RAIN/Damned to Cold Fire (Two Supernatural Horror Novels): A RED LINE Horror Double: Supernatural

by Craig Saunders

  I believe.

  I believe in something other than myself.

  My feet leave marks in the snow, but at the rate it’s falling, they’ll be gone, and soon.

  I look at the house behind me. It’s burning far hotter, far brighter, than it should be.

  I turn and head on back toward the border of the estate where I parked before. The other way out. The way the stranger showed me.

  The stranger’s not there. I search for him, in my head. He’s silent. Asleep. Maybe dead.

  I hope so. There’s no place for him in the last thing I have to do.

  Tell Helen. Tell her everything. So she knows.

  She needs to know why I did it. I need for her to understand that Samantha is free.

  We can rest at last. Maybe in ten years time, maybe five, I’ll be out, and she’ll still be there.

  God. I hope so.

  I’m more hopeful than I’ve any right to be. Because the snow is a sign. It hides me, covers my tracks, lets me get off Townshend and onto our part of the estate. I head round the corner, where no snow falls. The lights are on. Calling me home.

  *

  55.

  I don’t have my keys with me. They were in the car when it burned.

  I try the door and find it’s not locked, anyway. It’s a good sign. She hasn’t changed the locks. I imagine her waiting for me to return. I imagine telling her everything, kneeling, if I have to. I can do it. I’m done lying to Helen. From now on it’s the truth and the truth alone that will be the glue to hold us together.

  I call her name as I go in. I’m aware I stink. My face must be bright red. It’s tender to touch. I’m covered in soot, tracking dirt through the house. It streaks my clothes where the snow has melted and run in streams, making everything sodden and grey.

  ‘Helen!’

  I expect she’s pissed off at me. I’ll make her understand, though. Without my usual bullshit. Without the stranger. With just the truth.

  ‘Helen!’

  I stump into the living room. The dining room. The kitchen.

  Upstairs.

  But I’m wasting my time. Each bedroom, the bathroom. I know what’s wrong. The house feels empty. She’s gone.

  I sit down on the bed.

  ‘Helen,’ I say. Just to hear her name.

  The tears come at last. Great racking sobs, rivulets of tears, cleaning tracks through the soot on my face. I wipe away the tears and the snot. I can’t believe she’s gone.

  She’s always been there.

  I have to follow her. But my mind draws a blank. I have no idea where she’s gone. I’m drawing on empty.

  I don’t have to think about it for long because the phone on the bedside cabinet rings, shrill enough to make me jump.

  It’s Helen. I know it. It’s not a premonition. I can just feel her through the wire.

  I hurry off the bed, round to Helen’s side. Each step is agony. I pick up the phone.

  ‘Sam.’

  ‘Helen.’

  ‘Sam.’

  Something’s wrong. Something not in her voice.

  Warmth. Life.

  ‘Helen. Where are you?’

  ‘Sam. I’m cold.’

  ‘Where are you?’ I’m shouting. Panic’s riding the back of my neck, pushing my head down, making it heavy. Her voice is so quiet I can barely hear it.

  ‘It’s so cold here, Sam. I’m afraid. Sam.’

  ‘Talk to me, Helen. Where are you? Do you know?’

  ‘You remember, Sam, when you talked about your sunset?’

  I’m shaking, now, but I try to keep my voice calm. Steady.

  ‘I remember, Honey.’

  ‘The day’s winding down.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s winding down, and the night, it’s cold. But it’s beautiful, too, terrible and beautiful. I’m afraid, Sam, but it’s going to be over soon.’

  ‘Helen, no…’

  Click.

  Nothing.

  ‘Helen!’ I shout. My voice breaks. I know she’s gone. My heart turns to ice.

  Then I hear footsteps, padding, on the wooden floors. Padding into the bedroom.

  I pick up a lamp, brandish it like a club. I’m not going down, not like this.

