Chapter 1
Between two worlds life hovers like a star
’Twixt night and morn, upon the horizons verge
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be!
Lord Byron, Don Juan
It’s too late, you have already started reading this, no don’t put it down they know you have seen it. Your only hope of survival is to read it to the end.
I know they have tried to close this sight down, but you must help me to get this out to as many people as possible.
I swear I am not being paranoid they have already tried to kill me once, and as I write this I can feel them coming again. If I am to survive they must be exposed so I have hidden this on line as an E-book, but you must believe me, it all true.
No, you can’t stop reading now it’s too late for you to try and back out they know I mean they really know. It’s not just me being paranoid they really are watching everyone. Please believe me your only chance is to keep reading the more who know about them the better it will be to stop them.
They have been hiding in plain sight for far too long you probably have heard about them, but you have no idea what they are really doing and using your tax money to do it they are connected right up to the top even I do not know who if anyone the answer to if the answer to anyone.
Now I have placed all I know about them in the internet hidden as a work of fiction, so the will not spot it to quickly and it will have a chance to get out into cyber space then of it get disseminated then they will have no way to delete it.
It’s hard to believe how nerve I was on that first day I went up to London to attend an interview for what I thought was to be a six-month summer job, but I think I am getting ahead of myself to make you understand all that is happening I must start at the beginning and I do mean the beginning so much has become clear to me in hindsight but I must start at the true beginning so you will understand and believe me my dear reader. Well to begin with I was born now that opening has been used and to be honest I can’t even say that for sure I know it sound ridicules but there it is.
I do have a birth certificate and it says that my Name is Alice, now I think of it I wonder if that is my real name but it will do in fact I will tell you now that I am not going to use any real names in this account of the last six weeks of my life to be honest I doubt that any one I have met since coming to London has been using their real names so I have no qualms about changing their names for this narrative. Just believe that all else I tell you really happened because I cannot really believe some of the things myself.
Now I have to concentrate, or this narrative will be all over the shop, but I am as scared as I sit typing this on my Dell laptop in a little budget price hotel in the Montréal district of Paris. I am about 40 minutes from the center of the city by Metro and I am certain that they will not think of looking here for at least 24 hours, so I have time to put this all on the internet. I hope! They are searching of that I am certain and if the find me then it’s all over, for me and perhaps the world.
This little room with its retro fitted shower and toilet cubical is not the place I want to end my real life. Now I have to focus or none of this will make sense to you. I said my parents had vanished, No I never said that it is all so confusing, but they did vanish just a week after I left for university it was all supposed to be such a big adventure me starting out into the adult world all on my own but with my parents as back up. There was no other family no aunts or uncles and I should have thought that to be strange but when you grow up in a household like mine it all seemed so ordinary that I never thought to question it until now, until it was too late.
Don’t get me wrong my parents were loving and kind in fact perfect that is to say perfect as if they were working from the god parenting guide. they were always attentive, and birthdays and Christmases were marvelous, but the never kissed of hugged me even when I was small and there were other strange things about my childhood things that at the time seemed quite ordinary to a little girl but as I grow up I found out that not all parents behaved the same as mine.
Now don’t get the wrong idea there was nothing very strange about the things they did but let me give you an example. for as long as I could remember every six months as regular as clockwork they would have a long-printed form to fill in and I would be asked all sorts of things about how I felt what I had been doing and my friends, what I thought of them and what I dreamed. It was only when I was six and asked Jane my best friend at school what she told her mum and dad when they had her complete the six-month survey that she told me her parents never asked her such questions. So being a curious little girl when I got home that evening I asked mum about it. She seemed a little surprised by my question but told me that the people my Father worked for were doing a survey and he had promised to help. Then she offered my favorite tea spaghetti bolognas on toast and I forgot all about it.
That is until the day that both my parents literally disappeared of the face of the earth.
It was on C.B.S. news and all over the internet craze explanations Alien abduction, sea monsters and of course the usual conspiracy theories, I should have paid attention to them.
Their small yacht the lunar rose had been found adrift in the crowded shipping lanes of the English Channel and after almost being run down by a container ship the coast guards had boarded her only to find the cabin empty a meal half eaten and no sign of life, just like that ghost ship the Marie Celeste or so the TV anchorwoman was telling her audience.
