by Simon Clark
Now, giving names to people, to machines, to places is important. He knew that. At the Council home there was a woman who gave names to her cars. That impressed him. That was real power. Only powerful people gave names to things. He’d been right about the woman. She’d got herself elected head of the union. Then she got herself a new BMW. She’d named that, too. He’d learnt the lesson, all right. If you’ve got the power to give names to things you’ve got the power to do anything. He wanted to give new names to rivers and to towns. Names that would live for thousands of years. The people who named this town would have been powerful. They would have had the power of life and death. He approved of that. That power was good.
So now he gave a different name to himself at each new town he wound up in. He didn’t have to think for a name this time. It zipped straight into his head.
Just like that.
Just like it had been carried there by a bolt of lightning.
His skin tingled, as the name sizzled deep into his brain.
‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’The tall bitch was getting nervous of his glassy stare now. And as for the smaller bitch with blue nails…hell, she was petrified of him.
Smile at the ladies, he told himself, make them feel more comfortable.
He broadened the smile, but there was precious little warmth in it.
‘My name’s Jack,’ he told them. ‘Jack Black.’
‘Thank you, Mr Black. I’m Electra Charnwood.’ The tall bitch held out her hand. Christ, she was a fearless one. ‘Yes, there’s a self-contained apartment in the stable block. You can stay there; that is, if you’d like to be our new cellarman?’
He noticed the other bitch with the blue fingernails shoot a look of horror at her friend’s offer.
Now he heard the voice inside her head clamouring away like frightened sparrows: No, Electra. You’re mad, you’re absolutely mad. Don’t let that thug stay here. He s an ugly monstrosity. He’ll steal. He’ll get into fights. Whatever you do, don’t let him stay; he’ll bring trouble.
She’s right, of course, he thought coldly. Wherever I go there’s trouble. But it’s too late now. Far too late. I’m here to stay.
7
Jason Morrow saw nothing in the pitch black. The light had gone out the second he’d opened the door.
But he sensed a presence there — a living, breathing presence. The man was here for the same thing.
He knew they both understood the game.
They were here to make a sexual transaction. There was no need to see the other’s face, or hear a voice. There’d be a fumbled groping, then whoever was strongest stuck it in first.
The whole shitty fuck would be over and done within minutes.
The unspoken rule was you’d leave the other time to make their getaway without being seen.
Outside the breeze moaned through the branches of the trees. Jason shivered.
The man standing there in the darkness, not just five paces away, might even be familiar. It might be one of the guys he worked with. He might be a policemen. Might even sell him his morning newspaper on the way to work. Not that it mattered, neither could see the other in this black hell-hole that stank of piss and disinfectant.
The other man’s breathing was heavy. Perhaps asthma. Or maybe just the sheer excitement of a dirty, illicit and secret encounter in a men’s pissoir in the middle of nowhere.
He steeled himself for the feel of hands grasping him. He’d accept that. But he kept his mouth closed. No kissing. He didn’t like to be kissed by a man.
Quickly he unzipped his trousers. His penis was already erect. He freed it from his underpants, feeling cold air against the hot sensitive skin.
The breathing of the other man grew louder. He sensed movement in the absolute darkness. The man was bending down towards it.
Jason closed his eyes, waiting for the touch of the lips.
Now he could feel the blast of exhaled air against his skin.
Jesus. The man smelled bad. As if he’d slept rough in a basement or something.
Then came a sudden sensation of something being pressed against his penis.
Lips…was his first thought.
No.
Teeth.
‘Hey! Stop th — yuhhh.’
He screamed. Bolts of agony — blue-white, incandescent — blasted through his head. Some detached part of him heard the click of two sets of teeth meeting after they cleaved through skin, meat, veins and urethra.
He screamed again; this time puke sprayed through his own lips; his arms flailed, his fists cannoned off the fibreglass cubicle doors. Then he was down flat on his back on the piss-slopped floor. He was screaming, writhing; but the grip was never released from the stump of his penis.
Only now did the sucking start.
8
A sudden breeze had sprung up. It whirled pieces of white paper around the courtyard. Bernice watched them flap beneath the halogen light like white birds locked into some mad dance.
She was angry, and frightened, by what Electra had done. Bernice watched Electra make a cup of hot milk for Jack Black — if that was the man’s real name. She found it hard to stop staring at the tattoos on his face, or the big red scar that ran from the corner of one eye to the top of his ear. It looked as if someone had tried to draw a pair of spectacles on his skin with red felt-tip.
My God, was he going to be trouble.
The wind blew. It rushed around the hotel’s Gothic roof shape, drawing forth a cold moaning sound.
Outside, the shreds of paper chased each other round in circles. Above the roof of the old stable block the crescent of the moon hung in the sky like a silver fingernail.
Bernice shivered. There was something peculiar about all this. The way the beast of a man stood in the centre of the room, his muscular arms hanging by his side. The way Electra stood holding the cup of hot milk out for him, like she was making an offering to a god.
Her scalp prickled. She thought: What’s happening to me? Maybe it’s lack of sleep; maybe that damn awful video has preyed on my mind too long. Why do I feel so…so weird…so incredibly weird?
