It’s surprisingly easy to deny the proof of one’s own eyes and its almost standard practice to deny the proof of another. Seeing is not believing, and mere human experience can mean even less if the experience is larger than the person can accept.
The first time this occurred to Francine Barker she was sitting in a coffee shop trying to explain her experience to Bobbie, her incredulous best friend. Bobbie and Frankie had become a double act within minutes of meeting in college; they had been through a lot and still Bobbie was looking at her as if she had lost her mind.
It was a Monday, a little after nine and the coffee shop was quiet which was why Frankie had chosen it. There was a comfort being on neutral ground and she didn’t want to talk about the subject at any place they were likely to go in the future; it might be strange, but she felt the subject polluting the air around her and she wanted to keep the whole thing as far away from her as she could.
It had already gotten more than close enough to make her skin crawl.
“Hmm Mm,” Bobbie mumbled in a response to her story and Frankie was immediately impressed with how much disdain Bobbie could pack into inarticulate murmuring.
Frankie sat back and stared at her friend, for an unhinged moment considering throwing the contents of her disposable cup over her friend’s head. Quickly she pushed the thought from her mind, the contents of her cup were both hot and expensive and she wasn’t sure which of those facts stayed her hand.
But still, she managed to refrain from violence.
“Is that all you have to say?” Frankie asked surprised at how neutral her voice sounded.
“What do you want me to say?” Bobbie replied.
For a moment Frankie studied her friend rather than reply. Bobbie’s blonde hair was cut so short it was almost a crop and her casual t-shirt, always of vintage rocks bands (today it was KISS) and her slightly-too-large-for-her-jeans made her look like a refugee from the 80’s; and what really annoyed Frankie was how good it looked on her.
If Frankie would’ve tried such an ensemble, she would have looked a fool, but Bobbie; Bobbie never looked the fool in fact she managed to look ten years younger than her 35 years in the process. For a moment Frankie thought of her own attempt at a Gothic look while she was in her teens and almost shuddered.
Sitting back in her seat and effortlessly being way too cool for school Bobbie took a sip from her Flat White and shrugged.
“What do you think about it?” Frankie could hear the jangle of something akin to hysteria in her own voice, Bobbie seemed oblivious to it. “What do you think it means?”
“It was a trick of the light.”
“It was not a trick of the light.”
“It was a daydream then, a bit of wool-gathering.”
“It was not…”
Frankie snapped her mouth closed mid-sentence, not liking the shrill sound of her own voice. Her stomach seemed filled with squirming things and there was fluttering in her chest. She felt that she was hovering on the edge of panic and Bobbie’s steadfast logic might just push her over into it.
Frankie took a sip from her coffee and noted that it had cooled. She reconsidered tipping it over Bobbie’s head and realised that it was the expense that stopped her the first time, not the heat; so, she didn’t.
“Look Frankie,” Bobbie leaned forward and placed her hand over Frankie’s. There was something both masculine and graceful in the way Bobbie moved that always stopped Frankie in her tracks.
“Sometimes you let your imagination get the better of you,” Bobbie almost crooned, and Frankie bristled at the other woman’s attempt to ‘handle’ her; “just forget about it.”
Frankie stared into Bobbie’s eyes for a moment. They were filled with compassion and worry, but she saw no belief in there. Abruptly Frankie stood.
“I’ll be a minute.” she said.
The ladies’ room was a lot nicer inside then she expected. A mirror the full length of the opposite wall was polished clean and reflected the six stalls, each door slightly ajar and clearly empty.
Frankie approached the mirror and looked at herself.
She looked every bit her 35 years, perhaps a few more besides and no matter how much she starved herself and how much sweat she produced on those torture machines down at the gym she still had that little tummy that didn’t seem to want to leave her.
She leaned against the edge of the sink and breathed in a deep, slow breath. She thought of those techniques her therapist had told her to try and decided to attempt one of them. She turned on the cold tap, closed her eyes, and ran the water over the sensitive area on the inside of her wrist; that place she contemplated so many times in her youth.
