The Tower

by Simon Clark

  Kym lifted her head; her eyes scanned the ceiling as if the chimes might appear like glowing orbs of energy through the plasterwork.

  ‘So what’s the blind clock saying, Fisher? I’m still here? I’m still working despite all your efforts? Don’t you dare forget me? Hmm?’

  Go back to what you were doing before, he thought. Forget the chime.

  She knelt up on the bed. ‘You know when that electric shock knocked me clean off my feet? I had such a vivid dream. I dreamt that I lay on a table. From above a long metal spike came down.’ She mimed a stab to her stomach; her clenched fist pressed against her skin just below her dark tipped breasts. ‘It penetrated me. Went right through. There was so much blood. Blood all gushing out. I believed it was real. I saw the man. He was barefoot. His face was very thin, like a skull. He had bristles on his jaw.’ She shivered. The faraway look in her eye revealed that the nightmare had genuinely disturbed her. ‘And he had a scar here.’ She ran her finger from her fringe to her right eyebrow. ‘A shape like a crescent moon. Even pale yellow like a moon. As if a flap of skin had been torn back from his forehead, then hadn’t healed well.’ Another shiver shook her so much that Fisher felt the bed tremble beneath him. ‘Ah … darling Fisher. It’s getting late. I need to go to bed.’

  ‘You can stay.’

  ‘We’re being discreet, my darling.’ She gave a gentle smile. ‘You ask me, will I come back here again?’

  ‘Will you?’

  ‘I am seriously thinking about it. Now …’ She kissed his stomach. ‘I dress.’ Her smile broadened. ‘And, if you like, you can watch.’ Quickly, she pulled on her sweater. ‘Remember, not to mention this to anyone. Don’t let your body language betray you either. This is secret.’

  Then she left as she’d arrived. A whirlwind in reverse. It took scant seconds for her to dress. She moved to the door, opened it, checked there was no one there.

  Fisher climbed out of bed. I want to tell her about what happened to me in this room. How its walls seemed to fall on me. I want to tell her all that. And I want to kiss her again before she goes. Only she was closing the door behind her. Through the gap she shot a dark-eyed glance. A whispered, ‘Bye.’ Then gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  Her skin burned with the heat of the lovemaking. Her face would be flushed, she knew it. Adam and Belle would figure out how she’d spent the last hour. What they’d say didn’t concern her; if they said anything at all. Only she intended that particular triangular relationship should retain its present equilibrium. So Kym didn’t return to her room. Instead she padded along the corridor to the entrance hall. There she crossed the chequerboard pattern tiles to the front doors. Carefully, she eased one open. She didn’t want raucous hinge squeaks to attract her housemates’ attention. Nor had she switched on the entrance-hall lights. Illumination spilling from the corridor was enough. Kym could stand here for a moment to enjoy the breeze that would chill her skin and chase away the pink flush from her cheeks.

  There were no lights in the distance. The trees that formed a haphazard line along the drive swayed in the night air. There were no stars; cloud covered the entire sky tonight. Scents of moist earth reached her nose. All she could hear was the hiss of air currents streaming through the branches.

  A hand touched Kym’s shoulder.

  ‘Fisher. You shouldn’t have followed me.’ Kym spoke the words as she turned back toward the door where the silhouette of a man stood against the backdrop of light. ‘Fisher?’

  The blow knocked her sideways. Then there was a sense of falling.

  A spasm ran through her body as she clenched her fists. The side of her head was numb. Her right eye felt stiff. Kym was worldly enough to know when she had a bruised face. When she opened her eyes she realized she was lying on her back on something smooth and unyielding. No, I don’t want to dream this dream again. Only that same smell returned. A musty, organic smell. The scent of a rodent’s nest found under boxes in a potting shed. A muskiness of animal bodies curled up in their nest. Above her the room was a dome of pure darkness.

  Switch on the light, Fisher. That’s what she’d thought in her dream after the jolt of electricity had knocked the wits out of her. Then she’d collapsed onto the floor of the house within a house. After that, the nightmare had crept through her unconscious mind. Now, this dream again. Wait … She remembered her time in bed with Fisher. That searing heat as he climaxed. Later, she’d stepped outside into the night air to cool the glow in her skin.

