Young Writers Society

Chapter One

It was raining. It was the kind of rain that seemed to engulf everything; bouncing heavily off the ground, cascading down windows. In the distance, streetlights, barely visible, glowed a misty orange. The car sped along the road. It was quiet, everyone was tucked up in front of their fires at home, sheltering from the weather. A small child looked up from the back seat, hoping to see the moon but tonight it was covered by dark clouds. A loud honk of a horn startled her as she glanced away from the sky and looked towards the front of the car just in time to see it. A huge blur of white, lights shining. A scream and a crash. Another scream. Then only silence.

“Is that really what you’re planning on wearing?” Jessica looked her up and down and shook her head.

“What’s wrong with it?” Eloise admired herself in the mirror. A pair of jeans and a pink t-shirt seemed completely fine to her.

“El, we’re going to a party, not a nerd convention. Here, I brought this in case of emergency. This is clearly an emergency.” She handed over a black sequinned minidress, like the kind Julia Roberts would have worn in Pretty Woman.

“I’m not wearing that. My dad will just lecture me on perverts and besides, I have tops longer than that. I’m fine wearing this.” She heard Jessica sigh heavily.

Eloise Baxter was an average girl, living an average life. This was the first party she had ever been to seeing as she was only fourteen but she already knew that she could dress like a hooker or she could dress like a seven-year-old, either way, the girls there would still laugh at her and the boys would still ignore her.

The two girls headed downstairs and were confronted by James Baxter, Eloise’s father. He was what Jessica called a “silver fox” and at six foot four, he towered over them. His faint smell of cologne was evidence of a long day at the office. He was a Criminal Defence Attorney, and quite a successful one. But being familiar with law and crime meant he had the upper hand when it came to Eloise going out with friends. If she had a pound for every time he had warned her of the statistics of young girls being kidnapped and sold into the sex trade, she could afford to invent and build a device that would make him finally shut up about crime statistics.

“So where are you both off? It’s getting dark out. There are all kinds that come out at night you know.”

“Yes dad, I know. Badgers, foxes, they’re all very terrifying.”

“Do you have a lift there and back?” He ignored his daughter’s sarcasm. “ If not, I’ll take you.” He turned towards the coat rack and reached out for his jacket.

“Thanks Mr B. but my mum is going to drive us there and pick us up at nine.” Jessica stepped in.

“Well, no later than nine, Eloise. A small girl like you, you’re a prime target for…”

“BYE DAD, I’M GOING!” She yelled and pushed Jessica towards the door before he could say another word.

Jessica laughed maniacally. Eloise loved it when she laughed because of the way her ruby-red curls bounced around her pale face, getting tangled up in her glasses. She couldn’t help but be jealous of her. As a red-haired girl who wore glasses, she should be perfect bully material in a high school full of idiots but she had such an air of confidence about herself that nobody ever said a word to her.

“Your dad’s insane,” she giggled.

“I know. There are fourteen year old losers out there who overuse Lynx body spray and never brush their teeth that aren’t interested in me, I’m pretty sure a child snatcher would walk right past me.”

Jessica, still laughing, began to cross the road. As she did so, a van sped around the corner and honked its horn loudly and began flashing its lights at her. Eloise froze at the side of the pavement. Jessica stepped back in time to let the van pass her and turned to her friend who was shaking, her eyes fixated onto the tarmac.

“El, are… are you okay? They were messing about, there was no way they would have hit me. See, I’m fine. El..?” It was as if Eloise had entered into another realm. She could feel herself physically but her mind had slipped into somewhere else entirely. All she could hear was screaming, the distinctive crunching sound of metal hitting metal. She felt a hand grabbing hers but she wasn’t sure if it was real or not.

“El.. EL! ELOISE, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME?” Jessica was gripping her shoulders firmly. Eloise realised that somewhere between consciousness, she had ended up on the floor. The cold, wet ground was sticky on her face and suddenly everything was silent again. She lifted her head and saw the round, freckled face of her best friend staring right into hers. 

“I’m sorry…” She managed to choke out. Her throat felt numb, if that was even possible.

“You really scared me, what happened?” Jessica looked genuinely concerned, her hands still holding onto her as if if she let go, Eloise might freak out again.

"Nothing, I just feel a bit unwell. I think I’m going to go home.” Eloise picked herself up off the ground. The scream lingered between her ears, ringing through her brain. She felt physically sick, her stomach lurched. She knew she was awake this time, that piercing noise had began to manifest into her conscious mind. Eloise let out a shudder as she tried hard not to think about the knot tying itself up in her gut. Jessica linked her arm through hers and together they turned back towards the Baxter house.

It was a dream she had had many times growing up. Sometimes it was the whole thing, start to finish. Sometimes it was only parts of it. Only one thing was certain, there was always that scream. It wasn’t like any other scream. Not like when you watch a horror movie and your dad springs out from behind the couch wearing a halloween mask. It wasn’t the kind of scream you would hear at a fairground where people were riding rollercoasters. It was almost indescribable. Whenever Eloise thought about it, the noise felt like it was piercing right through her skin, bouncing off the walls of her skull. The voice was familiar. It almost sounded like her own but not quite. She wasn’t even sure if you could even really recognise a scream. There had been so many nights where she had forced herself to stay awake in fear that she would have the dream again. Tonight was one of those nights. At around three in the morning, she heard the front door close downstairs. Her mum was back from her nightshift at the hospital where she was a paediatric doctor. Eloise closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. Her bedroom door creaked open.