The cold water spilled over her, and she concentrated on it, drawing her mind away from the past, away from the future into the here and now. She felt the cold draw up her arm, leeching the warmth from her flesh. She felt her pulse slow, her breathing shallow and her mind calm.
So, she didn’t believe her and getting irate about it wasn’t going to help her be believed if anything it would make it less likely.
A cool breeze brushed against her shoulder, and she felt her hair lifted by it.
She would ask Bobbie to stop over for a night, that what she’d do; perhaps she would see something herself, perhaps…
Something cold touched her arm just above her elbow and her eyes snapped open.
It was stood just behind her.
It smiled; and Frankie screamed.
Less than a minute later Bobbie almost tore the bathroom door off its hinges as she rushed into the room. She got to Frankie before the baristas even realised something was wrong. He finally poked his head into the room only to be greeted with a single screamed word.
He took the advice and called an ambulance and less than an hour later Bobbie found herself sat in the waiting room of the hospital wondering what had happened.
To her shame Bobbie had almost laughed when she had first seen her friend sprawled on the bathroom floor. She had always been cursed with a cruel sense of humour and she had thought that Frankie had slipped and caught her head on something. But when she reached her and knew something far more serious had occurred.
It was the look on her friend’s face.
Bobbie remained on automatic, and she felt like a ghost of herself tagging along rather than a grown woman taking actions to save the life of her best, no – her only, friend. The ambulance arrived, she had no idea how long it had taken, and she had allowed herself to be moved around by the paramedics as they dealt with Frankie.
A stretcher was brought in, and a brace was fitted around Frankie’s neck while another paramedic, Bobbie didn’t even remember if it was a man or a woman, asked Bobbie a list of questions concerning Frankie’s health; nearly all of which she knew the answer to.
Then there was a flurry of activity and a blurring of time and space, and she realized she was in the back of an ambulance. She felt the dislocation and understood the way the world seemed to have folded around her for the moment; but it seemed entirely natural. Her autopilot remained activated, and she was a passive observer, a ghost in the machine of her form until the world around her deposited her in a small and sterile little waiting room on the second floor of the local hospital; and the autopilot disengaged.
Sickness engulfed her, her whole body shook and her mind, or at least what was left of it this day, kept repeating a single phrase over and over; “this isn’t happening”.
Bobbie stood at the window and watched the world; the sun still shone and below she could see people and cars crisscrossing in surprisingly neat formations. It wasn’t even midday and already Bobbie’s life had shifted into a whole new, and unwelcome, place.
“Miss Bodine van der Heide?”
For a moment Bobbie didn’t respond, it was only when she saw a figure reflected in the glass through which she looked that she turned around.
In the doorway was a tall man dressed in a porter’s uniform. His hair was fair with a streak of almost impossible white at one temple.
“Miss Bodine van der Heide?” He repeated.
“Yes…” Bobbie responded.
“Could you follow me please?”
Less than fifty feet away she found Frankie sat on the edge of a hospital bed in the corner of a shared ward. Around her the green curtains were drawn and the colour reflected off her pale skin making her look even more pallid.
The porter left them and for a few moments the two women appraised each other.
Bobbie broke the silence.
“Did you tell them my name was Bodine?”
“It is your name…” Frankie voice was weak but clear.
“You’re a sadist, you know that don’t you?”
Frankie smiled wanly and she shrugged.
“Can you stay with me if they let me go?” She asked.
“Of course…”
As always Bobbie had to suppress the envy.
The building was reclaimed from of one of the warehouses that stood right at the canals edge, and it retained all the benefits without any of the negatives one might associate with such a building. Then ceilings were high and the windows huge, and each apartment was spacious with every possible amenity a modern woman could want.
The original designers had managed to reuse as much as reclaim and when she walked through the large corridors it felt far more like she was walking through a hotel from the last century rather than a building on which work had ceased less than a decade ago.
