Shutter House

by Rick Wood

  It was a far better silence than Amber had been used to – it wasn’t silence of friction or anger or hostility between her brothers, but rather a silence of nerves and trepidation. Despite no one voicing it, she knew everyone was thinking the same thing:

  What are we doing?

  Luke did pretty well to remember the drive considering how angry he’d been the first time he did it. He pulled the car over around a hundred yards from the gates and turned the engine off. No one went to get out.

  “What if one of these other houses sees us?” Gray asked.

  Luke looked around at the other houses, hidden up large drives far beyond their gates. It was as if the richer they were, the further from the street they were.

  “Unless they have a telescope, it’s unlikely,” Luke answered.

  “So what do we do now?” Amber asked.

  “We wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Until we see his Mercedes either coming or going. Something that lets us know if he’s in or not.” He opened the drop down and took out a share bag of Starbursts. “Sweet?”

  Amber didn’t think she could eat anything. Her stomach was still churning over what little tea she’d managed to push down, stuck somewhere between feeling sick and feeling hungry.

  “No, thanks,” she replied.

  He turned and offered one to Gray who shook his head.

  “Fine,” Luke decided. “More for me.”

  He took out a strawberry Starburst. Amber knew this was his favourite from all those car rides as children where they’d have Starbursts and he’d only eat the red ones, leaving the rest to Amber.

  She abruptly realised she would never get those days back. Childhood was over. Monotonous days of adulting had begun.

  They only had to wait twenty minutes until Luke broke everyone’s day dreams by saying, “Heads up.”

  The gates opened and the Mercedes drove out. As it drove past them, they all tried to peer through the window to see the owner, but the blacked-out windows remained in their way.

  “Now’s the time,” Luke said. He took a plastic bag from beneath his chair and handed each of them a balaclava.

  Amber took hers and looked at it, considering the cliché of it. A bunch of thieves in balaclavas, like in a bad movie.

  She placed it on and looked at the other two. She could still see Gray’s fear despite his face being covered.

  Looking at the other two, it suddenly felt so real.

  She filled with nerves, the kind of panic you get just before you go on stage or enter a job interview – that kind of panic when you decide to go back, to not go through with the performance, and have to force yourself forward.

  Luke took a pen knife from the drop down and put it in his pocket.

  “What’s that for?” Amber gasped. “We’re not going to hurt anyone!”

  He opened the car door.

  “Wait!” interrupted Gray. “Should we just – I don’t know – should we think about this?”

  “Thinking time’s over, Gray. Time to save mum.”

  Luke left the car.

  Amber looked over her shoulder at Gray. She knew how he felt.

  Despite that, she opened her car door and stood out.

  Finally, he followed.

  They ran to the gate, Luke leading them. He shook the gate to feel its sturdiness, then turned to the other two.

  “Watch what I do,” he instructed.

  He placed his hands on the bars, then held tightly as he placed the soles of his feet on the bars too. Like a monkey, he shimmied his way upwards, and jumped over the top.

  “Now your turn,” he said.

  Amber took hold of the bars and tried to press her feet against them. Her body hung lower than Luke’s had, and her feet slipped, but she kept grip.

  “That’s fine, you’re doing fine,” Luke assured her.

  In a quick scurry, she made her way over the gate and jumped down.

  “Your turn.”

  Gray looked over his shoulders, not just looking down the street but peering into far windows, too far back to see anyone, wondering if someone was watching and calling the police right now.

  “Hurry up,” Luke urged him.

  With a sigh, Gray grabbed hold of the bars and awkwardly shimmied up, leapt over the side and collapsed onto his back.

  “You’re pathetic,” Luke said, turning and sauntering across the drive.

  Gray went to charge at Luke but Amber put a hand across him.

  “Not now,” she said.

  Luke waved them over to the side of the driveway where they were in the shadows of trees. It took them a few minutes to make their way to the house, but once they saw it, they couldn’t help but stand back and marvel.

  It was bigger than they could have imagined. Old-fashioned stone and brick, with at least five floors, and wide enough to fit their house five or six times. The windows were pressed inwards, the front door black and grand, with a huge surrounding garden cordoned off by impressively sculpted bushes.

  “This way,” Luke whispered, waving the others to follow. He made his way across the side of the house and into the garden, where the guy’s land went far into the distance.

  This is unreal, Amber thought.

  She glanced at Gray to see what he was thinking, but the balaclava kept his reaction hidden.

  They reached the back door. Luke took out a hammer and looked to his left, to his right, then at the others.

  “We sure about this?” he asked. “After this point, there’s no turning back.”

  Amber wanted to object. As did Gray.

  But neither of them did.

  That was good enough for Luke. He smashed the window embedded in the back door, reached his arm through and grabbed hold of the door handle. He appeared to the other two to struggle with something, then the door pushed open.

  “Wait here,” he instructed.

  Beeps sounded –pre-noise to the defeaning screech of an alarm.

  Amber tensed herself, ready to run, ready to abort.

