Time dissolved around me as I knelt there with Kristina’s lifeless body held tightly in my arms. A body that was cold to the touch, tacky from the congealing blood that covered it. The smell that lingered in the air, heavy and cloying, was one that I’ll never forget. It wasn’t the fresh scent of her that I remembered from Skyggespor, but the bitter, metallic, corrupt stench of death.
Any remaining veil of delusion that still hung over my eyes, fell away. For the first time in a long while, I was finally able to see things as they really were. It all flashed before my eyes with sickening clarity. All those months that he had kept me locked away in the basement, the cruel and evil things that he had inflicted on me, the torment and the torture that I had been put through. It had been for one purpose, he had wanted to break my mind.
Then there had come my hopeless attempt at escape, that desperate struggle to reach Skyggespor. I had been alone, naked and freezing, shambling along that ski trail. Why hadn’t he come after me then? He could have caught me easily if he’d wanted to. But no, he had never even attempted to chase me down, he hadn’t needed to. He never had any intention of coming after me. It had all been part of his little ruse. The generous offer of a bath, leaving me alone in the cabin while he ‘prepared’ the basement for me. He had orchestrated the fantasy of an escape, dangled it before my eyes, wanting me to take it. He knew exactly where I would go. It was the only place for miles around, the place where I’d find my godfather, the place where I believed that I’d find safety. But of course, my brother was meticulous, he had been one step in front of me the whole time. He had already carefully planted the seeds of his manipulation in Magnus’ head. He’d already contacted our family friend, told him all about my breakdown, my ‘delusional episode’, as he’d described it. So then, when Magnus found me, seeing me stumbling along in the state that I was in, it all just confirmed my brother’s false narrative.
A cold shudder rippled through my body as a horrific realisation swept over me. What if Magnus hadn’t found me? Would I have been able to reach Skyggespor on my own? Would I have frozen to death trying? It was a gamble that my brother had been prepared to make. And with me out of the cabin, he’d had all the time in the world to arrange the place, set up the next part of his chilling ploy. That mattress, those blankets, clothes that he’d promised me, that he said he was going to set up for me in the basement… he’d never intended them for down there. They weren’t meant to make me more comfortable as he’d claimed. They were the things that he needed to create the illusion of a homely and lived in cabin. The final piece of evidence to convince Magnus of my madness and the final push that I needed to topple me over the edge of insanity.
After Skyggespor, Lars had never forced me back down into that basement. Yet I had been just as much a prisoner in this room as I had been there. I had been as much a captive, locked in the confines of my own shattered mind as I was behind that thick, bolted door.
My eyes drifted back down to the corpse that was draped limply across my lap. Her face was no longer the kind and peaceful face that I remembered. Her expression was frozen, distorted and twisted in terror and agony.
How could he do this?
It hadn’t been the things that I had feared, the voices that whispered at me from the shadows, nor had it been the Shadow Beast that hunted and tormented me, who had done this. It hadn’t been any of those dark constructs of my fragile and tormented mind. It had been Lars! Lars was the true monster.
My eyes darted back towards the door to the living room. The room beyond was dark, except for a low light emanating from the television in the corner of the room. It was a light that flickered across the walls, making the shadows writhe and stretch in a sinister dance.
Gently, I laid Kristina’s limp body back down onto the gore covered floor and then wiped the tears from my eyes with the sleeve of my pale blue sweater. A sweater that was now stained red with the blood of the girl who had come here with only one intention, to help me. With knees that shook beneath me, I stood, turned and stepped back into the living room.
The windows were black now, night had fallen, and the shadows had swallowed the last glimmers of twilight. The only light in the room came from the flickering screen of the television. But I didn’t pay any attention to what was showing on that screen. My attention was focused on only one thing, the blonde haired figure of my brother, still slumped in the corner where I had left him.
Even in the dim light, I could make him out clearly. His eyes were downcast, dried blood from the wound that I had inflicted on him earlier crusted and cracked on his face. His shoulders shuddered, the soft sounds of sobs rose up from his direction.
I looked at him, that pathetic, broken figure of a man. Those icy blue eyes, eyes that had once flashed between cold cruelty and fiery rage in an instant, now started forward with a watery glaze, bloodshot and dilated. His large, powerful frame now seemed small and withered. The monster who had abused me for so long was gone. Slouched there, in his place was little more than a broken, frightened boy.
My jaw clenched tightly, my teeth bit down hard on my tongue. The wildfire of rage ignited inside me again, bursting forth from my chest as I screamed at him.
“Why?! Why did you do it? Why Kristina?” His body flinched visibly as I hurled her name at him.
“Why?” I screamed at him again, striding forwards, my eyes fixed on him even as he remained silent and still.
“She wanted to have you taken away from me.” His meek voice was barely audible over his snuffling sobs. “She said that you were too unwell to be here, too unwell for me to look after you. Tonight, she heard you shout out for help. She tried to push past me to get to you. She said that she was going to put you in her car and take you to a doctor herself. I couldn’t let her do that. I couldn’t lose you again. I need you, I need my sister back.”
Whatever pity I had felt towards him earlier had now vanished, scorched away by the frantic flames of fury that ravaged inside of me.
“She cared for me! She wanted nothing more than to help me. You have no right to me, Lars!” I fired my words at him like a barrage, “No right to keep me like some sort of pet, to treat me and to use me how you did! You made out that it was me who was crazy. You even made me believe it! But not now, not anymore! Now I can see you for everything that you are. It is you who’s the madman! You’re sick and you’re disgusting! Ok, I will admit it. I was mean to you, I was unkind, I bullied you. Yes, I did those things to you. But I didn’t deserve this! The things that you have done to me, the things that you forced me to endure. You’re deranged! The Shadow Beast…”
“No!” Lars’ eyes suddenly snapped up to meet mine, a sudden intensity in his gaze. “The Shadow Beast has gone. I’ve dealt with him. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
Was that supposed to be some sort of assurance, a promise? Some attempt to tell me that he was suddenly a changed man? It had been only a couple of hours earlier that I had been forced to watch him brutally beat an innocent woman to death. A woman who wanted nothing more than to help me.
