Short Story: Regression Part 1 of 4

An English teacher is haunted by a terrible secret from his past

Created by author in Canva.

The girl took Jack by surprise. His eyes locked with hers, as he looked up from the flowerbed at the back of his garden. She stood on the other side of the fence; a ten-year-old in a summer dress with straight blonde hair, deep blue eyes, and a hypnotic stare that commanded attention.

Jack’s stomach twisted. Recognition. Panic. Then logic kicked in, amid the horrible memory of matted, blood-stained hair, and pale, lifeless skin. It couldn’t be her. It wasn’t possible. But the uncanny resemblance shook him to his core.

Forcing his eyes away from the girl, Jack glanced towards the house next door. From the open windows, sounds of removal men being directed informed him that his new neighbours were settling in. This girl had to be their daughter.

Jack smiled at the girl. She did not return the smile. He could not tear his eyes away. He wiped his brow with grimy hands, his throat dry. Was the August sun really this hot?

‘I’ve seen you before.’

The girl’s words were a dagger to his heart, but Jack forced himself to remain calm. She was just a child, after all.

‘You’ve seen me before?’ Jack asked.

The girl nodded, before turning and walking away. Jack’s stomach continued to churn. He watched her disappear inside the house, then kneeled at the flowerbed at the back of his garden. Trying not to think about the girl’s unsettling words, he once again hacked at the bamboo roots spreading across the flowerbed. They always shot up at this time of year, no matter how much he cut them back. The bamboo originated beyond his property line, in the area of woodland at the back of his house. One of these days he would have no choice but to go to the root cause of the bamboo infiltration. He would have to go into the woods and dig it up.

I’ve seen you before.

Jack shook his head, pushing down long-buried anguish, guilt, and shame. The incident had been years ago. He had got away with it. These days, he even slept peacefully at night. But seeing the girl had brought it all back. Then there were those words. They couldn’t possibly mean what he thought they meant. How could they? When she said she’d seen him before, she must have meant she’d seen him earlier, when they arrived to move into their house. Perhaps she was just trying to be friendly.

Yet there had been nothing friendly in her eyes.

She hadn’t come to greet him. This was different. She had very deliberately caught his gaze, and spoken as though pronouncing both accusation and sentence.

I’ve seen you before.

Jack took off his gardening gloves and put them back in the greenhouse. He went into his house through the back door and poured a glass of iced water. For several minutes he sat at his kitchen table, sipping the cool drink. His heart still beat fast, unsettled at the encounter, but he shrugged it off. This wasn’t the same girl. How could it be? She’d have been at least twenty by now.

The more Jack thought about it, the more foolish he felt at the strange spell the girl had cast over him. Still, the resemblance had been immensely unsettling. The long blonde hair. Those blue eyes. Everything about her.