The Phantom Itch
By N. M. Sirett
The Phantom Itch
Mayberry Village wasn’t far from the edge of nowhere and barely alive on a map. Some of the minor roads were nothing more than country tracks that broke your Waze App in half. Satellites dripped Teflon rain under the pressure to locate the place. Phone screens cracked in their dash mounts as they strained to smart-navigate those wield-woven country lanes.
At the third exit take the second turning on the left … the left … take the … on to … exit … Turn right at the crossroads. In half a mile take the next … Turn back.
Nevertheless, I was done with the rat race. I’d taken myself off the carousel. Not because of a nasty break-up or trouble with the law. I had no hidden secrets, trauma, or family scandal. I didn’t ruin a perfectly good career. I had no sad-story motive, except that my aunt had died; I suppose that was sad. We weren’t close or anything. She’d had no offspring. Was a rich widow. Left all her dough to me. Lucky me.
Having received a rather generous inheritance, I set about selecting a remote country cottage with a wood burner and a south-facing garden adorned with wild flowers. I found the perfect place, adjacent to a sweet little wood, situated on the outskirts of Mayberry Village.
Just to be twee, I bought a large dresser for the kitchen and displayed antique porcelain plates, potted jams, and other country-style paraphernalia. I was particularly proud of my rustic oak dining table which boasted a cobwebbed spice rack from a charity shop and a wooden bowl for seasonal fruits and nuts. The first week living there, I filled a napkin-lined basket with scones. Vowing to always fill it with baked goods – you know, for the cosy factor.
I had some really cute floral curtains made to measure, framing a delightful little lattice window above the stove. I purchased soft rugs to hug the wooden floorboards, for the place creaked like a dead man’s gait when the wind blew hard. The cottage windows had not been double-glazed, and I was betting winters here arrived in a cloak of fog and were as chilly as a paranormal cold spot. Rugs and throws were clearly the way to go, but I did put a deep pile carpet down in the hallway, for added warmth.
Outside, mice frolicked in the flowerbeds and little rabbits run amok like mythical woodland spirits. Giant bumbles bashed clumsily against the lattice panes. And butterflies danced in the air, splashing colour and life wherever they fluttered.
The cottage had crooks and nooks and spooks. I say spooks, but I don’t mean ghosts. Although, being grade II listed, I would’ve expected a few. I simply mean that I got the spooks– on occasion. You know, those new-home sounds: the unfamiliar pipe clanging, an unexpected gurgle in the sink, the boiler firing up in a sudden fury against an early-hour chill. A midnight fox slicing the night in two with its haunting cry.
At first, I was tortured by nightmares of creatures walking silently in the woods. Mindless and slow. Emerging through the trees to stare stonily at the cottage – an unsettling dead nothingness behind their caliginous gaze, startling me awake. I’d sit up, catching my breath in bed, and the gentle patter of unrhythmical, flat-footed steps would resound in the stillness of an unbroken dawn. But I’d tell myself: It’s just bird watchers cutting through the churchyard. Then I’d pull the patchwork quilt over my head and try not to think about what else it might be.
There’s a graveyard at the bottom of my garden. The cottage backs on to the church grounds. It’s an aspect of the place that had me hesitating to buy it at first. Common sense got the better of me in the end. It’s the living that are generally a threat. The dead just sleep.
I’d moved into the cottage in the summer months when the churchyard was bejewelled with wild flowers. An erratic clash of majestic colour. Attracting insects and birds and all sorts of wildlife, providing me with a false sense of security. For my garden backed on to this saccharine place of natural beauty and it hadn’t seemed so bad, at first. But when the initial autumnal winds blew the petals clear away and the birds prepared to journey to warmer climates, my garden view was framed with nothing but tombstones and bleak grey skies.
By the time I’d settled in and made a few friends it was coming up for Halloween. Apparently the village never did Halloween by halves. Every year in Mayberry people dressed up and took to the lanes, calling on every cottage huddled discreetly behind hedgerow and willow, then winding up in the village pub for a pumpkin-spiced latte or a clove-spiked cider.
