by Baker, John
They stood together in the dark and listened. There was no sound from the benighted house, no sense of life or movement from within. The concrete floor of the yard was little used, there was moss growing in the cracks and a smell of cat piss. An old bicycle was leaning against one of the walls, both of its tyres flat, all of its moving parts rusted and crusty. Sam felt Marie tremble next to him. He took hold of her arm and squeezed it gently. ‘You OK?’ he whispered.
‘I’ll manage. It feels weird.’
‘You can wait out here if you like. Watch my back.’
She shook her head. ‘I wanna be where the action is. I’d shake to death out here.’
He smiled and moved over to the door. He turned the knob slowly and eased back on the door, but it didn’t give. ‘I’ll take the window out,’ he said. And he turned his back to the window and hit one of the small panes sharply with his elbow. There was a loud crack as the glass shattered, and a marmalade cat which had been sitting on the garden wall watching the break-in did an open screak followed by a sudden scattering run.
Sam slowly withdrew his arm and brushed shards of glass from his sleeve. They reflected the moon as they fell to the ground. He put his hand through the jagged opening and turned the key in the lock. When he next turned the knob on the door and pulled gently, there was a creaking sound as the dry hinges allowed it to swing outwards.
Sam looked at Marie, and together they gazed into the impenetrable darkness within the house. Stale cooking smells were evident. Burnt fat, toast, and something rancid, fetid. ‘What’s that?’ Sam asked, sniffing gently, unwilling to let whatever it was into his head.
‘Smells like rotten meat,’ Marie said.
‘Yeah.’
He moved into the kitchen, Marie following close behind. He flicked the torch on and off to get his bearings, noticed a grimy kettle to his right, sitting on a two-ring gas stove. He reached out and touched it, wondering how long it had been since Billy had been down here. The kettle was cold.
On a table were two bottles, each with stumps of candle stuck in their necks.
Underfoot had changed to sticky and damp. What had once been a carpet was now like a thick dough, partly cooked, a breeding ground for sucking insects, worms, maggots and disease-producing microbes. Billy was keen on the launderette, but as far as housework went he was still in nursery class.
Sam flicked the torch on again, noticed there was a step up from the kitchen to the next room. He reached behind him and found Marie’s hand. ‘Stay close,’ he whispered. ‘And as quiet as you can.’ He felt her grip his hand tightly, and they edged forward over the floor like a single being. The room was almost empty. There was a large cast-iron frying pan on the floor, the butt of a candle standing in it; and there was a carpet runner which looked like it might once have been a stair carpet. In the glance he had of it in the flick of his torch Sam couldn’t tell if it was patterned or plain, and he suspected that the answer to* that one, even in daylight, would require the aid of a forensic scientist.
From that room the next door led to a short corridor. To the left was a staircase with cupboards underneath it, and to the right was the front room of the house. The front room was also unfurnished, though it had curtains, seemingly stuck to the windows by cobwebs. There were mice droppings on the floor, and several of the floorboards had been taken up and removed, leaving dangerous, jagged holes, and a means of access for vermin.
‘Are you sure anyone lives here?’ Marie whispered. And while her words were still hanging there in the dank space of the room there was a single thud from the ceiling above their heads. A footfall? Something being dropped? It wasn’t clear. But someone was up there. Someone or something who might or might not know that Sam and Marie were in the house. Marie let her breath go slowly, and Sam felt a prickling sensation at the back of his neck.
He reached for Marie and pulled her head around so his lips were close to her ear. ‘We’re going up,’ he said.
She didn’t reply, but Sam felt a tremor travel the length of her body. He gripped her hand and made for the stairs. As they reached the first step a large longtail leapt through the wall of the balustrade and brushed Marie’s legs as it scurried into the front room. Marie let go with a shrill and unrestrained scream. The stillness of the house was shattered and every brick, every mite of dust in the whole edifice echoed her cry. She smothered it immediately, dammed it up inside herself, and everything fell quiet again apart from the sound of Marie trembling, her teeth chattering, her lungs sucking in oxygen to augment the flow of adrenalin.
