'Who's that coming over the hill. Is it a monster, is it a monster?' by Elisa Hill

She sighed. Had she brought this on herself? If only twenty-six years ago she had just told Mac, it wouldn't have reared its ugly head now; but, at the time, it had not seemed real. Why, why , why hadn't she just told him the next day?
Was it her fault? She had trusted his friend. Everyone did. Was she just naive? That's true - in those days she thought the best of everyone. That sort of thing happened to ‘sluts’ and women who ‘led men on’. It was an age when men were regarded as overgrown boys, with no responsibility for their own actions. “She asked for it" was commonly whispered behind closed doors.
Thank goodness attitudes have changed. A few minutes out of her life had altered it beyond reason. Looking back it would have been so easy just to tell Mac. He would have been upset obviously, but it would have saved her years of aggravation, loss of her friends and years of silent, menacing phone calls. At the time she had just wanted to forget it ever happened and at times she even doubted it had happened. Was it really what it seemed? She hadn't thought it was until now. Was it just as he had said. Just a bit " rough". He had been like that with many women and was rather proud of the fact!
Why hadn't she told Mac the next morning?
Mac’s best friend - the stalker. She finally admitted it to herself A man even despised by his own children. They just about tolerated his presence. Most of the time they pretended to be out when he called. She should be glad at that, but she felt so sorry for the children, who she had grown to love,. All the kids had grown up together and his and her girls were now best friends.
What a mess! She would have to ring Mac and tell him the what his ‘ex-best friend’ was now saying. She couldn't face it, yet she wanted to get over the shock of her daughter’s question. Why now after all these years? Her daughter had begged her not to ring the "monster" but she had and when she asked him, "Why after all these years?” He had no answer of course. Never did.
Now she could see plainly that some recent events had been staged to try and control and manipulate her. He would always protest innocence. He had found out the places she went and would ‘appear’ there supposedly quite innocently.
She had made new friends apart from the group of friends they had all been part of when in their twenties. Of course I suppose he asks around in the old group and someone must innocently tell him what I’m up too. He gave the impression outwardly of an easy-going, friendly man just asking about old friends. I suppose the only way to stop that would be to never talk to any of them again. But Mac still did. Just impossible to stop him finding out about her and her life.
Again it just goes back to the time, years ago, when she should have told the truth. None of this would have happened if she had. But afterwards he acted as if nothing had happened. He still came round acting like everyone's best friend. She would not answer the door if she knew it was him or ever be alone with him. So he would turn up with the kids when Mac was there. Her silence had meant she had had to sit across the room from this "monster", still be friends with his wife and babysit his kids.
Then she and Mac had split up, his suspicions of her behaviour around HIM, convincing Mac that there was an affair, which surprisingly he found difficult to forgive. She could have told the truth then, but by then everything seemed so pointless, there was no fight left in her. Maybe in a twisted way she blamed Mac for not protecting her? Crazy, she was a feminist! women didn’t need to be "protected " anymore.
Obsession is a scary thing for everyone, but for the person being obsessed about doubly so. She never felt safe in her house any more. Unexpected noises made her jump. Always she had her phone with her. Always she looked behind her when she was outside. She never felt at ease. She was always suspicious of others’ motives when they were just trying to be friends. She had isolated herself with her children and, even though they were grown up now and had left home, she still kept to herself. She had ventured out a few years ago and made some friends but he had inveigled his way in and had turned her friends against her. She would not trust anyone again. It was just too risky.
Now she isolated herself he tried a new way of getting back at her. He had told her new friends this latest lie. Something he had been telling their old friends for years. "Her daughter’s really mine." He knew it wasn't true: she had told him enough times. But truth was irrelevant to him, it had been a means to separate her from her friends for years and now it was being used to separate her from her family.
"Is Steve my dad? " her daughter had asked. She denied it of course, immediately, and tried to explain how this lie had been told for years. But it was out there, that question, never being forgotten, there to condemn her, like a worm in peoples minds, working away, eating away at all she loved and cared about.
That was it of course! Twenty-six years ago she had kept silent to protect herself and her husband. She still had trouble thinking of those few minutes. Something that had been so personal, so loving, when shared with the man she loved, had been used by him as nothing more than a bodily function. She had felt de-humanised, just a piece of flesh. It had seemed unreal, like a movie happening to her body, with out her brain being involved, as if she had watched it from above, like people say happens in a ‘near death’ experience. She was frozen, her body was not her own.
Now she was being forced into uttering the words she had never spoken to another human being. She had tried to put them out of her mind over the years but they just surfaced as distrust and fear of others. “Well, at least this is the last of it, nothing else can ever be taken from me by him.” No more, she had wasted enough of her life being scared. No more, not one single second of her life would be controlled by those few minutes twenty six years ago .She was not to be defined by what he had forced on her, her life was her own, to make her own choices. She slowly and reluctantly picked up the phone,
"Mac, its me, please keep calm, this is going to be really hard for me, I want to tell you about something that happened years ago ................"
Who's that coming over the hill. Is it a monster, is it a monster?