I am a good sport, and the community welcomed me with outstretched arms. Providing me with a chance to get to know some of the neighbours better. A week ago, I’d found an old 80s wedding dress at the church jumble sale, and stained it red with food colouring. Ready for my zombie-bride look.
Later I’d remembered I would need make-up. I didn’t have anything that would achieve the right look. At such short notice (with the nearest Boots a clever fifteen miles away), I’d made an online purchase for make-up, but the order went missing. I was annoyed because I’d waited for it to come after the orders section on my account had flagged the delivery up as delayed. Giving me a date to hold out for, which passed without any sign of my parcel.
Then today, I was about to request a refund when the letterbox opened its mouth wide and spewed a chunky pamphlet onto the doormat. I turned to see a dark figure drift like smoke away from the window. In the hallway was a cosmetics book: Avon.
I hastened to the door, opening it to try and catch the rep, but the path outside was empty. The wind abruptly screamed through the half-denuded trees, stripping them bare for winter, showing no mercy.
I closed the door and picked up the book. A pumpkin-shaped Post-It, stuck to the cover, read: I am including you in my village round. Book collections are every three weeks. I will be collecting this order tomorrow and aim to deliver before 31st October. Thanks. Louise Kershaw.
How about that!I thought. The timing couldn’t be better… the timing. Tomorrow is Halloween. How could she possibly put an order in and deliver on the same day?
I opened the cover and began to peruse the contents. I needed pale make-up. Whites and greys. A black or a purple for under the eyes. Some green. I rummaged in the hallway drawer for a pen, and after finding an appropriate palette of blushes and eyeshadows, I marked the page numbers down on the order form along with the product codes. There. Problem solved. I put the brochure on the electric box outside by the front door and went into the kitchen to put on a fresh brew of tea.
As the kettle screeched to the boil there was a lunatic rat-a-tat-tat! on my door. Startling me enough to spill milk over the work surface. I cursed under my breath and went into the hallway.
A smoky figure hovered on the other side of the frosted-glass door. A dark shadow behind the opaque pane. It did not move but at the same time was not completely still. It wavered like a black flame, a hazy silhouette.
I slowed down as I approached the door. Finding that I was holding my breath and scraping my bottom lip with just one tooth. Pressing down hard so that the sting of it shocked me. A trickle of red wet my chin.
Why did I do that?I thought.
Bang-bang-bang!
The knock came again. An urgent pounding. The door shook. But the figure did not move. A jolt of ice went straight through me, giving me gooseflesh.
The figure had not moved. But the knock had been real. Hadn’t it? And loud. So earsplittingly loud.
I froze where I stood. Still holding the milk jug. Its dregs dripping on my slipper socks. Little blotches of white staining my purple-knit toes.
Bang-bang-bang!
I jumped out of my skin. The figure before me stretched. Growing taller and blacker. Looming through the glass. It had not raised a fist. But the door still shook from the violence of the knocking.
Outside, the world stilled. The only sound being the relentless howl of the October squall. Which made everything worse. Magnifying the fact that the figure had not budged from my doorstep.
The head-shaped part of the shadow pressed eagerly against the glass pane. Diaphanous hair spilling like ink in water. And the faint aroma of pond sludge and plant decay tainted the air. It had a hypnotic effect: urging me to unstick my socks from the carpet, ease one foot in front of the other. Then…
‘Avon calling,’ came the voice. A monotone voice. Devoid of notes. Sounding like a mouth crammed with leeches and tadpoles and water spiders and other such creatures you might find in a woodland pond. Words drizzled through the door like a leak in a wall. ‘Avon calling. It’s Louise.’
But she’d just put the brochure through the door, I found myself thinking. Logic tripping into my mind and bringing me back to the ordinary world where nothing creepy ever happened. I was being ridiculous. It’s Louise. And she just wants to introduce herself to me. Welcome me to Mayberry. Ask me how I’m settling in – that sort of thing.
The tension in my legs drained to the floor and I moved easily, gulping down a fresh breath of – what was that? Eggs?
I opened the door, fabricating a jolly: ‘Hi, I’m Kelly,’ to absolutely no one.
And the brochure was gone.