Sam hugged her to his chest. Her whole body was fluttering with panic. It was as though the effort of will to suppress the scream had transformed the sound into an inner force that was rocking her bodily systems to their foundations. Sam held on to her for several minutes, until the terror began to subside. At the same time he listened for other sounds in the house. But heard nothing.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘We’ll go. I’ll take you home and come back later.’
Marie looked up through the gloom at him. She narrowed her eyes. ‘We’re going up these fucking stairs,’ she whispered, her voice shaking but betraying an inner calm and determination. ‘Both of us. Now.’
Sam flicked on his torch and eyed the staircase. There were parts of the wall where the plaster had been gouged out and left in lumps on the treads. It looked as though someone with a grudge against walls had come up with a revenge scenario involving an axe. Near the top there was one strip of burgundy-coloured flocked wallpaper which hung from the ceiling down to the stairs. It was patterned with Chinese dragons, and on either side of it the wall was covered in infantile graffiti which wouldn’t have been out of place in a secondary school bog.
As they made their way up the stairs their shoes crunched on loose plaster, and Sam was aware of the taste of grit on his lips. There was an aura of decay and neglect about the house, but it wasn’t like a house that was unoccupied. It was occupied by someone who didn’t care. By someone who didn’t care about anything except a half-buried driving force, a fanatical and twisted urge to survive in a world which was alien and inhospitable.
The house had something of the feel of those derelict, futuristic and wasted cityscapes that fascinated Ridley Scott in Blade Runner. Sam wouldn’t have been surprised to see Rutger Hauer or Sean Young pass along the upper landing.
At the top of the first flight of stairs there were three rooms, all with closed doors. Sam hesitated, wondering if he should check them or continue up to the attic. It briefly crossed his mind that Marie could check these rooms while he went on up to the attic alone. But he didn’t suggest it, because he suspected Marie might not manage on her own, and he knew he wouldn’t. He remembered the flickering light in the attic room which was always visible from outside.
With Marie close behind, he began the ascent of the final flight. There was a thin carpet on these stairs, and the nearside wall had been painted once, a long time ago. Apart from their own breathing and the muffled whisper of their feet on the carpet there was no hint of movement.
The upper door was fastened with a wooden latch. Sam lifted it and let the door open into the room. Marie moved over to Sam’s right, so she could see whatever might be in there. The light from the single candle was not very bright, but it was enough to disorient their eyes for a moment. When they adjusted to the changed light Sam moved into the room. Marie stayed behind in the doorway.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘He isn’t here.’
Sam picked up the candle from a low table and surveyed the room. It was a den. The floor was carpeted with several rugs. Billy had let some of the rugs run up the walls, and there were cushions scattered over the floor. There was a shelf on one wall, but nothing on the shelf, apart from the remains of a take-away meal. There was a coatrack with two shirts and a jacket suspended from it. And underneath them an assortment of clothes. Socks, underwear, a bright red sweater. An ironing-board was folded and stacked against the wall.
Marie step
ped into the room and drew in her breath sharply. Sam watched as she moved over to the room’s only chair. Draped over it was a long black cape. He watched her finger it, and caught her eyes as she looked towards him.
‘That what he was wearing?’
She nodded. She lifted the hood, and looked back at Sam. ‘Yes. That’s why we couldn’t see his face.’
‘He’s been back, then.’
Marie glanced around the room. ‘But where’s he gone now?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll wait for him. Might as well see the rest of the house while we’re waiting.’
He led her back to the first landing, Marie carrying the torch and, like Sam, only flicking it on occasionally. There was a bathroom sandwiched between two other rooms, with the bath full of dirty water, though the plug didn’t appear to be the cause of the blockage. There was a bathroom cabinet with a razor, a bar of soap, and a face towel from hell.
The back room had bare boards and was unfurnished. Sam turned to leave but stopped when he caught sight of a long chest behind the door. Marie had entered the room behind Sam and walked over to the window, where she was looking out on the back yard.
