S is for Stranger: the gripping psychological thriller you don’t want to miss!

‘We’re just coming back.’

A rough, low, muffled female voice filled the phone.

‘Happy birthday, Sophie.’ A pause. ‘Your turn.’

‘Who is this?’ I managed to blurt out, my heart pounding furiously. I could hear someone else calling out my name and then, the call went dead.

The voice. So familiar.

Blood rushed to my ears, my heart hammering my chest.

I looked over to the stall to check on Amy and dropped my mobile to the ground, my eyes fixed on the spot where she had just been standing.

She was gone.

A deathly chill passed over my body, my heart dropped into my stomach. Half a beat later, I snapped out of it and quickly retrieved my phone off the ground. I moved erratically from one side of the stalls to the other, my eyes desperately scanning the crowds.

‘Did you see where that little girl went?’ I asked the candyfloss seller.

‘Huh?’ The overweight man squinted at me through his spectacles.

‘The little girl who just asked you for candyfloss. Did you just sell candyfloss to a girl about this high?’ I showed him. ‘Auburn hair?’

He shrugged his shoulders and called over me to the next customer. I whipped around. Droplets of sweat formed on my upper lip. I clasped my throat; dry as parchment paper.

‘Amy!’ I called out, my voice drowning in the hubbub of the fair.

I attempted to control my shaking hand as I scrolled through the phone menu looking for Paul’s name. It went straight through to voicemail. I tried again. My eyes darted left and right searching for any sign of Amy’s pink duffle coat or strawberry blonde hair. She had vanished. I prayed to god she had found her way back to her father. It didn’t seem possible: I had taken my eyes off her for less than thirty seconds. I wanted to scream at the woman staring at me as she passed by with a pushchair and her young son hanging onto the handle, I wanted to shout at the man who had just dug his elbow into his friend’s side and nodded in my direction. They both walked off laughing. Thirty seconds. Where had she gone in thirty seconds?

Paul eventually picked up.

‘Sophie?’

‘I can’t find her, I can’t find Amy,’ I shouted over the mounting noise. ‘Is she with you?’ A moan escaped my throat. I pushed the phone up against my ear in an effort to drown out the arcade games and music.

‘What do you mean you can’t find her?’

‘She was here,’ I said. ‘Oh god, oh god …’ My face crumpled. Large tears landed on my lips, I licked them away and wiped my nose on the back of my sleeve. ‘Where are you?’

‘At home,’ he answered.

‘Home?’ I shouted. How much time had passed? My mind felt a familiar fuzziness, the same sensation warning me of the onset of a panic attack. My body telling me I was in danger. ‘What are you doing there?’

‘Where are you?’

‘What do you mean, where am I?’ I shouted, throwing my free arm into the air. ‘I thought I was with you! At the fairground!’

The phone line went silent.

‘Sophie, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wasn’t at a fairground with you today.’

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