Wind-whipped trees in the nearby woods emitted a blood-curdling shriek. Moving as one heaving bulk of animus. And the winter squalls were so unforgivingly hostile towards my little thatched abode. But none of it bothered me now. For my ears tuned into another sound: the flat-footed footsteps from my dreams. Now stomping down the side of the cottage, towards the back garden and the graveyard beyond.
Had Louise Kershaw, my new Avon Lady, played a cruel joke? Was this some weird village ritual leading up to Halloween? Or some strange welcome act to initiate me into the community? Some kind of Knock-Down-Ginger in-joke that I was too new to the area to get?
‘Louise?’ I called feebly. The wind took the name and blew it far away.
A cold snap of air infringed upon my personal space. Like a ghost walking straight through me, and I shut the front door. Locking it fast.
Then I took the milk jug through to the kitchen and looked out the window. Scanning the garden and the graveyard for signs of my mystery visitor. But nothing. Just the onslaught of gloomy clouds flying in to blacken my day.
I made a fresh pot of tea and helped myself to a scone with thick cream and damson jam. Then I lit the wood burner and settled in for a snug rest with a copy of King’s Misery. Nobody was as bat-shit crazy as Annie Wilkes in Misery. It was ‘just another day at the funhouse for Annie’ but not for me. Nope. My cottage was warm and cosy and sane, I told myself. Then again, the book tells you ‘there’s a little bit of Annie in everybody’. No, don’t go there, I thought and got reading, fully immersing myself in King-magic until the day had melted away into twilight.
I put the book down around four-thirty in the afternoon. I went to draw the curtains and glanced out the window. Outside the sky was an upside-down cauldron of swirling purple potions. Working its Samhain magics on the land. Casting its curses and spells and all the hexes it could throw at Mayberry Village in one foul witch’s cackle of thunder. Lightning lit the sky suddenly like a crack in a lamp. And the world around me rumbled with fury and wrath.
I pulled the curtains to and boiled the kettle. Tea was good. Tea made everything better. I’d make tea and prepare some supper. Tomorrow was Halloween. I had that to look forward to. I had planned to meet my new friends outside the village hall. So far I’d made acquaintances with the local watercolour club (which I’d joined), the pub owners, Jill and Shay, and their dog Toby. Also a few people from the local post office and general store. There was Bob and Sandra, Dave and Sue, and Melody – the teenager who did the paper round. All of whom seemed pleasant enough, if a little stereo-typical parochial. (Local and gossipy in other words.) These were my trick-or-treat crew and we would all be arriving in costume at seven o’clock in the evening for some village laughs. We had originally planned to meet outside the church, which would have been much nearer for me, but apparently the vicar did not approve, according to Jill and Shay. I had not met the vicar, so I just took their word for it.
The night grew fierce with the howling storm – and the night could stay outside. There was brick and mortar between me and it. So with a fresh brew in a clean mug, I set about warming up some day-old casserole on the hob. Sipping my tea and singing The Monster Mash.
Bang-bang-bang-BANG!
This time it was the kitchen door that led to the garden and the graveyard beyond. That was the door that banged and shook with an unhinged violence.
Bang-BANG!
There it is was again. Then a slow methodical tap-tap-tap. In contrast to the gargantuan knocking, this was a single nail, light and natty, on the wooden door frame.
A twig snapped. Then lightning lit up the patio. There she was, Louise Kershaw. The Avon Lady. In a brief flash of diamond light I saw her. She was bone thin. Tall and gaunt. With black frizzy hair; it bouffered outwards in all directions. All puffy and fluffy like a storm cloud wreathing her head. She was a pencil sketch, all smeared in the storm’s light. You could even see the outline of the tombstones at the bottom of the garden through her long black coat. In her pale hands she held a white paper bag with a receipt stapled to it: my order.
‘Avon calling!’ Louise Kershaw announced. Her stuffed-with-pondlife words drowning in thunder. Bang-bang-bang! ‘I have your order.’
The cottage stilled. As though the roof above me tried to flatten itself against the foundations – playing dead in the hope that the caller would go away. I held my breath. Did not move. A muscle twitched in my jaw. My chest was tight. I thought I might pass out from the lack of air but still I just could not manage a single breath.