I was frantic trying to phone home but getting no reply. What in God’s name was I doing three thousand miles away I Canada when I should be home.
My parents had sent me to study physiology at the prestigious Montréal university in Canada, did you now that the city was named after a district in Paris, neither did I. I had studied French at school because of my romantic interest in the three Musketeers. and had secretly been in love with d’Artangnan since seeing him portrayed by Michel York in that old film form the 70s and so I opted for France in my senior year and thought my self quite proficient that is till I came to the French province of Québec. I was stunned that day last year when out of the blue Mum had surprised me with the scholarship she also told me that I would be staying with a friend of the family’s, so I would not be lonely in a strange country. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to believe all that shit, but I so help me did. Well I had had my heart set on going to a University near home in England, but Canada looked like and adventure and Dad was so keen on me going I relented and agreed. That was the worst decision of my life and I am not talking about being so far from home when tragedy struck.
With my mind in a maelstrom of panic I turned to my roommate with the strange name of Kunochi for help, I still don’t know her first name. Now believe me there is a woman you would never want to meet.
How I ever imagined that the bitch could have ever been my friend I have no idea, I should have known better when I first saw her eyes that day I arrived and the airport, there she was waiting for me with a big cardboard sign with the words ’Hi Alice’ written in black sharpie. Her smile was big and welcoming, but her eyes were like two bits of cold hard flint. I remember her greeting me with a big warm hug just as if I was a long-lost sister and carrying my big over stuffed suitcase out to the car park as if it was full of feathers rather than virtually every article of clothing I possessed.
She had one of those cute little smart cars in shocking pink and as we sped away from the airport she told me all about the University and the delights of the city. As I listened to her talking nonstop I thought that her accent sounded more like a foxy Parisian that laid-back French Canadian and I was to be proved right.
I had expected us to be heading for a low rent suburb I already know that she lived of campus but instead we went straight for the university district and pulled up outside a very expensive looking apartment building. It turned out that Kunoichi had the penthouse, she told me it belonged to her uncle but that turned out to be another lie, something she proved very good at.
Dropping my case in the hallway she gave me a key to the apartment and told me to choose one of the three empty bedrooms, she was going out to get us a takeaway Chinese meal. I was only too pleased to have some time to myself. Traveling British Airways coach class had left me feeling tired and dirty all I wanted was a shower and get into fresh underwear. Well that was my intention, but I had to put me case in a room and get something out, so I went for the first door. As it turned out it was Kunoichi’s room. Well you know us girls can be curios as kittens, so I stole a little look round. There was not much out of the ordinary except for the pictures and weights and two big flashy trophies she was obviously into body building in a big was and I do mean big. I tried lifting one of the smelliest barbells, but it might a wall have been screwed to the floor as far as I was concerned and then there were the pictures, photos of kunoichi wining competitions. I think when woman do this kind of thing that call it body shaping and she was certainly shaped all right. Looking at her posing in her competition bikini you could see there was not a single ounce of fat on her and she had a physic that while still feminine Bruce Lee would have envied. There was also a good luck in your new job card next to them which surprised me as I thought she had to be a student like me. I admit I peeked inside to read the dedication. It was written in small delicate handwriting and read ‘Good luck in your new position Snips love Naga’ and was covered in big pink lipstick kisses. I assumed rightly that Snips was Kunoichi’s nickname I was later to find out the reason for it and which I had not, but I am getting ahead of myself.
By the time she had returned I had dumped my suitcase in a lovely little corner room with a stunning view looking out over a nice little park and I was in the shower washing the memories of traveling from my body , I had forgotten to close the bathroom door and as Kunoichi was putting the meal on the dining table I happened to glance at the mirror on the far wall and saw Kunoichi looking at me with a predatory expression .it was not what you would call carnal but there was something about it that made my blood run cold it was as if she was a farmer admiring a prize cow. I am no lesbian at least I don’t think so, but I wondered was she as I. grabbing a big pink towel and made a dash for my room. By the time a had dressed in clean fresh underwear and my sweats I was feeling better and assumed her look had all be in my imagination, but I promise you I always locked the bathroom door from that day on.
