THIS BOOK WILL KILL YOU

10_tubby_

_tubby_

I knew I'd seen the word before, that single comment on the single photo on Tanner's page. Cara commented on this story three days before she died, and all she wrote was:

i don't' know if this is right but look at the table, look at the table, it's the same

My cursor hangs over the link to the story like a guillotine blade, but after a few seconds I move it away. I don't feel ready for it yet. Instead I launch Google and type "Witch's Game" into the bar. Nothing comes back but adverts for video games, so I add Cara's name, but that comes up blank too. I try adding "Dead Girl" alongside it and halfway down the first page there's a link to a Fox News page.

Girl's Death Linked to Facebook 'Witch'

When I click through, through, it takes me straight to the Fox homepage and there's no sign of it there. I retreat, trying to make sense of the thumbnail photo that goes with the article. Another teenage girl, not Cara, a school picture maybe. It's dated 2016. I drum my fingers on the laptop, popping my lips, but I can't think of anything else to search for so I head back to creeepy. It takes me half a mug of coffee before I can bring myself to click on the story, and I finish the drink off completely before I start reading.

I get the feeling I'm going to need it.

_tubby_

added by _unknown_ on 27.12.2013.

tubby is sitting under the table again.

tubby isn't saying anything but he won't stop smiling, I can feel him smiling even when I can't see it, and he keeps touching my ankle with his cold fingers. tubby isn't talking, tubby never talks, but he's grunting the way he does when he's hungry.

he's always hungry.

mother is serving, its chip night and shes done sausges with them. tubby don't always like chips but he likes sausages, he prefers meat. his fingers rub my ankles, rub them red raw, but I don't dare kick my leg because I don't want to make him angry. i tell him to hang on in my head and he grunts and rubs my ankle some more until I think his sandpaper fingers are going to reach bone.

father is staring at me. he's staring at the way my cheeks curve in instead of out, at the dark hollows where my eyes sit, where the tears gather like dust, at the line of my collarbone jutting over my t-shirt. mother too, she's serving me an extra big portion, but it doesn't matter because tubby won't let me eat it. tubby is too hungry to share.

here,she says, putting it down before me. it smells so good, I can see the grease on the sausages, the meaty smell of them rides up my nose and sits in my stomach. the chips are home cooked and crispy, but they will be fluffy when you bite into them. there's gravy too, pooling between everything, deliciously thick.

eat, she says. it's good for you.

eat, father says, an order.

and they see me pick up my fork, they see me stab it into the flesh of a sausage, they see me lift the sausage off my plate, but they don't see tubby's bone thin arm slide up from beneath the table, they don't see his dirty nails puncture the sausage, pluck it from the fork, they don't see his grinning moon face in the shadows between my legs, his wet lips opening, sucking down the meat with a choking, gulping desperation.

he eats everything, he even picks up the plate and pulls it beneath te table. i can hear him licking it, long and slow. and my parents just sit there and watch me and they don't see it, they see something else, something that isn't real, and when it's done they smile and take the plate that tubby has put back on the table and tell me I did well and they give me pie and custard for pudding but tubby eats that too.