Beneath the Boards

by David Haynes

  He opened the cupboard and took a packet of noodles out.

  “Thai Chicken,” he muttered and dropped them on the floor.

  Water was one thing but food was another entirely. He turned and looked at the stairs and then back at the recliner. Spending another night in the chair couldn’t possibly make him feel any worse. He walked slowly back and pulled the duvet around his naked body. No, he was pretty sure he couldn’t feel any worse even if he was buried alive.

  Was this punishment for something? Was this last year the wrath of God? It hardly seemed fair if it was. He’d told God to fuck off twice and the last time was a minute ago, in any case both times were entirely justified. It certainly didn’t merit this sort of treatment anyway. Or was that the problem? Was it the lack of communication that had brought this on? Wind rattled the patio doors making him jump.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He waited for a moment and laughed. “I was hoping for a reprieve if I apologised.” He laughed again and even to his own ears it sounded wrong.

  “Like a lunatic,” he whispered and was instantly gripped by a terrible spasm of pain in his abdomen. It twisted him in the chair and made the pain in his head intensify by a factor of one thousand.

  “I said I’m sorry!” he gasped.

  A few moments later it subsided and allowed him to flop back again. He took several deep breaths and closed his eyes. He didn’t fancy too many more of those episodes this side of death.

  “I’ll just sit here and keep quiet.”

  Scretch, scretch, scretch.

  “I can hear you behind me and when I get back to fighting fitness, we’ll have round two, my dear rodent housemates.”

  A light and warm breeze tickled the back of his neck pleasantly. He was sure none of the windows were open, at least he didn’t think he’d opened any in the last few days. Wherever it was coming from, it was okay by him because it was comforting somehow.

  He stretched his neck and rotated it until he heard a loud crack. It sent a tiny shock down his spine and forced his eyes open.

  It was pitch black outside now and the little light from the kitchen bounced his own image back like a mirror. The doors moved a little in the wind and distorted his face, twisting it into the visage of an old man. He stared at it intently for a while until he no longer recognised it as his own.

  The breeze tickled his neck again and this time it sent a shiver down his spine. Where was it coming fr...

  He moved forward in his chair a little. He was imagining it, he had to be. A little girl was standing outside the doors looking in at him. Her shoulder-length hair was the colour of honey and her smile was as beautiful as any he’d seen. Her smart little purple dress didn’t move an inch in the wind. She looked like she was going to a party. She must belong to one of the villagers who he’d never met. None of them were young enough to have a daughter of this age. Perhaps a grandchild then? But why was she outside on a night like this? She couldn’t be much more than seven or eight at the most. No-one should be walking by the lake on a night like this, especially not a little girl.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up. How could he see her so clearly when it was pitch black outside? He felt the breeze on his neck again, warm and comforting, like... like what? Not like a breeze at all but like the gentle heat of another person’s breath on his skin… of someone standing behind him. And why was she looking down at him, from over his shoulder, and not at him through the window?

  He flicked his head around, almost giving himself whiplash, but the room was empty, completely empty. He turned almost as quickly back to the doors but all that remained was his own decrepit and contorted face.

  He shrugged and edged back into his chair. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen things, in fact it seemed that all he had been doing for the last year was seeing things. Besides, after spending the last year with the psycho-bitch-from-hell snapping at him, the little girl was a welcome new face.

  There had been no threat from her, no gnashing of teeth or cursing. She’d just stood there looking down at him. He touched the shoulder over which she’d been standing. Was it just part of the fever or was it his damaged brain conjuring up yet more nastiness?

  He lifted his hand from his shoulder. No, this felt different somehow. The breath on his neck had been warm and tender, not savage and intense.

  “Hello?” He cocked his ear and listened. Wind rattled at the door but there was nothing else, not even the rats answered.

  “Little girl, are you there?” He waited again and then laughed. “Don’t be so ridiculous, Stokes.”

  He couldn’t wait to get rid of Natalie and yet here he was courting another mirage. His brain was addled but not so badly as to invite another third party to play fiddlesticks with his mind. No, this was nothing more than a well-timed counter-balance to make up for Natalie finally being put to bed.

  He didn’t know why he was so sure that she’d gone for good but he was. Perhaps it was the writing on the floor that he’d also imagined? Yes, that was it. At last he’d turned that corner he always promised himself was just over the next hill. So what if he saw a girl on his shoulder from time to time? Eventually she’d go too and he’d be back to his old self again. Maybe he’d meet someone he could have children with? Now there was something to aim for.

  “New start, Stokesy. New start.”

  His body was wracked by another spasm of pain. It burst from the wound in his torso and infected his entire body like a thousand angry hornet stings.

