Winner, Northern Beaches Writers Competition 2024
As far as Gnome knew, Rena had been punched exactly twice in all the time she’d worked there. By her own admission, it had been her fault for not seeing it coming. This time, she stepped neatly to the side, using the guy’s momentum against him to send him sprawling across the sticky dancefloor. For a moment, he was in mid-air, the beer bottle suspended in space beyond his outstretched fingers, frozen in time by the flash of the strobe, and then he was down, and the glass shattered everywhere.
Gnome hauled him up by the collar like a ragdoll and marched him out through the club’s entrance and onto the pavement. Rena followed behind, coming to a halt next to the huge man, her head coming up as far as shoulder. She gave the guy on the ground a little smile.
“Enjoy the rest of your night,” Gnome called out, folding his arms.
They waited for a moment, watching the flow of expressions across the guy’s face, but then he picked himself up and stumbled away down Oxford Street towards the bright lights of the city.
“Nice work,” Gnome said.
“What?” Rena asked.
“I didn’t even see you move.”
“I’m quick when I need to.”
“Quicker than me. I didn’t even see him kicking off.”
“Don’t feel bad about the fact you nearly let a lady get smacked in the face. I’ve been doing this a while.”
Gnome laughed, then checked his watch.
“How much more?” Rena asked him.
“Another hour.”
He turned, and they made their way back into the club. Inside, the night was winding down: bodies in booths, still a few people on the dancefloor, two guys at the bar alone on stools. Gnome wrinkled his nose and glanced across at Rena, getting up the nerve. She looked up at him and he launched into it.
“So, fancy a drink after?”
Rena surveyed him coolly. “How long?”
“Uh, what? Just one, if you want. Maybe two. Your call. I mean, up to you.”
Gnome looked into the pale grey eyes of the diminutive woman, watching her watching him, her expression curiously neutral.
“Look, only if you like. No stress,” Gnome stammered.
“No, I mean, how long you been building up to that?”
“I… I dunno.”
“C’mon, you do. Just a drink, or a drink and a cuddle?”
Gnome flinched.
“I just thought, maybe, I mean….”
“How long you worked here?”
“I dunno. Six months. Yeah, six, maybe.”
“Did no-one warn you about me?”
Gnome shook his head slowly.
“Maybe they should have.”
“Why?”
Rena leaned closer, grinning up at him. “I eat men.”
She patted him on his cheek, her long, thin fingers cool against his skin.
“This is where you say something like, you like being eaten. Or, that you’re too tough to chew, or some shit. Guaranteed I’ve heard it. Like I said, been doing this a while.”
The grey eyes were drawing him in, standing in the middle of the nightclub, red-lit by the dancefloor spotlights, her lips the colour of blood. Gnome knew he was staring at her, but that he couldn’t look away, however much he wanted to. She seemed to be staring right into him, like he was transparent, and he felt it again.
He’d felt it the first night they’d worked together. There was something about Rena. She looked like she was in her twenties, jet black bob framing a pretty face, soft features, but her eyes said something else. Her eyes were ancient, like she could look straight through you, just like now.
“I’d shatter you,” she murmured, and it sounded like a confession.
Rena blinked, scanning the thinning crowd, and Gnome felt suddenly like he could move again. He made a low, rumbling sound in his throat.
“Yeah, look. I didn’t mean to cross the line. I just thought….”
The eyes flicked back to him again. He hadn’t even seen her head move and suddenly he was caught in her stare. Then, she seemed to relax.
“There’s nowhere open,” she said.
“I… uh, what?”
“After work, where’s there to go once we shut? We’re where everyone else comes for one last drink.”
“I guess I didn’t think about that.”
“Want to come back to mine?”
Rena’s expression was neutral, but Gnome found himself nodding.
“I’ve got half a bottle of whiskey,” she continued.
“You sure you want to invite me back?”
“Yeah. Home ground. Though, I’m warning you, it’s not much, not on what Billy pays me here.”
“I’m good if you’re good.”
“Just a drink, or a cuddle?”
‘Whatever you want.”
Rena smiled. “Yeah, it’s whatever I want.”
Afterwards, they snaked through the back streets in the pre-dawn chill, after Billy had given them both a bundle of notes and a smile. In the east, the sky was beginning to lighten, the stars fading slowly into the gathering blue.
“You always work the graveyard shift?” Gnome asked, shrugging further into his coat against the cold.
“It’s my thing. I’m not afraid of the graveyard. Plus, cash in hand. So, why they call you Gnome?”