“Hey sweetie, it’s just me," she whispered. She smelled of a combination of perfume and iodine. When Eloise didn’t respond, she kissed her faintly on her forehead and left. Before Eloise knew it, it was seven a.m.

Chapter Two

A folded-up piece of paper arrived inconspicuously on Eloise’s desk. Fifth period Maths was dragging heavily and she had already nearly dozed off three times. Partly due to having barely slept in almost two weeks and partly because the dull sounds of Mrs Boon explaining Pythagoras’ Theorem yet again was enough to tire anyone out. She took the paper and unfolded it. Glittery purple writing was sprawled across the page. One thing Jessica didn’t have going for her was her awful handwriting. Once she had told Eloise that she wanted to be a doctor, Eloise had explained that with her spidery-scrawl, she’d end up killing more patients than she would help. Since then, Jessica had decided she wanted to be a pole dancer instead.

“I heard Richie broke up with Sophie! Think we should maybe go 2 Liam’s party on fri coz I no Richie is gonna be there and u should defo get ur flirt on. Also look at Boon’s top, the button is undone, u can see her boob poking out hahahaha luv ya.”

Eloise snorted a little louder than she intended. She started to write back.

“LOL I can see it. How embarrassing! Defo calling her Mrs BOOB from now on. Dunno about the party. Mum n dad r taking me 4 a meal, not sure why. Depends what time I’m back. Not gonna flirt with Richie anyway, he’s well 2 fit. He…” Eloise felt someone standing over her. She looked up to see Mrs Boon, her blotchy red face even redder than usual.

“I can’t believe we got a detention for writing a note. As if she read it out to the class. She buttoned her top up pretty quick though.” Jessica was laughing so hard she was clutching her stomach as they both sat outside the headteacher’s office. Eloise wasn’t one to get into trouble in school so it was the first time she had been there. Unlike Jessica, who was there more often than she was in class. The heavy mahogany door opened with a deep creaking sound and two year eight boys walked out. One was pinching his nose, blood dripping down his arm. The other was holding an ice pack against his eye. Then Mrs Wainwright, the headteacher, emerged.

She was what you would imagine any stereotypical headmistress might look like. Broad shouldered, hair pulled back into a tight bun. She always wore the same black pantsuit with clunky-looking Clark’s shoes. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses sat at the end of her nose. It’s as if she’d won her job in a competition of “Who Looks The Most Like A Roald Dahl Character”.

“Well, we meet again, Miss Halloway. Miss Baxter, I don’t think I’ve seen you in here before. Miss Halloway must be a bad influence on you. Not that that would surprise me.” She gestured for the girls to go inside the office. Eloise expected it to be grand, with canes for whipping naughty children, hanging up around the room. Perhaps a large portrait of herself behind her desk. Instead it was light and airy, a photograph of some grown-up children on her desk, a couple of faux-leather chairs lined up against the back wall. She chose one of them and sat herself down.

“As this is your first offence, Eloise, I will lessen your sentence to a lunchtime detention instead of an after school detention. Friday afternoon, don’t be late. Jessica, as this is your hundredth offence I should give you an after school detention however you have been saved by Eloise. This time. Lunchtime on Friday for you as well. Now both of you, out you go.”

That evening. As Eloise struggled to read “How To Kill A Mockingbird” with her eyes failing to stay open any longer, she placed the book onto her desk and decided it was time to give in. She climbed into bed, wrapping the fresh sheets around her. Her phone lit up. It was Jessica calling. Normally she would have answered and they would have stayed on the phone for hours until Jessica’s mum would yell at her for running the phone bill through the roof.. Tonight though, before she even had a chance to reach out for her phone, Eloise had finally given in and fallen fast asleep.

The window is cracked a little in the back of the car. It smells damp and sweet, the smell of rainfall onto warm tarmac. Splatters of water are forcing their way through, splashing onto her face but she kind of likes the feeling of it. Being so warm in the car, wrapped up in a blanket, the blanket is covered in pictures of rabbits, with the car heating on high, the rain drops are a cool relief. As they wait at the traffic lights, she sees the blurry figure of a man, or perhaps it’s a woman, running to get out of the downpour. She can smell something else now, it’s coming from the little green tree-shaped air freshener that is hanging off the rear view mirror. It looks a bit like a christmas tree; it smells like apples. There’s a woman in front, she has brown hair. Wait, no. Blonde hair. The bunny-covered blanket is so soft, it’s beginning to make her sleepy. She starts to look for the moon but then there is a noise. An angry horn, it seems to go on forever. She looks around in panic, lights blind her. As she looks to her right, she suddenly sees someone else; but they look like herself. Then there’s the scream. Then there’s darkness.

Eloise shot up in bed, her heart beating and her palms sweating. She looked around the room, clutching onto her bed to reassure herself that she’s okay, that she’s safe and it was just a dream. She felt as though she was spinning but it soon stopped. She lay back down but she knew that she wouldn’t be going back to sleep.