The Anzac had said he would burn the place down.
He couldn’t do it though. Could he?
Yes, he could, Bob.
Was that his conscience jeering at him, like the cricket in that Disney film? He wished it would go away. Yet it was right. The Anzac could explode monitors. There were monitors all over the building. Exploding enough of them would surely ignite a fire somewhere. Was there a sprinkler system? Probably, but the Anzac controlled it too. If he didn’t want it to operate it wouldn’t. They had to get out.
Bob stared into the pitch darkness and wished for just a match, or a lighter, the tiniest glimmer of illumination to relieve that evil concealing blackness.
A shame he didn’t smoke. Smokers normally carried lighters or matches.
Did Caroline smoke? Would there be anything in her handbag?
No, silly. Of course, she didn’t smoke. She had never mentioned it. She had certainly not smoked on their date and he had never seen her with the group of frantic furtive puffers stood at the entrance door indulging their habit. As she didn’t smoke she wouldn’t have a match or a lighter in her handbag.
She had a light though.
Bob clicked his fingers excitedly. Yes! She had that key light she had been fiddling with in the taxi. He had watched her use it when she stood at her front door. It was the kind of silly, half-useful gadget sold in supplements that came with the Sunday papers. If not exactly a torch it was a light source.
He rummaged through her handbag, feeling a little guilty. The keys were easy enough to find by touch. He felt for the fob and pressed it. A tiny, glorious yellow bulb lit up an area of about three inches around itself. It was as precious as a drop of water in the desert.
It wouldn’t last long. Bob scrambled to his feet. There were still vast areas of blackness all around him but he had his little glimmer. He could just about make out the pod nearest him. Stepping carefully he made his way to the tearoom. His ankle felt sorer than ever and he was limping. More by feel than by the poor light he found a glass, filled it with water, and took it back to Caroline.
He put the glass on the table, knelt down and tried to wake her, without success.
Reluctantly he released pressure on the fob and the light and it turned itself off. No point in wasting it. He squatted down beside the girl and thought about what to do next. There was silence now in the corridor, or at least no noise loud enough to be heard through the doors.
There was only one thing to do. Grab another table and try to smash the doors and get out. It wasn’t a very ingenious plan, thought Bob. A two-year-old could have conceived it. Yet it was the plan they were stuck with for this evening.
He moved computers off one table. The key fob was in his pocket and he worked in darkness. Progress was slow. Setting the computers down on the floor was awkward with his bad ankle. He had to slide the left leg out straight behind him and bend down taking all the weight on the right. His right knee soon hurt. Bob ignored it.
He wrestled the table free of its companions and dragged it away. He fell over one of the monitors he had just moved and cursed as he sprawled headlong. Picking himself up, he felt for the key fob in his pocket as if it was a lucky charm. It was still there.
He rolled the table end over end to a position in front of the doorway. It was heavy. He could barely pick it up, let alone swing it and decided his best option was to slide it along the floor and ram the door that way. He tried it once to no effect. The steel frame at the bottom of the door took most of the impact from the flat edge of the table.
He turned the table around so that the legs were facing the door. He stood to the left of the table, gripping the edge and slammed it at his target. The bottom leg hit the frame but the top leg tilted forward on impact and hit the glass. It was not a mighty blow. The glass didn’t crack. It never would crack under such blows.
Bob sat down on the carpet as a surge of despair overcame him.
Chapter Seventeen
Bob took out his the key fob, his charm, and pressed it. For a full minute, he sat and looked at the tiny comforting light while his head span with confused and desperate thoughts. He realized it was getting weaker and let go of the button. The darkness seemed to gather around again, ready to attack. Yet somehow, as long as there was light left in his charm, as long as he had something to reach for when he was desperate, he could cope. The table was right by the door. He didn’t need to see it. If he slid it back and slammed it forward it and kept hitting the door maybe it would break.
