The Dark Corners Box Set

by Robert Scott-Norton

  He had been particularly shouty at them yesterday, the argument started from nowhere, something and nothing as is always the case. They’d been playing outside with Phil’s football when he’d knocked the ball against the side of Dad’s car. Dad threw the ball into the boot of the car with the promise that they wouldn’t see it until they got back home. Phil had almost called him a bastard. Lisa had seen the word form on his lips, but he’d held it in and took the ear bashing like he always did. Despite Lisa being a part of the game, Dad only gave her a cursory telling off, leaving his anger for his son.

  “I don’t remember him being in the room.”

  “It was late. You were asleep. Your snoring and muttering were almost as bad as Dad’s. It’s almost like you’re having a conversation with each other in the night.”

  “I don’t snore.”

  Phil smirked. “Of course you don’t.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Like I said, I was awake, and I couldn’t get back to sleep.”

  Lisa’s interest was piqued, she couldn’t lie. She no longer wanted to go back to the caravan. She wanted to hear what her brother had to say. Lisa turned to face him. “How long did you follow him for?”

  “About half an hour. It was bloody freezing.”

  “And he came up here?”

  “Yep, further. Up to the fifth house. The one at the end of the track.”

  The fifth house was the one they’d been warned about. The one that hadn’t been refurbished.

  “What did he do up there?”

  It was a strange thing to leave the caravan in the middle of the night. Lisa could have settled on that if it was just because he wanted a walk and a cigarette, but coming up to the holiday houses meant coming through the more intense parts of the wood where it was harder to see and the animals were closer.

  “I’ll tell you more if you come up to the house with me now.”

  “No. You’re tricking me. I’m not stupid.”

  “You are stupid. You’re as stupid as I am, but I know you, we think alike. You want to know what Dad was doing here as much as I do. Who was he meeting?”

  “Wait, he was meeting someone?”

  A flash of annoyance hit her brother’s face. But he recovered quickly. “Maybe, and maybe I’ll tell you if you come up to the house. There’s no one in the other houses. They’re empty now. No one will see us. No one will be complaining to Dad.”

  She was torn. A strange tingling had begun in her belly and she wanted it to stop. But how could she go back to the caravan and look at her dad in the same way knowing that Phil had this secret about him that she didn’t know? It would be torture.

  But there was something she hadn’t noticed about Phil’s behaviour until now. He wasn’t just taunting her; he was pleading with her. He was scared about something, but he was refusing to show it. But as he’d said, they were twins and she could sometimes feel what he was feeling. It was a strange gift they shared between them, something they rarely acknowledged and would never mention to their parents.

  She couldn’t let him down now.

  “If you’re tricking me, I swear to God I’ll make the rest of your life a living hell.”

  His face lit up. “You’ll come?” He sounded surprised and relieved.

  “Yes. But let’s be quick. I don’t fancy Mum coming home and not being able to find us.” There was a chance she’d drive around the caravan site looking for them and she didn’t want her to find them coming out from the track with the holiday houses. She knew the rules as well as the kids.

  During the trek up the access road, Lisa’s apprehension increased exponentially. It started as a simple increase in her heart rate, she could feel her chest vibrating as the muscle became more frenzied. Her mouth had dried as well and when she swallowed, there was an uncomfortable sensation at the back of her throat. It made her want to gag, but she held herself back and coughed instead.

  Phil had gone quiet. The boy who’d only minutes ago had been antagonising her, was subdued, almost sullen. His face had gone pale, the colour drained leaving him sickly white. She walked beside him, keeping close, their arms brushing against each other. Ordinarily, that would have been more than enough to cause an argument between them, but Phil said nothing.

  A narrower track split off to the left. Shortly after, a second track split to the right. The house they were going to was all the way along the road at the end.

  The woods were quiet. Lisa listened for wildlife, but it was eerily quiet, no birdsong to disturb the calm. A gentle breeze whispered along the edge of the foliage on either side. In the trees above, the branches moved in rolling waves, bending on the whim of the wind. Lisa looked up and saw the patches of sky above seemed darker. A grey blanket of cloud had moved in since they’d started playing outside, taking the remaining warmth out of the day. Lisa wrapped her arms around her and resisted the urge to shiver.

  It took a few minutes to reach the sign for the fifth house—the forbidden house. Lisa glanced behind and could no longer make out where the track had broken off from the main road around the caravan site.

  “Did you follow him all the way down here?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And he didn’t notice you?”

  Phil shook his head. “I walked through the undergrowth, keeping low.”

  Lisa glanced at the shrubbery and realised that her brother was braver than she thought. The bushes looked uncomfortable and in the dark, it would have been impossible to walk through and see exactly where your feet were going. Phil could have disturbed any number of wild creatures.

  They stopped by the wooden sign. A chain had been looped around the sign and a tree on the other side of the access track. A metal sign, rusting with age, flapped lazily in the middle.

