Friend From the Internet Read online

  Smiling, she leans down as Paula tries to cry out.

  “We have to run!” I shout, rushing to Paula and pulling on her arm, but not managing to get her to move. “We -”

  Before I can finish, I feel another stabbing pain in my shoulder, and I turn to see that Caroline has driven the knife into Paula again. I fall back, landing next to one of the chairs, but Paula is still clinging to the back of the sofa.

  “Remember I told you how much I hate the world?” Caroline asks, leaning closer to Paula again. “God, I was just a prissy, histrionic little teenaged bitch. Thank fuck I grew up and realized how to fit in better with society. It's a shame everyone can't be as strong as me, but I suppose any system is inevitably going to have a few wastrels. That's what I saw whenever I saw homeless scum around town, Paula. There aren't many homeless people in Croftby, but whenever I see one I just get the urge to help trim some more fat from the edges of society.”

  With that, she twists the knife in Paula's back again, and we both scream. I can feel myself getting weaker, too, which must mean that Paula is fading.

  “Your intervention has made it easier for me to get away with it all, though,” Caroline continues, twisting the knife again. “I'm sure I'll get a lot of sympathy when people hear that I barely survived a home invasion. I'll be the grieving widow, the mother of a murdered child as well, and everyone will blame you, Paula. They'll blame my dumb little friend from the internet who turned out to be obsessed with me.”

  She twists the knife yet again, although this time I realize I don't feel the pain. Is Paula starting to lose consciousness? She's still trying to pull away, and then she cries out as Caroline slides the knife free and repositions it at her throat.

  “Rose!” Paula gasps. “Why did you have to kill a little girl?”

  “This is self-defense,” Caroline whispers. “Nobody'll blame me.”

  “No!” I shout, stumbling over to the sideboard and grabbing the largest pot I can see. Turning, I raise the pot above my head and bring it smashing down toward the back of Caroline's head. At the very last second, she starts to turn and look at me, and we make eye-contact just as the pot shatters against her face.

  Her body slumps down against the carpet, and in the process she drops the knife. As she falls still, her head lolls to one side and I see not only a bloodied patch on the side of her forehead but also her wide-open eyes with a faint, shocked expression.

  I wait, breathless and terrified, but her eyes remain open and she doesn't blink.

  A moment later I hear another gasp, and I turn to see that Paula is also slithering down to the floor. Hurrying over, I grab her and hold her up, forcing her to stand.

  “I'm going to get you out of here!” I gasp, struggling to keep her up as I start half leading, half carrying her toward the front door. “I'll get someone to help the kid, but first I'm going to get you away from here!”

  Extract from chat log

  Monday March 25th 2013

  From AardvarkQueen310293:

  Hey, so I've been looking back at the messages I sent you last month and I'm sorry. I totally over-reacted and I let my anger get a little crazy.

  Lesson learned.

  I'm still going to try to find you, because I still want to know what scared you off. Maybe I came on too strong, I get that. I can be like that sometimes. But the truth is, it hurts to get dropped like that I just need to know the truth. It's going to nag away at me forever unless I find out.

  Maybe you're not reading this. Maybe you didn't read the messages from last month. I hope you're okay, and that you're not, like, sick or something. I guess you might be a little surprised when I eventually show up on your doorstep, but I won't mind if you, like, tell me to take a hike.

  I just want to know what I did wrong.

  Anyway, enough pathetic self-justification from me. See you around, Mayfly90330. Whatever you're doing these days, I hope it's cool and I hope I get to talk to you about it in person some day.

  Peace out.

  Yours,

  AardvarkQueen310293

  The End

  “Careful!” I gasp, as I lower Paula down against the pebbles underneath the old pier. “Are you sure you can't keep walking? I need to get you to a hospital!”

  Supporting her neck, I try to get her as comfortable as possible. She hasn't said a word ever since I carried her out of the house, but I think she's still breathing. I mean, it's hard to tell for sure, since I'm shivering so bad in the rain and there's blood everywhere. Her hospital gown is warm in places and cold in places, torn all over the back and the belly and the shoulders, but the rain has washed most of the blood from her face. As I gently let go of her, I watch for any sign that she's conscious, but her head simply lolls to one side.

  “Paula!” I say firmly, tapping the side of her face and finding that her wet cheek is freezing. “Can you hear me? Say something!”

  Although we're under cover here, beneath the entrance to the pier, rain is crashing down all around us and water is trickling down a drainpipe somewhere in the darkness. I lean closer to Paula and listen, but there's not even the slightest hint of a response. Wiping tears and rain from my face, I gently press my ear against her wet, bloodied shirt. I feel torn fabric against my cheek, but I'm honestly not sure whether Paula's actually breathing or not. And then, when I check her wrist for a pulse, I try several times before realizing that I don't even know how to do this.

  “You can't die,” I sob. “Please, don't die.”

  I check the side of her neck. Maybe I feel a faint beat, maybe I don't, it's hard to tell and I'm really starting to panic.