If it’s all right with you I will call her Snips from now on, it’s the way I always think of her, but of course I would never use it in her presence she really is very scary. Thinking back to that first night in a strange city and country. I remember missing my mother and worrying about my first day at university. Well so would you, and Snips was something of an enigma, but it was all smiles that night as I eat with chopsticks for the first time. Snips showed me how while I picked at the prawn balls she dug in downing enough for two. At about midnight I went to bed very tired a little jet lagged and with Snips promise to drive me to enrolment first thing in the morning.
That first day passed in a blur of new faces sights and perhaps even new friends if I was lucky. I found myself late afternoon coming out into the campus car park piled high with new books timetables course guides and so much information that I was wondering if I would ever make sense of it all and especially with the unfamiliar language and was wondering if I had made the right decision excepting that scholarship but dad had been so instant. And as he said even if I never actually practiced psychiatry the degree would open up a lot of career paths for me. He was right of course but this was my first time really out in the big bad world on my own. I know I should have been excited but I was feeling tired a little overwhelmed and very much on my own.
Snips was waiting for me leaning on her little smart car the only friendly face in my new world. It was on the way back to the apartment that I learned that Snips wasn’t a student as I had thought but in fact a visiting lecture. Unsurprisingly with the athletics department, I would have been amazed if you had told me she was attached to the philosophy department but what she was teaching was a came as a complete surprise to me.
Snips told me on that happy drive to my new home that she was over here to teach Krav Maga I remember looking at her blankly wondering if it was some kind of ethnic cuisine she laughed fit to burst and told me that Krav Maga was an Israeli military stile of hand to hand combat, in fact it is a vicious form if street fighting that gives no quarter and used by elite forces worldwide. Unsurprisingly Snips was a black belt instructor but the only use a practitioner would have for a black belt would be to throttle there enemy. Looking back on it I wish I had signed up for some classes, you really must.
That night after another take out meal I phoned my mum completely forgetting about the time difference, but she was so pleased to hear my voice and happy that I was settling in with Snips that after talking to her everything seemed better and I sleep well from then on.
Snips was no cook and I was so in fact the domestic arts seemed to have escaped her entirely in fact if the apartment had not come with housekeeping I don’t know what would have happened. I tried cooking once but I was so tired after a day and university that I managed to burn the spaghetti and after that I let Snips just order takeout’s every night. I never realized that there were so many international foods available in the city but we must have tried them all. In my defense I was a student and away from home for the first time so who would have expected anything other than cold baked beans and toast typical student food.
Fortunately, Snips did not interrupt my studying in fact all she seemed to want to do was work out with those bar bells of hers. I used to plug my I pod into my ears a high volume just so I did not have to hear the metronome like clanking as she exercised I think for a forthcoming competition.
It was on a rainy evening about two months after the start of the semester that I looked up from a particularly tedious book I had to read and first noticed that tattoo. It was on her upper left arm and I tried scrumptiously to get a look at it, you know how curious I am, but truthfully I had been expecting to see something flowery or a blue bird but I saw that it was a playing card. Not one of the court cards as you would have expected or even the ace of spades which I would have understood because of that AC DC song my father listened to when her was trying to recapture his youth, no it was the five of clubs. now I know this must have some personal significance for her but I was too afraid to ask and as it turned out she would not have told me. It would have been too frightening.
Now I don’t want you running away with the idea that I was trapped in that apartment with just Snips for company. As the year went on I made new friends and started going out with them but most times Snips wanted to come along I thought that she was lonely so I let her tag along, now I know far better about her true motivation, but to give her, her due she was good company if a little scary and as she said “All study and no play makes Jill a dull geek” We went clubbing, bowling and even to the ice hockey. Now this was a sport that Snips introduced me to she had two season tickets right down by the ice. “The better” she joked”” to see the blood” but I don’t think she was joking in the least; there was a definite lust for violence in her eyes as she watched and cheered every extreme tackle. Me I just liked watching the hunks who played and having carnal thought about them.
Now thinking about ice hockey I must tell you about an incident that happened about three months before my parents disappeared.
I was in the cafeteria getting a salad, Snips endless take outs can really put the inches on a girl if she is not careful. That was the day that I started to see things as the really were. There was this boy perhaps two years older than me god looking if you like that type and on a hockey scholarship you know the kind they think they have the world by the tail easy time a university as long as they keep winning.