  But it’s just the black cat. My heart thuds like crazy while the little cat’s stubby tail switches back and forth. It’s got something between its teeth. For a second, it looks like a heart, dripping blood, but then I blink and the stranger’s there, behind my right eye. He sees true.

  It’s my tennis ball, dripping water. The water pools on the floor. I see it’s yellow. So bright.

  The cat comes toward me. I put my hand down. It drops the ball into my palm.

  It’s soaking wet and it smells of the sea.

  The cat turns and goes to the door. It looks over its shoulder at me and miaows silently. I get up. I lost my cane in the car, but I haven’t used it all night. I know I don’t need it anymore, and even though my legs are shaking, the ball gives me strength.

  The cat walks away onto the landing. Turns again. Waits.

  I find I can walk. Not well. But well enough.

  We get to the front door, and I remember something. Something I should do…

  ‘Wait,’ I tell the cat. It doesn’t answer me one way or the other, but it doesn’t move. It sits there, by the front door.

  I come back with a candle and a lighter. I put the candle in the window and set it going.

  Light the way home. Like a sailor in the night. Is that what they did it for?

  I don’t know. I don’t know why I do it. What the hell am I listening to Bob for? If I don’t make it back this way, the house’ll probably burn down.

  I turn around and the cat’s there behind me. I jump even though it’s just a cat. It turns. I follow. What else can I do? Right from the start, I’ve been following.

  That something, that thing, greater than myself, has been leading me by the nose the whole time. I never did have a choice.

  Now it’s time to see its true nature.

  *

  56.

  I know where we’re going. The cat leads me there, just the same.

  Once, I was afraid of the cat. It doesn’t inspire fear now. It’s broken. Its stumped tail, its silent voice. I find comfort in it.

  I’m only scared when I lose sight of the cat in the shadows, when I’m alone, but before long we’re walking on snow and I can see it easily.

  We walk across the green. The sirens behind, the fire turning the snow pink and orange. My feet crunch on the snow. The cat makes no sound.

  There’s something ahead. I can’t see it, but I can feel it. A black spot in the white. Pulsing. Beating.

  The heart.

  Eventide waits for me. It's calling me home to whatever end waits for me. I have a feeling it’s not salvation they deal in there.

  The cat stops. The fence is white, the snow clinging to the diamond shapes of the wire. It’s the fence I remember from my dream; a nurse, pushing an old lady with a fuzzy halo of white hair to her death. A life to feed the damned.

  Maybe it wasn’t a dream at all. It doesn’t matter now. I’m going in anyway.

  I brush away snow from a white board, red print barely visible.

  PRIVATE.

  Bold. Capitals.

  I fumble around, find the catch. There’s a padlock. I pull it and it snaps. The metal’s frozen solid. I look at the cat. It sits on its haunches, just looks right back at me.

  I’ve been pushed, pulled. Guided by whatever guides the cat. I don’t like it, but I can’t deny it. I can’t fight it.

  Frank kicked the cat. I hunker down, pet it. Stroke it behind the ear. I don’t know anything about cats. That’s OK. The black cat’s not fussy. It makes no sound, but I can feel it vibrating as it purrs beneath my hand.

  Whatever it is behind the cat’s eyes, it’s watching me and I could use a little goodwill.

  ‘Watch out for me, huh?’

  It turns away, just g
ives a flick of its stubby tail, melts into the night.

  The message is clear.

  You’re on your own.

  I pull back the latch on the gate and step onto the grounds of Eventide.

  *

  57.

  I walk a circuit of the building. I can’t see very far now, because the snow is heavier. I get no real sense of how big the Eventide home is. The snow lays thick on my shoulders, in my hair.

  I haven’t got a coat on, just my jacket. I shiver. My fingertips are going numb and my ears are burning.

  It’s OK, though. It’s good cold. True cold.

  I don’t know what I expected. Maybe dogs, Alsatians, howling. Security. Alarms, lights. There are lights inside, but the glass is misted over. I can’t see. Warmer inside than out. The thought doesn’t make it any more inviting.

  I don’t have any kind of plan. I don’t have a weapon. I don’t even know what I’m going to find.

