by Ken Preston
Jacob swallowed back the tears threatening to overwhelm him. He had to keep pushing at the gap between the door and the frame. Surely he could force his way through if he kept pushing?
Then he heard the noise again. The slow shuffle of footsteps on the stone floor. The rustle of clothing.
Someone was coming.
Jacob tried pulling himself back through the doorway. But he was stuck. He had pushed so hard in his attempt to wriggle his way through the gap he was now jammed halfway.
The shuffling footsteps drew closer, and Jacob could hear slow, ragged breathing, and grunting, as though the effort of walking was sheer torture.
Wide eyed, Jacob stared through the gap he had made, as a shambolic, hunched figure slouched into his line of view.
“Peter!” Jacob gasped.
The boy’s delight, at seeing his friend alive, disappeared like a puff of smoke on a windy day.
Peter’s throat had been ripped wide open, and Jacob could see the ropey muscles, glistening red, and flexing and contracting every time Peter moved his head. His windpipe had been torn apart, and bubbles popped and gurgled from the ragged hole as Peter breathed.
But it was his friend’s eyes that scared Jacob most of all. They were black and shiny, like a doll’s eyes, and his pale face had the slack look of a sleeper.
Or a dead person.
Peter stared at Jacob with no sign of recognition, or any emotion, on his face.
Peter reached out and took Jacob’s arm, trapped on the outside of the cellar door. To Jacob’s horror, his friend bent down and licked the blood seeping through the bandage wrapped around his arm.
Jacob yelled, and tried to pull away, but the other boy’s grip was surprisingly strong, and he held tight and continued slurping at the blood, feasting on it like a starving man. Jacob could feel himself disappearing into a wild panic. Working on instinct, he lifted his foot and kicked at Peter’s legs, raking his shoe down the other boy’s shins and stamping on his feet.
Peter lifted his head and moved back, out of the way of the frenzied attack. He stepped into a patch of light, a weak square of sunshine falling across his face. The flesh on his cheek grew red and then blistered.
Peter grunted again, a spasm of pain distorting his slack features. He reached up and raked his fingernails across his cheek, and ribbons of ragged skin peeled off, exposing the raw meat beneath.
Forgetting about his old friend, and the warm meal of fresh blood, the Peter monster turned and shuffled away from the strips of sunlight, still scratching at the open wound on his face.
Jacob pushed at the door again, ignoring the pain as he forced his torso and head through the gap. The sides scraped against his cheeks and then his ears. He paused for a moment, gasping with the pain and the effort, sure he would rip his ears off the sides of his head if he pushed any more.
When he saw Peter begin a slow, shuffling turn back towards him, perhaps relishing the thought of slurping at Jacob’s bloody wound some more, Jacob ignored the pain and shoved his way through the gap again.
His ears feeling like they were being torn from him, Jacob’s head suddenly popped through the door. He managed to get his other arm through and, gripping the door edge, dragged himself further out, until his chest was free.
The rest of his body came out more easily, and Jacob stumbled and fell to the floor on his knees.
Peter shuffled towards him, the grunting noises growing in urgency and intensity.
Jacob stood up and shoved and pulled at the door leading outside. It was locked. He stared through the tiny squares of dirty glass, at the overgrown garden and the huge Ash tree.
Jacob turned to face the thing that used to be his friend. The twisted deformity that had once been a ten-year-old boy hobbled closer, blocking the passage, and the route to the front of the house. He reached out with clawed hands, desperate for Jacob’s blood.
With a wild yell, swinging his arms in crazy circles, Jacob charged at the Peter monster and barrelled into him. The dead child was thrown to the side, the back of his head hitting the wall with a wet smack, and then slid to the floor.
Jacob didn’t look back.
He ran into the large hallway, heavy curtains draped over the large windows creating an oppressive gloom. Jacob stood completely still, holding his breath, listening for any signs of movement. He had made so much noise pushing the cellar door open, and then fighting off the Peter monster, that he was sure he must have been heard.
