SALLY-ANN’S ROOM

A cold wind blew through the hotel lobby. No one noticed it. They sat silent... like statues, their eyes fixed on the TV screen. No one spoke. They always sat like this, glued to the TV. Their bodies leant forward, their necks craned, as they watched the news. From the intensity with which they watched, it was obvious something important was happening. 

Sally-Ann sat at the end of the long sofa, she got the impression that no one ever moved here; they were always too busy watching the TV. A tap dripped slowly in the background. She looked at them. Four males and three females. Their age was impossible to tell but she had the feeling they were of a similar age to herself... but they seemed... older?

There was something about them that she couldn't quite place. They seemed somehow familiar and yet at the same time like... complete strangers?

They sat perched on the edge of the sofa, hanging onto every word the reporter uttered. Sally-Ann had the impression that the sofa was normally long, comfortable and a light yellow in colour but now it was tight and claustrophobic. It's sombre, even moody, dark black seemed ominous as touches of icy blue began to appear at the edges.

The sofa's normal plumb softness seemed to have been replaced with a hard plastic - the kind normally only felt at her favourite fast food restaurants.

Sally-Ann tried to get more comfortable but the hardened plastic continued to bite, how long had she been sitting here? She turned her eyes to the TV screen. The reporter was standing outside a large house. She couldn't make out the house clearly due to the darkness, but she thought it looked a lot like her or her friend's house would look at night. The reporter spoke in a fast jumble of words which didn't make much sense but she managed to catch some of what he was saying, 'murder'...'tonight' and 'as she slept'. It was awful! Who had been murdered?

Some of the people suddenly glanced at her but only for a brief instant then their eyes were snatched back by the TV. The glances made her want to cry, made her want to scream for her mother, but she didn't. Instead she thought that she must be in some kind of horrible nightmare, why else would she be sitting in this barren white room, on a sofa that seemed to be changing color and made out of hard plastic? She wished someone would turn off that annoying tap.

She noticed the cold wind now as it howled through the lobby, numbing her small and fragile body. Had it got louder? She felt wetness on her neck. There was something so very wrong and it had something to do with the news on the TV.

An ambulance had come and taken something away from the house, it had looked like a little girl. The girl had looked a lot like Sally-Ann, except her dress had been dirty and spotted, as if she had dripped tomato ketchup all over herself during dinner. Sally-Ann thought what a naughty girl she must have been and it served her right if the tomato ketchup had killed her. She didn't know tomato ketchup could kill and suddenly felt better as she decided to be extra careful around it. She didn't want her nice new dress looking like the dead girl's had done. Who had turned off that annoying tap? It didn't matter, at least the noise had stopped.

She suddenly felt scared. The wetness on her neck had now become sticky.

What was that?

She found herself sitting upright, ears pricked. Had she heard something?

Footsteps!

She felt a small tingle of excitement and fear as the hairs on the back of her small porcelain-like neck seemed to slowly, ever so slowly, stand on end.

#

Sally-Ann saw the door to her bedroom close. It was over again for another night. When would it stop? If only she could tell someone –but the warning…? The warning that her parents would be killed in an extremely horrible and brutal way...

Who could she tell…? Would her parents believe her word over the lodger's after all she was only a six-year old girl and they seemed to like him. The way he spoke to them so respectful and courteous, and the way he doted on Sally-Ann, her mum would never believe her.

Never…

She needed proof. Suddenly her little mind started to tick, if she needed proof she would get proof. Sally-Ann didn't smile as a plan formed itself in her mind. She was as hard as the bleak dark sky outside her window.

#

The footsteps echoed into the barren place that Sally-Ann felt was half way between a nightmare and a dream. She realized the wind had stopped but she was too numb to feel her body. She didn't know how but she knew the footsteps would take her away from this horrible place.

Sally-Ann listened, the footsteps kept coming. She looked at the TV, the reporter was now talking to two grown ups who were crying and upset but every time she focused on their faces they seemed to blur. Like the faces of the other people in the room, their faces seemed familiar but were just out of reach.

She couldn't hear what they were saying - the only noise, the noise of the footsteps, seemed to be coming to her as if she was underwater. She didn't know how long she listened to the echoing, almost haunting footsteps but they didn't seem to be getting any closer... or further away.

She knew it was up to her, the footsteps would take her away from this place but only if she... what? She didn't know, and all the time as she sat the footsteps echoed towards her but never quite reached her.

Eventually her thoughts returned to the stickiness of her neck and she knew it had something to do with the little girl who had being wearing the tomato ketchup soaked dress. The numbness in her body now seemed total.

She lifted her right arm but wasn't sure she had until something scraped against her neck. Her fingers delicately probed the hard crusted surface, they slowly followed the strange trail down to the bottom of her neck and then onto the front of her chest and the v-shape collar of her dress. She felt her fingers touch her pristine new dress, they continued to follow the trail which eventually ended as a hard crusted lump, near her right knee.

She couldn't believe it, ever so slowly she looked towards her plain white dress, she hadn't done so before, maybe because she had known all along what she would have seen. It was crusted with blood... her blood!

She was suddenly screaming! Again and again. The footsteps rushed towards her now, she felt them closing in all around her but she didn't care, she didn't care about anything, she just wanted this nightmare to end.

