Greta, Greta...

“Greta, Greta.” It’s just a whisper. So quiet it’s at the edge of audible.

Greta looks up from the lounge. Did she hear that, she wonders, or did she imagine it? Must have imagined it. Shakes her head and looks back at her book. Looks around the room again, worried. Looks at the book, drops it onto the coffee table and stands up, stretches. Probably need more sleep. It’s been a tough few weeks.

…

Greta sits on the toilet, pajama pants at her ankles. The door is open. She lives alone in the one-bedroom flat and it’s locked up. Bed calls. She is tired, spending too many hours at night thinking about Dana. About the last time she saw her, wasted and grey, a few strands of hair on her bare scalp, tubes in her nose and mouth. The brutality of medical overload. Wishing she could take the tubes out, scoop her up and take her to their favorite lookout over the South Downs. Let her feel the cold breeze, feel alive again and not forced to be alive just to keep death waiting a bit longer at the door.

A footstep. Inside the flat. She starts. Was that…? Another footstep. The floorboards in the attic flat at the top of a Victorian terrace are never quiet. Maybe they’re just contracting in the cold? No, another footstep, coming closer. She stands, pulls her pants up. “Who is it?” Hesitant, anxious. More steps, approaching. Lock the door or face the steps? Her hands shake. Don’t lock the door, then you are trapped! She steps out, fragile bravado, looks down the hall. Nothing. She stumbles around the flat, nervous, shivering. Into the bedroom, the small bathroom, checks the front door, the patio door. All locked up.

She lies in bed for hours hardly daring to open her eyes. 

…

She calls Jeff, talks about the noises. He laughs. “You need more sleep. Survivor’s guilt messes with your head.”

He’s out of town for a few days which is probably a good thing. It was only a brief kiss, but she’s nervous of getting too close. She doesn’t dare call her dope-head brother to come and sleep over. For a moment she thinks about going to sleep at their parents’ place… No. Her mother nagging her about being a scaredy-cat, about her choice of male friends, her lack of interest in house-cleaning, everything and anything. Her and her brother’s lives growing up were a constant stream of not good enough. Their father at work all the time, mother annoyed about being left alone and bitter that the children meant she had to stay with a husband who kept changing jobs. She could never build friendships or feel the warmth and comfort of her old home town.

…

Greta wakes at the quiet tapping. Lies still, eyes wide, straining to hear. Tap, tap, tap. On glass. There’s a bedroom window but that’s not where the sound is coming from. The small patio cut into the slope of the roof has a glass door, but it’s impossible to climb up there.

She gets out of bed, lifts the edge of the window curtain but can’t see anything. The patio is round the corner. It’s snowing.

She walks tentatively to the bedroom door. Stops. Listens. Tap, tap, tap.

It’s behind the floor-length curtains that hide the patio door. Tap, tap, tap.

 She goes to the front door and unlocks it, opens it, leaves it wide open and walks slowly back into the lounge. Stops. Stares at the patio door curtains. Tap, tap, tap. Oh god...

She whimpers but walks slowly to the curtains. Takes them in each hand and throws them open. A man is standing there. His face is skeletal. His clothes tattered. She screams, throws the curtains closed and runs out of the flat. She runs downstairs and bangs on the door of the flat below. Jude and Bruce, the weird Australians.

…

Bruce leads Greta and Jude back up the stairs. “This better be good Greta. We were just getting to the fun part when you banged on the door.” Greta mewls like a cornered cat. Bruce has a hunting knife in his hand. Wanna-be Mick Dundee, though the knife is only for cutting meat.

He stops at the open door, but sees nothing and walks in.

“Behind the curtains,” Greta says, hanging back, ready to scream and run again.

Bruce opens the curtains, knife ready. “Nothin’ there babe.”

Greta walks to the patio doors. Stares at the snow. No footprints.

“I…that’s not what I saw. There was a man, a horrible-looking man.”

“Bad dream Gretes,” Jude says, leaning on the doorframe, disappointed. “Brucey-baby! Come back to mama. Mama needs a noodle.”

Bruce shrugs, shakes his head, gives Greta a look as he walks past - somewhere between ‘lucky me’ and ‘you’re a nutcase’.

…

The next night, after a miserable meal with her parents, Greta lies curled in her childhood bed, not long enough now for her tall frame. She has taken a few days off work and caught the train out to Milton Keynes. The air is grey, cold and damp. The snow has melted into slush.

She works at emptying her mind of anxiety, fear. The lights of passing cars shutter across the thin curtains. She slips into sleep.

A hand presses down onto her face. She tries to scream, thrashes. The hand does not move. It is cold, dead. The nails are sharp in her cheek, there is a taste, almost rotten. She manages to breathe through her nose.

“You are better than this Greta,” a grating, rasping female voice. The hand evaporates and Greta screams and screams. Then gasps for breath. The light from the hall. Her parents in their nightclothes stare at her from the doorway. She huddles under the bedclothes.

“Nightmare,” she whispers.

“Do you want the light on darling?” her father says.

“Yes please.”

“You treat her like a baby,” her mother says and turns away.

Her father turns the light on, comes in, kisses her cheek and tucks in the duvet. “Sleep tight princess.”

…

Jeff picks her up from her parents’ place. The old couple wave goodbye from the front door.

Greta tells him what has happened as they drive back to East Finchley. He reassures her that he will stay the night.

“On the sofa.”

“Of course, on the sofa.”

They share a bottle of wine with a takeaway Indian meal. He checks the front door, patio door, bedroom window. She gives him sheets and blankets for the sofa. She changes into pyjamas, brushes her teeth in the bathroom. As she walks through the lounge to her bedroom he reaches out and holds her shoulders. They kiss, gently. She pulls back and shakes her head. “Thanks for staying over though, I really need this.” She enters the bedroom and shuts the door.

Jeff turns out the lights and settles onto the sofa with a cushion for a pillow.

She wakes. The bedclothes are held down tightly. She cannot move her arms or legs. She opens her mouth to scream but a cloth is immediately stuffed in. No sound issues. A heavy cloth is held over her eyes. She thought Jeff was a safe guy. Then a familiar sound whispers near her ear.

“Greta, Greta. You were my friend...” The same rotting smell. The rasping female voice. Dana. Dana?

“You kissed him. He’s mine. You kissed him...”