Others

by James Herbert

‘Maybe I’ve been kidding myself.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Dis. In the brief time I had to get to know her, and under awful circumstances, I saw the way she looked at you and how frightened she was for you when you went up to your office alone. And remember, I had a lot of time to talk to her when you were being questioned by the police. She cares for you, Dis.’

  It was what I wanted to hear, but this wasn’t the moment. I stared blankly around the dilapidated yard with its piles of rubble and broken timber, grass growing between the cracks in the paving, moss on the stone itself, old flowerbeds completely overgrown with weeds. It looked as dispirited as I had felt in the early hours of that morning. My mood had changed though and it was because I had decided to act rather than react. Now I was making my own agenda.

  ‘I’m going to watch the lane from inside the house for a while, take note of who goes in and who goes out of PERFECT REST. There’s no other route, so whoever visits or leaves has to pass by. When I’ve done that for long enough, and if Constance still hasn’t put in an appearance, I’m going down to the home itself. If she’s there, I’ll find her.’

  Pushing the car door open, I stepped out into the yard and made my way over to the building’s back door. I heard Louise following me.

  The weather-battered and dirt-grimed door rattled in its frame when I tried the chipped, black-painted doorknob, but it held firm against my pressure. I tried to look inside through the glass panels, but they were too grubby and the interior was too dark. Then I attempted to lift the windows on either side, but they were stuck solid.

  ‘How will you get in?’ Louise was nervously glancing around like a novice burglar.

  ‘No problem,’ I replied.

  I feared the lock would be rusted inside, making picking it difficult; worse, the door might be bolted on the inside. Breaking glass was a method I always tried to avoid, because it has a high-frequency sound, which meant it would travel a long way. Breaking glass also has a high-alarm factor – more people are alerted by its sharp resonance than by muted bangs and thumps. Although we were in an isolated area, I didn’t want to take any chances that a passer-by or anyone living across the fields might hear. I gave the door a hefty kick just below the lock and it burst inwards immediately.

  ‘Not exactly the high-tech approach,’ I told Louise, ‘but it usually works.’

  Before entering, I returned to the car and opened the boot, taking out a canvas holdall. Inside was my basic OBS (observation) gear, which included thermos flask of hot coffee, binoculars (larger and more powerful than those I kept in the glove compartment), small cassette recorder, large torch, notepad, two cameras, and even a couple of chocolate bars. All or none of it might be useful, depending on how long the shift was and the activity I might observe, the exception being the torch, which always came in handy, sometimes even as a weapon of defence (it was a long black Mag-lite, as sturdy as a truncheon). I delved into the bag for the torch and went back to the open door, switching on and shining the light into the shadowy interior.

  The back door opened into what appeared to be a near-gutted kitchen, only a dingy stainless steel sink remaining, the two taps over it rusted, cupboard doors of units around the walls missing. There was no cooker, washing machine, or anything at all to indicate that the place had been inhabited in recent years and I suspected that the building belonged to the owners of PERFECT REST. Why else would a largish detached dwelling which, because of its location close to the Thames and a half-hour’s journey from the city, could easily be turned into a desirable property with a price tag to match be kept empty? Empty, of course, meant no one could observe the comings and goings along the rough lane.

  ‘Louise, you’d be more comfortable waiting in the car,’ I said before stepping over the doorstep.

  ‘I’d rather stay with you,’ she replied in a non-argument mode.

  ‘’S up to you.’ I moved inside.

  Our footsteps had a hollowness to them, the haunting kind you get in unoccupied buildings with no furnishing to absorb the sounds. Segments of faded wallpaper hung like rotting leaves in the hallway, while mould spread from floor to ceiling in some of the downstairs rooms. Ahead, the front door was bolted, the bolts themselves rusted through, and the windows of the rooms on either side were heavily boarded. The odour of damp and rot was everywhere and when we reached the stairs I warned the clairvoyant to mind how she trod in case the stairboards were weakened. Although they creaked and sagged alarmingly in places, we were able to reach the upper floor easily enough. I made straight for a room at the front, which I knew must overlook the lane, and although the curtainless windows there were grimy, they provided a good vantage point for surveillance. In fact, their dirt would make it more difficult for me to be seen from outside. There were no chairs, no furniture of any kind, and I advised Louise to sit on the floor.

