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⊱ ۫ ׅ ✧ ゛i n t e r e s t s ˎˊ˗

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𝑭𝑰𝑳𝑴𝑺 Crimson Peak (2015) ; Sherlock Holmes (2009) ; The Batman (2022) ; Jane Eyre (2011) ; Gaslight (1944) ; Rebecca (1940) ; Stoker (2013) ; Der Tiger (2025)

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⏔⏔⏔ ꒰ ᧔ෆ᧓ ꒱ ⏔⏔⏔

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He hit the brakes so hard that his SUV slid and skidded to a stop. Ben’s breathing immediately spiked, his heart beating in his throat. He stared straight ahead, not wanting to know what it was. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to go back and check. He didn’t, he didn’t, he just wanted to go the fuck home. A hot toddy sounded good right about now.

Ben smacked his palm against the steering wheel. He put the SUV in reverse and slowly backed up. He parked on the gravel shoulder and turned his hazards on. It wasn’t going to be a body. It couldn’t be. There was no fucking way. An exasperated laugh fluttered out of him and it got caught high in his throat. He popped open the glove compartment and rifled through all the junk to find his flashlight. It was clicked on to make sure the batteries still worked, and Ben got out of the car.

“Breathe, just breathe,” he whispered to himself. Rain pelted him, immediately soaking him through. His coat would need to be brought to the dry cleaners. His pants, too, probably. Fuck. Ben pointed the flashlight down the road, both ways, before he jogged across. It took him a minute of walking along the gravel shoulder, waving the flashlight’s beam up and down the ditch, before he saw it.

A body.

“Fuck. Fuck!” he hissed. He squinted through the rain and the dark, trying to discern if the body had been hit, or dumped. He had to swallow a few times to calm himself down. His breathing was too fast, and he didn’t want to be crawling around a fucking ditch at one in the morning. A snapshot was sent to his database. Ben flicked his free hand at his side to try and dispel some of his anxiety as he approached the body.

When he was finally close enough, Ben tried to find a way down into the ditch. He carefully lowered himself by grabbing onto a branch, but it wasn’t thick enough to support his weight. He slipped in the mud and fell onto his side, yelling out as the flashlight was thrown from his hand. The light blinked in and out as it rolled to the bottom of the ditch, finally settling near the body. It was aimed right at its smiling face. Ben opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Realisation slowly settled over his shoulders.

It was a fucking mannequin.

He stood up on shaky legs, his breathing heavy through gritted teeth; rage was building in his chest. His coat was ruined, he was soaked through to the bone, and his fucking wife had turned her phone off. “Fuuuck!”

Ben didn’t even realise he was kicking the mannequin until his foot started to hurt. There was red spray paint all across its torso. It really did look like a bloody, naked body from afar, but up close, it was so obviously a mannequin. Ben continued kicking the mannequin, his foot cracking a hole in the chest, imagining that it was Hanna, that it was his father, that it was himself. A guttural yell shot out of him as he swung his leg back and kicked the head clean off. “Fuck you! Fuck you!” he shouted. His throat was raw. He kept kicking the mannequin, swinging his leg back again and again, then tore one of the arms off and raised it above his head with both hands. The fibreglass arm shattered upon impact with the torso, which caused Ben to whip what remained in his hands towards the thin treeline. He gave the mannequin one final kick and collapsed beside it in an exhausted heap. The mud squelched under him. With his head clutched in his hands, elbows tucked into his chest, Ben screamed until something popped behind his nose. He let himself cry, blood trickling from his nose and settling along his top lip.

“What’s the fucking point?! Huh? What am I still doing here?!” he sobbed, face tilted up towards the ominous sky as if waiting for an answer. Lightning blossomed above him, spreading out like the wings of a bird. It struck a lone tree in the nearby field and the tree cracked in half. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. He watched it burn for a few seconds, silent terror and awe flooding his lungs, the rage immediately dissipating. Ben scrambled up the side of the ditch, not bothering to grab his flashlight in his rush to get back to his car.

As he heaved himself up onto the gravel shoulder and got to his feet, a transport truck laid on its horn as it flew past. Ben froze, his mouth open and a hand reaching out to nothing. “Emmeline, don’t,” he choked. He blinked back to the present. The rain came down even harder. Thunder rolled across the sky towards him, warning Ben to get back in the car. He took his glasses off and folded them before slipping them into his pocket. He didn’t look both ways before crossing the road.

He drove fifteen kilometres under the speed limit the rest of the way home, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel. Ben’s hair dripped into his eyes, wet clumps sticking to his forehead. This wasn’t real. This was just a very bad, terrible dream that he couldn’t wake up from. He hadn’t been able to wake up for months. He would wake up in a cold sweat with Hanna leaning over him, her small hand on his bare chest, and he’d laugh, pinch between his eyes. What a crazy fucking nightmare, he’d mumble, then tell Hanna all about it. This was just a terrible fucking nightmare. He smacked the steering wheel with an open hand and sniffed aggressively.