  Oh, but my head … This feels like a real ache …

  Kym gazed up into the darkness. Why were her arms and legs so heavy? A restlessness gripped her. She needed to make herself comfortable but all she could do was lie on her back. Rolling her head to one side, she saw a grey line running vertically from the floor up ten feet or so. Is that an aperture revealing a sliver of outside? Suddenly, a light blazed to reveal twin doors, like those of a barn. They were open just a couple of inches. Through the gap she glimpsed the profile of the tower against the night sky. A deep grey against deep black. She groaned as she searched for the source of the light. That pain in her head. It throbbed like part of her skull had been torn away. At best she could only rotate her head from right to left; her aching skull rolled against a hard surface. Then Kym looked above her.

  That’s a vehicle hoist, she told herself. The kind they use in garages to lift your car so the mechanic can change the silencer. She lay directly between the steel channels that the car would pass along to mount the hoist. These were perhaps five feet above her. Now with a rising surge of panic she searched for what she knew would be there.

  As her eyes searched she heard the sound. A chime. A resonant shimmering tone on the air. Then another. The same chimes that sounded in the house. Then she made out the cross member of a baulk of timber spanning the steel beams of the hoist. The wooden cross-section was perhaps eight feet long by a foot wide. The chime sounded again, then another. Faster. More urgent. A harshness brushed aside the shimmering hum. But how can I hear them now? Why in this garage? And, for God’s sake why am I lying on a table beneath the hoist?

  It’s the dream … it’s the same dream … However, panic crackled inside of her. Her heart thudded. And yet with the brutal clarity of a wide-awake mind she saw the iron spike protruding directly down from the timber. It was painted black apart from its point that glittered with the silvery hue of naked metal.

  Oh, God … She tried to rise from the table. Leather straps held her ankles and wrists. Tearing her eyes away from the steel shaft that pointed at her stomach, she twisted her head to the left. Floating out of the shadows, a gaunt face with blotched skin. Kym saw the stubbled jaw again. On his forehead was the sickly yellow scar in the shape of a crescent moon. He gazed at her with grey, watery eyes. Then he nodded. He was satisfied. He moved back toward the shadowed wall. With an effort Kym lifted her head so she could see his feet.

  The floor had been painted white; it had the appearance of a surgery; a place where cleanliness came first. And of course he had bare feet. He wouldn’t want his footwear to soil the pristine white of the floor. So there he was with neither shoes or socks.

  ‘What are you doing!’

  He didn’t answer. The chimes grew faster, harsher, they clamoured in a single note that throbbed; a heartbeat of brass.

  She turned her head to see the house looming from the darkness. It appeared to crowd the door; a mass of masonry and black windows that softened as they distorted – this was a fish-eye view of a face peering in at her. A stone face. A face within a face; a house within a house. One second she saw the bulging front of the eighteenth-century house, then it turned inside out in a single fluid movement to reveal the alien visage of the medieval façade. Back and forth. Exterior. Then medieval core, looming with fish-eye distortion. The chimes were thunder tearing through her brain.

  ‘No! Go away!’ Kym screamed at the house. ‘Go away … I don’t want you to watch!’

  Watch? Of course you want to wa
tch. You must watch. You made this happen, didn’t you? Because the truth in all its searing intensity struck her. I’ve dreamed about this before. Now it’s really happening …

  The chimes throbbed louder. They synchronized themselves with the throb of the motor that lowered the car hoist. Her eyes bulged as she looked up at the baulk of timber that grew in size as the hoist smoothly and slowly descended. She couldn’t take her eyes from the point of the iron spike. Like her dream of just eight hours ago it was blunt. Only she knew it wasn’t that blunt. Not so blunt it couldn’t penetrate her sweater then her flesh beneath.

  The point settled on her stomach.

  This was no dream agony. This was real. Her eyes bulged as the point dug deeper into her body. It formed a depression there that creased the fabric of her sweater. Her eyes hurt as they strained from her face. She wanted to scream. Yet all she could do was pant. And the chimes rose into a phantom clamour; the sound drove through her ears to enter her flesh where they harrowed her nerves like a plough blade.

