A Nest of Nightmares

by Lisa Tuttle

  It was a cold, clear day and the air tasted faintly of apples. Since the ground was not too muddy, I soon left the road and struck off across the fields. I was travelling to the east of the house, up a hill, and the exertion of climbing soon had me feeling warm and vigorous. When I reached the top of the hill I paused to catch my breath and survey the countryside. Our house was easily picked out because it stood away from the village, amid fields and farmland, and my eyes went to it at once. The sight of it made me smile, made me feel proud, as if it were something I had made and not merely bought. There were the yellow stones of my house; there the bright green patch of the untended garden; there the spiky winter trees standing close to the east wall, like guardians.

  I squinted and pressed my glasses farther up my nose, closer to my eyes, unable to believe what I saw. There was something large and black in one of the trees; something that reminded me horribly of a man crouching there, spying on the house. Absurd, it couldn’t be – but there was something there, something much bigger than a rook or a cat. Something that did not belong; something dangerous.

  I fidgeted uneasily, aware that if I ran down the hill now I would lose sight of it. It might be gone by the time I reached the house, and I might never know what it had been. If only I could see it better, get a better view.

  Perhaps it was only a black plastic rubbish bag tossed into the branches by the wind and caught there.

  As I thought that, the black thing rose out of the tree – rose flapping – and half-flew, half-floated toward the rooftop. And vanished.

  Lost against the dark tiles? Suddenly I wondered about that tarpaulin. How tightly was it fixed? How easily could it be lifted? Could something still get in through the hole in the roof? Something like that horrible, black, flapping thing?

  I thought of Sylvia alone in the attic, unsuspecting, unprotected. I moaned, and stumbled down the hill. I kept seeing things I didn’t want to see. Something horrible looming over Sylvia. Sylvia screaming and cowering before something big and black and shapeless; something with big black wings. I would be too late, no matter how fast I ran. Too late. As I ran across the empty winter fields towards the house the tears rolled down my cheeks and I could hardly catch my breath for sobbing.

  ‘Sylvia!’ I could scarcely get her name out as I burst in the house. I felt as if I had been screaming it forever. ‘Sylvia!’ I staggered up the stairs, catching hold of the flimsy rail and foolishly using it to haul myself upward. ‘Sylvia!’

  I could hear nothing but my own ragged breathing, my own voice, my own thundering feet. I stood in her room, too frightened to mount the chair and push open the door. ‘Sylvia!’

  Above me, the board clattered and was pulled away, and Sylvia looked out, flushed, angry, concerned. ‘What is it?’

  I caught the back of the chair and held it. Finally I managed to whisper, ‘Come down. Now. Please.’

  She frowned. ‘All right. But I wish you’d tell me . . .’ Her head drew back and her feet came down, flailed a moment, then found purchase on the chair seat. She let herself down and pulled the door shut after her.

  I caught her arm. ‘You’re all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course I’m all right. You look awful. What’s wrong?’

  ‘I saw something . . . from the hill . . . I was looking down at the house and I saw it. Something big and black, crouching in the tree where it shouldn’t have been. And then it flew towards the roof. And then I couldn’t see it anymore, and I thought it might have got in, through the hole, you know.’

  She regarded me uneasily. ‘What must have got in? What did you see? A bird?’

  I shook my head. ‘Something bigger. Much, much bigger. Like a man. It flew, but it wasn’t a bird. It couldn’t have been. Not an ordinary bird. It was huge and black and flapping. I was afraid. I knew you were up in the attic, and with that hole in the roof – you said yourself, anything could get in. Anything. I saw it. I was so afraid for you.’

  ‘I think you’d better sit down and rest,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’

  ‘You didn’t see anything? Nothing came into the attic?’

  ‘You can see I’m all right.’

  ‘You were alone? Nothing came in?’

  She led me out of the room and I followed her downstairs, desperate for reassurance, wanting to hear her say that there had been nothing in the attic with her. Instead she said, ‘I don’t understand what you think happened. Tell me again what you saw.’

