Blank Faces

Things always carried on as normal after something insane happened; people always tried to brush things under the carpet because it was easier than facing the music, easier than having to deal with the questions and accusations.

I always knew that if anyone knew my secret, they would automatically think I was insane, but I would never have thought that my Aunt Marie would have thought that about me, not after all the years spent together.

But I was wrong, I was so wrong.

As soon as Callum told Marie what had been going on, despite me begging him not to…she didn't want to know. I told her everything that there was for her to know; about the monsters and the shadows, the little Girl…the Doctor.

She thought I was crazy, and after two years, I had seen ten specialists; all which had told me he wasn't real.

I myself decided to stop seeing the specialists, ignoring the advice of Marie or anyone else, and signing out of their books altogether.

Callum was there; constantly, and I was more than glad to have someone there for me, even if it was only one person. He was the only person who had faith in me, and trusted what I said about the Doctor.

As soon as I had stopped seeing the physiatrists, I moved in with Callum.

I was happy to be moving in with him, because we both knew that the move in together was just two friends sharing a house together and that that was all it was going to be because that was all there was between us.

But I was also a little worried because of the past too, and the number of times that people had turned on me and called me a liar about the doctor and all of my dreams and nightmares that I'd had over the years.

And that including Marie, who had totally let me down.

Of course I was hurt, but I could still see that Callum would be there for me, like he always had been in the past.

Marie moved out to go and live back with her Sister in London, which is why I took Callum's offer up on living in the house after he had taken the house of off her for a cheap deal of a price.

I couldn't move out of that house, despite everything that had happened in it. I was too scared to leave them memories behind me yet, if I was being honest.

I helped Callum unpack in Marie's old room, after she took everything away from the room, and he automatically said that he would have her room, and for me to have my own room still, which was nice of him.

I was quite happy with that offer, because despite the creepiness of the shadows and the monsters, and horrors of the nightmares that had happened in that room, I couldn't bear to not still stay in there.

I helped bring up all the boxes had had in his room, with Callum helping shift some of the heavier boxes and his big suitcase that he had brought round too, which was full of his clothes too.

I was glad that Tyler had given me a permanent weekend job, on Saturdays and Sundays, because I was now earning seventy pounds a weekend, and Callum already had a proper job at the local radio station.

"Is that all your stuff now?" I asked Callum, placing the last cardboard box on his bed, after retrieving them from his car.

"Yep, that's it." He agreed, taking the heavy cardboard box from me carefully. I stood in the middle of his bedroom, watching the freshly painted light blue walls, and the small, single bed stood in the middle of the room, pushed to the wall.

I felt awkward just standing there, because I wasn't too sure what to do for the best whilst I was stood there. He had been there for me so much, but…I wasn't too sure how I could be there for him now, to repay him.

And as he looked towards me, I felt even more awkward.

"Was there…something else?"

"Urm…well I was just checking to make sure you didn't want…anything…at all?" I tried to sound positive about that, but it sounded too unsure, as though it was more of a question than a statement.

He laughed awkwardly, settling aside the boxes. "I'm fine, really. But thank you, for asking." He smiled.

"Okay, well I'll…just be in my room, if you need me." I smiled back, before I walked out before I could make an idiot of myself and stay in his bedroom a little longer than I already should have stayed there.

Things pretty much went on as normal from that day, and I tried to get on with things the best that I could. Callum was constantly there for me, as my friend, like how he always was, and always had been.

My nightmares had stopped, which told me that all along the one thing I had had to do to stop everything from happening was…well, let go. I had let go of the little Girl who haunted my dreams and there was no more shadows anymore, no more monsters either.

And there was no him either, which again, told me that all I had had to do was let go of the fact that he was never going to come back again and then I could have moved on happily from the past.

Callum was often out of the house, and I was used to that, and it didn't bother me one bit. Because I had also got a job at the local radio station, thanks to my degree in media, and even though it was Callum who had put in a good word to help me get the job too…I loved being there, at the station.

And just when I started to think that everything was normal again, back to being sane, and back to being how it should be, with everything just in its right place, everything going right like it should be…it all changed yet again.

I packed my things together to leave the radio station after I finished up my show, the last song playing away in the background as I got ready to go. The song was Jailhouse Rock by Elvis Presley, a particular favourite song of mine.

I had to wonder to myself about what the fifties were like though, especially because I would never really know. I always wanted to travel and see the world, and I'd always wanted to see what the past was for myself.

When I first met him, I had dreamt that that could have been possible one day, just maybe, if he ever bothered to come back again but…I guess that just weren't going to happen anymore, and I just had to accept it.

And I had accepted it really, it was just a case of getting used to it. That was the difficult part really.