  No entry

  Lisa knew they would step over the chain, but she hesitated. Something was wrong and she couldn’t work out what. It wasn’t just that her dad had told them not to come to this part of the site, or that she was bothered by what might be lurking in the woods. It was more a sense that she’d been here before. Deja vu?

  But I haven’t been here before.

  It was possible though, wasn’t it? They’d been coming to the site since she could remember. It was very possible that in that time, her dad had brought her up here.

  Possible.

  “He went up the track?” she asked.

  “Yes, all the way up to the house. Come on,” Phil said, his voice getting a hint of enthusiasm back, “I’ll show you. It’s pretty great.”

  “After you.”

  Phil stepped over the chain and began trudging up to the house. When he realised his sister wasn’t following, he paused and called back to her. “Come on.”

  She gritted her teeth and stepped over the chain.

  Nothing happened. Did she really think it would? There was nothing unusual about this place. If Dad really was here last night, and she’d yet to convince herself that Phil was telling her the truth, then he probably had good reason.

  When she turned the corner of the track and saw the house ahead of her, she stumbled and almost fell to the ground. Phil was there to catch her. “You OK?”

  “Must have tripped on a rock.”

  But there were no rocks. It wasn’t her footing that was causing her imbalance, it was seeing the house for the first time.

  Only it wasn’t the first time.

  She’d seen this house before, in her dreams.

  “Phil, has Dad ever brought us here?”

  He shook his head. “You’ve seen it before, haven’t you?”

  24

  Lisa’s head ached like she’d been drinking heavily, except she would never do that. She had a moment of blissful ignorance, then the events of last night snapped back into her consciousness and she gasped, sitting bolt upright in bed, putting her hand on her belly, and reaching for the first thing she could use as a weapon. The kindle wasn’t going to be much use against an intru
der, so she shamefully dropped it on the bed.

  How the hell did I get here?

  The last thing she could remember was seeing a face behind the glass of the kitchen door, and another figure upstairs in her bedroom.

  The room you’re lying in.

  Her heart pounded, and she forced her eyes to focus across the room, blinking away the sleep from her eyes. There was no one here.

  The idea that she might have dreamt the whole thing occurred to her. It would explain a lot. The cat falling into the water butt was the most ridiculous notion. Jasper would not do that, and he wasn’t fond of strangers. He wouldn’t have let a stranger get close enough to pick him and drop him inside.

  The bedroom door was closed. She hadn’t closed it. So, who had?

  She checked her phone for the time then saw it was ten past nine. She was already late for work.

  A noise from the kitchen made her pause. There was still someone in the house.

  Last night hadn’t been a dream. Lifting the bed covers, she understood why she was so cold. Her pyjamas weren’t sweaty, they were damp. She’d fainted on the grass hadn’t she? And someone must have brought her up here.

  Cautiously, she made her way downstairs.

  “How you doing?” Ellis asked. He was leaning against the open door to the back room.

  At the sound of his voice, her legs trembled, and she turned and grabbed onto the bannisters.

  “Hey, easy. I’ve got you,” he said, and helped lower her into a seating position. The hallway was spinning, and the back of her neck felt too hot, like she was coming down with something.

  “I thought you were a burglar.”

  He chuckled. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I came back late last night and found the back door open and the lights on. I thought we had been robbed. Then I saw you out on the grass and brought you inside. I think you’d fainted.”

  “I did. I went outside. There was someone in the house.”

  “Oh my God! Really? You mean we did have burglars? What did they take?”

  But she was shaking her head. “I’m not sure they were. I think they were just messing with me.” Then she told Ellis about waking up and finding Jasper in the water butt and the people she’d seen in the house.

  “We should call the police,” he suggested.

  “Is anything missing?”

  He hesitated. “I don’t think so. I haven’t been in all the rooms though.” He put his head through into the lounge. “Xbox and television are still there.”

  “Was there any sign of a break-in?”

  He shook his head. “No. It was all locked up.”

  Lisa didn’t like the way Ellis was looking at her, like she was making all of this up. But it had felt so real. She couldn’t have been asleep. “Have you seen Jasper?”

  “Just now, in the kitchen. I put some more food out for him. He seemed hungry.”

  She went through to the kitchen, Ellis following behind, and found Jasper finished, sitting by his dish, licking his paws. He trotted up to her when she entered, and she scooped him up into her arms and looked him over. “He’s OK.”

  “You said he was stuck in the water butt.”

  “Wait, I tipped it over.” Then she unlocked the back door and stepped into the garden. The butt was still over on its side. “It happened.” A pain in her stomach, like someone had pinched her. She hurried back inside and locked the door again as if she was being followed. “The water butt has been tipped over. That’s what I did to get Jasper out.”

  “We should call the police then. This happened. Oh my God, I’m sorry I wasn’t here. Maybe they wouldn’t have targeted the house if they’d seen a second person inside.”

  “You think that’s what it was, a targeted burglary?”

  “Well, what else could it have been?”

  She thought of telling him about the things she’d seen, and the things Judy had seen in the house. The reason that Judy had been round the other day. But, would it make any difference?

  “Have you seen anything out of the ordinary? Like, I mean around the house?”