‘Jesus,’ said Sam. He had lifted the lid of the chest, but still in darkness, so he couldn’t see what was inside. His exclamation came from the stench that arose from the chest when he lifted the lid. Urine and faeces in a good quantity, and left to accumulate over a couple of days.
Marie came over with the torch and they gazed down on the still figure of a man. His arms and legs were tied with a new green rope, and his mouth was sealed with clear parcel-tape. The bottom of the chest appeared to be lined with old newspapers.
Marie edged Sam aside so she could get closer. Sam held his nose and willingly stood back. He watched her probing the front of the man’s neck for his carotid pulse, then she leaned right into the chest and put her face next to his nose.
‘He’s still alive,’ she said. ‘It’s Charles Hopper. Help me get him out.’
Sam took Hopper’s shoulders, Marie his feet, and they lifted him clear of the sides of the chest, carrying him through to the landing and placing him carefully on the floor. Sam unclasped a penknife and cut the rope that was binding him. He pulled the tape away from the man’s mouth. For a moment Hopper’s eyes flickered and his cracked lips moved, but then he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Marie had gone into the bathroom and returned with her scarf dripping water. She held it to Hopper’s lips for a few seconds, then squeezed a few drops of liquid into his mouth.
‘He’s dehydrated,’ she said to Sam. ‘We’ll have to get him to a hospital.’
‘OK. Let’s find something to use as a stretcher.’
‘You do that,’ she said. ‘I’ll go ring an ambulance.’
She ran down the stairs to the front door. Sam watched until she disappeared outside, then turned to the other room on the landing. He glanced momentarily at the prone body of Charles Hopper, then opened the door to a blazing light.
There must have been two hundred candles burning in the small room. They were lined up along the top of the pelmet above the window, perhaps an inch between each one. There was a writing table, similar to one that Dora had in her room, and the surface of that was festooned with flickering white candles. The bookcases and shelving all housed similar legions of candles, all more or less the same size.
The lemon-coloured walls, picked out with blue florets, reflected the light and shadow thrown by the moving flames of the candles, and for a brief period the walls seemed to lose all solidity, so that instead of being made of brick and plaster they could have been woven from silk.
Near the centre of the room, angled away from the door was a distinctive antique chair with a shield-shaped back. A chair, again, which was identical to the one in Dora’s room. Candles had been placed along the top of the shield, and were burning very close to the shoulders of the jacket worn by the chair’s occupant.
As Sam watched, the man rose from the chair and slowly turned to face him. It was Arthur, Dora’s first husband. Sam knew that it couldn’t be Arthur, and that it must be Billy, but the illusion had been wrought with great skill and a total commitment to detail. Sam had studied the photographs of Arthur from Dora’s album, and the figure that now stood before him was indistinguishable in every detail. Even the suit was authentic. Sam remembered wearing a suit like that himself. Something he wouldn’t be seen dead in now.
Billy took a step forward and Sam saw the knife glint in the white light of the candles. In his other hand was a length of green rope, which he had fashioned with a noose.
‘For Christ’s sake, Billy, it’s all over...’ Sam said. He took a step toward Billy to disarm him, but Billy raised the knife and brought it slashing down like a rocket. Sam saw the movement but couldn’t dodge away fast enough. The blade of the knife went into his forearm, just above the wrist. He saw it happen, found himself watching the blade penetrate his skin. And even as he watched it he was aware that the noose of green rope was looping toward his head.
Realizing that he had postponed his response for too long, Sam brought up his free arm to wave the noose away. He pulled his injured arm free of the knife and made a movement towards Billy’s wrist, hoping to wrest the knife away from him. As they grappled together, the chair in which Billy had been sitting overturned, and the candles ignited a pamphlet that was lying on the carpet. Billy looked down at the flames, and something wild and uncontrolled entered his eyes. He turned and, with the rope, he swept the remaining candles off the surface of the writing desk. The room began to erupt in small torches of fire.
