Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  “It’s scary beneath the city,” Mack tried again. “It’s always scary down there. But, if you went down too far, if you went too deep, other things exist—things you don’t want to remember. I sure as hell wish I didn’t.”

  Again the flicker of his nightmares passed through Tom’s mind, clutching at his heart. He gripped the steering wheel hard, doing his best to hang on to reality.

  Chapter 2

  TEN MINUTES LATER, they pulled up outside the house.

  Mack stared up at the smart, three bedroom semi and nodded approvingly. “You did well for yourself, kid.”

  “I’m not a kid anymore,” Tom said, his voice hard.

  Mack glanced at him; a quick sideswipe. “No, of course you’re not. I can’t help still seeing you as a child.”

  Tom did a quick calculation in his head. If this guy was telling the truth and he knew Tom when he was nineteen and Tom was seven, then twelve years separated them, which would make Mack forty-nine. The estimate seemed about right, but it was hard to judge his age when a thick beard covered most of his face.

  Tom got out of the car and waited for Mack to climb out before engaging the central locking. The car beeped and the headlights flashed twice.

  The house stood dark and empty, something Tom had become used to seeing since David’s diagnosis—either he or Abby stayed with David at the hospital when he was having chemotherapy—and he wasn’t used to having company.

  Where they had once been inundated with invites to children’s birthday parties and people’s barbeques, now the phone stayed quiet and the mail never brought them anything but bills. Despite their friends’ initial remorse, the calls to check in grew further and further apart and, now, they rarely heard from anyone. Perhaps friends didn’t want to intrude or they simply were getting on with their own lives, but Tom couldn’t help thinking they didn’t want their own children around them, as though cancer was suddenly contagious.

  He saw the relief in their friends’ eyes; relief that it wasn’t one of their own. Tom couldn’t blame them. All he’d ever wanted was to have a life without tragedy. He didn’t want fame and fortune; he only wanted to have a healthy child and a happy wife.

  Tom opened the front door, stepped into the hallway and flicked on the light. Without bothering to take off his coat, he headed straight to the kitchen and opened the cupboard containing the glasses. He took down a short and filled it from the cheap bottle of whisky sitting half-full on the counter.

  He knocked the drink back in one swallow. The liquid burnt a trail down his throat and he stifled a choke.

  Mack gave the bottle a longing glance. “Can I have one?”

  Tom refilled the glass. He lifted the whisky to his lips and took another large gulp.

  “No,” he said, exhaling the fumes. “I need you to make sense.”

  Mack raised an eyebrow. “I might be making sense, but, if you carry on like that, you’re not going to understand me.”

  “Well, that’s my problem.”

  Mack said nothing and Tom felt the older man watching him. Irritation bristled through him.

  “Our bathroom is up the stairs, third door on the right. There are clean towels on the rail. I suggest you take a shower. I don’t mean to offend, but you stink.” Tom said the words to hurt, trying to cover his own anxieties.

  Mack shrugged. “Yeah, well, I do my best, but you’d stink too if you spent all day rummaging in bins so you could eat.”

  Guilt turned its uneasy head.

  “Go and take a shower,” Tom said, his voice softening. “I’ll sort us out something to eat.” He judged Mack’s size. Though little taller than Tom, he was probably half his weight. “I’ll put some clean clothes outside the door.”

  Mack turned and shuffled from the room. Tom listened to Mack’s footsteps as he climbed the stairs. He rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall. Almost two-thirty in the morning. No wonder exhaustion hung from his body like a cloak.

  He walked over to the double fridge-freezer and pulled open the door. With the exception of a couple of beers, an old tub of margarine, and some old vegetables rotting in the bottom drawer, the fridge was empty.

  Disgusted, he shut the door and opened the freezer. A couple of pizzas sat on the top and he pulled them out and tore off the wrappers. He twisted the dials on the oven and dumped the two inflexible, cheese-encrusted disks onto the baking trays.

