The Dark Corners Box Set

by Robert Scott-Norton

  “Last week’s payment was for three weeks ago. You still owe me for last week and this week,” Geoff said, spitting tiny bits of breakfast out of his cavernous gob. “I promised your dad I’d let you stay for a few weeks as a favour. I never meant this to be permanent. And I ain’t no bloody charity so if you don’t pay up, you can pack up.”

  Seth shivered. The cold air wafted around his bare legs. “I’m sorry. It’s early.”

  “It’s twelve o’clock is what it is. This is the problem with you. You’re damn lazy. I’ve been out since half four—” and the speech turned into a drone and that continued for a while whilst Seth wondered whether Geoff’s bulging eyes might explode in an apoplectic rage.

  He’d finished. Seth had no idea of what he’d just said.

  “I’ve got a job. I can pay you tomorrow.”

  Geoff’s eyes narrowed, as well as eyes separated by a nose as huge as the farmer’s could narrow.

  “A job? Another one of your consulting jobs is it? These clients of yours can’t pay well.”

  “This one’s different.”

  Geoff grunted. Seth took that to mean he’d believe it when he saw it.

  “Well bye then,” Seth said and as there was no protest, he closed the door and flicked the catch.

  There was an exasperated huffing and Geoff’s shape lingered behind the frosted glass door a moment before it faded and the man’s heavy footfalls moved away.

  Seth grabbed an opened can of flat Coke from last night and carried it to the wrap-around couch at the lounge end of the caravan.

  The fire wouldn't light—the built-in starter being ancient and worn—and he couldn’t find the matches anywhere. “Great,” he muttered.

  Whilst in the shower, his thoughts returned to Ravenmeols. As the water tore over his tired body, the steam fogged the room and helped stimulate his flagging synapses.

  They had found his sister Kelly at Ravenmeols. Only sixteen and left for dead in an outbuilding. The inquest had ruled it an accidental overdose and so there was no one to blame but herself. Neither Seth nor his parents believed that though. There was always someone to blame. Mum had never been one to keep quiet about the company that Kelly was keeping. She was hanging out with a bad crowd, people that would linger at the end of the street for her rather than dare to approach the house. Her parents knew she was a drug user, and so did Seth. And that was as far as the secret went. When it came out that she’d been found with the needle still in her arm, the secret was out. Family rallied around in a half-hearted supportive way but backed off quickly after the funeral. Neighbours were shocked. School friends of Seth’s were more intrigued than disturbed.

  But looking out of his bedroom window and seeing the Ravenmeols’ site every night was something that Seth couldn't do. He moved out as soon as he could and had been living on his own ever since.

  As Seth stepped out of the cramped shower and twisted the tap off, he heard a knocking at the door again.

  “One minute,” he shouted.

  Hurriedly wiping himself down with a towel, he wrapped it around his waist and opened the door.

  No one there.

  It would be one of those days.

  He spoke into the room. “I know what you’re trying to do, but it won’t work.”

  Seth plugged his iPhone into the speaker and played some Metallica. Leaving the music shaking the walls, he wandered back to his bedroom, pulled open the curtains, and tugged out his holdall from under the bed. Some equipment had already been left in there from a previous client but he needed more. He grabbed some fresh batteries and two cameras from the wardrobe and placed them inside the bag. Next, he took a few notebooks and grabbed a handful of pens and pencils from a drawer and dropped them in, leaving one beside the bag so he could carry it around with him. His Dictaphone was old yet reliable and ran for months from one set of batteries. He placed that inside the bag along with an extra jumper in case the place was cold and zipped it up.

  The door banged again.

  “Pack it in,” he said to the room then continued to get dressed instead. Checking his watch he realised he’d have just enough time to get to the library for research before they closed for the afternoon.

  A face appeared at the bedroom window.

  Seth leapt back in shock.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  The man’s face turned apologetic. “I didn’t think you could hear me—the music.” He was having to shout to be heard.