Well his luck changed, they said it was a motorcycle accident two broken arms and a shattered jaw he was in hospital for six weeks and in recovery for a year, lost his scholarship and everything all because he asked me for a dance.
I’ll tell you what happened but please don’t tell anyone else, I feel as guilty as it is. I can still remember that night so clearly even though I had had a little too much to drink. We were in that new club on the strip you know the one. Some of the girls from the humanities were out to celebrate Jennies birthday. Personally I did not think we would get in but Snips who to my consternation had had found a people carrier from somewhere and volunteered to be our designated driver for the night, said she knew the owner and to my surprise and I think to the rest of the girls she just breezed us by the velvet rope and with a smile to the two lady bouncers took us in and deposited up and one of the best tables. Before we could even order any drinks a waiter appeared with a magnum of mega expensive crystal Champaign on the house which thrilled Jennie and we all sang happy birthday, it looked like being a memorable night, how right I was.
It was all too easy, and I should have suspected but honestly how could I know what was behind that club and others like it, if I told you know you would never believe me I promise you.
That was also the first time I had heard Snipes referred to by her nick name but at that moment I was too distracted by the music light show and the scattering of ‘A’ list celebrities out on the crowded dance floor to really register it.
To be honest with you I was feeling a little out of place with all these beautiful people, but Snips was having a great time throwing her shapes out on the dance floor, but I noticed that when any man came up to her and tried to join in she just gave them THE LOOK and they backed off, it wasn’t that there weren’t lots of beautiful creatures out there. It was then that I noticed John the star of our university hockey team and his friends. I wounded who had let them in they weren’t rich or famous so I assumed they also must know someone like we did.
It must have been about eleven o’clock when the bad things started to happen. I had been drinking white wine and was taking a short brake at the table on my own. I had been dancing in heals and my feet were really starting to complain. I noted that some of the other girls were dancing with team members when John came over to our table. He must have been drinking heavily all evening because he was none to steady on his feet and his breath stank of whisky.
Leaning into my face so close that I could actually taste the cheap spirits on his breath he demanded “dance”. Just the one word and he was pulling me up by the arm. Angrily jerking out of his grip I stood squarely on my feet in front of him and snapped a very firm “NO thank you”
As everyone was dancing I was alone at the table and feeling strangely vulnerable and a little dizzy from the wine, I just wanted him to leave me alone you know how it is, and I knew he had a bad reputation with girls so I wanted nothing to do with him.
What he said next really shocked me. It may have been the drink speaking or had he seen something in me because he demanded “are you fucking gay”.
His leering face to on a decidedly vicious grin, “we all know about you and Miss high and mighty Kunoichi, only like doing it with her do you”
That was enough I slapped his face hard enough to leave a vicious red welt and remembering the good book told him to go forth and multiply but I don’t think I use quite those words. Realizing everyone nearby had stopped dancing to look at us I felt my face turning bright crimson with embarrassment and headed for the woman’s rest room as fast as my fading dignity would allow me. This was turning into the worst night of my life and I realized that he had been one of those who had tried unsuccessfully to dance with Snips.
The last thing I heard as I pulled the restroom door closed behind me was John calling out “Just you wait till I tell all your class about the real your tomorrow.” And he started laughing. That was it and I remember how the tears came to my eyes as I lent on the wash stand. At that moment I just wanted to find a hole and crawl into it so I could disappear.
I’m not sure how long I’d been standing there weeping when I heard the door open there was a burst of load music from the dance floor then I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.
Looking up through my tears at the mirror I saw Snips sympathetic face over my shoulder. After a moment she asked me what was wrong. I tried to say it was nothing but my tears betrayed me and I found me self-blurting out all john had said.
That look of sympathy vanished the moment I mentioned him accusing us of sleeping together. it was as if shutters had come down over her eyes and she was no longer listening to me but conducting some inner monologue with herself. It only lasted for a few moments then it was like a switch had been flicked and she was back with me telling me not to worry she would take care of everything and that I was to dry my eyes fix my markup what little of it I was warring and go back to my friends. Almost as an afterthought she said I must not spoil Jennie’s birthday by saying anything about this. I just nodded as she left but I did hear her telling me that she would have to have a quiet word with him.
