by Dean Cole
I pinched her sleeve as she started for the exit. ‘Now do you believe Esther is the real deal?’
Kat looked conflicted, but just let out a frustrated sigh and walked away.
I snatched a glance at Esther again. I didn’t care what Will thought about the seance. He was wrong about this one. Hadn’t he seen Esther’s disturbing reaction? Couldn’t he at least give her, the woman he found so fascinating, a concession if not the ghost hunters? I knew what we’d just witnessed was no stunt. It had got not only the lead investigator of Pluckley Ghost Hunters worried, but a woman who spoke to the dead the way other people speak to their neighbours looking like she was about to run out of the place.
Esther was heading hastily towards the exit, the patchwork handbag swinging on her shoulder. I rushed over.
‘Are you alright?’
She started at my hand touching her arm, but then became relieved when she saw it was me. If her face wasn’t painted so colourfully I would have seen how white it was. ‘Oh, Quentin. I’m afraid this evening feels like a terrible mistake.’
‘What happened back there?’
She shook her head gravely. ‘He shouldn’t have stopped the seance like that. A dark energy has been unleashed. This isn’t just unfinished business. This is something looking for answers. And it won’t rest until it’s got them.’ She glanced about the large room, gripping her handbag strap tightly. ‘I knew there was something unsettled in this place. Oh, the things that must have taken place under this roof.’
‘Can’t you do something about it?’
‘It will take more than little me to ward that thing off. The entire contents of an apothecary would have a job shifting it. I’m going back to my room to do what I can with the little I’ve brought with me.’ Her green eyes were filled with worry as she warned, ‘But be careful, Quentin. Things are about to get very turbulent around this place. And don’t forget that you have the gift.’
The last words weren’t a comfort, they were a warning. With an almost sympathetic wilt of her lips, she rushed off in the same direction as the others.
Later, on our way upstairs to bed, I was still mulling over what she had said. A dark energy has been unleashed. It sounded so ominous. Things are about to get very turbulent around this place. Like things weren’t already unsettled enough. And that sympathetic stare, like she felt sorry for what was about to happen to me.
I shivered rounding the banister, as if I’d just walked through a spot of refrigerated air. I stopped and looked about me. A draught or the presence from an unseen dimension? Who knew. But what I did know was that for the first time since arriving at the manor I didn’t just feel scared. I felt worried. Worried for my safety.
- CHAPTER NINE -
The Nightmare
IT’S ONLY A faint tapping noise at first, so I ignore it and roll over. But then it gets louder, sharper, like hail hitting glass. I lift my head off the pillow and squint through sleepy eyelids. Moonlight bathes the sheets of the bed in blue light. It’s another second before the sound hits my ears again. And this time I see what causes it, see the stone as it hits the pane of the window.
I climb out of bed, cross the bare floorboards and pull back the curtain. Hilderley Manor’s front grounds with its gravel driveway and manicured stretches of lawn is barely visible in the moonlight. But it’s illuminated enough to see the shadowed figure standing a few feet away from the parking area, staring up at me.
I strain my eyes, trying to see anything identifiable, a face, gender, clothing. But the figure is a black silhouette as it remains ominously still, watching. Hair rises on my nape and arms when I hear a disembodied voice come from behind me. My name being whispered.
Quentin …
Slowly, I turn around and peer through the darkness at the door. The male voice calls out again, the same shiver-inducing whisper.
Quentin …
It’s captivating, enticing, beckoning, a request for me to follow it. And despite the fear cementing my legs to the floorboards, I force them towards the door, answering its call.
I step out into the corridor. In the pale light flooding in from a far off window I can see the wet footprints trailing down the carpet runner. As I walk, I stare down at them. Are they the footprints of someone fresh out of a bath? I squint for a better look, noticing something isn’t right. It isn’t water that made them. It’s a thicker substance I’m looking at, darker, shinier, with smears and splodges. It’s blood.
They lead me to the staircase. I halt at the top, listening out for the voice. I start when it comes out of the darkness in the hallway, louder this time, enchanting, seducing.