Bob’s Uncle had been a stonemason. One of his favourite sayings was ‘A drop of water will wear away a stone.’ Mason’s had to work with some hard stones and in the days before power tools, they had done it with muscle alone. The saying was a kind of homage to steady, persistent effort. Bob wasn’t doing anything else all night. He might as well play a drop of water to the stone of the door.
Grunting he stood up and took hold of the table. Favouring his good leg he slammed the table leg into the door. It made a kind of dead flat sound that was very unsatisfactory. It was not the sound of glass about to break.
He kept going. His arm and shoulder ached. He was dreadfully aware of the blackness all around him and closed his eyes. It was dark anyway with your eyes closed. He could close his eyes and imagine a brightly-lit room.
He kept to his work with the table. He turned his Uncle’s motto into a kind of mantra, a rhythmic chant, a galley slaves rowing song to make the boring job go by.
A drop of water will – slam.
Wear away a stone – slam.
A drop of water will – slam.
Wear away a stone – slam.
He said it aloud: “A drop of water will (Slam) wear away a stone (Slam).
He stopped. His arm and shoulder were screaming with pain. He just had to rest for a while. He paused and rubbed his shoulder, staring almost with hatred at the glass door before him. Then he perceived, from some glimmer reaching the corner of his eye, that there was a light behind him. Turning he saw that one monitor had come on. He approached it cautiously. The Anzac might turn a monitor on to draw him near then blow it up in his face. The Anzac might do anything.
Keeping as far away as possible he studied the screen. It seemed to be another web page. There was a picture of a monument, perhaps a tomb. It was a stone structure with pillars and a roof, the type of thing his Uncle used to restore and repair in various cemeteries all over England when he had been a journeyman mason.
The screen flickered and the picture changed. Bob saw a man in a broad-brimmed hat wearing a purple robe with a white shawl. He wore familiar blue shoes and a big moustache covered his upper lip. “The Turk!” he shouted excitedly. “Caroline, look.”
He remembered she was unconscious. Cautiously he pulled a chair under himself and moved closer to the screen. He read some notes with the picture. It was an oil painting of the man. The screen flickered to another website. Bob read about the man in the picture. He had famous and important in his day. He had been widely acknowledged as a good man, almost a saint. Bob whistled softly.
The man was famous for saving women from being burned.
That reminded him of Caroline. He had to wake her up. He went to her side, knelt down and shook her. She stirred then went quiet again.
Very reluctantly he put his hands to her ears. He pinched the lobes hard between thumb and forefinger. He had read somewhere that this would wake someone up from a dead faint but it felt cruel and brutal and hated to do it.
It worked.
She stirred, whimpered and opened her eyes then glared at him. “What are you doing? Oh, my head.” She groaned and rolled onto her belly, clutching her head in both hands. He passed the glass of water under her armpit so it was by her mouth.
“Drink, darling. Wake yourself up. We have to go.”
She sipped the water and slid out from beneath the table. Bob pointed to the monitor.
“Read that. I’m going back to work on the door.”
Carolin
e obediently sat in the chair and began to read what was on the screen. Bob approached the door with no enthusiasm. He stood looking at it and thinking.
Caroline said, “This is interesting.”
“Yes. I think he’s on our side. I’m not sure how much he can help though.” Bob was absent-minded, most of his attention fixed on the door.
He had an idea. His Uncle’s mantra wasn’t working. A drop of water might eventually wear away a stone but Bob didn’t have centuries. He gripped the table and slammed the leg into the glass then slammed it in again quickly. He did it again. His shoulder and arm were in agony with the strain but he didn’t quit. He wanted to hit the glass while it was still vibrating from the previous blow. If it was vibrating and received another blow and another it might break. He didn’t have enough force to shatter it. His best chance was to shake it. He tried to make the blows as hard as possible but concentrated more on making them fast. This meant a shorter swing back. In fact, he was just tilting the table on its bottom edge and belting the table leg at his corner repeatedly into the pane. It was not a drop of water wearing away a stone, more like a woodpecker drilling a tree. A woodpecker might take as long to drill a big tree as water might to wear away a stone, thought Bob, but this woodpecker had to try.
