The Dark Corners Box Set

by Robert Scott-Norton

No one understands you like I do. No one ever will.

  And she didn’t trust. Phil had used that phrase to keep her away from her friends and family, basically anyone that could have helped her escape that vicious marriage.

  Malc was persistent but after continuing to hang up on him the phone calls stopped. Seth had turned up at her house a few times and after telling him through the door she wanted nothing to do with him or that messed up world he’d introduced her to, he seemed to get the hint and leave her be.

  Judy flicked the edge of the notebook and frowned. The house didn’t feel the same anymore. She’d wondered whether there were any more of those Adherents out there, and whether they’d ever try to track her down. She was at least partly responsible for their plan failing. Would they ever seek her out and demand revenge?

  Was that crying? Upstairs, Jemma’s room?

  Damn it.

  “I’m coming, Sweetie. I’m coming.”

  4

  “Coffee?”

  Seth blinked but once he caught the bright light ripping through the gap in the curtains, he thought better of it and closed his eyes. A groan escaped his lips.

  “Why are you sleeping on the sofa? You’ve a perfectly good room upstairs,” Malc said, nudging his shoulder. “Come on, get up before Georgia sees you.”

  Hearing Malc say his wife’s name was just enough for Seth to force himself upright and keep his eyes open long enough to see his friend holding out a coffee for him to take.

  “Thanks,” Seth said.

  Malc’s face was soft, his eyebrows drawn together. He always managed to convey the concerned listener even when he was off duty—an essential skill for a man of the cloth.

  Seth set the mug on the table and stretched. The clock above the mantle was slowly coming into focus.

  “Damn, is that the time? I didn’t mean to fall asleep down here. I came down to get a drink and sat for a bit. Must have shut my eyes and...” Seth didn’t think Malc needed to know the words exchanged between him and Georgia last night. He'd already caught several conversations in hushed tones between Georgia and Malc behind closed doors. He'd never meant to overhear but sometimes he couldn’t help himself.

  “Is the shower free?”

  “Yeah, we’re all up.” A pause. Malc had stuff he wanted to say. “You know that you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need.”

  “I know.”

  “Only, I know that you might be thinking of—”

  Seth raised a hand. “Listen, it’s fine. I can’t stay here forever. I’ve got my own life I want to get back to. You may be my mate, but you’re not my entire world.”

  Malc shrugged. “What about your parents?”

  Seth smiled but looked away. “Maybe,” he said, and took his cup upstairs. Joe was causing trouble in Georgia’s bedroom, no doubt because of his own lack of sleep, but Georgia was patience personified with her boy. There was no question that she was in charge and he was just pushing his luck.

  What the hell was he still doing here? He should have long gone. He didn’t need Georgia to tell him he was in the way.

  Seth grabbed his t-shirt from his bedroom floor and the jeans he’d tossed over the radiator, took a new pair of pants from the bag at the end of the bed and headed for the bathroom. He met Georgia and Joe on the landing.

  “Hey, Seth!” Joe cried and ran for him, arms outstretched and ready to leap as he did his running jump. Seth bent and readied himself for the impact.

  “Morning,” Seth said as he caught Joe in his arms and spun him around the landing.

  “Come on, Joe. Let’s eat,” Georgia said, and Seth settled Joe down and ruffled his hair. Georgia’s eyes twitched, but a tiny part of him smiled at the thought he could annoy her so easily.

  After his shower, he came downstairs to see the family seated around the breakfast table. The TV was on the countertop but it was just background noise, no one paying any attention to it. Joe was eating dry cereal with his fingers, ignoring the spoon beside his bowl.

  He’d walked in on the middle of something. The hairs bristled on the back of his neck as if kissed by a wayward breeze.

  “How’s everyone doing?” he asked as he put a coffee pod in the machine and slipped a cup under the dispenser. “Can I get anyone another drink? Coffee, Joe?”

  The boy smiled and shook his head.

  The machine spurted and steamed and made all the right noises but at an uncomfortably leisurely pace this morning. Seth wished it would hurry. His stomach rumbled, and he fumbled for the loaf of bread and slipped a couple of slices in the toaster.

  “Got any plans today?”

  It took a moment for Seth to realise Georgia was talking to him.

  “Yeah, I’ve a client I need to get back to.” He pushed the stop button on the toaster, saw that his bread was barely even warm and so dropped it down again. “A group of old ladies. I’m planning to fleece them out of their life savings.”

  Malc laughed nervously. When Seth’s toast finally popped, Seth tore some margarine over it, grabbed his plate and coffee and made for the back door.

  It was a cool morning and a light mist was clinging to the bottom of the garden. Malc had never shown any interest in gardens whilst growing up, but since moving into the vicarage, he’d become somewhat of an amateur gardener. Nothing here would secure him gardener of the year, but there were neat lines and trimmed bushes, and banks of bedding plants running off into the distance. Seth sat back on the swing chair, rested his plate on his lap and wondered what he could do to make life easier on his friend. Leaving was a priority. That would be an instant win as far as Georgia was concerned, but as he munched on his toast, he knew that there was more going on in this house than disgruntlement about Seth outstaying his welcome.

