My Girl Read online

  My Girl

  Rob Shepherd

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Terror Tract Publishing LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. For more information, address: [email protected]

  Terror Tract Publishing LLC

  Owned and Operated by: Becky Narron

  First paperback edition 2019

  Cover design by: Becky Narron 2019

  ISBN: (paperback)

  ISBN: (ebook)

  Dedication

  Thanks to my wife and family for everything.

  Thank you to all my readers who follow my work and continue to support me.

  Thank you to Becky Narron & Terror Tract Publishing LLC for believing in & publishing this book.

  Contents

  My Girl

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  Judith kissed Andy on the head as she passed behind his chair at the kitchen table. He looked back up toward her and smiled lovingly. Judith finished pouring herself a coffee and settled down at the table and the couple talked gently over breakfast.

  After a little while the sound of a door clicking upstairs followed by the soft tread as feet delicately navigate the landing and make their way down the stairs, causing the floorboards to give off the softest of creaks announcing the progress of the feet, step by step.

  The both Andy and Judith looked toward the kitchen door with expectation of it opening in the next couple of seconds and the next person to grace the kitchen table for breakfast. Yet nothing. The door never moved, and nobody appeared. The two looked at each other slightly puzzled by this but they weren't overtly concerned and simply ignored it, probably next door, their house was identical, yet everything was in a mirrored location. Instead of being on the right of the entrance hall, their steps were on the left and so on.

  Judith and Andy returned to their morning conversation whilst continuing their breakfast, when a short while later the same thing began to repeat itself. The gentle click of the bedroom door, the soft tread of tender feet on the floorboards and stairs. Each step letting off a gentle greeting as the mysterious person made their way down the stairs one by one.

  A slight anxiety built up between Judith and Andy as they turn back toward the kitchen door once again. The air thickened to a dense invisible fog of tension, the anxiety making the two breathe audibly more heavily. Just as they both felt as though they could no longer hold on to the screams that had formed in their chests, ready to burst forth, a pair of hands appeared at and grasped the door frame, casually followed by the rest of the body of the person.

  It was their daughter, Summer. She had finally decided to come down and join her parents at the kitchen table for breakfast. Andy and Judith both exhaled loudly. A deep sigh of relief emanating from them both.

  “Good morning sweet-pea” Andy greeted

  “Are you two OK?” Summer responded inadvertently ignoring her fathers' typically warm welcome.

  “Of course, darling. Breakfast is on the table. Do you want some tea or coffee?” Judith smiled as she offered the choice, raising the coffee jug into Summers' direct line of sight.

  “Juice please mum, I don't think I can handle caffeine this morning. I'm still recovering.” Summer said, her eyes persistently squinting as she tried to focus and clear her head a little.

  “Another late one I see, eh?” Andy said, gently nudging Summer in the side with his elbow as she lethargically wrapped her arms over Andy's shoulders and loosely around his neck, bending down as she did so to lower her top half and nuzzle herself cheek to cheek with him, kissing him as she tightened her hug, “Yes, again. I love you too daddy.” Releasing her loving grip of her father, Summer shuffled around to the vacant chair and sat down. A large rectangular serving dish decorated the table, dressed with toast, croissant, muffins and waffles. Syrup, butter, jam and Marmite adorned the table around the dish.

  Judith smiled and stroked Andy's chest as she walked behind his chair this time, pushing herself away as Andy gently grasped at her as she passed. Walking around the table she made a point of going around to Summer and kissed her on the head before setting down what remained of her coffee on to the place mat where she had been sitting a few moments prior. The three of them enjoyed breakfast together cheerfully enough, despite Summers slow recovery from a fun night out. Until the loud clatter of the telephone ringing shattered the easy atmosphere that had built up, making them all jump a little.

  Judith got up and began to walk over to the phone. Talking as she did so. “If you are home today then make sure you do the laundry today, OK?”

  Summer nodded, made a hand puppet gesture and wiggled her head in a gentle mocking of her mother’s instructions, and teasing her authority in the house as she faced Andy, while Judith turned to answer the phone, picking the cell phone up and holding her finger over the microphone hole.

  “I saw that, young lady!” Judith said in mock annoyance. Feigning a stern look as though she was scolding her for her cheeky behaviour. This worked when Judith was serious, and Summer would immediately apologise and back away. But not today. Summer stood her ground and Judith didn't mean it.

  The two then giggled together before being rudely interrupted by the sound of the sound of Judith’s' phone ringing. The innocence of the previous few minutes having been shattered made the sound of the phone seem more akin to a scream than a ring, which served only to make them all to jump slightly.

  “OK, got it. Do your best until I get there. I'll be in as soon as I can.” Judith concluded her brief conversation with the harassed sounding voice on the other end of the line. Ending the call, Judith placed the phone in her pocket and began collecting her things together.