As Frankie slid her key into her apartment door Bobbie peered down the short corridor. The wall had been painted a simple cream but the elaborate relief that ran along it halfway up its height gave it an old-time appeal. Bobbie noticed little touches like that throughout the building and once again it occurred to her that she should do an internet search on its designers.
“Who’s wool-gathering now?”
Bobbie turned her attention back to her friend, who was stood halfway into her apartment with one hand still on the door handle.
Inside Frankie had continued the theme the designers had started. On one wall was a large mirror edged with an intricate frame that had been painted and aged to look like tarnished bronze. The effect was followed through to table lamps with cut glass shades and furniture that had been coloured with a deep warm stain. The large rug was a deep maroon, and the walls were purples and pale pinks.
The whole affect was of wealth and extravagance and though Frankie’s family was of old money Bobbie knew that mostly it was just that, an effect that Frankie had cultivated.
Bobbie threw her small bag filled with her toothbrush, pyjamas, and spare underwear into the corner of the room with an exaggerated lack of care; the bag was canvas so she knew it wouldn’t cause any damage; besides the rug on which it landed was about a foot thick. Ahead of her Frankie moved through into the kitchen and could be heard shuffling around, hopefully, Bobbie thought, putting on coffee.
The evening ticked by without incident, Frankie moved about slowly and occasionally Bobbie was struck by how old she looked but there were no more falls and Frankie seemed content to forget about the incident. When Bobbie tried to raise it, Frankie had steadfastly refused to comment, so Bobbie had dropped the subject.
On the surface everything seemed fine, but Bobbie was not convinced. Twice she had looked up to see Frankie looking at her oddly, not maliciously; but rather as if the woman was waiting for something. Her laughter seemed slightly strained, and it took her a little longer to respond than it usually would. Bobbie couldn’t decide what worried her more; that she herself was imagining such peculiar things or that Frankie was experiencing them.
Bobbie wanted to put all this down to her fall earlier, she wanted to tell herself that the incident was still making her friend reel from its implications, and that could easily be true; but something bothered Bobbie about Frankie’s behaviour.
Outside the sun began to set and Frankie decided to shower. She had talked the whole time and had encouraged Bobbie to stay just outside the open bathroom door. The two women had known each other since their late teens and had seen each other naked numerous times and both seemed comfortable with this fact; but for the first time Bobbie felt uncomfortable with it. It wasn’t the sight of soap on her friend’s body that bothered her it was the sudden realisation that she had not been out of Frankie’s line of sight since she woke in the hospital.
It was the realisation of what those looks Frankie had given her might mean, and she thought back to the coffee shop and the almost forgotten story Frankie had told her there; and she realised with something akin to dread where that story was set.
Bobbie’s eyes moved over the bathroom. The light was bright and the tiles on the wall were moist with condensation reflecting back the light in tiny little pinpricks. Over the sink was a broad cabinet that was half open and she could see her reflection in its mirror. Her eyes were too wide and for a moment her reflection shocked her; she could see incomprehensible fear in them.
Distantly she heard the shower turn off and Frankie step from it. She heard the towel rub over wet skin.
“Your turn…” Frankie said and suddenly Bobbie found that she really didn’t want to; but she stepped forward anyway. She pulled her KISS t-shirt off over her head and undid her jeans, kicking them into a pile near the door.
Frankie stood and watched with the towel wrapped around her and her wet hair clinging to her shoulders. Her face was expressionless, and the brightness of the bathroom dropped the hallway behind her into near blackness.
“What’s wrong…?” Frankie asked, but Bobbie thought there was cruelty in her tone.
Of course, there wasn’t, she told herself, why would there be?
What’s wrong with me? She thought. Where’s all this coming from?
She slipped off the straps of her bra and slid it around, unfastening it and the pale blue fabric joined her other discarded clothes. Moments later she slid off her panties and they did the same.
