Murderers are not monsters, they’re men. And that’s the most frightening thing about them.
Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
‘Have you finished throwing up all over me?’ the girl said, watching Dorothy removing vomit from her mouth with the sleeve of her pyjamas.
Dorothy spat out the remaining lumps of sourness in her mouth, before nodding. ‘I…I’m sorry…didn’t mean to vomit on you.’
‘You’re lucky I didn’t give you a good punch in the gob. I had to go change from my last rags into these even shittier ones.’
‘I’m really sorry–’
‘Enough of that “sorry” shit. I heard you the first time. There’s a box of old clothes in there, all ripped but they’ll help keep you warm. They belonged to some old woman. Look at this stupid old sweater I’m wearing, with these stupid teapot designs on it.’
Dorothy stripped off her vomit-stained pyjama top, and found a sweater to pull over her head. It was much too big, and the wool was scratchy and uncomfortable. A terrible stench of damp and mould seemed to be imbedded in the material.
‘Thank…thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me. Thank the dead old bag who owned it. Sometimes at night in the dark, I think I can smell her in here.’
Dorothy stood very still. Shadows were moving in the darkness. She wanted to scream.
‘One night, it was so cold in here,’ continued the girl, ‘I had to stick on a pair of her knickers to try and keep warm. After a minute of being inside them, I felt something scratching my hole.’
‘Don’t! Please…don’t talk like that. It scares me.’
‘Scares you? How d’you think I felt, when I found a whole family of spiders living in her drawers?’
Dorothy started scratching, as if the spider family had moved from one garment to the next. She was certain there was something moving about in the sweater.
‘Can I sit down, please, on your mattress?’
‘Park your arse, if you want.’
Dorothy sat on the edge of the mattress.
‘Can…can I ask your name?’
The girl thought for a minute before answering. ‘People call me all sorts of names. Bitch, scum, whore….’
Dorothy’s face flushed. She quickly looked away.
‘What’s wrong?’ The girl was smiling her scary, leery grin. ‘Trying to tell me you never heard those words before? What are you, a wee goody-goody girl?’
‘No….’
‘Okay, Miss Good-Goody, you can call me Tara.’
Dorothy looked about the bare room, trying to think of something that wouldn’t incur this strange and frightening girl’s wrath or ridicule.
‘How…how long’ve you been here, Tara?’
‘Long? Very…very long. It stays dark most of the time, because the windows are boarded up, so it’s hard to tell night or day. Scarman took me when I was buying cigs in the wee shop at the corner of–’
‘You smoke?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘You really are a wee goody-goody. I’m gasping for a cig, right now.’
‘My mum and dad would kill me if they thought I smoked.’
‘I don’t have a ma or da, so I don’t give a shit. I do as I please. Always have.’
‘You don’t have a mum or a dad?’ Dorothy was shocked.
‘Have you socks in your ears or something? I hate repeating myself.’
‘I’ve never met anyone without a mum or dad. It must be terrible.’
‘Why?’
Dorothy shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. Just seems so sad. I would hate not to have my mum and dad.’
‘From what I was told, my ma and da weren’t up to much anyway. Give me away when I was three months old, the bastards. Anyway, enough sob stories. Do you want to hear about Scarman, or not?’
Dorothy reluctantly nodded. In truth, monsters were the last things she wanted to hear about in this house of horror.
‘When I came out of the wee shop, Scarman was standing beside a van. He had a photo of a wee girl. He tried showing me it, saying it was his daughter, she was lost, and had I seen her.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I’m nobody’s fool. I ignored the bastard. He made a grab for me, but I kicked him in the balls, hard.’
‘You kicked him? Are you joking?’
‘He’s not the first scumbag I’ve kicked in the balls. It was sweet, watching his ugly, scarred face fill with pain.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘I clawed his revolting gob. Took his skin clean off. Broke a couple of fingernails, but it was worth it. I don’t remember much more than that. I think he poured something over my face to knock me out, some sort of drug, probably.’