The house was silent, apart from the somnolent ticking of a clock.
Jacob crept towards the front door and placed an ear against the stained glass window pane. It was cold against his skin, and he could hear the hum of traffic along the main road.
Jacob looked down, and there, protruding from the door lock, was a large, ornate handled key. The young boy gripped the key with trembling fingers and turned it. The tumblers rotated, the sound unnaturally loud in the silence.
Not daring to believe that he might escape, Jacob twisted the door handle and pulled. The door opened a sliver, letting in a breeze of cool, fresh air.
Jacob stiffened as cold fingers caressed his cheeks and traced a line along his jaw and down the side of his neck. The hand came to rest on his shoulder and squeezed it.
“Oh, Jacob,” a voice whispered, icy breath feathering his ear.
not scary in a horror movie
Joe Coffin walked the length of River View Gardens with Laura. She pointed out the empty houses, and told him how the police had searched every single one, including those occupied by squatters. They had questioned all the residents of the estate, and widened their search net to include nearby streets and parkland.
Anywhere that Laura could think of where the boys might have gone to play.
“What about the other boy’s mother?” Coffin said.
“Brenda Marsden?” Laura said and shook her head. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail, and stray wisps hung free, caught by the breeze. “That boy of hers is nothing to her, apart from a monthly cheque for child benefit. Looking after him is the only way she can afford to keep herself in cigarettes and booze.”
“Did she speak to the police?”
“Yes, but she wasn’t any help. She never kept tabs on Peter. He could be gone for hours on end and she would never stop to think, to worry about what might have happened to him. If I hadn’t raised the alarm when Jacob didn’t come home, Brenda probably still wouldn’t have noticed Peter was gone.”
Coffin looked up at the overcast sky. Dark clouds scudded by, heavy with the threat of more rain. Mid-afternoon, and already house lights were being switched on, and drivers were turning on their headlights. Coffin was wearing a black leather jacket over a white T-shirt and jeans. An elderly couple crossed to the other side of the road as they approached him.
Coffin had that effect on everyone.
“I’ll have a talk with some people,” he said, looking at Laura. “See if anyone’s heard anything. I’ll talk to Craggs too, get together our own search party. They can’t have just disappeared off the face of the earth, right?”
Laura placed a hand on his arm. “Thank you, Joe.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “I’m sorry to have to ask you for help, so soon after…”
The unspoken words hung in the air between them.
“What about Tom?” Coffin said. “I saw him earlier today, he didn’t mention anything about Jacob.”
“Tom just thinks they’ve run off together, that they’ll come slinking back with their tails between their legs in another couple of days.”
“But Jacob’s his kid. He should be worried.”
Laura chewed on a fingernail, her eyes downcast. She had bitten all her nails down to the quick. Coffin remembered when Laura used to have nice fingernails. Sometimes, on an evening, he used to paint them for her, the tiny nail varnish brush looking ridiculous between his huge fingers.
“Tom isn’t that bothered about Jacob,” Laura said. “Jacob gives him backchat, and the two of th
em argue.”
“Is he hitting you again?”
“No.” Laura looked up at Coffin. “I told him, if he hits me again, even just once, I’ll stick a kitchen knife in his chest while he’s sleeping.”
“I don’t know why you took him back, Laura.”
“Yes, you do,” she said. “I couldn’t survive on my own. You know how it is, kids are expensive these days. Me and Jacob, we’ve got to survive somehow, and I don’t want my child going to school in hand-me-down, faded clothes, the hems of his trousers all tattered, and the cuffs of his shirts all worn away. I needed Tom back for the money he brings in. Nothing else.”
Coffin grunted. “Tom should have brought this to Craggs the day they went missing. We probably could’ve found them by now.”
Heavy spots of rain fell from the dark sky.
Coffin bent down and enveloped Laura in a big, gentle hug. “Don’t worry, we’ll find Jacob.”