  The back door swung open and Joe appeared with his tablet. Raised voices clouded the air behind him.

  “You OK?” Seth asked, gesturing that he should come and sit on the bench beside him.

  “They’re fighting,” Joe replied. His brow furrowed, but he came and sat down.

  “They’re just sorting through some stuff. It will pass.”

  Joe flicked through the pages of games he’d installed. He launched an app only to close it a moment later. “They row a lot.”

  “Don’t worry about them. Your mum and dad love you very much. They don’t want you to be upset.”

  “I’m not even sure they like each other. People don’t talk like that to people they like.”

  “Sometimes we do. Sometimes we say mean things when we’re hurting.”

  “Why are they hurting? Who’s hurt them?”

  “It’s not always a someone. Things happen.”

  “You mean the baby?”

  Seth froze. Malc had been explicit that Seth never mention Georgia’s miscarriage to Joe. He was too young to process the loss.

  “What do you mean, Joe?”

  Joe’s body shifted against him. His fingers flicked faster between the screens on his tablet.

  “Nothing.”

  “You sure about that. Seemed like you had something you wanted to get off your chest.”

  “No, I’m good.” And the boy was lost in his tablet. He had YouTube open and was flicking through a list of suggested videos, starting some up for a moment, then closing them down before moving onto the next.

  “Sometimes it's hard to talk to your parents, but if you’ve ever scared or upset about anything, you can talk to me. I’m here for you, mate.”

  “What happened to you at the hospital?” Joe rested his tablet on his legs and looked up at Seth, those tiny gentle eyes filled with an empathy that shouldn’t be present in a soul so young.

  “The hospital?”

  Joe sighed. “Forget it.” Joe stood. Seth took his elbow, gently, and steered him back down to his seat.

  “There were bad people at the hospital. They wanted to hurt a lot of people.”

  “Why did you go there? You could have kept away.”

  “I neede
d the money. I was tricked into taking a job that was worth a lot of money to me and would have kept paying my bills for a few months. In hindsight, that was probably a stupid thing to do, but at the time, it was an easy choice. How do you know so much about the hospital? Has your dad been talking to you about it?”

  Joe shook his head. “I see sometimes. It’s like I was there. Do you know what I mean?”

  Seth knew what he meant, and it scared him. “Is it like a memory or a dream?”

  “I think I dreamt about it, but before you went.” He shivered and his eyes narrowed. “There was a man there, he spoke a lot about things I didn’t understand. Or maybe he just spoke too quickly. And he didn’t seem to want to make any of the bad things stop. He was enjoying it all too much. Was he the man who wanted to hurt you?”

  Seth nodded. “Yes, that sure sounds like him.”

  “You’re not going back there are you? I don’t think it would be a good idea to go near the hospital again.”

  “Why not? The bad man’s gone.”

  “It’s a feeling, that’s all. An itch. Bad things happen there. I don’t think they will ever forget you being there. I don’t think it ever meant for you to leave.”

  Joe was trembling. The boy was sensitive. Seth had seen him get upset plenty of times, but this was something rawer, like he had a bunch of pent-up emotions that needed to be released. Seth put an arm around him and pulled him close, trying to force the trembling away. It didn’t work.

  “I’m a grownup, Joe. I can take care of myself. I looked after myself when I was last at the hospital. If other people try to hurt me, I’ll take care of them again.”

  “You’re brave, some days I wish—” His voice trailed, like he’d been caught speaking out of turn.

  “What is it? What do you wish?”

  “That my dad was more like you.” The boy seemed to shrink into himself as he spoke.

  How to respond to that? Was there even a right way? “Your dad is very special,” Seth said finally.

  “But you can do things that he can’t.”

  “And your dad can do things that I could never do.”

  “But he’s a vicar.”

  “What’s wrong with being a vicar? They look after people, guide them when they’re lost.”

  “You fight people.”

  Seth’s recalled Malc bursting into the inner sanctum of the Adherents of the Fourth, brandishing a crucifix and fighting off Adherents. It wasn’t an image he thought Joe was ready for.

  “Your father fights badness every day. Just not in the way that you can visualise. What’s brought this on?”

  “Nothing.” And he shrugged.

  “It’s not nothing now is it? Something’s made you think like this.”

  “Just stuff some of my friends have been saying.”

  “They don’t sound like very good friends to me.”

  “They say that vicars are stupid and that God doesn’t exist and that if my dad is saying that he does, then he’s lying to people.”

  Seth was simultaneously astounded by the common cruelty of children and also by their insight in getting to the crux of the problem. This was something that Seth had considered ever since he discovered the doors and his hitching friend. When Malc announced he would enter the church and seek ordination, Seth had been conflicted. There was so much as a child he’d wanted to share with Malc about the door and the place that he knew lay beyond. In his earliest years of experiencing the Almost Realm, he’d assumed the doorway led straight to heaven or hell, depending on the sins of the observer, but as he matured and researched, he’d realised he’d been wrong to adopt such a binary understanding. The doorways were something else, opening into a place not covered by the bible or religion that he’d been presented with. His studies of the occult gave him more insight and at that point he knew that he mustn’t share what he was learning with his friend. What he’d never quite been able to get his head around though, was how everything fitted together. Did the existence of the doors and the realm beyond preclude the existence of anything else? Of God and all that Malc had devoted his life to?