Dorothy’s voice suddenly filled with despair. ‘He’s gonna do dirty things to us and kill us, isn’t he, just like on TV?’
She started sobbing, her shoulders shaking violently like a pneumatic drill. Tara’s hand reached out to Dorothy’s shoulder, but stopped before touching it, as if fearful of contamination.
‘Listen to me, and listen good. You do anything you need to do to survive in here. Anything. Got that?’
Dorothy didn’t answer. She continued sobbing, quieter now.
‘Don’t you want to see your ma and da again, and your wee sister?’
Dorothy sniffed. ‘Yes…’
‘You will, but not if you keep crying. Sometimes you have to die to stay alive.’
‘But…I don’t want to die.’
‘I mean die inside. Do things that are horrible.’
‘I don’t want to do horrible things.’
‘Then you will die. Really die, and Scarman will win. Do you want him to win?’
‘No…’
Tara brought her face right up against Dorothy’s. ‘Then remember this: you do anything you need to do to survive. Anything. Right?’
Dorothy was hit by the stench of Tara’s bad breath, and lack of washing. It was overwhelming, but despite wanting to puke, she knew better than to let it show on her face.
‘O…kay…I…I’ll try…’
‘You better do more than try.’
Dorothy started sniffing the air, screwing her face up. ‘What’s that terrible smell? It’s disgusting, like rotten cabbage.’
Tara pointed nonchalantly towards the far corner, where a rusted metal bucket lurked.
‘You have to use it if you need to take a shit or a pee. The chain on your leg stretches to the far corner, so you can get to it easily enough. Sometimes, Scarman brings old newspapers to wipe your arse with. It’s rough, but better than nothing.’
Dorothy pinched her nose. ‘I…I couldn’t use that thing. It’s horrible.’
‘Then you’ll shit yourself, won’t you? Do, and you’ll not be on this mattress for long. I can tell you that for nothing.’
‘But…you’ll be watching me go to the toilet.’
‘Why would I want to watch you taking a shit? Think I’m sick?
‘No, of course not. I….’
‘Just be careful Scarman isn’t watching, though. He has a wee peep-hole in the door.’ Tara grinned.
‘Don’t say that. I’ll just hold it in.’
‘Then you’ll burst open, won’t you? That should be fun.’
‘That’s not funny…’
‘Look, if it helps, just pretend you’re out camping in the woods, and this room is your tent. That’s what I do. Scarman comes every other day and cleans the pot out. He also brings scraps of food with him when–’
‘Oh, my stomach. I’m gonna be sick.’ Dorothy began to retch violently.
‘Not on this mattress, you’re not!’ Tara kicked Dorothy roughly off the mattress with her foot. ‘Use the bucket if you want to puke.’
Dorothy went rush-crawling to the bucket, as if her very life depended upon it. She retched like hell, before puking her stomach out. After a few minutes, she returned to the mattress, shaking terribly, tears rolling down her face.
‘I…I feel horrible…’
‘Get used to it.’
‘Can’t…can’t you stop tormenting me, just for a second?’
Tara forced a laugh. Stared directly into Dorothy’s face.
‘You should be thanking me. You said you couldn’t use the bucket, but you did. Lesson learned. There’ll be other things you don’t want to do in here, terrible things, but you better learn to do them if you want to survive.’
‘You…you’re a…horrible person.’
‘I’m not here to babysit a baby. I’m here to survive. With or without you, I intend to escape, and I won’t let you get in the way with all your moaning.’
‘Escape?’ Dorothy’s face lit up. ‘Will…will you take me with you, Tara? Please. I’ll do anything you ask, if only–’
‘So, you will do anything, after all, when it suits? See how easy it can be, once you set your mind to it?’
‘You…you will take me with you, won’t you?’
Tara began to smile, like a fox with a chicken clamped firmly in its jaws. ‘Of course. I would never dream of leaving you behind…’