Anna's Ghost

Tears were streaming down Anna’s cheek as she marched through the dark. She’d just had a huge fight with her boyfriend and in a fit of rage decided to get out of the car and walk home. Anna just couldn’t believe it when he sped away the moment she slammed the passenger door shut. She knew he could be an arsehole, but she never thought he’d stoop that low!

Going over the events of the evening in her head, Anna decided that this was it. She was NOT taking him back this time, no matter how much he begged. She remembered how angry he got when another boy had asked her to dance. She remembered the sting on her cheek, almost as hot as the sting in her heart, when he slapped her in the parking lot. Yes, there was no way that she was taking him back.

It was a dark, quiet night. Something in the night air gave Anna the chills. It was still a good 5km walk home. The sound of an engine could be heard long before the lights of the car appeared. It was approaching from ahead. Anna just knew it was Mark, no doubt regretting his decision to leave her out here all by herself. On the one hand, she wanted to ignore him and continue marching forward, but on the other hand, she knew that she should probably just get in the car, go home, and deal with him in the morning when she was on safe territory.

The bright lights blinded Anna, so she couldn’t get a look at the car, but it did slow down and come to a stop before her, so it was definitely Mark. Or so she thought.

Anna walked up to the passenger door, when she realised that it wasn’t Mark’s car. Anna gasped with fright and took a step back. A middle aged gentleman stuck his head out; “Need a ride?” Anna didn’t respond. She just had the living daylights scared out of her. “I don’t bite, love. Girl like you shouldn’t be out here all by yourself at night. Get in, let me take you home.” Anna looked at the man. He was well presented, he had a nice car. It was dangerous being out here all by herself and if Mark hadn’t returned yet, he probably wasn’t coming back for her at all.

“Okay, thanks” Anna got in.

“Where to?”

“I live a few streets down, near the mall. I can direct you from the main road?”

“Sure, no problem. So what are you doing out here all by yourself? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be out on the streets at night?”

“My boyfriend and I got into a fight at the school dance. I told him to take me home, but then he dropped me off here in the middle of nowhere and left.” Anna knew that it wasn’t the full truth – she’d told him to stop and she got out of the car to walk. She shouldn’t be pinning the blame solely on him, but it was too late now, she’d already said it.

“Well that wasn’t very nice of him. What’s your name love?”

“Anna.”

“Nice to meet you Anna, I’m Rick. How old are you? You mentioned that you were at a school dance?”

“Yes, I’m 17. It was the Matric dance. Oh, it’s a left here at the next stop”

At the next stop, Rick didn’t turn left. He went straight over.

“You missed it” Anna said as she turned to look at Rick. He had a stone cold expression on his face and he didn’t respond.

“Rick, you missed the turn off, but you can turn left at the next stop too. Rick, did you hear me?”

“I heard you”.

Again, at the next stop, they just went straight over. It was at about this point that Anna started to feel really uncomfortable.

“You can stop; I’ll just walk from here”

“You can stop whining. We’ll be home soon.”

“Whose home?” Anna didn’t like the way he said it. And she knew it wasn’t her house; he was blatantly ignoring her directions.

Just then Rick reached for something at the side of his seat, then swung over and hit her in the head. Anna was lights out. “That’ll stop your incessant whining.”

Anna woke up. Her head was throbbing. It was pitch black, she couldn’t see anything. There was the familiar stench of a dead animal; the smell was so vial, she gagged a little. Her hands were cuffed around a cold metal pole. Anna got to her feet and tried to slide her hands over the top of the pole, but it continued all the way up, probably to the ceiling. Anna yanked at the pole to see if she could pull it loose. Her cuffs were clinking and clanking against the pole. Just then she heard stomping coming from upstairs “Shut the fuck up girl, or I’ll come down there and shut you up myself”. Anna stopped moving immediately. She was petrified. She didn’t know where she was, or what was going to become of her. She suddenly remembered every story she’d ever seen on the news where women were discovered or rescued from some dodgy guy’s basement after 10 years of rape and torture. Just then and there, Anna decided that she wasn’t going to be another one of those headlines.

Anna sank to her feet. There was clearly nothing she could do. She was stuck here. Anna eventually passed out, probably with a little aid from the concussion, but was plagued with nightmares of Mark, dark streets, strange men, satanic basements and dead cats.

Anna woke up the moment that dawn broke. She couldn’t believe she slept at all. She’d been cold, uncomfortable and kidnapped. Who sleeps in a situation like this? Anna looked around to suss her surroundings. It didn’t take long for her to start screaming like a stuck pig. There were at least 3 corpses that she could see. One was almost completely decomposed, and one was of a girl that must have died in the last week or so – beaten and tortured to death, clearly. Anna saw the man from the night before –Rick – come marching towards her. She started screaming even louder, petrified of the thought of what he might do – he had a metal pole in his left hand. Rick grabbed Anna’s face with his right hand and squeezed so tight that she thought her cheek bones might crush. Rick leaned in nice and close, to the point that she had to squint to focus on his eyes; “Time to teach you how to behave, when you’re in my house, girl”.

