Pursued (Love Hurts)

Seven

I decided not to do anything rash, that I should give myself a little time to calm down, so I waited another twelve hours, just thinking over everything that the detective had said to me, trying to decipher them in a million different ways.

Maybe he was right, maybe I was imagining things—putting emphasis on things that weren't there. If he knew that Allen really was a good guy, then I was just accusing him on a whim, possibly wrecking his life over nothing.

It was safe to say that I had been under a lot of stress recently, losing my husband and my parents all within a short time period. I had the world on my shoulders—endless pressures. Marcie, the move, a new life...maybe I'd finally cracked. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to believe. After all, at the time I'd been so concerned with looking after Marcie, that I didn't even bother to see a therapist myself.

The shadows, the faces, the pictures. I could quite easily be reading things into something that just wasn't there. My mind really could be playing tricks on me. When I thought about it rationally, it made perfect sense.

Maybe all the years of domestic abuse had finally caught up with me; maybe I couldn't shake off the shadow of Tony.

But somehow, I didn't quite believe that was all it was.

However much I tried to tell myself all of this, it didn't quite ring true. Someone was pursuing me, after me, and I still didn't know why.

So as soon as the morning rolled around, I started to ring all of the hotels in the local area, trying to book us a room for a few days. It wasn't something I could really afford to do, but then again, I couldn't put a price on mine and Marcie's life either.

I just couldn't be in this house for another second longer. It was going to drive me insane!

"Really? No rooms?" I quickly became frustrated. I was running really low on places to ring, and somehow every single place seemed to be full. It felt weird, like a conspiracy or something. I just couldn't believe that nowhere had anything free for us. There wasn't even some special event or anything on. Something was going on here. In my addled mind, I became convinced that Allen...or not Allen, whoever it was, had gotten to everywhere before me.

"No, I'm afraid not." The robotic woman replied. Each person I'd spoken to had sounded the same, just a little...off. Was that real or my imagination? I was trying not to focus on that question too much, I just want a solution, not more upset.

After slamming down the phone, aggravated and irate, I stared aimlessly out of the window for a few moments, wondering if any of the neighbors would take us in. Sure, most of them didn't really know us past saying 'hello' in the street, but they'd known my parents. They had to count for something, right?

But as I looked harder, I realized that no one was there. I couldn't even see Allen's creepy shadow lurking about. He was always doing something in his garage before we went on the school run, so the fact that even he wasn't there meant something.

Did it mean that he was in the house? My crazy brain certainly jumped there first.

I raced up to Marcie's bedroom, hoping that she was already dressed for school so we could get the hell out of here and to the school. The parents would be there for sure, and I knew once I was back in among civilization, I would be able to calm down. We needed to leave, and we needed to do so now.

"Marcie, I..." As I pushed into her room, I noticed that she was sitting still in her pajamas, drawing. Drawing faces. Drawing him.

"What's this?" I snapped, yanking the paper away from her, ripping it a little. Her little face was shocked and confused, but that didn't stop my rant. "Why aren't you dressed yet? Why are you drawing this...this man?"

"I...I'm sorry mummy." She looked like she was about to cry, and I felt emotions burst inside of me. Not only was I now insane, I was taking it out on my poor daughter. Whatever I'd been through, she had too and it was likely that it had affected her more deeply than me. I needed to pull it together, for her sake.

Even if I was right, and something was going on here, I needed to protect Marcie from it. I'd spent so many years doing so, why was I struggling so much now?

"I'm sorry, sweetie." I pulled her towards me in a hug. "Just...erm, just get dressed." My heart was pounding painfully against my chest, I was dizzy with fear. I couldn't keep behaving this way; it was going to end up badly.

I was going to have to end this today. Even if it meant confronting Allen and finding out the truth. Even if it meant heading to the doctors to pump myself with pills.

Anything would be better than this!

"No mummy, I mean I'm sorry that I made that man."

"Huh?" I stared down at her. Was she blabbering in the way that kids did, or was she really trying to tell me something? Her tone certainly sounded grave, as if she was speaking something important.

"Mummy, I didn't mean to make him. It didn't start out like that..."

"What are you talking about, baby?" I dragged us both down to sit on bed, trying to focus all my attention on her. My brain was trying to take me in a million different directions, but I forced myself to ignore it.

"I started off drawing daddy. I miss him" She stated simply, not understanding what a knife this had driven into my heart. I'd done my utmost to keep her away from all of it—the beatings, the yelling, the prison sentence—so it wasn't much of a surprise that she missed him. But it hurt me all the same.

"Okay." I panted, nodding frantically. "Alright. So, you drew him. Okay."

"But then another man started to appear. I thought it was a new daddy, and I knew that you were sad so I kept on drawing him." She gazed up at me, speaking with such an adult clarity, that I had no idea where it had come from. "The more I drew him, the clearer he became."

"Erm..." What the hell was I supposed to say to that?

"He's not nice anymore." She mused. "He's scary."

I was just about to comfort her, to tell her that none of that was real, but as soon as those words left her mouth, all of the furniture in Marcie's room lifted from the floor, swirling around us.

"What the...?" I gasped, sliding both of our bodies backward until we hit the wall. "What's happening? Is this real?" A big part of me was still stuck on the theory that I was crazy, and in that moment, I wanted it to be true.

I had to be. Furniture just didn't fly around—that was a scientific impossibility!

"He's really mad now mummy." Marcie sounded more panicked that I'd ever heard her before. "We have to go."

We ran through the house, clasping on to one another's hand as if our lives depended on it, as things were tossed at us from all directions. Stuff that was too heavy to be thrown by a human.

I finally realized the truth. I wasn't nuts, I wasn't being stalked; this was something else.

Something supernatural.

That may have made less sense than all of my other theories, but it was the only one with evidence. It was the truth.