Chapter 50 - Sophie - Exposed

A dark, small-town mystery steeped in folklore. THE STUDY OF QUIET THINGS is a serialised fiction drama shared one chapter at a time.

This is a serialised fiction. If you haven’t read the previous chapters, you’ll find them here in order, so you can dive right in.

The first thing Sophie notices is the trail of blood on the floor. Elongated footprints smeared crimson across muted green and cream tiles. A bloodied handprint stains the wall beneath the flicker of fluorescent strip lights blinking on and off along the narrow, colourless corridor. Muffled screams echo and undulate, travelling away from Sophie; becoming distant but no less harrowing.

Beneath the buzzing lights, Sophie tiptoes towards the hollers, holding her breath like a child, hoping the quieter she is, the less chance she has of being caught. When the lights flicker back on, Sophie makes a conscious effort to avoid looking at the blood beneath her feet and stares ahead. Curiosity, like a magnet, pulling her forward.

Her heart pumps double time as she reaches the end of the corridor. She stops, peeking around the corner to get a glimpse. But the lights, as if consorting with the mystery, fizzle out—and stay out this time. There is nothing but a host of dark shadows scuffling at the end of the rabbit warren passageway. She stares into the darkness, counting. Six men wrestle with the captive writhing within their grasp. When the stark lights finally flicker back on, they burn Sophie’s retinas, and she is forced to squeeze her eyes shut.

And that’s when she hears it.

The scratching, the squirming, the erratic scrapes lacerating her mind. She’s heard this sound before… when waking from her nightmare.

Sophie blinks in quick succession—her sight returns.

And there they are. Tiny and minuscule. Scratching and scarpering.

Ants.

Millions of them, marching toward the sound of the screams in single file.

Ahead, the police pull and push the concealed figure into the cell, and Sophie follows the trail of ants, the yells and screams; female screams.

Hovering outside the cell, Sophie goes unnoticed in the unfolding chaos. But she staggers backward with the ferocity of the policeman’s violent handling, and slips on something that might be blood. The hair on the back of Sophie’s neck stands on end: a strange sensation of gooseflesh ripples across her cheeks and down her spine. Ahead of her, the huddle of officers part just enough for Sophie to discover their captive.

It’s a girl—the goth girl from the bus, the park, outside the pub.

“Hold still, Joe,” one officer yells.

Joe.

Joe catches Sophie’s stare and holds her gaze with one dark eye. The girl’s right eye, usually covered by her long, black hair—now hacked short in jagged tufts—is nothing but eternal darkness, an empty socket that somehow seems to bore right into Sophie’s soul.

At the sight of Sophie, Joe calms, the fight falling from the girl. She stands limp and hollow between the officers still yelling their commands. Sophie cannot fathom how it takes so many men - big men - to restrain this thin whippet of a girl. A waif with bloodied wrists and savagely cropped hair.

A living caricature of Jessica’s dead body at the morgue.

Sophie realises the officers have been attempting to restrain the girl; stopping her fight while they wrap her wrists so she doesn’t bleed out.

Fuck.

Joe stands motionless, staring at Sophie, yet the men continue bellowing at her to stand still, as if she’s still squirming beneath their hands. Either they don’t notice the girl’s surrender, or they don’t trust it. They rip off her shoes, belt, frisk her pockets, removing all items. But they don’t stop there. They pull off her blood-soaked jeans and t-shirt. The only time Joe flinches from her almost comatose state is when they remove the purple rubber band from around her wrist.

They even take her godamned socks, leaving the girl in only her colourless underwear.

Sophie recoils.

It’s not just the girl’s ribs or hip bones protruding, threatening to pierce her pale skin from the inside out, or the heart aching vulnerability she displays unclothed. It’s the marks and scratches sliced across every inch of her, usually concealed, skin.

There are hundreds of crosses; crucifixes etched across her body. Some pinky silver—old and healed, while others are deep and red and weeping. Sophie is no stranger to self-harm, and although her own scars are all but hidden by time, she feels them itch at the sight of Joe. Memory muscle contracting: a million silent screams.

A door groans open in the distance. Pounding footsteps race towards her. And Peters blusters past Sophie, bursting into the cell. He seems unaware of her in the chaos of the melee, and he quickly throws a tired woollen blanket over Joe’s shoulders, covering her modesty, and then, Sophie’s heart breaks further when, even though the girl’s wrists are bandaged and still weeping, Peters cuffs her.

“Oh, come on! Is that really necessary?” Sophie can’t help herself.

Peters spins, seething.

