Strange Dominions: a collection of paranormal short stories (short story books) Read Free Page A

cubicle.
     
    Crack!
     
    Something gave way beneath her foot. She looked down to see a broken tile.
    Fear began to reassert itself.
    “It’s just an illusion, Ellen,” she reminded herself, “nothing more than an illusion.”
    Then came the unexpected sound of sobbing.
    Her skin crawled as though a thousand insects were scurrying across her body, and she shuddered. She stood, frozen to the spot.
    The pitiable weeping was now more than she could bear.
“Please stop!”
she cried out, holding her hands to her ears.
    But there was no respite from the sounds and visions inside her head. She was beginning to remember.
    A sharp stinging pain in the crook of her arm made her wince, followed quickly by the tinkle of glass on the tiled floor as a bloodied syringe rolled from the furthest cubicle.
    The pitiable crying suddenly ceased.
    One moment she had been standing in a dilapidated toilet, staring down at the instrument of her death. The next, she was in the back of a brightly lit ambulance as it hurtled through the city streets, looking on as the medics struggled to save her.
    This was the first time in years she had seen her full countenance, and it appalled her. What she saw had little in common with an eighteen-year-old. Emaciation and years of self-abuse had taken their toll.
    “My God! What have I done to myself?” she murmured, “How could I let myself sink so low?”
    Suddenly, the monitor she was attached to began to beep loudly.
    “Christ, we’re losing her!” the attending medic called out to his partner.
    In the blinking of an eye, Little Ears found herself hurtling through a dark tunnel toward the sound of childish laughter. She exited into broad daylight, recognising instantly the group of teenagers congregating around an ice-cream van outside the school gates, the place where it all began.
    She also recognised the cocky eighteen-year-old ice-cream vendor, with the shock of curly red hair that ran to his shoulders. His liking for young girls was well-known to those who had fallen for his obvious charms. They were drawn to him like moths to a flame.
    Capitalising on his notoriety, in ways his employers were unaware of, he supplemented his meagre wage by selling small wraps of cannabis to his more than willing customers. Like many of her peers, Little Ears was about to be seduced into his web of deceit.
    As the group drifted back into the school yard only one female remained. Little Ears watched as they chatted for a while before he eventually served her. Though she could not recall the exact details of the conversation, she knew that he’d made a date to meet her at the local carnie that weekend. It was a rendezvous that would alter her life in ways she could never have imagined at the time: she would become a woman and smoke her first ‘joint’ at the age of fifteen.
    She wondered if she had known back then of her addictive nature whether she would have taken him up on his offer, but she hadn’t and there was no way of turning back the clock.
    Moving forward through time on an emotional journey of sadness and regret, she witnessed her first run in with the law, the anguish of her parents, the rows and upsets she caused within the family, the lies and deceit, and her increasing need to find a better ‘buzz’, and the debasing lengths she went to in order to attain it.
    Though remorseful of her acts, she no longer hated herself, and understood for the first time that she had been the victim of the greed of others and her own adolescent immaturity. Weakened by her dependency, she could not overcome her addiction as she grew into adulthood.
    Now she had to return to the place of her death to witness her ultimate act of selfishness.
    In the half-light of the toilet, blinking the tears from her eyes, she stared at the empty syringe lying at her feet, then into the cramped cubicle where her inert body lay wedged between the toilet bowl and wall. Round her left arm was a tourniquet. Directly beneath it a