by Ayre, Mark
For a moment he thought they had broken free of the woods, but this was illusion, created by an open space filled with moonlight. Blissful and bright as the sun after the dark of the trees.
To his right, he could see the actual exit to the woods. Through the last clump of trees, he could see concrete, cars and houses waiting for him.
The temptation was to run for that road, casting the woods off like a coat on a sweltering day, and perhaps he would have, if not for the structure which lay ahead, slap bang in the middle of the clearing.
It demanded attention, if only because it was so unusual. Especially for a city dweller, so used to cars driven by aspiring Grand Prix racers, sprawling towers housing thousands of residents like chickens in a battery farm, and people everywhere you stepped, everywhere you looked. Next to that the quiet, calm of the village was stark enough contrast, and this was something else again.
“Cool, huh?” Mark said, stepping past him. “Kids call it The Witches House, The Shack, or the Ghost’s Shed. We all heard plenty of stories in our youth. All fake, but fun. It was a right of passage to go exploring. Alone.”
James could believe it. The building - house was maybe too grand a word; shack about did it justice - was constructed of wood and pieces of dirty glass. It was large, considering it stood alone in the woods. James guessed a couple of bedrooms on the first floor. The front door was covered with moss and weeds, as though the building was infested by a plant monster which had blocked it off, seeking privacy. James saw the plant in Little Shop of Horrors and felt the tremors of terror he had watching it as a kid.
“He’s in there.”
Because how could he not be? How could a village have such a structure and not have it as the resolution to every bad thing that happened? Still, Mark glared at him.
“See through walls, can you?”
James guessed that needed no answer.
“I don’t care how afraid he was of some attacker,” Mark continued. “No way an eight-year-old is brave enough to go in there. Well, not Charlie, anyway.”
Still, Mark circled the building to the back, tapping the frame of a glassless window.
“Was always this one,” he said. “In my day it was, anyway.”
He stepped back, judging the height. It would be a clamber job for an eight-year-old, but not impossible. James looked into the gloom of the room beyond and felt a shiver tap dance up his spine.
“We should still check.”
“Maybe,” Mark said, not convinced. He poked his head through the window and called: “Charlie? Hey, Charlie, you in there? It’s your uncle, Mark. Mate, if you’re there give me a call and I’ll come get you.”
They listened, straining for the slightest movement or cry. For once the demons of James’ mind fell silent, giving him this chance to hear the boy. To bring Charlie home. But -
“Nothing,” Mark said. “Told you. No way he’s crawling in there. Too scary.”
James still had reservations. The shout test was a good starting point, but what if Charlie couldn’t hear? What if he was asleep.
Or worse.
He remembered a scream that rang through an entire forest.
Toby. Toby. Tooobbyyyy
People heard the cry a mile away, but someone far closer did not. Someone in no position to listen to anything.
Before James could raise his concern, a jingle leapt from Mark’s pocket, calling to them. Mark took one last glance into the shack, then lifted the phone to his ear, walking away as he answered.
Left alone James couldn’t help but notice the shack was alive. Had to be, because the two upstairs windows, cracked and stained with copious amounts of dirt, were eyes, and the pointed wooden roof a witches hat.
He took a step back, but it did no good. The whole structure seemed to lean toward him. He stopped, sure another couple of steps would tip the building too far, and it would collapse, burying him in cursed wood.
“I‘ve got to go.”
James jumped as Mark’s voice invaded images of him clambering through splinters and glass, the fallen building becoming a hand around him, dragging him into the Earth. He fought to compose himself.
“What?”
“Mum wants me back. Family meeting. Maybe they’ve found him.”
Mark didn’t sound sure, and James certainly wasn’t. Surely, she would have told him.
“You’ve done enough,” Mark said, patting James on the shoulder. “Go home, get some sleep. It’ll all be right by morning, one way or another.”
“Sure,” James said, mind still ticking over. “I’m pretty tired.”
Mark thanked him for everything and gave another patronising pat on the shoulder. James watched as he departed through that last line of trees and into freedom, thought about bed, and lasagne. He wasn’t hungry but knew he should be. He hadn’t eaten since not long after midday. Over 12 hours ago, now.
Everything would be right by morning. The Barneses would find Charlie, and that was right. He was family. They were his guardians.
Everything would be okay. But -
My boy. My boy.
How quickly things turned. How fast they changed. A five-minute delay could be the difference between life and death and, after all, James really wasn’t so tired.
Running feet. Giggling.
Catch me catch me. I’m the good guy you’re the bad.
The house loomed over him, watching, waiting. He faced the window Mark had called through. Looking into the gloom.
Still undecided whether he should proceed, he found himself dragged towards the window as though on string. He perched on the empty frame and lifted his leg over the edge.
This was pointless. This was doing no good.
But wasn’t it better safe than sorry?