When I had recovered my composure I did go back to the birthday table only to find the girls with another complementary magnum of Champaign all smiles and laughter. I settled m self and decided that for the first time in my life I was going to get drunk and taking an offered glass downed it in one. By the third galls which was only about 5 minutes later I noticed that nether Snipes or John were anywhere in sight but you know something t, that Champaign was working as the best emotional anesthetic in the world.
Twenty, twenty hindsight is a marvelous thing and I seem to have been blessed with it in abundance. so many things are clear to me now that I am amazed that it was not obvious to me at the time, but that is the beauty of hindsight you can always see what was really happening but you were to much caught up in the moment to see all the manipulations and machinations that were revolving around you all the time that you had no time to think clearly about events. The only drawback with hindsight is that by the time you have figured things out to your satisfaction events have moved on so fast and so decisively that you find your self-trapped and your life really screwed up.
These thoughts were not on my mind when I awoke the next morning in fact the only thing on my mind was a thumping headache ,as if a herd of ponies were galloping around in my head trying to get out , a terrific hangover and the determination that I was never going to touch alcohol again for as long as I lived .Well you know perhaps just one or two glasses of white wine just to be sociable, but believe me I was still thinking of taking the pledge as I crawled out of bed and staged into the kitchen looking for water.
Snips was there already dressed and dropping frozen pop tarts into the toaster, seeing me staggering out of my room like a zombie she cheerfully asked me if I was hungry and if she could fix me some nice runny eggs and a plate of good fatty Canadian bacon. This was the first time a saw Snipes malicious side, it was not to be the last.
At that moment the thought of food especially greasy food was more than my stomach could stand and putting my hand over my mouth I just managed to get to the bathroom in time.
After a good five minutes spent talking to God on the great white telephone I felt just about able to stand wash my mouth out and stager back into the living room. I was looking for black coffee I have to admit I’m a bear in the morning till I get my first cup. Snips was standing there a half-eaten pop tart in one hand and a glass of something orange and fizzy in the other which she offered to me saying it was a family hangover cure and would put me right. Well at that point I would have gratefully drunk a glass of sparkling hemlock and I downed it in one go.
Surprisingly it did not taste that bad in fact it was rather good and do you know my stomach started to settle almost immediately.
“you should patent this “I told Snips as I sat down on one of the dining chairs, she just grinned and pointing to the clock reminding me I had a nine thirty lecture to attend. I remember shaking my head to say no, not a good idea with a monster hangover despite Snips miracle drink. But she was insistent telling me I would feel better for a shower and that I still smelt of alcohol not a very nice reminder on her part.
Memories of the earlier part of the evening were coming back although the later part was a complete blank I did not even know how I had got back to the apartment, but I had one very vivid memory of last night’s disaster.
Looking Snips directly in the eye I summoned up the courage and asked.” What will that little prick say about me today “. I know it would be humiliating to be the center of gossip and at that moment I just wanted to go back to bed and curl up into a small ball and shut the world out forever.
Snips smiled and coming over to me put her arms around me and said in a genital voice “don’t worry he promised me he would say nothing “
Pulling away I asked, “how can you be so certain, you know what boys are like”
“That I do” she said with an enigmatic smile. It was the kind of smile you would expect form a tiger I found it rather unnerving and not for the first time I found myself wondering about Snips.
That evening I got back to the apartment in after better mood. Not only had my hangover completely gone but no one had even mentioned John’s outburst at the club. At least I was not to only student felling very fragile that morning. In fact, I was very popular on account of Snips getting us into such an exclusive club in the first place. I must tell you though that until lunch time I had been as nervous as hen that has just spied a fox circling the hen coop but then I the cafeteria I had been told about john’s terrible accident on his motorbike and that he would be in hospital for weeks if not month. I am a little ashamed to admit to thinking that it served him right, but now with that hindsight I told you about I realize that his injuries must have been the result of Snips having a little word with him that night. I did not think of it at the time because she hadn’t a mark on her that I saw and he a big strapping ice hockey player had been bittern to a pulp, I told you how scary she could be well she must have put the fear of God into him for him to stick to that ridicules story about falling of a motorbike and not filing a complaint with the police or the university authorities .if I hadn’t been so worried or embarrassed about that night I think I would have realized what must have happened to him sooner especially as he did not even own a motorbike . But as I have said hindsight I something I am vastly gifted with.
