Leave This Place

by Spike Black

  “We’ll draw straws,” said Brian, the level-headed sergeant, but Silas shook his head and stepped forward.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Woo, big man,” Roland mocked, a curious mix of relief and jealousy washing over his scrunched features. But Silas didn’t believe that putting himself forward was particularly brave or noble ( although he certainly didn’t want to see poor Maisie sent down there). He volunteered only because to him, the whole thing was bullshit.

  Wendy, Brian, Kelvin, Roland - they all believed the ghost stories. Especially Roland. His jokes, his banter - it was all a smokescreen. He was the most terrified of the lot of them. Silas saw it in his eyes.

  Silas had never tolerated any of that supernatural nonsense. The alarm wasn’t ringing because some kind of spectral pest had set it off - it was ringing because the cell block was old, and the alarm had an electrical fault.

  Even if it turned out he was wrong, and there really was a phantom setting off the alarm in the abandoned cell block of Chalkstone police station, then so what? In his years as a police officer he’d seen his share of true horror - a motorcyclist with his forehead crushed the way a boiled egg cracks when bashed with a spoon. A beautiful young woman, her brains splattered on the sidewalk after a drunken fall. The blackened husks of two children, burned to death in their car seats.

  He could handle one little ghost.

  6

  A large spider spun a new home for itself in the corner of the kitchen window as Oona washed dishes at the sink. She admired the elegance of the creature even as it repulsed her, its spindly legs plucking at the web like a harpist’s fingers dancing over strings.

  The kitchen window had no blind or curtains, and now that the sun had gone down the window was just a square of black through which Oona could see nothing but her own reflection.

  She had a thought that made her skin prickle. What if someone was out there, looking in? She imagined how she would appear from a peeping tom’s perspective - her head and shoulders framed in a perfect square of light - and considered continuing her chores in total darkness. Until, of course, she realized that would terrify her even more.

  She dried the last of the chipped cups and the foggy wine glasses. She wiped down the draining board, folded the tea towel, and, leaning forward, glanced back out of the window.

  They can see me, but I can’t see them.

  It struck her as she stood there that it was the absence of everything that freaked her out most of all. There was nothing to see, but also nothing to hear.

  There isn’t even a TV, Silas had said when extolling the virtues of the cottage before they booked, and a taste of the quiet life had sounded appealing. But now all she wanted was the garbled noise of a stupid game show coming from another room, or any of the cacophony of sounds that made up suburban town life, sounds that normally she didn’t even notice - a baby’s cry, the roar of a lawnmower, the relentless bark of an angry dog.

  Oona shuddered, pulling away from the window, and felt something pulling at her hair. She put her hand up to her face and broke through the strands of a cobweb. She winced, grabbing for it, but couldn’t find it.

  As she wiped her face she saw something that stopped her heart.

  The spider - the large, scary spider - was no longer in its web.

  It had vanished.

  She scrubbed frantically at her face. Shook her head vigorously.

  Oh God, is it in my hair?

  She felt it crawling on her, walking on her hair, over the back of her neck, down her spine. It couldn’t possibly be in all of those places and yet it was.

  Now she was starting to hyperventilate, and her skin itched with the crawling legs of a thousand spiders, and she tried to regulate her breathing but her heart was pounding, her vision pulsing, and she was hot. So very hot.

  She searched the window sill, the frame, the sink. All she needed was to see the spider, to know that it wasn’t on her, and she could relax. The itching, the scratching, that constant crawly feeling - it was all psychological, she knew that. If only she could see the blasted thing…

  A voice broke the silence. “Hey.”

  Oona jolted, placing a hand over her thumping heart. Silas was behind her. “I do wish you’d stop doing that.”

  “Sorry. How was your bath?”

  She hesitated, considering what she should tell him. “It was lovely, thanks. Just what I needed.”

  “Ah, good.” He nuzzled into her. “This place isn’t so bad, huh?”

  He kissed her neck and Oona pulled away. “Don’t…”

  “What?”

  “Somebody might see.”

  Silas frowned. “See?”

  Her face flushed. She signaled the window. “Out there.”

  A laugh exploded from him. “You know what’s out there, right? Moorland. We’re surrounded by it. There’s not a soul for miles around.”

  He was right, of course, except that truth didn’t make her feel very safe, either.

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But what? You really think somebody’s standing out there, on this cold, dark night in the middle of nowhere, just so they can spy on us?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Hah! Seriously, that’s crazy. And you’re a nutcase for even thinking it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Silas moved over to the window and peered out. “Only a total lunatic would be out there right now.”

  Oona had a creepy thought that tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop it. “Like that woman in the village?”

  He paused. “Hmm, yeah. She might be just that mad, come to think of it.”

  “Oh, great. What if she followed us home? What if she’s out there right now, watching us?”

  His eyes lit up. “Or maybe it’s Aggie, waving.”

  Oona spurted nervous laughter.

  “Come on,” he said, waving enthusiastically into the void. “Say hello.”

  She started to wave and felt silly, dropping her hand to her side. “Don’t you feel just a little bit vulnerable, though? Being this isolated?”