“It’s for her own goddamned safety,” he growls. “This is why you have to leave, you stubborn little bitch. Look what you’re sparking off by being here, spooking everyone with your questions. Leave this town alone!”

Another set of racing footsteps pounds the corridor. Sophie has only time to glance before the sprinting officer barges past her, smacking her into the doorframe. The man holds an A4 piece of paper in his hand, his face ashen white.

“Sergeant Peters,” he says, breathless. “You need to see this. There’s been another one.”

“Goddamn it,” Peters snaps.

Peters storms past Sophie, his heavy shoulder shunting her into the doorframe again as he does. He calls over his shoulder. “Get the kid another blanket and a drink of water before the ambulance arrives. Sergeant Wright, make sure the scene is cleaned up. We don’t need a whiff of this reaching out of town to the press. Jones, sort out these fucking lights, and someone go call Joe’s mother, Jesus Christ!”

The frenzied officers leave, pushing Sophie aside. Radios crackle in and out of life. An officer slams the cell door shut, barking orders to his juniors. In the chaos, Sophie is forgotten, and she watches the men disappear into the shadows under flickering tube lights.

She stares at the pale grey cell door as the officer’s din disappears to be replaced by another sound. A subtler sound.

Whispers.

Sophie steps toward the cell door, reaching for the peephole, and stands on her tiptoes to look inside.

The girl, Joe, stares back with her one eye. Bandaged wrists cuffed before her. She rocks, back and forth, back and forth—staring. The blanket slides off her shoulders, leaving her vulnerable and exposed again. Her lips move, but Sophie can neither hear nor decipher the words by lip-reading. Perhaps Welsh. Perhaps the ravings of a mental breakdown.

At the girl’s feet, the trail of ants gather and clamber; crawling, ticking, and scratching. They move in mass formation, like a murmuration of starlings covering the canvas of the sky, only, the ants are covering her ankles, shins, and rising.

Sophie pulls back, eyes wide, then she squeezes them shut. There’re not really there. She slows her breath before peering back through the peephole.

When Sophie looks back through the gap, the lights have flickered off; it’s all darkness. There is a rush of unfathomable whispers, and in a flash, the lights are back on. And Joe; closer.

Lights off.

Darkness.

Lights on.

Closer.

“Fuck!”

Sophie jumps back, heart pounding. Joe is mere inches away from the door. She can still hear the incoherent whispers. She steels herself, forcing calm, and vows to look one last time.

Joe is so close now, Sophie can see only her face; the deep stare of her one dark eye, and the holding glare of her empty socket. Joe lifts her cuffed hands to her lips and opens her mouth as if to speak, but the only sound that leaves her lips is the sound of the ocean, the loud shhhh of a secret.

“Joe?” Sophie asks—a whisper.

On hearing her name, Joe snaps out of the delirium, and Sophie realises the girl has not been looking at her, but through her.

“Help me?” Joe says; pleads. Her voice so small, so insignificant it’s as if she hardly spoke at all. “Help me?” Louder now, her one eye a giant, fear fuelled orb. “Help me!”

And then the girl screams. It is the sound of heartbreak and mourning. Of death and war, and hearts ripped out by savage teeth.

The peephole slams shut across Sophie’s limited line of sight.

Blackness.

“Show’s over,” Peters snarls. He steps so close to Sophie she instinctively scuttles backward, but he presses further until her back slams against the wall. Peters pins his hands on either side of her head and leans his face into hers. She sees only his eyes—smells stale beer on his breath. The lights continue to buzz on and off, their shadows dancing on the wall beside them. In a strange, distracted moment she feels like she knows him, knows him better than she should. His midnight eyes. The worry furrows buried deep between his brows. The musky sweetness of his sweat. His strong hands beside her head, pinning her to the wall.

Peters’ stare slowly leaves her eyes, trailing down her face to find her lips. She doesn’t know why she licks them in response, why her breath shortens, why she too looks to his lips; the soft fullness. When her eyes find his once more, he retreats.

“Sophie,” he says her name like a sad sonnet, then breathes out slowly. “Fuck off out of this town,” he pauses, closing his eyes to block her out, “before it’s too late.”

The moment is over. He grabs her by the scruff, pulls her from the wall and shoves her down the corridor. He doesn’t follow, and Sophie can’t help but glance back over her shoulder before she rounds the corner. She sees him slump against the wall. His face staring upwards in hopeless prayer. The flickering light buzzes out, leaving his silhouette in darkness.

And Sophie wonders if he is a man hell-bent on trying to hide something or just a weary, frightened man. Neither option fills her with confidence. It’s just one more piece of a puzzle that doesn’t fit reality.

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