  He shot her a quizzical look. “Like what? Is this your way of saying I’m not tidying the house enough, because I’m keeping up with the rota.”

  “Nothing like that,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I think there might be something in the house with us. Something dangerous.”

  This time the look he gave her was not just quizzical but one of downright bafflement. “Like cockroaches?”

  Again, she shook her head. “I’ve seen strange things happen. That night I woke up screaming, I thought there was someone in my room, and when Judy came over, with the lights.”

  “That’s the electrics. It’s an old house. The landlord needs to sort it out.” Then, remembering that the landlord was Lisa’s dad, he added, “And I’m sure he will, just as soon as we let him know.”

  “I don’t think we’re alone in here. I sense someone with us.”

  “You will feel that though. It’s only natural after someone’s tried to burgle your house.”

  “But I’m not convinced that anyone did.”

  “Come again.”

  “I think the house is haunted.”

  The pause that sat between them could have been as long as the titanic and heading for icy parts as easily. “No, I don’t think that’s right. I think you’ve been too busy at work and upset about your dad. I know you don’t think you can talk to me about family stuff, but if it will upset you this much, I think I’ve got a right to know what’s going on. I can’t help if I don’t know.”

  “It’s not because of my dad. I’ve been having these feelings for weeks.”

  “Is it your medication? When did you last go to the doctor?”

  That’s bloody typical isn’t it? Blame the nutcase on the anti-depressants, she thought. Yes, I may take a wonderful cocktail of drugs, but at least they’re all prescribed. What the hell were you taking with Nina the other day. That wasn’t just booze that was making you like that.

  “I’ve been on the same medication for three months. I’m not due a check-up for another fortnight. The drugs are working just fine.”

  “But perhaps you’re under more stress than usual. The Bodeman contract is a big deal. It might be too much to give you right now. I could slide it over to Nina and give you more breathing space.”

  And this is breaking cardinal rule number one of living together. There’s a reason the No Talking Shop sign had been hung in the hallway. They could only carry on living together if they kept their work and home lives separate. If they didn’t, and they didn’t allow each other to shut off, then they would surely both go mad.

  “I really don’t think it’s anything to do with the medication.”

  “But you don’t really think we’re haunted.” He searched for a clue in her expression that might suggest she was just making this up. God knows why he’d think that, but she understood the scepticism. It had taken a while to get used to the idea herself.

  “You can call it whatever you like, but I’m telling you there’s something in this house that isn’t normal.”

  “What happened to you last night wasn’t because of a ghost. A ghost didn’t try to drown your cat, then lock you outside.”

  “Why would burglars break into our house, oh and by the way, with no sign of forced entry, how exactly did they get in?” She held a hand in front to let him know she wasn’t expecting an answer.

  “But ghosts isn’t the answer either. We might have left the back door unlocked.”

  “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “No, of course not.”

  “And neither did I.”

  “But the point is.” He ran his hand through his hair, trying to calm down. “The point is, there are dozens more likely explanations than the house being haunted.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  She didn’t intend to get mad at Ellis. He was after all the reason she was back safe in the house and not still laying outside
on the grass. “Wait, why didn’t you call a doctor for me?”

  “A doctor? Why? Do you need a doctor?”

  “You found me outside on the grass. I’d fainted. I could have been injured. I don’t remember going to bed. Did you carry me all that way?”

  His eyes widened. “Lisa, you weren’t outside in the garden. I found you asleep on the sofa. The back door was locked. I went to put a blanket over you, but you mumbled something about going back to sleep, then stumbled upstairs on your own. I didn’t carry you anywhere. Trust me, I’m not as strong as I look.”

  She let the cheap jibe about her weight go by. What was important was that she didn’t remember coming back into the house at all. The last thing she’d remembered was the teddy bear on the ground, then… nothing.

  What the hell had happened to her?

  25

  After debating for two hours over what to wear, Judy settled on the outfit she was most comfortable in, her smart jeans and a decent top from H&M. It was probably a bit young for her, but it came with long sleeves and she could wear a smart jacket over the top. It had been a couple of decades since she’d last been on a date…

  Jesus, is that what this is, a date?

  She drove herself to the restaurant, then without overthinking things, she got out of the car and found Richard waiting outside the restaurant, wearing a nice shirt and jacket.

  “You look great,” he said, and for a horrible moment, she thought he would lean in and shake her hand, but instead, he pecked her on the cheek. “Do you like Nandos? I know it’s a bit obvious.”

  “It’s great.”

  And was Jemma’s favourite place to eat.

  Judy knew the menu back to front and that at least took the pressure off tonight. The casual atmosphere was also what she needed. God forbid Richard might have suggested fine dining. That had never been her style and would just have piled on more pressure. At least this way they could have a nice meal and not worry about it taking forever in case it didn’t go as planned.

  They took a table at the back of the restaurant. The place was pretty full, and the noise was chatty but friendly. A group of ladies had taken a table a couple away from theirs, but apart from them, they had a good barrier of privacy.