  He dug his nails into the leather arms of the recliner and waited for it to pass. It was a long time coming but when it did he let out a grunt. He loosened the towel but stopped short of disturbing it too much. He couldn’t see much but judging from the towel it had been bleeding again. He pushed the dirty towel back over it, sending a slightly sweet smell wafting up to him. He really ought to get over to the hospital in the next couple of days. He pulled the duvet around his body again and reclined the chair to the horizontal. There was no point in rushing things, he needed to be fit again before he attempted the journey.

  “New start, Stokesy. New start.”

  He closed his eyes and fell asleep instantly.

  *

  Were his eyes open or was it just another bad dream? Maybe he’d gone blind, now wouldn’t that just ice the cake. He rubbed his face to make sure his eyes weren’t still shut. What new trick was this? He blinked rapidly and caught the odd sliver of light flashing across his vision. Shards of faint sunlight pierced the darkness and struck the earth like daggers. He looked up at the floorboards above his head. He knew where he was, and it wasn’t just the smell of ammonia that told him that. He was in the pit again, but how on earth had he got there?

  Christ, he felt bad. A fire had been burning steadily in his belly but now it felt like a raging furnace had been lit. He groaned and sat up. He remembered lying down on the recliner and that beautiful brief moment before sleep finally took him, but that was all. Certainly not slipping into the pit for a nap anyway.

  His mouth was parched and it tasted bad. No, not just bad but sour and dusty. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at it. A dark smear covered the skin but he didn’t need to see it to know there was dirt in his mouth. He gathered as much saliva as he could manage and spat between his legs. The soil was laced with rat piss and crap and God alone knew what else. Was it Weil’s disease that was carried on rat’s urine? It was a small consolation that it was difficult to imagine feeling any worse than he did right now. All he needed at that very minute was Natalie to come storming into the pit.

  But she was gone, right? He came to that conclusion last night, right about the same time he saw the little girl outside... right about the same time he realised she was actually standing behind him, breathing gently on the back of his neck. He laughed to himself. If anyone could hear his thoughts, if anyone could see the state of him right now, they would have him committed. No questions asked.

  “As comfortable
as you’ve made me feel, I really must be going.” He dragged himself into a crouch and shuffled toward where he thought the hatch must be. It was difficult to get his bearings in the semi-darkness though. The shafts of light were sporadic where the floorboards had shrunk and warped over time and what little light came through was lessened by the time of year.

  He reached up and pushed against the boards as he moved, trying to locate the loose square where the hatch had been cut. Every so often he thought he’d found it and pushed against the wood harder. The effort sent a crushing spasm of agony through his body, causing him to call out. His heart raced and a growing sense of panic started to wriggle about in his toes. He knew it wouldn’t be long before it started slithering up his legs past his crotch and into his guts. How the hell had he got down there?

  It felt as if he were wandering deeper and deeper into a thick forest. The kind of place which only existed in fairy tales and nightmares. Exactly the kind of place which he seemed to be inhabiting nearly all the time now.

  He was totally disoriented and he stopped. Somewhere he could hear the faint quacks of the ducks on Lake Stormark but the sound reverberated around the space until its source was lost completely. He gritted his teeth and banged on the floorboards in anger. He was naked and trapped in a hell-hole beneath his own home. He kicked at the dirt beneath his toes.

  “Shit!” He hopped backward away from whatever he’d just kicked.

  His eyes had adjusted to the darkness but still they weren’t quite good enough to see distinct shapes, particularly in this darker area where there were no light shafts to help. His foot had connected with something wet, something which had yielded to his kick and squelched beneath his toes. His first thought was that he’d just toe-punted a rat across the floor but that wasn’t right. Even if it were dead, it wasn’t right.

  He stepped forward and dropped to his knees. He couldn’t see anything obvious but what exactly was he looking for? He reached forward and moved his arms in arcs in front of his body, scraping the top layer of soil away. It was much wetter here than elsewhere in the space.

  There it was again. The tips of his fingers brushed against something unpleasant but it wasn’t a rat, not unless it was hairless and made out of soggy cardboard. He scrambled toward it and tried to lift it but its integrity was shot to pieces and it almost fell between his fingers.

  He crouched over it and stared for a moment. It was a shoebox, as simple and unassuming as that, yet it was strangely out of place. There was nothing else down here at all, nothing except the rats and they didn’t need footwear.

  He should open it and look inside, he knew he should, but somehow it didn’t feel right. The cottage was his but this wasn’t. This belonged to someone else.

  He gently pushed it to one side and looked about. If the ground was wetter over here then he had to be closer to the lake, which meant the hatch had to be over on the other side somewhere. A surge of relief swept over him and for a moment he thought he might cry. Tears pooled in the corners of his eyes but he wiped them away with a grubby fist before they could fall.

  “Daddy, are you there, Daddy?”

  Stokes spun around. It sounded like someone had whispered behind him.

  “Daddy, can I come out now?”