Laura squeezed her eyes shut and hugged Coffin back.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
* * *
Tom Mills cruised around the block a few times, keeping tabs in his rear-view mirror, before turning into Number 99’s drive. His tyres crunched over the weed-strewn gravel as he drove up to the house and continued on around the side. He parked out of sight of the main road around the back. Killing the engine, he picked up the black, heavy holdall from the passenger seat. He stepped out of the car and on to the overgrown lawn, the hems of his trousers growing dark in the rainwater dripping off the long grass.
Slamming the car door shut and lighting up a cigarette, Tom gazed up at the big, old house. He remembered when he was a kid, the house had already been empty for years back then. Him and his mates broke in once, daring each other to explore deeper and deeper into the house’s dark corridors and shadowed rooms.
Tom had always been the hanger on, the skinny, small kid who wanted to hang with the tough boys, wanted to be cool. But none of it came naturally to him, and he was always at the back, or the brunt of the jokes and cruel jibes.
Tom had nearly pissed his pants that day in the house, but he’d gone along with it, anyway. Tried to keep up a mask of bravado, cocky arrogance. But then, when he thought it might be all over, and they were going to head back outside, Joe Coffin said they should sit in the grand drawing-room, and tell each other ghost stories.
Coffin had always been the natural leader. Even back then, when he was as skinny as a piece of string, and his dad’s mates used to use him for boxing practice at his dad’s gym, nobody messed with Coffin. You could see it in his eyes, not a defiance exactly, but a sense that no matter how much shit you threw at him, he’d take it.
And then he’d throw it back.
So they told ghost stories in the shrouded living-room, the pale dust sheets draped over the antique furniture adding to Tom’s growing terror.
Tom had finished up squawking his eyes out, he was so scared, and the others had all laughed at him. Then they all went home, and Tom thought that come the next morning, he’d be the laughingstock of his school for being a baby. But no one said a thing about Tom crying, and no one spoke about the house ever again.
It was like something had scared them, every one of them. As though they knew that once, sometime long ago, something terrible and awful had happened there. Something so beyond the boundaries of normal human behaviour, that the echoes of it still haunted the house. And they could all feel its dreadful power, a chill deep inside their bodies, a fitful, lonely cry in the subconscious.
They were all scared, but Tom was the only one who’d cried.
Tom sucked hard on the cigarette, his pinched cheeks looking even gaunter, as he drew the nicotine deep into his lungs. That house was a nightmare all right, and here Tom was, back again. But he wasn’t crying now, was he?
Tom’s mobile buzzed into life, playing the theme tune to The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.
Tom looked at the display.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
He considered ignoring the call, but he knew that wouldn’t do any good. If he didn’t answer, they would just keep calling back. Eventually they’d get bored with being ignored and pay him a visit.
Tom most definitely didn’t want that.
“Hey,” he said, his voice low.
He listened for a few moments, and then said, “Yeah, yeah, I know I did. Yeah, I know what I said, but I got it all under control…fuck yeah, I’ll find out where it is…shit, keep a lid on it, will you? We’re sticking with the plan, okay?”
Tom closed the connection and slipped the mobile back in his pocket, took a deep breath. He should have known better than to get involved with those people, but it had seemed like a foolproof plan at the time.
So where did it all go so fucking wrong?
Tom dropped the cigarette in the wet grass and ground his shoe over it. Rain started falling from the overcast sky in fat, heavy drops. He looked up at the house again, at its blank windows and oddly shaped profile, and suddenly his childhood fears were rising within him again. For a moment he thought about turning around, getting back in the car and driving off. As far as he could get on a full tank of petrol.
“Don’t be a fucking idiot,” he muttered.
No matter how far he ran, it wouldn’t be far enough.
Taking a firm grip on the holdall, Tom walked up to the back door and fished a key out of his pocket. He opened the door and stepped inside. His every movement became magnified in the still quietness of the house. Every time he came here, he felt like he was stepping out of his normal world, and into another existence.
