Inside Evil

Chapter 8 - Part I

*Inside Evil and its sequels are available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks*

Roberta lay on her bed, unable to sleep. What she needed more than anything right now was a long and undisturbed eight hours to forget her woes. She could then awake completely refreshed and try and make sense of her life. But, her brain had so many conflicting thoughts and feelings winding around that it made falling asleep impossible. She felt as if each strand of memory was twisting around the neurons inside her mind, tightening their individual nooses and drawing her brain into an unintelligible mass. She was plagued with a dull headache which remained in the background of her being even when she over indulged in painkillers. She was so tired that she felt small surprise each time she actually managed to function.

Strange women don't appear in mirrors, Roberta thought to herself as she lay on her back and stared at the fading light of the day reflecting on the ceiling. In fact, strangers rarely even appear in dreams. Whilst you may forget a face as soon as your eyes open, personalities haunting your dreams normally took on the form of friends, family, celebrities or even faces off the television. But, rarely did a stranger appear in your dreams so vividly, and Roberta was absolutely sure that she had never seen that woman anywhere, ever. Her dream, from days ago, had actually grown in clarity and she could now remember the frosted roses in the window box, the first flakes of snow and the woman's surprising welcome as if it had happened mere seconds ago.

Roberta had initially been terrified that she was going mad, but the more that she tried to make sense of matters, the more she realised that her brain was not capable of creating something quite this odd. And, she'd been wide awake when she'd seen the woman in the mirror. Stoned, yes. But hallucinating? Roberta didn't think so. The conclusion of which meant that if she wasn't going mad, something very strange was happening.

Roberta's one comfort was that Sam too, believed that something odd was going on. She thought of the candles and wondered just how truthful Sam was being. But he'd seemed sure, confident enough that if they snuck into Susan's cellar, she could see for herself. He'd been a good friend in college. Indeed, she probably owed him for her degree which he'd contributed far more work towards than she ever had. He was an academic, a researcher, and whilst Roberta had found the endless hours of studies for finals and the tiresome reading for papers extremely dull, if you gave Sam a topic he was off. However long it took him, whether an hour, a day or a week, he'd return with more information than she'd have ever managed to find herself. He'd never lied to her, not that she knew of anyway. And, after her incident at the school, she had half expected him to side with Susan, instead of which he took the matter calmly and simply believed that something odd was occurring.

Whilst all of these thoughts flooded through her head, Roberta spent an inordinate amount of time thinking of Susan Lingly. If she focussed strongly enough and put all her attention into one thought, Roberta saw a woman who was grieving. Who had lost her one and only child in a devastating way. It was at these times that Roberta continued to agonise over her actions in the school dormitory, trying desperately to understand just why she had lashed out at someone who she hardly knew. Besides the fact that Susan was only an acquaintance, Roberta had never struck anyone in her life. And, whilst hitting Susan would have been horrifying enough, hitting Emily Stone was almost an unbearable thought which Roberta didn't want to think about. Susan was a mother searching for answers, but she was also a busy body. She pushed her nose in where no one wanted it, upset students, had pulled Sam away from Roberta as soon as he'd arrived in the small sleepy town. If only her fist had managed to strike that woman's face...bitch!

Roberta sat up in her bed, almost gasping with frustration at the thoughts which had no rightful place in her head. She physically shook herself, trying to banish the thoughts of Susan from her mind, before staring out of the window at the dying light which signalled the end of the day and the onset of the winter night. She noticed a scraping at her door, and upon opening it saw a pair of yellow eyes staring up at her. Roberta leant down to pick him up, but he struggled with a growl before diving under her bed.