  I was silent, trying to remember. It was suddenly difficult to sort out fact from fantasy, the reality of what I had seen from the terrifying vision which had obsessed me while I struggled back to the house. Sylvia threatened; Sylvia engulfed or embraced by something, by someone . . . ‘I don’t know,’ I said at last. ‘I saw something. I don’t know what it was.’

  The Monday after Christmas I went to Cheltenham to pick up some material for curtains – and went alone. Sylvia wasn’t interested in going, although I had planned the trip as a treat for her.

  ‘We could make a day of it,’ I said. ‘Do some shopping, have a meal, see a film – whatever you like.’

  Sylvia only smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Why do you want to stay here alone? What will you do while I’m gone?’

  ‘What makes you think it will be anything different from what I do while you’re here?’

  I hadn’t meant that at all, but her words awakened suspicion. ‘Please come,’ I said. ‘It’ll do you good to get out of the house.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll take a walk. That’ll get me out of the house. It’s a nice day for it. I haven’t really explored the neighbourhood yet.’

  And so I drove away on my own, feeling uneasy. Once in Cheltenham I had no urge to linger. I bought the material, filled the petrol tank, and drove back home without stopping for so much as a cup of coffee.

  The house did not feel empty when I came in. Sylvia might have gone out for a walk, I knew, but I went through the house quietly, looking for her. I was on the upstairs landing when I heard the sound; I’m sure it would not have been audible downstairs. The sound came from the attic, directly overhead. It was a rustling, scrabbling sort of sound, with the occasional small thump, as of something moving around. I stopped breathing and stood still, staring at the featureless white ceiling, so low I could almost have reached up and touched it, to feel the movements on the back of my hand. The scrabbling sound gradually retreated as I listened, and finally stopped.

  I bolted down the stairs and out of the front door. It would have to come out through the hole in the roof – I was sure of it. I might see it on the roof or in the high branches of the tree nearest the house. I would be able see what I had seen from the hill, and this time, perhaps, I would recognise it. It would have been a reward to see anything, even a rook, but although I circled the house, craning skyward, I saw nothing that moved against the dark roof or the pale sky. Finally I gave up and went into the house.

  Sylvia was in the hall. I wondered how she had managed to slip past me. She looked flushed and slightly out of breath.

  ‘Your shirt-tail’s out,’ I said.

  She smiled vaguely and stuffed it back into her jeans.

  ‘Did you have a nice walk?’

  ‘Mmm, lovely.’ She drifted away towards the kitchen.

  ‘I heard something just now. In the attic.’

  She stopped and looked back at me. ‘When? I thought you just got back?’

  ‘I did just get back. I went upstairs to look for you and heard something moving in the attic. So I went outside to see if there was anything on the roof.’

  She went on looking at me.

  I shrugged, admitting defeat. ‘I didn’t see anything.’

  She turned away. ‘You want coffee or tea? I’m going to put the kettle on.’

  ‘Coffee. Thanks.’ I watched her walk away from me.

/>   It proved remarkably difficult to get someone to agree to come out and fix the roof before March. In this part of the world, it seemed, one booked roof repairs farther ahead than wedding receptions or holidays. I complained about it to Sylvia, who was indifferent.

  ‘So what? There’s no rush. There’s that tarp over the hole to keep the rain out.’

  ‘That was supposed to be a temporary thing,’ I said. ‘And what if it’s got loose? We’ve had some windy nights. It might be flapping free, letting things in.’

  She looked at me with a little half-smile. ‘Do you want me to go up and check that it’s still in place?’

  ‘Up on the roof, you mean?’

  ‘I can see it from the attic. I can touch it, for that matter.’

  I shrugged. ‘Well, I could go up into the attic and see for myself.’

  ‘Of course you could.’ She looked back down at her magazine, smiling to herself. She was curled up in one of the two matching armchairs I had arranged on either side of the wood-burning stove. The ruby chips on her finger glittered as she turned a page.