Quentin …
I begin down the stairs, avoiding the bloody footprints that continue down each step. Midway down I see the front door is wide open, casting blue light across the hallway’s stone flooring. When I reach the bottom, I hesitate. Cold air from the open door blows in and nips at my exposed toes. I can’t see much beyond the door, but I know the silhouetted figure is still out there, waiting.
Quentin …
I carry on walking, my heart racing now, my shoulders tightening, breath bursting in and out. Why am I so afraid? What am I expecting to find?
I reach the door and step outside. The person stands in the same spot I saw from the window, twelve feet or so from my position at the doorstep. But this time they have their back to me.
‘Hello?’ I say.
I’m startled when a crack of thunder rips through the calm sky, followed by a lightning bolt that illuminates the figure for a split second. In this momentary flash I catch enough detail to discern I am looking at a young man, dressed in pyjamas, no socks covering his bare feet.
‘Excuse me?’ I call again.
No answer.
But then his head slowly begins to turn …
I’m expecting a normal face, but a normal face is nowhere near what I’m about to see. Another flash of lightning illuminates the head and shoulders as he continues to turn. It’s the odd colour at first, dark, almost black, where skin should be. Then, as he looks at me, there’s another flash of light. And I see that he isn’t looking at me because he doesn’t have eyes to look at me with. He doesn’t even have a face, just a gaping black hole where it should be, muscle, tissue and brain gone, the way you’d hack the flesh out of a Halloween pumpkin.
Every part of me is now frozen with fear. The only part that works is my mouth, which opens to let out a blood-curdling scream …
I opened my eyes to find I was standing on the driveway of Hilderley Manor, my bare feet digging painfully into sharp gravel. But it wasn’t just shoes I was missing. I wasn’t wearing any trousers either. Or a shirt. I wasn’t even wearing my specs. If it wasn’t for the Super Mario boxer shorts I’d have been exposing my arse in all its pale-cheeked glory to anyone who might have been around to see it.
Nobody was. I was completely alone out here in the dead of night, the manor grounds looking like the exterior set on the shoot of a horror flick, moonlight gilding the spiked tips of the huge gate, fog swathing the building in a misty blanket.
With the night surrounding me, pitch black and horribly cold, I hugged my shivering torso and collected my wits. How long had I been out here? Some time, most likely, since the cold had seeped into my bones and frozen my jaw shut. How had I got here? The last thing I remembered was falling asleep. Had I sleepwalked? Was I dreaming? I pinched my arm to check, wincing when I felt very real pain there.
But then slowly, surely, the memory of the dream came back to me. A bad dream. A nightmare. I was woken by a tapping noise on the window, there were bloody footprints on the runner in the corridor, on the staircase. A young man in pyjamas stood in this very spot, he turned his head and …
The trees shook suddenly, making me start. I peered up and saw clouds scudding through a chink in one of the canopies like grey smoke on a creeping wind, a couple of bats swooping in and out of the twisted branches. They weren’t the only nocturnal creatures out tonight judging
by other noises coming out of the darkness. A twig snapped. Tiny feet skittered through the undergrowth. An owl somewhere high up emitted its famous tu-whit tu-whoo call. The gate rattled briefly, followed by a deathly howl that rent the chill night air. Was it … no, it couldn’t be … the demon dog from the stories Annie was telling us?
Now I was really worried. I cast the house a nervous glance over my shoulder. The front door was ajar, the dark hallway beckoning me back to safety. Upstairs, a light in one of the windows came on. A figure moved across the room unsteadily. They stopped, towel drying their hair, before approaching the window and looking down where I stood. It took a moment, but it looked like they spotted me. Then they were gone, vanishing out of sight.
I started back inside, treading carefully to avoid getting gravel stuck in my feet. Fear subsided the moment the door clicked shut, its cold, hard surface pressing against my back. I stayed there for a moment, listening to the steady tick of a grandfather clock hidden somewhere in the gloom. The quiet was interrupted by a light coming on, followed by hurried footfall on the staircase.