‘Avon calling…’
The kitchen door handle tilted downwards. Slowly. Another clap of thunder had the kitchen lit up in a knife-blade sheen. The door suddenly swung open and a sharp slice of rain came sheeting in, glossing the stone tiles. My quaint cottage curtains billowed dramatically. I was in a haunted funhouse now, like the ones at the fair. Tea cups rattled and coasters blew off my dining table, along with a small vase of dried flowers which spilled over and toppled to the floor. Tinkling on impact and breaking into tiny smithereens of fine china. Dry stalks of lavender spilling in all directions. Brittle flowerheads detaching and dotting the floor.
The door bashed against the kitchen unit. Again and again. Outside, something ran across the patio. A fox? A cat? A what?
‘Louise?’ I croaked. ‘Are you there?’ My words seemed to kill the storm and destroy the spell. For almost instantly the wind dropped and the skies cleared. All was still and the garden was peaceful.
I stood there listening for a moment, thinking: I can hear her. Moving on those unrhythmical flat feet. Softly padding across the grass, dodging the gravestones. I blinked into the blackish-grey church grounds but saw nothing.
When I moved to close the door, my toes struck the paper bag. My order. I picked it up and shut the door. Locking it fast.
The following day I’d been busy baking cookies for any treats I might need to hand out on request. I baked oatmeal, white chocolate chip, and cinnamon spice. I wrapped each batch in clean linen napkins and placed them in baskets to cool. Secretly hoping that my cookies would make me popular with the villagers. I had always prided myself on my ability to make exceedingly delicious baked goods – Mr Kipling eat your heart out.
I had not looked at the make-up that had mysteriously been delivered the previous evening. It was sitting on the dining table next to a pile of china shards and lavender heads. Despite the lavender, the bag was giving off and icky vibe and faint aroma of something ghastly. As though a nearby pond was being drained after a sewage leak.
I tried not to look at the parcel. There would be plenty of time later to dress up and try out the new make-up. After baking, I was having a new friend over for elevenses. Amelia Siding. She was my nearest neighbour and we hadn’t met yet. We’d popped a few notes back and forth, through the door, introducing ourselves, but she ran a business from home and had little time to spare. And I was, well, a little shy I guess. So today had been arranged in advance. It was now (I glanced at the clock on the mantle), oh gosh, almost eleven!
I ran a soapy cloth over the surfaces, wiping down any excess flour, and flung it into the sink. An unnerving bang on the front door had me slipping on a dollop of cookie dough that had dropped to the tiles. I skidded into the hallway.
‘Just a moment!’ I cried, wiping my hands on the inside of my jumper.
‘It’s Louise.’
I stopped. There was the figure again. Face pressed against the opaque glass of the front door. Hair pluming like toxic fumes. Darkening the hallway.
‘Er, just a moment.’
‘You owe me.’
Payment. The receipt. I remembered. It was stapled to the bag. I needed to pay Louise Kershaw for the order. Did I have cash in the cottage? Yes. About twenty pounds. Would that do it? I hadn’t calculated the –
Bang-bang-BANG!
‘You owe. You pay.’
I began to retreat. Moving close to the foot of the stairs. My purse was upstairs in the front bedroom. I could just go up there now and –
‘Avon calling. Sixteen pounds. Sixteen pounds and sixty-six pence.’
‘Louise, I’m just going to get my purse!’ I yelled and darted up the stairs two at a time. I rushed into the bedroom searching for my handbag. Before I could get the cash out, I heard the awkward feet hopscotching it away, down my front path. I ran to the window to get a look at this Louise character in broad daylight. And this time, yes!, there she was. A tall woman in a long black coat to the ankles. She was easily six feet tall and gangly. Her frizzy hair wiry against the autumnal sky. Bobbing about her head in a fuzzy mound that seemed to have a life of its own. Her gait was crooked and her feet were huge and out of sync with one another. One of her knees bent so low as if to touch the ground with every step whilst the other stuck out at an impossible angle.
