The Death House

by Sarah Pinborough

  The evening passes slowly and my unease grows. At tea all the attention is on Tom and the new girl, whose name is Clara, apparently. I ignore her. Her table is too far away to see her properly and she’s got her back to me anyway, only her scruffy ponytail on show. There is more laughter from the girls’ table than normal, though, and I can see Eleanor’s face shining and even Harriet looks less dour. Jake preens, swearing loudly, and although Tom is sitting with us, when he gets up to fetch a cup of tea, he stops at the girls’ table and talks to Clara, his face suddenly a patchy red. It doesn’t take long before Jake follows suit. If Tom thinks he has some kind of claim to the girl because they arrived together, he’s got a lot more to learn about the house than he thinks. Will and Louis giggle at the two older boys so obviously vying for her attention, but I just let it wash over me. She must be an idiot, smiling and laughing as if she’s at some holiday camp or on a school trip. I won’t join in with the fawning.

  I keep my attention on the twins instead – they’re the reality of the house, not some stupid girl who has everyone twisting in their seats. Ellory and Joe are identical. Or they were identical. One of them – I think it’s Ellory because he has more acne than his brother – is sweating hard. Even from ten feet or so away I can see it. There’s a thick sheen on his skin, almost greasy as it oozes from his pores. He’s sniffing hard, too, and occasionally his chest contracts and his face tightens as if he’s desperately holding back a coughing fit. His brother is eating both dinners, his body turned slightly to block the nurses’ view as he takes mouthfuls from his twin’s plate. I watch with a kind of fascinated dread. The nurses are watching too, their eyes cold and dark like eagles observing prey. The others on the Dorm 7 table have shifted themselves a few inches away from their room-mates even though the same illness is percolating inside them. They talk around the twins, as if they’re no longer there. I’m going to owe Louis some washing-up duties.

  ‘Do you think they’ll take him tonight?’

  It’s only when Ashley speaks that I realise I’m not alone in watching Ellory. Ashley is as well, his thin lips pursed.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘I’ll pray for him.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s going to help.’ I concentrate on my food, scooping up a forkful of mashed potato and chewing the lumps out of it. I don’t want a conversation with Ashley. He can keep his smug piousness to himself.

  After tea, the nurses put on some ancient film and although Will and Louis try to drag me with them, I don’t go. Instead, I have a long, hot bath and then lie on my bed staring at the ceiling. It’s still raining outside. I wonder what Ellory is thinking. I wonder if he went to watch the film. My stomach contracts at the thought that one day soon I’ll be in Ellory’s position. I wish I could stop thinking so much. Not even the memory of Julie McKendrick can distract me. I just end up wondering if she remembers me at all or if she’s started smiling at Billy in Year 13 now and he’s going to get to slide his hand into her bra rather than just dream about it.

  Eventually, the others come back up and start the ritual of teeth-cleaning and washing and getting ready for bed. A nurse brings around her tray of pills and small cups of water and we all dutifully take them before she closes the curtains and turns the light off with a cursory, bland, ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘Clara’s dad was a Black Suit,’ Will says. ‘Isn’t that right, Tom? A proper government minister.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’ A pause. Whispering fills it. ‘What the hell is he doing?’

  ‘Just praying. Ignore him, he’ll stop soon. A Black Suit. That’s kind of cool, though. What did your dad do?’

  I wonder if Will realises he’s using the past tense – as if our families are gone, not living out their lives without us, back in the real world.

  ‘The usual. Some tech firm. He worked away a lot.’ Tom’s only been in the house a few hours but already he’s closing down. Locking before away. Taking his cue from the rest of us and keeping it inside.

  ‘I liked that film,’ Louis says. ‘But I can’t help wondering why they showed it to us.’

  ‘Vampires are cool,’ Will says. ‘And the dog was cool, too. But I didn’t like the part where that one bit the man’s head right through his skull.’

  ‘But a film about a bunch of teenagers who live for ever. Lost Boys,’ Louis muses. ‘Where something inside makes them turn into monsters. I wonder about Matron sometimes. She’s either got a very sick sense of humour or absolutely no sense of irony.’

  ‘Ha, yeah.’ Will laughs but it’s clear he doesn’t understand what irony means.