  ‘We could be in for a long wait,’ I told her, using the binoculars to survey the area around the house. I scanned the lane, directing the glasses towards the big manor house at the end: disappointingly, I could see only the upper windows and rooftops of PERFECT REST above the trees. I wondered if Constance was there and now that I was so close, I was even more troubled.

  For the moment though, while it was still fairly light, dusk only just beginning to settle in, there was nothing much I could do. I could only wait. And watch.

  Nothing happened until at 8.46pm (out of habit I checked my watch) a large blue Transit van went by, the bumpy ruggedness of the lane’s surface and the fact that the vehicle wasn’t using its headlight restricting it to a low speed. I watched its progress until it disappeared round a bend, then wrote its registration number in my notebook. The Transit had been wide enough to take up most of the lane and I assumed it was carrying equipment or foodstuffs to the home; but there were no signs on its sides, nothing at all to indicate what it might contain. I thought that Sunday night was a strange time for a delivery, but I had no idea of how nursing homes operated; it might be standard practice, for all I knew.

  It was twenty minutes or so later that Louise began to get agitated.

  I’d been leaning against the dusty, paint-chipped window-frame, binoculars hanging against my chest, hands in my pockets, my gaze idly roaming the flat fields opposite and woodlands beyond, when I had heard the clairvoyant gasp.

  I glanced towards her shadowy form sitting propped up against a wall on the other side of the room. ‘You okay, Louise?’

  She gave another short gasp and I hurried over to her, kneeling so that I could get a look at her face. Her head was raised upwards, as if she were watching the ceiling; but her eyes were closed. I placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  ‘They’re very close,’ she said quietly. ‘I can feel them . . . so close. They’re upset . . . Oh dear God, they’re afraid . . .’

  I moved my face nearer to hers. ‘Who, Louise? Who d’you mean?’

  ‘You know who they are. They’ve come to us both before.’

  I felt nothing. I heard no sounds, saw no visions.

  Louise groaned. ‘So afraid. We have to help them.’

  In frustration, I said, ‘Yeah, so tell me how.’

  ‘They aren’t far away, Dis. They’re in that place, inside the home. Their presence is so strong, yet they’re so confused. Oh . . . Dis . . . they’re desperately afraid.’ She turned her head from side to side and even in the dimness of the room I could see her anguish.

  ‘Can you talk to them, Louise? With your mind, can you make contact with them, find out exactly where they are?’

  ‘No. It has to come from them. They have to come to us.’

  ‘Then why don’t they? What’s preventing them this time?’ A week ago I would have figured that mental telepathy was merely an interesting concept, but now here I was fully expecting a psychic response. Was the stress getting to me, or was I finally waking up to the possibilities of other dimensions – other realities?

  ‘I don’t know,’ Louise replied, still shaking her head as if su
ffering physical pain. ‘It’s all so . . . so uncertain, so vague. I don’t think they are trying to make contact with us. No, I think I’m just picking up their distress.’

  ‘Because we’re so close?’

  ‘Normally, distance wouldn’t be a factor, but in this case, I think it is.’

  ‘I don’t sense anything, Louise. Not a thing.’

  ‘It’s because I am seeking them – they are not trying to reach us. You don’t have the gift, but it’s something I’ve lived with all my life.’ She became still again and her eyes opened. ‘I’m sure they sense me too, but they’re unable to respond. They’re suffering and I can’t tell how.’

  I heard her sniff and felt her shoulders trembling. ‘It’s all right, Louise, take it easy.’ I moved my hand to her cheek and gently stroked it, talking softly in an attempt to calm her. ‘Come on now, take some deep breaths and get control of your thoughts. Blank them out if you have to.’

  She seemed to be doing as I asked. Her breathing became deeper, taking on an easier rhythm. The trembling began to subside. ‘They’re fading,’ she said after a short while. ‘The feeling . . . the fear . . . is leaving me.’