  The music stopped.

  The man at the window smiled. “Got a letter for you.”

  Seth pulled on his jeans and greeted the man at the front door. “Sorry. Need a bit of music to wake me up.”

  The man was suited and tall. He smirked as he glanced at his watch but Seth didn’t care. Instead, he took the oversized envelope from the man’s grip and looked at the address label. No stamp.

  “Who’s it from?” Seth asked.

  “I work for Mr Oswald,” he said flatly. “I was told not to leave until you confirmed you were happy with the contents and that you were still on track for tonight.”

  Seth opened the envelope and looked inside. Six fifty-pound notes. A piece of notepaper had been folded and wrapped around the money. He glanced at the driver. “Yeah, everything’s good.”

  The man managed a limp smile and walked away.

  The moment Seth closed the door, the music began again.

  “Thanks.”

  The note was written on decent paper. The kind he would have stolen from Mum to write his own sicknotes for school. Written in a fountain pen scrawl was a message.

  I trust this will be the start of an interesting working relationship—R Oswald

  He slipped the note into his back pocket and took a deep breath. Without realising he was doing it, he did a quick door count—one thing he loved about his caravan was the small number of doors and—

  Seth came to in the bedroom. A small blackout. Nothing to worry about.

  It took him a few seconds to come back around. These episodes always left him feeling a tad disoriented.

  His bag had been unpacked. All the possessions neatly back in their respective places like Seth hadn’t been packing at all.

  5

  Seth spent the afternoon pacing the seafront, drinking coffees from the snack van by the pier and generally just avoiding going back to the caravan. He needed to make his mind up but there was no choice to be made. A path had been laid out before him and it was one he couldn’t avoid. He had to return to Ravenmeols. In his soul, he knew he would return sooner or later even without a paying job to seduce him.

  But Malc’s point was valid. Ravenmeols was not a place to trivialise. This would be a significant breakthrough for him. From the moment Roy Oswald had mentioned the hospital, Seth could picture the Victorian monument, but the images that came to mind were dredged from his childhood self—a small boy peering out through half-closed curtains across the back garden. Beyond the garden, was a vast yet insubstantial field, then the hard, very real hospital.

  Whether he’d wake from the noise of his parents arguing. Or those other nights when he’d wake for no reason at all, he’d find himself standing before his bedroom window, unable to tear his eyes away from the terrible thing that existed so close to them.

  At night, the hospital was alive.

  And those windows… Whilst during the day they appeared as impenetrable black rectangles, at night they’d light up—no matter what time of night it was there would be some lights on in the building.

  And the lights would always reveal something.

  Seth shuddered at the recollection.

  On his third return to the snack van, he ordered a cheeseburger and sat on the seawall looking out and when the sun finally touched the horizon, Seth headed back to the car and began the drive to the hospital. Twice he almost stopped as he glimpsed something in his rear-view mirror.

  “It’s OK. I will be fine,” he mumbled.

  At the petrol station, he came back
to his car after paying to find the doors were locked, refusing to open. Seth took out his mobile and found Malc’s contact details. He delayed for a moment with his thumb over the call button. “Don’t make me do it,” Seth said. The doors clicked open. He didn’t catch any more glimpses on his way to the hospital.

  The heavens had opened, and the rain poured in a deluge that his wipers struggled to cope with. The low visibility made him miss the entrance, and he had to make a three-point turn to come back on himself.

  It was 8:30 p.m. when he swung into the Ravenmeols Park estate. His insides churned, and he began to doubt the hygiene rating certificate displayed by the snack van. The radio crackled. He hadn’t heard it do that in years. Random ghost stations came into range before breaking into static again. He switched the thing off.

  Along the driveway, giant conifers lined the route that wound through a surprising number of turns. It took a minute of careful driving to make it through the trees and then abruptly the hospital was before him.

  It had been nineteen years since he’d last been this close and it barely seemed like enough time at all.