  The sound of the shower starting echoed down the stairs.

  Tom mounted the stairs, shaking his head. What the hell would Abby say if she got home and found a homeless man in her shower? His guts twisted with anxiety. No, that wouldn’t happen. Even though tomorrow was Saturday and neither of them had to work, Abby wouldn’t leave David until he arrived at the hospital to take over. Mack would be out of the house by then and Tom doubted he would ever see him again.

  In his bedroom, Tom found an old sweater and a pair of cord trousers. He laid them outside the bathroom door. As an afterthought, he added a belt, some old loafers, and a pair of socks.

  The shower roared and he pictured the dirt, grime, and soap scum washing down the drain. He would need to clean the bathroom before Abby came home.

  Tom wandered back down the stairs. The smell of cooking pizza wafted towards him and his stomach rumbled, his appetite stimulated for the first time since the greasy burger he’d consumed earlier while sitting in the car.

  When Mack eventually came down the stairs, Tom was on his third whisky and the pizza was cold. Mack had Tom’s trousers cinched in at waist, the extra material bunched up at his stomach. Tom’s jumper hung around his slim frame like a tent. Tom had half expected him to have had a shave or at least have hacked off some of the excess hair, but Mack remained just as bushy as when he went in. His cheeks were flushed from the heat of the shower and he smelled of Abby’s expensive Molton Brown shower gel. His blue eyes sparkled and he certainly didn’t look as exhausted as Tom felt. The other man must be used to nocturnal living.

  “I made you some food,” Tom said, nodding at the congealing cheese and dough sitting on the glass coffee table. “It’s a bit cold now.”

  “Great,” Mack said. “Just how I like it. And thanks for the clothes.” Folding his legs beneath him, he sat down on the floor, crossed-legged, like a child. He picked up a large slice and stuffed the pizza into his mouth.

  Tom watched him. “So, are you going to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

  Mack glanced up, pizza hanging out of his mouth. He put the slice down and quickly chewed and swallowed.

  “There’s only so much I can tell you, cause there’s only so much I know.”

  “But jumping in front of my car wasn’t an accident?”

  Mack at least had the decency to look guilty before shaking his head. “They made me do it, the ones from below. They must have known I already knew you, but I had no idea. I swear.”

  Tom stared at him. “You jumped in front of my car because someone told you to?”

  Mack shook his head. “Not someone. They told me to—the ones from the Underlife.”

  Tom groaned. The guy was clearly a lunatic.

  “Right,” he said. “I can’t do this anymore. I think you should leave.”

  Mack jumped to his feet. “No. You need to do what they say. This is about your boy.”

  Tom tensed. “Don’t you speak about him!”

  “But I have to,” Mack looked at him in the same way the consultant had when he sat him and Abby down and told them their son’s diagnosis. Concern mixed with pity. “That’s the whole point. I’m here because of what’s happening to him.”

  Tom got to his feet. “That’s bullshit!”

  “I’m right?” Mack tipped his head to one side, as if assessing him. “He’s sick isn’t he?”

  “How do you know that? Have you been following me?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “So someone has?”

  Mack shrugged again. “I guess, but I don’t know w
ho exactly.”

  Tom’s hands knotted in his hair. “This is crazy. Why would someone follow me?”

  “Something’s gone wrong,” Mack said. “The Shadows—the stuff I saw in you—is in your son now. You escaped, so it’s gone after him.”

  “What?” Tom looked at him, bewildered. “You’re not even making sense.”

  “You don’t remember what happened,” Mack said with reproach. “You don’t remember what’s down there.”

  Tom didn’t remember, but he also didn’t have a clue what Mack was talking about. “So who sent you to find me?”

  “The people trying to stop the Shadows. We call them the Watchmen.”

  “Watchmen?” Tom said in disbelief. He put one hand on his forehead, shaking his head. What was he thinking, bringing this man into his home, giving him food and clothes. “I think you’re living in a fantasy world.”

