The Last Interview

The story came to me, quite literally, as I was waiting for the bus: a scrappy sheet of A4 paper just blowing in the breeze.

On an impulse, I grabbed it. I still don’t know why: ordinarily I’m not the sort of person to bother with such things.

At the time, though, I was glad I did; for written on that sheet of paper was the single greatest story I’d ever read: one that we’re all now very familiar with.

Below that story was a message…

It read:

Dear reader,
I don’t know who you are and I know I never will.
If you’ve found my tale and read it, than you have my thanks: honestly, it’s so much more than I ever could have dreamed of.
But if my story touched you in some way… If any part of it made you laugh or cry or be inspired… then I’d like to ask of you one simple request.
That story is a part of me.
No, more than that: it’s everything I am. Keep it safe and keep it close to your heart.
I’ve never really been good at anything, but if this tale can touch just one person than my life won’t have been a total failure.
Treasure it, reader… Because nobody ever treasured me.

With love,
Julie

Her words moved me, so I tried my best to fulfil her wishes. I folded the story in half and placed it in my pocket, and, when I got home, I gave the story its own drawer in my bedroom. I didn’t look at it again for another six months…when I was pulling my room apart looking for some information for a job interview.

I was going through a bit of a rough patch financially… I’d lost my job and was having a great amount of difficulty paying the rent. One week earlier, I’d read in a magazine about a writing competition with a $500 prize: enough to keep me going for a few more weeks. I tried pulling something together but nothing I’d come up with had been any good.

Then I found the story. I read it again and it was still amazing, so I thought about submitting it. At first, I felt disgusting for even considering it: it wasn’t my work, so what right did I have to put it up under my own name?
But I really did need the money… otherwise there was every possibility I’d be out on the street!
It was a difficult decision for me, but eventually I decided to put the story forward.

Well, she wanted her work to inspire people, I reasoned, surely she’d be happy just to see it being read?

I typed it up, gave it a name and submitted it to the contest.

Not long afterwards I got a reply: I’d won the competition by a landslide. Every one of the judges thought my entry was the best one by far. “You’re really going places, kid,” they said. And I’ll tell you what, they were right.

After that, everything was a bit of a blur. That story generated a huge amount of interest in a very short amount of time: I’d never seen anything like it. Everybody wanted to print it, everyone wanted to read it… someone even wanted to shoot a movie about it.

Demand for new work from me was very strong as well. I became a full time author and, even though a lot of what I wrote was utter garbage, even by my own standards, nobody seemed to notice… or care. They just thought it was all some sort of witty social commentary or something. Really, I was just a terrible writer.

Three years later, money was no longer an issue for me. I had a nice house full of nice things with a nice girl to keep me company. I was pretty happy….

Then, the trouble started.

It was little things, at first.

I’d come home to find my stuff had been flung around and broken, despite the fact that everything had been locked up tight and there’d been nobody in the house while I was gone.

Sometimes, I just couldn’t sleep: it’d go on for days. I’d close my eyes and drift off to dreamland only to be snapped back into wakefulness a second later by these creepy howling noises.

When I could sleep, I’d have these terrible nightmares. People screaming at me, the sound of broken glass… intense, awful pain….

I thought I must have been going crazy.
I told my girlfriend about it. She seemed to think it was probably stress.

“You’ve been working so hard lately,” she said.
“Why don’t we go on a vacation?”

I couldn’t think of a good reason not to, so we packed our bags and headed for the coast. We got this lovely little room on the top story of a five star hotel.

It was pretty.

Really pretty: we had the most amazing view of the ocean….

But we weren’t given too long to enjoy it before the trouble started again… even more intense than before.

On the second night, I had a dream… more of a vision really – I don’t think I was asleep…

Anyway, I saw this girl… She had long dark hair, brown eyes, a white nightgown and these horrible gashes on her arms.

She said something to me, but I couldn’t make it out.

When I asked her to repeat herself she cried:
“Listen! Why can’t they ever listen?”

A ghastly chorus of moans filled the room and the walls started leaking blood.

I closed my eyes tightly: told myself it was all a dream…

Eventually, the sounds stopped. I opened my eyes. The blood was gone and the girl was nowhere to be seen.