  Chills shot up his back, making the fine hairs on his neck stand up. Again, there was that sensation of something sitting on the back seat but he disregarded it. Nothing right now mattered as much as that Victorian building in front of him. The windows were dark—Seth doubted whether the building still had mains power—and a line of hollow black sockets faced him as he slowed the car. A temporary wooden sign had been staked in the grass at the point where the drive split into two. He followed the direction to the back of the building, never letting his eyes leave the hospital on his left side.

  Once past an ornamental garden, all rocks and battered shrubbery, he steered the car through some seriously heavy-looking gates and into the courtyard at the back. On Seth’s right, was a line of small outbuildings. Seth didn’t want to see any of those. An enormous oak tree took up centre stage in the heart of the courtyard. Seth didn’t much care for gardening or wildlife and the amount he knew about either subject he could fit on the back of a small postcard. But what he did know was that the tree was desperately unwell. The branches spiralled up from the main trunk into strange sinister spears that struck up into the sky like tridents. Roots had risen through the ground, further disturbing the cobbled surface.

  There was an abundance of space to park but he pulled up alongside a small red Audi. Wings of the hospital surrounded the courtyard and pressed down on Seth as he got out. A man whose features he couldn’t yet make out was closing up the main gates and padlocking them. Whilst Seth didn’t like the idea of strangers being able to enter the grounds whilst they were engaged with the ghost hunt, it was disturbing to think that to all intents and purposes, they were now trapped within the confines of the hospital grounds.

  Seth stared out at the rain and the cluster of people huddling under a few umbrellas at the bottom of a metal staircase leading up to a fire door. He snatched his bag from the back seat, then got out the car, locking it behind him, before walking over to meet the others.

  The man who’d been busy with the padlock on the gates intercepted him before he reached the rest of the group. An imposing man with a full beard, in his late twenties, early thirties perhaps. Hard to tell in this light. He smiled though and offered his free hand; his other held a clipboard.

  “Please tell me you’re Seth.” The smile was hesitant.

  “The one and only,” Seth replied.

  The man scratched the back of his ear. “I’m Johnny. I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re here. When Dad told me he could get someone, I wasn’t sure to believe him. You done many of these before?”

  “First.”

  Johnny’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, maybe I’ve misunderstood.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Dad said he was getting an experienced medium.”

  “I am experienced. But nothing like this. I usually just do house calls, private readings, parties.”

  “People hire you for parties?”

  “Sometimes, yeah.” Seth found himself grinning back.

  “Well, I’ve done all the research on this place. We’ve got a hand-picked crowd tonight. We’re calling this a trial night so if it all goes tits up, they’re got no recourse to complain.”

  “It’s not going to go tits up. It will be fine,” Seth said, cheered by the man’s eagerness to please. “How many of these have you done?”

  Johnny kept his voice low. “This is my first. But, I’d sooner you didn’t mention that to them.”

  “Your secret is my secret.”

  Johnny nodded. “It was more challenging than I imagined pulling this together. I’ve been on several myself and they always seemed to be simple affairs. But, to be honest, this has proved to be a right pain in the arse.”

  “So why do it?”

  “I love it, and you know, much as I respect my dad, I’m not sure I’m ready to be running the security business just yet. I want a chance to break out and do my own thing. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I think so.” Seth smiled and Johnny returned it warmly.

  “Come on, let’s not keep them waiting any longer. It’s freezing out here.”

  And it was. The wind had found its way into the courtyard, changing direction, and it brought an icy touch that made Seth turn up the collar on his coat.

  The group went silent as Johnny approached, they were expecting him to say something. “We’re all here. I’d like to introduce our medium for the evening, Seth Loomis.” And with that, Johnny put out his arm, finding Seth’s shoulder, and patted it affectionately.

  “Hi,” Seth said. Was he meant to have prepared a speech? “I’ll make sure you’re all well looked after. You won’t be disappointed.”