Bob was no saint himself but he didn’t like the thought of women burning either.
The glass broke all at once, the whole pain shattering into seven pieces with a loud clang. Bob sank to the floor and rubbed his aching shoulder.
The lights came on.
He turned and saw Caroline stood by the column where the light switches were placed. He gaped at her in amazement.
“What did you do?”
“I pressed the switches and they came on.”
“The Anzac turned them off.”
“Somehow, yes.”
Bob blinked. “I assumed... I thought he had blown the circuits or crossed the wires or ...something.”
She smiled. “Clearly not. I thought so too, to be honest, but I stood up and realized I was beside them and pressed them from habit – if the lights are out you reach for the switch – and hey presto!”
Bob stared at her. “I’ve been terrified for the past two hours and all I had to do was press the switches.”
“Sorry.”
Bob chuckled. He laughed. He roared and fell on his side clutching his stomach.
Caroline watched him solemnly for about a minute. Eventually, he recovered his composure. He stood up and brushed at his trousers with a businesslike air.
“Let’s get the Hell out of here.”
Chapter Eighteen
The next set of doors was shut but as Bob and Caroline approached they slid open. Eddie and the rest sat together in a small group. Eddie looked worried. Mandy seemed to have been crying while Nancy looked white and shaken. Pauline seemed calm and strong somehow beside the rest of them. They all started when the doors opened and stared at Bob and Caroline as if they were ghosts.
Mandy moved towards them. Eddie grabbed her shoulder and winced in pain. “Stop. The doors can shut remember.”
Keeping a wary eye on the walls where the doors were sheathed, Bob and Caroline stepped through to join their friends. They were not attacked.
Caroline said, “What happened?”
Eddie blinked hard and drew in a deep breath. “Shortly after you left us the Anzac appeared. At the same time, the doors started opening and slamming shut, very fast.”
“I could hear that in there,” said Bob.
“He was bawling and yelling at us about how we were all going to die. Mandy panicked and made a run through the doorway to join you two. The doors shut on her. I reached in to pull her out and got my arm broken.” He indicated his right arm, dangling uselessly by his side.
Pauline said, “He vanished after a while, probably realized we weren’t going to run again, and the doors stayed shut.”
“With my arm broken I couldn’t break them down,” said Eddie. “The girls had a go but no luck. This broken table isn’t much of a battering ram. What happened to you?”
“I fainted,” said Caroline.
“Again!” Pauline looked at her in alarm. “There’s something wrong, Caroline.”
Bob continued. “The Anzac appeared when she was out and taunted me for a while. Then he put the shutters down and turned the lights out. That was hard.” Bob looked at the floor for a second then looked Eddie in the eye. “I don’t like the dark.” It was almost an invitation for a jibe.
Eddie said, “I don’t like spiders. What did you do?”
“I gave up, for a while. Then I remembered that Caroline has a silly light on her key ring and used that. I grabbed a table and broke the door. It wasn’t easy. Meanwhile, though, we discovered some interesting stuff. The computers were showing websites. I think I know what’s going on. Listen, did the Anzac tell you he would burn the place down?”
“He didn’t tell us,” said Nancy. “He screamed at us that he was going to burn us all.”
“I think he means it. But the Turk – who is actually an Indian – is on our side.”
“He’s not helping much,” said Eddie.
“Who is he?” asked Nancy.
“Raja Ram Mohan Roy,” said Caroline. “A Hindu reformer and visionary considered by many as the father of modern India. He died while visiting Bristol and is buried in Arnos Vale cemetery, just down the hill from here, in a very elegant tomb with a magnificent stone monument. The Anzacs are buried not far away.”
“Anzacs? Why would Anzacs be buried in Bristol?” Mandy stood close to Eddie and had put an arm around his waist. He did not look displeased.
