The Other Place: Chapter Three

John Foster awoke to find himself still slumped behind the wheel of his car, and he groggily ran his hand over his aching head, feeling the coarse texture of congealed blood in the injured section of his tangled mat of hair. He shut his eyes tightly and opened them again, focusing on the environment displayed through the windscreen, and he pulled himself into an upright position, hearing the steering wheel creak under the pressure of his weight.
The car was in exactly the same place as it had stopped, but instead of the bright summer evening he remembered, the sky was now cloudless and grey with the dim sun hardly visible, like a torch shining behind a sheet of greaseproof paper. The trees were bare and devoid of leaves, their branches reaching out into the air like the structure of a nervous system, and although the fields looked the same, there were no crops growing in them now, just bare earth and uncovered branches as far as the eye could see. The Cathedral was still there, but somehow looked older and worn, and most noticeably had a strange circular symbol with an ‘X’ running through it adorning the main turret of the edifice.
Rubbing his eyes with aching hands and arms, John groaned as he thought to himself. I’m still asleep. Or worse, I’m dead. That’s it – I’m dead. I’ve died and this is either Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. He couldn’t imagine Heaven looking this way, which sent an icy shiver down his spine when he thought of the alternative locations. He slowly turned his head towards the passenger window, and froze rigid when the saw the presence of a little girl peering through the glass, staring back at him.
She had shoulder length hair, perfectly straight and as black as the night could get, neatly resting either side of her face, loosely covering her ears and neck. Her skin carried an unnaturally pale hue to it, but it was upon looking into her eyes that John was convinced that he had died and gone to Hell. They were perfectly white, with only the black outline of the iris visible and small pupils that watched him intently.
   “Are you OK mister?” she asked in a soft, innocent voice that made his skin crawl.
She slowly opened the door and climbed into the passenger seat, lunging towards him with her small, ashen hands.
John wanted to open the door and run, but fear and anxiety kept him frozen to his seat. He was scared by the unfamiliarity of everything around him; the strange place where everything was different but still the same, and the little girl that was now touching his face with a surprisingly warm hand.
   “You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
John wanted to answer, but he couldn’t keep from staring at the black circles filled with white in her eyes.
   “What?” she asked, sitting back in the seat, placing her hands on her knees and folding her legs double with her thighs resting on her calves.
She appeared to be friendly, but seemed more fascinated with John’s face as she hadn’t once broken eye contact with him.
   “Can…can you see me?” he asked nervously, shortening his neck and pressing the back of his tender head into his shoulders.
   “Of course I can see you dummy,” she replied giggling, “I have eyes don’t I?” She widened her eyes as she spoke, making John feel even more uncomfortable in an already uneasy situation. “You’ve got special eyes,” she continued. “I know because my mum’s got them too.”
   “Where is your mum?” John asked tentatively.
   “She’s at home. That’s where I was going until I heard your car skid. My friends ran off, they were scared.”
Not half as scared as I am, John thought.
   “Look, we’d better not stay here, it’s getting dark. They come out when it gets dark.”
At this point John became scared out of his wits. Sod the ice cream he thought, I need to get this Children of the Damned extra out of my car and get home.
The car made sluggish slurring noises as the engine tried to start and John began to breathe heavily as the starter motor rapidly clicked in refusal, and he entered a state of panic.
   “It won’t work,” she said matter-of-factly, adjusting herself in the seat so she was now sitting on her hands, casually swinging her legs. “Nothing like that works here. Not properly anyway, especially at night.”
John leaned forwards with his head in his hands, pressing them into the fabric upholstery of the steering wheel. He was convinced that this was all a vivid nightmare, and he was going to wake up in a cold sweat back at home in his bed next to his wife, who would no doubt lecture him about inconveniently having a bad dream and keeping her awake, but when he raised his head, the little girl was still sitting there, staring at him with her sinister eyes.
   “You are hurt,” she said, losing her innocent, child-like cadence, now speaking with a tone of concern.
   “You’ve been bleeding. We’ve got to go right now – they’ll be coming out soon and they can smell blood from a mile off.”
   “Who can?” John asked in a weary voice.
   “The Crawlers.”
John was now utterly convinced that he was asleep; it was the only explanation for the mixture of weirdness and sheer terror he was feeling.
   “Let’s go,” she said, opening the door. “My house isn’t far from here, but if we don’t hurry it’ll be too late. We don’t want to be caught outdoors after dark.”
   “The Crawlers,” John said dubiously, reassuring himself that he would soon wake up and be in a recognizable environment. “And what are they?” he asked, expecting an elaborate answer, the product of a child’s over active imagination who was no doubt afraid of the dark.
   “Granddad can tell you when we get home,” she replied, gesturing for him to get out of the car and start walking.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre sprang to mind when John thought of the whole family living together under one roof, they probably sent the little girl out to ‘help’ anyone unfortunate enough to cross her path, whereupon she would lure them back to the house under the false pretence of the use of a telephone, or ‘Dad’s got the part you need for you’re car, he’ll fix it in the morning’. All that was missing was her deep Southern accent and his few teenage friends. He got out the car and stood with his arm resting on the open door.
   “You know I think I’ll just wait here,” John said haughtily, “I’ll phone a garage to come and tow me back to Allford.”
He had seen too many horror films to know what you shouldn’t do. Never investigate a noise in the attic or basement, never leave your car and go wandering off in the woods searching for help, and definitely never follow the little girl with creepy eyes who tells you ‘Granddad’s waiting for you back at the house’.
   “You run along home now,” he said, flipping open his mobile phone and scrolling through his list of contacts, looking for the number of the garage that quoted more than they charged. “I’ll be fine here by myself.”
   “I’ve already told you it won’t work,” she said pointing to the phone. “Please, let’s just go, the sun’s going down.”
The phone’s display crackled and went out of focus, and the bars of reception indicator flashed off the screen. The device flickered on and off as if it was affected by a nearby electrical interference, and John rolled his eyes, forcefully slamming the hinge shut.
   “You know what?” he said, speaking as much to himself as he did the girl. “It doesn’t matter anyway because I’m going to wake up in a minute. Any time now,” he said loudly, thrusting his arms forwards with his palms upturned.
   “You’re not asleep,” the little girl said solemnly. “But you don’t belong here. You’re like my Granddad; I can tell by your eyes. You’re from the other place.”
   “What?” John said, confused and not so sure of himself anymore.
The grey sky was steadily turning to a dark navy blue, and in the field across the road John heard a strange barking noise. The only way he could describe it was as if a donkey had whooping cough, not quite a bark, not quite a bray, but somewhere between the two.
   “What the hell is that?” he asked, frightened. He’d never heard an animal make that noise before, so the chances were he conjectured, that if he’d never heard it before, he’d probably never seen whatever it was before either.
   “That’s one of The Talkers. They come out first. If they see you, they let The Crawlers know where you are. So please, let’s go.”
John uneasily nodded his head in agreement, closing the door and staring in the direction the noise was coming from. He cautiously moved round the front of the car and stood in close proximity of his guide.
   “Which way?” he asked.
   “Down the end of this long road,” she replied, already starting to walk hastily, “towards the Cathedral. Just hurry up and follow me."