Gnome laughed. “From when I was younger. We went and got completely destroyed one night, and I lost all the boys. Or, they lost me. They got up the next morning and that’s when they found me, propped up against a bush in the middle of the front garden, fast asleep.”
“So, not because of your jolly demeanour.”
“Nah, but I got that too.”
They approached a battered low-rise apartment block, its bulk looming in the dark. They went inside, down a flight of stairs.
“Basement flat,” Rena commented. “Like I said, not crash-hot, but it’s home.”
She unlocked a door, opening it to reveal a tiny bedsit.
“Cosy,” Gnome said, as Rena crossed over to the little kitchenette.
“I get by.”
Rena extracted glasses and a whiskey bottle from the cupboard. Gnome followed her movements as she poured their drinks. There was a practiced air about them, precise yet elaborate, like a dance.
“You been here a while?” Gnome asked her.
“As in, this flat, or the city, or the country?”
“I meant the city.”
“A while, yeah.”
A small smile flickered across Rena’s face, as if it was a private joke. “But my family’s from Europe.”
“Miss them? Your family I mean?”
“Not really. They’re all dead now.”
Gnome accepted his glass from Rena, seeing a shadow flicker across her face.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s been a long time. Sit?”
Gnome flopped down onto the battered couch, looking around the little apartment. Besides the bed and the TV against one wall, there wasn’t much to look at. Leaning against the wall was a full-length mirror, mostly covered over by a sheet, exposing an ornate wooden frame. It was the most expensive-looking thing in the entire place.
“I don’t have much,” Rena murmured, settling down next to him, as if reading his mind.
Rena’s mouth turned down at the corners, and she sipped her whiskey, the glass sparkling in the light.
“You like old things,” Gnome said, breaking the little silence between them.
“Yeah.”
He reached out, wrapping her hand in his, enveloping her long, delicate fingers.
“Your hand’s cold,” he said.
“So’s the rest of me.”
“You need a thicker coat for coming home in.”
“Wouldn’t matter. I’m always cold.”
“Maybe turn up the heating in here?”
“I don’t have the money.”
Rena sipped her whiskey, regarding Gnome over the rim of her glass, ageless grey eyes observing him carefully.
“When I told you I eat men, you weren’t put off.”
“Nah.”
Rena shook her head. “Gnome, I like you. I really do. It’s been a long time since I’ve had fun with someone at work, or ever, really. But, you crossed a line and it’s a big one. I do eat men. You won’t live to see sunrise.”
Gnome felt a chill run up his spine. He shifted in his seat.
“Uh, should I just leave?” he asked.
“You’d never make it to the door. But you’re still going to try. They always do.”
Gnome’s focus dropped to the glass in his hand.
“It’s just whiskey. I’m drinking it too. It’s not drugged.”
“You’re starting to freak me out, Rena.”
Rena knocked back the rest of her drink and got up from the couch. She padded barefoot across the carpet to the bottle.
“Let me show you something,” she called over her shoulder.
Gnome got up and followed her. She indicated the cloth covering the mirror.
“Take a look.”
Gnome looked from her to the mirror. Cautiously, he reached out and tugged the cloth away to find himself face-to-face with his reflection.
“Looks like a proper antique,” Gnome muttered, but his eyes were on Rena again.
“Take a good look in the mirror. What do you see?”
Gnome stared at his reflection again. “Me,” he replied.
“Anything else?”
“The wall behind me. The door.”
“Me?”
Gnome glanced at her, seeing the grave expression on her face, then back to the mirror: she wasn’t there. His blood ran cold. Gnome met her gaze, and for the first time, he felt afraid.
“That’s not… uh. It’s not real. That’s just….”
“Just stories? Unfortunately not. You get it now?”
Gnome stared into her scintillating grey eyes, seeing her come alive before him, bright with anticipation. His thoughts began to fade.
“Understand?” Rena asked. “You have no idea how hard I’ve worked to keep my secrets. You have no idea how hard my life is.”
Her hand was against his cheek, cool skin against his face. He hadn’t seen her move.
“Please,” he whispered into the silence between them, as the dread rose up within him.
Rena’s eyes locked onto his, and he was lost in her gaze. A part of him wanted to run, but the other passively accepted that he was face-to-face with something inescapably lethal. Despite towering over her, he was helpless.
Then, Rena seemed to come to a decision, relenting. She stepped back, refilling her whiskey glass, swirling the amber liquid around and around, contemplating it.