  “Needed already?” Andy jibed gently, turning to face Judith.

  Judith nodded, pursing her lips together with a touch of sad resignation. It wasn't that she hated her job, because she didn't. She loved it, she loved being a doctor in a busy hospital environment, bustling from A&E to critical and intensive care wards to other less critical, recovery wards. She resented not one moment. It was more that she loved spending time at home with her family too, she wanted to spend as much time at home with Andy and Summer as well. When they had those precious moments together, she never wanted to leave, but she was just as dedicated to her “family” at work too. Staff and patients were all family, no exceptions. These two positions at odds with each other, providing and uncomfortable juxtaposition that Judith had to permanently straddle between. Judith just couldn't decide between the two, inadvertently created the situation she found herself in, yet neither did she want to choose between the them. She was determined, one way or another to have both and enjoy them all the same. If she was honest with herself, secretly, Judith enjoyed her life as it was, it was far from being perfect but in some ways, oddly it felt like it was the perfect life and if there was anything she wasn't going to give up, it was a perfect life.

  Andy finished his coffee and stood up, grabbing his car keys that hung on a hook by the kitchen door. Both Andy
and Judith took it in turns to kiss Summer before saying goodbye as they left the house. Andy dropped Judith off at the hospital on his way into work himself further outside of town.

  Chapter 2

  Summer spent the best part of her time alone in the house, curled upon the sofa watching TV. After watching “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, Summer decided it was time enough that she got up. She switched the kettle on and made herself a hot tea. Finishing her tea, she grabbed the laundry basket and carried the laundry down into the cellar-come-laundry room. The clothes hanging over the side of the basket, making it both heavy and awkward to carry. Managing to tuck it into her body, holding it secure with the on hand, she opened the cellar door and made her way down the stairs.

  The room gave her a strange, somewhat creepy feeling whenever she went down there, but she got a particularly odd sensation about the cellar this time around and yet couldn't explain to herself why. It was as though she felt like somebody was watching her. Studying her every movement. But it wasn't like they were watching from the top of the stairs, under the stairs even. She checked the small window that was positioned high up the far end wall of the room, which she used an old plastic bucket to reach. Returning to her previous spot in front of the washer and dryer, she continued to get the sense of somebody watching her. She stopped and closed her eyes. She began to get the feeling that it wasn't like this invisible person or thing was watching from above but looking up from below her somehow. This didn't make any sense, after all, naturally, the cellar was the lowest part of the house, so given that fact, nobody and nothing could possibly be looking up at her from below, after all, it was solid ground beneath her feet.

  Summer tried to put the feeling to one side, repeatedly as she carried on with the laundry. She pulled the clean clothes already in the washer, out and placed them into the dryer before then loading the washing machine with the clothes from the basket. She tipped washing powder in its specific drawer in the machine, added some softener liquid, then programmed the washer and turned the tumble dryer on afterwards. Both machines whirred into life, gently at first before getting louder and busier. Filling the room with both sound and warm comforting air.

  Summer reached to pick up the basket from off the floor when she thought she could her a voice somewhere behind her. Turning in the perceived direction of the sound, she couldn't see anything, and it was difficult to truly make out clearly, which made her think maybe she had misheard it amongst the noise of the machines. Yet, it didn't go away and she listened attentively, she thought that it was maybe a random sound that you sometimes experience for no reason a voice in your head that gets projected outwards through your ears, giving the impression that somebody has clearly spoken in the real world, not just your brain. Maybe she had misinterpreted a sound as a voice, we humans are easily tricked by our own bodies and the world around us, no matter how clever we think we are. Yet Summer noticed how persistent it was, stopping any movement she listened again, this time she could have certain that the voice called her name, followed by a cry for help. She couldn't discern much from the voice but those were clear as day. There was no mistake, there was a voice calling out, calling her. She just couldn't tell where it was coming from. She knew that it couldn't be coming from the same room because she was the only person in the room.

  Summer began wandering around the room trying to determine the direction of the noise before locating the origin of the sound. It was as though she was standing directly overhead of the sound. Paying more attention to where the sound was emanating from, Summer had become so distracted that she wasn't paying any attention as to where she was walking, until finally looking up at the last moment as she walked face first into one of the many wooden beams that decorated the cellar. She bound backwards, stumbling, feeling dizzy and confused, finally losing balance and tumbling over onto her backside and onto her back.

  Just as her sight returned to normal and the mental fog cleared for her head, being replaced with a big physical lump on her forehead which immediately raised and felt incredibly sore to the touch. The lump throbbed angrily. Reaching up to the bump, Summer held her head. Gradually Summer withdrew her hand, wincing as she did so. She turned over, eventually, onto her hands and knees, before gradually attempting to get back to her feet once again.