He was nearing the turn that would bring him down the last stretch of road towards his house. All the streetlamps were dark, and he hadn’t seen any lights on in the scattered houses along the way. The power must have been out everywhere, then. His windshield wipers were working double-time. Ben exhaled deeply, emptying his lungs completely for a moment before slowly inhaling. He hoped that Hanna was okay; she hated the dark.

A slick finger of dread ran up and down his back once he parked the car, but he couldn’t place why. The wipers had been caught halfway through their sweep when he pulled the key from the ignition, which allowed him a slight opening to see through. The rain pounded on the glass, and the wind rattled the car back and forth. Ben leaned forward in his seat to look up at the house. What was different? What had caused his hackles to raise? He put his glasses back on after wiping the rain from the lenses.

It was a large Victorian his father had bought for them as a wedding present. The huge wraparound porch was where Hanna spent most of her time, but her easel had been brought inside for the season. Their small, decorative trees were all wrapped with burlap and the flowerbeds covered. Ben paled and his lips parted, a scream building under his tongue.

In the window of his daughter’s bedroom, Hanna stood staring down at him with a hand to the glass. Soft orange light clung to her back. The curtain closed and the glow was sucked back into the room. Ben hyperventilated. He whipped his glasses off, tossing them to the passenger seat. They hit his phone with a sickening crack. He dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets, mouth wide open and stretching painfully as he held back a screech. Ben tugged shaking fingers down his face and stared up at the roof of his car. He tried holding his breath to keep from getting dizzy. No. No, she wasn’t starting this up again, was she? He was going to have to commit her again at this rate. He wanted to drive back to the station. He couldn’t do this anymore.

Ben didn’t bother closing the car door after tumbling out. He made his way to the front door like a ghost, his legs slack and barely carrying him up the porch steps. His body was on autopilot; his brain had completely shut down, a white, milky film coating the inside of his skull. He had to fight back the urge to laugh.

He unlocked the front door quietly, an automatic motion. The keys were slipped back into his pocket as to not make a sound. He didn’t close the door all the way, although he had pushed it behind him. It didn’t latch shut. Water dripped off of him, leaving muddy puddles as he rose up the narrow staircase.

“Hanna?” he called out, his voice hollow. He hesitated on the landing before taking the rest of the stairs.

“We’re up here, love,” she cooed back in response.

Ben closed his eyes in defeat and a very soft whimper rolled out of him. With a hand on the railing, he had to grip it tightly as to not fall backwards with the shock of it all. He was heavy with the resignation that his wife had stopped taking her anti-psychotics. Again.

He pulled himself up with some difficulty, but finally got to the top of the stairs. His legs felt like they would buckle under him at any moment. Ben held his breath as he approached the second door on the right. It was open just a crack. Orange light pooled from underneath the door, shadows slow-dancing through the faint glow. He could hear Hanna talking softly, gently, as if to a child. He closed his eyes tightly and kept holding his breath until his lungs started twitching in protest.

How long was she going to torment him like this? With the psychics and the mediums and the fucking ghost whisperers. The spirit boards, the visions and dreams, the talking in her sleep to someone who was no longer there. The incomprehensible signs that only Hanna understood, that proved Emmeline was trying to contact her, but never Ben. The guilt he felt hung heavy around his throat, a hangman’s knot that itched and clawed and begged him to do something about it. His gun burned in its holster, the metal sparking against his ribs. He could go back outside right now, walk into the woods, and blow his fucking brains out. Hanna would get the insurance within the year; it would be more than enough to allow her to live a great life. She could even go live with Arthur and his wife. They’d take care of her. Ben swallowed thickly, his thoughts muddled and radioactive.

He nudged the door open with his foot, not wanting to touch the doorknob.

Hanna smiled up at him. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor holding a tiny ceramic teacup. She set it down in its saucer. “Welcome home, love,” she murmured. “We were just having a midnight tea party because Millie got scared of the storm; did you want to join us?”

Ben instinctively took a step back. His hands flew out in front of him defensively, as though he was afraid Hanna would throw something at him. He couldn’t comprehend what he was looking at. This wasn’t possible. He had finally snapped. A laugh gurgled out of him, the white hot shock exploding across his chest, up his throat, down his spine. “No,” he squeaked. “No!”

The smile fell from Hanna’s face, tugging into a frown. She made a move to stand up, and this caused Ben to take another two steps back. He bumped into the banister and gripped both hands around the wood. “Get that fucking thing out of my fucking house!” he shrieked. The fear was choking him. He was gasping down breaths, but he couldn’t keep his head above water. He was drowning. He was fucking drowning.

“Daddy? What’s wrong?”

Someone was screaming. He couldn’t accept that the screams were ripping out of him. Ben scrambled down the hall backwards, his legs finally giving out. He crawled backwards towards the stairs, one hand still clutching the banister. The desperation he felt was physically hurting him.

Hanna shielded Emmeline behind her as she stepped towards Ben. “Aren’t you happy? We have our baby back, Ben!” she cried out, her voice strangled with despair.