  ‘We can all live together in God,’ Ashley says. ‘That’s the true life everlasting.’

  ‘Is he always like this?’ Tom’s disdain is clear. He may be the new boy but Ashley is forever the outsider.

  ‘Sadly, yes.’ Louis settles down under his covers, rustles of starch competing with the renewed whispering.

  ‘You okay, Toby?’ Will watches me in the gloom. ‘You’re very quiet. I thought you’d want to watch the film and meet the new girl.’

  ‘I’m just tired.’

  ‘You’re always tired. You sleep most of the day.’ His breath hitches. ‘You’re not—’

  ‘No.’ I don’t let him finish his question. ‘I’m not sick.’

  ‘Good,’ Will says. He picks at his blanket. ‘I wouldn’t like that.’

  Something in his tone makes my heart squeeze in on itself, tight and hard.

  ‘Goodnight, Will,’ is all I say in return. Eventually we fall into a sleepy silence, even Ashley, and the breathing in the room slows. Another day is gone. Evaporated away from us. I close my eyes.

  Five

  It’s nearly two hours after Matron has done the final rounds when I hear the smothered belch of the lift starting its rumbling journey down through the core of the house. I knew it would come tonight, and part of me wants to hide my head under my pillow until it’s done, but my feet are itching to get up and my insides are tangled in knots around the dark ball in the pit of my stomach. I have to see it. Watching is better than lying here, just listening. The chill air prickles my skin as I creep over to the door and open it. The other boys don’t stir. Tom snores, but the rest are silent.

  On the landing my heart beats so hard I can feel it throbbing in my neck. The lift has come to a stop upstairs and the soft whoosh of the large metal doors, their modernity so out of place here, is a sigh in the night. I creep up to the next half-landing and press myself into the dark shadows that cling to the wall. I stay very still. I can’t see the lift from where I am, but the nurses will have to pass by on the next floor when they go back to it. I wait, and then the quiet squeak of old wheels turning puncture the night. Ellory is leaving Dorm 7 for the last time and he’s not awake to know it. Perhaps he knew it when he went to bed. Maybe he thought he had one more day. It’s hard to imagine not having one more day.

  Soft white shoes come into view, plimsolls under white scrubs, as the nurses from the sanatorium wheel the bed towards the lift. I can’t see Ellory but I know it’s him. No one else is sick. Not like he’s been. The nurses don’t rush, maintaining a steady, calm pace. Ellory isn’t going anywhere and neither is the sanatorium. These are different nurses from those who look after us during the day. I’ve seen them enough times now to know. Angels of death who only appear in the night to collect sleeping, sick children. Sometimes I think of the sanatorium as some awful creature that feeds on us. In some ways, that’s preferable to the empty unknown. In my small window on the action above, the bed is wheeled by, but I don’t move. I know the routine and they’re not finished yet. A minute or so later, two more sets of feet whisper past accompanied by the rustle of plastic bags as Ellory’s clothes and toiletries are removed. Nothing will be left for Joe to remember him by. He’s being efficiently exorcised from our community. I wonder what they do with the clothes. Are we all wearing dead boys’ clo
thes, recycled from a previous wave of Defectives? Is there a stockpile in the house somewhere ready for children of all shapes and sizes? The lift doors slide shut again and I let out a shaky breath as adrenalin rushes through me.

  Goodbye, Ellory. It was nice not knowing you.

  I feel almost sick, a tang of nausea in my mouth. I need the bathroom and a glass of water. I turn away, and only then does my eye catch on the landing two floors above. A thick strand of something has escaped from between the banisters and floats in the air like seaweed drifting in the shallows. I almost gasp with the unexpectedness of it, and maybe I do let out a short, sharp breath as my mouth falls open. It’s hair. Someone else is awake. I freeze, then frown, my thoughts jolted away from Ellory, the sickness, the dreadful nothingness that waits upstairs. Thoughts I can’t define but which are wrapped up in the ball in my stomach and sit like a sour taste on my tongue. They are gone in an instant. No one else is ever awake.

