by Simon Clark
Adam strained forward to reach it. The grass was wiry. If he could grip it he was sure he could haul himself out. Then Cantley would experience pain like he’d never felt before. The brown slop reached Adam’s shoulders. His arms were smeared with the stuff. He could feel it sucking him down. Meanwhile, the chimes had speeded to a ding-ding-ding-ding!
A shape moved above him against a background of mist. That cracked voice said, ‘Hey, idiot. Did you ever think I’d let you catch me?’
Adam snarled, ‘Damn you, Cantley. When you die you’re going to Hell!’
‘I’m going to Hell, you say?’ Cantley smiled. His misshapen teeth were a sickly yellow. ‘You’re wrong. We’re already there.’
He reached out with his boot and rested the muddy sole on Adam’s head. Adam screamed at him. Cantley took no notice but shifted his balance so he could press down on the man’s head. The extra weight made the inevitable come more quickly.
Adam felt the tide of muck rise up over his neck to his chin. It was bitingly cold. Unlike treading water, being neck deep in mud is a crushing force. Even before it reached his lips the pressure against his stomach was so great he could no longer inhale. By the time the moist filth crept over his mouth the compression of his torso caused what air remained in his lungs to whisper out through his nostrils. All he could do was roll his eyeballs upward so he could see the grinning man press down with his foot. The weight on his skull hurt so much he longed to cry out, but the flood of silt into his mouth made screaming impossible. Somehow he knew he screamed with his eyes. He knew they’d be bright with pain as they bulged from his skull. His hair that Belle loved so much was coated in mud.
Adam could still hear the chimes. They were deafening. Like the peal of cathedral bells inside his skull. As his head passed from the world of air and life into the liquid world of choking mud the chimes changed again. This time they sounded like the roar of aircraft engines. Only they rose in pitch as if the engines ran out of control to shake themselves to pieces. From those whirling propellers in his mind’s eye, sparks of purple and red sprayed out into eternity … forever and ever …
In the motel room Josanne heard the clock chimes strike with such power that it felt like a blow against the side of her head. Jak heard them too. As he barked she stumbled toward the motel corridor with the intention of finding Fabian. Josanne knew she was screaming. Part of her detested the cries she made – they were a sign of weakness and panic – but, dear God, the pain from that sound was phenomenal. Only she didn’t step into the corridor. With her eyes three-quarters shut because of the pain, she staggered past the bright yellow plastic door to find herself in a cold void. Perfect darkness. Not a glimmer of light. She couldn’t see a thing.
The chimes receded to a faint metallic hum that swelled before falling away. The sound made her think of the silvery lungs of some nightmare machine. A robot sound … Strange thoughts … they didn’t stop there. She recalled what Fisher had told her about the house returning Blaxton to its grounds so it could finally make his Death Dream come true.
So, it’s brought me back, Josanne told herself. I was in the motel; now I’m back here.
‘Hello.’
The chimes shaped her echo into a metallic snarl, then hurled it back at her. Hello! It could have been the house throwing out a sarcastic Hello yourself.
‘Fisher? Is anyone there?’
Fisher! Is anyone there! The mutant sound roared back at her. Its harsh resonance set her teeth on edge; the sound infinitely less pleasant than a knife screeching across a plate.
‘Are you there?’
Are YOU there!
Josanne stepped forward. Her hands swam through the darkness trying to find a wall.
‘Fabian? Marko? Fisher?’
Fabian! Marko-ohh! Fish-urrrrr! The chimes deformed her echo into a maelstrom that spun around her head. Damn. I’ve got to find a light. I can’t bear that sound …
It seemed to read her mind. The chimes fused into a scream that ascended in pitch until she thought her skull would shatter. Josanne had to keep moving forward. Where she was going in the dark she didn’t know. But she couldn’t stop here. That wasn’t an option. But where was here? This icy darkness suggested she was back in the cellar. Thoughts sped of the flood. She recalled how it had tumbled her on its currents like a rag doll. A soft form pressed against her thigh. Gulping with shock, she reached down to push it away. Her mind’s eye supplied an image of Cantley creeping out of the darkness to grasp her. Josanne’s fingers encountered fur.
