The Other Side

By Catherine Johnson

Anna is struggling with the aftermath of her messy divorce.  She's trying to discover who she is without her husband by her side. She's trying to figure out how to deal with betrayal, how to trust again, and she's trying to figure out where she wants to go next. The world is her oyster, but the world is big and scary and full of selfish people.  She knows that goodness and joy are out there, but, boy, does she feel jaded.

When her friend, Samantha, suggests a holiday, a break from the daily grind, Anna jumps right into the planning. An escape from reality, even for a few days, sounds ideal. Admittedly, she'd prefer a beach holiday with cocktails over a long weekend of camping and warm wine, but funds are limited and maybe getting back to nature will help her reconnect with the world...

... Except that they pick an unfortunate spot to pitch their tent.

Anna finds herself... somewhere. She could be in another dimension, an alternate reality, or maybe she's stuck in a nightmare; it's not quite the escape she had in mind. All she knows is that she has to wake up, get home, find the ruby slippers and kick her heels three times. She'll do whatever it takes to get back.

The possibility that she might never be able to return is something that she isn't ready to accept without a fight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Freak Circle Press
• Release date: Mar 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386026730

Catherine Johnson

Catherine Johnson is a screenwriter and bestselling author of several books for children and young adults. Shortlisted for the 2020 UKLA Book Awards, Race to the Frozen North is a perennial bestseller with sales of over 40,000 to date. Her acclaimed novel Sawbones won the Young Quills Award for Historical Fiction, and The Curious Tale of the Lady Caraboo was nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the YA Book Prize. Catherine is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Book preview

The

Other Side

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CATHERINE JOHNSON

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FCP Logo Spine.gif

FREAK CIRCLE PRESS

The Other Side

Copyright © 2019 Catherine Johnson

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Catherine Johnson has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this book under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

All rights reserved

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Cover image courtesy of Licya, via Pixabay.com.

Cover design by JB, 2019.

DEDICATION

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So raise your glass if you are wrong,

In all the right ways...

P!nk

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Epilogue

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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Without the true believers who kept this story alive, it would be buried, never to see the light of day. Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

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Anna and Sammy's 'Fuck the World' break from reality had started badly.

The idea for the trip had arisen during one of their weekly Friday night bitch-fests. Friday nights were a non-negotiable feature of their friendship and regularly involved ordering more Chinese food than a small army could possibly eat and drinking more wine than two women had a right to ingest without liver failure. Their conversation usually began with a dissection of their working week and the utter idiocy of their work colleagues and then progressed to the universe's apparent determination to fuck them over.

When Sammy had said We should get away from it all Anna had envisioned a beach, sunshine, rolling waves, multicolored cocktails, the scent of coconut oil, and maybe a bronzed lifeguard or two. Unfortunately, by the time they'd managed to mesh both their diaries and their bank accounts, some hard limits had been imposed on her daydreams. They'd been looking at the post-summer season, and although outside of the school break was cheaper, it also meant everything was closing down for the winter. A beach was glorious at the height of summer - when the bars were buzzing, music was pumping and there were crowds to blend into - but with colder temperatures, hardly any people and few opportunities to enjoy themselves; it was just a stretch of gritty sand scoured by brisk winds.

With a beach break out of the picture and anything involving the words 'lodge' or 'hotel' way out of their price range, camping became their only option. There had been several wine-soaked nights of planning. Infused with the excitement of being close to the glory of nature, they had even attempted some drunken, half-hearted research into the best tents, but all of their efforts had ultimately ended with them both slurring and drooling over some impossibly square-jawed actor playing a superhero in a movie.

They definitely had not discussed the idea of sleeping in an almost completely deserted campground. Unfortunately, that was the scene in which they now found themselves. They had been arguing with the warden for the better part of an hour. The odious little toad kept leering at Sammy's cleavage, even though it was buried under a substantial beige sweater. He was insistent that there was no record of their booking and that if they wanted to stay in the almost completely deserted campground they would have to pay double. Anna was absolutely certain that whoever was actually managing the place would have been happy with any sort of income and that any extra they paid would be funding the little troll's porn and whiskey addictions.