  ‘Do you know, I’ve never actually been into the attic?’ I was certain, as I asked, that she knew.

  ‘Well, you’re not missing much,’ she said calmly. She continued to read, and I paced the room, which I’d made comfortable and appealing with carefully selected furniture, dark brown curtains, and a beige carpet. I wondered if she knew that I was afraid of the attic – that dirty, dark place where something might lurk. She seemed so cool . . . But then maybe I was imagining things. Maybe she had nothing to hide. I should go up to the attic and see for myself, settle my mind and end these fantasies. But at the thought of climbing up there, poking my head up into the unknown darkness, my knees went weak and there was a tightness in my chest. No. There was no need to go up. If anything ever came into the attic, Sylvia would surely tell me, and ask for my help, just as she had at our mother’s grave, and a hundred times before.

  The grey winter days dragged slowly by. It seemed always to be raining, or to be about to rain. I drew up lists of the improvements we would make in our house, the things we needed to buy, the vegetables and flowers we would grow in our garden.

  Sylvia’s disappearances became more frequent. Sometimes she claimed to have been out for a walk – yes, even in the rain – and sometimes that she had been in the house all along. I had to be careful. She was suspicious of my questions, and I didn’t want to provoke her. Let her tell me all, in her own good time. I never mentioned the attic, or the sounds I heard at night. I pretended that I noticed nothing, and I waited.

  And then one night I woke and knew that something was wrong. It was late: the moon was down and there was no light. The darkness lay on me like a weight. I got up, shivering, and wrapped myself in my dressing gown. As I stepped out of my room I could see that Sylvia’s door was shut and no light came from beneath it.

  She’s asleep, I thought. Don’t disturb her.

  But even as I cautioned myself I was shuffling forward, and my outstretched hand had grasped the doorknob. When the door was open I could see nothing in the blackness, and there was no sound. I reached for the light switch. Squinting in the harsh light, I saw that Sylvia’s bed was empty.

  I leaned against the door frame, blinking miserably at the undisturbed bed. She hadn’t even slept in it.

  Then I heard the noise.

  There was someone in the attic. The sounds were soft but unmistakable, the sounds of movement. Floorboards creaked gently, rhythmically beneath a moving weight, and there was a jumble of softer sounds as well. I held my breath and listened, struggling to make sense of what I heard, trying to separate the sounds and identify them. I closed my eyes and held tightly to the door frame. Above me, the soft sounds paused, continued, paused, continued. Was it: cloth against flesh, flesh against flesh, a struggle, an embrace, a sob, a breath, a voice?

  I snapped off the light and the loud click made me shudder. They might hear. I scuttled out of the room, back through darkness to my bed, terrified the whole way that I would hear the wooden slide of the trapdoor and the sound of something coming after me.

  The door to my room, like the doors to all the other rooms, had a keyhole but no key. I pushed my bedside table against the door, knowing it was no protection, and huddled on my bed, shaking. I wiped the tears off my face and listened. I could hear nothing now, but I did not know if that was because of the location of my room, or because there was nothing more to hear. I took the edge of the sheet into my mouth to keep from making a sound and tried not to think. I waited for morning.

  But it was some time before morning when I heard the motorbike on the road below the house. Listening to the approach, the pause, and then the sound of it roaring away again, it struck me that I had heard that same sequence of sounds outside the house more than once before. As I puzzled miserably over that, I heard the front door open.

  Fear and sorrow drained away, leaving me empty, as cold as ice. I heard Sylvia climbing the stairs. I knew that laboured, guilty tread well, having heard it many nights when she was in high school, sneaking home late from her dates.

  I met her on the landing.

  ‘Pam!’ Her face whitened, and she moved a little backwards, hand clutching the stair rail as if she would retreat downstairs.

  ‘We’ll have to get that roof fixed,’ I said calmly. ‘No more excuses. It can’t wait. I don’t care what it costs, if we have to get someone to come all the way from London, whatever it takes, we can’t go another day with that hole in the roof.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Anything could get in,’ I said. ‘You said so yourself. Anything could get in. Or get out. Come and go, day or night. It’s an easy climb from the roof down that big beech tree.’