Rick took a step back and swung the metal pole at her. The first shot hit her right in the ribs. Anna let out a blood curling scream “the more you scream girl, the more I teach” Rich said as he swung another shot, this one hitting her right on the back. The pain sent shock waves through Anna’s spine, instantly causing numbness in her left foot. It was too painful, how could she not cry out? Rick hit her a third time, this time in the head. Anna’s vision blurred and her ears rang, just before she collapsed to the ground. The blow was, unfortunately, not severe enough to knock her out completely. Anna lay on the ground, a contorted mess of broken bones and blood, gasping for air in between her sobs, trying with all her might to stifle them, but failing miserably.

Rick grabbed a fist full of her hair and yanked her head back so that she was forced to look at him. His eyes were glazed over and there was white foam collecting on the corners of his twisted grin. “Look girl, the rules are simple. If you listen, you’ll live, the problem with you girls is always the same; you think someone’s gonna hear you. No one is gonna hear you out here. If we get that one thing straight, we might just be able to get along” Anna could feel her bottom lip start to tremble “please, let me go. I won’t tell anyone. Just let me go?” Ricks eyes rolled back. He let go of her hair and let her head drop to the floor. He walked out of the basement without another word. Once alone, Anna let it all out. She sobbed till nightfall.

Anna had been alone in the dark for hours. The house was dead quite and Anna wasn’t sure if Rick was even still at home. Anna tried to stand up, but her left foot was still numb and pain shot through the rest of her body, so intense that for a moment, Anna thought she stood on a live wire. She must have made a noise, because it was moments later that Rick was back in the basement with her. Anna instinctively started to tremble, a low hum involuntarily creeping from the back of her throat.

Rick didn’t say a word. He also had a mask on – nothing special, just a plain white mask, covering his face, but his presence was unmistakable. He might have felt like a different person, but she knew exactly who he was, and what he was capable of. Rick un-cuffed Anna and picked her up like a child. He took her over to the far corner of the basement. There was a chair next to a basin. Rick seated Anna in the chair and filled the basin. Rick then picked up a remote, and turned on some music; there was a surround sound system hidden in the dark, and from it, played Allan Pettersson’s Concerto per orchestra d’archi n.1. Anna didn’t recognise it, but the dark classical piece made her hair stand on end. Rick started to wipe Anna down with a cloth soaked in warm water. The basin soon appeared to be filled with blood – the water transforming a little more with every dunk of the cloth. Anna wondered how much blood she’d lost – it looked like more than what she’d initially thought.

Rick then took something from the mirror cabinet above the basin and put it down on the basin’s edge – a scalpel. Anna knew that something bad was going to happen, she could feel the impending doom rising from the ground like a vibration of sound, moving through the air and filling the room. Rick turned to reach for something in the draw on his other side. Anna seized the opportunity and grabbed the scalpel. The sudden motion forward coupled by her paralyzed leg and the intense pain slammed her to the floor with bone crushing force. Anna rolled over to her side so that she could see what Rick’s next move would be. So that she could brace herself, and maybe even make use of the scalpel she’d just risked her life for. Rick stood over her. She couldn’t anticipate his next move; she couldn’t read him through the white mask.

Anna found herself hopping along a deserted road in the pitch black dark. She couldn’t piece the final events of the evening together, but that didn’t matter. She’d somehow managed to escape and she needed to get help before Rick came after her. A set of headlights could be seen in the distance. Anna was concerned that it might be Rick coming after her, but logical deduction told her that Rick would probably be coming from behind – where she was running from – and not ahead. Anna desperately started to wave while standing in the middle of the road. The car slammed on its breaks and screeched forward, stopping only inches from Anna’s knees. A young man got out “What the... Are you okay? What the hell happened to you?” Anna just collapsed to the ground, whether from relief, pain, or the adrenalin rush, she couldn’t tell. But then she started to sob uncontrollably. No matter how many times the young man asked, she couldn’t bring herself to calm down enough to answer a single question.

The young man helped Anna into his passenger seat before speeding off towards the nearest hospital. Anna could tell by the look of shock and horror on the man’s face that she must have been in a poor state. Anna looked down at herself; she was wearing her pretty blue dress, the one that she bought just for the dance, but it was covered in blood. Anna’s shoes were missing and her left foot was badly crushed. She could see the bones of each and every toe, exposed. The sight made her think of road-kill. Anna held her hands up and noticed that one of her arms had been severed at the elbow. The realisation sent a shockwave through Anna’s body, followed by the strangest sensation she’d ever felt in her life. It was almost like déjà vu - a suppressed memory, starting to surface. Anna looked up at the young man driving the car. He glanced back at her too. One look at the expression on his face, and Anna suddenly remembered everything. She pulled down the passenger visor to look in the mirror; she had a few strands of hair left on her head. The flesh on her face was rotting away, exposing bone and teeth, and a few maggots. Disheartened, Anna looked back at the young man “I’m sorry” she whispered before disintegrating into the night, right before the young man’s eyes.  

The young man slammed on his breaks once more, the smell of rubber and smoke choking the night air. He searched frantically for the girl that was just there moments before. It was then that he realised who he’d picked up. He just sat there, in shock. After a good 20 minutes, Mark put the car back into gear and pulled away, guilt crushing his chest with every kilometre that he progressed. It was 5 years to this night that he’d left her out here all by herself. At the time he didn’t realise that it would be the last time that he would see her, but by that same token, never had he thought that he’d ever see her again...