  “What do I do?” I whimper, trying to make sense of all of this. “You have to tell me! Paula please, I have no idea what to do or -”

  Before I can finish, I break down sobbing and it takes several minutes before I can even look at her again. She's still in exactly the same position as before, she hasn't moved an inch, but I refuse to believe that she's dead. I check for a pulse again, and this time I'm more certain than before that there's something. I mean, I think she's still hanging on, but she won't last for long unless I get help. I managed to carry her, but I'm assuming that in reality she was able to walk and she simply imagined me carrying her. Now she's dying and...

  When she dies, I'll die too.

  Sniffing back tears, I look down at her. I can barely see her in the darkness, but I can just about make out one side of her face. Her eyes are closed and matted hair is stuck against her forehead, but in some strange way she looks peaceful.

  “No, don't go,” I tell her, starting to feel weak. I nudge her shoulder, trying to gently shake her back to consciousness. “You can't go! We have to find a way out of here! We can't -”

  Suddenly I hear a siren somewhere close, somewhere up on the street. I turn and look up the beach, and I'm shocked to see the faint blue flash of an emergency vehicle. They must be searching for Paula after she escaped from the hospital.

  “Wait here!” I stammer, before clambering to my feet and racing back out into the rain.

  I slip several times on the wet pebbles, but finally I get up to the path and then I clamber over the concrete sea-wall just as a police car comes around the corner. Driving slowly, the car heads this way and I see two faces peering out.

  “Over here!” I yell, waving my arms frantically. “She's here! She needs help!”

  The car rumbles this way through the storm. Still waving my arms, I step a little further out into the street so that I can't be missed in the car's headlights. Still waving, I feel a rush of relief that maybe help is finally at hand. And this time, somehow, I'm going to make sure that they see me.

  “Over here!” I shout again, but the car isn't stopping. “Wait! She's here! She's right here!”

  The car drives straight past me.

  “Stop!” I scream, starting to run after them. “Please, you have to stop! You can't leave her here! You're not -”

  Suddenly I trip and fall, landing hard on my kn
ees. Letting out a gasp of pain, I look down and see blood already stained around a tear in my jeans. I wipe the worst of the grit away as I get back to my feet, and then I see that the police car is already turning along another street. I open my mouth to call after them, but now they're gone and as I stand here in the street I realize that there's no way I'll ever be able to get their attention. Rain is crashing down all around me, and for a moment I feel completely lost until I realize that I'm still here, which means Paula must still be alive.

  Turning, I hurry back to the beach and then under the pier entrance. It's so dark under here, but after a moment I spot Paula still in the exact same spot where I left her. I kneel at her side and check her wrist for a pulse, and this time I'm more certain then before that I can't feel anything. A few minutes ago there was maybe a very faint beat, but now I can't find anything at all. I check the side of her neck next, and here again there's absolutely nothing.

  “Come on,” I whisper, still not giving up. I keep trying her neck, but she feels so cold.

  She's dead.

  “No,” I whimper, “you can't be dead. You can't be, because if you were dead, I'd be dead. I'm just in your mind, remember?”

  I wait, but of course there's no reply.

  Reaching out, I touch the side of her face and wipe away some of the matted hair. I'm terrified, and I know what I have to do next, but I delay for a moment before finally using a single fingertip to carefully, slowly open her eyes.

  Again, I wait.

  She doesn't blink.

  I wait a minute, then another, but her still eyes simply stare into the darkness.

  “Come on,” I say as firmly as I can manage, even though my voice is trembling with shock. “If anyone can survive this, it's you. I bet you've had worse, right? You're going to pull through. I know you are.”

  Even as I say those words, however, I know that they're hopeless.

  She's dead.

  The fact that I'm still here must simply mean that some final, dwindling part of her consciousness is still clinging on, but that too will be gone soon. I guess the final neuron firings are dying out in her brain, and I must be pretty much all that's left. She probably only has seconds left, or at most only a minute or two. Then I suppose I'll blink or fade out of existence, and I won't even have a chance of an afterlife because I never really existed to begin with.

  Not really knowing what else to do with these final moments, I lean down and kiss the side of Paula's face.

  And then I turn and look out at the dark, stormy sea, and I watch the distant blinking lights while I wait.

  There are people on those boats, people way out to sea. I bet they wish they were on the shore right now, but I'd give anything to be out there at least once. Paula always dreamed of escaping that way, or getting away from the world, and now I understand why. As I watch the lights, I try to imagine what it's like to be out there in the storm. The boat's probably swaying and tipping this way and that, there might even be waves crashing over the edge of the deck. I'm not romanticizing it at all; on the contrary, it's the harshness that appeals to me. I want to be out there on a boat, so busy dealing with the harshness of nature that I don't even have time to think.

  So I sit and I wait, and I wait and I wait.

  And I wait so long, watching the blinking lights as they move across the horizon, that finally I realize there's a very faint brightening.

  The sun is coming up.

  Once the sky starts to lighten, the morning reds and yellows seem to spread very quickly. Seagulls start screeching a little further along the shore, probably up where the fishing boats are, but otherwise the scene is remarkably calm and peaceful. A strong wind has picked up, blowing along the beach and ruffling my soaked clothes, but I simply continue to watch the horizon until the boats' lights can no longer be seen against the blues of the brightening sky.