I didn’t get to sleep that night. My girlfriend awoke the next morning to find me sitting in the lounge room staring pointedly at a blank television set: with dark bags under my eyes and a cold cup of coffee.

She was, understandably, quite disturbed by this and suggested we cut the holiday short. I wish I’d listened.
Instead I assured her that everything was alright…

“This holiday is exactly what I needed.” I said.
“I just had a bit of trouble sleeping last night, that’s all. It takes me a little while to settle in to a new bed.”

I could tell she wasn’t convinced, but she listened to me all the same. Later we went out and had a lovely day at the beach. We went for a walk, had a swim, got some amazing sushi then came back to the hotel. The day was so nice I almost had myself convinced that the night before had just been some dreadful dream.

But as soon as we returned to our hotel room, the trouble started again.

The room went dark. The door behind us locked.

Then, bathed in white light, the girl appeared.

She looked at us for a moment, smiling slightly, then opened her mouth and screamed…

Light rushed back into the room. There was this huge gust of wind – I felt my body being lifted off the ground, hurled towards the window, but luckily, I managed to find something strong to hold onto. I closed my eyes….

After some time, the wind abated. I opened my eyes and surveyed the damage.

Everything that wasn’t bolted down was gone and there was this huge, gaping hole where the window used to be.

The floor of the room was covered in wood chips and broken glass.

Then I realised something…

My girlfriend was missing.

I rushed to the window and looked outside, fearful of what I’d see, but needing to know what happened either way.

Then I saw her..

She was lying dead on the footpath, surrounded by blood, glass and bits of broken furniture.

It was a truly horrific sight: one that will stay with me until they day that I am dead.

The police blamed me for her death, at least initially… especially since I couldn’t really tell them anything about how or why it happened.

Eventually, though, they figured she must have killed herself: there was just no evidence to suggest anything else. My silence was chalked down to emotional stress: seeing a loved one kill themselves in front of you is rarely good for your sanity, after all. Still, a lot of people blamed me all the same.

I wasn’t invited to the funeral. Indeed, her brother told me in no uncertain terms that it would be “unwise” for me to attend.

I didn’t see the ghostly girl again for quite a while, thank god.
Our next meeting was considerably more sedate.

I was lying in bed in my room when the girl appeared to me once more.

“Go away!” I shouted, putting a pillow over my head,
“What do you want from me?”

“You don’t know?” She asked.

Her voice was very strange. It was like listening to a hundred people speaking at the same time from the bottom of a well. I’d never before heard anything like it.

“Get away from me!” I cried, jumping out of the bed.

“You can’t escape me,” she returned, narrowing her eyes.
“Don’t you know who I am?”

I gave no answer, and ran towards the door.

I turned the handle, but it wouldn’t move.

She appears in front of me. I jump back, my eyes darting nervously from side to side – looking for an exit.

“Listen… I’m sorry about your girlfriend. I honestly didn’t mean for that to happen… I just wanted to scare you, that’s all.” She explained,

“Well, you certainly did a fine job of that!” I cried, then, almost in tears:
“Who are you anyway? Why are you doing this to me?”

“My name… was Julie.”

Suddenly, everything came together.
Julie: the girl who catapulted me to fame and fortune.
Julie: the girl whose work I had exploited.
Julie: the girl who died then came back for revenge.

“Julie…” I whispered.

She nodded.

“All I wanted was to get you to notice me,” she continued,
“But, I didn’t know my own strength…”

She looked sad then.

I didn’t really know what to say.

“Look, you can keep my story. You can do with it whatever you will. I’m sorry for your loss. I just came back here to apologize, that’s all. I was selfish and greedy and now you’ll hear no more of me…”

Still, I am silent.

Eventually, I stammered:
“I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to hurt you,”

But she was already gone.

So, that’s why I decided to tell her story. The author’s name was Julia Elizabeth Berring and she wrote the work that made me famous. I know this tale is pretty out there and I don’t expect you to take it seriously right away, but believe me – there’s plenty out there to support my claim. Start with her parents, Adrian and Marissa Berring. They’ll have her pictures and some samples of her work. Everything I’ve said here, you’ll find is true.

As for me, I’m leaving the story telling business. Farewell, and god speed to you all.

With that, the author left the stage: a stunned silence following in his wake.

He was never heard from again.