I watched her head towards the outskirts of the woods. Before she disappeared into a grove of trees, she turned to look back at me. Stared directly into the bedroom window as if she knew exactly where abouts in the cottage I was. And her eyes. Oh, her eyes. Those eyes. The flesh around the sockets was creamy and rubbery like a mask. The sockets were hollow. Filled with a blackened wet peat. Great sopping clumps of it. She grinned and a pool of pondwater spilled through a set of rotten green teeth.
Aghast, I jumped back from the window, my heart thudding in my ears. When I plucked up enough courage to look again, she was gone.
I took the twenty out of my handbag with trembling fingers. Found a spare envelope and tucked the money inside, licking down the flap and writing ‘sixteen pounds and sixty-six pence’ on the front in red Biro. Underneath the amount I wrote ‘For Louise Kershaw – Kelly’s Avon Order – Comfort Cottage, Mayberry Village.’
I took the envelope downstairs, opened the front door, placed it on the electric box, then slammed the door shut and bolted it. Hastening into the kitchen, I double-checked the rear door. It was still locked. I let out all the air I’d been holding onto for dear life, then moved towards the dining table. I tore open the paper bag and took out the make-up. Nothing untoward. Just some white powder, some eyeshadow palettes.
Knock-knock…
‘Hello? Kelly? It’s Amelia.’
Amelia. Yes, of course. I’d almost forgotten. I went to greet my new neighbour. Amelia was a small woman around my age, mid-to-late thirties. She had blonde hair tied up high in a messy bun and wore sweats and a quilted anorak. She had a pleasant face. A benign smile and passive blue eyes. Her overall demeanour shocked me. This was not the assertive business woman I was expecting. She was more like a country housewife with a fairly mild and sunny disposition.
‘Hi,’ I said, ‘I’m Kelly. Please come in. I apologize for the mess, I’ve been baking.’
‘It’s lovely to finally meet you!’ said Amelia, grinning chummily. She held out her hand. It was stained orange. A little fake tan tester on the skin. She smelled of clotted cream and rosewater.
‘Let’s go into the kitchen,’ I said, shaking her hand and ushering her inside quickly.
But Amelia shook her head, eyes widening at the Avon book on the electric box, and said, ‘I don’t mean to pry, but is that envelope made out to Louise Kershaw? Have I read that right?’
Amelia’s expression was a little nonplussed when I nodded. ‘It’s an Avon payment,’ I replied, feeling a little stupid. Obviously everyone in the village would surely know the Avon Lady.
‘Do you mind me asking, how did you come by an Avon brochure? Is there a new rep in the village?’
‘Huh? Yes, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Won’t you come through?’
We went inside. I quickly locked the front door and went to the kitchen to fill the kettle. Amelia stood beside the dining table, eying the make-up. ‘Is this what you’ve ordered?’ she asked.
‘I, er, am ashamed to admit, it’s for my zombie costume. For Halloween,’ I laughed.
Amelia did not laugh back but grew immediately pale and withdrawn, so I offered her a seat on the sofa and fetched the teapot on a tray with a selection of my wares for her to sample.
After a painful bout of small talk, she steered the conversation back round to my Avon order. ‘So, who’s the new Avon rep?’ she enquired.
‘I believe her name is Louise. Louise Kershaw,’ I said. Shuddering at the thought of those squelchy fibrous eyes and that ghastly spillage, running like drain water from her gangrenous maw.
‘I’m sorry, time is ticking,’ said Amelia, rising from the sofa. The colour had not returned to her face and she quivered now as though she’d caught a chill.
‘Wait,’ I said, ‘there’s no hurry, surely.’
‘I don’t want to keep you. You are going out tonight and I…’ she hesitated. Her face grew stonelike. ‘I have to go lock up the house before it gets dark. I don’t like Halloween.’
‘Oh. Do you not celebrate it?’
‘In a word – no.’
‘But it’s only a bit of harmless fun.’
‘Is it? Well I lean towards the opinions of our vicar, John Linnard of St. Martin’s Church, I’m afraid. I don’t celebrate pagan traditions. The vicar is right not to encourage such antics in Mayberry. And I would caution you not to get involved.’
