Sker House

by C. M. Saunders

  In some places, evil lurks...

  Was he unhinged? Deliberately trying to scare the new guests? Or did he really believe that this little part of South Wales was some kind of breeding ground for bad luck and general nastiness? The old man had seemed so rational and sincere. Either he was an exceptional liar, or he really believed what he was saying.

  Just then, Izzy appeared from the kitchen, accompanied by an older, stern-looking woman who was undoubtedly her mother. They both looked flustered and red-faced, and were still wiping their hands on paper towels even as they bustled around each other. “Right then, that's us done!” said the older woman.

  “Okay ladies, drive safe.” Replied Machen, but he was too late. The door had already closed. Obviously, Izzy wasn't the only one in a hurry.

  Dale took a large double swallow of beer and watched through the window as the two women practically ran to the little Nova in the car park and jumped inside. Mrs Watkins started the engine and pulled off so quickly that the passenger side door was still partially open forcing Izzy to reach out a skinny arm to pull it closed. He didn't know about evil, but paranoia and slightly bizarre behaviour definitely lurked in Sker House. Machen, Old Rolly, even Izzy and her mum were all on edge and permanently jumpy, as if just waiting for something terrible to happen. Every smile seemed forced, worn just to keep up appearances, yet beneath the façade everyone was falling to pieces.

  But Dale had never met any of these people before. Maybe this was normal behaviour for them, and him being an outsider and not attuned to their living habits and mannerisms was causing him to misinterpret the whole situation. Perhaps he was the flaky one. It crossed his mind that he was making everyone nervous by asking too many questions. He should tone it down and not make his intentions so obvious. But isn't that what people do, ask questions? Isn't that how conversations start and relationships develop?

  “I wouldn't take too much notice about whatever Old Rolly says.” Machen had evidently finished his work behind the bar and taken a seat right next to Dale. “He's a nice fella, really. But he's not playing with a full deck, that one. If you know what I mean, like. Don't let anything he says worry you.”

  “I'm not worried,” Dale said, taking another large gulp of beer. “If he doesn't like Stephen King, that's his lookout.”

  “Who?”

  “Nothing,” Dale said. “What's the story with him, anyway?” Damn. There he goes asking questions again. It was a hard habit to break.

  Machen seemed happy to answer that particular query. “A bit of a mystery is Old Rolly,” he said. “The guy will just sit in here reading old newspapers and supping his ale, not speaking a word to anyone. We just leave him to it. He pays his bills on time. Can't ask for much more that that.”

  “No, I s'pose not. It's just a bit sad to see. Does he have any family around here?”

  “I reckon with you being from the Valley's and that, you know all about what small towns are like for gossip.”

  Dale nodded. He knew.

  “Rolly comes from money, he does. So they say. Though you'd never think it to look at him. I don't know about any family. He never talks about them. But I know they've lived in the area for donkey's years. The day after we opened, he turned up on the doorstep with a suitcase and asked if he could stay here. Long term. Now me, I like the idea of live-in guests, I do. Even if it's only one. Gives you some regular income you can work into the budget, see. We offered him a discount, but the silly sod wouldn't have any of it. Said he'd always paid his way in life and wasn't going to stop now. I think he was a bit embarrassed 'cos we might have thought he was a charity case. Fair enough. Pay full price if it makes you feel better, I thought. We wasn't going to argue with him about it.”

  “Who's we? You, Izzy and her mum?”

  “No, me and the wife, Sandra. She was here then. Izzy and Mrs Watkins came later, after we advertised in the paper for staff. Had a hell of a problem finding people to work here, we did. Don't know why. Must be 'cos it's a bit out of the way. The wife was worried Old Rolly was going to come here and get sick. He's knocking on a bit, like. She didn't want the responsibility of looking after him. Said the place would turn into a nursing home if many more like him turned up, and she wasn't a nurse.” The landlord thirstily drained his glass.