Another leg over, his head stooped. Then he was inside, rising in what might once have been a kitchen but was now a gutted, dead space. Bare surfaces stood opposite, cupboards open to the world, their doors lying smashed and scattered across the floor. There were empty spaces beneath counters where the white goods might have stood - not that James could believe anyone had lived here since such appliances were invented.
In the low light, the kitchen floor looked like a mountain range viewed from above. The contours of shattered doors and cupboards, dining chairs and lamps rose and fell across the landscape of the room’s base. He had to bend low to make most of this out, to defend against his hyperactive imagination’s insistence he was walking over body parts.
Treading with the care of a soldier through a minefield, James made his way across the kitchen. Stepping in clear space where he could, nudging debris aside where he couldn’t, all the time advancing toward the door which hung half off its hinges, revealing part of the hallway beyond.
At the threshold between kitchen and hall, he paused. The moonlight allowed into the clearing broke easily through the empty frame, showering the kitchen in its glow. But beyond the doorway in which James now stood there were no windows. Only the front door, so covered with moss and weeds that almost no light could break through. To step into the hall was to step from light to dark, and this for someone who still slept with a nightlight.
Opening his mouth to call to Charlie he found no words available. This was part dry throat and part psychological. The petrified cowboy of his mind lassoing his words, pulling them back and screaming at James for his crazy, monster drawing actions.
But why shout anyway? Mark had already tried that so if Charlie was here, he couldn’t hear, and James would have to do things the hard way.
He stepped into the hallway.
Beneath his foot, the floorboard creaked, then cracked. Ahead of him were shapes, though none of them moving. James tried to take comfort from this and failed. Remembered a horror maze he had gone in a couple of Halloweens back. There had been shapes there too, and they hadn’t moved.
Not until you walked past them.
The sound of his screams from that night ringing in his mind, James took another step
.
Another creak. Another crack.
To his left were the stairs. Wooden, with slight hints of where a carpet may once have lain. To his right was the moss covered entrance and straight ahead another door hanging off its hinges, leading into the front room.
Another step. Creak. Crack. One hand on the door frame, touching it as lightly as though it was a horn he was afraid to set off. He leaned in, scoping out the room for trouble.
Like the front door, the window in here was covered in grime and weeds. But with a larger area to cover they had failed to take such a strong hold, allowing moonlight to creep into the room. There was little for it to light. A single table leg in one corner. A metal bar a few feet away. Nothing else. Certainly no child.
In case the metal bar sprung to life and dived at him, he retreated into the hall. Putting his back to the front door, he stared up the stairs, then to their right, where two more doors led off another darkened hall.
The first of these might once have been a small dining area, but was now as dead and empty as the living room. He ducked in and ducked out fast. Went for the final door along the corridor and swung it open.
Against one wall was a body.
James repressed a scream, stumbled, and almost fell onto his back.
Heart pounding he gripped the edge of the stairs and breathed deep, allowed his mind to process what he had seen. Poked his head back into the room.
It was - or had once been, the toilet. The window in here was tiny and covered, meaning the room was almost entirely black. At the back of the little room was the shape, keeled to one side like a kneeling drunk who has fallen against the wall. Even once James worked out this was not a body, it took a long time to believe it was only the toilet, some time ago snapped out of place and kicked aside.
A minute spent in that cramped, damp room was ten minutes too long, and James stumbled out so fast he almost fell again.
He returned to the foot of the stairs.
The darkness above each bare step seemed to shimmer, as though a porthole to another world might hover there. He wished Mark hadn’t gone. He wished he’d never come into this place.
He was terrified of treading upstairs, but it was too late for second thoughts. He was condemned to continue until every room was searched because if he left even one, the boy would be in there.
Somehow he found the strength to lift his foot. Like dragging a weight so heavy, he was sure it must plummet straight through the first step. Instead, it landed with a thump and nothing more. Not even the creak he was sure he could expect.
He took another step and another. Each time his foot landed, a little of the excess weight dropped away, making every move a little easier, a little freer. Though the fear never dimmed.
Days might have passed before he reached the top. Before both feet were on the same level and he was facing down the barrel of another hallway. He’d never be sure. All sense of time had been checked in at the door. Or the window.
The corridor ahead was narrow, with an ancient, fading carpet stapled to it. To the right was a frail bannister over which he could see the corridor leading to the downstairs toilet. Past this were two doors, both closed. Behind him was a third door, this one close enough that, if a gnarled hand bust through and grabbed him, he would have little time to react to it dragging him into its lair.
With trembling hand he reached for the knob of this third door, standing with such arrogance before him. Strong and tall and affixed in a house of it's broken and shattered brothers. Knowing it had the mental beating of him.
Wanting this door to know he was no pushover, he clasped the cold metal of the knob.
Too cold.
Fear had made him hot, and the opposite temperature of the handle made him jump, though he refused to let go.
Assuring himself - lying to himself - he had the capacity for bravery, he turned the handle. This did creak and groan in protest as the door held steady, grabbing the floor and scraping as he forced it open.
