chapter 23

The despicable memory of the terror I witnessed in ‘The Tent of Wonders' remained etched to my brain for nearly three weeks, making me lose my appetite as well as sleep. Mum and dad along with my brothers started becoming worried about me, as I hardly ate anything much during dinner and remained awake at night like a zombie, staring outside the window. I couldn't manage to remove that repugnantly pathetic image of Madam Maxima lying in her chair, electrocuted. And whenever I closed my eyes her deathly face along with the figure of that evil creature hovered in front of my eyes. Some days I just felt like ending my life or wished that I just died in my sleep. The desire to live had been extinguished with a finality. In addition to that, my studies were affected greatly as I nearly failed my math paper and performed atrociously in history, a subject I was very likely to flunk.        

I dashed out of the classroom with a major breakdown. Having returned an empty psychology paper. Whimpering miserably, I saw Judy standing outside with an anxious expression on her face. Immediately, I flung into her arms and broke down pitifully, as she caressed my hair and made an attempt to cool me down. 

“I have failed psychology Judy,” I sobbed, wiping my nose against the collar of my shirt. Setting aside the thunder-struck information like a mature adult, Judy offered me a handkerchief to blow my nose and led me towards the football ground. Fortunately, Matt and Alex were sitting on the audience's seats and looked troubled as they noticed my teary eyes and puffed up cheeks.

“What’s the matter?” they cried simultaneously as we sat down.

“Ellie’s psychology paper didn't go well,” she informed them, who looked disheartened but knew no better than to console me. 

Suddenly, Alex thought of something to cheer me up. He looked at Matt and whispered something in his ears, which changed his mood completely as he appeared jubilant.

“Ellie…do you remember our age-old plan to visit my ancestral house near the Forest of Dracon,” he asked coolly, placing his palm on my shoulder as I nodded weakly. “Well, we had been planning this trip for almost a year, but couldn't work it out due to unfortunate circumstances. But now, I have firmly decided that we are going to surely make this trip together next week! It’s our final year at school, and we most likely will be going our separate ways this year and god knows if we'll encounter each other again or not,” 

Matt's sentimental words immediately extinguished my anguish of the psychology disaster and replaced it with a feeling of excitement at finally making the trip happen. 

The night before the trip, I got up from my bed instantly as if someone had screamed in my ears. I felt my entire body itchy and so I began scratching it madly, the itching was so intense that I felt like taking a steel rod with a pointed edge and scratching every part of me. I moved out of bed and removed my nightshirt and scratched every bit of flesh on my body that I could reach. Blood poured out of the scratched areas on my skin and formed a pool on the ground. My face slashed as a result of the insane scratching and blood gushed out and mixed with the blood on the ground. At that moment, the itching completely halted, and my flesh began to burn ferociously. Meanwhile, the pool of blood on the ground swirled and began to take the shape of a face, with pupil-less eyes and razor-sharp pointed teeth which hissed loudly and I let out a clamour.

My eyes flipped open and I jerked up, as a result, I collided with Judy’s head which was only inches away from my face, releasing a moan of pain. I was lying safely on my bed at home, it had only been a nightmare. 

“Have you lost your mind dork head!” cried Judy, roughly rubbing her forehead in pain. “Is this how you get up every morning, like an Egyptian mummy waking up after a thousand years?” she yelled, getting up from the floor. The force of my jerk had knocked her off my bed.

“Oh my goodness, I am sorry Judy,” I apologized while helping her to her feet. “How come you’re here this early?” I asked innocently, half-glancing at the clock, it was four in the morning.

“I came early because we’re late for the trip, Alex changed the plan slightly, he thought that we should leave at eight instead so that we could grab some drinks from Merlin’s bar which falls on the way, so get yourself, ready princess, before it closes,” she commanded irritably, pushing me inside the washroom. The nightmare had me trembling from head to toe, and goose pimples didn’t leave my body as I showered. The face I had viewed in that dreadful dream was still etched in my mind such that the moment I closed my eyes, it flashed past me spontaneously.