  Then Luke took out a small utensil, rushed inside and, searching the kitchen cupboards, found the alarm box on his fourth attempt.

  The beeps grew more frequent.

  “Luke…” Amber urged.

  He ignored her, too full of concentration for the voice of inexperience. He attached two wires from his contraption to the alarm and watched a small screen.

  Although she had no idea what the gadget was, she knew exactly how it worked, and was impressed – then felt bad for feeling impressed, for entertaining the notion that Luke’s knowledge of criminal technology was something to be proud of.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” Luke urged.

  Too late. The alarm wailed.

  But, within two seconds of the alarm starting, Luke saw something on the screen – and he used whatever it was he saw to jab a few buttons on the alarm box.

  The alarm ended.

  He put the contraption back into his pocket and turned to the others.

  “You coming in or what?”

  They stepped across the threshold and closed the door behind them.

  They were in.

  18

  Even the kitchen was unbelievable. It was like a perfectly gelled mixture of classic and modern interior. A glass table to eat at, but with a classical stove. The juxtaposition somehow worked, somehow made it even fancier.

  Amber stopped admiring. She didn’t have time to stand back and gape at a room that was probably more expensive than the whole of her house. She had a job to do.

  They had a job to do.

  “This way,” Luke whispered. He led them through another few rooms, past a wall of hanging grand paintings in gold frames, some that Amber recognised from studying Art GCSE, to a set of stairs that looked like they belonged on Titanic.

  Luke stopped at a large grandfather clock beside a lift door and turned to the others.

  “We start from the top, work our way down,” Luke told Amber. “I go left
, you go right, then we meet back in the middle. We go to down the next floor, then the next, then the next, ’til we have enough.”

  “What do I do?” Gray asked.

  “You stay here, watch the front door,” Luke instructed. “If you see his car or hear the front door key unlock, make this clock go off then get out the back and meet us there.”

  Gray nodded. He wouldn’t like that Luke only deemed him competent of ‘lookout’ – but Amber was sure Gray was secretly pleased that he had such a simple job.

  “Ready?” Luke asked.

  Amber vaguely nodded.

  Luke shuffled into the lift, Amber next to him. She was curious to see how far the buttons went. Luke hit the highest number – floor six.

  Finally stood still, Amber could now feel the thumping of her heart against her chest, punching against her ribs like a bird fighting against its cage.

  “You okay?” Luke asked, noticing her hands clutching onto the rails.

  She caught sight of herself in the mirror, forgetting she was wearing the balaclava. She terrified herself.

  “Yeah,” she answered, not realising how out of breath she was until she spoke.

  “Cool it,” Luke urged, his voice so calm and smooth. “You’re doing fine.”

  “I know… I just…” She went to wipe perspiration from her brow, again forgetting about the balaclava.

  “We’ll be in and out in not time. Honestly.”

  She nodded.

  What else could she do?

  Luke withdrew two bin bags that he’d stuffed into his back pocket and passed one to Amber.

  She took the bin bag and stared at it, a black crumpled mess clutched inside her sweaty palm.

  He removed his balaclava and nodded at Amber that she was now okay to remove hers.

  “Just find anything that looks valuable that can fit in the bag and put it in. Sweep through, don’t look too much, just whatever you see.”

  “Okay.”

  “Any cash or money you find, the better.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Amber?”

  “Yeah?”

  He extended a hand and placed it on her shoulder.

  “Just remember we’re doing this for Mum, yeah?”

  She nodded.

  She was glad he said that.

  It allow her to calm her breathing, to quell her raging heart, to cease her racing thoughts.

  For Mum.

  The doors pinged and opened.

  19

  Gray tried to convince himself that Luke had instructed him to be lookout because he was sympathetic to Gray’s concerns – not because Luke had seen Gray as too useless to partake in the robbery.

  Luke.

  Fucking Luke.

  He threw off the balaclava Luke had told him to wear.

  Why was he even doing what Luke said anyway?

  Wasn’t Gray the eldest?

  Luke had probably just made him wear the balaclava so he’d look like a knob. He imagined them in the lift, both having a chuckle at his expense – I can’t believe he actually wore it!

  He remembered when they were kids. He was only two years older than Luke, but it was two years that made all the difference. When he was in top year primary school and Luke was in second year primary, Gray would kick the arse of anyone who dared pick on his little brother. He would tease Luke himself, of course; but if anyone else so much as said a bad word about Luke, Gray would find them and kick them in the shins.

  As adolescence began, Gray would answer any questions Luke had. Their father didn’t care enough to answer them, so Gray would always be there to explain what certain words meant, what proper relationships were. The day Luke’s first girlfriend dumped him, Gray was there to put it into perspective.

  Then, just as Luke’s problems began, Gray made the decision to leave for university.

  Sometimes he wondered if, should he have stayed, whether Luke would have ended up being kicked out of school. Maybe Luke wouldn’t have ended up spending the last few months of education in a pupil referral unit, where they weren’t bothered whether he achieved any GCSEs or not so long as he stayed out of prison.