‘Jak?’
The dog stroked by her. She felt the gentle thump of his tail against her thigh, then he nuzzled her hand with his nose.
‘Jak. Stay close to me, boy.’
The dog had found her in the darkness. Knowing she was no longer alone prevented the all-consuming panic. Suddenly the chimes didn’t seem as harsh. They continued but they settled into a rhythmic pulse of metal on metal. She bent down so she could hook a finger in Jak’s collar. The moment she did so he began to walk. Just hope to God he’s leading me out of here. The darkness began to change. Instead of the black fog that pressed against her wide open eyes a grey patch appeared to her left. It brightened. A moment later she realized she was looking at the medieval façade of The Good Heart.
So it’s brought me back into the centre of The Tower. I’m walking along The Promenade …
The chimes became blossoms of sound; there was a sense of opening, of unfolding. Each bell-like note began as a ringing tone before mutating into a shimmering rush of sound that ghosted through the air. To her left, the ancient wall glowed. She could see the stones, the deep-set windows, the carved animal above the doorway; the door itself, a stunted thing that most would have to stoop to enter. Inside the house within a house it had been a mass of shadows. Now a radiance grew there; a sickly yellow light that revealed the interior. Through those windows she saw figures. They were silhouettes of people dressed in archaic clothes; she glimpsed the outline of oddly bulbous hats and women in long dresses. At first she thought they were playing a game, but then she saw that some of the silhouettes wielded swords that they used to hack off the heads of the other figures. The house showed her a massacre that occurred here centuries ago. Blood ran in thick crimson rivulets through the doorway. Above the grim rhythm of chimes she heard the dying screams of women and children.
‘Get me out of here!’ she whispered to Jak, as she broke into a run. In front of her a man knelt on the ground. He wore a flying suit and a yellow life vest. His shoulders shook as he wept.
Don’t look at him. The house is showing you what happened in the past. It’s not happening now. It’s an echo … nothing but a fucking echo.
But Josanne couldn’t stop herself. As she ran past she glanced down at him. He wore tinted flying goggles so she couldn’t see his eyes. The black muzzle of the pistol slipped through his lips to touch the roof of his mouth. When he squeezed the trigger, cordite smoke jetted from his mouth, his head jerked, the flying goggles filled with blood; but she didn’t hear a gunshot. Instead, one of the clock chimes swelled into a metallic clash that was so loud it slammed the air from her lungs. Jak yelped in pain.
‘Keep going!’ she shouted. Ahead she could see Belle in the weird custard yellow light. Belle still lay in the same position with her legs awkwardly bent at the knee. Her dead eyes stared at the ceiling. Her spilt blood had congealed on the floor.
Josanne gritted her teeth as she raced for the twin doors.
Marko’s smooth transition from the motel to The Tower was like the rest. As the chimes started he was simply no longer in the motel room with its TV and branded yellow decor. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on a hard, lumpy surface. A protrusion dug into his spine. He looked up at a white painted ceiling. The chimes rang loudly. Instantly he knew the score. Fisher had repeated it often enough. You dream your own death. Then it happens to you. Marko’s nightmare had been fire. A consuming furnace. He rolled to one side as he heard a hiss, smelt
cooking gas, then heard the pop of it igniting. The back of his neck smarted as heat seared the skin. Now instead of the gas smell, there was the acrid stink of singed hair.
Marko rolled sideways off his lumpy platform to fall three feet to a tiled floor. In a second he was on his feet, slapping at his scorched clothes.
‘Yeah, you tried your best,’ he told the house. ‘You dumped old Marko on the stove to fry.’
Seconds ago he’d found himself lying on a stove in the main kitchen. It was a big old iron range intended to cook food for a hundred people. Six pairs of gas burners ran along its length. One of those iron fittings that diffused the burning gas had been the unyielding lump that pressed into his spine. When he was satisfied his clothes and his hair weren’t on fire he turned to watch the gas jets hiss with a bright blue flame.
The chimes stopped dead. It was as good as a prompt. He turned the knobs set in front of the stove to kill the flames.
