Fry Light Zone.

From a story My 12 year old daughter told me in February 2015.

Snip Snip Snip.

I awake far too soon, visions from a dream long forgotten still playing in my mind like the stench of burnt toast hours after the offending charred items have been discarded.   Something has woken me, and I know that it’s not right.  As I struggle to gather my bearings as to who I am, what I am, and where I am, I hear the sound which has dragged me into the here and now as opposed to the there and then.  It’s a scream, but more importantly than that it’s a scream I recognise.  It’s my daughter’s scream.  She’s called Elsie.   She is 13.  She is supposed to be sleeping in the bedroom above mine.  She is screaming.

I immediately fling myself out of the bed and grab blindly but successfully for the baseball bat I call “Silencer” and find myself running up the curving, newly carpeted staircase onto the top floor of our house.  There in front of me, I see Elsie’s bedroom door.  It’s the same door that was there when we moved in, but she has posted photographs and posters all over it.  The most recognisable and common face on the door is that of her Mothers, but that’s all we have of her now since she went.  Just because she left us doesn't mean she's gone.

I run into her bedroom, and the first things I see are ripped pieces of blanket.  The next thing I see is Elsie.  She’s lying on the bed with a torn duvet barely covering her.  I now realise that the ripped pieces of duvet covering the bedroom floor are not actually badly ripped, but slit.  They look like a blade has sliced them. I look at Elsie and am amazed to see that she is smiling.  “What the hell…” I say before realising that she isn’t smiling.  She is manic.  “What the hell?”  I say.

She looks at me and without losing her terrifying gaze says “How can I know you're Dad?”  I look at her and walk towards her with arms out wanting a hug, but she screams again.  “You’re it, I know you are……just tell me who you are?” This she bellows with that manic look upon her face.  “I’m your Dad, I’m Jim, your Mum was called Becca, and she had to go away because she did not know what she wanted, but I know what I want, and I’m begging you, tell me what has happened?” I reply and this seems to do the job.

She relaxes and explains what has happened.  “I woke up this morning Dad, and there was a man in my bedroom.  He had a pair of scissors and told me that bad things were going to happen.  He said that I had to hide under the duvet and he was going to cut around the outside of it.  Anything that was sticking out from underneath would be cut off along with the eiderdown.  Gristle, bone or flesh would all meet with the same ending.  I hid underneath the duvet and could hear the snip,  snip, snip, of the scissors as the blades slid thorough the fabric.

I made myself as small as I could, but he just kept on slicing until eventually he started to hit my flesh.”  I gaze at my daughter as she raises a hand showing fingers covered in freshly gathered nips garnering welts about to be scabbed.  “Dad, that’s when I screamed, and he ran into the wardrobe.  He’s still there now.  Dad, please take me downstairs.  He’s scared of you.  Please get me out of here!”

I find my fingers tightening on the “Silencer”.  I walk towards the wardrobe.  I am not going to let this monster free to terrorise another family.  I progress with the realisation that he is in there.  I am out here.   I am not a child.  He is not going to put another family through this.  Breathing heavily and raising the “Silencer” into the air I open the wardrobe door.

The wardrobe is empty, except for Elsie.  Her finger and toes are bleeding and she is crying.  She looks at me and says “Dad, there’s something in my bed.”

I turn and realise that I was mistaken.  It is smiling.

23/09/2015