  “Vulnerable? Come on, you don’t think I can defend us? It’s what I do for a living. Besides, if anyone really is out there watching us, you think they like the idea of messing with me?” He puffed out his already considerable chest and raised a fist at the window. “How about it, lunatics of the moor? Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!”

  Oona couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “You’re crazy.”

  “I see, so you think we’re being watched, but I’m the crazy one?”

  They kissed, and she stroked his face. He was still as ravishingly handsome as he’d always been, but she hadn’t got used to seeing him with gray hair. It wasn’t that she minded it; she actually thought it rather suited him, that it made him look more distinguished. But the change had been so sudden.

  One month ago he had been chestnut brown with a sprinkling of gray in his beard, and now he was a silver fox. But it wasn’t just his hair. The stress he’d been under lately had really taken its toll. His face had become drawn, the bags under his eyes more prominent. It was as if he’d aged twenty years in the space of thirty days.

  Silas kissed her on the forehead. “You coming up?”

  “Yeah, in a minute. I’ve just got to—”

  She froze.

  Silas’s face had fallen. His eyes were fixed on something above her.

  She was almost too afraid to ask, her breath hitching in her throat as she gathered the words. “What… what is it?”

  He sprang back, a flash of terror in his eyes.

  A nerve twitched in her cheek, causing the corner of her mouth to pull up into a momentary smile of fear. Her stomach rolled.

  Somebody at the window, perhaps. She imagined a face pressed up against the glass, eyes staring maniacally.

  Silas slowly lifted his hand and pointed. “You…”

  What? It was only a couple of seconds before he continued, but the w
ait was agonizing.

  He swallowed. “You have a large spider on your head.”

  7

  Silas entered the bathroom, looked at his reflection in the mirror and jolted in shock as someone else stared back at him. It had been this way every morning and every night for the last month (he generally avoided looking in mirrors at all other times), and yet it still managed to take him by surprise.

  Perhaps the most alarming part of it all, though, was that the transformation was not yet complete. Each time there was a new wrinkle, or his eyes had sunk deeper into his skull, or his cheekbones had become more prominent. And in the dim, sickly light of the cottage bathroom, he looked like death.

  He knew it really shouldn’t have bothered him as much as it did - he’d never been one to care too much about his appearance - but he wasn’t yet forty, and already he looked as old as his father. In fact, Silas thought as he ran his fingers through his hair, Dad’s probably less gray.

  The one thing that bothered him most about his new look, however, was that it was a constant reminder, every time he saw himself, that what had happened was very real. It was not, as his mind seemed to regularly insist, all just a bad dream.

  When he returned to the bedroom Oona was already in her nightdress, and still visibly shaken from her ordeal. He thought she was holding up quite well, given that it had taken several minutes of screaming and shaking her head violently before the spider had plopped to the floor and scuttled away.

  “We need to turn that bloody thing around,” she said, pointing to the old man’s chair in the corner of the room. “So that it’s facing the wall.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because my imagination is my worst enemy, that’s why.”

  “Aw, come on, Oons.” He slipped under the covers. The mattress felt even more uncomfortable now, something that he didn’t know was even possible. “That’s just being silly.”

  She climbed into bed alongside him. He cuddled up to her.

  She turned away.

  He sighed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Turn the chair.”

  “Oh,” he said, chuckling. “It’s like that now, is it?”

  “Just do it. Please.”

  He rolled onto his back with a groan, pulling the covers away. But something stopped him getting up. “You know what? No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No, I won’t turn the chair around.”

  “Fine,” she said, sitting up. “I’ll do it myself.”

  He put a hand on her arm. “Oona, wait. If we turn the chair, that’s like admitting that there’s something to be afraid of in this place. And there isn’t. There just isn’t. Let’s leave it as it is and go to sleep. Okay?”

  She huffed, turning away from him again. She pulled the covers up high.

  They lay there in silence for a few moments, and then Oona spoke.

  “You said, ‘what is that?’”

  “Huh?”

  “On the moors. It wasn’t a joke. You really did see something, didn’t you?”

  Silas opened his mouth to speak, then realized there was nothing he could say. He turned away from her.

  He closed his eyes and an image hit him with the force of a sledgehammer. That gaunt, gray, stretched oval of a head, staring out at him.

  From inside this room.

  Damn, this was an uncomfortable pillow. He tried beating it into some kind of shape, but there was no life left in it. He settled back down.

  (What is that?)

  He lifted his head and glanced in the direction of the chair. His eyes had not yet adjusted to the dark, but he imagined an outline of the old guy, sitting upright, his long white fingers hunched up at the ends of the armrests.

  Silas unfolded a bed sheet from the blanket and yanked, wrapping it around his head.

  He lay there for the next hour with the awful feeling that he was being watched. The bed springs dug into his flesh and he needed to adjust his position, but he knew that he couldn’t. It was too late now.

  It was too late because he was meant to be asleep. If he made any breathing noises or sudden movements that suggested he was still awake, then the old man would get him.