One where the normal rules of life did not apply.
Tom walked down the stone passageway, fighting the urge to turn and bolt back outside, climb in his car, and drive off. He pulled another cigarette out of his battered pack and placed it between his lips. He struck a match, and lit the cigarette, his hands trembling as he held the flame in place.
Perhaps they wouldn’t be up yet? He was earlier than normal today, and they didn’t like the daylight. He could always come back later, when it was dark. But that was bad, too. Seeing them in the night, especially Steffanie, gave him the creeps good and proper.
She’d always been a looker, Steffanie had. Tom could never work out why she married Joe Coffin, him being the ugliest bastard this side of an old man’s gurning contest. But then that had been the same with Laura, too. Back when she was married to Coffin, she’d been a stunner. Then they got divorced, and she let herself go.
Especially after she had Jacob. Bloody kid was a drain on her, always pestering her for stuff, and whining about his pissy school and wanting to bring a mate round. Tom had never wanted kids, couldn’t see the point of them.
But that Steffanie, yeah, she was a stunner when she was alive. But now? Tom sucked hard on his cigarette. She looked absolutely fucking amazing. But scary, too. Not scary in a horror movie, jump out of your seat and hide behind your fingers sort of way. No, there was just something unsettling about her now. Something off kilter, in a queasy, slightly arousing yet repulsive sort of way.
Tom reached the end of the passage and pushed through the door into the entrance hall. Heavy drapes had been hung over the windows since his last visit. If they were going to black out the entire house like this, he would have to bring a torch with him.
They were usually upstairs, in the master bedroom. Once, when he had come round, they had been naked. Neither of them had been ashamed, or made any attempt to cover up. He’d told them to put some clothes on, but Steffanie, she just laughed, and walked up to him, her hips moving like a cat’s. She got up real close, her lips almost on his, her breath, cold and sweet, like death, on his cheek. She traced a finger down his chest and his stomach, down to his groin, where she caressed him, until he had to step back, snapping out of a trance.
Today he could see the flickering yellow glow of candles from the drawing-room doorway, the door slightly ajar. He walked closer and pushed gently at it.
Pale dust sheets covered the furniture and fat church candles sat on the fireplace hearth, and the mantelpiece, casting an eerie orange glow over the vast room. In the flickering light, shadows moved at the outer edges of the room, giving the impression of people, or things that were not people, hiding in the corners.
But it was not the shadows that caught Tom’s attention. In front of the dead fireplace, illuminated by the candlelight, Steffanie crouched over a body, slumped in a chair. Tom couldn’t see the body properly, or what Steffanie was doing. He slowly approached, watching with a growing sense of horror as she placed a bowl of dark liquid on the floor beside her feet.
What was in that bowl? Was it blood?
Tom stared at Steffanie’s back, unsure of what to do, how to make himself known. Saying ‘Hi,’ didn’t seem quite appropriate in the circumstances.
He cleared his throat.
She didn’t turn to him, didn’t even flinch.
“Shh,” she whispered. “You’ll wake him.”
“Wake who?” Tom whispered.
He walked slowly, quietly, moving into a position where he could see the boy slumped in the chair.
His boy, Jacob.
His eyes were closed, and he looked pale and drawn. Steffanie was wrapping a length of soiled fabric around an ugly wound in his left forearm.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Tom hissed. “Is he dead?”
Steffanie finished applying the bandage and straightened up. “No, he’s not dead.”
“He looks dead.” Tom stared at Jacob, and ground his teeth together, his head filled with spikes of tension. “He looks…”
“He’s alive,” Steffanie replied. “For now, at least.”
“That’s Jacob,” Tom whispered, pointing at his son, and struggling to enunciate each word. “That’s my son.”
“I know,” Steffanie said, licking Jacob’s blood from her hands. “Does this bother you? Would you like to take him home? There is still time, you can save him.”
