Her name was Alice. She was six years old, and wanted to be a nurse when she grew up.
She didn’t exactly know what it meant to be a nurse. All she knew was that when she had gotten a nasty cut that had slowly become infected, her mother was forced to take her to the hospital and a woman who said she was a nurse had taken care of her. The woman had cleaned the cut and put something on it that made it sting. But afterwards she hugged Alice, gently at first, and then tightly. Alice hadn’t expected it. She couldn’t remember ever being hugged before. When the woman had finished and stood back, Alice saw there were tears in her eyes. Then her mother had grabbed her and pulled her away, out of the hospital and away from that kind woman. Since that experience, Alice had known she wanted to be like that woman. She wanted to be kind to people and make them feel better when they hurt.
Alice remembered that the woman had smelled of flowers. She never saw her again.
She didn’t recognise the man in the lounge room. He was standing over her mother, who was lying on the couch, her eyes closed and her arm hanging down to touch the filthy floor. The man was screaming at her mother, but it didn’t seem like she could hear him. He slapped her face.
‘WHERE IS IT?’
Fear kept Alice frozen in the hallway where she stood, half hidden in the darkness. Several grimy bedsheets, nailed to the walls to cover the windows, filtered the midday sun, making the house feel dim and insubstantial. The man grabbed her mother by the shoulders and shook her roughly, yelling in her face again as he did it.
Alice wished the other man would come back, the one that had been nice to her. She remembered the time that this man had brought her a Happy Meal. It had come with a little pink horse that she’d been allowed to keep. She still kept it hidden under her pillow, one of the few things she owned.
‘Why do you bother with her?’ she’d heard her mother say to him as they left the restaurant. Alice’s stomach had been full, which had been an unfamiliar experience for her.
‘She reminds me of my little sister,’ he’d replied.
When they got home, Alice’s mother had headed straight for the bedroom, shedding her clothes as she went. The man had sat Alice on the couch and turned the TV on, then had given her a glass of water. He’d seemed on the verge of saying something when her mother had called out to him from the bedroom. He’d spared Alice one last glance, and then left her. Alice had heard the lock click once the door closed behind him.
That man had been kind.
The man yelling at her mother was one of the bad ones.
They were more common these days. He finally stopped shaking her, but then slapped her again. She still she didn’t respond. Alice flinched each time the man touched her mother, and she desperately wanted to run up and beat her fists on him to make him stop. But she’d seen the frenzied look in his eyes and knew to avoid drawing his attention, or he’d likely turn on her too. He screamed again, a raw, deranged sound, getting close to her mother’s face. Through her fear, Alice dimly registered the warm trickle of urine running down her leg.
She didn’t realise she was going to speak until the words left her mouth.
‘Stop.’
The man’s head snapped to face her. His eyes still held that terrifying look. Pupils dilated and streaked with red blood vessels, devoid of all emotion except rage.
‘Fuck off,’ he spat at her.
She wanted to cower, wanted to run to her hiding spot in the hallway closet and hide from that awful gaze, but she spoke again, a little louder than before. Her voice was tiny in the dark house.
‘Please don’t hurt her.’
His hands detached from her mother, and then he rushed to where she stood. As he reached her, looming like a monster from her nightmares, he grabbed her arm and used it to fling her down the hallway. Alice cried out, then landed heavily on her backside before sprawling out, her head hitting the floor. The rough landing caused her to bite her tongue and, as the metallic taste filled her mouth and the pain registered in her mind, she began to cry. She tried to sit up so she could shuffle back, away from the man with his awful eyes, but the wetness on her shorts made her slippery. Instead of moving backwards, she just slid on the floor, ending up on her back again.
He took another step towards her, and his bare foot landed in the now-cold pool of urine. Stepping back from the unexpected sensation, he looked down. Understanding bloomed quickly. When he looked back at Alice, who was now attempting to stay as still as possible, the look on his face changed, and new emotions flooded his face. Concern. Fear. Shame.
He stepped back again, then turned and hurried to the front door. Within seconds, he’d left the house, slamming the door behind him. In the loud silence that followed, Alice remained where she was, as still as she could make herself, not wanting to tempt fate by moving too soon. She finally heard him trying to start his car. The engine struggled to turn over, and she was worried that it wouldn’t start and he’d come back to finish what he’d started.
Then she heard the roar of the engine, heard it get further and further away from the house. She still didn’t move until it finally disappeared completely, but forced herself to wait just a little longer. When she was sure the man wasn’t coming back, she leapt up and ran to the front door, locking it as quickly as she could. She turned back to her mother, still on the couch.