#

Sally-Ann awoke in bed. It was late at night and her imagination and her day-dream to 'go away' had worked, no one could harm her…ever…because she knew –she knew how to 'go away'.

However, under her pillow was the small mobile phone that her parents had bought her for Christmas and it had recorded every last detail of her lodger's threats.

"If you tell anyone your mum will die…You will burn in hell for eternity…Your parents will hate you…"

The threats continued but Sally-Ann didn't notice them she had 'gone away ' again. She had locked herself away in a tiny little room in her mind.

All recorded. At last proof, something that she needed so badly to end it all. Tomorrow she would play the phone back to her mother, and tomorrow she would be free from her hell.

#

A door opened, and her lungs were suddenly out of air. No sound came out of her throat, she tried to scream but felt like she was choking. The footsteps had stopped. She felt a strange silence come over the room. She was calm. She was safe. She seemed to have no control over her body, it got up and walked towards the door. She didn't notice the others staring at her, their faces filled with sadness and horror.

The corridor was safe. It was just wide enough for her to walk through without touching either of the walls but if she lifted her arms slightly she could have easily touched both walls. She wasn't sure if there was a ceiling, but if there was it was too far above her for her to see it. The walls, like the room had been, were bare of any adornments and a plain, barren white. She liked them, they echoed the numbness she felt. Her feet made no sound on the cool white surface of the floor, which seemed at the same time to be both solid and insubstantial.

She continued to walk, never tiring. No thoughts went through her mind. She walked... and walked.

Eventually...she saw something, in the distance, the corridor seemed to end or continue in darkness. As she neared it ice formed on her brow, then on her arms and legs. She felt nothing. As she entered the darkness, her ice-covered body seemed to disintegrate and melt into the very substance of the corridor.

#

Unfortunately for Sally-Ann –tomorrow never came. She played the recording back to her mother. Her mother sat listening to the recording. Then her eyes narrowed in anger, she raised her hand.

"You are an evil child!" She slapped Sally-Ann across her face "Do you think we didn't know?"

"Mom, please!"

Sally-Ann didn't scream as her mother's hand hit her, instead she 'went away' again.

"Timothy is very high up in the ranks. Do you know the favours he has done for us." Her mother picked up her hard heeled sandal which was lying on the floor. "Do you think your father could have got such a good job without his help!?"

The sandal came down on Sally-Ann's head, drawing blood.

"Wait until your father and Tim get here," the sandal came down again and more blood flowed from Sally-Ann's head and but she didn't feel it, she was in another place. She had 'gone away' again. "They will show you just what an evil girl you have been,"

#

A cold wind blew through the hotel lobby. No one noticed it. They sat silent... like statues, their eyes fixed on the TV screen. No one spoke. They always sat like this, glued to the TV. Their bodies leant forward, their necks craned, as they watched the news.

A door swung open. Footsteps echoed into the hotel lobby. The even, measured footsteps came closer. Someone was standing by the TV, his long, thin shadow falling just inches from their feet but still they gave no sign they had seen him. He stretched out his arm, his finger hovering over the 'off ' button. He watched them. So still. He pressed the button. The screen went black. Their eyes closed as they slumped down, lifeless on the sofa.

#

Sally-Ann was 18 years old and in the beginning stages of labour. Her boyfriend who had been hand picked by her father had just arrived to the ward, bringing with him some fruit and refreshments in the form of Lemonade, grapes and an orange –her favourite fruit.

Sally-Ann bit deep into the fruit and tasted the bitterness, she knew it had been injected like all the rest of the fruit she had, had during her pregnancy with a bitter tasting substance to traumatise the baby…her baby. 

To make it like them. A monster. A multiple.

Over the years Sally-Ann had learned to 'go away' again and again but now there was more at stake, it wasn't just about herself anymore. Now it was about, her as yet, unborn child. To be born into the same hell that she had…there was only one way in which she could win.

Only one way in which she could save her unborn baby from the years of suffering that she had endured.

After about an hour of conversation in which Sally-Ann acted like a normal everyday mum to be, with her boyfriend, he eventually left. And Sally-Ann went back to drowsing.

#

The man turned and began to walk out of the lobby, tears stinging his eyes. In the distance there was the faintest sound of people crying... but no one heard them. He felt himself getting lighter, less substantial. The telephone on the wall began to ring... but no one answered it. He stopped by the door and reached up towards the light switch. Turning back to look into the room he noticed the sofa had vanished, the lifeless bodies lying on the floor now. With every second they seemed to be dissolving.

Suddenly feeling his feet grow icy cold, he turned off the light switch and stepped out of the front door. He turned the key in the lock. The telephone was still ringing... he knew it would stop eventually. He began walking down the street, the hotel dissolving behind him. He had a new hotel to take care of now.

#

Sally-Ann awoke in the middle of the night, her plan etched deep in her mind like a branding iron.

My baby won't suffer the same fate as me.

She reached to the side of the bed and from the draw next to her bed took out a knife she had brought with her for just this reason. She placed the sharp end of the knife on her stomach. She counted.

One…

Sweat dripped from her brow.

Two…

She drew a drop of blood.

Three… 

This is it.

The End.