There was a flash, bright as stars, but warm, and Evie found herself smiling as she looked into the camera’s glassy lens. Smiling, too, as she looked at the man - her fiance - who had taken the photo, who was waiting patiently for the sleek polaroid to print. He wore a suit and tie, and tight, black gloves, and
(they were bloodstained)
Evie’s smile seemed stretched over her cheeks as she stared at those gloved hands with the darkened splotches crowning the fingers. She tried to speak, to move, but she could not and, suddenly, she became aware of the scratchy ropes looped around her wrists and ankles, fastening her back to a chair, and the starry light grew red and ominous as she struggled against her restraints…
The ropes broke and Evie awoke falling.
She landed roughly, elbows and knees barking against the wood with a bruising force. For a moment, echoes of the dream still chased her. She was still in that cramped room, red lights shining on her, an insectile whirring filling her ears as the camera spat out the polaroids, but then she realized it wasn’t the whirring of a camera at all. It was the doorbell. A thin, constant buzzing, like someone had jammed a finger against it and was holding it down.
What if it was him? Fear pressed hard fingers against her throat.
A sharp knock clattered against the door. Evie flinched, but the voice that called, “Parcel for you, Miss Golding!” was empty and unfamiliar and some of the tension in her limbs loosened, like some puppeteer had limpened his hold on her.
Evie struggled to her feet. The hall, which she remembered being short and narrow before she had passed out, seemed endless, the front door a painted black splotch. She blinked and the hallway was cramped once more, and she rubbed a hand over her raw, stinging eyes.
She could use a drink. The thought beckoned as she crossed the hall and unlocked the door, though she did not unhook the flimsy chain holding it shut. She tried to remember if she had been drinking something that morning - at least she thought it had been morning and, squinting at the amber light that painted the thin drapes, she thought it might be evening - but she had only vague impressions. Sunlight winking through glass, the clatter of ice, tears dampening her cheeks.
She cracked open the door. A courier stood in the doorway, cap slung low over his eyes. In the hallway’s sepia lights, Evie could make out little more than a crooked grin below the cap though, when he spoke, she felt his eyes on her. She drew the door closer to herself.
“Had me thinking no one was home, there,” he said. His teeth glinted in the faded lights. “Are we havin’ a good night, then, Miss Golding?”
“Fine, thank you.” Her fingers were shaking. She clamped them tighter against the door. “You had a parcel for me?”
The courier handed her a white parcel tied with rough string and, for a breath, it shifted before Evie’s eyes, becoming a bundle of pink satin and white ribbon, and the man handing it to her held up a camera and her smile was pulled so taut across her cheeks that she could barely speak.
She snatched the parcel from the courier, breaking the haze of memories. The courier’s grin widened.
“Glad to be of service, Miss Golding.”
Evie muttered a quick goodbye and pushed the door firmly shut, sliding the lock in place.
The parcel was cold and heavy in her hands, and she set it down warily. That need for a drink was there, stronger than before. It made her head feel sharp and hot.
She wondered if she had simply forgotten she had ordered something, if her last drink had washed it away in a haze of amber and ice. The parcel was wrapped in thick, waxy parchment, her name handwritten gracefully. It seemed like a dead weight in her hands, though she was no longer carrying it and, to relieve that weight, she untangled the scratchy string and let the parchment unfold.
Shock lodged itself into her throat.
Her legs gave out beneath her and she sank to her knees. Her hands shook like pale moths as they rifled through the stack of dozens of glossy, black-and-white framed photographs, neatly organized. Photographs of her: standing by the window in a loose nightgown, a glass of iced whiskey in hand; sprawled on the sofa as she had been before she had awoken to the sound of the buzzing doorbell; kneeling, head in her hands, as she sobbed over a tattered polaroid of her in a summer dress, crooking a hand at the camera, which caught the icy glint of a diamond on her finger. The man standing next to her wore the same suit and tie as he had in her memory, in her dream, only the picture ended at his neck. Where his head should have been was only the jagged edge of a torn photograph.