My insides were feeling too ill-at-ease for some unknown reason. Every movement that I made towards packing my bag gave me some extremely negative and appalling feelings, an intuitive voice inside me seemed to make me feel as if this whole trip was a huge mistake. An astounding thing which I noticed though was, that the nightmares had halted since the trip was planned, or that’s what I thought so. Nevertheless, irksome intuition was filling my blood, thrusting my insides hard.

At half-past seven we were on the road. The sun was rising gradually, spreading contagiously across the horizon and shooing away the darkness. Judy danced splendidly through the sunroof of Alex’s SUV, relishing the warm weather and appreciating the emerging rays of the sun. Even my mood seemed to have lifted slightly at the sight of the glamorous horizon that I could manage a smile.

As planned, we stopped at Merlin’s Bar which was about fifty miles from my house. It was a dusty ancient place and unlike any other bar I had ever been to, moreover, it emitted an aura of utmost murkiness. The bar was nearly empty, except for the creepy barman; a bald person with lopsided ears and a crooked nose having a striking resemblance to a goblin. We were supposed to get drinks and leave, however, my alcoholic friends decided to gulp a few down in the bar itself. 

“Alex,” I whispered slowly, choosing to keep my words a mile away from the abnormally large ears of the barman. “Couldn’t we get drinks from somewhere else?” I asked, hopefully.         

“Are you kidding me?” he exclaimed, looking at me as if I was crazy. “Merlin’s Bar is the best in England and considerably famous for its lip-smacking whiskey,” he announced, enlightening us with this surprising and ironically interesting piece of information, though not worthy enough to alter my opinion of the place. “And according to legend, the great King George himself was accustomed to ordering the drinks for his royal parties from here,” he informed, in a pompous tone, thoroughly proud of his choice. Since I had just turned legal, it was going to be my first drink so I thought of starting with a mild cider, but Judy forcefully made me gulp down a glass of beer at which I nearly choked. The stuff was pretty disgusting, how did they even enjoy this crap I thought despicably, heading towards the toilet in the bar following an uncontrollable emergency causing me to even disregard the obvious scenario of the bar’s toilet being intolerably filthy, nevertheless, I had to use it.

The lavatory emanated an aura murkier than the bar itself, I felt as though I had entered a tiny graveyard which released an unbearable odour. The air inside it was cold and inexplicably suffocating, providing me with goose pimples. 

When I finished, I heard a creaky sound, but the door was closed. I moved towards the sink to wash my hands when I sensed an eerie presence, something uncanny was lurking in the toilet. The moment this thought hit me, my eyes perceived something which nearly terminated the beating of my heart for a minute, the same ghastly pupil-less face which I so recurrently noticed in my dreams was staring at me through the mirror, with its incisive teeth glistening. I bellowed my lungs out scampered ran outside the toilet and the bar at lightning speed. 

Alex, Judy, and Matt threw their drinks away and dashed after me yelling their lungs off for me to stop. Meanwhile, a car was speeding from the opposite direction, my mind was so tremendously perturbed with the delusion I had that I disregarded it completely. It was seconds away from hammering me when Judy dived forward and pushed me aside from harm’s way. 

“Ellie are you okay? What happened?” she asked with immense apprehension, as Matt and Alex lifted me to my feet. All were staring at me anxiously, they all were very well aware that I wasn’t the type of girl who’d go berserk for a petty reason.

“I…..I….saw someone inside the toilet,” I mumbled, stammering with intense fear. I had turned pale and there was cold sweat all over my forehead. They all looked at each other at this revelation and silence fell.

“There was no one there in the bar other than the three of us and that barman, and none of us went near the toilet Ellie,” said Matt earnestly, there was deep concern on his face.

“Yeah Ellie,” agreed Judy, placing her arm on my shoulder. “It’s all my fault, I shouldn’t have forced you to drink that beer, I’m sorry,” she apologized regretfully. 

“No Judy, nothing’s your fault, I guess I had too much cider, gave me a hallucination I suppose,” I gave an instant fake laugh, and evaporated the seriousness from the atmosphere as we resumed our journey. That was no hallucination, I thought, desperately, while sitting in the backseat and watching the outer scenario as it zoomed past me. This face had been tormenting my nights and now, had begun to haunt my daylights as well.