The Dark Place (#FrightFest2016 Gold Winner)

The Dark Place - Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

1

Graham Sheen sat on his bed and watched the clock on the opposite wall tick away the seconds. The long, Black Hand was on the four, the shorter one on the three – whatever that meant. Graham wasn't very good at telling the time, there were too many things to remember. The only hand he was interested in was the thin red one; the other two took too long to do anything. His eyes followed the red hand around the clock face three times before he heard the front door slam downstairs.

The sound of running footsteps came up the stairs. Graham jumped to his feet, leapt over to the bedroom door and looked out to see who it was. Amanda just stared at him and smiled as she went past – the way she always did when she was pleased with herself about something – then she went down to the bathroom. Seconds later the door at the end of the passage closed and he heard the sound of running water.

One day I's gonna teached her. Graham closed his own door, walked over to the chair by the window and sat down. He put one elbow on the windowsill and winced at the sharp twinge that shot through his arm. Until that moment he had been numb to the pain from his beating but now his whole body was ablaze again. Graham rolled up his sleeves. Thick welts ran along his forearms and his left cheek was burning hot, but most of his pain came from somewhere else. Slowly he unfastened the button and zip of his trousers and stood up allowing them to drop around his ankles. He noticed the tiny specks of red on the white material of his underwear. He tucked both thumbs into the elastic and pulled then down to his knees. His penis was purple through bruising and right near the middle, the skin was broken but at least the bleeding had stopped. Gingerly, he pulled up his underwear and trousers and sat back down by the window.

Graham's eyes played along the dry, warped planks of the barn across the field. He remembered trying to spy through the gaps in the timbers numerous times when the girls had held their meetings there, but it was always too dark inside to see anything. Tomorrow, he decided, he would sneak inside before they arrived, hide amongst the hay bales and wait to see what they got up to.

The doorbell rang. Graham's heart fluttered, missed a beat and then fluttered again. "Penny?" Graham heard the faint splash and swirl of water as Amanda moved about in the bath. He had get down to the door before she came out of the bathroom so that he could be the first to see Penny. He walked over to his bedroom door and opened it just as the bell rang again.

"Okay, okay!" he heard Amanda shout over the loud gush of water. He knew that he didn't have long before she came out so he took the steps two at a time. It was only when he was halfway down that he suddenly thought, what if she comed to telled of me?

The doorbell rang again but this time, he couldn't move.

"All right, I said I'm coming for god's sake!" Amanda yelled.

Graham heard the padding of bare feet as she made her way along the landing. She came to the top of the stairs wearing a long, white-fleeced bathrobe and wrapping her hair in a towel.

"Get out of my way you mental retard." She spat as she started down the narrow flight of steps towards him.

"You not to called me that." Graham said, lowering his eyes from his sister's gaze.

"Oh yeah, and who says so?"

"Mum and Dad says so," he mumbled, his eyes firmly fixed on his shoes.

"Well they're not here at the moment thick arse, so I'll call you whatever the fuck I want!"

The bell rang again and Amanda pushed her way past him. When she reached the bottom of the stairs she looked back towards him. "Disappear you stupid spaz, it won't be for you."