by Lex Sinclair
‘What’re you gonna do?’ Sark asked.
‘About what?’
‘Well, are you gonna stay put, or look for temporary accommodation in the area?’
Heat flamed in Joe’s cheeks turning them a beetroot colour. He gritted his teeth, clenched his hands into taut fists. ‘I’m not going anywhere - not yet, anyway. What I am gonna do is get all my neighbours together so we can discuss this situation like rational people, see if there’s something we can do to prevent any more murders and disappearances.
‘According to Hugh and Michael, Martha used to be a clairvoyant; Sherri Douglas is an educated woman, who apparently has lots of ideas, and everyone else is bound to have an opinion of their own.
‘We’re not gonna be scared out of homes that easily. I don’t see why we should.’
Sark could feel - as well as see - Joe’s temper rising to the surface, and he’d seen enough of Joe Camber’s fights in the ring to know that when the guy sitting next to him got into a tear-up, you’d better be as far away from him as you could; otherwise you were apt to get the thrashing of your life.
Yet he also feared for Joe’s life.
‘I understand that... and I respect you and the other residents who feel the same way. But what if this is something to do with the supernatural? Something that cannot be hurt by a barrage of hard-hitting blows, even from someone as tough as you? Then what?’
In spite of the blood feeding heat into his rosy cheeks, Joe listened to what the inspector was saying. ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ he said; although, he didn’t sound as confident prior to Sark’s honest questions.
‘All I’m saying is - be careful... If you see someone lurking about that you don’t recognise, don’t approach them and knock their block off, keep an eye on them, like you have been doing, in case they’re not a friend or relative of one of the residents, then call the police. Just in case.’
Reluctantly, Joe came around to the sensible thinking of the inspector and nodded. ‘This whole thing just seems... surreal,’ he said.
‘Perhaps the perpetrators are skilled at unlocking and locking doors behind them, without making a sound or leaving any trace... but I doubt it. Anyway, I told you what I think - and for your own safety, you should be extremely cautious. You’re a nice guy, I know. I’d hate for something unspeakable to befall you, just because you allowed your bravado to get the better of your conscience. Okay?’
‘Yeah, you’re right. It’s just I’d love to get my hands on the bastards,’ Joe said with passionate vehemence.
‘Me too,’ Sark agreed.
Part Two
“Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”
Edgar Allan Poe
8.
On the last Friday of February the residents of Willet Close congregated at Hugh’s house for an informal meeting.
Outside the picture window, snowflakes swirled down from the heavy white, low-hanging clouds, melting instantly on the grass and slick pavements from the sleet early that morning.
They sat around the coffee table, sipping drinks, but not even looking at the biscuits Hugh had provided on a small china plate. Food was the furthest thing from their minds. What they came to discuss wasn’t at all similar to the usual problems of a neighbourhood; this was something that kept you wide awake at night, too frightened to fall asleep in case you never woke up again.
Subsequent to what had happened at Martha’s house, the goings on at Thorburn Close wasn’t just a gruesome story in the papers and on the news channels; it was something they were now deeply involved in themselves.
Hugh adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, cleared his throat; then said: ‘Okay, guys, who wants to commence this meeting?’ He gave each and every one of his neighbours fleeting glances, wondering who was going to take the initiative.
‘I guess I could start,’ Joe began, ‘by saying I think it’d be wise if we kept twenty-four hour surveillance on our street. I know it’s a job for the police, but I don’t think they’d be willing to use their manpower staking out when they’re too busy trying to catch the killer of that investigating officer. Also, we may not be involved. I know I’m the one who suggested this meeting because I believe we’re involved in this mess, somehow. But I could be wrong. God help me, I hope I am. I hope what happened to Homer was a one-off by some crazy maniac, who won’t show up here ever again.’
‘But if they can break into houses that are locked and secure, how the hell are we gonna stop them?’ Michael protested.
Joe shrugged. ‘It’s a question I can’t really answer. Except to say that’s the sole reason I think we ought to take it in turns to watch the street for anyone we don’t recognise and looks suspicious, so we can report them.’
‘But most of us have got jobs... and I’ve got a daughter. That’s a full-time job in itself. When am I gonna find the time to take time out to watch the street?’ Naomi pointed out.
‘Hey, I’m not the boss here, all right. I’m sure if we all do our bit, no matter how much, we can keep our homes safe. But if we’re not going to make an effort and this sort of thing happens again, then it’ll be too late. There’s already been one fatality on our street without there being any more.’
Jake nodded. ‘He’s right. We’ve got to act now, while we still can.’
Martha was staring vacantly out the window, at the snow falling from the grey skies. Joe wondered whether she was listening to anything that was being discussed.
‘I’ve got a perfect spot in my attic, which shows the entire street. A few of us could take it in turns to do a few hours each everyday, until this case is solved.’
Emma could see Sherri Douglas with a hardback book in her lap, her eyes going back forth at whoever was speaking, fingers fidgeting. ‘What’ve you got there?’ she asked.
Sherri snapped out of her daze and regarded her. ‘What?’