She made her way awkwardly towards the hallway. I unlocked the front door and she swiftly escaped the cottage. Throwing another wary glance at the envelope on the electric box before hurrying home.
Fine, I thought sardonically, we don’t need to be close – just neighbourly and civil. Clearly she’s a bit religious. She probably frequents church, donates a large portion of her business profits to the vicar’s ‘personal pot’ – funds the old sacramental wine cupboard, no doubt.
I sniggered to myself as I shut the front door. Then I turned my thoughts towards dressing up in the old wedding dress. I need a bouquet, I thought,and the salvias are blooming in the garden. Now where are my secateurs?
Snipping my hot lips in the garden was fun. I had some white ribbon in my sewing box and planned to tie a half-decent bow around the sage-green stalks. The flowers were popping with colour, despite the blustery season, and had miraculously hung on to their deep magenta petals – somewhat sheltered from the wind by the garden shed. A perfect splash of pink that would clash gruesomely with my fake blood stains.
A sudden movement in my peripheral vision had me watching the graveyard. Louise. It was Louise. I don’t know how I knew. I could just feel her. Smell her pond-residue scent on the air. I stood up, leaving the salvia snippings on the grass, and stepping over the low chicken-wire fence, dividing garden from graveyard.
A shadow flitted from headstone to headstone. Not a person. Not Louise? Yes, Louise. But it couldn’t… my mind strived to grab on to something solid but it kept losing its grip.
I followed the zig-zagging shadow, abruptly drawing to a halt beside a headstone when it dissipated. Surprisingly, a fresh bouquet of salvias was stuffed in the plant base. But the biggest shock of all was the engraving:
LOUISE KERSHAW
1966 TO 2025
LOVING SISTER, DAUGHTER, FRIEND.
This could not be the same person. Surely not.
‘Good afternoon, missy,’ said a chirpy voice from behind me. I turned to see a white-collared man in a black shirt, with a ruddy smile and great Victorian muttonchop whiskers.
‘Sweet Jesus, you startled me. Oh, er, sorry,’ I said, blushing.
‘Not to worry. I take it we are neighbours in a roundabout sort of way?’ said the vicar.
‘I live in Comfort Cottage, yes; I’m Kelly.’
‘Please to meet you. John Linnard. Local vicar. I haven’t seen you at church. Are you planning on attending any Sunday services?’
‘I’ve been busy settling in,’ I said. ‘You know how it is, so many boxes to unpack. You can be living out of boxes for months.’
‘Better than being in a box in the ground, eh?’ He laughed pointing to our feet with a hairy index finger.
I laughed along, uneasily, because it wasn’t a joke I’d expect from a veritable man of the cloth. ‘Yes, for sure,’ I agreed.
‘Poor Louise. Bought it earlier this year.’
Bought it? Not a respectable way to speak of the dead. I thought.
‘She shares the same name as the Avon Lady,’ I said, not daring to meet his eyes for fear of the answer.
‘Come again? Louise is – sorry was – the only Lou I know of in Mayberry. Although little Tania in my choir has Louisa as her middle name. No, Louise Kershaw was the only Lou around here. We’ve not had the Avon going since she kicked the bucket. Back in April.’
‘Um …’ I coughed. ‘How did she … ?
‘Suicide. Drowned herself in a bog in the nearby woods. Over there on the other side of your cottage.’ I went cold. He went on. ‘She had a good turnout. Jill and Shay bloody loved her. They had her wake in the pub. She was popular at the art group too. Always chatting to the checkout staff in the local shop. Nobody had a clue. She must’ve been a secret manic depressive or something. They always say, the ones that are serious about it won’t ever let on – and that is true, in Lou’s case. She was a lively soul all right. As I say, many of the villagers loved her. She gave good discounts on all the, you know, stuff. Nail polish and bubble bath. That kind of thing.
‘I gave her a good service. Prayed for her soul but, you know, a suicide is a difficult predicament. One can only hope the dear Lord took her swiftly through the pearly gates and did not condemn her to walk alone in the valley of death.’
‘One can only hope!’ I concurred, giving him a superglue-smile. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure to meet you. Must dash. Boxes to unpack!’ Then I swiftly made my way back to the cottage, my wedding dress, and the ominous make-up.