That done Marko stood back to glare up at the ceiling. ‘Nice try, house! You didn’t get me that time!’
Sterling never achieved full consciousness. In a dreamlike state he heard the clock chime. It wasn’t the regulation six for six o’clock. They went on and on. He realized he was sitting on a chair. He knew the dimension of the room was different to the motel room that he’d occupied moments before. Cold air touched his skin. No light reached his eyes. In the darkness there was no air to breathe. His death burst on him with the suddenness of a lightning flash.
CHAPTER 36
Fisher had told him often enough in the last few hours, yet Fabian had played the modern man. Blinkered by the electronic digitized, computerized trappings of modern technology, he’d refused to admit the truth. That truth was: The Tower is evil. It wouldn’t let them go. Only for some reason the house hadn’t been able to get its hooks into one of its visitors. And that visitor was Fabian. The Tower had taken the others back into itself: Belle had been murdered; Kym had most likely suffered the same fate.
Now Josanne and the others had been snatched back there. Fabian knew he had to get back there as fast as he could. As he ran from the motel, the proprietor of the garage mopped the area around the pumps from a steaming pail. Fabian didn’t know if the guy looked his way in surprise as he raced like a lunatic to the van. He didn’t care. He had to find Josanne. God alone knew what had happened to her back at that evil heap of stones. Within moments, Fabian had turned the ignition key. The motor howled as he floored the accelerator to send the van rocketing across the car-park to join the road. It would take twenty minutes to return to The Tower. Already a sick feeling crept into Fabian’s throat as he anticipated what he would find there.
They found Sterling in the ballroom. He was sitting on the sofa with the audio tape spools and cassettes that Fisher had found in the cellar arranged around his feet. Sterling had slumped low enough down into the sofa for his head to be held upright by the backrest. Fisher had entered the ballroom, tying a handkerchief around his injured hand so as to protect the broken little finger from further damage. What he saw there stopped him dead. As it did Marko and Josanne as they joined him.
Sterling slouched back as if taking a nap. Only his mouth was wide open. Running from the man’s mouth were dark brown lines of audio tape. They spilled from his over-stretched jaws to the cassettes and spools lying on the floor at his feet, where yet more of the tape was still wrapped around the spindles. Sterling’s mouth had been packed tight with the tape. It formed a compacted mass of shiny plastic ribbon. A trickle of blood ran from his nose to drip from the end of his chin onto his shirt.
Marko started forward. ‘Sterling … Sterling?’
Fisher spoke bluntly, ‘He’s dead.’
Marko looked back at him with pain-filled eyes. ‘Fisher, how can you be sure?’
‘Look how swollen his throat is. The tape’s been forced into his throat. There’s so much it’s stretched his windpipe.’ He grimaced as he finished tying the handkerchief around his hand. ‘It probably fills his lungs too.’
‘Cantley did this?’ Josanne’s voice rose in horror. ‘How on earth could he—?’
‘The Tower brought us back here from the motel.’ To Fisher’s ears his voice sounded brutally matter-of-fact. ‘The moment it dumped us back here it tried to kill us. With Sterling it succeeded.’ He slowly approached his friend. It looked as if Sterling was in the process of vomiting a dozen strands of magnetic tape. Fisher was surprised at himself for not being felled by grief – he’d known Sterling for years. Only there wasn’t time for grieving now. What they did in the next couple of hours would determine whether they lived or died. Sorrow would come later. If they made it.
‘Hell,’ Marko breathed. ‘Why did it do that to Sterling?’
‘Because it could,’ Josanne said.
Fisher nodded. ‘And it wants whoever survives its attacks to know what it’s capable of.’
‘But how could it force so much tape into his mouth that he suffocated? I mean, the mechanics of it?’
Josanne’s face was grim. ‘How did the house yank us back here from miles away?’ She crouched down to put her arm round Jak as he sat beside her. A gesture to bring comfort to her as much as the dog. ‘If you can answer that one you’ve got an answer to how it can choke a man with tape.’
