned and toppled with a great sucking sound. The sods turned back as the ground opened to reveal a great chasm. The darkness in the grave was complete, a rich blackness, and there in a muddy pool at the bottom was a body. It was naked, I could see rags of clothes and the gleam of bones shining through but the eyes were real and open and glinting with moonlight. The body was skeletal but the face was whole and the face was mine, then Maria the same as the photographs I have seen of her, and then Amy and then me. It was a ghastly ever changing, shifting triumvirate.
As I watched, the fingers moved and the arms lifted and stretched towards me beckoning, willing me down into the darkness. I leaned further over the hole stretching my hands towards the dead thing trying to bring it up, to rescue it. My own face stared up at me as I listened to the footsteps creeping across the grass and swishing nearer and nearer. I was frozen in fear, I couldn’t turn even though the threat was nearer with every second, the face in the grave changed it was Maria, it was me, now Maria. A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me to face Amy standing amongst the fallen branches and the uprooted trees with the great hammer raised as it was the moment I pulled the trigger.
I am terrified of tonight. I dread closing my eyes. I have drunk coffee and brandy and taken pills to keep me awake. I want to sleep, I desperately need to sleep but I don’t dare.
I am wired and strung out, the coffee and the pills have me buzzing with tension, my head is spinning. I’m exhausted and exhilarated all at once. The room is melting in front of my face and the walls warp and bend as I watch them. There’s buzzing in my ears, deep inside and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and through my veins, thundering at the back of my head and pulsing in my eyeballs.
I don’t know what the pills were. I bought them from a low life down in the alley by the park. I won’t sleep I know that, I won’t ever sleep again. I don’t need to, I can go on like this forever.
I have waited long enough now for them to help me, my so called colleagues, my friends. I thought that I would be going back to work when the enquiry was over. That was to be my chance to make them listen to me. We could have gone with the dogs and the heat seekers and the whole bloody lot and we could have found her in one day and then it would have been over. Instead of that I am still stuck here at home in this damn flat. They won’t even let me near the office any more. They are talking about more doctors, more drugs, hospital even. Can’t they see that all I need is to find her? My sister in torment, my other half, Maria.
I must set her free, she must find peace and then I can rest. Until then how can I rest, how can I? She needs to know that we understand. She needs to know that we didn’t forget about her. The only way to show her is to bring her back from that horrible deadly place. She deserves that from us surely.
I’m going to go to the woods myself. I’ll dig up that whole bloody clearing and I’ll find her myself. I can do it on my own if they won’t listen. If they won’t help, fine, I don’t need them. They’ve never understood, none of them. The blasted psychologist, Sergeant Collins, my best mate isn’t he? Oh yes, Bill my mate, but what good has he been to us?
I have to get her out of there and I have to do it soon. Amy won’t leave me alone until I finish this. I haven’t told anyone about Amy, ha, imagine how they’d react to that. Only I know. I haven’t told them about the visits. In the dark when the terrors have made me sleepless and the memories nibble at the back of my brain. She comes then when I’m weak and when I’m alone. I am so alone.
Right, I've got my shovel, a nice long shovel this time. It’s in the back of the car and a blanket for poor Maria. That poor victim left in the woods forgotten, ignored and discounted. I’ll bring her back, Amy can’t have her, she didn’t get me and now I’m going to take Maria away from her and then she’ll leave me alone…
The woods are dark, hah, of course they are, stupid, stupid. Down here, down this path back behind the little gate and towards the hillocks. I know the way now with my eyes closed. Watch me, see, I’m walking with my eyes closed. Ooops, shit now I’m in the mud. No matter, no matter I’m nearly there.
Here, here it is the clearing. It’s my dream of course but I’m in charge now. I’m awake and I’m strong, I am so strong and powerful. Listen everybody, listen to me “I’M STRONG. I’M GOING TO FIND HER.” No, no mustn’t do that, mustn’t shout. I look like a mad person. I just need to be calm and sensible. I need to think.
I’ll start by the big oak. If I was burying a body I’d put it there, wouldn’t I? Ah but wait, look, look there, a willow, a big willow. That’s where she is, that’s where Amy with her arty farty ways and her poncy music and her posh house would put her, underneath the willow.
The soil is soft here, muddy a bit but quite soft and I can shift it easily I think. The bloody roots are in the way but that’s good because if they’re in my way they must have been in Amy’s as well – ha ha, see. Now this spot here, where there’s a gap between the roots…
It’s taking a long time, the rain has started again and the walls of this hole keep collapsing and I have to clear the same mud that I’ve just dug before I can make any progress. It won’t stop me though. I’m going to do it. My only worry is that I won’t have time, it’s after midnight already. What time does it get light? How long have I got?
The hole is big now, I can stand in it. If only it didn’t keep falling back in on itself I would have finished by now. The rain is heavier. See if they had listened we would have had a tent over this and more hands. Why am I having to do this on my own?
I was right, there she is. I see her. Oh poor, poor thing. Not even a coffin just a piece of blanket or something and all the soil down on her face and in her hair. I’m standing with my feet either side of where she’s lying, they slip and slide with the collapse of the walls. I need to get nearer. I’ll scrape away at the soil gently, setting her free. I need to use my hands though, the spade is too big and I have to be so careful. Poor fragile thing, she has spent so long waiting for me, “I’m here now Maria, I won’t leave you”. I wish this mud wasn't clinging to my hands, it runs back down my arms when I try to lob it over the top of the hole. This is so difficult. I shouldn’t have to do this on my own.
Aw no, her hair is tangled around my fingers, it’s wet and it comes away in great clinging, winding clumps. I’m so sorry Maria, I’m trying not to hurt you, I really am.
It’s me and it’s Maria together in the dark earth and now here Amy comes, I feel her. She’s near, the air hums now with the evil she brings. I’ll hide, I won’t let her find me, find us. Down in the dark, down beside Maria.
It’s soft and dark down here and the water is running in little rivulets through the walls. I feel calm though, here down in the earth, it’s quiet and dark and soft. The bottom is flooding but I’m not cold anymore, the shivering has stopped. I don’t know if I’ll be able to lift her out though. I’ll wait until Amy has gone. I’ll sense it and then I can get us out. The walls are slipping down and the mud is falling on Maria. I need to stop and think, I need to take stock now and work out what to do. I need to protect her from the rain and the falling sides of the grave. I’ll just sit down here beside her and hold her to me. I can pull her over here in the blanket. I’ll wrap her in my arms and protect us from the falling soil while I take stock. I’ll wait until Amy’s gone and then I’ll work out what to do next. If the walls hold.
The space is getting smaller, I’m trying hard not to disturb Maria, she’s too fragile, her bones move and separate. I’m sorry. The water is rising quickly in the bottom now and mud is cascading in clods from the walls and the edge at the top. I think I should try and get out.
I know where she is, I don’t want to leave her, but I know where she is. I can bring them back; make them bring a coffin and a shroud. Bill will listen to me now.
I’ll climb out.
The walls are running with the flood. If I can get a grip, I’ll be fine. I need to push my fingers into the mud, my shoes slick with slime. Sludge is pulling me down into the darkness. The walls are bulging inwards, little rivers gushing through.
Won’t somebody come? Will nobody help us?