  ‘Good. Try and relax.’

  With a jerk that startled me, she grabbed my wrist. ‘I thought the danger was to you.’ There was dismay in her voice. ‘Every time they came to us, I believed they were trying to warn you. But now I think they are in peril. Something terrible is happening to them, that’s why they sought our . . . no, they sought your . . . help. I must go to them.’

  The clairvoyant made as if to rise, but I forced her down again. ‘You’re not going anywhere, Louise. This is up to me.’

  I couldn’t explain it, but a feeling of urgency had swept over me. Perhaps it was because of what Louise had just told me, that the voices I had been hearing, sensing, were cries for help. It didn’t explain last night, the warped creatures that had squirmed and writhed over my bedroom floor, indulging in depravities that had sickened me to the core, it didn’t explain why I had observed Constance amongst them and had stood witness to her defilement; no, none of this could be explained by rational thought, but by now I was beyond logic.

  When I stood, the clairvoyant held on to my hand. ‘It’s time I had a look around PERFECT REST,’ I told her.

  The pupils of her pale eyes were large and black in the bad light and I felt I could see into her very soul. There was both fear and concern there, but also a glimmer of hope.

  ‘Find Constance,’ Louise pleaded.

  ‘I intend to,’ I replied.

  32

  When I reached the tall entrance gates to PERFECT REST, they were shut tight as usual. I attempted to part them in the hope they would give enough for me to slip through. No joy though: they wouldn’t budge.

  By now the night skies had darkened considerably, although the bright moon did its best to compensate each time it escaped a cloud. I had been cautious as I’d made my way down the rough lane, ready to duck behind the cover of a tree or bush should I hear anything or spot approaching headlights. In the far distance, I could see a few house lights, as remote as stars and somehow emphasizing the loneliness of my surrounds; every so often an aircraft droned overhead, while higher and far away to the east even more circled air space nearer to the airport, their tiny lights, white and red, like cruising meteors. I pictured Louise Broomfield, left behind in the old forsaken house, watching the lane from the window and sending out thoughts of comfort to those she believed were under threat.

  I examined the gates again, then held them like the bars of a cell as I peered through at the grounds. To the left was a great dark cavern, the track that branched off from the main drive, presumably for access to the side or rear of PERFECT REST. It was the way I had decided to go once inside.

  The gates were high and would be difficult for me to climb; an alternative was to skirt the boundary wall and find a suitable way over, perhaps using a nearby tree’s branches to clamber up. Then again, there might be an even easier way into the estate.

  Walking to the gate-supporting pillar to the right of the entrance, I stuck my arm through the rails and ran my hand up and down the back of it. Finding nothing, I moved to the other side of the gates and repeated the manoeuvre, this time using my right hand and pressing my cheek against iron. I found what I was searching for set in the brick wall beside the back of the left-hand pillar. It always made me chuckle how certain security-conscious people used big, strong gates to protect their property, yet insisted on having a back-up opening switch or button out of sight, but within easy reach, in case the batteries of their remote control unit were depleted, or the unit itself lost or forgotten. I pressed the ‘secret’ button and stood away from the gates as they swivelled inwards.

  As I slid through the widening gap, I prayed there was no alarm system from the entrance to the main building itself to warn of any unauthorized opening.

  With high branches overlapping overhead it was pitch black inside the natural tunnel and I took my other torch, the slim pocket-sized Mag-lite, from my jacket. I kept the beam low, aiming it at the ground, ready to turn it off again the moment I heard anyone or anything coming. Very carefully, I made my way along the enclosed track, noting the ruts obviously caused by vehicles passing through and, as before, I guessed this was the discreet way to the tradesmen’s entrance. It took a full five minutes to reach the end of the tunnel and I had switched off the torch well before I emerged. I hid behind a stout oak tree to survey the rest of the route.

