He opened it. He didn’t take the hair out, but pushed it aside with a fingertip to see if there was anything written underneath the hair, anything hidden.
But for the hair, it was empty.
It closed with a gentle snick.
He put it aside and took up the wooden box. Turned it this way and that. Couldn’t see any intelligent design in the carving. He smelled it. Couldn’t tell what kind of wood it was from the smell.
Weighed it in his hands.
Nothing inside but the bone, he figured. It didn’t feel heavier than he’d expect. He couldn’t find a secret compartment.
The bone was definitely a finger. A phalange. He felt his own hand, trying to work out which bone it was from the feel. It looked like the bone next to the knuckle. It was bigger one end than the other. Not a big bone. Someone short, maybe. Or maybe just someone with small hands. Maybe a big person, but their little finger. He didn’t know. He wasn’t a forensic archaeologist.
He wasn’t a dentist, either, but he knew the tooth in the jar was from someone young, and that it was a canine. Young, because there were no cavities, and there was no discolouration.
Did people call them ‘eye teeth’? He thought that might be right, but he wasn’t sure. If he’d kept textbooks and factual books in his shop, he might have been able to look these things up. As it was, he just stocked novels and some poetry.
He’d always figured textbooks went out of date, but novels and poetry were eternal.
The water in which the tooth floated looked brackish. Probably stagnated from being in a jar for a long time. Or something to do with the brass top. The top was green.
He decided to give up. He was putting the items back in the lockbox when he noticed something strange.
Markings etched into the steel, like an engraving would be, but without the skill. It was more like graffiti. Something hastily carved into a desk or a toilet door with a key or a penknife.
He strained, trying to make sense of the symbols, but couldn’t read them. He felt he should be able to. He put the items back on his coffee table and took the box over to the standing lamp for a better look.
He found that if he turned the box just right, so the shadow played on the grooves of the etching, he could just make them out.
They weren’t letters of any kind that he knew. They looked more like some kind of foreign alphabet. Not Cyrillic or flowing, like Arabic. Something like runes.
‘Like runes’ was the closest he could get, because he didn’t know runes. He didn’t know anything about runes, or even if they were just made up by psychics. He only thought they looked like runes because years ago he had read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and, more recently, seen the movies. These etchings reminded him of the scratchy language carved above the entrance to the Mines of Moria.
He took the box back to his seat and put it on his lap. He sat there thinking, drinking tea.
Thunder boomed, and he spilled his tea into the box. The box glowed, suddenly red hot, searing his legs.
“Fuck. Fuck! Ow!”
He scrabbled and pushed it off.
His jeans were burned black at the thigh, and his legs hurt like hell. A few more seconds and he would have been burned black himself.
The box smouldered on the carpet.
“What the …”
Another crash came.
Not thunder this time, but breaking glass.
*
Chapter Fifteen
Smiley watched, and Mandy danced. He didn’t know what she was dancing to. There was no music. Just the rain, falling. Splashing. The thunder, too. Lightning crashed down somewhere. Somewhere … away. Everything was away. Everything felt distant. A little distorted. Like sounds under the water in the bath. He couldn’t see at the edges of his vision, but he could hear the glass breaking as Greg threw stones and Hippo laughed. He could see Mandy’s nipples through her bra. She’d taken off her coat and jumper. When the lightning flashed, she threw her arms in the air, but it seemed to Smiley that she put her arms up before the lightning came, like she knew it was there. She was some kind of rain goddess, calling the lightning.
Smiley felt hot. His penis felt hot.
He tried to rub it away, but it wasn’t going away. He couldn’t cool it down. Lightning flashed after Mandy put her hands in the air. She was dancing, but she was surrounded by light. Her nipples were glowing through her bra. It was a white bra. She had the most beautiful tits Smiley had ever seen.
Smiley stood dripping in the rain. Things were firing in his head. He understood that the pill he’d taken was fucking him up, but he liked it, and the thought, like everything apart from Mandy’s shining nipples, was away. A long way away. She raised her arms and called down the thunder and the lightning.
The glass crashed and tinkled, and the rain came down. Hippo laughed and danced and walked over to Mandy and put his hands on her tits, and Smiley walked calmly over to the two of them and opened Hippo’s skull with the baseball bat he was carrying.
Mandy didn’t notice. Smiley took her and put his mouth on her nipple, through her bra. He could taste candyfloss. He looked down, and he could see his penis through his trousers.
Hippo shook on the floor.
Then someone shouted.
“What … the … fuck …”
The voice was from somewhere away. The sounds danced on the raindrops before reaching Smiley’s ears, but all he could hear was Mandy’s candyfloss nipple.
“Are …”
The sound was annoying. He was trying to concentrate. Mandy was rubbing him between his legs.
He remembered the baseball bat in his hand. He turned and waved it at the noise. The noise was away, so he walked closer to it, trying to find the sound. He couldn’t see anything because the lightning turned the world white, over and over again. He felt his way with the bat, swinging it in front of him like a blind man would a stick, until it hit something and the sound went away.
