Trust No Bitch: Part 1

Clara Wright

It's been a long day. You deserve this, Clara told herself as she scoured the shop shelves for Jack Daniels, trying not to care about how much she knew her mother would disapprove. Raiding the corner shop for alcohol wasn't Clara's proudest moment. However, in that moment it was the clear solution. Gemma, Lilly, Alice and Clara had all gone home after the interviews but agreed to meet at Alice's later for beers on the rooftop, like they used to have with Cleo. In Clara's opinion it was too much, too soon, to start getting all sentimental but she obliged and agreed to go round there at 10PM. With 15 minutes until she was due to be there, she thought she would get some drinks for herself along with the beers and drop them back at her flat on her way to Alice's halls. So far, she'd been fortunate enough not to bump into any other students; everyone was busy getting ready to go out. After all, it was Halloween. Clara had made sure to choose a less conspicuous route to the corner shop just to avoid people but she needn't have done. The grounds were desolate, uninhabited apart from the trees and the river, the barren moon overhead that rose in numinous splendour the only source of light. There were lampposts that lined the main pathway round the grounds but if one strayed from it once it got dark, they found themselves in complete darkness. Clara had obambulated for some time before she found the shop; it was hard to navigate when she could barely see. The woman working there didn't even look up from her phone as Clara entered and passed the halloween display, a profusion of those generic Ghostface masks hung up one next to another. Clara was glad; everyone on campus knew who Cleo King was and everyone had seen her side by side with the red haired girl. She knew that if the woman was to have noticed her, she'd undoubtedly cascade Clara with well-meaning but unwanted sympathy. She paced the drinks aisle noiselessly, biting her fingernails as she moved, groaning upon locating her beverage of choice on the top shelf. If only Alice, Lilly or Cleo were with me, she thought to herself. They'd be able to reach it. Her name had only entered Clara's mind only as a passing thought, but it was enough. As she looked to the end of the aisle for a kick stool, Cleo was standing there behind it. Of course, she wasn't really there, but the imagination is a tricky little bitch. Through Clara's eyes, she was there, clear as day. Dripping.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Her blonde hair hung in clumps, like damp ropes bursting from her scalp. Her eyelids had peeled off, white bulbs with only black spots for pupils where her eyes should be. Bones peeked through holes in tattered skin which was that same pale blue-green, lumpy and partly flayed. There was a pool of thick, murky water at the corpses feet too, spreading down the aisle until Clara's Doc Martens were submerged in it.

And she was coughing, only it sounded little like what a human cough should sound like. It was like someone choking on gravel, with an oily spillage of blood from an open mouth to go with it. The light above Cleo flickered and all Clara could see for a second was black before the shop was illuminated again and Cleo's crumbling face was there, centimetres from Clara's own. She smelt of pond water, of rotting meat, of decay. Of everything that Cleo would daren't go near, let alone bathe in, in life. Clara opened her mouth to scream but she could only choke on air, her eyes humungous and bulging. There was a burst of high pitched laughter which jarred on Clara's ears, but it didn't come from Cleo. Her head lolled to one side and the second Clara realised that she wasn't the source of the noise, she was gone. It was just other people coming into the shop. Clara took a deep breath and shook her head as a shiver scuttled up the length of her spine. She turned her attention back to the Jack Daniels, fetching the kick stool from the end of the aisle, catching a glimpse of the people who had just entered as she did so. It was Tess Rowe, Lilly's friend, with Rudy Williams, lover of bucket hats, wannabe-gangster, and in Clara and most other people's opinion, complete arsehole. He wore his tropical print hat with an Adidas jacket that clashed wonderfully and had his arms wrapped around Tess Rowe's waist. It was her high pitched shrieks of mirth that had startled Clara so much. For two people who were not a couple, they were a little too cosy in Clara's opinion; Tess kept grabbing on to Rudy and throwing her head back with laughter. Rudy was grinning lasciviously and wrapping his arms around her each time she stumbled.