Fisher grimaced. ‘We know it’s not going to pull any punches. It’s not even content with killing us.’ He looked up at the ceiling. ‘You want to put us through hell first, don’t you, House? You want to mess us up so badly that we haven’t the guts to put up a fight.’ His voice echoed back at him. And the echo changed slightly, so the reverberation was out of phase with his speech. When he spoke next the echo even preceded the words as he spoke them. Just another example of the house toying with them. Call it Jack - ‘Call it Jack-the-Ripper syndrome’ the-Ripper syndrome. See you’re …
‘See, you’re doing it now. You’re aiming to screw with our heads.’
Screw with our heads … The echo shimmered, a ghostly sound that chilled them to the bone.
Instead of allowing the confused welter of echo throw him, Fisher pushed on. ‘I’m calling it Jack-the-Ripper syndrome, because when the killer struck in Whitechapel over a hundred years ago he wanted to show off.’ Wanted … show off … ‘He wanted to prove to the police that he not only could slaughter defenceless women without being caught he also butchered them. He cut out their wombs, and slashed their faces – finicky little cross cuts on their skin. Frivolous patterns carved on their flesh, just so he could say Aren’t I a clever boy? But hear this, you ugly pile of stones, Jack the Ripper was a coward – AND SO ARE YOU!’
The echoes fused into a thunderous roll of sound that quickly died away to silence.
Josanne took a deep breath. ‘The Tower sure as hell heard you, Fisher. And it didn’t like what it heard.’
‘Good. Because if we’re going to make it out of here we’re going to have to start fighting back.’
Fabian pushed the van hard. He hurtled round corners. Tyres screamed. More than once he wound up leaving the blacktop to fishtail across the grass at the side of the road.
‘Just don’t put the fucking thing in a ditch,’ he hissed.
As Fabian neared The Tower the mist thickened. Soon he couldn’t see the rising sun. It became gloomier. He could even feel fingers of damp reaching in through the vehicle to touch his skin. Within a hundred yards visibility had dropped to all but zero. All he could see were gloomy, formless shadows that must have been trees. A sense of danger crackled through him. Any second now he might power the van into a farm tractor, or a bus. In his mind’s eye he saw himself flying through the windscreen to crash against the ground. Fabian stomped the brake. The van slithered to a crawl. With the speedo touching ten miles an hour he rumbled forward.
Hell, this was a fog all right. The king of fogs. He couldn’t even see the white lines on the road when he switched on the lights. It was only as he passed the entrance gates that he realized he’d missed the access in the murk.
Quickly, he reversed the van, then advanced along the gravel driveway.
Huh. Back so soon. Fabian thought he’d left the place for good. Now, with a dark, irresistible gravity all of its own, The Tower pulled him back.
They quit the ballroom for the little kitchen they’d used during happier times to prepare their meals. Fisher glanced round at the exhausted, battered people gathered there. Josanne with dark rings etched beneath her eyes. Marko: he appeared only semi-conscious from the shock of Sterling’s death. Then there was Jak. He appeared the most alert of all and stood between them and the kitchen door. The animal kept his guard up. Fisher felt a surge of gratitude that Jak was with them. No bones about it, he was a source of strength to the beleaguered group.
Fisher took a breath. The question had to be asked. ‘So we all experienced it?’
Josanne nodded. ‘We heard the chimes in the motel, then pfft. A second later we were all back here.’
‘What happened when it hauled you back?’
Josanne explained that she’d been subjected to a psychological attack in The Good Heart. The house had replayed an ancient massacre, then she’d seen a revenant of an airman blowing out his brains with a handgun. ‘The house was trying to make me crack,’ she said, ‘I’m sure of it. The chimes were going crazy.’
Marko said, ‘I found myself lying across the gas stove in the big kitchen. It tried to set fire to me. See the singe marks on my hair at the back?’
‘Your clothes are scorched, too.’ Fisher pointed out, then he told them what happened to him. His manifestation in the cellar followed by the brick ceiling falling in on him.
‘Yeah,’ Marko said. ‘You’ve got the wounds to prove it, too. Do they hurt?’
Fisher found the graze on his forehead with the fingertips of his good hand. ‘With the speed of everything I haven’t got round to noticing.’ Then he added grimly, ‘I’ll live.’
