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The Purge of Sam
Emelia
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LIFTING MY HEAD, I couldn’t decide where I was. I didn’t recognize the unknown landscape. I was warm, although there was no obvious source of heat or light, and wherever I looked, there was nothing but gloom. Bewilderment engulfed me as I searched the swirling darkness.
Keep walking.
The thought swooped through my head, although I couldn’t recall having been walking before stopping to acknowledge my whereabouts.
Keep walking anyway.
Complying with my instruction, my feet stumbled forward, and picking up my pace, I was abruptly aware of the sound of footsteps behind me.
Who else would be out in the gloom?
Glancing back to the shadows, I scanned for evidence of another person but saw no one. The noise was there, though. Thud, thud, thud. Each step echoed around me with every tread the unseen person took.
“Who’s there?” My heart rate accelerated as I spun to identify the culprit. “Who are you?”
The deafening sound of silence met my ears as the sinister footsteps paused. I backed reflexively into the reaching dark mists behind me and away from the perceived threat, although there was still no proof of its existence.
“Who are you?” The air was colder now, the tiny hairs on my arms rising as I checked the area for any sign of life.
Someone had been walking out there. I’d heard their steps. I knew they were real.
“Stop this!” Anger spiked amidst the fear, insisting I go on. “Whoever you are, you have no right!”
Dread-filled quiet loomed as the sound of my words faded, the hush stretching out into the expanse until, finally, I acknowledged his insidious reply.
“Wrong answer, Emmy...”
Only one person had ever shortened my name that way, and that bastard was long gone. I’d seen to that myself.
“I have every right.” His snarl traveled through the air to me. “I fucking own you, bitch.”
Predictable panic exploded in my mind, making it difficult to think, but I resisted the instinctual response to contract and cede. Fear had long been my go-to. I’d relied on it for years and so had Sam, but I had changed. He had changed me. I knew exactly where the path of terror led to, having walked its track many times before, and I refused to travel there again. Fear no longer controlled me.
“Sam.”
Conviction resounded in my voice, a determination to see this thing through and cut whatever remaining chords brought his ghost there to haunt me. Sam wasn’t real. Hell, he wasn’t even alive. He was just like he’d seemed in the fog at the station and at the rental house—ethereal and terrifying, but not really there.
Because this is only happening in my head.
“What do you fucking want, Sam?” I hardly recognized the mettle in my tone as I stepped toward the sound of his voice. “This is over. You can’t hurt me anymore and we both know it.”
“So, why am I still here then, Emmy?”
It was a good question.
I had no idea. I couldn’t recall seeing Sam’s ghost since Nathanial had reminded me what I’d done to him. There had been no evidence of him since we’d left the house, since we’d picked up Laurel from Chloe’s place, or in any of the crazy things that had happened since. I’d thought I’d seen the back of his lingering plague. I’d hoped I had, but for some reason, he was back, the silhouette of his body coming into view as it shuffled from the shadows.
“You must want me to haunt your dreams.” His dark chuckle encircled me, threatening to amplify my alarm, yet still, I held my ground. He wouldn’t win again.
“I don’t want you.” There was a surprising amount of satisfaction in saying it aloud.
I’d never got to tell him how much I despised him before he died. Never got to express how he’d fallen from the pedestal I’d put him on and sunk lower in my estimations than I ever thought was possible. Our lives had become routine. Menacing, incremental habits built on his gaslighting and violence, and none of them invited my opinions. I had been forced into dark irrelevance, but this was my opportunity to shine.
“I haven’t wanted you for years!” Triumph roared inside me as I admitted the truth. I hadn’t loved Sam for a long time, couldn’t recall craving him. Fear had insisted I stay with him, not loyalty or affection. It had held me down and tried to break me.
“You’re a stupid bitch.” He hissed the insult, floating closer to me. “You never did know what you wanted.”
“That’s not true,” I tried to argue. “You just never let me think for mys—”
“That’s why you needed a man like me,” he sneered. “Or any man, really, and we both know you had your fair share of men didn’t you, Emmy?”
“Fuck you.” I knew what he was trying to infer and couldn’t believe he still baited me with such apparent ease. “I never wanted anyone else. You offered me to your friends as though I was a piece of meat. You let them hurt me.”
Emotion crackled in my voice as I relived the horror of the night Sam had taken me to meet Ryan Wilson in disgusting and unwelcome flashbacks. I wondered if the pain of the memories would ever ease.
“You fucking loved it.” His venom radiated through the grasping mists. “I was there, remember? I saw the way you took his cock, the way you mewled for more. You’re a fucking whore!”
“No.” Balling my hand into a fist, I refused to let him rewrite history. “That’s not what happened and you know it!”
“You’re only lying to yourself, Emmy.” His tone morphed to that mocking one that had always enraged me. “That’s the sad thing.”
“No.” A sudden wave of calm settled over me as I gazed into the space where his face should have been. Instead of the features I remembered, though—the nose and mouth I’d known for so long—there were only stretched, dark gray spaces, like a disturbing blank canvas that had been sent to torment me. “That’s not the sad thing, Sam.”
“What?” The shadow-man lurched backward as though I’d punched him although I hadn’t moved.
“You’re the sad thing.” The clarity of the moment was breathtaking. I’d allowed him to manipulate and pulverize me. Not because I was weak or stupid, but because I’d been conditioned to comply, but I’d broken free of my programming, and he would never have that power over me again. “Or to be fair, we both are.”