Their terse negotiations were getting them nowhere. Anna was tired and cold. The sky had started out grey and had only gotten darker. The clouds were beginning to roll lower. She just really, really wanted to be drunk, or at least on her way to being drunk. Here they were, trying to get away from the crap in their lives and the cosmos was taking another sloppy dump all over them. They had enough red wine in Sammy's car to start a vino tsunami and that was just their provisions for the first night. Anna was beginning to lean towards the idea of a motel for this night and a trip home the next morning.

Anna laid her hand on her friend's shoulder, interrupting her animated rant.

Come on. This is going nowhere and there is no damn way that this is the only campsite in the area.

The warden made a scoffing noise. It's the only one with amenities within a two-hour drive. The odious little man hitched his thumbs into his belt loops and rocked forward onto the balls of his feet. The motion was one of self-satisfaction and intended to make him look taller than his five-foot-fuck-all; it didn't work. You go the nearest place to here and you'll be paying at least double this rate for the pleasure of pissin' into a bush. At least here you got some privacy.

Anna very much doubted that. She squeezed Sammy's shoulder a little harder, cutting her off from her incipient tirade. This is all about the getting away, right? Let's just get away to the Motel 6 we passed a ways back. We can figure out the details in the morning.

Sammy was either reaching the end of her tether, or she had been getting the Manson vibes that the troll had been radiating, because she stopped arguing, except for flinging a final Fuck you at the self-important asshole as they both stormed out of the tiny wooden hut that served as an office.

Fuck paying for a motel room, Sammy gritted out as she slammed the door of her ancient little Chevette shut. I used to come here every summer with my folks when I was a kid. I know a place we can set up. It's a hike, but we've got time before it gets dark. We'll still be pissing into a bush, but at least we'll be pissing for free.

Not before it rains, Anna thought to herself, but she didn't fancy paying for a hotel room if she didn't absolutely have to. They'd already sprung for the campsite fees; she could do without extra outlay. At least we won't have to worry about that fucktard sneaking around our tent at night, was what she actually said out loud.

Did you see him? Can you believe it? I swear to God he was actually drooling. Sammy gave an exaggerated shudder.

He gave me the creeps, for sure, Anna agreed. He might actually have been rubbing himself... she trailed off. She was sure she had been mistaken when she’d thought she’d seen the guy's hand moving in his pocket, but her sense of disgust confirmed what she knew to have been a truth.

Sammy drove for maybe half an hour. Their route was bordered on both sides by pines, oaks, and redwoods. The branches of the trees formed a dense canopy over the road, eliminating all but the strongest of the last murky rays of daylight. The rain held off as if it might have been waiting for them to exit the car, but when they finally pulled over into a lay-by and scrambled out, the world still seemed to be holding its breath. The feeling all around - with twilight beginning to gather and the incipient storm brewing - was of something growing and pressing down on the world.

They loaded up with their gear from the trunk. Sammy - who still insisted that she knew exactly where she was going - headed off across the highway and into the woods. There was no trail as far as Anna could see, at least for the first couple of hundred yards. She couldn't help herself; she had to keep pulling her phone from her pocket to triple check the non-existent cell phone reception. About the time that she was seriously beginning to question her friend's sanity, they crossed a trail. Sammy, who was apparently not planning to explore lands unknown, turned and began to follow the beaten path. Anna was more intent on making sure that she didn't trip on tree roots and divots in the gathering darkness than making conversation, so they didn't speak for quite some time.

Suddenly, Sammy pulled up. There you go, right where I remembered.

Anna walked straight into her back, nudging her friend forwards by a couple of steps. She had been concentrating on her own feet, not on the path ahead.

There had been no warning of a scenery change, the trees hadn't altered or thinned out, at least not that Anna had noticed from her limited field of vision. She looked around now and saw that they were standing at the edge of a completely naked clearing. There was a space before them, well into the thick of the forest, that was completely devoid of trees. The ground was only dry earth, no grass grew on it, as though it had been trampled out of existence if it had ever been there at all.