  Just as she began to push down with her palms, Summer felt a surge of energy rush through her palms, up her arms before ultimately terminating in her head, flooding her brain with multiple thousands of images, rushing around her mind so fast that she couldn't focus on any one image for even a second before it was replaced by another image until the energy finally vacated her body out and off into the open world somewhere. She felt her arms begin to tremble and she exhaled deeply as though she had inhaled with the emergence of the energy and had held her breath ever since. She felt nauseous for a second or two and geared up to vomit, before the sensation passed. As she paused there on all fours, Summer looked up ahead of her to ready herself to get back to her feet. It was then that she noticed it. Something odd about the floor. A weird spot, a shallow hole or hollow in the floor ahead of her, just by the far end wall. Summer crawled on her hands and knees over to it and peered into the hole. There seemed to be something shining or reflecting the light in some way, though the more she looked at it, the harder it became to see it any better. What little light penetrated from the ceiling lamp into this obscure position, was both reflected and absorbed by both the hole and whatever the object was that was inside it.

  Summer told herself it was a terrible idea and that she really needed to get the hell out of there. Much to her own shock and dismay, she found her own body disobey her. Her arm reached out and her hand dipped down into the hole reaching for the strange object that was apparently hiding in the hole. Her hand duly found something and clasped its fingers around it until it had a firm grasp upon the object and despite her own objections, Summer found herself pulling something out of the hole, freeing the object from its obscure little tomb.

  Horrified, Summer looked down as both hands now clasped a black stone skull, that seemed to be made purely from Onyx or something very similar. However, it was adorned with strange runic symbols and decorations, which had been carved deeply into the skulls, the runes carved into forehead and temples, while the other decorative symbols were carved around the back of the skull. The symbols all seemingly at some point had been either painted or filled with a deep claret paint or pigment of some kind.

  The empty sockets of the strange skull’s eyes, held Summer's gaze, mesmerizing her, placing Summer into a trance, hypnotic like state. Now the voice was loud and clear as could be. It was as though the person were there in front of Summer, face to face, speaking loud and definite to her, though Summer, was still unable to ascertain what the entity was saying still. Which meant, she was unable to work out what the thing wanted from her, which terrified Summer even more that the rest.

  A terrifying sensation washed over Summer from her head down to her toes. She had begun to feel like she was losing herself somehow. To whom or to what, Summer just didn't know and couldn't tell. But the feeling got stronger and stronger as the seconds passed. This was followed with a dripping both in sound and deep inside Summer's body. Summer had begun to decide that the dripping was coming from her own soul. It felt to her like the very fabric of her early existence was about to be unmade. Stolen away from her by the thief that would ultimately steal her reason for being and so it was if she would simply cease to be.

  Chapter 3

  The car pulled up in the driveway outside the house and Judith and Andy both climbed out. Andy holding the key fob to the car to lock it, the headlights silently flashing several times to indicate that it was locked and that the alarm had been enabled. The two of them walked in relative silence to the front door of the house. A long day had taken its toll on them, leaving both looking and feeling a little weary.

  The keys jingled in Andy's hand as he reached out to open the front door. The door opened w
ith a soft 'swish' sound, which was far more audible and evident to them than it would normally be. The couple looked at each other with similar, confused and faintly suspicious expressions upon their faces aping each other perfectly.

  Judith this time took charge and called out, announcing their arrival back home. However, there was a distinct lack of response from Summer. At least not immediately. After a couple of minutes and a few more calls, a soft voice called back from upstairs. Andy walked into the lounge, put his keys down on the small side table and went to the drink cabinet to pour both himself and Judith a drink before returning to Judith, handing her a glass, which she duly took. Andy looked around then up at the stairs in the direction of Summers' room, checking to see if everything alright. Turning back to look at Judith with the expression that asked, “everything OK?”

  Summer shuffled out from her bedroom, out on to the landing at the top of the stairs.

  “Hi mum. Hi dad. Sorry, I didn't hear you.”

  Judith eyed Summer with suspicious concern. “Are you OK sweetie?”

  Summer nodded, “I'm fine I. I'm just tired, that's all.

  “Are you sure that you're OK? You don't look right from here. Come down here and let me check you over.” Judith insisted. Much to Summers' protest.

  “I'm fine mum, don't worry. I just need to sleep, that's all.” Summer continued to protest.

  “Don't make me come up there to check on you, young lady. I'll check on you one way or another, sooner or later, so you may as well let me do it now and get it out of the way.” Judith responded with her threat of care.

  Summer sighed and walked down the stairs to meet her mother. Judith checked touched her forehead with the palm of her hand, before she took a hold of Summers' wrist and checked her pulse. Judith then reached into her pocket, took out her doctor’s diagnostic torch, and looked into Summers eyes. “Open up” Judith demanded. Summer opened her mouth. Her mother shined the torch in her mouth, looking for any signs of infection.