‘I said - what’ve you there?’ Emma repeated, pointing at the book.
‘It’s what this is all about,’ Martha said in a faraway voice.
Everyone in the room stopped talking and stared at the elderly woman.
‘It’s why they killed my Homer,’ she went on. ‘It’s why they left that message on the wall in poor Homer’s blood. It’s also why the two officers who came here lost all the colour and life out of their young, handsome faces.
‘They want us out.’
‘Who?’ Joe asked.
Martha glanced at Sherri, and said, ‘Tell them.’
Sherri read the account from the book and showed the black and white photographs where the four monks were, supposedly, buried.
‘That’s the biggest load of crap I’ve ever heard,’ Michael proclaimed.
Sherri lowered her head, closed the book, evidently embarrassed.
‘It may sound ridiculous,’ Martha said in a cold, toneless voice, ‘but you can’t explain what’s been happening any more than anyone else here in this room, or working for the South Wales Police Department, either.’
‘No, I can’t,’ Michael agreed. ‘Although, I don’t want to sit here and listen to a load of codswallop, either. This is how vicious rumours with no truth start, see. Because some naïve individual has been suckered in to believing something I used to read in cheap horror comics when I was a boy. I’m not a boy any more. I don’t sit around camp fires listening to ghost stories. I hate to disappoint you all - but I’ve grown out of that. Most people do. That’s how they get to keep their sanity. And I suggest that if you want to keep your sanity, then you ought to do the same.’
‘Look, guys,’ Joe said, breaking the tension in the room, ‘this isn’t getting us nowhere. Whether or not there are such things as ghosts, I don’t know. I really don’t. I guess if nothing else, this madness has given me an open mind on all supernatural things. But that�
�s not the case here - at least not at the moment, anyway. What we need to do is as I suggested, and keep an eye on one another. As I don’t work any more and have a lot of time on my hands, I’ll do the night shift. The rest of you are quite welcome to come over and stakeout in my attic during the day.’
‘That sounds good to me,’ Jake said, reassured that all talk about evildoers buried under their homes were the ones committing these awful crimes had ceased.
‘You can’t stop them,’ Martha said to no one in particular. ‘They rose from the dead. They won’t be stopped by any of you. And even if you do see them, confront them, what’ll you do when you realise that what Sherri and I are telling you is in fact true? Huh?’
‘Martha,’ Joe said, with as much patience he could summon, ‘we don’t know who it is for sure. Now, before you start scaring anyone with more horror stories, let’s just take one step at a time. Okay?’
‘You weren’t there, though,’ the old woman replied, not sounding at all like herself. ‘You didn’t see my beautiful little dog hanging where my pots and pans are kept, his bowels and internal organs dangling from his stomach where someone had cut him open, as though the flesh was merely a zipper on a jacket.’
Emma grimaced. ‘Oh, that’s gross.’
‘When the officers saw that blood on the wall indicated no fingerprints or handprints, they paled. The blood drained from their faces.
‘At first, when Sherri came to me with this tale, I told her she was getting worked-up over nothing. I was cynical like you.’ Martha turned to Michael. ‘But I don’t sleep well in my old age, and if anyone even came down the walk to the front door, I’d hear them clearly, let alone if they tried breaking and entering. So, you can sit there and think that I’m as crazy as those patients in Cefn Coed Mental Institution - but it still won’t make what’s happening any less real than it already is.
‘Death is at our doorstep... and will enter whether or not we answer its call.’
The meeting was over.
***
Squinting through the white gauze, she saw the path leading to her front door, and wondered what on earth she was doing outside in the sifting snow.
Had someone knocked on her front door? Had she come outside to see who it was? Or had she stepped outside of her own accord to arch her head up to the sky so she could feel the speckled flakes lightly powdering her face? If that was the case, then why couldn’t she feel them melting on her exposed flesh? Why couldn’t she feel her feet on the pavement? Perhaps her feet had frozen, she thought.
As she exhaled, she could see a white vapour emanating from her mouth. Then she pivoted on her unfeeling feet and headed back towards her front door, pushed it open and entered the dim hallway, darker than it usually was during the daytime. Her home looked different somehow. Was that because of Homer’s brutal fatality, or for some other reason that she didn’t yet know?
The front door closed behind her without a sound, although she knew it was closed. She moved forwards without thought. Her brain had sent no message to her legs to move forward. Was she so used to going down the hallway without stopping that her legs moved by themselves? No, that was stupid. Of course she wanted to go down the dim hallway and up the carpeted stairs. Yet, as she did this, neither the stairs nor her legs groaned, which she found strange.
Darkness cloaked the upstairs hallway like a silk sheet draped over the walls fluttering with the breeze she’d cause on her way past to the top step.
Then, at the top of the staircase, a tall figure materialised from the dark wearing a black robe, hood pulled up over the head concealing the face beneath. She didn’t need to have the strange individual inform her that he was the one who’d broken into her home and murdered her Jack Russell. She may have been old and frail, but for the time being, her intuition was as sharp as a brand new razor blade.
Get out!