  The motors of the hoist rose, laboured with the shriek of slipping drive belts to bring the baulk down further with it protruding iron spike. Agony tore through her in withering blasts.

  Then that audible pop! The pencil-thick spike that resembled a huge iron thorn broke through the weave of her sweater. A second later it was through the skin of her stomach. Unimpeded, it slid smoothly into her body. The iron shaft was so bitingly cold as it entered her gut. She watched in dread as blood, released through the puncture wound, jetted from her in a crimson fountain. With it came heat that steamed the air white.

  Kym had held onto her last lungful of air for as long as possible. There wouldn’t be another. With the chimes raging in her ears, and the iron spike sliding through her body to break out the other side, she opened her mouth until her lips stretched into an agonized O. Then Kym screamed.

  This was a full-blooded scream of someone dying in agony. The scream of someone who knows perfectly well this is no dream.

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘Has anyone seen Kym?’ By noon, Josanne had a worried expression on her face when she asked the question. The shrugging replies didn’t help at all.

  Fabian displayed irritation. ‘She told me she’d be here to time the songs. Josanne will have to do it now.’

  Josanne didn’t respond to the new allocation of duty, instead she stood on a chair in the ballroom and clapped her hands together. ‘Everyone? Hello? Can I have everyone’s attention? Who can tell me when they saw Kym last?’

  From behind the drum kit Marko said, ‘About ten last night, when we finished supper. She said she’d take a couple of apple pies out of the freezer to defrost.’ Jak sat on the rug beside the drums. With those serene eyes of his he turned his head to watch the face of each one who spoke. The dog’s nose twitched slightly as if he could even catch a scent of something on their words, just like old country people will tell you that a dog can catch scent of the first snow of winter hours before it arrives.

  Adam Ambrose sat against the wall alongside Belle. She draped her arm around his neck. If anything they lived in their private world; only reluctantly they emerged to talk to the others, then mainly only to Fabian.

  So much for band camaraderie, Fisher thought.

  Josanne pursued her questioning, ‘Adam? Adam?’

  The guy broke off from an intimate tête-à-tête with Belle.

  ‘Adam? When did you see Kym last?’

  He conferred with Belle. She answered for him, flicking back her long blonde hair as she did so. Her cut-glass accent was redolent of polo matches and hunt balls. ‘Adam and I remained in our room all evening. We last saw Kym about seven last night.’

  As if to contribute to the conversation, the hidden clock in the medieval core of the house struck midday. The chimes haunted the room with their shimmering presence. They were enough to make everyone pause as if they were no longer comfortable talking over them. As the last chime died on the air, Fabian clicked his tongue. ‘Will someone make the effort to kill that bloody thing? This afternoon we’re learning the intro to the first song.’

  ‘Fabian?’ Josanne wasn’t going to be distracted.

  ‘Oh? Kym? Same as Marko. I watched her open the apple pie boxes. You know that, Josanne. We left the kitchen area together at ten. We came back here for a few minutes with Marko to work on the tension of the bass drum.’

  Fisher’s skin crawled. At first no one was particularly concerned about Kym not showing for breakfast. Adam and Belle hadn’t appeared, and seeing as Kym was a component of the trio everyone drew their own conclusions. At ten that morning Adam and Belle had sauntered in. Fisher and Marko had been practising the rhythm section of the song with Sterling patiently making suggestions to help them improve it. Adam immediately wanted to develop his guitar intro. Fabian decided they should work with Adam so his glissando opening wouldn’t be swamped by the other three instruments. That meant everyone was too preoccupied with the music to wonder about no-show Kym. Everyone, that is, but Josanne. Now she even had to push Fabian into backing her on the question of whether Adam, Belle and Kym all shared the same room. No, Adam, had replied as if the question was beneath him. They had three separate rooms right at the end of the corridor. Although Belle had shared his last night. So, no Kym. That’s when Josanne started to become anxious.

  Now she stepped down from the chair. ‘What about you, Sterling?’

  ‘I hadn’t slept in forty-eight hours. By eight last night I was zonked … so, hmm … I must have seen Kym at around seven-ish. Wait a minute, I thought I heard voices in the corridor around midnight. Yeah, she has like a Russian accent, doesn’t she? I’m sure it was her.’

  ‘Where’s your room?’

