“Are you sure you don’t want to come?” Sarah’s mother asked
her. “I’m sure they won’t mind you being there with us. After all,
you will be eighteen next week, won’t you? And we will be regulars,
now we’ve moved here. They’re not going to turn us away.”
“No, really, I’ll be alright. You two go and have a drink.
Enjoy yourselves and say ‘hello’ from me. You deserve it. It’s been
a long day, and there’ll another long day tomorrow. There’s all that
unpacking still to do. Besides I’ve got to set the computer up. I
promised Dean I’d see him on the internet tonight.”
“As long as you’re sure,” her father added, giving her a
tight hug before pulling his coat on. He knew how much she was going
to miss her boyfriend. “We won’t be too long, anyway. And you’re
positive those silly rumours about this house being haunted don’t
worry you?”
“Don’t be stupid!” she laughed, pushing them both out the
door.
Sarah watched impatiently from the porch of the medieval
mansion’s front door as her parents climbed into the silver
Mercedes. With a sharp ‘toot’ on the horn, and a wave from her
mother, the car sped away along the dark driveway then out, turning
left towards the village. She pushed heavily on the creaking great
oak door closing it securely before hurrying up to her room, taking
the stairs two at a time.
Sarah’s room was a mess, a complete mess that was unusual for
her, she normally loved tidiness to the extreme, but it was
excusable in the circumstances, all the really essential things had
been done. The bed was made up, enough clothes for a few days
unpacked, that would have to do for now. Setting up the computer was
the most important thing now, to be able to see Dean, to chat with
him on Microsoft’s Net-Meeting. She wondered how well it would work
here, it was so annoying that here they didn’t have broadband. The
old phone and modem connection was so slow, she remembered from
those prehistoric days. Pictures from the web cam would be
appalling, but they would have to make do.
It was a full hour before the computer, with all its necessary
peripherals, was ready for testing. Satisfied that it should now all
work, that all the cables had been connected correctly, that the old
external modem was powered up and linked to the phone line, Sarah
sat down in front of it. Logging on she opened the chat program and
was ecstatic to see the words, ‘U there Poppet?’ staring at her.
That was Dean! That was his pet name for her!
‘Yes,’ she excitedly typed the reply, switching the selection
to private, ‘switch the camera on. I luvs u.’
The black rectangle in the corner of the screen pixelated madly. She
could see her own reflection in it more than the picture but there
was something there, some shape she could perceive, the dark outline
of someone, the picture was updating so slowly, large dark squares
of colour erratically forming then fading. It had to be Dean.
‘Can u c me?’ The message came up in their private window.
‘Y but n good,’ she typed back, ‘I wish u were here - could
hold me. I miss u. Wish we could have a quickie!’
“We can,” she heard the voice whisper in her left ear as
invisible ice cold hands began fondling her breasts, tweaking her
nipples roughly, and something enormous, icy and hard pushed
forcefully against her groin.
Falling backwards onto the floor, the chair flying away,
disintegrating somewhere behind her, she just managed to see the
words in the small box in the centre of the screen before the giant
icicle painfully entered her.
‘Windows cannot detect your modem. Please make sure you have
. . .'
© Michael Knell 2002.