  The shadow moves, the hair pulled away as its owner retreats, and the stairs creak. I dart back into my dorm and peer out through a crack in the door as the figure goes by. Who is it? What are they doing? More change – first Tom, now this. I seriously think about going back to bed and staying there, but I’m not tired, and why the fuck should I, anyway? The nights are mine.

  I find her in the kitchen. She’s got slices of ham and cheese out and is making a sandwich.

  ‘Want one?’ she says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that we’re meeting here in the dark at gone two in the morning. I don’t answer, just stare at her from the doorway as the wind outside whips around the building and whistles through the gap under the back door.

  She spreads about an inch of butter on one slice of white bread. ‘My mum never let me have butter. Not good for the hips, apparently, and definitely not good for a dancer. Well, I’m having it now. Don’t think fat thighs are my biggest priority any more, do you?’ She smiles as she slaps the sandwich together and then jumps gracefully onto the stainless steel kitchen prep table to eat it. It’s hard to see but I think she has a rash of freckles across her face. Her teeth are white and even, and her thick red hair tumbles scruffily around her shoulders.

  I look at her sandwich and my stomach tightens. The nights are no longer under my control. I have someone else’s mistakes to worry about. She follows my eyes.

  ‘Don’t worry. I was careful and I’ll clean up. They won’t notice I’ve been here.’

  ‘You came with Tom,’ I say.

  She nods. ‘Poor Tom. He’s so angry about everything.’ Her legs swing back and forth and under her nightshirt I can see they’re slim and toned. There’s pink varnish on her toenails. An echo from her before. Energy fizzes from her. She chews another mouthful and watches me. I want a sandwich or something but I’m not going to have one. She’s killed my appetite.

  ‘You didn’t take the vitamins,’ I say. I’ve moved one step inside the kitchen but I won’t come any closer. I’m sullen but she doesn’t appear to notice. She laughs a little instead. It’s warm. Friendly. What is wrong with her? Doesn’t she know where she is?

  ‘Vitamins, my arse. My mum’s been taking “vitamins” for years. Normally with Scotch.’ She puts the sandwich down, forgotten. ‘Why don’t you take yours?’

  I’ve learned to slide the pills between my upper lip and gum line so quickly that the nurses don’t notice, practising with peas from dinner. Now they’re all collected in a wrap of toilet paper stuffed into the ball of my bedpost. Same routine every night. I should probably just shove them down the sink but they’re a way of counting the days. Marking out my survival.

  ‘I like the nights,’ I say.

  ‘So what shall we do?’ She grins again, impish with delight. ‘Now that the house is ours?’

  ‘Do whatever you want. Just don’t fuck it up for me.’

  Her smile falls. ‘But it’ll be more fun—’

  ‘I mean it.’ Suddenly I hate her. She has no right to be awake. This is my time. The ball inside me flares all the way up to my tongue and I spit out angry flames in words. ‘This isn’t your perfect fucking life now with your posh government dad and big house and whatever you want. You’re as Defective as the rest of us. You can sit there and laugh and joke and think it’s all so fucking funny, but you’re going to get sick and die just like Ellory, and me, and all the rest of the stupid fuckers here. You’re not special. So stay out of my way and get used to it.’

  I glare at her, panting with the angry heat that’s making my body shake, and her swinging legs fall still. She’s not smiling any more. I turn away, not wanting to look at her. Not wanting to feel bad. The house is big. I don’t have to see her. Maybe she’ll start taking the pills now she knows she’s not welcome at night.

  ‘No,’ she says, soft and hurt as I walk away. ‘I think it’s you who needs to get used to it.’

  Bitch, I think. Fucking bitch. What the fuck does she know?

  His test was after PE on a Tuesday, and he was happy for two reasons. First, it got him out of ten minutes of Triple Science – maybe twenty if he stretched out the walk back, and second, they always did the test in alphabetical order so Julie McKendrick was always tested at the same time. The downside was that Billy Matthews would be there too, so it was unlikely he’d get to speak to Julie even if he could think of something interesting to say. Still, he’d be able to look at her and that was better than nothing.