Her eyes found that torn photograph, lying still at the foot of the sofa. That had been that morning, before she had fallen asleep. Whoever
(you know who)
had taken the photos had been there just hours before, watching her.
She stood, unsteady, and crossed to the kitchenette. A glass balanced precariously on the edge of the countertop and she grabbed it and found a half-empty bottle of whiskey and poured until it shimmered liquidly at the brim and dripped onto her fingers.
She stared at the cold, amber-tinted rivulets, soaking down the glass’ edge, until they became blood, warm and red, running down her cheeks and hands, as she raised them to defend herself. Until the tears that had spilled down her face then wet her cheeks now. Until all she could smell, even as she drained the glass of whiskey, were the chemicals, sharp and acidic, of the darkroom, and the fresh, coppery stench of blood.
Evie had torn the polaroids and, now, she set fire to the scraps of her own, private moments and watched them burn within the depths of an empty glass soaked in whiskey. The acrid stench of chemicals - so familiar - seeped out of the glass, and she wished she could open a window, but she only watched, her cheeks stiff with dried tears.
Just the thought that he had been outside her apartment, watching her, brought bright, searing nausea to her throat. Her glass of whiskey was cold against her hands, and the alcohol burned all the way down as she took a long sip. Burned in a way that the rosy bubbles of champagne never had, and memory bled into reality until, when she looked down, the glass of whiskey had turned into a champagne flute and she sat in a straight-backed, velvet chair and clinked glasses with his flute. It tasted bright and sweet, and she remembered little more of that night, except for the pleasant sensation in her mind of swimming through a well-lit pool and a warm hand unclasping the high collar of her dress.
The champagne flute melted in her hands, glistening liquidly over her fingers, and then she held a murky glass filled with murkier water and her hands were numb from the bite of the ropes; she spilled half the water trying to inhale it while he watched, cradling his camera, the fractured lights of the darkroom casting him in shadows.
Evie gagged and she realized that the tinted smoke had filled the room. The polaroids were nothing more than ash at the bottom of the empty glass.
She fanned the smoke uselessly with her hands, wishing again for clean air - but what if he was watching her, what if he took her back? - and, somehow, the thought made her eyes burn, and the room seemed to drown in the fractured, liquid world of her tears.
Evie lay on the sofa in the palely lit room. Streetlight filtered in through the closed curtains, and she could hear the distant thrum of city life; the burst of a car horn, the shriek of a late-night train skidding against metal tracks. She felt faraway from it, from the people, from the streets she had not seen since she had moved into her apartment. Sleep clung to her as lightly as a spider’s web. Below the distant sounds, she felt - sometimes with such acuteness that she would sit up, hugging her knees to her chest - that she could hear the faint tread of footsteps, the clatter of heels against concrete. Her heart thudded thickly in her ears, and sweat soaked the collar of her camisole.
She blew out a soft breath and watched the city lights writhe on the ceiling, shaping the monsters she had been scared of as a little girl. Until she had discovered that true monsters walked close by; that they could seduce, could smile charmingly, could act human until they peeled off their mask.
She would leave as soon as morning came, organize what little she had and find another rental in another state, farther away this time. Somewhere he couldn’t chase her.
She must have drifted off, because she found herself in his darkroom.
Red lights glared at her, turning everything into solid outlines and shadows. She wore a lacy nightgown and she was
(tied to)
sitting in a chair, only she couldn’t move, and she knew by the shifting lights below the door that he was in the bedroom - their bedroom - and he had only gone away for some reason. But he would be back, and she couldn’t be there when he returned.
The tendrils of escape had first filled her mind months before, on a night after the mask had slipped, when she lay in bed next to him, one eye swollen shut and slippery, coppery blood filling her mouth. She had kept a glass bowl beside her that night, leaning over to spit blood whenever it threatened to slide down her throat. She had pretended, up until then, that he would change once more, that the mask would simply sew itself back on, and he would apologize and they could be happy like they had been before. That morning, when she emptied out the crystalline bowl in the sink, leaving it a misty rouge, she knew she would have to run.