What's with this place? Anna wasn't sure she wanted to step into the clearing. There were no fences, no signs, no physical barriers, but there was something about the silent stillness that was watchful and unnerving.

It's just a place. I used to play here with a bunch of kids from camp when I was on vacay. There's a ton of stories about. They say it's haunted, that they used to hang witches here. Some say that the ground's poisoned. Some folk say it’s haunted, but I never saw anything.

You thought sleeping on the set of the Evil Dead would be the answer to our problems? Anna asked incredulously.

Sammy strode into the clearing, her arms out, turning around. I told you, I never saw anything. What's the matter? Sammy grinned. You chicken?

The oppressive feeling that had been holding Anna back seemed to burst like a bubble. It was weird, but since the ground didn't immediately open up and swallow her friend whole, she felt better about the place. She took a step forward, then two steps. Sammy was right; it was just a place, spooky and creepy as hell, but just a place.

Anna still wasn't entirely convinced that she wanted to sleep in the eerie spot, but they were a fair walk from the car. It was getting darker by the minute and she could feel the moisture in the air announcing the coming storm. There was no way they'd make it back to the car without one of them twisting an ankle and no guarantee that they'd have a better night if they did.

I guess we're rocking the Bear Grylls experience then. Anna sighed and shucked her bag off her shoulders. We should get set up and get the wine open.

I vote for opening the wine first. Sammy clapped her hands and grinned.

We do that and we'll never get the tent up, and we're going to need it tonight.

True, I guess. Sammy pouted. At least we don't need to skin any snakes unless you have an aversion to marshmallows.

Wine and marshmallows are the nectar of the gods. Anna started digging through their baggage for the tent. Let's do the tent, then I'll find stones and you can find twigs.

Deal. Sammy grinned.

They high-fived and set to work.

The tent took no time at all; it was a pop-up model and only needed to be released from the confines of its bag. As soon as it jerked into place, Anna knew that there was no way in hell that they were going to accomplish whatever origami feats of marvel would be required to get it back into its travel case. Chances were good that they'd be leaving it behind.

Sorting out their fire pit took a little longer. For all the trees, there was a remarkably scant amount of firewood around, as if the trees kept themselves to themselves and did not stoop to drop their spare limbs on the ground. Likewise, the area was clear of stones, even pebbles. Anna walked for too long, to the point that she was worried she wouldn't find her way back before she stumbled across a stream which provided a rich mine of rocks. It took Anna several trips to gather enough stones to edge their fire pit. By the time she had the circle built, they had a trampled trail to fresh water.

Even with fire-lighters and a gas-powered lighter, it was hard to get their campfire started. The kindling seemed reluctant to burn. Fortunately, the girls were well into their first box of cheap red and neither woman cared much beyond whether or not the zip on the tent worked. They didn't even care by that point whether they ate or not. They were happy and tipsy and finding more fucking sticks to poke into marshmallows was more trouble than it was worth, so they decided to keep drinking to stave off the hunger pangs.

Eventually, Anna found a position that was a happy medium between the heat of the fire in front of her and the chilly Fall night around her. The temperature was cool, but not dangerously so. She fully intended to have scrambled into their tent before she fell asleep. The fire was so warm, she felt like her front was cooking, but that made the cold air on her back feel even cooler. She tried wrapping herself in her coat, scarf, and hat to shield her back, but that stifled her and made her think she was going to expire from heat exhaustion by the time she'd warmed up. At some point, she found she had achieved the ideal distance from the fire, but in reality, the wine had probably numbed most of her nerve endings.

Unfortunately, about the time that Anna got comfortable, Sammy decided to bring up the topic of Donny, Dick of the Century, Wanker Extraordinaire and Anna's soon to be Ex-Husband.

So, did you do that thing with the hearse? Sammy asked.