*
Chapter Sixteen
John placed the wooden box, the glass jar and the gold pendant back in the box. The box had cooled. He slammed the lid and turned the key.
A crash came again.
Lightning, maybe, hitting the glass front? Unlikely, but yeah, maybe. But twice?
No way.
If someone was trying to burgle his shop, he wouldn’t just sit upstairs and leave them to it. John wasn’t a dangerous man. He was a man who liked books. A man who liked a quiet cup of tea at the end of a quiet day. A shot of whiskey. Maybe two.
But if the glass was broken, the rain would get in and ruin the books. The books were all he had.
He locked the door at the top of the stairs behind him and ran down the stairs two at a time.
Glass crashed again. The stairway was dark, then lit with a hint of distant brilliance as the lightning hit. The storm was building into something you saw on the news. John shouldered through the door at the bottom of the stairs and stepped onto a big piece of glass before he remembered he hadn’t put any shoes on, but the pain was something distant because of what he saw when the lightning flashed and he got a snapshot of a nightmare.
A boy was standing, soaked to the skin. He held a baseball bat between his legs. He was bent at the waist, sucking his thumb.
A girl was being fucked against the alley wall, her arms held back against the wet brick by a boy who was thrusting between her legs.
A fat boy lay in a growing puddle. His feet were twitching, and John saw a black gash in his head.
Blood poured from his cut foot, but he didn’t notice.
The flash of light left, and John was left blind. He reached for the lights to the shop.
Flicked them on and shouted.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He shouted out before he thought about it. He was in his bare feet, surrounded by glass, and there was a young man out there who might have already killed someone.
A brighter flash of lightning blinded him again, despite the lights
of the shop. Then the power stuttered. The lights flickered. For a second, he couldn’t see anything. The boy with the bat was in the rain, then he was standing in the ruins of the window. John heard the glass crunching underfoot, but he couldn’t move. The glass would cut his feet to shreds.
The lights went out. He was blind for a second, then pain flashed in his head and he fell down.
He was dazed, but not out. The lights came on, then off, then on. In the spasming light, he saw the boy waving the bat wildly in the dark. He felt fire in his face. He’d been cut across the cheek. His cheekbone throbbed, through his back teeth and right up into his eye. It might be broken, but he couldn’t worry about it.
The boy was going to kill him.
John did the only thing he could. He couldn’t fight on the glass, so he ducked under the swinging bat and shoulder-charged the boy across the shards of glass and out into the rain. He shouted as loudly as he could, in fear and pain, but also in the hope that he could scare the boy with the bat enough so that he would leave him alone. The glass tore into his feet.
The boy raping the girl didn’t even look up.
The girl was screaming, pointing to the fat kid in the puddle. His feet had stopped jiggling.
John swung his fist upward with all his strength. The punch knocked the boy’s head back, and the boy fell down into the water. John wasn’t a fighter. He thought that was it. You hit someone like that, the fight stopped. He could feel a large piece of glass in his foot, but he couldn’t do anything about it. The fat boy in the puddle was drowning. His face was turned to one side, and the rising puddle was filling his mouth.
John fell to his knees and turned the boy’s head to one side. He picked him up and pounded on his back, trying to clear his airway.
He didn’t see the blow that knocked him out or feel the kick that broke his ribs.
*
Chapter Seventeen
Footsteps pounded along the hall, and Jane was so freaked out that her first thought was to snatch up a vase from the bedside table.
She looked over and saw that Marion was shaking.
Jane realised she’d have to do it on her own. She rushed to the door, shouting. She didn’t know what she said, but it must have scared the shit out of Wendy.
“No! Jane! It’s me!”
Jane dropped the vase in relief. It bounced on the carpet, then hit the wall and shattered.
Mrs. March didn’t stir at all. She was sleeping the sleep of the innocent.
Wendy saw Jane’s look and held her hands up in defence. “I’m sorry. I came as fast as I could. What the hell happened to the window? And why is everyone wet?”
“OK,” said Marion. She was obviously shaken, but she was holding it together. Jane could admire that. She felt it was more than she was doing. “We get Margaret. We phone the police.”
“The phones are out. I tried to call the girls earlier. See why they’re late.” Jane’s look hadn’t changed. “I can’t help the phones,” Wendy said.
Marion swore softly. “All right. My mobile’s in my locker. I’ll call them. I’ll phone George, too, get him to come and board up this window. We can’t leave it like that.”
“No, we can’t,” said Jane. She stepped across the room and pulled the curtains shut. They billowed in the wind and the rain, but at least they kept some of the weather out.
“It’s better than nothing,” she said in response to their blank faces. “Come on. Let’s get your phone.”
“Should we move her? Put her in a different room?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know, all right?”
Marion crossed the room and took Jane in her arms. She held her close and tight. Only when she was being held did Jane realise how much she was shaking. Tears burst out, and she couldn’t stop them. She sobbed and held on tight.
Marion didn’t say anything, just held her and stroked her hair.
Wendy stood in the door, looking uncomfortable.
