Samara had caught the first Outside film by chance. One of her favourite bands, of which there were many, had been filmed playing the Brixton Academy, and MTV had been advertising the showing all week. Waiting for her parents and sister to go to bed, Samara had started on black coffee in a bid to stay awake. She didn’t trust the timer on the VCR. Plus, her dad had an unfortunate habit: he’d sneak back down stairs once everyone was asleep and flick through the foreign satellite channels for a smutty film from the seventies, or one of the many erotic game shows the Germans seemed to love. This completely fucked the video recording, as the VCR recorded the satellite TV channel. The finale of Hellraiser had been spoiled when Kirsty was about to escape the Cenobites and suddenly the screen was filled with oiled-up girls in a show called Die Sexy Olympiade.
Needing to see her band play from London, she’d planned around her father’s libido, but events still did not go to plan. Forgetting MTV broadcast from Europe and had advertised the appropriate European time, she completely missed the recording. Seething and still hyped up on too much caffeine, she’d flicked through the channels, seeking something to consume the rest of her night. Hours later, her eyelids starting to grow heavy, Samara flicked to a movie channel for background noise to dose to.
The pitch eyes of a deformed monster stared out of the screen, her jaws snapping free at the hinges, mouth stretching, thin teeth pushing through her gums like sewing needles. The demon drove a talon through the hazy barrier between waking and sleep.
It had snapped Samara awake.
Watching the current victim being disembowelled, Samara had grabbed a cushion and settled back in to see this masterpiece through. A quick glance at that week’s TV guide informed her she was watching Outside (1992). On the verge of suicide, a man makes a pact with a demon to bring suffering to those who ruined his life. R18.
And so the obsession had begun.
She’d recorded the film the next time the channel had aired it after scouring the listings each week. She insisted on watching it at the same time to protect it from her dad’s channel switching.
After a few years of watching the horrid, dark film at least once a week, the old tape started to deteriorate. Samara’s skill with the tracking dial achieving little. So she bought it on honest-to-God-official video. It occupied pride of place on her shelf with the few other bought videos she owned. She loved the artwork on the cover, and the extra details on the reverse.
Now it had a companion. Outside 2: The Return of Woe.
“Samara!”
“Okay, Mum, okay! Christ!” Reaching across her desk, she swept up her pad and charcoal.
She cast the gruesome, elongated face on screen a longing glance. Years she’d waited for the sequel. Should’ve known her family would try and ruin the big day. Hopefully she could finish the first movie and watch the sequel uninterrupted after dinner.
In her mind, the gelatinous black ooze receded, allowing her to open her bedroom door. The thick soles of her boots clomped down the creaking stairs.
Dinner wasn’t quite ready. Samara stared at the empty table, calculating how much of Outside she could have got under her belt before it was really time to eat. Only her younger sister sat waiting, reading a pop magazine. A neatly clipped and dressed boy band stood in perfectly arranged formation on the cover. Nobody stood like that. Not an instrument between them.
Samara considered grabbing her own choice of magazine from her bag, waging war across the dining table. Real music versus manufactured crap. She sighed, already losing the battle. Her parents agreed with her sister. Samara’s tastes weren’t real music. Men shouldn’t wear makeup. The drums are too loud. The singing is just screaming. Her sister would bring in her reinforcements, and it would again be three against one. Always three against one.
Through the archway that led into the lounge, Samara noticed her father remained in his chair watching a rugby match. Mum’s order obviously didn’t apply to him. Hanging her head to form a black curtain of hair to hide behind, Samara placed her pad and charcoal on the table and sat opposite her sister. While she hated the seating arrangements, this is how it had always been, and how it always must be. Looking at the same two pictures on the wall beyond Kelly’s face brought comfort in their familiarity. On one side, the sisters aged three and seven, arranged in the photographer’s studio not unlike the boy band on Kelly’s magazine. Both children grinned up at the camera, Samara missing her two top teeth. Their dad liked to joke to visitors how glad they are to have the picture, as it’s the last time Samara smiled. On the other side was the man himself, younger and slimmer, sporting a curly black mullet and leaning proudly against his first car. A blazing summer day in the early eighties.
What he’d lost on top he’d made up around the waist. With a groan he pulled himself up from his chair and entered the dining room, still in his blue jeans and England football top from work. I drive a cab, not a limo, he liked to remind them. I don’t need to dress all fancy to take little old ladies shopping or pick up lager louts at two in the morning.
As he passed behind his oldest daughter, he leaned over to peer at her sketch pad. In that moment, Samara’s senses flooded with the smell of his day trapped in the car. His physical presence seemed to exist beyond his body. Samara could almost feel him draped over her. She eased away to the side a little, anxious at the thought of touch.
“And there was me thinking you might be doing a nice landscape,” he said. “Or a bowl of fruit. They don’t teach you that at college? I like a nice colourful bowl of fruit. Something natural.”
Samara didn’t warrant that with a reply and picked up her slim length of charcoal. The creature on the page, nails reaching from the paper, hair swirling about the narrow head as if drowning, needed more work on the mouth.
“We always had to do bowls of fruit at school,” said Samara’s mother, delivering the first meal from the steamy kitchen. Fitting in with the rest of her family, she too wore her uniform from the day; black skirt and white blouse. Fancy for working on a checkout at the supermarket eight hours a day. A dishtowel was slung over her shoulder. She placed the serving of lasagne and vegetables in front of her husband. He reached for the knife and fork perched on the side. “Every year in art. Bowl of fruit. Apples. Oranges. Always a banana on the side.”
Kelly sniggered, her eyes not leaving the pages of her magazine. “Not gothic enough for Sam. Severed head in a bowl with guts and maggots sprinkled on top. That’s more her style.”
“At least I have a style,” Samara mumbled. “Don’t just follow everyone else.”
“Just Wednesday Addams,” said Kelly.
Their parents chuckled with her. Samara tried to ignore them, concentrating on the twisted features scratched out by her hand.
In a sad way, Samara could understand it if Kelly had something about her. She wasn’t the stereotypical blonde stunner that boys drooled over. She had the same plain brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. Samara’s own natural colour was hidden behind a bottle of raven black. Kelly wasn’t overweight, nor curvy, nor athletic or super model thin. Kelly was just…Kelly. A girl. Just another girl. Samara had turned her over and over in her mind, trying to find the secret. People liked Kelly, but what did Kelly offer?