Every muscle in my body tensed taut, every sinew strained, my hands clenched tightly as I stared at Lars with a hot, intense glare.
“Do you really expect me to trust you? What do you want now, for us to just go back to being loving siblings? Am I just supposed to forget everything that’s happened?”
Taking a pace towards him, I felt my hand become warm and wet. Blood, bright and red oozed from between my fingers. Seeping from where the sharp shard of the plate bit into my flesh. It was a shard that I had completely forgotten that I still carried.
I took another purposeful step towards my brother, twisting the shard in my hand as I did. Sharp pain lanced through me, but again and again I twisted it, the point held out towards my brother, the jagged edge biting into my palm. There was something liberating about the pain. After so long with so much agony inflicted upon me, finally I was in control of what I felt, and it excited me. It invigorated me.
My eyes locked on his throat, my hand tightening around the fragment of broken plate. I could end it all here and now. It could all be over. I could almost see the jugular pulsing in the side of his neck. I imagined the feeling of plunging the shard deep into him, the initial resistance followed by a pop as it sliced through his windpipe, severed an artery. I could almost feel the warm, wet blood splattering up my arm, spraying onto my face. I would look him in the eyes, and he would know my final revenge. He would understand that his final punishment was the price he had to pay for my torment and for Kristina’s murder.
All of a sudden, my ears picked up a sound. It caused my breath to catch, chill and cold in my throat. The white hot rage that had been about to engulf me, froze in my breast. It was a rustling, rasping sound, almost like the sound of laughter. It rose up from the shadows behind me.
No!
No, I would not let myself become that! I was better than that! Violence, murder, that was his way, it didn’t have to become mine.
The plate shard slipped from my hand. Slick with my blood, it fell to the floor, striking the wooden boards with a clang that seemed to reverberate around the room.
Lars’ eyes, wide and round, darted from me to the broken earthenware before settling on the bedroom door and the grisly sight beyond.
“Help me, Heidi! Please help me! I’ve done terrible things. The voices, they shout at me constantly. I just wanted to be close to you again, but that wasn’t enough for them. Please help me to push them away. I need you, I need my sister back.” His tone was now a pitiful, broken whisper. “Please, let me have my sister back. Come back to me. I can’t get through this on my own, I can’t get through it without you.”
It was then, as I looked at my brother reduced to such a helpless state, that another memory broke free from that locked vault of my subconscious. A vision materialised before my eyes. A picture of two children, a boy and a girl huddled together on the floor, wrapped in each other’s arms. ‘Don’t worry Lars,’ I heard the girl speak, ‘I’ll always be here, I’ll always look after you. As long as we’ve got each other, nothing will ever hurt us.’.
As the vision faded, I looked down on my brother. His eyes met mine, silently begging for some kind of forgiveness. Whatever had been there, whatever I had felt towards him as a child was gone. I could find no feeling of fondness or love in my heart towards my brother. There was no desire to help or protect him. Even the fury, rage and hate that I had harboured earlier had dissolved into nothing. As I looked down on that wretched human being, slumped on the floor before me, I felt empty. There was no emotion, my heart was nothing more than a cold, dark hole, an empty vacuum.
When I opened my mouth, my voice came out cold and flat, “No, Lars. In the morning, I want you to go. I want you to leave and never come back. I don’t want to ever see you again.”
Lars’ expression cracked, any small amount of hope that may have been there vanished. It was the same expression that he’d had so many years earlier when, on that school playground, I had ignored his plea for help and first joined in with the children jeering him.
I watched him as he silently pulled himself to his feet. His eyes met mine, tears streaming down his cheeks, smearing the blood and grime. His lip trembled as he spoke, “I’m sorry Heidi. I promise that I’ll leave, I’ll go somewhere that I can never hurt you, or anyone again.”
With those words, my brother turned his back on me and slowly, silently walked to his bedroom door, closing it behind himself with a crisp click.
The silence of the room weighed down heavily on me, but for once I didn’t fear the darkness, in fact it offered me some strange sliver of comfort. It hid the horrors of that evening.
Emotions churned fiercely inside of me. Could it really be true? Could I finally be free? Could I really be rid of my brother? But at what cost? Kristina was dead, dead because she had tried to help me. She had been killed by my brother’s hand but ultimately it was me who was responsible. It was because of me that she was gone. My parents, too, were gone. I was free but my life lay in shattered pieces at my feet.
After everything I had faced, everything that I had endured, it was the events of that evening that would come back to haunt me the most in the months and years that were to come.
A sharp crack suddenly pierced the silence of Grandfather’s cabin, reverberating off the wooden walls. The shockwave hammered my eardrums, leaving me dazed and stunned for a few moments before a cold knot tightened in my chest as the awareness crashed down on me.
“No!” I let out a panicked shriek as I turned and bolted across the room towards Lars’ door.
The door slammed against the wall as I flung it open, my eyes darted frantically about the room. A chilling wave of dread crashed over me, turning my stomach as my gaze snagged on Grandfather’s old gun safe, the khaki metal door gaping open, swinging back and forth with a slow, grating creak. Then my breath hitched in my throat as my gaze snapped to the figure slumped in the corner. His arms hung down, limp and lifeless at his sides, his body unnaturally still, his head thrown back in an impossible angle. On the floor beside him was Grandfather’s old Lee-Enfield service rifle, still and silent.