  Dale wanted to ask where Machen's wife was, but stopped himself. Hadn't he mentioned something about her earlier? Something about her being... away? But where could she be? Surely she wasn't away on business, her business was here. On holiday, perhaps? He didn't want to jump to conclusions. The absent wife could be anywhere. But something about the landlord's demeanour and downcast eyes suggested that wherever she was, she wouldn't be coming back in a hurry.

  “More beer, is it?” Asked Machen as he lumbered off toward the bar.

  “I shouldn't. Lucy's on her own upstairs”

  “We're all on our own, son. Don't worry, she'll be fast asleep by now, I reckon. Go on, one for the road, eh? Or the stairs. One for the stairs? It's my round.”

  That was the clincher. Nobody in their right mind ever walked away when it was someone else's round. It was also a subtle indication that the landlord didn't find Dale quite as annoying as he'd first feared. Realizing that it could be in his best interests, Dale agreed to stay.

  Even on Saturday nights at the Saint when things got rowdy, with the football crowd either celebrating or drowning their sorrows, Dale had never seen anyone drink so much in such a short space of time as Machen did that night. When he poured Dale's pint of beer he poured himself two, and finished them both before Dale could finish even half of his. When his two pints of beer were dispensed with, Machen went behind the bar and helped himself to a bottle of Jack Daniels and two shot glasses. That was Dale's cue to leave. Whisky didn't agree with him. When he said good night and slipped quietly out of the bar, he noticed the landlord was already busy pouring himself another drink.

  Chapter 8:

  All The Eggs in One Basket

  Sandra, Sandra, Sandra. The name of his absent wife repeated in Machen's head over and over again, as if caught on some broken tape loop. Scowling, he threw back his head and drained the last of the JD from his glass, then coughed and winced as he swallowed back the sour-tasting bile that filled his mouth.

  She's gone. Get over it.

  But it wasn't that easy. The sense of loss he felt was an almost physical yearning, a huge dimensionless void deep inside him. Every moment was a struggle to keep from being drawn in. He would give anything to go back to the way things were, before they came to Sker House, knowing all the while that it was impossible.

  They had first met in 1976, the year Wales won the Grand Slam with the group of players known as the 'Entertainers,' who would become the benchmark for all future Welsh national rugby teams. By the time Wales won their next Grand Slam two years later (which would be their last for a while) Machen and Sandra were married and living in a two-bedroom terraced house in Bridgend. In those days they had a happy and stable life, with barely a crossed word. After a short stint down the pits, Machen worked for a succession of breweries that sent him to different pubs all over South Wales, never staying in any one place longer then two or three years. This was the lifestyle they enjoyed for the next thirty-odd years. But then people started buying their booze in supermarkets rather than the pub, and Machen was astute enough to realize that their days in the publican trade were numbered. He and Sandra discussed their next move at length, and decided to finally put their dream of running their own guesthouse into motion. After that, it was simply a case of consolidating their savings and waiting for the right opportunity.

  Not long afterwards, Sker House went on the market and Machen and Sandra bought it at auction. There wasn't much in the way of rival bidders, which should have been a red flag, and they ended up with a fairly good deal. Even then it was a huge financial undertaking, but between their savings, a council grant, and a small business loan, they could just about scrape together enough. However, having put
all their eggs in one basket, Sker House then represented the entire sum of their wealth. It was the embodiment of their dreams. They didn't know at that early stage that those dreams would soon turned to nightmares.

  Things changed the moment they moved in. Though 'moved in' wasn't exactly the right term. Sker House was in such a decrepit state that they lived in a tiny two-berth caravan on the grounds for the first six months, while various contractors worked on the roof and structure in order to make the place liveable again. In those early days, there was a lot of stress. At the same time, however, Machen felt empowered with a sense of freedom he had never known before. In a roundabout way, he was finally fulfilling his childhood fantasy of becoming a gypsy, even if he didn't travel very far. Thinking about it, Machen realised that he had been a gypsy all his life. Never settling in one place, always restless, and dragging poor Sandra along for the ride. The only thing missing until then had been the caravan.