A few days before, incensed by a new demand that Donny had made regarding their divorce settlement, Anna had threatened to book a hearse to turn up at their house, or rather, his house, now - she was living in a rented apartment and trying not to be bitter about cockroaches - and to ask for a corpse by the name of Donny Willis

No. I decided to let that idea go. I've considered finding some road kill on the way back to shove under the crawl space instead; it'll be cheaper.

Is he still banging that, Stacie, Cyndi... Shandi... whatever the fuck her name was? Sammy's expression as she reeled through the roster of possible names was one of absolute disgust like she'd smelled rotten eggs.

No, Anna shrugged. Stephie is old news now. It was a galling thing to say, considering that finding her husband of ten years in bed with the barely legal and far too thin Stephie was the occasion which had brought about the nuclear apocalypse of her marriage. He's moved on. He went to that yoga retreat and picked up Tracy. Tracy is twenty-two, blonde, vegan, gluten-intolerant, enjoys yoga and Pilates, and loves animals and Nickleback. Donny had tried to add the cost of the retreat to the settlement, as a way of billing Anna for Emotional Distress caused during the divorce negotiations. That was the incident that had initiated the hearse plan.

Sammy shuddered at the Nickleback reference. You've been stalking her on Facebook! she accused.

Maybe, Anna admitted. Those of us that can't afford Bali have to release our negative energy somehow.

By the time the campfire had begun to stutter, they were a box and a half of wine down. They were definitely in danger of passing out on the cold, hard ground when the threatening storm finally hit. The rain took care of the fire; it was completely drowned in moments.

Anna and Sammy were past caring about the etiquette of camping, the need to be aware of their surroundings, the respect required for nature. They made no effort to tidy their mess, to bag up the plastic and cardboard, or to move the scraps of sweet sugary treats they'd been eating; they simply abandoned their detritus and retreated into their tent before they got soaked to the bone.

Between exhaustion and drunkenness, Anna fell asleep, into the sensation that she was falling into the great black nothing of unconsciousness.

CHAPTER TWO

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The whispering touch of something brushing over her face woke Anna up. For one heart-stopping moment, she was sure a big-ass spider was making its way across her cheek, but whatever it was had more substance than a spider. She came fully awake somewhere between terror and rage, ready to slap Sammy for teasing her out of blissful unconsciousness.

The dull clarity of immediate wakefulness and sobriety brought hazy memories of the night before. The touch that had woken her brought the sinking realization that not only had they not made any preparations for wildlife, but they had also probably actively encouraged all sorts of predators to their location by leaving their rubbish and half-eaten treats out.

Still half confused by the dregs of deep sleep, Anna managed to almost convince herself that she was being pawed by a bear. She screwed her eyes shut, unwilling to look her death in its furry face until she realized that a bear would not have been petting her, a bear would have been chewing her flesh like bacon. There was no grunting, no sweaty panting, only a cool breeze that smelled overly sweet.

She was definitely still in one piece, although her brain was making an insistent, pulsing bid for freedom out of the back of her skull. The sensation of something moving over her face had gone, but the sound remained. Anna opened her eyes, carefully at first and then more bravely as she realized that the sun was not about to sear her retinas. She saw darkness, so she rolled and pushed herself up on one elbow. Now she could make out shapes and colors and the source of the scratching.

She wanted to be unconscious again.

She was not in the tent.

She was in a cave; a vast, echoing hall of rock.

There was a man sweeping the floor of the cave. He was hunched over an old-fashioned broom as if using it for support as much for his chores.

She was not in the tent.

She had no idea where she was.

The only sounds she could hear were the grating scratch, scritch, scratch of the brush and the insistent thumping of her dehydration headache.

Sammy was nowhere in sight.

Anna scrambled to her feet.

Perhaps, ordinarily, she would have spoken to the old man with the broom. Ordinarily, the old man with the broom would not have had horns. True, the things sticking out of his forehead were stunted and broken, but they were... No, they couldn't be... No, they really were horns.

Anna dashed for the cave wall and tried to scramble up the mound of smooth, white stones. Her confused mind reasoned only that the tent must be above her. Somehow, she must have fallen through the ground in the night. Falling through the ground was a perfectly logical explanation.