  An uneasy laugh from a man at the back of the pack. Johnny scurried up the metal staircase. “I’ll just go in and check things are good to go. Give me five minutes.” A pencil torch appeared in his hand and he shone it at the lock on the door whilst fumbling through a set of keys on his belt. He found what he needed and the door creaked open. Johnny ducked inside and let the door slam close behind him.

  A woman appeared at Seth’s shoulder and offered him a cup of coffee. “You seem like the coffee type.”

  “Thanks. Where—”

  “Brought my own thermos. Wasn’t prepared to take a chance on no coffee. Not sure I’d last the night.”

  The woman wore a wax jacket, and a light-coloured scarf protruded around the neck. Her hair was dark and framed a kindly looking face.

  “Thanks,” Seth said, taking a sip, noting the sugar and smiling. “Perfect.”

  “Judy,” she said, offering a gloved hand to Seth.

  “Wait, you dropped something.” Seth bent to catch the scrap of paper that had fallen from the pocket she’d had her hand in. He passed it over, a scrap of A4 with scribbles—a corner of a child’s picture.

  She took it but was shaking her head. “No. Not mine.” She held it close to her face and peered at the crayon markings. Around the edge were some crude symbols that made her pause. Despite the crudeness of the drawing, the symbols were recognisable as pentagrams and skulls. Why would she have such a thing on her person? “I’ve never seen this before.” Judy stuffed it in a pocket. “Are you OK?” she asked. “You seem nervous.”

  Seth didn’t feel nervous and that should have made him nervous. He was closer now than he ever wanted to get and yet there was still more to come. But, there were no butterflies in his stomach, nor sweat on his brow. He felt strangely calm.

  “I’m fine, thanks. Just the cold.”

  “It is freezing. I doubt inside will be much warmer. Come here often?” Judy asked.

  “First time.”

  “Me too.” She was older than Seth, early forties perhaps.

  “Why this one then? What made you come?”

  “It wasn’t my idea. Saw an advert for it in my Facebook feed and from out of the blue, Johnny got in touch and offered me a fre
e experience.”

  Seth frowned. “You could have said no.”

  “Never going to happen. Always loved horror movies. Friends have been sharing ghost hunt pages with me on Facebook for years. This site has a pretty dark reputation.”

  Doesn’t it just.

  “Besides,” she continued. “I was intrigued to see what my granddad saw in this place.”

  “What about your granddad?”

  She didn’t get a chance to answer as at that moment, a powerful lamp turned on beside the back door—the sort you would see beside road crews working at night. Seth hadn’t noticed it earlier, but it was impossible to miss now and illuminated a great swathe of the courtyard. The floor had been tarmacked at some point in the last twenty years but the original cobblestone was fighting its way back, punching up from underneath. Weeds and potholes were fighting for dominance. New shadows appeared against the walls of the outbuildings.

  The back door opened briefly and Johnny’s head peered around, presumably checking the light was working. “One minute,” he called, then vanished once again.

  “Have you come alone?” Seth asked Judy.

  “I couldn’t convince my friends and my daughter’s too young. She’s staying at a friend’s house tonight.”

  Seth nodded at the others and dropped his voice. “And what about this lot?”

  She pointed at two of the youngest in the group. “That’s Alisha and Arjun. University friends. Studying psychology. They think this should be good towards their dissertations.”

  “Great. We’ll be objects of study.”

  She smirked. “I’d be happy to have anyone take that much interest in me. The older couple—” she nodded towards a man and woman, laughing to themselves away from the others, “—are Glenda and Peter. Married. I think he’s been dragged along to keep her company. On the steps, the one smoking, that’s Michael.”

  The building was immense. The central part they were stood beside had three floors to it. The wing over on the right, with its imposing clock tower, had five floors.

  “So that must be the Correction Floor,” Seth said, pointing out the fourth floor of the clock tower building.