  His whole body tensed.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  He was a grown man. A tough guy. A police officer, for goodness sake. And here he was acting like a frightened little girl.

  Enough.

  He freed himself from the protection of the sheet and lifted his head. His eyes adjusting now, he took one quick look around the bedroom, its nooks and crannies unknown to him, its nighttime appearance unfamiliar. He saw the chair in the periphery of his vision, but he couldn’t bring himself to look directly at it.

  He dropped back onto the pillow.

  (What is that?)

  He bounced straight back up again. Nope. It wasn’t going to happen. He mustered what little courage he felt he had and, fighting past the oncoming paralysis of fear, slid his feet off the side of the mattress.

  Stepping around the bed, he rubbed his eyes and kept his hand there, shielding his vision from the chair as he passed it.

  A sudden and sickening fear struck him as he imagined a cold hand grabbing his ankle, but he moved briskly and carefully, trying to avoid the creaking floorboards and failing miserably.

  He glanced back at Oona. He saw only the shape of her under the covers, but her breath was steady, with a slight growl beneath it - her version of a snore.

  He envied her.

  In the kitchen he poured himself a glass of water, downed it, and poured another. He sat at the cheap plastic table that rocked on uneven legs as he rested his weight on the surface. The chessboard linoleum had ripples and bubbles in places and was riding up at the corner of the room, exposing the bare floor beneath. That was where the spider had hidden, he was sure of it.

  Suddenly he regretted not bringing a pair of slippers with him on vacation.

  He stared ahead, trying to think of nothing. Trying to clear his head. Was that ever possible in the quiet moments?

  (Screeee—screeee—screeee—screeee—)

  Apparently not.

  The squeal of the alarm was almost deafening as Silas entered the cell block. It was that and the smell that hit him first, a nose-twitching stench of mold and damp.

  His senses were more attuned to it because there was nothing yet for him to see. Flicking the light switch did nothing for what could have only been a few seconds but seemed, waiting there in the dark, like forever. Even when something did happen it was only flashes of illumination followed by the click-click of the bulbs until finally the light stayed on.

  And still it was hard to see a great deal, the lights bathing everything in an over-saturated greenish-yellow hue that gave the stone walls and linoleum floor the sinister air of one of those Hammer Horror movies from the early color era, like Curse of Frankenstein.

  It was easy to see why nobody ever wanted to come down here.

  He knew that the reset key was on a panel behind the custody desk, so he headed straight there. It was standard procedure to investigate the area first, in case of a valid reason for the alarm, but there seemed no point. The place was deserted, and the alarm faulty. He glanced up the cell corridor anyway, saw nothing, and slipped behind the desk.

  He found the control panel and turned the key. The terrible screech of the alarm halted, and his ears thanked him. He marched back up to the exit wondering what all the fuss was about. Okay, so the cell block was dark and creepy, but so was the rest of the station.

  That was when he heard it.

  He stopped, fingers wrapped around the door handle, and listened.

  Blood-curdling screams. Coming from within the cell block.

  Silas bolted back down to the desk, the thump of his heavy shoes echoing around the empty space, and turned sharply into the corridor of cells.

  They were the screams of a man in terrible pain, a man being tortured or burned or skinned alive. He had to stop it. He had to
help.

  The screams were ahead of him as he raced down the aisle. He made it to the final cell, set back from the others. The cell that had been used for solitary confinement back in the day.

  He listened, his heart pounding in his ears, but the screams were distant. Inexplicably, they were as far away as they had been when he first heard them. It made no sense. He lifted a hand to the hatch on the cell door.

  KEEP THIS HATCH CLOSED, stenciled letters warned him.

  He lifted the flap.

  The screams ceased instantly, as if sucked into a vacuum.

  His nerves jangling, Silas peered inside.

  An empty cell.

  Silas jolted back to the present as the building creaked.

  It took a moment for him to register that it was the groan of the bedroom floorboards as someone crossed the uneven floor. Oona was up, clearly. He was angry with himself for having woken her.

  It’s not Oona, a voice in his head whispered. It’s the old man, and he’s coming for you.

  “Oh, do shut up,” he said, his voice echoing around the kitchen. And yet, as he heard footsteps on the stairs, he couldn’t help but hold his breath.

  He stared at the highest step in his vision, waiting for feet to appear. He took a sip of water, feigning nonchalance. But his eyes remained glued to the staircase.

  The footsteps continued their descent. There were not that many steps, he noted; she should have been in sight by now. A shiver twisted down his spine as he imagined the old man in the room with him. Perhaps standing over the table right now, leaning forward…

  Oona’s feet appeared on the stairs, wearing pink slippers. Silas relaxed. Smart move, the slippers. She descended fully into view, looking tired.

  “Hello.” His voice cracked as he spoke. He cleared his throat and continued. “Didn’t think you’d want to walk around this place in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh, I didn’t, but it’s preferable to being in the bedroom on my own. Thanks for leaving me.”

  “Sorry.”

  Oona poured a glass of water and slid into the seat opposite.