  Joe didn’t need to hear any of this. All that the boy needed was what Seth knew to be true about his friend.

  “Your father is the kindest man I’ve ever met, and he loves you with all his heart.”

  Joe extracted himself from Seth’s arms and stood to go back inside.

  “If that was true, he’d stop lying about what he does with the people at the church.” Joe’s face was stern and older than a boy’s could ever be. “If he was kind, he’d stop lying to us both.”

  5

  Today would not be a good day.

  It was Seth’s first day back to work. Perhaps he’d raised his hopes too high, allowed himself to believe the good things Malc had been telling him about his ability and dedication to those that sought his advice and help. And it was true, he’d left the vicarage with a spark he’d not felt for days. There was a lightness to his stride that reminded him of what hope for the future might taste like.

  Seth emerged into the daylight fighting fit and ready to reclaim his position as the north-west’s most eminent amateur medium.

  The venue for his first group of clients was not what he’d been hoping for.

  It was a shit hole.

  Seth was used to intimate settings in people’s homes, usually after dusk, when the atmosphere would soften and the customers felt more at ease talking about their deceased loved ones. Today, though, he was in the third lounge of the West Street Retirement Home.

  He’d been met at reception by the owner, a portly man with thin metal-framed glasses and a leather coat that drifted too far below his waistline. The room he was to use for the booking was mainly utilised for storage, and as Seth crossed the threshold and felt his trainers scrape across the threadbare carpet, he understood what that really meant. Sickly yellow paint had been slapped on the walls at some point in the last decade and from the flaking sections along the far wall, it didn’t look like it had ever been touched up. Water dripped from the ceiling into a mop bucket in the corner. He sniffed and caught mildew. The damp problem stretched beyond a single leak.

  “Will this do?” the owner, Mr Blocker, said.

  “Maybe we could open some windows. I find the spirits appreciate a good airflow.”

  Mr Blocker pointed up at the foot-high windows set around the perimeter of the room above head height. “Locked. The key’s probably in the office but we’re already running kind of late and tea will be served in an hour. I’d appreciate it if you could get them done quickly.”

  In summary, no, he would not waste his time fetching a bloody key.

  A few tables had been stacked against the wall opposite the door and Seth enquired whether he might use one. “Sure,” Mr Blocker replied, “just put them back. And don’t let the residents move them or their relatives will be on at me like a tonne of bricks. It doesn’t take much for these sods to put in a complaint.”

  Seth smiled but felt empty. This was it wasn’t it? The lowest point of his career.

  “I’ll tell them you’re here. If you need anything, I’ll be in the office, first floor. Just come and find me.” The owner had paused in the doorway as he was leaving and turned to hold Seth in his sights. “Don’t give me any reason to regret allowing you in here. Make no mistake, I respect anyone making a living off their own back in this climate, but do anything to cause upset to my residents, give me any cause to come and seek you out, and I’ll make you regret the day you ever crossed our threshold.”

  Something turned in Seth’s stomach. It took all of his self-control to constrain his response to a simple nod of the head. He was getting paid below his usual rate for this afternoon’s work but he wouldn’t be churlish about it. His intention was always to do a good job.

  But Mr Blocker was still lingering. And this time it was he who cracked a forced smile. “It’s all persuasive positive conditioning isn’t it?”

  “Excuse me?”
>
  “The act. It’s using language that you know will appeal to your customers. About getting them to agree to vague positive descriptions. I watched Derren Brown do a show on it.”

  “No,” Seth replied. “It’s not like that at all.”

  The smile vanished, and the owner raised a finger meaning to correct Seth on a few things, but the moment was lost when a noise from the corridor outside caught his attention instead. Seth’s clients had arrived.

  6

  Seth knew he was in a whole heap of shit. There were moments in life, Seth reflected, when the prospect of death by firing squad would be preferable to the embarrassment of continued living.

  Seth was very embarrassed right now, and it was all Charlie’s fault.

  He opened his eyes and fought the bile at the back of his throat.

  The main overhead lights were on. He’d have preferred sitting in the gloom, at least that way they wouldn’t have noticed his white pallor, but the old ladies had overruled him.

  “Can’t risk another fall,” they’d told him.

  Seth scratched the side of his nose and opened his eyes to the lady in front of him. He wondered whether he’d get away with pretending to faint.

  “Can you ask him where he left the keys to the shed?”

  “Excuse me?” Seth replied.

  “The keys to the shed. Harold always looked after the shed, ever since my hip op I’ve not been able to get out in the garden as much so Harold’s looked after it all for me. Only, he always forgot to put the keys back on the hook.”

  “And you want me to ask him where he put them?” Seth had heard plenty of strange requests, but considering that people paid by the hour, it was always a surprise when they wanted to spend that time asking the most trivial things. He’d had wives beg to hear their departed loved ones whisper that they loved them, and he’d had men ask their departed wives what washing machine setting was best for getting stains out of underpants.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she continued. “I know what he did in there.”