Will had appeared in bedclothes, worry etched on his face. From the look of his wet hair and flushed cheeks, it was obvious he’d just got out of the shower, that it had been him towel drying his hair in the window. But his rescue attempt, if that had been his mission, wasn’t going to be as graceful as he might have hoped. Coming off the last step of the staircase, he struck his foot on the hallway’s stone floor, which made him buckle at the knees and release a cry that sounded similar to a baby elephant’s trumpet.
‘Jesus — effin — OW!’
The cry reverberated through the hallway, and probably all the way to the top floor corridor. Through blurry eyes I watched him limp towards me, hopping as he tried to nurse his big toe, the look of worry now a twisted grimace. I’d have had more sympathy if it hadn’t become abundantly clear the second he came within inches what had caused the mishap. The alcohol on his breath was so strong it would have ignited had a match been held to it. Will was drunk for a second night in a row. He sounded in pain when he spoke.
‘What are you doing outside in your undies, you muppet? You’ll catch a death.’
‘I … don’t know,’ I faltered.
He’d fetched a thick blanket, which he was now swathing around my chilled shoulders. ‘Let’s get you upstairs before you freeze your balls off.’ There was a slur in there somewhere, and a wince.
Will made a lot of fuss about his rapidly swelling toe — ‘I think I chipped the nail.’ ‘It’ll bruise for sure.’ ‘I might have broken a bone.’ — as he escorted me up the staircase and along the first floor corridor. I didn’t ask questions when we reached the open door of his room, not mine, and he shoved me inside. Getting out of the cold had warmed me up considerably, but I was still shivering like a hound that had been chained outdoors overnight as the door closed and Will hauled me over to the fourposter. He pushed me down onto the edge of the mattress, checking me over attentively. Well, as attentively as he could through the heavy eyes of his intoxication.
‘I wish you’d stop creeping around in the middle of the night like a blimming hedgehog,’ he said. ‘That’s the second time you’ve given me a fright.’
‘I must have sleepwalked.’ My voice was soft, distant.
‘Do you do that often?’
‘No, never.’
‘First time for everything, I s’pose.’
As if he hadn’t had enough to drink, he seized hold of a half-empty wine bottle on the bedside table and began swigging its contents. Then he started clearing debris off the bed. Socks, checkered boxer shorts and a damp towel flew into a pile of other clothes on the floor. More wine gurgled down his throat. ‘I thought you were someone who’d escaped from the mental asylum up the road for a moment,’ he said, chuckling drunkenly.
I blinked up at him, shivering, my jaw slowly thawing. ‘There’s a mental asylum up the road?’
‘Whittingham Hospital. Victorian place abandoned years ago.’ Spotting my bewilderment, he added, ‘Well it doesn’t have to be open for its patients to be wandering about in the middle of the night if this place is anything to go by, does it?’
I was still pondering that comforting thought as he hobbled over to a writing bureau in the corner and pulled out a chair. He dragged it over to the window, nudged open the latch with his elbow and dropped into the chair with a disgruntled sigh. He set the bottle on the floor and once again inspected his stubbed toe. ‘Yup, definitely chipped the nail. Took me a year to grow that bugger back after my football accident, too.’ Shaking his head, he reached for a packet of cigarettes, flipped the lid, pulled one out with his mouth and lit up. He flashed me a crooked smile. ‘Tell on me and I’ll have to kill you.’
Still in a daze from finding myself outside one moment, in a stranger’s room the next, the last thing on my mind was snitching on him to Mrs Brown for smoking in his room. In fact, for the first time in my life I felt like having a cigarette myself.
I regarded Will in his t-shirt and boxer shorts as he tried to direct plumes of smoke out of the crack in the window, the contours of his face illuminated by the amber glow of the bedside lamp. Wet strands of hair were tucked behind his ears, with a few stray ones cascading over his forehead. The sweet, fresh scent of his showered skin carried on the breeze floating into the room, mixing with the smoke and alcohol. There was no denying in that moment I felt a strong attraction to this dangerously handsome man who had rescued me from the cold. It was hard not to imagine his arms wrapping around me, warming me further. Hard not to imagine sinking into the scent of him …
‘Earth to Strange.’ Will waved a hand in front of my eyes, snapping me out of the fantasy.