Bobbie stepped naked into the shower and twisted the large dial that rewarded her with a torrent of hot water. Mechanically she reached for the soap, regular old-fashioned soap, not shower gel, and began to lather it. Her hands shook.
Where the hot water hit her skin, she was warm but everywhere else she was cold. She wanted Frankie to close the door but realised she didn’t want to be alone.
She glanced up at her friend standing in the rectangle of darkness to the hallway and quickly looked away. It wasn’t the expressionless harshness of Frankie’s face that made her look away, it was what she thought she glimpsed in the darkness behind her.
Bobbie shivered under the hot water; she took more care washing than she thought possible.
“That’s exactly how it started for me…”
Frankie’s words were soft and conversational, but to Bobbie’s ears they sounded flat and rehearsed.
“I was getting ready for work; that’s all, just getting ready for work and thinking about my day.”
Bobbie heard the slap of something wet on the hard smooth floor.
“I was showering, just like you are now, and I looked up and thought I saw something in the darkness, the darkness in the hallway.”
There was another slap of wetness, this time a little closer.
Bobbie stared at her feet, her hands sliding up over her body and covering her breasts.
“Trick of the light I thought, just like you said, and I finished showering.”
The water abruptly stopped although Bobbie hadn’t touched the controls. There was another slap, and now they sounded like undeniable footsteps; but Frankie’s voice didn’t seem any closer.
Bobbie felt the softness of a towel as it flew through the air at her and landed across her shoulder. She clutched it to her, dragging it around her and pulling it over her head like a veil. Beneath her she saw her own feel, the nail varnish of her toes flaking and patchy. Around them the water ran off into a little weir around the drain, gurgling and disappearing.
Then there was another slap of something moving closer and a shadow moved across the tile; unbidden her eyes darted towards it.
A naked women’s foot stepped closer, the toes damaged like a dancer, twisted and leathery. Dark veins ran up over the puffy pale flesh. There was another slapping sound as the other foot came into view, pale and slightly bloated like a corpse dragged from the ocean. Bobbies head move upward, her gaze moving up the body.
It’s just Frankie, she told herself, it’s just Frankie.
But she didn’t believe it.
Her gaze moved over the calves, and up past the thighs, over the folds of stomach and up to sagging breasts; finally resting on the face that stared at her under the bright lights glaring from above.
Over its shoulder Frankie looked at her, eyes wide and mouth half open.
Its shoulder was decorated with the swirls of its soaked hair which hung down in thick tendrils over its face.
Its face…
Its non-face…
A hole eaten through from cheek to cheek, chin to forehead; an oval in which tiny insects scurried and buzzed amid a tangle of spiders-webs. Its jaw dropped and a hole in the tangled web opened.
But all Bobbie heard was her own scream.
Bobbie woke on Frankie’s double bed; she was still naked, but Frankie had pulled the blankets over her. The lights in the room were all on and the door was closed. Bobbie turned her head and saw Frankie on the bed beside her.
Their eyes met.
Neither spoke.
Bobbie’s upper lip quivered; and she bit at it.
Almost imperceptibly Frankie nodded.
“You saw it…?” Bobbie asked quietly, and Frankie nodded again.
“It’s what you saw before…?” Bobbie asked and again Frankie nodded.
“Why didn’t you warn me…?” Bobbie asked her voice breaking.
“I did…” Frankie replied in a whisper.
“You did…” Bobbie said, almost to herself.
For a time neither spoke.
For a time, they both drift.
Then Bobbie’s eyes snap open.
“In the bathroom,” she said with sudden urgency, “at the coffee shop…”
“Yes…”
“Did you see it there…? How…?”
Bobbie watches Frankie’s eyes. They grow sad, then afraid; finally, she speaks.
“Because it follows you…” She said and when she closed her eyes tears fell.
Bobbie wrapped her arms around her friend and held her tight; understanding that, as always, all they had was each other.