Eventually Jane’s tears dried up. She patted Marion’s back and stepped away, wiping her face on a tissue, which her friend produced from her apron pocket.
“I’m OK,” she said.
Marion just raised her eyebrows.
“Really,” she said, forcing a smile. “Come on. We’ll move her later. Police first.”
They stepped out and closed the door behind them. Ordinarily they wouldn’t close the door, but somehow it felt like it was the right thing to do.
“Why are we calling the police?” said Wendy.
“I’m not sure. I think a man broke in and …” She swore. “Because I don’t know what else to do,” she finished with simple honesty.
Jane tried to think her way around this. She didn’t have the first idea. She did what people all over the world do when they’re stuck for an idea. She pushed it up the chain.
“Where’s Margaret?” Margaret was the night shift manager.
“She’s gone across the road to try the phone at the shop. See if they’re out too.”
“What the hell use is that? She should be here.” Jane suddenly felt very tired. She’d been on her feet all day, and the day didn’t show any signs of ending.
“Cut her some slack, Jane. Nobody knows what’s going on. It’s turning into a weird night.”
“It’s been a weird day.”
They took the stairs down, making sure to pull the doors shut behind them. The front door was locked, but Jane put the chain and bolt on too, so it couldn’t be opened from the outside even if someone knew the code. Margaret would just have to knock like everybody else.
She wasn’t taking any chances. She didn’t understand a thing that had happened today, but she did know nobody was getting through that door from the outside.
They went to the locker room, and Marion took her mobile out. She dialed the police, gave them her name and number and a quick explanation, but handed the phone to Jane after. Jane shook her head. Marion held the phone out, insistent.
“Come on. You’ve got to talk to them. You saw the man come in. I wasn’t there.”
“For God’s sake. Why do I have to do everything?”
Marion rubbed her shoulder. “Easy, sweety.”
She swore, and then she put the phone to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, ma’am. Please stay on the phone. Someone will be with you shortly.”
“Thank you. I’m about at the end of my tether.”
“You’re phoning to report an intruder?”
“Yes. Someone broke in.”
“Can I take a description, Ma’am, before the officer gets there?”
“Yes. Um. No.” Jane sighed. “I didn’t really see him.”
“But it was a man?”
“I’m sure.”
“OK. That’s fine.”
The way the dispatcher said it sounded like it wasn’t fine, but Jane just about couldn’t give a fuck.
“It’s dark. The power’s out. All we’ve got to see by is shitty green emergency lights. I’m scared, it’s dark and I’ve had enough. So no, I didn’t get a good look, and yes, I’m sure it was a man.”
She thought she could feel the dispatcher smiling on the end of the phone. Then it went away as she said, “Has he gone?”
Has he gone?
Oh my God.
There was a sparkling sound through the mobile.
“Hello?”
Something on the other end of the phone that sounded like dripping. There was a funny smell in the air too.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m here,” she said. The smell was scaring her. It was the smell from Mrs. March’s room.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes. I’m here. I can hear you.”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry. The line’s gone this end. I don’t know if you can hear …”
“Hello?”
A man’s voice.
The voice sent shivers down Jane’s spine. Suddenly she needed the toilet.
She tried to drop the phone,
but her hand was clenched tight and she couldn’t move it away from her ear.
“Be along shortly now. Just sit tight. Liked it? Eh? Watching? Get you wet?”
“Who are you?” It was all she could do to speak. Her throat was tight.
“Be seeing you.”
The spell broke.
“Fuck off! Fuck off!” she shouted into the phone, but the line was dead. The phone was dead. It was soaking wet, and it stank of him.
She threw it to the floor and wiped her hands clean. She was shaking again.
“I can’t stay, Marion. I can’t stay. I’ve got to go.”
“Whoa, hold on. What happened? Did you just tell the police to fuck off?”
“I can’t explain, Marion. It was him. The man in Mrs. March’s room. He was on the phone.”
“What?”
“I’m not making it up.”
“Honey,” said Marion, “You forget. I was there. I saw her. I saw …” She glanced at Wendy.
“Just tell her.”’
“I don’t know what to tell her,” she said to Jane.
“Something was at her.”
“You mean the man you saw?”
“There wasn’t anything there,” said Jane, squeezing her temples with her fingers. She was getting a thumper of a headache. It wasn’t surprising.
“But you saw a man? Right?”
“I did. But that wasn’t what was at her.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Neither do I, Wendy,” said Jane gently. “Neither do I.”
“It was the rain,” said Marion, staring at the floor.
“What?”
“The rain. The rain was at her.”
Jane shook her head. “No …”
“Is this some kind of joke? It’s not funny.”
“No.” Marion took out a cigarette and lit it, right there in the locker room. “Doesn’t make any sense, but I know what I know. It was the rain.”
*
Chapter Eighteen
Jane lit her own cigarette. She and Marion smoked in the locker room. She figured Margaret would understand.
RAIN/Damned to Cold Fire (Two Supernatural Horror Novels): A RED LINE Horror Double: Supernatural Page 6