I stood outside the village hall at seven o’clock in a hooped dress with puffy sleeves and a lace train. My veil and skirt stained crimson. Cobwebs and plastic spiders dangling from ribbons tied to my skirt. Make-up fetchingly zombified. Clutching a bouquet of hot lips in my hands. But I stood on my own. My fellow trick-or-treaters were a no-show. Perhaps the vicar had talked them out of it.
I started without them, traipsing back down the lane, hitching up my dress, stumbling towards the neighbour’s house. I knew she did not want to be a part of the festivities, but honestly, I had no clue which home belonged to whom; all I knew was Amelia’s place because she was the only one who lived down the same lane as me.
There’s a serious lack of decorations. Not one pumpkin has been carved and lit. The village should be buzzing with kids in costumes, I thought. Even the pub up on the hill has no lights. And the village is as black as pitch. Why?
I walked through the lane towards Amelia’s house. My foot went down a few holes before I reached her path. Giving me the stumbling impression of a real zombie. With pain smarting my ankles and the chilly air numbing my chest, I knocked on her door.
After several minutes the letterbox opened, half an inch. A pair of timid blue eyes peered out through the gap. ‘Go away!’ she hissed.
‘Trick or treat!’
‘I said leave me alone!’
‘Don’t be daft. It’s just a bit of fun. I’m just trying to fit in.’
‘Then take my advice and join the church. The rest of the villagers are not… ’
‘Are not what?’ I waited for an answer. It came by way of the glint in her eyes. Sharp and intense with engrained fear. Then the lid of the letterbox dropped. I the sound of her waning footfalls. Fortunately for me she left the hallway light on, limning the lawn in a thick wedge of soursop yellow.
I let out a frustrated sigh and said, ‘Trick it is then!’ and stuffed the bouquet of hot lips through her letterbox, shouting: ‘Have some flowers, neighbour!’
‘I would like to include you in my village round,’ came a messed-up voice behind me. A monster-mash voice. Louise.
With weak deliberation I turned to face the dead woman. She was not alone. Upon the lawn stood Jill and Shay, their dog Toby, Melody, Dave, Sue, Bob, Sandra – everyone from art club. My trickster crew. All of them attired in zombie costumes. Her friends. The ones who’d loved her the most.
They stood as one unhallowed congregation. Eyes thick with peat. Mouths stuffed with things black, wet, slithering. Maggots wriggled and writhed in their rotting flesh. Pondwater ran cold from their mouths. Even the dog salivated frogspawn.
Whatever had happened to the villagers had happened tonight. Had happened because Louise had risen. Had run through the gravestones. Destined to walk in the valley of death, delivering cosmetics, giving discounts to her friends.
But how? How had they joined her? Become a shiver of undead tricksters? Louise Kershaw was deceased. Her name was on a gravestone in the churchyard.
I regarded her, struggling to keep my gaze steady. She was holding a new brochure. Gesturing for me to take it. I shook my head and backed up against Amelia’s door. Meaning to raise a fist and bang hard. Meaning to… but only meaning to…
Let me in, Amelia. Let me in!
Oh no, Kelly, I won’t let you in. I can’t. I shan’t. Oh no, Kelly. I won’t let you in – not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin.
But I’m cold, Amelia. Let me in!
Oh no, Kelly, I won’t let you in. There’s a little bit of Annie in you and a little bit of Annie in them. I can’t let you in, Kelly. I shan’t.
Something soft caught in my eyes. Instead of raising my fist to the door, I raised a finger to my eye. A saturated, spongy blackness wept from the corner: black peat.
I stared at the woman on the lawn, proffering her pamphlet of cosmetics with a grin so vile it sickened my soul. Her mouldering throat gurgled as she moved her meaty lips to speak words that had me tethered to her ‘village round’. Yes, tethered – just like the others. The knowing that I belonged to her now was like an invisible truth that couldn’t be seen, only felt – a phantom itch.
Her odious voice finally slopped out of that wilting mouth in a solemn landslide of words, initiating me into her congregation. Like she’d done to the others. Just two words – just two: ‘Avon calling.’