  It's a cliché, but the moment they took the plunge, whatever could go wrong did go wrong. First, there was all the unforeseen legal stuff that Machen didn't fully understand, but paid blood-sucking solicitors ridiculous amounts of money to deal with on his behalf. On top of that, or maybe because of that, he and Sandra's relationship began to disintegrate and they started arguing over the smallest things. Their money was being frittered away, yet so much work still needed to be done. To save a few quid, Machen shopped around for the cheapest building firm, eventually settling on a group largely comprised of Eastern European immigrants and fronted by an unpleasant cockney geezer called Dave.

  He should have known something was off with Dave from the start. He could talk his way out of a paper bag, that one. Is that the right saying? Anyway, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and being in the pub game for so long had taught Machen that you don't have to like someone to do business with them. The two parties agreed on a price and Dave put his crew to work, though he disappeared back to the Big Smoke the minute the cheque cleared leaving a foreman in charge who could barely speak English. Despite lacking communication skills (and possibly work visa's) the crew threw themselves into the job. At first, anyway. They opted to live on site, sleeping in what was now the bar area on the ground floor, which meant that early each morning Machen and Sandra were rudely awoken by the sounds of men at work. Not that it mattered. It was the sound of progress.

  Not having much else to do, Machen and Sandra would regularly visit with the workmen. Trying to decipher their broken English was a challenge Sandra relished, and the visits allowed Machen to oversee the work. Or at least give that impression. The motley crew of workers actually seemed like a decent bunch of blokes when you got to know them. Not the kind you would want to meet in a dark alley, mind. In between ripping up floorboards and smashing down walls, they would smile and show off pictures of their families. In the first few weeks, they were actually running ahead of schedule. But then, something changed. Almost overnight, the smiling bunch of friendly ruffians turned into solemn caricatures of themselves. They stopped talking and laughing, instead going about their work methodically and without any measure of enthusiasm. The only verbal indication that something was amiss came when one of them once mumbled something about not being able to get enough sleep at night. At the time, Machen didn't pay it much thought but soon after, things really degenerated. Either because the men were overworked, inexperienced, or simply because they fell into some weird malaise, they started having accidents. One of the younger lads fell off a ladder on the fourth floor and broke both his legs, while another came out on the losing end after a run-in with a nail gun.

  Then there was the guy that disappeared.

  Machen didn't believe a word of it himself. How could someone just fall off the face of the earth like that? But that was what his friends insisted. He went to inspect the sub-cellar, and never came back out.

  When they told him, the crew acted like it was his fault. As if! Even if one of their number did go missing, it was nothing to do with Machen. He had an idea they were angling for cash. Hush money or compensation. Good luck with that, he remembered thinking. Even if he had a surplus of cash, which he didn't, he wasn't about to start giving it away.

  The final straw came just a day or two later when Machen paid his usual morning visit (unaccompanied by Sandra, thankfully, who had opted for a lie-in that morning) only to find one of the four remaining workmen walking round and round in circles, clutching a hammer and mumbling away to himself in some language Machen didn't understand. The bloke had quite obviously gone around the twist. When his colleagues woke up they promptly packed up their personal belongings and walked off the job en mass, taking the poor crazy sod with them. Pity. He was one of the blokes Machen had built up a relationship with, and the last time he saw him he was sitting in the back of their truck, still clutching the hammer and talking gibberish. In that instant, Machen wasn't too upset to see him leave. He didn't care for the look in the man's eyes. It was an empty, vacant expression, as if something had reached down inside him and yanked everything out.

  In the aftermath, Machen must have called Dave a hundred times or more. At first, the absent foreman was apologetic and vowed to get the men back down. Then, evidently giving up on that idea, he said he would hire a new crew. But the new crew never materialized, and after a while Dave stopped taking his calls. Then he changed his phone number. Bloody cowboy. The whole thing was now in the hands of the solicitors, the latest news being that Dave had declared his contracting company bankrupt. The way the legal system worked, it would be a long time before Machen would be able to get back any of the money he paid out, if at all, and without that he was unable to hire anybody else to finish the job. He was stuffed.