  The corridor outside the nurse’s room was hot, the windows lining the wall magnifying the sunshine outside, and even though he’d just showered in the gym, Toby was sweating as he joined the queue, kids of all ages chattering together. No one looked worried. The tests were routine, after all. He looked ahead in the line but couldn’t see Julie. His heart sank. She’d spoken to him yesterday in Maths – the only subject they had together – and he’d got through the whole conversation about the dullness of algebra without stumbling over his words or looking at her chest once. She’d laughed at something he’d said about Mr Grey and told him he was funny. Maybe being the class joker was finally going to pay off.

  ‘Hey, Toby.’

  She was behind him with Amanda, whose surname didn’t begin with an M but who must have bunked off to come with her. Julie and Amanda, both blonde and pretty, but Amanda just didn’t have that extra something Julie had, plus her chest was flatter and her legs too thin.

  ‘Hi.’ The word felt like glue in his throat. He shoved a hand in his pocket to try and look casual but felt as if every joint in his body had stopped working properly. ‘What have you got out of?’

  ‘English. And it’s a test.’

  ‘Result.’ Over Julie’s perfect shoulder he saw Billy sauntering up to join the line. Great.

  ‘Amanda’s having a party on Saturday. You live close, right? Why don’t you come?’

  Amanda rolled her eyes but Julie didn’t appear to notice. Toby’s face was burning so much he thought it might actually melt off his bones. An invite to a party from Julie herself. A cool party. Everything Julie and Amanda did was cool.

  ‘Sure. I don’t think I’m doing anything much,’ he said. He’d planned to hang out with Jonesy down at the rec but Jonesy could wait. He thought for a second about bringing him along but nixed it almost immediately. Jonesy was in no way cool enough for a party at Amanda’s. Neither was Toby, but he was fucked if he was going to miss an opportunity like this.

  ‘Of course he doesn’t have plans,’ Amanda drawled. ‘Like he ever has plans.’

  ‘Shut up, Mandy.’ Julie ignored her friend’s clear displeasure and smiled at him. Right at him. Her skin was flawless and her eyes bright under the mascara and liner that the cool girls wore no matter how often they were told to wash it off. Toby wondered if it was at all possible to love anyone more than he loved Julie McKendrick.

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘See you there. From about eight.’

  He nodded,
not trusting himself to say any more, and then turned back to face the front. He could hear Billy talking loudly and both girls laughing but it sounded like they were just humouring him. His whole body buzzed with excitement. A party with Julie. That she’d actually asked him to go to. He couldn’t wait to tell Jonesy.

  He was still grinning like an idiot as he walked in to give his blood. Life was looking up.

  ‘Double or quits, remember,’ I say as we come out of breakfast. Louis is heading to the rota, ready to scratch his own name out and replace it with mine, but I stop him. ‘It’s not a done deal yet.’

  That’s all anyone says about Ellory that morning. Me and Clara might have been the only ones to see him wheeled away, but no one else is surprised by his disappearance. Dorm 7 had looked shaken as they came into the dining room, but apart from Joe they’d kept their chins up and expressions arrogant, Jake particularly defiant. There’s one chair fewer at their table and the rest have been pushed closer together. Even the signs of Ellory’s absence have been removed.

  By the noticeboard, we watch as Dorm 7 trail past and head upstairs. ‘Consider it pencilled in,’ Louis says, eyes on Joe. The abandoned twin looks defeated, shoulders slumped and eyes rimmed red. There might be blotches on his cheeks but it’s hard to tell amidst the acne.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ Jake snarls at us. I shrug, and say nothing. I don’t have to. The Dorm 7 spell is broken.

  Now only Dorm 4 remains intact.

  Six

  Outside, it’s stopped raining but the air is misty wet, as if the clouds have been pricked and are slowly deflating, slumped on the ground. Tom stares out of the kitchen window as I rinse the last of the lunch dishes and add it to the rest on the side.

  ‘Any time you’re ready, mate,’ I grumble as the steam collects in hot drops on my face. Tom picks up a plate and starts to dry it but his concentration is focused on the garden. I’ve been determinedly not looking but it’s hard when the window is right in front of the sink and the girls are laughing outside directly in our line of sight. Eleanor’s sitting on an old tree stump clutching her book but not reading it. Instead she’s watching Clara trying to teach Harriet to do a handstand against the rough brick wall. Harriet is failing miserably, but they’re all smiling as her legs wave in the air while Clara tries to grab them and hold them straight.