I blinked, swallowed, shivered.
‘Still cold?’ he asked.
I nodded.
He got to his feet. But the alcohol must have rushed to his head because he suddenly had the look of someone who was either about to pass out or topple over. He stumbled forward, and for a second it looked like he was going to fall on top of me. I was quick, jumping to my feet to steady him. The blanket slipped off my shoulders, landing near the ignited cigarette Will had clumsily let slip from his fingers as he struggled to stay upright. Tiptoeing around it, I managed to snatch it up in time, flicking it out the window before I had my own injury to worry about. It was a good job I did, too, because at that very moment Will gripped me by the arm and pulled me down onto the bed.
We landed on the mattress with a bounce, Will underneath, me splayed on top of him. Our faces were suddenly inches apart.
‘How cosy,’ he said with a wink.
Oh, blooming hell.
I attempted to push myself up, wriggle free, find my feet. But the writer had other ideas, keeping me locked in a tight embrace. ‘Will, come on,’ I pleaded. ‘Let me up.’
‘Aww, what’s up? You don’t like cuddles?’
His surprisingly strong arms squeezed me tighter. I tried to break free. But he was having none of it. Giggling mischievously, he rolled over, taking me with him, until we’d switched positions and it was him who was now on top of me. To make matters worse, I could feel his thighs, and perhaps more, pressing against my underwear. I froze as he scrutinised my face through heavy lids.
‘Quite a handsome fella under the glasses, aren’t ya?’
Heat flooded my cheeks. I persisted with a gulp, ‘Will, you’re kind of heavy.’
He released some of the weight. ‘Better?’
‘Yes, but what the hell are you doing?’
Sleepily, he thought about it. Then, with a shrug, said, ‘Carpe diem.’
Oh good Lord.
‘Will, you’re drunk.’
‘Yup.’
‘You’ll regret this tomorrow.’
‘Probably.’
Pinned beneath him, I had no other option than to wait and see whatever was about to happen next. When he starting stroking my hair, I wondered once again if I hadn’t woken on that gravel driveway, that I wa
s, in fact, very much still dreaming.
‘I like you, Quentin. There’s an innocence about you. I feel … safe around you, like I can trust you. I don’t know why, I don’t even know you. It’s weird. You’re weird.’ Quickly, he added, ‘In a good way, I mean.’
I blinked at the fuzzy outline of his face. Even without glasses he was ridiculously good looking. Too good looking to be attracted to me. I’m so unappealing I make the sexiest underwear look like a joke. I’m so plain I could be standing in a room entirely alone and I’d still blend in with the decor. If he even was attracted to me, that is. He was straight, wasn’t he? I’d seen the way his eyes had roved suggestively over Kat when she wasn’t looking.
But straight men didn’t stroke another man’s hair. They didn’t stare lovingly into their eyes. They didn’t — oh dear God — lean in to kiss me.
Will’s lips met mine, warm and soft. When the bristles on his chin brushed my skin there wasn’t a nerve ending in my body that didn’t feel it. He tasted sweet, with a bitter hint of tobacco. And the kiss felt more than good, filling a hunger that had tormented me for years. Heat flooded my body, and other areas, melting the last remnants of cold. A voice in my head spoke to me. Yes, it said, life really is too short to resist this, to deny yourself the things your body craves the most. And with its permission I sank completely into the sensation.
A buzzing noise broke the spell. Will pulled away and glanced over his shoulder at the bedside table. The bulb inside the lamp was flickering on and off, struggling to stay alight. With a metallic tink is stopped blinking and became illuminated once more. ‘Frigging ghosts,’ he muttered.
The lamp was the last thing on my mind in that moment, though. A feeling was overtaking me, an irresistible urge, a latent desire that had been reignited. With my palms I pushed Will up so he was in the straddling position. Then I gripped the hem of his t-shirt and began yanking it up his torso. Taken aback, he released a nervous giggle. ‘Steady there, squire!’