  Out of desperation, he took it upon himself to finish up whatever he could manage. Plastering, painting, tiling, and so forth. Fortunately, Dave's cowboys did most of the larger jobs before they left. The roof, foundations and shell had all been patched-up and declared sound. But work on the top floor had barely began, cutting the capacity of Sker House by almost half. The place couldn't even pay for its own upkeep until it was functioning at fifty percent occupancy, and that was assuming he could get that many guests. Advertising might help, but he couldn't arrange any until he had funds. Everything cost money.

  “What a bloody mess,” said Machen to no one in particular. Champ the lethargic guard dog was in his usual place at Machen's feet. At the sound of his master's voice, an ear twitched and with great effort he raised his head off his paws. “You're not gonna run off and leave me as well, are you?” Machen asked the dog, who whined a response then promptly went back to sleep. Taking that as a sign that he was now even boring dumb animals with his luckless tragi-drama of a life, Machen stood up, tottering unsteadily on his feet as the world around him spun wildly in and out of focus before zooming back to clarity. Satisfied he wasn't going to fall over, not this time anyway, he snapped off the lights, locked the bar door behind him, and made his way up the stairs to his living quarters, a half-empty bottle of JD nestling under his arm. He didn't bother with a mixer.

  Chapter 9:

  Drowning

  Dale knew it couldn't be real. But just knowing that wasn't enough to stop the terror spreading through him like a cancer.

  The dream started innocuously enough. He was a sailor on a cargo ship. He knew this the way you just know things in dreams, the knowledge instilled rather than acquired. It was dusk and he was standing on the slippery deck, gripping the guardrail and gazing out over a calm sea as the last of the light faded into black, salt air in his nostrils and sea breeze on his face. Overhead, gulls swooped and dived around the ship's bulging sails, cawing as they went about their business. A tiny speck of land in the distance had been growing steadily larger, and was now so close Dale thought he could almost reach out and touch it. It had been a long, perilous journey, but it was almost at an end.

  The men, his comrades, were in good spirits. The excitement was palpable, bordering on euphoria. The sea bonded men as
tightly as the battlefield. They were brothers in arms, their massed ranks fighting an eternal battle against nature. Soon the ship would be docking, and then they would see their loved ones for the first time in months. Wives, sweethearts, parents, children, brothers, sisters, all eagerly awaited their return. For Dale, it had been an especially momentous journey. His very first. He hoped he had impressed enough to be given a second chance. The work was fraught with difficulty and danger, but a young man could make a good living on the ships. The wage was attractive, and the adventurous lifestyle far outweighed the risks.

  Suddenly, the mood changed. The sky clouded over, at once blocking out the dying sun, the pleasant sea breeze turned into a howling wind, and rain drops the size of pennies began to fall. At first just a few, then more and more. The sense of euphoria shared by the crew dissipated to be replaced by a sense of workman-like urgency. As close to home as they were, there was still much to be done. Orders and instructions rang out, men raising their voices to be heard over the brewing storm as each slipped effortlessly into his assigned role. Dale busied himself lashing loose containers to the deck with metal chains and lengths of frayed rope. Beneath his feet, he felt the ship's body creak and groan.

  With the wind came the waves, some so big they were like sheer walls of black water topped with angry white froth, towering over the ship before crashing down on the deck with terrifying force. This was the great lawless beast of the sea at its most vengeful and unforgiving. Dale was exhausted, and had to fight for every breath as the wind tried to suck it from his lungs. His clothes were sodden and stuck to his body, and his hair plastered across his face. He couldn't feel his fingers any more, but he had almost finished his task. Soon he would be able to go below deck to wait out the storm. They were close to their destination. So close. Any minute now they would be able to see the harbour lights.