Follow You Home

Every dark space felt threatening, as if it contained and concealed something horrifying. My imagination filled in the details that my eyes couldn’t see, not just memories from a hundred horror movies and books, but something deeper in my brain, a line that stretched back thousands of years, fear of the dark woods hard-wired into me.

This was life, really lived, really experienced, a passage of magic that would flash before our eyes when we died.

monsters don’t only live in faraway forests. They are just as likely to live next door.

We ran all the way into town. We didn’t talk. We didn’t look back.

PTSD is where your brain remains in psychological shock, unable to shake off or move on from what happened to you.

Could I have a glass of wine without food?

She had seen Daniel here earlier. He had come onto the ward, sat beside her bed. As soon as she saw him coming she had shut her eyes, pretending to be asleep. She knew exactly what he would say and she didn’t want to hear it. Seeing him reminded her of why she felt like this.

One o’clock was a more civilised time to have lunch, but noon was acceptable.

If I could sleep, could get just one decent night’s rest, I was certain I would feel better, that I would be able to function again.

Another line of poetry came to her. All angels are terrifying. She smiled to herself. Oh yes, she thought. And I am the most terrifying of all, the Angel of Vengeance. I am Mirela, she whispered, and around her the thirteen dead women whispered Amen back.

The tarantula sheds her skin once a year, the narrator explained, then seals herself away behind a wall of silk until her new skin has hardened. Only then can she re-emerge and start to feed again.

stopped and leaned against a wall as the tears came, the realisation that I would never see him again, never hear his voice, his laugh, smell the aroma of coffee that clung to him. To everyone else, the people who didn’t know him, the world had lost a talent, a singer. They had lost his songs. But I had lost my best friend, the person who knew more about me than anyone else. I had lost Laura. I hardly ever saw my parents. I had no siblings. And now I had lost my only real friend. ‘What the fuck am I going to do without you?’ I whispered into the snow.

There is always a solution that can be found through logic and clear thought.

After a while, the woman came back with the dog and shook her head. I wished I’d bought a camera with an audio recorder, as they had another conversation. The man gesticulated angrily, pointed at the dog and then towards my bedroom. The woman nodded.

It was unusually quiet on the South Bank, the bad weather keeping the day-trippers away; there were just a few Londoners scurrying beneath the snow-pregnant sky, hurrying to their homes and offices. The London Eye seemed to be turning more slowly this afternoon; the boats that drifted by on the grey, churning Thames looked like they should be carrying the dead across the Styx.

No, but I’ve got some water in my

granddaughter when she retired and moved

had a feline way of moving. She licked her lips before taking another sip of her drink. I took a big gulp of mine.

Something thumped above me and a woman cried out. I clutched my chest. But it was just my neighbours, fucking noisily again. I staggered across the room, my heart skittering crazily. I picked up my phone and called Laura’s mobile, hanging up after two rings when I remembered what time it was and that Laura was in hospital. She was seeing ghosts and I was imagining phantom photographs. I started to laugh. We really were the perfect couple.

Yeah,’ said Ion. ‘We’re going to collaborate on something, aren’t we?’ He rubbed her knee. ‘So, what, you’re a writer?’ I asked. Before he could open his mouth, Alina said, ‘He does nothing.’ The volume was turned down on his smile. ‘That’s a little unfair.’ This was interesting: the sudden crackle of tension between them.

He found a small, cheap room in a Breva hotel that smelled of cabbage and cabbage-induced farts

There is no great trick to getting people to believe a lie. You simply have to sound convincing.

The monster was shorter than her, like Ion, with a beak-like nose and stringy hair the colour of a sewer rat. The top of his head was bald and pocked with scars. He had the pallor of a man who never sees sunlight and his skin was always coated with grime. His teeth were yellow and gappy and his tongue was covered with a white layer.

them. Outside the window: blackness. We were deep in the Hungarian countryside now. I could hardly even imagine what the landscape would look like outside the window. Forests? Plains? I pressed my face against the window. I couldn’t even see any stars. If it wasn’t for the occasional flicker from an isolated building, the train could be hurtling through space. We could be anywhere. We could be at the end of the world. Laura kicked off her boots and flopped down on one of the bunks. I sat opposite her and took my phone out of the front pocket of my backpack. The battery

her eyes were the colour of café noir