  “My world’s real enough to be hurting your son.”

  Furious, Tom reached down and grabbed Mack by the top of his arm. “Enough,” he said, hoisting him to his feet. “You’re out of here.”

  He started to drag the older man towards the front door, a piece of cold pizza still clutched in one hand.

  “Hang on!” Mack said, allowing himself to be dragged. “Do you honestly think I’m making this up?”

  “Uh... Yes,” he said, his voice dripping in sarcasm.

  Tom reached the front door and found he couldn’t open the locked front door one handed. He let go of Mack.

  “You think this is all coincidence?” Mack continued to challenge him. “I knew you as a child, but you have no memory of that age. I tell you something is wrong with your son and he happens to be sick?” Suddenly, he stopped. “T.J! That’s what your mother used to call you.”

  Tom’s hand froze on the door handle. “Where did you hear that?”

  Tom’s middle name was James. His first foster family had been told to call him T.J. He distinctly remembered the pain hearing the name caused and making them call him Tom instead.

  The ground slid out from beneath his feet, the room turning in a sickening spin. He forced himself to take deep breaths and found himself grabbing Mack’s arm again, trying to keep his grip on reality.

  “Come on, man,” Mack said, gently. “I’m not making this shit up. You must realise I’m not lying to you.”

  Tom didn’t know what to think. Was Mack telling him the truth and something Tom experienced as a child was now making David sick? Tom would give up his life for his son. If there was the slightest possible chance he could help David, didn’t he have to take it? If he didn’t, and David didn’t survive, he would never forgive himself.

  Mack led him back to the living room and Tom sat down heavily on his old leather sofa. He put his head in his hands, his mind a blur.

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper. “What do you expect me to be able to do?”

  Mack crouched in front of him, their eyes level.

  “You need to go back,” he told him. “When your son got sick, something changed. The Shadows shouldn’t be able to touch someone who’s never been part of the Underlife. The Watchmen are worried. Somehow the Shadows have broken out, and it has to do with your son.”

  Tom’s hands shook. He lifted his head to meet Mack’s eye. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m not sure I even care. My only question is this: If I go with you, could David get better?”

  Mack shrugged. “Hell, I’m just the messenger. But your son being sick has got people worried.”

  A line appeared between Tom’s eyebrows. “He’s got cancer—leukaemia. The doctors all say so.”

  “Doctors can’t diagnose everything. There is more to the world than science. You and I, we see it in different ways, but we can see it. The Shadows sit beneath David’s skin like black blood in his veins. I get glimpses of Shadows in you too, but in you they’re faint. In him, the Watchmen say they’re like tar.”

  Tom shuddered at Mack’s description. It was exactly how he’d always thought of the cancer—as a darkness stealing through his son’s body. Now, perhaps he understood why.

  “I can’t go now,” he said, hardly believing what he was doing. “I need to tell Abby and David where I’m going and say goodbye.”

  Mack looked at him, his blue eyes serious. “We should go sooner rather than later.”

  “I can’t,” Tom repeated, desperate. “I can’t go and wake them up in the middle of the night.” He wasn’t going to be any use to anyone in this state. The whisky dulled his senses and he needed to sleep off the alcohol.

  He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “Morning will be here soon. Surely, getting a few hours sleep won’t hurt.”

  Mack thought for a moment and nodded. “Okay. Get some rest, but then we need to move.”

  Tom pulled a faux-fur throw from the back of the couch and handed the blanket to Mack.

  “You can sleep down here,” he said, nodding to the sofa. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  His mind whirring, Tom made his way up the stairs and climbed into bed. Part of him expected to get up in a few hours to find Mack gone and his wallet missing, but he didn’t care. If Mack was telling the truth, he would still be here when he woke up.

  * * *

  TOM WOKE TO find Mack still sound asleep on the sofa, his mouth open and snoring.