  I think I’ll know what to do, though. I have to believe that. I have to place my trust in that.

  The sense that something bigger than my concerns, my friend, my family, is at play weighs heavily on my mind. I can feel it watching me. It makes me nervous. I should be glad that something powerful is watching over me. But I’m not. I don’t think it’s there to help. I think it’s there to judge, see how I perform. How I hold up. I’m its emissary, but it’s holding the option to just turn and walk away at any time should I fuck up.

  I get to the front door. The snow has drifted against the door. It’s locked. I try touching the lock, but nothing happens. It doesn’t just fall out of the door like I was hoping.

  Apparently that only works once.

  I walk back the way I came until I find a long window. Most of the windows I pass are sash windows with wooden struts. This is a newer replacement, or maybe a recent addition. The brick work around it is fresher, the pointing crisp where it was crumbling around the older parts of the building.

  I’m not having much luck breaking windows. This is single glazed, but I don’t want to put my hand through it. I hunt around for a rock, a brick, anything, but the ground is covered so thickly with snow that I could hunt all night. I’m not going to find anything.

  I test my cast with my left hand. It feels pretty sturdy. I figure, what the hell. My right hand’s broken anyway.

  I thump the window. The shock travels up my arm, ignites fire in my broken thumb and my ribs.

  The window is absolutely fine.

  So I hit it harder. Hard enough to crack the cast and shatter the window. It hurts like fuck, but that’s good, because the cold could make me slow. Sleepy. I don’t want to be sleepy.

  I don’t want broken bones, either, but if they let me know I’m still alive, that’s good.

  The cast is hanging off. I pull it and wrench it and twist it until most of it comes away. There’s a ring left, around my forearm. It falls down, like a cuff.

  I flex my broken hand. It hurts, but it works well enough.

  Once I’ve cleared the window of shards I boost myself through into some kind of storeroom. It’s lined with long rows of metal shelves, the kind that slot together. They look heavy. Everything in the store cupboard is boxed up. I read a few of the labels on the boxes. Companies I’ve never heard of. Things only a care home would have. Unisex slippers. Gowns. Nappies. One size fits all.

  I guess the door won’t be locked. Who’d steal nappies?

  It’s open. I push through, into the building proper, and into Hell.

  *

  58.

  It’s a world I’ve never seen before. A world that doesn’t exist outside, where real people live.

  People, dressed alike, are shuffling to and fro in a plain room. They sit, or they rock, or they pace. All of them are old, crumpled, broken people. The forgotten.

  A woman sits on a hard plastic chair, staring at the misted window. Her head is cocked to one side, like she can hear the snow falling.

  She’s thin. They’re all thin. Just shells, waiting to pass on. They don’t know they’re dead. This is a waiting room.

  Shitty fucking service.

  That’s all I can think. The smell hits me. Unchanged nappies. Bile. Blood. Pus.

  I wretch, holding my stomach. I dry heave.

  I haven’t eaten all day and I’m thankful.

  Not one of them looks at me. They exist in their own worlds. They live in some private hell, waiting for the end.

  I guess there are places like this all over the country. All over the world. Places where old folk and broken folk go so people like me don’t have to look at them and wonder at our own mortality. It’s like death has taken over living bodies and made them something else, something no one in their right mind could bear to look at for long.

  Places like this in every corner of the country, in every country in the world, but while they might be like this, they couldn’t be more dissimilar. This place is like the difference between cancer and a love bite.

  No, I don’t think other places are like this at all.

  This place is different in part because each man, each woman, has a chain around their ankle, bolted to the floor.

  The skin is worn thin. Some bleed, some sit and pull at the chains absently. Some pace, get to the end of the chain, fetch up, turn back. Some have fallen over. Some are crying.

  Most.

  There’s a repetitive nature to their torment. They don’t know they’re in torment. That makes it worse. Much worse. This time, I am sick. Nothing but bile, but I’m glad I can be sick.

  I’m still alive.

