Waiting for the Hunter
A sun without warmth beat down. Light reflected from mirrored peaks, blinding the sky. A road wound through plains of dust and bushes of barbed wire rolled like tumble weeds across the landscape. A voice, disembodied, broken, keened through air thickened by memories of pain. This is her valley of despair.
#
Truths entwined with untruths, the constant inference of decadence… She remembers…. Enduring memories…#
He is her father’s friend. She doesn’t like him. They are on holiday in Nice. She is nine years old and is expected to behave like a young lady. Days are spent having long lunches and seeing the sights. It’s boring. But she’s a good girl. She gazes at the sea and makes up stories in her head. He is delighted by her. She is frightened of him. She doesn’t understand why. There is something about him that makes her want to run away, especially when he gets too close to her.It’s a balmy autumn night. She and her parents are in his hotel room. His wife and her parents are on the balcony, he comes inside. She is lying on the couch, supposedly asleep. She senses him coming. Tenses, shuts her eyes tight. He leans over her, whispers her name. She lies dead still, barely breathing. He strokes her hair and she wants to scream. He kisses her, letting his breath drift over her ear. She is terrified. He goes away. She wants to cry but is too afraid to. He is a bad man. She knows this.
They return home and for a few months she doesn’t see him. He and Daddy have argued. She’s glad. But then Daddy tells her Uncle Victor is coming for supper. He says, I know you don’t like Victor, Sam, I don’t know why, but he’s my friend and you must try and be nice to him. He’s never been unkind to you. So I want you to behave like a young lady. Nice and polite. Really, he says, turning to her mother, I don’t know why she has such a thing about Victor.
Her skin turns cold and clammy, her tummy clenches into a knot. She asks if she can spend the night at Jilly’s house. Don’t be silly, says her mother, it’s a school night.
So she says she’s not feeling well. And she doesn’t look well. She is pale, her breathing ragged. She is sent to bed.
Lying in the dark, her teddy clutched in her arms, she hears him arrive. He’s on his own. For a while she lies in terror until she realises he’s not coming down the passage. She drifts into an uneasy sleep.
It feels like she has only been asleep a few minutes when she hears her name being whispered.
“Hello Sammy. Hello, little one.”
She feels his hand on her head.
She stiffens, keeps her eyes shut. He’ll go away if she stays asleep. She lies as still as she can, hardly daring to breath.
She feels his hand run over her body. He sighs. It is a shuddering sound. Inside her the fear monster stamps its feet and bellows. Her tummy clenches and then turns to mush. She wants to scream but she daren’t. She holds her body tight, holding her terror to her. Her nails dig into her palms, so hard it hurts.
He gets off the bed. She hears him kneel on the floor, feels his face draw level with hers. His breath is on her cheek. It is warm. She doesn’t like the way he smells. She stifles a dry heave. He’s not moving away. She can hear the rubbing of material but she doesn’t know what it is.
“Sammy, little one, wake up, my darling…”
She feigns deep sleep. She must not screw her eyes tight shut, he’ll know she’s just pretending. She must lie as still as she can. She must make her breathing normal. She tries to listen to her breath but it’s hard, so hard. His face is over hers. She feels his lips touch hers… then his tongue pushes at her lips.
She screams. Thrashes and lashes out at him.
She hears her mother’s voice.
“Sammy! Victor! What are you doing in here?”
“I’m sorry, Mary, I just wanted to see how she was.”
“I told you she wasn’t feeling well.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten her. I’m sorry, Sammy, I’m sorry I scared you.”
You’re not, she thinks. You’re not. You’re a bad man. I know.
He backs out of the room and she notices he’s tucking his shirt into his trousers. He blows her a kiss and a chill washes over her.
“I think we must get the doctor tomorrow, Sam. Look at you, you’re like a sheet.”
She hugs her teddy to her, sobbing without tears. Her eyes are wide, wild. She knows. But she also knows she is powerless, alone. How can she tell anyone what she knows? They’ll never believe her. It’s not like he’s hurt her. He’s only frightened her and she knows what grown-ups say about that. They say, “Don’t be silly, Sam, you’re just imagining things.”
Whenever they visit him, he watches her. She can feel how he can’t keep his eyes off her. Whenever he can, he comes close to her, brushes against her, finds an excuse to touch her or kiss her. But he’s good. No one notices anything. Only she knows. And he knows. She knows he’s waiting for her - will always wait for her. She longs to grow up or die. She doesn’t mind which. So long as she can escape him.
There’s a party at Victor’s house. There is no babysitter so her parents take her with them. They say she can stay up for a while and must then go to sleep in the spare room. At nine o’clock her mother, a wine glass in her hand, takes her to the room.