  So, Mack had believed what he’d said. The question was, did Tom? Yes, he thought. Something in his gut told him not to ignore what the older man had told him. The man had known too much for literally running into him to be a coincidence.

  He lingered for a moment, debating what to do next.

  Heading back to the hallway, Tom opened the cupboard under the stairs and pulled out his old gym bag. Going to the gym hadn’t been at the top of his priorities recently. He shook the bag out, emptying a half-used shampoo bottle and an old pair of trainers on the floor.

  Tom took the bag to the kitchen and pulled open the drawers and cupboards, rifling through them until he found the couple of decent-sized Maglites another drug rep had given him a few months earlier. Tom took the torches out of their boxes and dropped them in his bag. Picking up the half a loaf of bread that sat on the kitchen counter, he emptied the slices out onto a chopping board. He opened the fridge and stared into its depths again, hoping for something to have materialised over night. To his delight, he discovered a block of cheese stuffed in where the eggs normally lived. He’d been so exhausted last night he hadn’t noticed.

  He set about making up some cheese sandwiches, wrapping them in foil and adding them to the bag with the torches. Tom looked around the kitchen for inspiration and a thermos flask caught his eye, so he filled the flask with water and put it in the bag as well.

  That would do. Time was ticking by and, if all this was real and he wasn’t still in the middle of a dream, they needed to make a move.

  Back in the lounge, Mack still snored.

  Tom shook his shoulder. “Wakey-wakey.”

  Mack’s eyes flickered open and he stretched.

  “Time to go,” Tom said.

  Mack swung his legs from the couch and sat up. He rubbed a hand across his thick beard before getting to his feet and following Tom.

  As Tom pulled the front door shut behind him, a photograph sitting on the hall console table caught his eye. The photo was of Tom, Abby and David on holiday, laughing, tanned, and happy. On impulse, Tom picked up the picture—frame and all—and dropped it in his bag.

  Within minutes, they were back on the road, heading towards the hospital. Tom retraced their route from the night before. Though he’d only had a few hours sleep, he felt more refreshed and alive than he had since David had been diagnosed. An urgency drove him, a purpose. For the first time since that terrible day, he didn’t feel utterly helpless.

  At six-thirty in the morning, the London traffic was already building. Tom drove recklessly, pulling out in front of people, overtak
ing when he shouldn’t. He was normally a careful driver, but now he felt somehow bigger than everything else, more important.

  They pulled into the hospital car park and Tom jumped out. Mack opened the passenger door, but Tom shook his head.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I need to do this on my own.”

  As he walked towards the hospital, his heart thumped. What the hell would he tell Abby? ‘Hi honey, in the hope of saving David’s life, I’m going underground with a homeless guy I’ve run over.’ The idea sounded crazy, yet, it was the truth.

  Despite Mack’s attempts to jog his memory, he still couldn’t remember his life before the age of seven. When he tried to think back to his childhood, a barrier stood in front of his memory—a black wall expanding endlessly in every direction. The block frustrated him and made his head hurt, but it also made him realise he had never given much thought to his childhood before.

  Why was that? Surely, as a child in care, spending hours daydreaming about his real family and where he came from would only have been natural? Yet Tom hadn’t ever thought about his past. He had always known he was in care and that he once had a real mother and father, but he never allowed himself to think about it.

  Ben, an old security guard Tom often stood and talked to, was off shift and had been replaced by a much younger man. Half-asleep, the new guard’s head rested in the palm of his hand, his elbow balanced on the small counter in front of him. He jumped awake when Tom picked up the security card and quickly filled in his details. The younger man didn’t meet his eye, obviously embarrassed about being caught asleep on the job, so Tom pinned the badge to his shirt and was buzzed through.

  Tom walked through the doors wondering if this level of security was enough for a place where children stayed—the young man hadn’t even asked his name, never mind who he was visiting. Then he chastised himself. Glass doors and a security guard would never be enough to protect these children from the real threats—the cancers, the holes in the heart, the life-threatening viruses and bacteria.