"Hey Charlie," Steph commented politely as he came into the recording studio. I looked to see him smiling at me, his dark hair unruly as usual, his clear glasses as geeky as always. But in a good way, in a nice, good way.

"Hey Steph, how are you?" I asked him politely. I knew him through Callum, as he worked with Callum at the radio station and even had his own show, but now me and him were just as good friends.

"I'm very well thanks, and yourself?" He asked me as he set down his black, laptop-styled bags on one of the chairs, telling me that his show was after mine today.

"I'm good thank you. Looking forward to going home now."

"That's good then. A night to yourself?"

"Urm……..possibly. Just a night in front of the TV really. I'm not sure what Callum's doing tonight though." I shrugged carefree. I never really saw it as my place to ask him really either, that's why I never knew what he was up to.

"Ah well, have a nice night."

"Thank you and yourself." I smiled, grabbing my own backpack before heading out of the recording studio.

A curly haired Man with tight, black locks and a real tallness was stood outside the recording studio, talking to the manager. I smiled at Andy the manager and knew who the curly haired, young Lad was straight away.

It was Adam Mustoe, one of Callum's very best friend and as he stopped laughing and stared at me………..I knew why.

Because he never liked me anyway, because I had been hanging around with Callum too much as it was….clinging onto him you could say. Even after I'd moved on, I imagined that Adam still thought that I was clinging onto him by Callum deciding to move in together as mates.

"Have you seen Callum around?" Adam asked me as I walked through the main office, catching up with me walking.

"Urm, not since breakfast this morning, no. Anything I can do to help?" I asked him politely, imaging the response I was going to get to a question like that. I had kinda put my foot right in it.

"Are you going back out with Callum?" He asked me nosily, catching me by surprise with his question.

I stopped and turned to look at him, to see that he genially wanted to know the answer to that one. "Urm…no, we're just friends but-"

"Are you sure about that? I know he asked you to move in with him and you said yes and it's all going well and everything, but…….he still likes you. And I think you're playing on that." Adam commented sharply, even though he had it all wrong.

"I'm not playing on anything, I'm just his friend, he understand that-"

"Whatever. Just don't hurt him again………I'm his friend too and I've seen it all before." He warned me angrily, before storming off the other way as I watched him leave in complete shock.

He was completely out of order, because it had nothing to do with him and Callum had been the one to break up with me in the first place! He was so out of order for putting it like that, to me of all people.

"He was the one to break up with me, remember?" I shouted out to him angrily, but he totally ignored me as he headed into the recording studio.

I huffed angrily in response, and made my way out of the radio station, feeling absolutely livid now. I had been dealing with our past relationship, I had been happy to just be friends with him, but now…..now I was pissed.

I thought it was so rude of his friend to come over when I had been dealing with things the best that I could on my own anyway; like the whole Doctor thing, and me and Callum in the past and then…then he had to go and do that to me!

It was raining as I stepped out of the radio station so I put my hood up to stop my hair from getting wet, stomping out into the wet and the cold.

I quickly wiped away the angry tears that had started to fall from my eyes, because now I felt so mad and so guilty in-case what Adam said was actually the truth. What if I was just playing on Callum's feelings?

I pretty much knew he still had feelings for me, but I had wanted somebody to stay with me, somebody I trusted to move in with me. Was that too much to ask for?

I jammed the key into the door as soon as I got home, just desperate to get in and sit down now.

"Callum?" I called out as soon as I was through the front door, shutting the door closed behind me.

And I was so relieved that I got nothing back, no response, because it meant that I was alone like how I wanted to be right now. I left my rucksack by the side of the door, and went upstairs to go and get in the shower.

I walked into my bedroom to get my night clothes from the wardrobe first though.

I gasped in shock as I opened my cupboard door, stumbling backwards as I stared at the small Girl stood in the wardrobe. I knew I wasn't imaging this, or even dreaming it, this time…she was actually here.

The blonde Girl from my nightmares…she was actually inside my wardrobe, waiting for me to come home and find her.

She was only about four feet, and she looked around the age of seven like how she was in my nightmares. She looked so helpless with her head bowed down, and her blonde hair covering most of her pale looking face.

I couldn't see her eyes, but I instantly felt sorry for this little Girl. The same Motherly panic was back, desperate to resurface in me again. And it had; as soon as I saw this little Girl, it had resurfaced.

"What are…" I tried to find the words to put together, to find the courage to ask, but I couldn't. I wasn't brave enough to want to know the answers, not really. I wasn't sure I wanted to know anything that was going on anymore.

But then, if I brushed it under the carpet too, if I did what everybody else did, then…..surely, I was just as bad as everyone else? For not wanting to know, for not wanting to help or get to the bottom of this.

And I didn't want the same thing to happen to her, what had happened to me through the years either. I felt protective of this little Girl and I didn't even know why, not when I didn't even know who she was.