Standing before the ghost of my tyrant, everything made sense. He had bullied me for years, but I had permitted it. I’d given him the authority. I should have left him years before I’d pushed that pillow over his face. I should have recognized my worth and run.
“You were the sad little man who got his kicks from persecuting me.” I moved closer, surer of myself than before. “And I was the sad little woman who put up with your shit.”
I straightened at the emboldening thought for there was power in it. I no longer loathed or feared for the woman I once was. She had been small in stature and confidence and she hadn’t known any better. What I’d come to realize was that she actually needed a hug, not condemnation. I had no doubt she’d be proud of the woman I was becoming, and of the one Laurel would be.
“You were a whore. You were then and you are now.”
“I forgive you for that.” My lucidity made it easier to ignore his slurs. Without power, his words were as ineffectual as our relationship had proved to be. “I forgive myself too, but I know better, Sam. You don’t frighten me anymore. You’re nothing.”
“You’re a lying bitch!” Rancor emanated from him, yet still, I sensed he was on the back foot. He’d never seen such prowess from me before. He wasn’t used to it.
“I’m over you.” Unexpected laughter rose at the declaration because it was true. I was over Sam. The months of therapy and self-development had done their job. Sure, there was still healing to be done—a great deal—but I’d do that in my own time, in my own way. He no longer set the tone. He would never matter to me again. “I don’t need you anymore.”
“You’re talking drivel, woman...” His latest sneer smacked of desperation.
“I’m talking sense for maybe the first time in my life.” Standing there in the dancing mists, I’d never felt better. I was on the verge of something profound—something that would change me, and I needed to grasp that chance. “I don’t need you anymore, Sam, and I don’t fear you.”
“You’ll always fucking nee—”
“No,” I interrupted, cognizant of what the imposition would have cost me in the past. “I no longer need you. I killed you, remember?” Defiance boomed in my voice as I acknowledged my crime. “I fucking killed you and. Now. You’re. Dead.”
The shadow that might once have been Sam staggered to the side as I punctuated the final words, its blank face turning my way as I loomed over it.
“You’re not here, Sam.” I swore I grew taller as I admitted it. “You’re not here thanks to me, and you can never bother me again.”
“Emmy!” The shadow-creature fell to all fours, its frame more animal-like than it had been before.
“You heard what I said!” I was getting somewhere. I sensed in my soul that the interaction with the crouching shadow was pivotal. This was the moment I overcame him, the moment I won. “I do not give you permission to haunt me! I revoke any power you ever had over me! So, you can fuck off back to neverland, Sam. There’s nothing left for you here.”
Elation lit up my senses as the man I’d once cowered to shrank before my eyes. Before long, his physical presence was lost to the churning fog lapping at my feet, and I turned to acknowledge the warmth on my back.
Sunlight!
Smiling, I walked toward that light, certain that where there was warmth, I would find love. I’d seen off Sam, for what felt like the last time, and I was ready for another life. A better one. In that instant, when perfume filled my nostrils and bright light insisted my eyes flutter closed, everything was faultless.
The perfection bloomed until the humming, whirring noise from somewhere distant grew louder.
“What is that?” I turned toward the known noise, but my voice was almost lost to its ferocity. “Where is it coming from?”
There were no answers to greet me, only the escalating clamor, and with it, the undeniable sense that whatever bubble of perfection I’d just manifested without Sam was irrefutably punctured.
“What is it?” I hollered that time, sinking to my knees and burying my face to my chest as the wind picked up above me.
Whatever was making the ungodly racket had also brought a whirlwind, the vacuum it created threatening to suck me into its dangerous void. One thought dominated my mind as I braced. Wherever it came from, it meant me no good.
“Mum!” Laurel’s gentle shaking roused me from my dream, and as I opened my eyes, a thousand shards of recollections pierced my awareness. I was in the car with her and Nathanial, we were on the run, and if my senses were correct, we were in trouble.
“What is it?” Repeating the same words from my nightmare, my remaining sleep fell from me. Somewhere, high above us, was the same familiar droning noise, only in consciousness, it was even shriller than before.
“There’s a helicopter.” It was Nathanial who replied, the concern in his eyes conveying how serious the news was. “It’s been circling, which means we’ve almost certainly been spotted.”
“What?” My gaze slid to Laurel as though I couldn’t understand his warning. My head was still full of victory over Sam and couldn’t grasp the sudden threat. How could I have plummeted from such joy to this? “Who’s found us?”
“Ryan Wilson, I suppose.” Even in the half-light, Laurel’s face was pale.
“Then we have to move.” Unfastening my safety belt, I looked at Nathanial. “What are we waiting for?”
“It’s too late.” His body sagged with resignation. “They’ll have heat-seeking cameras, Em. If we run, they’ll chase us down like dogs. We’ll never get away!”
“So, what are you saying?” Desperation flared in my voice. “That we should just give up?” I couldn’t believe we’d come that far to just surrender at the first sign of a helicopter. “No way, Nathanial. I’m not giving up!”
“No.” Shifting in his seat, I couldn’t ever remember his expression seeming graver. It was as if everything depended on him conveying the next idea. “I’m not giving up either, but we need to be smart. We can’t outrun them, so we need to outwit them.”
Reaching for Laurel’s hand in the dark, I heaved in a breath. The noise of the helicopter swelled with every passing second, and my heart was beating so fast I wondered if it was about to leap into my throat, but I was ready to fight. Wilson could intimidate us with his money and power, but he couldn’t break us. Men like Wilson would never win.
“Okay.” My free hand grasped for Nathanial’s palm. “What’s our plan?”