The words resonated in her head; although she was unsure if they were her thoughts or something which had been spoken by either her or the stranger.
Did you say that or did I?
She was met with an unnerving silence.
GET OUT!
This time the sounds came to her through an invisible megaphone, deafening her, perforating her ears. She clapped her brittle hands over her ears, but it was too late, the noise had seeped down her eardrums and vibrated in her head, causing her to stagger, reaching out blindly for the banister. Her fingertips brushed it. Thinking it was within reach she let her flailing hand fall, only for it to hit nothing besides thin air, toppling her. She could feel her balance receding, giving up on her as a high-pitched piercing whistling noise interfered with her brain, breaking her concentration to right herself.
She stepped back - seeing past the dimness, focusing on the figure coming towards her at a slow, deliberate pace - and felt the mighty grip of gravity seize her bony shoulders, pulling her backwards so that the figure before her disappeared and the ceiling overhead swayed.
Martha sat bolt-upright, unable to scream in sheer terror because her mouth was dry and had no spit inside her mouth. Tiny white dots (similar to the snow) danced in her vision. Sweat soaked her brow, the beads racing one another down the side of her face to her chin.
Sweet Jesus, I thought I was a goner for sure, she thought, trying to regain her composure.
Martha couldn’t recall the last time she’d been shook awake by such a vivid dream. Then it came to her. It was when she read the palms of what a certain man would do in the foreseeable future.
This was just like that.
She looked down her nightgown and saw her heart banging against her chest. She put her hand to her bosom and willed herself to put her terrified organ out of its misery.
They’re coming!
***
The nursery school playground was crowded with six, seven and eight year olds running to and fro, chasing one another heartily, using the miniature goalposts facing each other across the width of the concrete playing surface. Girls in red jumpers, grey skirts down to their knees and white socks, baring the kneecap only, stood in line to take a turn at the hopscotch painted on the ground at the far end. Other students let their friends hold a long skipping rope by each handle while they jumped and counted aloud until they got tired, or lost count.
Corrie sat on the hardwood steps outside the doors of the cabin that was her classroom, staring absent-mindedly into her Scooby-Doo lunchbox containing a carton of Capri orange juice, a banana that had seen better days (and by that it meant the banana had more bruises on it than someone who had stood in front of a young Mike Tyson and exchanged punches), and a tangerine.
She picked up the tangerine and peeled the skin off, chewing on the juicy pieces that burst open in her mouth. Then she wiped her lips dry with the back of her sleeve - a bad habit, her mother told her - and dumped the shredded skin into the bin to the right at the foot of the steps.
Corrie’s friends had asked her to play a game of netball at the back of the school where the girls often practiced - but she’d adamantly declined. Not wanting to do anything besides sit alone on the top of the steps thinking about the dream/ nightmare she’d had last night that had woken her from a deep sleep. After that, she was too frightened to lie down again in case the sharp claws of the images in her mind continued, then the film had been abruptly stopped.
Who were those strange figures that stood around her bed? she wondered; not sure if she actually wanted to know the answer in spite of her mind constantly throwing the question at the forefront every time she tried to concentrate on something else. Anything else!
What caused her heart to lurch, the hairs on the nape of her neck to bristle, and for her eyes to bulge from their sockets was when they said her name?
The background noise of her school friends - the only friends she had that were her age - comforted her while she did her best to memo
rise everything in its horrific detail of the nightmare. The more she thought about it in broad daylight with all her friends and teachers around the safer she felt.
The one who was the leader spoke to her, she remembered with clarity. He - it - said her name over and over, until she sat up in her bed, pressing clammy palms to her face, peering through the splayed fingers in a childish innocence, fearing her mortality, knowing intuitively that there was very fine line between life and death. It took merely a split second to cross that luminous line into the perpetual blackness.
The leader approached her so that they were within touching distance and withdrew, the hood concealing its features, revealing a pallid mask that was neither dead nor alive.
‘Corrie, come with us to the darker, untouchable regions of the mind and let us show you that we are not dead... simply resting, like you were before we disturbed you.’
Corrie wasn’t sure if she had a choice in the matter one way or the other. What would happen to her if she refused to go with them? Would she die a terrible death? Would she be tormented by graphic and deeply harrowing dreams that would gnaw at her conscious bit by bit, like a mouse working its way fervently through a chunky block of cheese until there was nothing left? Not even crumbs.
The pink walls of her bedroom dissolved... and suddenly she found herself standing on the edge of a steep bank, overlooking a footpath alongside a canal that looked familiar. A place very close to her home. However, Corrie couldn’t be sure of such things yet. She was only a small person in a very large world, most of which she’d never get the opportunity to lay her eyes upon. Anyway, it didn’t seem to matter, because this was a dream - albeit a very vivid one.
Her trainer-clad feet skated beneath her, falling with a teeth-chattering thud on the seat of her jeans and slid all the way to the bottom where the slope straightened to a gravely footpath.
A humongous shadow lay before her, and when Corrie tilted her head, she saw the hooded figures waiting for her, without expression, to get to her feet and follow them.