“But I’m not tired, Mommy.”
“You just lie down and go to sleep. You be a good girl. See.”
She nods. She knows it’s hopeless.
She lies in the dark. Waiting. The minutes tick by. Hope stirs in her. Perhaps he won’t come. So many people, perhaps he’s too busy. A sigh of relief begins to shudder through her. The door opens, just a crack and a beam of light spills onto the carpet. He has come. He pushes open the door. Closes it behind him and she hears the key turn in the lock.
“I’ve brought you some crisps, Sam. Some cola too. I know you’re still awake.”
He sits down beside her. She can see his form. The moon is bright outside, shining through the curtains.
“I’m tired, Sammy, so tired. All those people. All Aunt Angela’s friends. I hate parties. Too much noise. My head hurts.” He stretches out on the bed beside her.
Her heart pounds. She doesn’t know what to do. She’s been brought up to be a young lady. To be polite to grown-ups. And Victor is her daddy’s best friend. How many times hasn’t Daddy said, be nice to Victor, Sam. Why, she wonders, does her daddy want her to be nice to Victor. She doesn’t want to be nice to him. She wants to hit him, scream at him, make him go away. But she doesn’t know how.
He rolls over, pulls her small body against his. She hears his breath, ragged, heavy. Terror engulfs her. His hands are everywhere, she feels a thing she’s never felt before pressing against her. The blood pounds in her veins. Something inside her shatters and she retreats within herself, numbed. From afar she hears his voice.
“Sammy, I’ve waited for this for so long.”
#
Samantha Clarion stares at the old man lying in the bed. He is dying. And she is watching him die.He’d called her six months before to say he thought he might be ill, to say he didn’t want to be put into a nursing home. Would she please make sure that never happened to him? He didn’t want to be dependent on anyone, didn’t want anyone wiping his arse. He planned to commit suicide. It would be their secret, he’d said. He told her he’d built up a stash of narcotics. He said she mustn’t tell anyone, and if she had to, would she help him? Samantha said yes.
But now he was in a nursing home - utterly dependent on the strangers around him to feed him, to wipe his arse. Samantha stood at the foot of his bed and watched him.
“The drugs, Sammy, where are the drugs? Give them to me.”
She shook her head.
“You promised to help me.”
She shrugged.
“Please, Sammy, please, I want to die. I don’t want to suffer like this. I can’t stand the indignity. I don’t trust these people. They'll hurt me, neglect me... Let me die, Sammy.”
She stared at him, her face impassive.
“Why are you doing this to me?” His breath was ragged, shallow.
She turned away to the window, gazing through it. A beam of gold pierced through, touching her with unexpected warmth, brightening the space around her. Outside, summer sparkled, beckoning her and voices laughed with echoes of grateful joy.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Because I’ve waited for this for so long.”
36 comments:
Oh ... I'm sitting here weeping. It made me shudder but for me revenge is a dish best served cold!
Well, Short story has an other meaning in my mind. My short strories are like 200-300 words. I am not the man of words. I can say it as an excuse that EmperorAugustus also used basic vocabulary and he was an Emperor. It is my style. I am critisized because it sometimes and because my sentence structures (in Hungarian so if I do the same in English it is because that). There was a documentary about youn people here a few months ago. They showed a 5 years old girl who behaved like an adult (make up, cosmetics etc...). She is living in LA.
As the father of a five-year-old daughter I'd like to think I could spot a "Victor" a mile away. Sadly, I'm probably deluding myself; but I'd never leave her side otherwise.
It's worrying to think of the fine line between say, a father who expresses his daily joy for his daughter's mere presence in the world by hugging and kissing her, and a fucking psycho who preys on little kids. What misfires in the brains of these guys? How do the wires get crossed? How does an easily understandable love of children become a perversion (I mean a real perversion)?
AV, I won't insult you by saying I liked your story. But I will invoke Keats re: Truth and Beauty...
Awesome narration,every frame is clear in the mind. And the ending is perfect!Such jerks need this kind of treatment.
Way to go dear :)
I think Sam would have agreed with you, Laquet, revenge is best served very cold.
Stories of 200-300 words are called micro-fiction, Ropi. Stories of 200 to 1000 words are known as flash fiction while short stories can be anything up to 20 000 though more usually they are between 3000 and 5000 words if for a magazine but can be up to 10 000 words. I guess though that at the end of the day it's not how long or how short a story is, but how well it's constructed, written, characterised and plotted.
