A brief note: This is a horror story. It’s not supernatural horror, but rather entirely real and horrible horror. It contains a few profanities, and if you’ve been enjoying the Scarlet stories, please be warned, this is quite different. 

She giggled. She couldn’t help it. She’d been doing it a lot recently, and couldn’t decide whether it was down to the shock, or just the freedom. Sally scratched her head, just above her eyebrows, and winced. She wandered into the bathroom and stared into the cracked mirror that hung like a drunken executioner. The skin on her forehead was red, and flaky, and she poked at it, sniffing. She dug around in her wash kit and emerged triumphantly with a face cream sampler, the entire contents of which she splurged on to her hands and then slapped onto her forehead. Some vigorous rubbing later, and the redness looked at though it were buried beneath a mountain of oily snow.

With another sniff, she ambled from the bathroom and stared out the window. The place only had one, which was lucky, because she’d run out of clothes a couple of days ago, and had no intention of getting dressed. Unless, of course, it was absolutely essential, which, she realised as she peered out into the dirty London dusk, it was.

With a huge sigh, she cast about the room, finding jeans bearing no obvious stains, a bra and t-shirt. Suitably ready for the outside world, she grabbed her jacket off the chair, slipped the thick leather over herself, and stopped. Her head was spinning, and her stomach rebelling again, threatening to toss up the remains of last night’s chinese. Unless it was the night before’s? It had been on the table this morning, and smelled OK…

She staggered back to the bathroom and turning on the tap, received only a sound like a car farting, and she punched it. Swearing and sucking her bruised knuckle, she turned the other tap and was rewarded with a gush of water which she scooped into her mouth. She’d forgotten to remove her other hand, and the first lot went down her jacket and onto the floor, but she got the hang of it after that, and felt a little better.

The wind bit into her, finding the gaps in her jacket before she’d even managed to say, ‘sure, come on in, cop a feel.’ Just like dad, then, really. Her stomach turned again, and she leaned against the wall, taking deep breaths until it passed. Where was he? Was he sad, was he mourning? Was anyone?

© Alex Anstey | Dreamstime Stock Photos

She took slow, unsteady steps down the pavement, turning the corner into Greek street and the market. She received a couple of looks, but no more than usual. She’d have to lose her hair, it was the one thing people could use to identify her. The thought made her shudder, and put the back of her hand to her mouth. She hadn’t cut it since she was born, but now she’d died, it was, in a way, fitting.

She giggled again. She needed something to eat, something sensible, and ducked into the co-op. Emerging a few minutes later with sausage rolls and those little sherbet sticks that made her tongue go funny, she paused, shoving pastry and meat into her mouth until the spinning stopped. Opposite the co-op was a comic shop. It hadn’t been here last time she was in London, and she wandered in, spending a few blissful minutes forgetting everything.

But she couldn’t hide forever and the wind welcomed her back with a searching grope, grabbing chunks of hair and dragging it around. She hauled on it at the roots, pulling it close and over her shoulder. She tucked it into her jacket, shoving it in until it was like having a second layer on, a hair-lined fleece. Hadn’t old-time priests or vicars or someone worn hair-lined tops as penance. That was fitting, too.

She found a hair dressers, and went in, taking a deep breath as she released it from the jacket and it spilled all over the floor. Twenty seven years of growth, never trimmed, never touched. ‘How much?’

‘A trim is forty pounds, madam, though it depends how much you’d like off.’

Sally shook her head. ‘How much will you pay me for it?’

The stylist deferred to the lady behind the counter, who narrowed her eyes as they began bartering. Half an hour, and no few tears later, she emerged looking like Liza Minelli, her pockets heavier to the tune of two hundred pounds. She imagined the shampoo she must have got through. She could build a house with it, a house of beautifully coloured bottles, designed to the hilt, and live in there, away from everyone, and everything. But then, there was no everyone, not anymore.

She paused by the newsagents, staring in at the papers. The headlines were the same on all of them, still asking the same questions. What had happened? Why would anyone do this? Others just threw stats at her. ‘More people killed in this one terrorist attack than in every other ever.’ ‘More than a thousand innocent souls snuffed out, without cause, without mercy.’

She sneered and caught sight of her reflection in the window. She could still feel the heat. That was the weirdest thing, like a wall that punched her, knocking her off her feet and stealing her oxygen, until she was puffing and panting and thinking she was going to suffocate, until it suddenly went, and the cold rushed in, and the screaming began. She was the one screaming, but there were so many more.

She looked down at her hands, turning them over and over, searching for the blood that was surely still there. She walked away, strolling toward Oxford Street, taking it in. She was free, free like she hadn’t imagined she could be. Just being allowed to come down to London for a day had been amazing, unbelievable, really. But it was nothing compared to this.

What was her name? She needed a name, one that worked, and sounded real, but not like the old one. She’d never felt like a Sally, not really. Sally’s didn’t get felt up by their dad on their sixth birthdays, or stab their little brothers with scissors when they got bored.

Natasha. It felt good, sexy, real. Natasha what? Romanov? Nah, already taken. Berry? That could work. Natasha Berry. She giggled, and put a hand out to steady herself. Where was she staying? She’d been sleeping somewhere since it happened, but where? And why couldn’t she remember? She put her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out a wallet.

Without looking up, she leaned against the wall and slid down it, pulling her legs in so people could still walk past. There were keys in the pocket as well, keys to the flat. Of course, the flat, with the broken tap and the dodgy mirror. She leafed through the wallet. She’d done this as well, already, the familiar driver’s licence, with the pretty girl on. Lucy Tenor, resident of the UK, now a bloody corpse, probably buried by now, it’s been six days.

She stuffed the wallet back in, then took it out again. She pulled the licence out, doubled it over so the plastic went all white, bent forward and slipped it carefully down the drain. The other cards went the same way, til all she had was a costa reward card, and a bundle of carefully folded twenties. She had a flat, and two hundreds pounds, and now she had a name. And she had no father, or mother, or little brother, or overly-concerned friends, or social worker or any of that crap. She sniffed.

Next Instalment: Wednesday 22nd January