by Spike Black
Oona was asleep - he could hear her heavy, regular breathing, and the occasional undignified snort that would have embarrassed her if she was awake. He sat up and peered into the darkness, seeing only stars from sitting up too fast.
Once they had cleared, he was left staring into nothingness. He blinked, waiting for his eyes to adjust, his mind working overtime in its attempts to frighten him with what it imagined could be merely inches from his face.
For a brief moment he thought he saw the chair in the corner of the room, but then he remembered it was no longer there.
He gave up and fell back onto the pillow. Drifted.
Tap-tappety, tap-tappety, tap.
What was that? It sounded like a woodpecker on the window pane.
Great. That was really going to help.
Tap-tappety, tap-tappety, tap.
Ugh. Silas wrapped the pillow around his head.
Tap-tappety, tap-tappety—
He lifted his head. The noise stopped.
It had been louder this time. Almost as if it was in the room with him. He waited.
Silence.
He dropped back onto the pillow.
Tap-tappety, tap-tappety, tap.
Silas growled and sat up. Looked around. His eyes slowly adjusted to the dark. He turned his head, surveying the room. The bedside table, the closet, the door, the chair.
The chair.
And the old man was sitting in it. His eyes locked on Silas.
Watching him.
Silas’s blood turned to ice.
The old man drummed his bony white fingers on the armrests: Tap-tappety, tap-tappety, tap.
A choked yell burst from Silas’s throat. He brought his knees up to protect himself and screwed his eyes shut, praying that when he opened them again the old man wouldn’t be there.
He had to be seeing things. He just had to be.
He opened his eyes, peering into the darkness. He’d screwed his eyes shut so tight that it took a moment for his vision to clear.
Tap-tappety, tap-tappety, tap.
His muscles seized.
The old man was still there. Silas couldn’t see detail yet but his shape was in the corner.
Silas struggled for breath. His temples pulsed, his eyeballs vibrated, his heart slammed in his chest. He shivered as the paralysis of fear traveled up his body. He fought against it, leaning forward for a better look.
The old man leaned forward, mirroring him.
No…
A hideous grin broke out on the old man’s leathery face. His nostrils flared, a fan of wrinkles spreading from the corners of his blazing eyes.
For Silas, the terrible truth dawned: this was not a figment of his imagination. His mind was not fooling him. The old man really was there, only a few feet away, as real as anything he had ever seen.
A short, loud cry burst from his lips.
Oona stirred. Lifted her head. “Silas? Are you all right?”
No, I’m not all right, he wanted to say. There’s a dead guy staring at me. But all that left his mouth was a pathetic, useless noise: “N-n-n-n-n…”
A numbness had enveloped his tongue. The horror of helplessness, of being unable to communicate, consumed him. He lifted a trembling finger and pointed.
In a flash Oona was by his side, her hand on his arm. “Silas? What’s wrong?”
“No!” Silas finally exclaimed. “No! No! No!”
He clutched the bedcovers and held them tight. Pressed himself up against the headboard. He wanted nothing more than to look away, but it was impossible. The old guy had snared him, locking him into a stare that Silas could not break.
Tap-tappety, tap-tappety, tap.
16
Even before she opened her eyes Oona knew that something was terribly wrong.
There was a madness in his abysmal cry, the cry that woke her with a jerk and sent her scrambling to him. It was in his face - the way it contorted as she reached out a hand and touched his arm, sleek with sweat. It was in his voice as he repeated the word no, over and over, curled up against the headboard, shaking uncontrollably.
But most of all, the madness was in his eyes. Wide, wet balls of fear, locked onto something that she could not see.
“Silas, listen to me. You’re safe. Everything’s okay.”
It most definitely is not, a petulant little voice countered. He’s already past the point of no return. He’s cracked.
“Do you understand me? Silas?”
It was impossible to comprehend that this wreck of a man, with a runner of dribble dangling from his trembling bottom lip, was the same strong, no-nonsense policeman she had married seven years earlier. It was as if he had swapped minds with a patient from an insane asylum.
“No!” he continued. “No! No!”
“Silas! Look at me.” She grabbed his wrists. It took considerable force to keep them under control, they were flapping so wildly.
“Oh, God,” he shrieked, his forward stare unbroken. “Oh, God. D…d…d… do you see him?”
Oona followed his line of sight and chanced a brief look in the corner of the room.
There was nothing there. In fact, it looked strangely bare now that the chair had been removed to the spare room. But it was obvious who Silas thought he saw there, and her skin prickled at the thought.
Will I ever sleep again? she suddenly wondered.
She shook him. “Look at me!”
He wasn’t listening, or didn’t hear her. She moved in front of him, blocking his view. “It’s just a dream. You’re still asleep.”
“No.”
“Yes. You’re seeing things.”
“He’s there. He’s right there.”
Silas pulled away sharply, his head jerking about like a crazed animal until he focused on her face and began to breathe easier.
