Keira sits on her bed and stares vacantly at the opposing wall. She’s tired and she’d sell her soul to get a few winks in, if only for bad dreams. It’s Halloween night, but she’s not done much to mark the occasion. Just a drink and a chat with her mates. Non-costumed. Somewhere unbusy. Mature. Just a drink and a chat.
Her phone buzzes. “Your Halloween memories”, it reads. A newish feature. She taps on the message and a selection of appropriately festive images of her life greet her. It’s typical fare. A selfie with mates. A spooky concert. An embarrassing picture of 9-year-old her trick-or-treating as a generic princess, sent to her by her mother. Thanks mum, she thinks.
Naturally, her mind wanders back through those nights. The good, the bad, and everything in-between. Eventually, she gets through every single image, and it occurs to her that he makes no appearances. Odd. When was it that he first showed up?
Oh yeah, she was a little girl at Splashtech Water Park. It must’ve been, what, 9 years ago today? Weird setting to mark the occasion, but the 50% off discount was too alluring for her financially-challenged parents to let up on.
She was by the pool, hearing her friends shouting and playing in the distance. All she wanted was to get up and join them, but something about the pervasive chlorine stench, or the wild motion of the slides, or the overpriced burger and fries she’d eaten (or perhaps the three combined) was making her feel sick. Ready-to-puke sick, which is why she was doubled over on a set of steps instead, her legs chafing against the rough, anti-slip surface.
He came and sat next to her. She almost didn’t notice at first, what with her head placed firmly against her thighs, and when she did, he gave her a bit of a fright. He couldn’t have been much older than one of her classmates, but he was taller, gangly, and pale, with eyes that seemed infinitely wide and deep. Cute, though. That was the first time she’d thought that towards a boy.
They talked for a little while. He was the more awkward between them, which put her at ease. Never quite sure what to do with his hands. He had a funny voice: short and squeaky. Combined with his fair complexion, she figured he was foreign. Their topic of conversation eluded her – probably something childish and meaningless. He left without saying anything just as she realised she felt better. “Marco!” she heard someone yell from not too far away, and she grinned, standing up to participate.
The next time was a few years later, at a Halloween birthday party. The host’s parents weren’t around, so naturally, her peers had taken it as a chance to dip their toes into the vices of adulthood, with drinking and card games and smooching the night away. Keira found it all a bit disappointing, including the cigarette she was currently “enjoying”. She’d not had one since.
Though she was safe under the confines of a homemade bike shed, the rain was lashing down, giving her the notion that she ought to head back inside. She would’ve done so earlier, if not for the arrival of a familiar face. He was there again. Frankly a behemoth by now – Keira had lamented being 6 foot in her teens, but he made her feel tiny, his head dipped down and his arms swaying loosely by his sides. They chatted again, her in a mermaid-themed costume and him in a loose t-shirt. It was mainly to do with the amount of time that had passed. He seemed reluctant to discuss the present. Too much to drink, she remembered thinking. There was some strange comfort in seeing his face again, but the persistence in his tone and pleading mannerisms gave her the willies. It wasn’t malicious, just…nagging. Hopeful. She made her excuses and left him there in the cold. No-one else had seen him that night. She tried not to think about that.
And then, the most recent occasion. After many hours spent binge-watching YouTube videos, she found that urban exploration was a topic that interested her greatly. It took a while to muster up the courage to find somewhere herself, but when a friend of a friend brought up the old, forgotten, still half-full dam on the fringes of town, she couldn’t resist. It was there that she spent the 31st that year, alone, claiming her independence, armed with a torch, camera, and thick woolen coat. She’d gotten some great snaps, ones that would win her a contest later that year. There was one sight that she’d been too surprised to remember to immortalise, however.
As she came out into the open at the bottom of the infinite spiral staircase leading to the water’s edge, she saw him, no more than a quarter-mile away on the other side. Except he was a monster. A towering, inhuman, skeletal thing whose proportions were too exaggerated to be human. He lumbered uncertainly under his own weight like a ragdoll, seemingly looking for something. Those huge eyes that she’d gazed into all those years ago now looked like they could swallow her whole.
He noticed her, and worse, he began moving towards her. She couldn’t take that. She turned and bolted up those steps until she felt like her heart would give out, and then kept running all the way home, her camera bag trailing behind her. When her mother saw her panting at the front door, she told her a mugger had given chase. No more lonely trips to lost places. She couldn’t take the chance.
Now, three years later, she watches the old cuckoo clock in her room through the reflection of her bedroom window. She’s lost in thought, in the past. She thinks of a lot of things. She thinks about what she met. She thinks about her house, out in the sticks. She thinks about the running stream beyond the forest’s edge. She thinks about the tree in her garden, and how much taller it looks today.
Narration available here.