That she was drunk, passed out and in the middle of some utterly ridiculous nightmare was an even better explanation.

You'll not get out by climbing the bones, dearie. A surprisingly strong voice echoed across the cavern. S'a one-way route, tha' is.

Anna realized that the man with the brush had spoken to her, but the meaning of the words did not penetrate the fog of panic that was choking her. She tried harder to climb up the wall, but her efforts were useless. The rock wall was smooth and slimy. The pile of stones that she was standing on had looked to be tightly packed at first, but it kept shifting.

Wait... The old man had said something about bones... Anna looked down. A jawless skull grinned back up at her.

She was standing on a pile of bones.

She was standing on a pile of human bones, or human-looking bones.

Anna slid off the mounds of remains as quickly as possible, which was to say not at all elegantly.

As soon as her ass hit the brown dirt of the cave floor she jumped to her feet and started brushing her palms against her clothes, feeling dirty and sullied for having clambered over what was left of someone, or something.

Where am I? she called out. It was the only question she really wanted an answer to. She half expected that answer to be asleep.

If yous don't know, I canna tell yous.

Well, that was unhelpful in the fucking extreme.

Where's Sammy?

I don't knows about no Sah-mee.

How do I get back?

Stop yelling, dearie. You's scaring the lot of thems.

Anna looked wildly about. She couldn’t see any Thems. She could see nothing in the cave except herself and the old man.

She looked up. The roof was all darkness, emitting only the longest tree roots and the smell of turned earth. She looked to the sides. The walls of the cave appeared to be oozing slime and moisture, as though the cave was underwater, but the air felt too dry for that to be true. She looked down. The floor was dusty, not at all in keeping with the damp walls. Across and around all of it there was nothing that could be considered... Thems. Still, it was probably best not to shout.

She didn't want to approach the old man. He looked harmless enough, hunched over his broom and hard at work, but his voice was stronger than his decrepit stance. He was a contradiction and she was not where she was supposed to be. Her friend was not where she was supposed to be. Anna had no reason to assume that the man was safe, but she was working on the meager evidence of the fact that he had not yet disemboweled her.

With every step she took, she was less able to deny that there was something - no, not ‘something’, actual horns - protruding from his forehead. He was... other... and she didn't want to accept that she would have to deal with... other, nightmare or not. But it would be okay, she would wake up soon. All she had to do was play nice. Surely the dancing donuts would be along in no time.

Where am I? she asked, again.

In my cave.

Well of course. And where is your cave?

In the forest.

Maybe she was awake and this was Sammy's idea of a hilarious prank, except that it was far too elaborate.

My name is Anna. She tried to sound friendly, thinking a different approach would yield different results.

A-nah?

No. An-na, she corrected him.

A-nah. He pronounced again as if baptizing her for himself. He nodded his affirmation at his mispronunciation.

Can I ask who you are? Anna ventured.

Yous can, dearie.

She took a deep breath and prayed for patience. Who are you?

I bees Kritcher.

Kritcher?

You's deaf, dearie?

Anna shook her head. If this was a prank she was going to murder Sammy and take great pleasure in the deed. She tried another question, making a heroic effort not to talk to the only person in the vicinity as though they were a mentally challenged toddler.

Kritcher, can you tell me where I am?

The man, Kritcher, stopped his sweeping and looked right at her. He straightened and Anna realized that he was hunched because the broom was short, not because he was arthritic. His grey hair and deeply lined and wrinkled face indicated age, but when he stood tall, he looked as strong and vital as his voice sounded. He was taller than Anna would ever have guessed. She would never have considered herself short at around five and a half feet tall, but Kritcher was topping her by more than a foot. His beard was long, so long that he had it slung over his shoulder to keep it from getting under his feet. The hair was matted into what amounted to one single long dreadlock. There was no denying the truncated horns on his forehead. Anna tried not to stare... but they were the first horns she'd ever seen on someone outside of a Halloween costume.