One day Jack didn’t turn up for his monthly visit and the next day we received a call saying that Jack had died in a car crash on his way to our house. My mother was absolutely distraught .I felt relieved. I could breathe out again but I still remembered his last words echoing in my mind: ‘I’m gonna get you.’ I learnt to push this thought into the back of my mind and my bruises heeled quickly allowing me to live a normal life- almost carefree compared to the suffering I had had to endure throughout my childhood.
* * *
I had chosen London especially. There were no fields to run through, no empty spaces and the busy, bustling London streets were forever occupied. I was never alone in the sense that at least I could ways hear something or someone near me. There were no dark corners here and help was only a phone call away. Some people considered me to be very strange, for, unlike most people, I loved living with neighbours who’s dogs barked continuously throughout the day and night. I found the noise comforting and it was reassuring to know that the world was never quiet or still.
Sitting in my busy house I felt safe. As I watched my two children chasing each other around the garden I shivered, for an old memory started to flicker at the back of my mind. I began to feel uneasy but not being able to pinpoint why, I carried on as normal, taking my children to school and my husband to work.
As I started to work, tidying the house, I could here the neighbour’s dogs barking outside and an ambulance wurring away somewhere in the distance. The sun was out and shining through my bedroom window and even though I should have felt relaxed, the uneasy feeling was still with me, motionless at the base of my stomach.
‘You have received one new email.’ I jumped as I heard the unfamiliar sound of the computer. That was strange for me to be getting messages in the middle of the day; it was usually my husband who received the emails and always in the evening when he came home from work.
As I walked over to the computer, I felt claustrophobic, as if all the air was being sucked away from me. The dogs outside stopped barking and the house was unnervingly still. ‘You have received one new email.’ I jumped a second time as the computer persisted to make me read the email. I opened the file but the page was blank albeit one sentence: ‘I’m gonna get you’. As the old fears from the past were rekindled, I panicked and ran to the phone to call my husband. Feeling a tap on my back, I dropped the phone and fell to the ground just in time to hear a soft whisper in my ear: ‘tag!’