“That’s it,” she said softly. “That’s it.”
His eyes raised and met hers. “He’s looking straight at me.”
Oona stroked his damp hair. “Don’t worry about it. Just keep looking at me.”
After a long moment, he broke her gaze. “He’s still there…”
His face crumbled and he sobbed, softly at first. Oona put her arms around him and he began to howl. “Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…”
“Ssh,” she said, as calmly as she could manage with her heart racing and her voice shaking and her mind full of fear.
She had experienced some frightening things on this holiday, but none of them came close to invoking in her the level of terror she felt right then, fearing that her husband had lost his mind. “Ssh, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s all right.”
Eventually his sobbing abated, and after a few minutes he had stopped completely, the occasional cry hitching in his throat, his arms clamped tight around her. She stroked his hair, settled him down and tucked the covers around him.
It was just a waking dream, she told herself. He had still been asleep, and he hadn’t even realized it. The mind does strange things when it can’t cope, as Silas himself had said.
She reached over him and flicked out the light. A chill ran through her as she sat there in the dark, thinking about the fear in Silas’s eyes and the panic in his voice.
Do you see him?
She turned over, closed her eyes, and remained awake for the rest of the long, long night.
17
Screeee—screeee—screeee—screeee—
The next time the alarm went off in the cell block, Silas’s heart slammed in his chest, his palms moistened and his mouth became dry. Those distant screams echoed through his mind.
Roland hollered and rubbed his hands together. “Here we go again…”
Wendy shook her head and tutted. “Why does it do that? Brian, what’s the deal with the bloody thing?”
“It’s bust,” Kelvin interjected. “We need to get someone in to pull all the wiring out.”
Silas was watching Brian. The sergeant was staring into space, an odd look in his eyes. He was the longest serving of
ficer at the station, and if anyone knew anything about the alarm, it would be him.
“What are you thinking about, Brian?” Silas asked.
Brian leaned back in his chair and took a cricket ball from his desk. Tossed it in the air and caught it. “I’m thinking about the screaming,” he said, and Silas’s stomach lurched.
“This sounds interesting,” Roland said, pulling up a chair.
Wendy shivered. “I’m not sure I want to hear this.”
“The last cell,” Brian said. “On the back wall. That’s where we always put the real dangerous ones. The loons. And George Olsen - that man was off his rocker. He was a wiry little man with an odd, shriveled face, but the scary thing about Olsen was that you only had to look in his eyes to see that he was capable of anything.
“See, you lot wouldn’t know, but when you have prisoners, well, sometimes checking on them isn’t as simple as opening the hatch on the cell door. If they’re drunk, or a danger to themselves, you have to go in and wake them up, or make sure, you know…”
“Make sure they’re still alive,” Kelvin offered.
“Right. Hourly rousing, it’s called. But Pete Stone had only been in the job six months, and he was like all of us when we start out. Keen to show how bloody capable he was. A big, buff guy. And there was George Olsen, the wrinkly little shit. Who knows what went down, maybe Olsen pretended to be dead or something, but Pete ignored his training and just went in there. He unlocked that madman’s cell and went in there on his own.”
Brian sighed. Puffed out his cheeks. “I was at the front desk when the panic alarm went off, but by the time I made it down there it was too late.”
Silas looked around at his colleagues. They were watching Brian with wide-eyed anticipation.
“I heard his screams as soon as I entered the cell block, and I’ll never forget them. But everything was silent by the time I got to solitary. The cell door was swinging open, so I peered round…
“Pete was on the floor in a… in a puddle. A chunk of him missing, a look of frozen panic on his face. And Olsen was in the corner, blood around his mouth. The bastard was licking his fingers as if he had just finished a good meal.”
Wendy winced. Kelvin turned an unhealthy shade of green.
Brian righted himself in the chair, placed his cricket ball on the corner of the desk and turned to them. “So if you’re asking me about the alarm, I’d say it’s Pete, calling for assistance. Wanting us all to come running before it’s too late.”
“Nice,” Oona said as Silas finished relaying Brian’s tale. “What a lovely story.”
They followed the trail up the craggy hillside, cutting through moorland flushed purple with dense clumps of heather. The air was sweet with its scent.
“Roland wanted to draw straws again, but I didn’t hang around for that. I was out the door like a shot, and inside the cell block within a couple of minutes. I had to really listen, but the screams were there, beneath the squeal of the alarm. I let it ring - anything to mask the sound of those screams - and marched down the cell corridor, headed straight for solitary. I tell you, I’ve never been so scared in my life.
“I put my hand to the hatch and I had to really psych myself up to open it. And when I did - well, at first I didn’t see anything. An empty bunk. But there was this awful smell, like rotting flesh.
“Then I peered round, and he was sitting in the corner. Olsen, that is. This shriveled little man, just like Brian said. As real as you are to me now. And he was sucking on a chunk of meat.