The first thing he noticed was the empty frame of a window. The curled branches of the black trees might have scared him, but they didn’t. Somehow seeing the outside world calmed him. Made him realise this house was not some eternal building from which there was no escape. The outside was never more than metres away.
The fresh air helped, making him feel cleaner, healthier, and repelling the horror movie vibes that had engulfed him.
He stepped into the room.
It was almost bare, as per standard shack decor. In one corner lay a mattress James would not have felt comfortable sleeping on, and the floor was littered with numerous items. Some which must have been there years and some - stamped out cigarettes, crushed beer cans, used and unused condoms - more recent. Beyond these there was nothing.
Except… He examined the mattress more closely, thinking in any other room he might not have noticed anything, but in here…
It was the smashed window that did it, allowing in plenty of moonlight. The place was cast in an eerie glow. The mattress lit in a devil’s spotlight. Not just the mattress, though.
James approached, stopping with the toes of his shoes an inch from touching the disgusting thing.
He had not been mistaken. There was an item lying on the mattress. An envelope, by the looks.
His heart pounded as he stared at it, his neck straining as he refused to lean forward but tried to take in more of the fresh looking paper. Perhaps he would have left it. He wanted to leave it, but couldn’t, because of what it said on the front.
Knowing he couldn’t turn away, he snatched the letter as fast as if swiping eggs from under a mother bird. He stumbled back, hands shaking, reading the words he had thought he saw from afar and realising he had not been mistaken.
The Barneses
Forever he stared at those letters, reading them again and again under the glare of a moon that was at the greatest height it would achieve. He traced the words like a monk trying to learn scripture by heart. Watched them as though they might slide off the page to be replaced by something he could allow himself to walk away from.
No such miracle was on God’s agenda.
Accepting this, James turned the envelope, examining the back. It was plain, as one might expect an envelope to be. There was only the flap, which had been stuck, maybe with glue, more likely by the tongue of whoever had written on the front.
He studied the back for as long as he had the front. Until, working in open rebellion of his conscious mind, he lifted a finger and ran it along the fold, tracing it until he found a small bubble under which he could slip a fingernail.
Holding there, he prepared to lift. Tearing it open and -
Stop.
His conscious mind wrested control of the situation and scolded him. Was he a Barnes? Was this letter addressed to him?
No, on both counts. It was not his to open. However much it tempted him.
His finger remained under that bubble, the letter held aloft, even as his arm began to hurt.
His mind turned to Charlie. That missing boy. He was gone and, currently, James was the only one looking for him. If this letter might have anything to do with it then -
He looked down with a start, jumping a little and almost dropping the message. Lost in thought, his rogue finger had slipped further beneath the bubble and now the flap, held with little strength to begin with, had surrendered under the pressure of his encroaching nail.
He watched as it folded outwards, floating away from his thumb and into an upright position, revealing the top of the letter beneath.
Resistance crumbled. He’d always been weak. Hadn’t his mother been so quick to tell him, and so often? There was no hope of stopping what his unwatched thumb had begun. It continued its mission, this time with the help of a finger. The letter was clutched and a moment later slid free of the envelope.
Something inside begged him to stop, but it was too late. He unfolded the single sheet and read the few words below, his breath catching as he did, the s
uspicion that had crept up the moment he had seen the letter vindicated now, revealing the truth of the matter.
Charlie hadn’t disappeared because he had seen Mohsin being attacked.
Mohsin had been attacked because he had seen Charlie disappearing.
CHAPTER SIX
Slowing only in fear that the ancient staircase would collapse beneath his weight, James made his way as quick as possible from the shack into the open air. In his hand was clasped the letter, held tight, as though someone might swing by at any moment and try prize it from his unsuspecting fingers. Yet, it remained away from his body, held out like a dinner tray, or an item one suspects to be cursed.
The cool, summer evening air was an antidote to the oppressive, close atmosphere of the wooden structure behind. He stopped a few feet from the door and closed his eyes, tilting his head and breathing in. Drinking the fresh oxygen as an alcoholic drinks wine. For some time he held this position, only opening his eyes and moving his head at the sound of movement nearby.
“Hello?”
His words galloped out before fear could close his throat for business. He turned to where the sound had come from and thought he saw branches shift. Four steps towards that space then stop. The wind blew again, and the branches shifted once more. As for the sound… his mind was drawn to Toby. Poor Toby lost in the woods so many years ago and still lost now. Not in the trees, as it might seem, but in James’ mind. Haunting him, as he deserved to be haunted.
Holding tighter to the letter, he turned from where he had thought he’d heard the noise and seen the branches shift, and made his way back through the trees. Aiming for where Megan shared a home with Mark.
After going wrong a couple of times James, at last, found himself on a familiar stretch of road. Not that it was easy to tell what was familiar in a village where darkness shrouded rows and rows of houses that could have been clones. Still, although he was further down than he had been, he could see the space where the car of horny teens had sat, and the front door to Claire’s place. Maybe even make out the way it still hung open. He considered shutting it, though knew he wasn’t going to.