  ‘Next to Fisher’s.’

  Everyone looked at Fisher. Immediately his heart lurched in his chest. Hell, what now? I promised Kym not to mention anything about us getting together. If I do and she walks through that door in ten minutes, that proves to Kym I’m a shit, pure and simple.

  ‘Yeah,’ Fisher said, thinking hard. ‘I’d been to the kitchen to take a look at the dog.’

  ‘At Jak? What on earth for?’

  ‘I’d heard him whining. So I left my room around twelve to check on him. As I came out I saw Kym.’

  ‘What did she say to you?’

  ‘You’re beginning to sound like a detective, Josanne.’

  ‘I’m beginning to sound worried. Kym appears to have disappeared. We should make sure she’s all right.’

  ‘Oh, she’ll have gone out for a walk,’ Fabian said dismissively.

  ‘In this fog?’

  ‘Why not? There isn’t a law against it, is there?’ He returned to his keyboard so he could begin making notes on a sheet of music.

  ‘Fisher? Simple question,’ she said. ‘What did Kym say to you?’

  Fabian adopted a rich Transylvanian accent, ‘Enter my lair, I vont to drink your blood.’

  ‘Isn’t funny, Fabian.’

  ‘Good God. She’ll be out for a stroll.’

  ‘Fisher?’ Anger hardened Josanne’s mouth. ‘She did say something, didn’t she?’

  ‘Well … she asked if I couldn’t sleep. I said I was fine and had just been checking on the dog because I could hear him whining. Then we said goodnight, see you in the morning, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Josanne? What do you mean, then what?’

  Fabian gave a bark of a laugh. ‘Own up, man. The question she’s really asking is: Where did you bury the body?’

  Josanne vented a lungful of air in exasperation. ‘Hey, you people. Am I the only one taking this seriously? Fisher, in which direction did she walk after you said goodnight to her? Back to her room? Or to the entrance hall?’

  Adam spoke up before Fisher could reply. ‘I’ll tell you what happened to Kym.’

  Fisher clenched his fists. Does he know that Kym was in my room?

  ‘Gone, dear heart. Kym’s flown the nest. Scooted home. Sh
e was bored here.’

  ‘How? All the cars are parked outside.’

  Where he sat against the wall Adam shrugged as Belle toyed with his long hair. ‘Taxi?’

  ‘We’ve no working phones. Cell phones don’t pick up a signal out here. How does Kym call a cab?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? Fabian?’

  Fabian’s role appeared to include protecting his star of the band. ‘There must be buses,’ he told them. ‘If she’s left she’ll have caught a bus at the end of the drive, to York, or back to the ferry.’

  ‘Without telling anyone?’ Josanne held him with her glare.

  ‘Why cross-question me? I don’t know? How about shame-faced for not seeing her commitment through? Angry, for some reason? Allergic to Yorkshire Pudding?’

  ‘This isn’t a laughing matter.’

  ‘Hey, maybe she’s decided to punish us by sneaking out so we waste half the bloody day, arguing about her oh-so mysterious vanishing trick when we should be working on our ruddy music.’

  ‘Fabian—’

  ‘Jesus Christ, we’re not playing at this you know? It’s for real. We’ve got twenty-eight days to rehearse and bond as a group, so in six weeks’ time we can walk into a recording studio and lay down ten tracks that are not only note perfect but wonderful, fucking wonderful! and win us a recording contract that – hey, Josanne, where the hell are you going?’

  ‘I’m going to check Kym’s room, of course. Belle? What number is it?’

  ‘Eighteen.’ Belle looked bored, then that could be affectation; maybe she was relieved that Kym had gone. Now she had Adam Ambrose to herself.

  Guilt stirred in Fisher. He unplugged the bass guitar, then lifted the strap over his head. If Kym turns up fine. If not? He’d lied about what really happened last night; how she’d come to his room for sex.

  As he set the guitar down on its stand he called to Josanne, ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  ‘Dear God.’ Fabian held out his arms to the others. ‘I don’t believe this. It’s like being back at school again. Someone jiggers off so two more people go look for them.’ He threw the pen aside in disgust. ‘Marko? Are you going, too? Sterling? Want to help them look under the bed?’