“I fumbled for my keys and all I could think as I was unlocking the cell was that this was the same mistake Pete had made, he’d gone charging in, too. But I had to do something. I opened the door, baton raised, and Olsen looked up at me, and he broke into this godawful grin, and… and…”
“And what?”
Silas swallowed. Almost couldn’t get the words out. “And his face just… it was like all his features rolled back and the shriveled skin unfolded itself and what was left…”
Oona waited, wide-eyed.
“It was so hideous that I wish I could un-see it.” Tears sprung to his eyes and he wiped them away. “But I can’t.”
They crested the hill and were greeted with a magnificent view of the village in the valley below. A cluster of farms stood high on the moor, their fields dotted with grazing sheep.
Silas had told her everything, now, and he was exhausted. But after last night’s debacle he’d had no choice.
“I know how it sounds,” he said. “And I wouldn’t believe it, either. But I know what I saw.”
Oona turned to him. “I believe you, Silas. I really do.” She hesitated, then continued. “But I was with you last night, when you woke up screaming. There was nothing there. There was no old man in the corner of the room.”
He was stumped for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe I’m just attuned to their wavelength or something.”
“Or maybe there’s another, more rational explanation.”
He laughed. “What? Like I’m nuts?”
Oona shook her head. “Look, the way I see it, you saw these things because your imagination had been primed for it. You saw the old man because you were spooked by his photograph. The same with the ghost in the cell block. You only saw it after Brian told his story.”
“But what about the screams? I heard them first, long before that.”
“They could have been anything, though. You know what it’s like along the High Street at that time of night. Or maybe you’d already heard Brian’s story and just forgot. Maybe you heard others talking about it.”
Silas felt an anger rise within him. That was easy for her to say - she hadn’t experienced it all. He had seen those ghouls with his own eyes. They were not hallucinations or waking dreams or tricks of the light.
But then a fear gripped him. What if he really was crazy? If that was true, then he couldn’t even trust his senses. It didn’t matter what he saw, or heard, or how much he believed in himself.
And if he didn’t have Oona’s support going forward… well what then?
As they followed the trail back to the cottage, Silas realized that he was completely lost.
18
Oona thought Silas looked exhausted when they returned to the cottage, but he ignored her suggestion to go upstairs for a lie down and crashed on the sofa in the living room instead. After the night he’d had, Oona didn’t argue. She stoked the fire, found an old blanket and wrapped it around him.
He complained about the cold, and she hugged him until he fell asleep. She stayed with him a while, wondering where they could go from here. For the first time since they’d been away, Oona realized she missed having a TV; it was a welcome distraction when times were tough.
She left Silas and passed through to the dining room, where she saw the pack of playing cards still on the table. She considered a game of Patience or Solitaire.
Then she remembered something Silas had said and opened the bureau.
She found the photo album among a pile of old back issues of Reader’s Digest. It was one of those old-fashioned albums that she remembered her grandparents had when she was a child, with large pages of thick black paper and aged, monochrome photos held in place by mounting corners.
A musty smell emanated from the pages as she flipped through dozens of black-and-white images of miserable children. Then about half way through, a wedding photo. Bride and groom outside a church, staring glumly at the camera. She recognized the man from the shape of his face, and the handwritten caption beneath the picture confirmed it: The Weddups.
An ugly child in a Christening gown adorned the next page, then Mr and Mrs Weddup with more children as she leafed through.
Oona stopped when she came across the very photo that had tormented her from the bedroom wall, only this copy was not as bleached. As a result there was slightly more detail: his eyeballs could be seen within the dark sockets now, staring out at her, and it made an already creepy picture even scarier.
She turned the page quickly.
Color photos now, although they were all of the same brownish hue that came with a combination of age and cheap cameras. There was Mr Weddup again, in the living room of the cottage. Sitting in the armchair that Silas liked so much, upright and miserable as ever. Only this time there was a cat on his lap, staring at the camera with the same disdainful expression.
Beneath the photo was a caption: Dad and Maude.
Maude the cat looked awfully familiar. She even had distinctive white markings on her paws that made her look like she was wearing little ankle socks.
It couldn’t be…
Actually, now that Oona thought about it, no, it couldn’t. The photo had to be at least twenty years old. She removed the photo from the album and flipped it over.
The date scribbled on the back confirmed that the photo was thirty-three years old.
That settled it, then. She put the photo back in the album and studied the cat. It really was uncanny.
At that moment there was a loud crash from upstairs, and Oona jumped. She threw the album into the bureau and ran through to the living room.
The sofa was empty, and Silas was nowhere to be seen.
Another noise. A loud crack. She ran into the hall, her heart pounding. Shouted up the stairs.
“Silas? Silas, what the hell?”
19
Silas opened one eye and heard Oona rummaging around in the dining room. He knew how she worried for him, and sometimes he thought it best just to fake it and let her think he was having a good rest. He wished it were that easy - most nights it took more than three hours to fall asleep.