She looked at the two people across the kitchen. Also she imagined she was looking at herself as if someone had videoed the scene. She imagined herself standing there, with her back to the wall, rubbing her forearm with her hand — a nervous, jumpy action, as if she half expected the tattooed man suddenly to snatch a meat cleaver from the rack and split Electra’s face in two.
The wind blew harder. The moaning sound grew louder. It sounded like a mother grieving over a dying child. She shivered.
Time, it seemed to her, had slowed to a crawl. The man was taking forever simply to reach out and take the mug from Electra.
Through the window the moon shone brightly.
In the courtyard the pieces of white paper swirled around and around.
Then the door that led to the hotel lobby opened.
She saw David Leppington walk into the kitchen. He carried the stainless-steel bowl that contained the mashed potato. The lights behind him were over-bright, so that he appeared in silhouette — black and faceless. Distantly, as if his voice came from a hundred miles away, she heard him say, ‘I thought it was time I helped out.’
Again she imagined herself into the uppermost corner of the kitchen, like she was some tiny spy camera planted there to capture this scene. There were Electra and the tattooed thug in the centre of the kitchen. Dr Leppington with the steel bowl in one hand. And she imagined herself, wide-eyed, her back to the wall.
The scene was electrifying. She didn’t know why. Her whole body tingled. And if she could have moved she would have run from the kitchen.
Then suddenly she understood.
This has happened to me before. I’ve stood in a room with these people, just like this. David had held the metal bowl in his hands — like he’s doing now. Electra had held out the cup to the savage young man. The moonlight had shone through the window. The winds had struck the house; and
that was the night that —
Bang!
It sounded like a gunshot. The wind battered the door open. Instantly the wind rushed into the kitchen, like it was a great raging spirit that had been held captive too long. It roared at them. Clattered the pans against the wall; ripped bunches of dried thyme from the walls. It tore at Electra’s long hair; it hit Bernice in the face like an open-handed slap. Then it caught the red serviettes stacked on the work unit.
Instantly the air was filled with clumps of red that seemed to hang suspended there like drops of blood in water.
At that moment no one moved. It was as if fate had frozen the four people there, giving them time to imprint the memory of the scene onto their minds.
Yes. This has happened before, Bernice thought with a sudden tingling clarity. And the four of us have been together before. Now we are reunited.
David Leppington grabbed the outside door, then slammed it back into the door frame, shutting the storm outside once more.
Inside the kitchen, the air became suddenly still. The serviettes drifted down to the floor like blood-red snowflakes.
The silence was immense.
CHAPTER 9
Eleven p.m. Bernice opened the wardrobe door in her room. She’d changed into her pyjamas and was determined to retreat to the warmth of her bed as quickly as she could. Already she had barricaded the room door with the chest of drawers.
Outside the wind moaned round the towers of the hotel; it rattled the window panes and she felt the draught rush in icy gusts from under her room door.
Quickly, she lugged out the tan suitcase with the silver clasps.
My God, she thought, I really am like an alcoholic now. Feverishly hunting the vodka bottle from its hiding place; ready for that first slug of the hard stuff.
But it was the videotape that was her vice. She craved to watch those opening shots of Mike Stroud, standing there in his white linen suit and glasses. There was a fire in her heart that only this video could quench. This miserable, stupid, vile video. She knew it had become an addiction. And for the life of her she didn’t know why. She had to watch it. She had to peep over the top of her blankets from the fragile security of her bed and watch what happened to Mike; how he’d opened the door
— my door to my room, room 406
and how something had reached in from the darkness of the corridor and wrenched him out of the room so violently his glasses had been flicked from his face.
Now, more than ever, she needed to know what had happened to the man in the video. Where was he? Was he alive? Was he dead?
Might that wonderful blond hair be green with moss and creeping
things now? Was he lying cold, there in some corner of the basement beneath her very feet?
She switched on the television, turned the sound down low.
Oh, as considerate as ever, Bernice, she taunted, when are you ever going to stand up to people? You should have told Electra she was heading for one almighty disaster for giving that thug Jack Black the job of cellarman.
She pushed the video cassette into the machine, shivering as the loading mechanism eagerly snatched the tape from her hands to devour it.
The hotel and the machine and Electra and Jack Black are all in cahoots; they’re planning to destroy you, Bernice. They want to see you suffer…
Stop it, she told herself, closing off the paranoid run of thoughts. It’s your morbid fascination with this tape that’s eating away at you.
Destroy the tape. Forget about it.
Easier said than done.
The thing was in her blood now.
She pressed the rewind button on the machine, then climbed into bed. She moved quickly, almost as if she’d prodded a sleeping — and possibly savage dog. It won’t bite you, she tried to tell herself reassuringly.
Don’t you believe it, Bernice. That video has got its teeth into your jugular — nice and deep, like a filthy vampire that’s never going to let you go this side of doomsday.
As the tape rewound she heard a muffled clunk from next door. It was probably Dr Leppington closing his bathroom door as he prepared for bed. Distantly she heard rushing water.