Approaching cautiously, she called out softly to the lifeless body.
‘Mummy?’
No movement. No sound.
She moved a little closer, each step taking her towards the mother she loved but also feared. The dimness made it hard to see if her mother was breathing, so she made herself move forward, closer and closer. When she was near enough to reach out and touch her, she looked at her mother’s face.
Her eyes were still closed, but Alice saw her chest was moving. Relief, bright and draining, filled her. Her mother wasn’t dead, just passed out again. She was suddenly exhausted. Her stomach rumbled, and her pants—still wet—were now cold against her skin. She knew she wouldn’t be able to fix either of those things until her mother woke up and helped her, so she went to her room and curled up in her bed. Under the pillow, her fingers closed around the little pink horse she’d hidden there.
The house was dark and cold when she woke. The sun had set, and the only light that filtered through the sheets over the window came from the streetlight outside. There was no warmth to it, only a harshness that somehow made the shadows seem darker.
Dazed and confused from sleep, Alice got out of bed and moved across the room. The sense that something had changed in the house flared in her mind. It wasn’t just the fact that it was dark now; she could feel an unnerving quiet had settled over everything, like someone holding their breath, waiting for something awful to happen.
She opened her bedroom door and peered out into the hallway. The shadows were deeper here, and hid all manner of monsters for her. She caught movement in the darkness from the corner of one eye and quickly shifted her gaze, but movement from the other corner of her eye drew her attention back. Her fear got the best of her, so she stayed where she was, not willing to move forward or back.
She stayed like this for some time until the sound of movement in the lounge room startled her. It was a soft rustling and the sound of footsteps on the floor. Fear spiked through her as she considered the possibility that the man had come back.
‘Alice,’ her mother called out to her.
Without thinking, she walked towards that sound. She didn’t notice her mother’s strange voice at first because she was focused on the comforting thought that her mother was finally awake. As she turned the corner and came to the entrance to the lounge room, the realisation finally hit her: it had been her mother’s voice, but some undefinable quality to it made it sound like the words were being forced out of her.
In her still-dazed state, Alice thought of the time the boy from across the street had shown her a caterpillar he’d found in his garden. They’d both stood together and admired the way the insect’s body moved, and the way the sunlight made the fine hairs on its body look soft and fluffy. Then the boy had suddenly decided to clamp the caterpillar in his pudgy fist and squeeze as hard as he could. In an instant, its insides became its outsides, popping out in a thick expulsion.
This thought, terrible as it was, is what her mind conjured up when she heard her mother’s voice. It made her slow her pace, and soon she was creeping along, not consciously aware of what she was doing. She reached the entry to the lounge and peeked around the corner of the doorframe.
Her body pulsed with fear when she saw what waited for her in the lounge.
Her mother was sitting up on the couch, and something awful stood in the shadowy space just behind her. The thing had placed its hand on her mother’s shoulder in a disturbing gesture, like it was some morbid lover or protector. Even though it was dim, Alice could see the figure was deathly thin, with skin that looked like roasted meat.
She met her mother’s eyes and saw the barely contained terror in them.
‘Alice.’
Her mother’s voice was now barely a whisper. As she spoke, the thing’s awful hand moved slowly towards her neck, sickeningly sensual. It grabbed her throat and wrapped long fingers around it, then slowly squeezed. Alice could see its grip was becoming harder and harder.
Her mother’s eyes bulged and she started thrashing. But the thing’s grip was too strong, and the last sound Alice heard from her mother was a wet, gargled sound that made her feel sick.
In the silence that followed, she heard a car pass by the house. Everything was still.
Then the thing slowly let go of her mother’s throat and let her slump forward. Her body made a loud thump as it tumbled from the couch onto the dirty floor. The thing looked down at her for a moment, then turned to face Alice. It moved from behind the couch and started moving towards her, seeming to glide over the floor. Its body was thin, almost sticklike, and she couldn’t make out its face in the darkness.
When it finally came to a stop, it stood in front of her and looked down. For a moment, it did nothing. While she wasn’t able to see its eyes, she could feel it watching her. Then it gently reached out, brushing her hair where it fell in front of her eyes and tucking it behind her ear. Although darkness obscured most of its face, she could now see the thin lines of its mouth. The mouth slowly broke into a wide smile that did nothing to calm her. Rows of white, sharp teeth seemed to shine in the darkness as it grinned terribly.
Her name was Alice. She was six years old, and she was never seen again.
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