  Sylvia gave me a cautious, measuring look, and took my arm. ‘Pam, you’ve been dreaming. I’m sorry I woke you. I was trying to be quiet. Now go on back to bed.’

  I pulled away. ‘I didn’t dream those sounds. You can’t fool me. I didn’t dream your empty bed. What were you doing up there?’

  She exhaled noisily. ‘I was out.’

  ‘Yes, I heard you come in. That’s always your excuse when you disappear – you were out. Out for a walk, even in the middle of the night. I know where you really went, and I’m sick of your stories. I want the truth. I want to know what’s going on up there.’

  Sylvia’s face was hard. ‘I don’t care what you want. I don’t care what you think. I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t have to explain myself to you.’ She pushed past me, into her room, and closed the door.

  I said, ‘You think I’m afraid to go up there, don’t you? You thought I’d never find out. Well, you were wrong.’

  She did not answer, although I waited, and finally I went back to my room. Through the wall I heard the faint sounds of Sylvia moving about, then the snapping of a light switch, and then only silence. I listened for the rest of the night, but she didn’t move again. Only her bed creaked occasionally, as she turned in her sleep.

  When the sky turned pale and grey morning lit the room I dressed myself in jeans, pullover, and boots. As an afterthought I pulled on a pair of heavy gloves and hefted a flashlight in my hand like a weapon. I knew that if I thought about what I was going to do I would be too frightened to go on. I had to do it, not for myself, but for Sylvia.

  She didn’t stir when I entered her room. I stood for a moment, looking at her sleeping shape humped beneath blankets, remembering her anger. All our lives I had helped her, and she had rarely been grateful. But I didn’t need her gratitude. I wanted her safety.

  There was no way to enter the attic other than headfirst, and with difficulty. I set the chair below the door and hesitated, sweat trickling down my back at the prospect of pulling myself up, defenceless, into the unknown. Finally I went ahead and did it, climbing onto the chair, lifting aside the lightweight board that served a
s a door, and then, wriggling and straining, hauling myself up through the opening as quickly as I could.

  I found myself in a low, dim, dusty space piled with litter. Covering the floorboards thickly were leaves, twigs, fragments of board and brick, scraps of paper, dust, soil, and dead insects. Just the sort of place I hated most. If Sylvia had cleaned up, I could see no sign of her work. I switched on the flashlight and pointed it around, wishing the light had a purifying as well as illuminating power. I played it on a huge heap of rubbish which must have piled up and remained untouched for ages. Bits and pieces of it were recognisable within the mess as fragments of newspaper, food wrappings, and cloth. There was so much of it that I wondered dazedly if the previous owners of the house could have been so far gone as to use their own attic as a rubbish dump.

  A rubbish dump. That’s what I thought, shining the light at it. Bits and pieces blown in through the hole in the roof or deliberately left by tenants. Bits of newspaper, cloth, wood, and cardboard plastered together with mud and hay, twigs and leaves, and bits of string to form a coherent whole.

  Rather like a nest.

  But it was huge. It couldn’t be. Why, it was nearly as tall as I was, and wider than my bed. What kind of animal –

  Ridiculous. And yet, now that I had thought of it, I could not stop seeing the big pile as a nest, a shelter of some kind. There was a pattern to it: it was a deliberate construction, not a random pile at all. Something or someone had built it.

  Feeling sick at the thought, I stepped closer, holding my light before me. I was hoping that, if I saw it more clearly, or from some other angle, the illusion of structure would collapse. I began to circle it.

  Then I found the entrance. My attention was drawn by a white cloth, the brightness of it startling against the mottled grey-brown of everything else. As I bent down to take a closer look, I saw that it was lying half-in, half-out of a narrow, moulded entranceway. My light showed me a short, narrow crawl-space which took a sudden, sharp turn, cutting off visual access to the interior. It was big enough for me to enter on hands and knees, but the idea was too horrible to consider.