She Who Stands Behind

Nothing better than a walk at twilight to end a scorching-hot, completely uneventful summer day around these parts. Nick seems ready to leave already, but before he does he turns around with a somewhat unexpected request.

“Hey Blake, wanna come with us to party tonight? Over in the central park at 10PM, everyone’s already said they’re coming except you!”

“Maybe…? I’ll have to check.”

“Come on, man, don’t be a killjoy!”

He’s inviting me again… I haven’t gone with them for a while, and it’s not like I have anything planned so I should probably accept. It’s usually pretty fun when we all meet for a special occasion like this. Besides, if it was anyone else in the group I would doubt it a bit more but he’s my best friend. He’s always been my best friend.

“Yeah, sure, I’d like to go with—”

And then I see her.

Behind Nick, simply passing by but managing to lock eyes with me for a chillingly brief instant. That woman, just seeing her makes my skin crawl…

Wherever she appears, it’s a bad sign. If she’s there I know something bad is going to happen to me. She’s cursed me, it seems, yet nobody else I’ve asked seems to know who she is. It’s not like she causes actual accidents or is a criminal, it’s just… she creeps me out so much I start to feel off for the rest of the day. Perhaps it’s for the best if I miss this one.

Just on cue, as if premeditated, my minuscule phone vibrates inside of my pocket. A voice message from my father. I’m wearing my headphones on one ear, so I just click play and pay half attention to whatever he’s saying. Something or other about dinner tomorrow with grandma. Well, that sounds fine, doesn’t it? I can even use it as an excuse to get out of going partying.

Though when I tell Nick my little white lie, the disappointment in his face almost makes me reconsider.

“Whaaaat? But we just won the Euros, man! THE Euros”

“So?”

“First time we get anything good in 12 years, if you don’t celebrate now when will you?”

“You know I’m not that big into football… It’s fine, we can meet again any other day, right?”

“Yeah but this is the BEST TIME!”

“It’s not like we can only have fun on big, loud celebrations.”

“Well, I guess you’re right… What’re we gonna do. If your parents call, there’s nothing we can really say.”

“Yeah, thanks for understanding.”

“You better eat like it’s your last day on Earth to compensate for missing all the fun.”

I apologize to him again and get on my way back home. I don’t want to look up from the ground too much. I’m afraid I might see her again.

Nick and I live almost right next to each other, we’re just one street away, so it takes less than two minutes for me to be opening the front door to the apartment block where I live. When I’m finally home, I lie down in the sofa and pour myself a glass of cold water. Summer around these parts is something I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy—though if I HAVE any enemy at all, which I sincerely doubt, they probably already live here anyway.

“So how’d the walk go, Blake? Had fun?”

My father, having heard me come in, enters the living room with the usual rehearsed questions.

“Yeah, the heat’s already going down so it’s nice out.”

“I see. How’s Nick doing? Anything new with him?”

“No, not really. He got accepted for his second year of college even though he failed a subject.”

“Ah, I see. Well, he’ll probably have to retake the subject anyway. By the way, did you listen to what I sent you?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow, right? What hour?”

“Hopefully we’ll be in the car at seven in the afternoon, and back home by eleven.”

“Could be worse.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve all got stuff to take care of, so we do what we can.”

“Yeah.”

“Also, your mother and I got you a little something we’ll hope you like. We left it in your room, so go pick it up whenever and let us know if you like it.”

“Oh, thank you. I’ll be there in a sec, yeah.”

I’m not too excited about it if I’m being honest, though I can’t just say that to his face. He does this sometimes and the gift may just be a T-shirt or a magazine or something of that kind. Maybe I’m just a spoiled brat, in fact I’d say it’s probable, but I don’t find all that much enjoyment on yet another piece of clothing plastered with an image of one of the two pop culture things they know I like or a car magazine full of information I’ve already read online.

Not like I should be asking any more of them, this is solely a me problem.

After a while of scrolling Twitter (I never fail to regret doing that, but I keep doing it anyway), I finally get up from the sofa and go to my room. Might as well get it over with.

I open the door to my bedroom, the one I’ve had all my life, the smallest room in the entire flat yet the one I spend the most time in every single day. It’s just as I left it, with my laptop turned on and some books I haven’t finished reading haphazardly stacked on my desk.

On my bed, however, is a small blank cardboard box. I assume this is the gift? I open it to find… oh. It really is just some clothes. I take them out of the box and place them in my closet, not really paying any attention to where inside the closet they’re landing. After all, I didn’t pick any of them myself, so I don’t have any attachment to specific pieces of clothing like some of my friends do.

Now what to do…

I guess Japanese mafia game number twenty-five won’t play itself, so don’t mind if I—

Again with this sensation inside my chest…

I feel the same unnerving familiar sense of dread. Twice within barely an hour, this shouldn’t be happening so quickly.

I leave the Xbox controller on my bed and turn away to leave when—

She’s right there.

In my room, standing right in front of my face. That girl. That thing.

She’s never been this close to me before. Usually she stands far away, hard to spot but harder to miss. Just close enough to be unmistakable, just far enough to feel menacing, But now she’s right there. At long last, I see her face clearly. She’s oddly familiar.

Barely containing a scream, I run out of my room and into the living room again, but I don’t know what to do. How is it possible for her to be here? Inside my house? The one place that’s supposed to be safe?! She’s a complete stranger, nobody even knows her name. Of course, my parents wouldn’t know her either, so why…?

Oh shit. My parents.

I can’t let them find her here, if I do I’ll be in big trouble, I can feel it in my blood.

So I can’t run away this time. Just this one time, I have to confront her and get her out of here for good, NOW. She can’t be seen by them, no matter what.

I rush into my room yet again, this time determined to face her and win. Opening the door as naturally as I can as to not alert my parents that anything out of the ordinary might be happening, it takes a few seconds for my brain to process what’s inside.

After all, I’ve been here ten seconds ago.

The door hasn’t moved since I left. There hasn’t been any noise from the window either. So why isn’t that girl here anymore? And who’s that person lying on my bed—

He—clearly a man—lay there completely flat, face down, probably unable to breathe through my thick dumb pillow.

When looking more carefully, I realize it’s my pajamas he’s wearing. He also seems to be roughly as tall as I am. I carefully lift his face to get a good look at him and—

I drop him immediately. I drop it immediately.

He’s not breathing. It’s a dead body. But even worse—

It’s my dead body. That’s me in my bed. Face covered in blood, and it’s been emptied out.

Why am I hallucinating like this…? That body definitely, certainly cannot be mine. After all, I’m right here. I’m alive, I know I am, I still have all my senses intact and I’m moving around my own house. I can still touch and break stuff just fine. In fact I accidentally hit my computer’s keyboard and it fell to the floor. I can hear my parents complaining in the next room over. They can’t see any of this.

I run to the bathroom to clean the blood off my hands. It was still fresh so it made quite a mess, industrial grade soap wouldn’t wash the stink off me now but I have to try my best. It takes a while for my brain to register what the mirror right above the sink is showing it.

My face—

No, my whole body—

“It’s… that girl…!”