  I walk through them, all the while trying not to gag anymore on their putrid stench.

  They don’t see me. I wish I was the kind of person who could reach out. Comfort them. But I can’t touch them because they repulse me.

  My sanity wouldn’t let me touch them. If I could feel an emaciated shoulder beneath my hand I could no longer allow my mind the illusion that somehow it’s not all real.

  No. I’m not here as a comforter. That’s not the way.

  I scoot around some, step over others. Old men, old women. Chained, like animals.

  I didn’t come here for them, but then, I didn’t know about them when I started. Now I know, things have changed.

  I laugh out loud and feel like the world’s biggest shit, laughing in this place of torment, but I can’t help the laugh that bursts out at the thought that I came here for anything. Like I had any choice.

  I didn’t choose to come here at all, no matter what I might think. I was sent.

  I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood just so I can keep the laughter in.

  I wish I had a gun, so I could put them down. Or a flamethrower, so I could burn the place to the ground.

  At the taste of blood I know I’m not laughing because it’s funny. I’m laughing because I’m fucking furious and all I’ve got is my anger. It’s incandescent. A furnace burning in the heart of me.

  I push on through the mass of broken dignity, out of the door.

  I find a stairwell and climb, because that’s where I’ve got to go. Up.

  I’m not alone anymore.

  The stranger. He’s back.

  It’s good he’s back. I know I’m not the only human in this place of shades.

  Up.

  The wooden banister thrums under my hand. Power. The place is feeding. Whatever it is, it’s getting stronger.

  It’s angry.

  But so am I.

  I grip the banister hard, pull myself up. I’ll drag myself up if that’s what it takes. Ever up.

  *

  59.

  I lose track of time, but it’s not like a blackout. It’s just I’m concentrating on putting one foot on the next step, and the next. The stranger helps, lending me his strength.

  Occasionally I stop, open a door. A room, full of people. Some floors, they’re in beds, some they’re pacing, some they’re just lying in heaps on the floor. The smell of shit is the only thing that lets me know th
ey’re alive.

  On. Higher.

  Twenty floors.

  Another room. There’s a man in there with electrodes on a shaven scalp. He’s naked and his thighs are covered in shit and he’s got an erection.

  I shut the door. Colder on the inside than I’ve ever been. Even the stranger has never been this cold.

  Thirty floors and I’m dripping sweat. The place is getting hotten as I climb. The banister is hot to the touch, almost burning, but if I let go of the banister I won’t make it. I need it to climb. My legs are burning, getting hotten. Hotter.

  Hotter.

  My bad leg’s getting weaker. It buckles when I’m tired. If it buckles here, I’m going to break something, maybe my neck.

  But I can’t stop to rest. Even though my vision’s swimming, my heart pounding, my limbs trembling, I won’t stop.

  I’m in so much pain but my rage draws me on. It’s too much, the thumping in my head and the agony from my ribs and back as I gasp in breath after breath, but I can still breathe. I’m not chained to the floor or covered in shit, tortured in some fucked up hell hole.

  It’s too high and I can’t walk anymore, but each time I think I can’t go on, I open a door. It’s too high, sure, but there’s a woman with stumps for legs gnawing at her wrist to try to break free of her shackles. There’s a toothless man on one floor smashing his feet against the metal foot of his bed, and I’m fairly sure he’s trying to break his own foot off to get free. And I figure, it’s not too high.

  Forty floors and they’re not the worst. Screams come from behind the doors now. People who know well enough the pain they’re in. I’m frightened to open those doors, but I do, because each time I think it’s too high I get my fix of horror, like a snort of coke, and enraged, sweating, tired, in agony, I go on.

  I get to 50 and something’s different. I know the end is near. It helps me. Draws me on. Draws me to the top.

  Is it the knowledge that the end is near that draws me on, or something other? Something bigger than all this.

  I don’t know and I push the thought down and let my anger take the reins.

  I pause at 56. Each floor has a sign, and a number, letting me know how far I’ve come. But no sign saying how much further.