  There it was again but this time it came from the other side of the cellar.

  “Daddy, I’m frightened, please take me home.”

  He turned again and this time looked straight at the box. He needed to get out of there and he needed to take the box with him. He didn’t know why exactly but he was sure of it, the feeling was as sure as anything he’d ever felt in his life.

  He scooped the box up as gently as he could and gathered it to his chest. He could feel the cold damp of the soaked cardboard crawling across the skin. If he walked in a straight line, sooner or later he’d walk head-first into the stone foundation of his house. He retched and allowed the bile to fall in yo-yo string from his mouth. It clung to his lower lip for a second and fell onto his toes. He couldn’t wipe it away, if he took a hand away from the box he might drop it and that was a bad idea. He shuffled his toes into the dirt and rubbed it away.

  “Best foot forward.”

  *

  He pushed the box up first and clambered back into the cottage. It wasn’t a bright day by any means but he was forced to squint as his eyes readjusted to the light. He doubted whether it had ever been a decent day but now as he looked out of the rain-splashed doors, it was drawing to a close. He shivered as a chill ran through his body. His body clock was all over the place and as for his internal thermostat, well that was just about on its last legs.

  There was only one place he wanted to be right now – in bed. He scooped up the box and pulled it to his chest. It had faded green writing on one side – ‘Clarks’. At one time or another, every kid in his school had owned a pair of Clarks shoes. It was probably the same in every school across the country. He plodded up the stairs, his filthy feet living prints as he went. Yep, he was going to put the box right next to him in bed and when he’d taken a nap he was going to have a look inside.

  *

  Scretch, scretch, screttttccchhh.

  The rats were in bed with him now, scuttling about and chewing the bed, the sheets and for all he knew, his toes too. The last thought pulled him out of the nap instantly.

  “Get off me!” he shouted and sat bolt upright. There were no rats nibbling at his toes but the bed was covered in mud and rat shit and probably all sorts of other unsavoury substances. What had he been dreaming of this time? He hadn’t been asleep long, not properly anyway but there had been a dream in there somewhere, he just couldn’t quite tease it out.

  The makeshift bandage on his torso was almost black and the tape holding it in place was curling up at the edges. He pulled it off slowly and winced at the odour coming from the wound. It was getting worse, there might be some poisoning starting. The narrow strip of clean skin where the towel had stopped the dirt penetrating looked odd to him, like it shouldn’t be there. It should look the same as the rest of his body. Maybe not.

  He pushed the skin on either side of the wound forcing thick green pus upward and out onto his thigh. He looked at it for a moment then scooped it up on the tip of his finger. Was this what was inside of him now? Was this all that was left? He sniffed it then wiped it on the sheet beside him.

  The shoe box. That was right, he’d bought the shoe box up from the pit.

  Scretch, scretch, scretch.

  Had the rats got in there somehow? He tapped on the lid gently. It had started to dry out but it would never hold a pair of shoes again.

  Scretch, scretch, scretch. The noise grew louder.

  He tapped on the lid again. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” He flicked it off with his forefinger and edged away from it. No rats came filing out.

  Scretch, scretch, scretch. It was almost too loud now and it was starting to give him another headache.

  He pushed the side of the box with his finger but it was wet and his finger went straight through. There had to be a rat in there, there just had to be, and it had to be chewing on a brick judging by the noise it was making. Stokes grabbed the box and shook it. That signalled the end of its integrity and it collapsed completely. He could feel his irritation starting to bubble over into a steady rage.

  Scretch, scretch, scretch. The sound was deafening now. He couldn’t take anymore, he raised his hands above his head and smashed them into what was left of the box. The sound stopped immediately.

  Was that crying somewhere? He stopped and listened. No, it must have been a bird on the lake.

  He pushed the lid to one side and stared utterly perplexed at what was now lying on his bed.

  “Hair.”

  He reached out and took it in his hands. It was honey-coloured, just like... just like the girl who’d been watching him from outside, or was it inside? It didn’t matter, it was the same colour. He held it to his nose and inhaled. It smelled of how he imagined
the clouds would smell, just like a little girl’s hair should smell. It was unfortunate that the rats had got into the box and crapped in there. The shrivelled black dots were literally everywhere.

  He reached down and took another clump in his hand. What was this? Little gems, pure little ivory gems, had been secreted amongst the golden strands. It was as beautiful as any jewellery imaginable. Stokes teased one out. The ivory wasn’t quite as pure as he’d first thought, in fact one end was covered in a dark stain and the other end was ground down in a jagged mess. It was sharp enough to draw blood.

  One by one he pulled them out of the hair until he had a full set of twenty teeth gathered around him on the bed. They were beautiful, absolutely exquisite, and he was held in a thrall by each and every one of them. Even the ones which had been ground down into savage little spikes.