That evening snips had gone out to get a takeaway as usual that night I think it had been chicken madras, she really loved her curry’s and I decided to call my mother in England I knew it would be late there but I needed to speak to her. Of course I had no intention of telling her what had happened as far as she know I did not touch strong licker and I did not want her to worry about me being let lose in a foreign country, and getting drunk in clubs but I did need to talk to someone about my feelings stemming from that encounter in the club and what had been said by that little rat.
You know how it is when you are majoring in psychology you get all these silly notions in your head and it usually takes about three years in the real world to get you mind really together. The suggestion that I might be gay was so ridicules it was laughable but I was now unsure about my feelings and I desperately wanted to speak to a good friend of my mother’s Ms. Rinegold.
Now that I think of it I haven’t told you yet about Ms. Rinegold or for that matter Sally Iron Tooth and they are important to that story.
Now let me ask you if you ever had an imaginary friend when you were little, common you can tell me. Well I did her name was Sally Iron Tooth, and to a lonely little only child she was my best friend. I know you are asking where that strange name came from well I really have no idea myself but in my defense I was only three at the time and it just seemed to be the name she was comfortable with.
Looking back, she seemed so real to me then my parents never encouraged me to have friends outside of the home, I think they were very protective of me, it’s been that way all my life I thought it was done out of love and concern the world can be a dangers place for children you only have to look at the newspapers or TV to know that but it still meant I was lonely as a little girl. looking back with the twenty, twenty hindsight I relish that was my isolation had nothing to do with concern for my welfare but how could anyone ever have guessed the truth even now I find it difficult to believe myself.
Thinking about it Ms. Rinegold must have come into my life about the same time as Sally Iron Tooth. I remember the first day Mum introduced us Ms. Rinegold was to my eyes very tall and slim with long dark hair and piercing blue eyes that seemed to see right through you into your inner being. She had this funny accent to and mum told me that she had come from a place called East Germany when the wall had fallen. Now to a three-year-old who knew nothing of the fall of communism I naturally thought the wall was around her garden just like ours and I told her very seriously that I hope that her father would be able to mend it for her.
I remember her laughing about that and telling me that she was certain her father would take care of it. She seemed so kind back then and mum and she were great friends or so it seemed.
Now that I am writing this I has just occurred to me that it must have been for her that mum was writing those mysterious reports about me. Now I know who they were really for, but there I go again getting ahead of myself.
Ms. Rinegold became a frequent visitor to our house and I was always so pleased to see her. the thing is that unlike most adults she never spoke down to a little girl like me in fact I think she became my only friend, apart from Sally Iron Tooth of course. I loved the way that she was so willing to join in with my games. I remember one day when she turned up to see mum how when she found me playing with my toy tea set she got down on the floor and joined in. I had set places on the carpet for me and Sally.
Now here’s the strange thing As you know to children there imaginary friends can seem very real and I was about to introduce Sally to Ms. Rinegold but before I could say anything she picked up a little plastic plate and pretended to offer Sally a little invisible sandwich .Now I can remember asking her if she could see Sally my parents were tolerant of my invisible friend but they never said they could see her, but Ms. Rinegold could always see her just as if she was a real playmate of mine and we found ourselves playing this game whenever she came to visit.
I think I was five years old when I was told that Ms. Rinegold was something called a Psychologist and according to dad a famous one, but I did not know what this meant and just though she was a head doctor and that if my head was ever hurt she would look after me.
I saw less of her after I started school and Sally Iron Tooth faded from my life. But here’s the thing as I grew up and became aware of what she did for a living I started to become interested in Physiatrist especially that Christmas when I was twelve and she gave me a book called adventures in physiology about the lives of the early pioneers in this field and that really caught my imagination so after that whenever I was asked by my teachers what I wanted to be when I was older I used to say proudly that I wanted to be a physiatrist just like she was... This always knew smiles but that just made me more determined.
It was her who arranged this scholarship for me to pursue my dream of being just like her and that first day at university I felt so happy, if only I had known what a nightmare I had stepped into I think I have run for my life but unknown to me then there was already nowhere for me to run.