  The track had swept to the right under the cover of the trees and it journeyed on before me, sweeping around the side of the home as if making for the river beyond. I could see part of the river’s bend, the waters deep and sullenly murky, glinting silver only when the moon made one of its now infrequent appearances; on the opposite bank car lights sped along the road that lay beyond the darkened pleasure ground where I had parked earlier, and it all seemed a long way off, not part of this world where I now loitered. A mass of starlings suddenly made their last flight before bedding down for the night, circling the estate with sharp cries and flurrying wings that reminded me of the visions. They soon settled back into the trees, leaving an unnerving stillness behind.

  When a new light appeared at one of the home’s upper windows, I jerked my head back out of sight, afraid of being seen despite covering shadows. A figure appeared briefly, then just as quickly vanished. Many other windows were lit up, casting their glows on the lawns below, and I imagined all the old and sick folk inside, making ready for bed, unaware there was an intruder in their gardens. Fortunately, the estate seemed to have no ground illuminations, making it easier for me to approach the building itself.

  Directly opposite where I hid, an unlit conservatory, functional rather than elegant in design, projected from the end of the building. Its lower structure was of brickwork, which would give me cover if I could reach it unobserved.

  Without further thought, I scooted towards it, my limp beginning to assert itself after the long walk from the derelict house. I was only half-way across the open space when the conservatory lit up in a blaze of light.

  I dropped to the ground immediately and lay there, head and body pressed into the grass, waiting for the alarm to go up. But nothing happened. Warily, I raised my head and looked towards the long windows ahead. I was in the light’s glare, but unless whoever was inside the conservatory walked over to the windows and looked out, I could not be seen because of the low, brick base. Raising my head a little higher I saw a woman dressed in the familiar pale blue uniform of the home’s nursing staff inside; she appeared to be tidying cushions and folding newspapers, shifting chairs, all the while smoking a cigarette. I watched as a man in a blue, short-sleeved tunic entered behind her, recognizing him as the orderly I’d encountered on my first visit to PERFECT REST. He snatched the cigarette from the nurse’s mouth, took a drag himself and exhaled smoke into her face. He then dropped the butt on the floor, and from his movement, I could tell he was stubb
ing it out with his foot. Sharp words were exchanged, but I couldn’t make out what was said. The man – I remembered his name was Bruce – turned away and left the conservatory, still shouting over his shoulder at the nurse. She slyly gave his departing back the finger, then bent down out of sight, presumably picking up the squashed cigarette butt. She appeared again and walked to the door, picking up something else there – I saw a bin in her hand when she stood erect – dropped the butt into it, then left the conservatory, switching off the lights as she went.

  I made use of the sudden darkness by scurrying over to the wall and squatting beneath it. There I caught my breath and planned my next move.

  Which was simple enough. From across the river earlier and through the binoculars, I had noticed an outside fire escape tucked away between the broken-T annexe and the main part of the building, and such a staircase would have to have safety doors on each level. The older types of these exits generally had a pushbar to open them from the inside, and these were fairly easy to unlock from the outside with the help of thin wire that could be pushed between door and frame, looped around the iron bar, which was then jerked downwards. I began to crawl along the conservatory wall towards its corner.

  When I reached it, I carefully peeked round and found myself looking into the curiously-shaped area between the main section and its angled wing. Outside a large ground-level double door was the blue, unmarked Transit van that had driven past the old abandoned house earlier. The drive, I noticed, led directly to this extraneous wing rather than to the back of the main building. The van’s rear doors were open, although there didn’t appear to be anyone nearby. I squinted my eye, searching the gloomy space created between structures, looking for the fire escape.

  There it was, on my side of the building, a black, metal stairway leading to the top floor. Although there were exit doors at ground level and first floor, I figured the highest would be the simplest one to break into without being discovered, particularly if the Transit opposite was in the process of being unloaded. Before I moved towards the fire escape, something else struck me as odd about the extra wing. The wall facing me had no windows; in fact, apart from the wide entrance where the Transit was parked, it was totally blank. From what I’d observed from across the river, the other side of the wing had a normal complement of windows for a structure of that size, so why none here? I could only guess that whatever went on in there was not meant to be seen by ‘guests’ whose rooms overlooked this section. Which, of course, begged another question: what the hell was it that was so covert?