You know, Kyklops, whenever I read or hear of stories like this, I am just so glad I decided never to have kids. I think I would have ended up totally paranoid. As it is, I often look at my friends and the seeming innocence they exhibit when it comes to kids. They always say what makes child abuse so scary is the fact that almost inevitably the perpetrator is someone close to the family. Of course, what do you do, start looking at everyone really suspiciously? Years ago I directed a video in which the main actor, unbeknown to us was a paedophile. We learned later that he'd been arrested and were horrified - he'd seemed like such a nice guy. Goes to show.
Thanks, Sameera :-)
It is a disturbing story, yet one that needs to be told over and over, unfortunately. The ending is sweet and bitter at the same time for many reasons. I don't know how we can help these social deviants but it's always good to hear of someone who has overcome abuse.
Whilst these tales are all too prevolent, it's so important that parents talk to their kids about appropriate behaviour, stranger danger etc. Australia is exceptionally cognicent and very good at this thanks to the brave admissions of children, who are now adults I might add, formerly abused by people in trust. It's a big issue here but is being addressed. Although it is still an endemic problem in indigenous and low socio economic groups where child abuse is more an act of violence than a sexual crime. An all to common thread my friend but awarenes is half the battle won. Keep up the cause AV!
This left me with goose bumps.
Riveting story, V! My soul diddered, as my eyes bounced energetically from line to line. I was vexed as the gruesome scene grew nearer. Excellent imagery and ending, V. I'm so glad she was able to get revenge.
Thoughtfully written and wonderfully laid out, Vanilla. Your story commands power. So happy to see you writing, by the way.
You're right Mother of Invention - these sorts of stories need to be told repeatedly. It's only by constantly raising awareness, by encouraging people to tell their own stories, by letting kids know it's all right to say what's happening to them, by getting adults to really listen to children speaking out, that this thing has any hope of ever being brought to an end.
Here, as in Oz, Baino, the most rampant sexual abuse occurs amongst low socio economic groups - and again, it's more an act of violence than a sexual crime. Unfortunately here, unlike Australia, kids are not sufficiently encouraged to speak out and parents still are not inclined to listen well enough. And of course, here, to add insult to injury, is the fallacious belief that sex with a virgin child will cure AIDS/HIV.
That was pretty much the intention, Shameless :-)
Thanks, JD - glad it had such a powerful effect on you.
Thanks, Susan - much appreciated.
Nice!?
to me.. no matter what the ending is, it is still not adequate to what happened. children survive, I know, and perhaps part of it is also to let their own natural instincts kick in ... with a lot of warmth and emotional support from their closest ones. From dealing with it well to a completely healed spirit is just a slight shift in perception perhaps.
But in particular, the ending is surprising since I cannot understand how he would think she would be sympathetic to him?
difficult to read this without feeling disturbed, but you are a very good writer, atyllah vanilla.. :)
Nice!? Alaleh, not sure!? ;-)
The endings are never adequate to what happened, Mystic, children should never have to endure these things, moreover, they should always feel they are supported, that they will not be ridiculed or called liars when they speak their truth. Societal and parental mores should never come before a child's intuition.
As for the perpetrators, I think their delusions and world vision are their complete truth so perhaps it is not so surprising that he would expect her to be there for him in the end - as an extension, always, of their dreadful "secret".
does anyone count the number of words in a story?
This is so compellingly horrible, I wanted to skip through it to get it over and done with. Very well written Atyllah and a great ending. A.
If you're writing a story for a competition or a magazine or submission to an anthology, you can bet, Ropi, that they do indeed count the number of words - particularly if you're writing genre short story fiction like micro fiction, flash fiction or short story fiction that is requested to come in at a certain number of words.
Thanks, Addy, glad you "didn't like" it! :-)
Oh, I think it is stupid. I am reading for a story because the plot and not because the number of words. Do you think it exist if a text is 500 words then it is good but if it is 501 it is bad. By the way edited my last post on my blog. I added an extra paragraph.
Well written, Vanilla. A disturbing and terrifying story.
Well, I when you're writing for a competition and the word limit is say 500 words then you have to write within 500 words, Ropi, or you're disqualified. Likewise, if you're writing for a magazine and their word limit is 1500 words, if you don't edit your story down to that number of words they won't publish it. Yes, of course one reads a story for it's plot and characterisation but if one is working within a genre restriction or within a set of rules, well then, you have to go with it, it you want to participate. And I suppose there is always this, if the word count is too high for one type of short story, it may well fit into another category.
Thanks, sweet Vesper.
Great story. I loved the closing sentence. I also loved the part about the fear monster stamping and bellowing.
I also noticed that you used all of the senses like smell etc. This made the story seem all the more real to me.
i'm crying, vanilla. i'm crying.
xxx
red
Thanks, Steve, for the very constructive feedback - much appreciated.