“Some of the wounded were brought back here during the battle. Some of them died. Think about it. They fought in a badly managed battle and then were carted off to a distant land to die. Then someone builds a call centre practically on top of their remains. One of them seems to have taken offence.”
“But he’s dead,” said Eddie. He sat down on the carpet wearily, his back against the wall. “He’s dead. Dead people have no power. They can’t do stuff.” He waved his hand at the voices raised in protest. “I know, I know. We’ve all seen him and he’s trying to kill us. But how? How did he get the power?”
“This is the night when spirits may walk the Earth,” said Pauline. They all looked at her. It seemed an incongruous statement coming from such a practical, hardheaded woman. She shrugged: “I am quoting Raja Ram Mohan Roy, a spirit who, at the time, was walking the Earth.”
“I still haven’t seen them,” said Caroline. “I believe you,” she added hastily.
“You faint before they appear,” said Bob slowly. “Every time.”
“Sorry,” she replied, an edge to her voice.
Pauline looked at Bob. “Do you think that means something?”
He was staring at Caroline. “When you faint it’s because you go weak. That means a loss of energy. What if the Anzac is using you as his energy source?”
This outraged Nancy. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!”
Now Eddie stared at Caroline. “She does faint before he appears. Every single time, now that I think about it. And she fainted before Raja Ram whatsisname appeared too. There might be a connection.” Nancy was getting red in the face. “We’re not saying it’s her fault, Nancy.”
Pauline said, “Why should it be Caroline. Why couldn’t he draw energy from me or you or Eddie?”
“We haven’t got it,” said Bob. He looked Caroline in the eye. “You may have inherited it from your mother.”
She shook her head. “No. No. I don’t believe in this stuff.” There were tears in her eyes.
Nancy stood up and put an arm around her. “Stop it! You’re upsetting her. She’s not well tonight, that’s all.”
Eddie was looking confused. “What might she have inherited from her mother?”
Bob shook his head. “It’s not my place to tell you.” He looked at Caroline and his eyes were pleading.
She spoke angr
ily. “My mother was a faith healer. I told Bob. She believed she had a kind of healing energy. She always felt tired after working on someone.”
Eddie looked sceptical. “Did it work?”
“Yes, it worked. She wasn’t a charlatan.”
He nodded. “So she had some kind of healing energy. An energy other people don’t have. Bob is thinking that you might have it too and it might power the Anzac.”
Caroline shook her head. “I don’t believe it.”
Bob took her by the shoulders gently. “I’m not blaming you, love. You are suffering more than anyone. We’re just trying to figure out the best thing to do.”
All this sentiment was too much for Eddie. “Let’s beat her to death,” he said.
“Hilarious,” said Pauline. “I don’t think killing a person will help.”
Eddie waved his good arm flamboyantly. “She’s not primarily a person at the moment; she’s a power source for a malign spirit. It wouldn’t be murder. It would be self-defence. The worse we could get done for is assaulting a battery. Ouch.”
Nancy slapped him around the head and screamed at him. “How dare you say that? How dare you even joke about such a thing?”
Eddie rubbed his head and spoke softly. “I joke. It’s what I do.” He looked at Bob as if for support. Bob merely nodded.
“It’s what you do. Sometimes though...” He clenched his fist for a second and then sighed. Eddie was Eddie and there was no changing him. He turned back to Caroline. “The Anzac is in control of the building even when you are conscious. That’s the real danger.”
“How does a ghost control a building?” said Pauline.
Eddie sat back against the wall. “I might venture an opinion, as a science-fiction buff. Perhaps a ghost is an electro-magnetic phenomenon, some tiny collection of signals. Boosted by Caroline’s power he can manifest himself but even without it, he can possess the computer. A computer doesn’t use a lot of power. Although it moves large physical systems” – he waved at the doors – “it operates off tiny electronic signals. A determined ghost might be able to manipulate them.” He shrugged. “Just a theory.”
Arnos Hell Page 9