  And I'm still here

  Eventually I hear a couple of cars passing along the road at the top of the beach. The rain has eased now, and I can hear the sounds of the town waking up. People must be starting to head out to work, and a moment later I spot movement in the distance. There's a man on the beach, a couple of hundred meters away, running a metal detector across the pebbles as he slowly meanders this way. I watch him for a moment, before realizing that it's finally time to take another look at Paula.

  I have to force myself to turn to her, and I let out a shocked gasp as soon as I see her face.

  She's dead.

  There's no doubt about it now. In the cold morning light, her face is deathly pale and the sheer scale of the blood loss is evident all over the front of her hospital gown. Her eyes are open, still staring ahead the way they were when I opened them, and her left hand is slightly curled in an unnatural manner, as if rigor mortis has already begun to set in. Reaching over, I try to uncurl her fingers, but they're far too stiff. She's freezing cold, too, and when I look again at her face I see that the wind has blown grit into her lifeless eyes.

  She's dead.

  For several minutes, I simply sit and stare at her. There's nothing for me to do, except wait for the end. It's obvious that no part of Paula can still be lingering in her brain, but I suppose it would only take a faint spark or two – maybe – for me to still be here. I just want to go now, I want to get it over with, although as the minutes tick past I start shivering again. My soaking wet clothes are clinging to me, and finally my teeth start chattering. Staring down at Paula, I watch her face and wait in case somehow, miraculously, she comes back.

  I know she can't, but still...

  “You're going to be okay,” I whisper eventually, shivering worse than ever. “I don't know how, but you're going to be fine. You're going to -”

  Words.

  These are just words.

  Suddenly I feel a sense of panic. If I'm still here, then that must mean there's some hope. And if there's hope, then I need to do more than just sit here rambling.

  “I'll be back,” I stammer, getting to my feet. “Don't be scared, I'll be back.”

  Turning, I start hurrying up the beach. When I reach the sea-wall, I clamber over, and then I stop to look around. At this end of town, there isn't too much activity at such an early hour, although I can see cars in the distance. I make my way across the street and then I stop again, looking both ways as I try to figure out what to do next. I know I have to somehow get help, and I can feel the panic surging in my chest, but I don't know what I can actually do.

  And then, after a few minutes, I hear hurried footsteps racing across the pebbles. Turning, I spot the metal detector guy scrambling into view, and he's already shouting into his mobile phone.

  “I found a body on the beach!” he stammers. “A girl! I found a dead girl on the beach! I think she's been murdered!”

  He stops at the side of the road, and I can see the fear in his eyes.

  “I'm at the entrance to the old pier,” he says. “Please, you have to hurry. I think she's the girl who was on the news.”

  He listens for a moment.

  “No, she's dead,” he continues finally. “I checked... I know I shouldn't have touched her, but I checked for a pulse. She's definitely dead she...”

  His voice trails off.

  “Oh God,” he adds, and now it sounds as if he's close to tears. “She's dead. She's really dead. I've found a dead body.”

  He listens again.

  “Hurry!” he shouts finally. “Get someone down here, it's... It's the most awful thing I've ever seen in my life! She's been stabbed!”

  Horrified by those words, I turn away. I don't know where to go, but after a moment I happen to glance toward a news-agent's shop a little way along the next street. There's an old man behind the counter, and he's staring straight at me. At first I assume he's looking at the guy on the phone, but then I realize that from his position there's no way he could see or hear the guy. Plus, even from this distance, I can already tell that the man is staring straight at me.

  I pause, before
starting to make my way along the road.

  “You have to hurry!” the metal detector guy is saying behind me, his voice getting further and further away. “I've never seen a dead body before. Oh God, her face...”

  Reaching the news-agent's shop, I find that the door is propped open. I hesitate for a moment, before cautiously stepping inside. When I look over at the counter, I see that the newsagent is staring straight at me with a confused look on his face.

  “Are you okay?” he asks finally. “You look... soaked.”

  Looking down, I realize that he's right. My clothes are clinging to me, and I'm still shivering.

  “You look really wet,” he continues. “Rough night? Maybe you should go and get warm.”

  I turn to him, but for a moment I honestly don't know how to respond.

  He can see me.

  He can really see me.

  “Are you alright?” he asks. “Do you need help?”

  I stare at him for a moment, before reaching into my pocket. I don't know why, but for some reason I suddenly remember the coin that Paula gave me last night. Taking it out, I turn it over in my hands for a moment before stepping over to the counter.

  “What can I get with this?” I ask, to test whether the man can hear me.

  “Pack of gum, I suppose,” he says with a shrug. “Not much else.”

  Spotting some gum on a nearby stand, I take a pack and then slide the coin to the man.

  “Okay,” he mutters, as if he still finds this situation really weird.

  I turn to leave.

  “Hang on,” he says, and I turn back to see that he's holding some smaller coins out for me. “Don't forget your change.”