“You have no idea how hard my life is,” she repeated, taking a sip.
“Please let me go.”
“How?”
Gnome half-expected her to rage at him, but instead she crumpled, her face drooping. “I’m sorry.”
Rena put her glass down, facing him.
“Let me go. I won’t tell,” he begged.
“Yeah, but you’re gonna know. Then, all this,” she waved a hand at her little bedsit, “All this is lost. Everything I’ve managed to save, I’ve gotta give it up, and I can’t. I just can’t, not again.”
She rounded on him, suddenly animated.
“I can’t trust you. I can’t move again. I’m so hungry, and so utterly trapped.”
Rena knocked back her drink, slamming the glass down on the counter. Her hands curled up into fists, white knuckled.
“You get that, right? You shouldn’t have asked me in the club. You should have walked away. I’m so hungry, and it’s so hard.”
Gnome stepped closer, his mind racing, taking her shoulders in his hands. He felt her stiffen, and suddenly it was like pushing against rock, her body immovable. Then, gradually, she slackened, looking up into his face with despair.
“How much do you need?” Gnome asked.
Rena blinked at him, uncomprehending.
“I mean it, Rena. How much do you need, right now?”
He released her shoulders and offered his forearm to her face. Quickly, she reached out and encircled his wrist and elbow in an iron grip. She parted her lips, exposing little sharp canines, then hesitated, looking up at him.
“It’s okay,” Gnome nodded.
Rena bit. The pain seared through him, and he cried out as Rena began to feed, her breath cold against his skin, her hands locked around his arm. Gnome closed his eyes, carried away by a sudden, overwhelming euphoria. When at last he opened them again, Rena was standing in front of him, pressing an adhesive dressing against his arm.
“Still with us?”
He gaped, struggling to form words. “What… did you do?”
The ageless grey eyes bored into him, and he felt his thoughts fading again, but then Rena looked away, breaking the spell.
“This is why our victims don’t struggle. It’s why our familiars bond with us for life. Even if we kill, it’s not cruel because those last moments are the purest bliss. You should sit down, before you fall down.”
Gnome pressed the dressing against his skin and collapsed heavily onto the couch. Rena perched next to him, extracting her phone from her pocket to get comfortable. Gnome scanned around the place again, still reeling.
“No laptop, no….”
“Technology. Yeah.”
“Don’t like it?”
“Oh, it’s more that technology doesn’t like me. We’re not friends.”
Gnome blinked, feeling his focus returning.
“You got a phone though.”
“Yeah. Pretty much all I got.”
“It’s classic, real buttons. I haven’t seen one of those in years. Never upgraded?”
“To a smartphone, with a touch screen and all?”
“Yeah.”
“Nah. This works. I can send messages and make calls. All I need.”
“I heard they’re turning off the old network,” Gnome murmured vaguely. “You’ll be forced to upgrade then.”
Rena stared at her old phone. “Yeah.”
She screwed her face up.
“Rena, what?”
“It’s shit. Touchscreens don’t work for my fingers. I don’t appear in selfies. I can’t unlock them using Face ID because I don’t have a reflection.”
She shook her head in disgust.
“I can’t use voice assistants because they can’t hear my voice. I can’t bank at the major banks because they’re rolling out biometrics, or get a driver’s licence even though I predate the internal combustion engine, because they all need a photo.”
She shrugged uselessly.
“What happens when all the banks use biometrics, Gnome? What happens when you can’t get anything done without speaking to an AI assistant? The world is closing up around me and I can’t keep up.”
Rena’s face screwed up. “I’m able to punch through doors and control people’s minds and live forever and because social security is now all on computer, I can’t even get a bloody job anywhere that doesn’t pay cash-in-hand.”
Her eyes swept around the dingy bedsit, the bed, the mirror she’d kept all these years even though it just reminded her of who she used to be and what she was now.
“I’m trapped like this, living like a hungry ghost.”
Rena reached out, her hand cool to the touch on Gnome’s arm over the dressing. He laid his hand over hers gently.
“Can I really trust you to take all my pathetic, worthless secrets to the grave?” Rena asked.
“Yeah. I’m gonna help you.”
“By feeding the hungry ghost?”
“I guess.”
Rena sighed, wearily. “It’s too late to go home, wanna stay? The bed’s mostly for show. I don’t need to sleep.”
“What will you do?”
“Read a book or something.” Rena smiled at him. “Sorry about your arm.”
Gnome shrugged his massive shoulders. “I’ve had hickeys before. I’ll live.”