Page 83 of The Taskmaster
The beating rain and the flashes of lightning fucked with my senses. It had rained that night too. I’d never forget how it pelted my skin as I tore through the woods to get away.
And then there were the threats.
The things they were going to do to me.
Not Isaiah.
Them.
Isaiah carried me away from it all. He brought me into a room that was light and bright, a lot warmer than the halls I’d run for my life through. And when he stroked my hair and told me it was all going to be okay, I believed him. He brought me back.
He didn’t use his bike to take me home. He had a small car parked nearby that he used. I was thankful for that. I just wanted to curl up in the seat next to him and try to will the ghosts away.
When we got back to my apartment, he followed me into the bedroom and sat with me on my bed.
“I think it’s time you opened up to me a little, don’t you?” he said, placing his hand on my knee and stroking delicate circles with his thumb.
“I feel scared to talk about it,” I said truthfully. “Like putting it into words will make it real again. And I don’t want it to be real.”
“But it is real,” he stated. “And the only way to destroy the monsters haunting you is to face them. Trust me, I know.”
I knew he was right. And this was a story I hadn’t told a soul. It’d stayed in my brain where I’d tried to bury it. Especially from my family. But for over ten years, it’d festered like a putrid infection that’d been left to marinate, slowly poisoning me. I wished I could cut it out of my mind. Perhaps telling him about it would go some way to doing that. It had stayed hidden for too long. I needed to step out of the dark web this secret had tethered me in. Shake off the shameful regret and take a chance. A chance at moving forward.
I stood up and went to my dressing table, without uttering a word. I knelt down and reached for the box I kept hidden behind the air vent. Isaiah didn’t speak. He let me do what I had to do. And I carried the wooden jewellery box back over to where he sat, sat down next to him and placed it between us.
“I’m going to speak, and I need you to just sit and listen,” I said. “This is going to be hard for me to get through. I can only do it if I start and I don’t stop.”
“Okay,” he replied, and I could feel the heat of his stare as he looked at me. His hand back on my knee as I took deep breaths.
“When I was thirteen years old, my best friend went missing. I told my dad, and he said he was sure the authorities were looking into it, but nobody seemed to be doing anything. Weeks went by, and everyone was acting strange, like her disappearance was completely normal. Like she’d never existed, but she had. She’d gone, and I wanted to know why.
“So, one day, I went to the home where she lived to find out what’d happened...”
I hadn’t seen Stacey for almost a month. It wasn’t like her to take time off school. She loved school. She was reluctant to leave most days, and no one seemed bothered about the fact that she was gone. I asked the teachers, and all they said was she’d moved on. Her name was taken off the register, and everyone acted like it was completely normal. But I knew it wasn’t. I could tell. I had a bad feeling about it.
I kissed my mum goodbye and walked the short distance to the bus stop for school, but when I got there, I didn’t stand at the stop going in the direction of our school, I crossed the road and stood on the other side.
“What you doing, Abs?” one of the boys from my class shouted across at me.
“She’s bunking off,” another shouted, and the group they were standing with started to clap and holler at me.
They thought I was being a rebel, and they were congratulating me. But I wouldn’t tell them where I was going. I’d let them think I was skipping school to go into town. It was none of their business.
The bus I usually took to school pulled up on the opposite side, and I watched all the other kids get on. As it pulled off, I felt a strange relief that I couldn’t back out now, that it was too late to change my mind. Not that I would’ve.
The bus heading into town appeared in the distance, and I took out my bus pass, ready to board. I wasn’t going into town, though. I was going to find my best friend, or at the very least, get some answers.
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at the end of the path that led to the children’s home where Stacey lived. I glanced up and down the street, but there was no one around, and feeling a swell of bravery in my stomach, I pushed the gate open and walked up to the front door.
I knocked, but no one answered. So I knocked again, louder this time, and I heard a voice call out, “Okay, okay, I’m coming.”
The door flung open, and an older lady stood in front of me, a grimace on her face like she was beyond annoyed that she’d been disturbed and had to open the door.
“What do you want?” she asked, sticking her nose in the air, and I was sure she was moments away from slamming the door in my face.
“I came to see Stacey,” I said, and the grimace on her face became more pronounced as she furrowed her brow.
“We don’t have anyone here called Stacey,” she replied, and went to shut the door, but I shot my foot forward to stop her.