Red, I'm sorry the story made you cry, but I suppose this is the very harsh reality of child abuse.
xxx
Powerful, powerful stuff indeed. You should do this more often. Interesting comments also follow around definition of micro, flash and short fiction. Inevitably a story is a story, the rest of it mere labels. I'm guessing Ropi has not been published in print from his/her comments. If you want to be published then of course you have to work to certain word counts, whether it's a short story or a novel. He/she is confusing writing and reading methinks.
Yes the use of smell was very powerful indeed. You caught the vulnerability of the child very well.
The ending was credible if sad as it felt like the monster still had enough power to sumonns her, but not appearing wouldn't make for a good story.
Nice work missus.
A chilling story and sad because it continues to happen again and again. I think it is even more disturbing when family members know something is not right but do not pursue that feeling. I'm not sure if there is any way to prepare as a parent except to try and keep the lines of communication open with your child. Hopefully the guidance can help the child in that moment of utter distress.
Thanks, Lehane - maybe I will do it more often, I'd like to, but finding the time to sit down and put together stories like this takes time and lots of thought - and that time is all too often in short supply!
Yes, I'm also guessing Ropi hasn't been previously published - he's a high school student in Hungary so I guess blogosphere is as good a place as any to learn about industry requirements! :-)
Thanks, Apprentice - I think the ending needed to be that way, because the power of monsters like Victor has long arms and tremendous sway. I suspect if she had been over it, it would have seemed less credible. I suppose one might compare the relationship to that between a kidnapper and hostage. Boundaries become blurred and emotions confused.
I was discussing with someone off blogosphere that one of the ways to stop this stuff from happening is to speak out about it - to let the skeletons and dirty laundry out into the light of day. Perpetrators of these crimes all too often get away with it because they rely on societal and personal secrecy and shame. It's time to break down those man-made walls and to let the truth be spoken and honoured.
Sorry, Matthew, that last comment from me was to you regarding your observations. Been a long day and the brain is a wee bit fried!
I disagree with that opinion.
I started reading this story the other day, but didn't make it through, on account of the subject matter.
When I went to sleep that night, I dreamed I was holding two photographs, there was something odd about them, they seemed to shift and change. I decided to go looking for the items in them, one was a rose bush outside an apartment building, and I drove around till I found it.
Anyway, as I got close to the image in photo, the image would change, moving farther along, it was like hunting down clues, and it turned out I was hunting down abused children.
Searching for another child, one photo showed me the view from the high school bleachers, and I had to figure out which kid would have this exact view, as an entire class sat on them, so I would know which kid needed my help. (I did find him)
They couldn't come to me, they couldn't reach out physically, but the images would be sent, and I would have to find them through the picture clues.
Never had such a dream before, I knew the dream was because of your story, and I just thought it was interesting considering the physical distance between us, that you are effecting my dreams.
I firmly believe this situation could have been stopped by the parents at the beginning. So, the blame goes on several people in my book.
Ropie, opinions are just that, opinions.
Taffiny, that's amazing! It's the collective (un)consciousness at work. Your dream is amazing and very powerful. I always believe in working with dreams, trying to understand their meaning and what they are trying to say to us or about us.
I know that the subject matter of the story was rough stuff but I'm glad that it touched you and that you connected with it - clearly there was a need for that connection, whatever that need might be.
Big hugs to you.
It's always hard to know exactly where to attribute blame, Drama Diva, because this kind of child abuse from family members or family friends is so insidious and people can be so incredibly blinkered - particularly by shame and secrecy.
Vanilla, Vanilla,
You have written it brilliantly. As we grow up, we learn to be easily deceived. We learn to lie and to be lied to, and accept it or ignore it.
Children on the other hand, they are amazing judges of character. Too bad, like us, they too are doomed to grow up and become more confused.
I worked with youth, mostly abused in one form or another. I also taught self-defence to women who were victims of domestic violence. I worked with "street workers" who, for one reason or another, did not, could not move away from it and needed to learn at least some skills to stay safer out in the streets.
It makes me so angry, the predators waiting to abuse the quiet ones, the smaller, younger, basically those who won't be able to do anything about it. It's typical bully behavior. They do it because they believe they will get away with it.
I know it is only a short story, as it is called. I bet it is someone's story though. Whether it is an uncle and not dad's best friend, or maybe a different ending and different kind of suffering, the journey to adulthood is pretty much the same.
Aaah, now that I have sufficiently climbed down the stairs of happiness...
I meant Nice, where I live!?!
brillant.
I read this and remember my stepma, bless her soul, she warned me at age seven to watch out and scream,
Yes, Alaleh, Nice where you live.
Your stepma was wise, Austere!
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