The heavy weight of footsteps on wooden floors stirred her back to the darkroom, to the chair that she was tied to, so tightly that her arms had fallen numb and she knew she must have bracelets of bruises around her wrists and ankles. But she managed to loosen the rough knots tying her arms, and one arm came undone, followed by the other. Her fingers had a purplish tinge to them as she tried to untie the ropes around her ankles. In the bedroom, the tiles squeaked, and she pulled harder at the knots.
The ropes around her ankles dropped to the floor, and she almost tumbled from the chair as her unsteady legs tried to catch and hold her weight. The cool, silky surface of a polaroid grazed her cheek. She had almost stumbled into a string of them, hanging like beads on a cord.
There were dozens of strings, hundreds of photographs. They hung, still as limp hands below the dark red lights, and she could picture his gloved hands sifting through them and stringing them carefully. There were photographs of her, from when they had first met, and she had worn a bright smile for weeks, to when her smile had darkened. Bruises and cuts painted her cheeks; her lips were swollen. Tears dribbled from her eyes, catching the red gleam of the lights so that they looked like dripping blood.
But there were other photographs, too, organized like a collection of precious jewels. Of other women, other girls. Other victims of his gloved hands and his bloodstained camera.
He hadn’t left the bedroom yet. Evie rose, as quietly as she could even as she shivered violently, and padded to the door. Her fingers were needling sharply; the burnt stench of chemicals made her head feel foggy. She pushed the door open, gently, and looked through the narrow slot.
He stood at the window, a black silhouette against the glass. A champagne flute glinted in his hand, mostly empty. Evie shrank back, and a sharp, vicious pain cut into her side, so that she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep in her scream. Her mind was foggier than before and she couldn’t remember what had happened
(he’d broken her rib, smashed a chair against it)
but she knew that he was worse than ever when he drank.
She tucked herself into a corner of the room, and waited. Some time later, she opened her eyes and when she looked through the crack, he was gone.
Keeping an arm cradled delicately around herself, though it did little to help the acidic pain, Evie crept into the bedroom, found the door, and hobbled to the wide staircase.
She was halfway down the staircase when a door opened.
She heard rather than saw him and she tripped over one of her half-numb feet and went sprawling down the stairs, slamming to a halt at the bottom. Pain bloomed in her head. Her vision went black then gray, then settled on the sepia-tinge of a faded light. She saw him at the top of the stairs, a figure of shadow. The tips of his gloves, she saw through a dim haze, were splattered with blood.
Where could that have come from? she thought, deliriously. Her hands scrabbled at her sides, pushing her up. Her vision flickered again. When she looked back to the top of the staircase, the figure of shadows - had it ever been a man? - had dissipated. She blinked, but he did not return.
She remembered little else of that night, aside from the sting of cold air against her cheeks, the searing pain in her side, the constant, fluttering fear that followed her. She checked over her shoulder again and again, turning corners and crossing streets blindly, but she never caught sight of him. Once or twice, she thought she heard the whir of a polaroid camera, but the sound of passing cars and her own heartbeat drowned it out and then it was gone.
Evie awoke slowly, caught in her memories like a fly caught in a spider’s web. She shifted, felt a phantom pain in her side that disappeared as she stretched. She sat up, and her nose grazed something cold.
Evie opened her eyes.
In the hanging photograph, she lay sprawled on the couch as she had been a heartbeat before, painted a dark red by the lights hanging above her. On the table next to her was a glistening champagne flute and a pair of black gloves, splattered with blood.
This is intense! I really like it, the way the reader isn't sure what's happening in same way the mc feels. Excellent
Wow, Artemis, I just finished reading this for this week’s episode of my podcast since it’s one of the shout outs, and I am absolutely blown away by the quality of your writing.
Your style is unique and elegant. I love the way this story flows and how vivid the imagery is without every sacrificing a single drop of the atmosphere or pacing.
Excited to talk about it on the show, but had to shout out the amazing work here!