Probably brushing his teeth, she thought in a vain attempt to crowd out the frightening cluster of thoughts that always haunted her during the night. He’s a nice man. Good-looking. Friendly, very pleasant. Single? Yes, Electra had pried that bit of information from him expertly enough. No romantic attachments? She didn’t know.
If I ask him, perhaps he will take me away from here.
The thought struck her suddenly enough to surprise her. But she realized it must have been lurking there long enough. Suddenly she realized she wanted to leave this Gothic monstrosity of a hotel; she wanted out of Leppington full damn stop.
But this’s a damned roller-coaster ride — once you were locked into your seat you couldn’t just get off. You had to stay on to the bitter end.
The tape clunked to a stop. She stepped out of bed to press the play button. Instantly the cold draughts rushing across the floor made her gasp at their icy intensity. It’s like walking into a freezer, she thought, shivering from head to toe, her skin goosing beneath the thin material of her pyjamas.
She crouched in front of the machine: the television screen showed a fuzzy green ‘O’.
Stop, Bernice.
Stop while you’ve got the chance.
You don’t have to do this, you know.
You don’t have to watch the vile tape.
You could go to bed and sleep.
But you know you won’t sleep.
Insomnia’s got its hooks into you.
So, think about what happened tonight.
You had the meal with Electra and the doctor.
That venison was tough as Old Mother Riley’s boot.
No, it wasn’t, you have a poor appetite, my dear.
Good heavens, I’m even thinking like Electra Charnwood now.
She’s infected you.
I can lie in bed and think about how we were all in the kitchen together. Electra, Jack Black — all tattoos, scars and sinister deep-set eyes; Dr Leppington had then walked in, carrying the empty stainless-steel bowl.
At that moment I knew this had happened to me before. That I’d been in a room with those people before. We’d stood in those same positions. Dr Leppington had carried the bowl. And there had been such a charge in the atmosphere; an electricity. My muscles had snapped so tight with tension I thought I would explode. Something was going to happen; something incredible.
That’s when the door had burst open. The wind had caught the red serviettes and whirled them round the room so it looked as if the air itself was full of blood — flying clots of blood, red, living blood.
Later, when everything had been straightened and the thug Black — oh, I bet he’s served time in prison, she thought — had gone off across the courtyard to his new apartment in the stable block, she and Electra and Dr Leppington had returned to the function room where they’d drunk their after-dinner coffees.
Electra and Dr Leppington had chatted light-heartedly about the incident.
Electra had mentioned the thug’s name, Jack Black.
Dr Leppington had looked up with a surprised smile. ‘Jack Black? You’re joking!’
‘No,’ Electra had said. ‘What’s so funny about the name?’
‘Oh, just coincidence, I suppose.’
Electra smiled, ‘I don’t follow.’
‘Just going back to what we were talking about earlier: the rats, and the mystery of whether or not rats had bitten off the workman’s finger.’
‘So?’ Electra shrugged her shoulders. ‘What’s Jack Black got to do with all this?’
‘Nothing, really.’ Dr Leppington had given a gentle laugh. ‘It’s just that a certain Jack Black was once, by royal appointment, rat-catcher to Queen Victoria.’
Electra had laughed. ‘But that won’t be our Jack Black, unless he’s far older than he looks.’
‘True.
But it looks as though both Jack Blacks are colourful characters. The royal rat-catcher Jack Black was covered in scars from rat bites.’
‘Ugh, charming.’
Dr Leppington had slipped an After Eight mint from its envelope. ‘Mr Black’s official title had been “Rat and Mole Destroyer to Her Majesty Queen Victoria”. And he was paid three pence from the royal purse for every rat he caught.’
Bernice had pulled a face. ‘Nice work if you can get it.’
‘Personally, I prefer rats to your leeches, my dear. At least rats wear nice little fur coats and are warm-blooded.’
‘But seething with bacteria and all kinds of nasty viruses,’ Dr Leppington had said.
‘Aren’t we all, dear?’ Electra had gazed thoughtfully at her coffee cup.
Now, back in the hotel bedroom, Bernice looked back at the play button of the video machine.
Press me, press me…
It might as well have been crying that. Bernice knew she’d have to watch the videotape again.
I’m caught in its dark spell, she thought morbidly. Oh, well, here we go again…
She pressed the button. The screen flickered.
Quickly, almost fearfully, she scooted back to her bed where she pulled the blankets up to her chin, as if shielding her body from anything that might lunge out of the screen at her.
This has got to stop, she told herself unhappily, this has really got to stop…
Not tonight, it wouldn’t.
She watched the video. There was blond-haired bespectacled Mike Stroud smiling into the lens…
And there outside in the corridor someone — or something (something dark and nasty and wet and dead) — paced up and down outside her door. She was convinced of it.
One night I’ll open that door, she thought. Then I’ll see for myself.
The wind boomed around the hotel’s four towers, before dropping to a broken-hearted moan just outside her window.
I might open the door tomorrow night, she told herself. But not tonight. Tonight the evil video had claimed her. Claimed her blood, body and soul.