  What if Gray had been there to smack the weed out of Luke’s hand?

  If Gray had been there to tell him that drugs were not the way?

  If Gray had been there to sort out Luke’s mates that were taking him down a path clouded with crime and misery?

  But he couldn’t think like that. It was not fair. He had a right to leave and find a better life for himself.

  But, sometimes, he wondered if Luke held Gray partly responsible for the life Luke found himself spiralling into.

  An unfair resentment, yes, but we can’t always help having such feelings, even if we don’t know we have them. And if we never acknowledge that we have such feelings, how are we supposed to address them?

  He slumped down upon the bottom step, the solidity of the wood uncomfortable on the bones of his buttocks. He leant back, the edges of the steps just as uncomfortable digging into his spine. He stared at the ceiling above; even the ceiling was a bloody masterpiece. Every perfect spiral and shape wound around the others, wooden beams of brown and white holding up the ceiling.

  Imagine a life where you get to live somewhere like this.

  Thirteen thousand on an operation would mean very little. It probably wouldn’t even make a dent on the bank balance.

  How strange, what a sum of money can mean to one person compared to the other.

  For the guy who owns this house, it would probably mean a good night out.

  For them, it meant the life of their mum.

  For a fleeting moment, guilt left him. He’d always resented people who resented the rich, as the rich were often rich because they had earnt it. They had the money they had because they’d worked day and night for it.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple.

  Money pays for an education that leads to such work. It is too difficult to go between classes, and people are often condemned by the level of privilege they are born into.

  He sighed.

  What did it really matter?

  He closed his eyes, just for a moment.

  Listened to the ticking of the grandfather clock.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Tick.

  Back and forth the pendulum swung.

  A chime announced a new hour.

  He sat up and buried his head in his arms, covered his face, exasperated from overthinking.

  This was why he hadn’t come home in the holidays. Because of the strife, the stress, the pointless going on and on about the choices he’d made, Luke had made, Amber had made.

  He opened his mouth and pushed out an exasperated sigh.

  A sigh that showed how he felt – but had an effect he had not intended.

  This sigh was loud.

  Perhaps, too loud.

  Or, at least, loud enough to cover up the sound of an engine on the driveway.

  20

  The corridor was dark, but Amber supposed it had to be. Despite the house being far away from any prying eyes, her paranoia still told her that a light could attract attention from the outside. She had to do this in the shadows.

  She began in a bedroom that appeared barely used. A disgusting floral duvet hugged the mattress, an ageing wooden cupboard stood ashamedly in the far corner, and a fancy dresser leant casually against the wall.

  She opened the first drawer of the dresser and marvelled at a sight that did not look real.

  Wow.

  She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen this much variety of jewellery in her life. There were all kinds of gold: carved yellow, white, even rose. There was fine silver, diamond-encrusted silver, and all other kinds of silver too expensive for her to recognise. There was so much of it the drawer could barely contain its riches.

  Does this person even know this is here?

  Maybe he inherited this house.

  Maybe he wasn’t even aware these items
existed.

  In a house this big it would be quite easy to never go in some rooms for years, and end up losing track of possessions.

  Would he even notice the jewellery was missing?

  She took the drawer straight out of the dresser and turned it upside down into the bin bag. The bag, despite being far from full, grew heavier.

  With that drawer gone, she saw the contents of another drawer beneath it, just as full. Rings, necklaces, bracelets, even a bloody diadem.

  “Jackpot,” she whispered to herself, feeling herself getting way too into this.

  How much could all this go for?

  Could they have enough in her bag already?

  This was a genius idea.

  She tipped the drawer into the bag and, finding the final drawer beneath it also full, she tipped that too.

  She threw the bag over her shoulder as she trudged through the en suite and into the next corridor. The cheap quality bin bag was already breaking against the strain (what did she expect?) but she knew she didn’t have to fill it with much more.

  The corridor displayed a succession of doors on either side, leading to a corner with a large window. Glistening laminate floor led her path – probably cleaned thoroughly by someone else getting paid minimum wage.

  She went to open the first door and found it was locked.

  That was not going to deter her.

  She took a run up and barged into the door.

  Nothing.

  She barged again.

  And again.

  Bemoaning her lack of strength, she gave up, and went to the next room – which happened to be unlocked. A desktop computer sat on a sturdy, pristine wooden desk, beside a vast amount of bookcases displaying titles such as Against Nature, The Call of Cthulu and The Complete Tales of Edgar Allen Poe. Most bookcases were filled with fiction, though there was one bookcase full of texts on teaching theories.

  Shit. Is this guy a teacher?

  No, he couldn’t be. He drove a Mercedes.

  Thinking nothing of it, she grabbed the flat screen monitor and a few of the older looking books – they could be worth something – and took them into the corridor where her bin bag lay open for her.

  Just as she finished piling the items into the ever-expanding bag, something caught her attention.