We recognise it is a terrible tease to offer up a meagre 750 words from each story. For the majority of our writers, this is their first publishing adventure, though certainly not their first venture into the wonderful yet terrible world of fiction writing. Many of the writers here have considerable back-catalogues of stories, seen and unseen.

To support our writers – and to ease your frustration – each Sunday we will post a full length piece of writing from the featured author of the week. This week Emma Newman introduces her story…

This story was written for a competition some months ago and it won! It will always be special to me, not only because it won me my natty new blog design, but it was also the first short story I had written in seventeen years. The one I wrote seventeen years before got me my place at university and a huge writer’s block to boot, but that’s another story in and of itself. For now, I hope you enjoy this one.

Seeing Him Again

As soon as she saw him sitting outside the cafe, she knew she had to go to him.

In the Saturday afternoon heat, the pavements were busy, crowded with tourists and residents alike. She hated the city in the summer. So did he.

“What are you doing here?” she asked nervously.

“Looking for you.” He gestured to the white metal seat. “Why don’t you sit down?”

“I shouldn’t,” she replied, glancing around.

He sighed. “No-one is taking any notice of you. Sit. Please. We need to talk.”

She moved round to perch on the edge of the chair, clutching her bag to her stomach. The little wrought iron table between them was bare, with a small umbrella that cast a cooling shadow over him but left the glare on her. Her fair skin would burn soon. She knew he was staring at her, even though she couldn’t bear to look at him. Instead, she watched the waitress, hurrying between the tables, taking orders faster than the poor girl could serve.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said and she pressed her lips together. “Don’t be like this. Look, I know you want to talk to me. You came to me.”

She sighed and looked across the table. His tweed jacket looked so odd amongst the cotton and linens of the other patrons. He hadn’t changed, hair still long, tied back in a ponytail, small round glasses. Those eyes. She shivered.

“I didn’t see you actually. And then when I did, I only came to tell you to leave me alone.” She watched him fold his arms.

“You need me.”

A pain behind her temples began to thud with her heartbeat. Not again.

“I don’t, I don’t need you anymore. It’s different now. I’m… life is better now.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh please. You said that that last time. ‘I don’t want you to help me,’ you said. ‘I can do this by myself’ you said. Then look what happened.”

She scowled. “What happened?”

He pointed at her left hand. “That.”

The wedding ring glinted in the sunlight. “You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous!” his head tipped back and he laughed bitterly. “No. No Katie. Not jealous.” He dropped his face back towards her, eyes burning. “Furious.”

“Please don’t cause a scene. I’m happy now, really, I don’t need you any more.” She swallowed hard, noticing the other people looking at her disapprovingly.

The moment was broken by an inappropriately cheerful melody coming from her hand bag. She hurriedly pulled out the mobile phone and looked at the number displayed on the front.

“Checking up on you is he?”

She took the call, turning away from him.

“Darling, are you alright?” her husband’s voice sounded tinny. “You’ve been gone ages.”

“The shop… ran out of milk,” she lied. “I had to come further into town.”

“Katie, are you ok?”

She shut her eyes, drew in a breath. Her chest was tight. “I’m fine,” she finally answered.

“It’s happening again, isn’t it?”

“No Tom.”

“Don’t lie to me, godammit. I saw the signs. Christ. Where are you?”

Her companion lent across the table. “End the call,” he ordered.

“Katie? Where are you?”

“End the call.”

Shaking, she pressed the button and her husband’s voice cut off.

“Good.” He sat back in the chair. “Now, let’s talk about what you are going to do.”

She turned off the phone before the second call could begin the ring tone, and dropped it back into her bag. “That’s nice of you,” she muttered. “You’re making it sound like I have a choice.”

He pushed the glasses back up his nose. “You do. Leave him now, or later.”

“I don’t want to leave him!” she hissed across the table. The couple at the table next to them were stealing sideways glances at her. She reddened.

“But you know you have to. Otherwise, it will be worse for him and you.”

She massaged her temples, the headache tightening a band around her forehead. “But I love him, and he loves me.”

“Love? Don’t be so childish!” he spat. “You think you can love like they do?”

“Yes!” she felt tears coming and hated herself all the more for it.

The neighbouring couple dropped money on the table and left hastily. She sank in the chair, knowing that others were staring. He merely laughed at them.

She watched him, looking at the people around them with such disdain. Anger like a solar flare erupted in her chest.

“How dare you come back!” She fired at him. “I was doing just fine! Why can’t you leave me alone to live my life!”

“Because you’re not one of them,” he replied calmly, patiently, as if she were a child. “And you never will be. Now I ask you again, will you leave him now? Or let this drag out and become… tiresome?”

“I don’t have to leave him,” she replied fiercely. “I don’t have to do what you tell me any more!”

The mocking amusement on his face dissolved into anger, and his eyes fixed her with such intensity she could almost feel them pressing into her like rapier points. “Yes you do,” he replied, voice measured. “Otherwise it will get very difficult for you. Do I have to remind you how difficult I can make things for you Katie?”

She twisted the handle of her bag nervously, summoning the courage to stand up to him for the first time in her life. “I refuse to let you do this to me again.”

He shook his head sadly. “So be it,” he sighed and touched the table lightly with his index finger.

Its metal legs rattled on the pavement as hundreds of spiders burst up through the wrought iron spirals, spilling out like blood rushing from a wound. She screamed and leapt back, knocking her chair over. Then she was running, tears streaming down her face as she hurtled herself into the crowd, his laughter ricocheting off the buildings.

Faces blurred past her, protests, shoves, people swearing as she careered into them. She fell, pulled her shoes off and then got up to run again, the concrete hot beneath her feet. His laughter echoed all the while as the soft surging sound of a thousand spiders swarmed into the street behind her.

She hit a person that didn’t move aside. Hands grabbed her arms and she struggled, began to scream.

“Katie!” Tom’s voice penetrated her terror and his face came into focus in front of her. He was holding her, shaking her gently. “It’s me, Tom!”

Sobbing, she threw herself into his embrace and felt his arms wrap around her.

“It’s ok, I’m here,” he said softly and for a moment, she felt safer. But then she sensed a presence behind her and twisted to see the man in his tweed jacket walking effortlessly through the crowd as it parted naturally around him.

“Go away!” she screamed at him, but he ignored her.

“Christ,” Tom said, turning her back to face him. “Katie, can you see him again?”

“He’s there!” she gasped, with the voice she had as a child in the night, waking from the terrors.

“No darling, he’s not.” He held her at arms length. “Look at me.” She forced herself to look at her husband, his warm brown eyes. “He’s not there Katie. He’s not real. Now we’re going to go home, and you’re going to take your meds, and we’re going to call the doctor, ok?”

Meds? Yes… the tablets, they would make him go away, how could she have been so careless? She nodded and allowed him to steer her through the crowded street, burying her head in his shoulder as they walked.

“You can’t keep running from me Katie,” a voice called from far behind. “You’re not one of them. You can’t deny what you are forever!”

She squeezed her eyes shut, focused on the scent of Tom’s aftershave. She only opened them again when his arm moved suddenly. He swept something from the back of his neck and onto the pavement. A blood red spider scurried away.

If you liked this story, then I can guarantee you’ll like my short story club. It’s free to join; every month anyone can suggest ideas, I pick my favourite and write a story that only members receive. You can read more about it, what the members have thought about the stories so far and sign up yourself if you wish (would be grand to have you join us!) over at Post-Apocalyptic Publishing. Em x