Through the light and the gathering smoke Billy sprang at Sam. Making a successful grab at Billy’s knife hand, Sam hung on to it as he felt himself falling over backward. Billy was sitting astride his chest, and although Sam refused to let go of the hand which held the knife, he couldn’t stop Billy whipping at his face with the rope.
Concentrating on trying to save his life, Sam didn’t hear Marie’s footsteps on the stairs, and was only aware of her when she wrenched the rope from Billy’s hand. In one movement Billy placed his knee in Sam’s face and reached up to push Marie away. The full force of his body was behind the shove and Sam saw Marie topple backward into the landing and fall over the prone body of Charles Hopper.
She got to her feet again, and came back for more, shaking her head from side to side. Sam still couldn’t manage to throw Billy off him, and he realized that the gathering smoke was affecting their ability to breathe. He rolled his left hand into a fist and punched upwards into Billy’s face. It was a hard blow, and he saw Billy’s head ride away with the force of it. In the instant after the punch Sam was able to roll Billy off his chest, and the two of them came face to face on their knees. Sam still had hold of Billy’s knife hand, and Billy still grasped the knife.
‘No,’ Sam said to Marie, his voice breathless. ‘Get Hopper down the stairs.’ He had barely got the words out of his mouth when Billy butted him in the face. Sam went down again, but even as he went down he realized that Marie had begun dragging the body of Charles Hopper down the stairs. The antique furniture in the room was like tinder, already beginning to crackle, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that the whole house could go up in flames.
Sam felt his head crack against something hard on the floor, but he didn’t dwell on the pain. He wrenched at Billy’s wrist with all his might, and heard Billy cry out as the knife flew away to the other side of the room.
Where Sam had fallen the carpet was running with flames, and soon his hair was alight. He quickly smothered the flames and struggled to his feet. A stream of flame ran along the carpet, out into the landing, and began chewing away at the stairs. Billy had gone in search of the knife, but now the smoke was so dense that anything more than a metre away was invisible. Sam plunged into the smoke and found Billy on all fours, crawling around in what was quickly becoming a sea of fire. He grabbed him by the hair and the seat of the pants and lifted him bodily out of the room on to
the landing.
Billy got him by the throat, but Sam quickly broke his grip. He pushed Billy up against the wall and gave him two hard punches, left and right, both of them low in the stomach, way below the belt. Billy sagged and as he did so Sam ducked and caught the weight of him on his shoulder. He grabbed Billy’s wrist and hoisted him down the stairs. As he looked back the fire had spread from the room out on to the landing, and was now engulfing the upper staircase.
A window cracked and shattered and oxygen began to be sucked to the centre of the flames, giving more fuel and energy to the fire.
Sam stumbled out of the front door and dumped Billy on the road. Marie was there with the prone body of Charles Hopper, and a small group of neighbours had begun to gather and watch the burning house.
Sam pulled Billy to his feet and pushed him down against the hedge, but there was no longer any necessity for force. When Sam looked at him, there were tears rolling down his face.
The smoke curled out of the door and windows on the first floor, blackening the upper facade of the building. A house is like a head, a skull. Door and windows are like mouth and eyes. There was a definite sense of resistance to the burning. The house had held its form for close to a century, and it didn’t want to let go. It was old and cracked, but it wanted to remain; it was stubborn and fought against the fire.
In a matter of minutes the outside bricks were warm. Inside it was like an oven. The fire acted like a bellows. It sucked air inside and consumed it in enormous gulps. In the tension between the resistance of the house and the greed of the flames there was rage, a spitting passion which split oak and cracked stone; and there was despair, a hollow screaming monarch of grief.
Someone was leading neighbours out from houses on either side. The street was bustling with life, as if a circus had come to town.
Sam knew it was a trick of light. The movement in the upper window. The head and the waving arms. A hand seemed to reach out and touch the sill, before drawing back from the heat and disappearing. Similarly, the distant voices above the howling of the fire. Ghosts. Nothing real.