"Who are you?" I whispered in awe, trying to work out why I felt so protective of this little girl for. It didn't make any sense, it wasn't as though I'd got a little Sister or something like that. I didn't even know this little Girl.

Her head slowly started to pop up, and I waited there to see the face on this pretty, little blonde Girl. Except…when she looked up, her face was blank. No eyes, no nose, no mouth….just completely blank.

I screamed in horror, stepping back and stumbling over something or other on my bedroom floor. I gasped, crawling backwards now and watching with wide, horrified eyes as the little Girl stepped closer, trying to get closer to me.

I stared at her feet which were covered in soot, or at least it looked. She had the strangest sort of fashion, almost like Victorian style clothing on her, but anything was better than looking at that face, anything was better than seeing that emptiness.

"Please Charlie…help us. It's been so cold…….so many years spent locked away………please……please help us." The voice was the voice of the little Girl, the Girl still stepping towards me, but…..it sounded completely wrong.

It was the shadows, them same monsters and I knew then that I had to get away from here. It wasn't safe at all, despite how much I had once thought it was. I thought it had all disappeared; that the Doctor, the shadows, the monsters had all gone.

I was so wrong.

"No…no, just…….NO!" I jumped up from the floor as fast as I possibly could and ran back through my bedroom door, with that same horrendous voice right behind me. I tried to shut it out as I ran down the stairs, trying to picture anything besides what I just saw in front of me, but I couldn't get it out of my head.

I ran out the front door, locking it behind me before I ran out the garden, and I didn't stop running until I got out of my garden. I walked back into town, not wanting to go back home now, after what I had seen.

The walk cleared my head, made me see a bit more sense now that I was out of the house, and despite how chilly the evening air was, it was nice to be out of that damn house, after what I had just seen.

I walked into the forest and past it, stopping at the meadow deep within the forest, and as I sat down on the bench there….I thought I was safe again. I was wrong about that, though.

I looked up before gasping in horror as I saw the same Girl standing there, right across the field from me. And it was definitely her without a doubt, the same blank face which had me winching in response, and the same Victorian styled clothes.

And that same voice begging me to help them again, whoever them actually was.

"Impossible," I breathed out in shock, remembering how I had locked the front door behind me when I walked out of the house, which told me that she couldn't have gotten out of the house. It was just impossible!

I ran back to the forest, away from her and that voice, still directly behind me, begging me to help. Why was I so important for? Why couldn't they just leave me alone, I was nobody, I couldn't help anyone!

I rushed through the forest, slamming my hands into tree branches to get them out of my face, all the while, looking back the whole time to see where that little Girl was. I knew she was following me, I knew she was stalking me…I could still hear that damn voice as if it was right behind me, following me.

And then, as I looked in front of me, she was there…right in front of me, making me scream in terror. She turned her face to the side curiously, which looked even stranger from where I was standing.

"Help us. Why won't you help us?" The little Girl cried, sending a shiver down my spine. Her voice sounded so cold now, like ice cold, and as I looked from side to side, she was everywhere. Everywhere I looked, I saw that little Girl…one, two…three of her!

"That's not…that's not even possible." I gasped out in horror, trying to take this all in the best that I could, but…I failed.

I stumbled backwards the best that I could without falling over, keeping my eyes on the little Girl the whole time that I did. The voices were getting stronger; all three of them were speaking to me now.

"Please help us…….we only want to come and play." They said cynically, sending another shiver of horror right down my spine.

And as I stumbled backwards some more, trying to get away from the three Girls coming towards me from the front…left and right…I gasped in absolute complete horror as I bumped into something hard behind me, expecting it to be another version of the little Girl.

So this was it was it?

This was how it was going to end, in a forest in the middle of nowhere, without anyone here to help me. I gulped sadly in response, thinking of all them times I had so desperately wanted to travel the World, and I had lost that opportunity.

I gulped on a lump that had been stuck in my throat before I could cry, and closed my eyes and waited…expecting to be hit over the head or whatever they had to do to kill me. I waited and waited…the voices still overcoming me, until I heard one particular voice right behind me, distinct from all the others…

"Run." The Male voice ordered, slipping a hand into mine and pulling me roughly. I gasped in shock, but I ran anyway; my automatic response to do what he said, when I suddenly realized my eyes were still closed.

I opened my eyes again, to see the Male figure running in front of me, holding my hand as we ran. No way…this couldn't be true….it just couldn't, it wasn't possible!

"Doctor?" I asked unsure, even though I knew already that it was him. It was the same Guy with the messy, dark brown hair, the same Guy with that tweed jacket, red bow tie, chequered shirt, blue navy trousers and black shoes.

But just as I had taken this all in, taken in the way that he was firmly holding my hand, still pulling me along with him…everything went black.