The Diary Of Pamela D. by greg monks

never have imagined before: the desire to
lash out and hurt someone, to kill something that was monstrous and
evil. She was shaking like a leaf, but managed to keep herself
under control. ‘Get moving! Go! Into the chicken coop! You’re going
to start by cleaning that basket. Then you’re going to fill it, and
if you try anything and you don’t do exactly what I tell you then
I’m going to skewer you like a pig. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME!!!’ Surely
that wasn’t her screaming?
    As they came back to the
house, there was a crowd standing at the back door, wondering what
all the commotion was about. Some of the men were laughing, until
the two got close enough to see. All present became utterly silent
when Pamela said to Albert in a low voice, as he handed the eggs to
Ellie, ‘If you ever try to force yourself on me again, Albert Askrigg,
I’ll-’
    ‘You’ll what ?’ he said belligerently, feeling
bolstered by the presence of the others. ‘What’ll you do? Fire me?’
    ‘She won’t, but I will .’ It was a quiet
voice that made everyone turn around in surprise. It was Theo, who
was standing at the back door, his features unreadable, but there
was something unmistakably dangerous about the way he was standing.
‘Ellie, would you be so kind as to take Pamela to her room? And as
for you, Albert, I think that you and I had better have a little
man-to-man . . . discussion.’
    White-faced, Pamela stood as though dazed.
Didn’t she have a pitchfork in her hand a moment ago? Albert turned
to look at her once, giving her a look of pure, murderous hate.
    ‘I’ll be back for you,’ he said, pointing at
her as though he were a demon invoking a curse upon her life. ‘You
won’t get off so easy next time.’
    At once Pamela felt
physically ill. She fled upstairs to the bathroom and heaved the
contents of her stomach. It took a long while for the aftereffects
of Albert’s intended abuse to surface, and she was sick to her
stomach and weeping for some time before she heard running water.
At last , Ellie or
Doris, or perhaps Mrs. Pascoe, had come to comfort her. She heard
the sound of water being wrung from a cloth and felt its damp
warmth pressed to her lip- and a searing stab of pain!
    At her sudden reaction,
Ellie said, ‘I’m sorry . . . , did that hurt? What am I saying?
Of course it does.
Here, come lie on the bed and I’ll take your shoes off. Mrs. Pascoe
is coming up in a few minutes to sit with you. Dr. Morris is on his
way.’
    Pamela lay in a daze as Ellie tended to her
lip, wiped the perspiration from the girl’s brow. Why was she
feeling so strange, as though she was watching and listening to
everything from the bottom of a well? And- ‘Ellie, what happened to
my lip? Why do I hurt so much? Wh-?’
    ‘Shush, now. Don’t try to
talk. You’re in shock. He beat you up pretty badly- that . . .
that animal !’
    ‘Wha- ow ! What are you talking about? He
just pulled me into the barn, and I . . . I-’
    ‘Oh, my dear! If that’s how
you remember things,’ Ellie said very quietly, as though on the
verge of weeping, ‘then perhaps that’s how you should remember them. Now lay quiet.
Don’t try to talk. Just lie still and we’ll take care of
you.’
    Pamela began feeling very strange: things and
people moved about her, but she couldn’t make sense of them. She
could only stare stupidly at the front of Ellie’s new uniform and
wonder what had happened. Who were these people who kept intruding
on her thoughts like phantom visitations, to stand or sit by her
bed, who ignored her feeble protestations and took off her clothes
and began prying and touching her in places they had no business
to, inspecting her as though her body was no longer her own? One
was a doctor- he told her so several times, as though that mere
fact was supposed to be meaningful to her, but the rest looked like
police men and women. She was sure she was dreaming, even when she
slipped altogether from wakeful somnolence into an even