DARK COUNTY

by Kit Tinsley

  ‘They say that if you go and peek through the board on the doorway, you can still see him hanging there, reaching out to touch whatever kid dares to look.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ Rob said.

  ‘No, my brother told me one of his mates saw him, then went crazy,’ Wayne said.

  ‘Also bollocks,’ I added.

  ‘Well why don’t you go and look,’ Wayne said.

  I had no good answer, accept that I was scared to. I, who was obsessed with the supernatural and horror films, was too scared to go and look through a boarded up door on a spooky house. It was not to do with Wayne’s, more than likely false, story. It was because of the way that looking at the house made me feel. The queasiness and the pulling sensation were too much for me to take.

  ‘I will,’ said Danny, in an uncharacteristically brave move.

  He hopped over the short fence and made his way slowly through the decaying plants of the garden. I wanted to scream at him not to go, but all that would have achieved was to make the others mock me for being a coward.

  Danny looked back at us as he approached the door. He seemed so far away from us, from the safety of the group, I imagined a hand coming through the boards on the door and pulling him into the blackness of the house.

  He waved at us and grinned before kneeling down to look through a gap in the boards. I could hear my own heartbeat in my ears; it felt quicker than it should have. We all stood in silence as Danny looked into the house, into the abyss. It felt like forever that he knelt there. Time seemed to stop. The breeze that was ever present down near the marsh was gone, there was no sound of birds or insects or even the rumble of distant traffic on the A16. All that I could hear was the thump of my own heart, and my own breathing.

  ‘Fuck this,’ Danny screamed getting up and running back across the garden. In the style of true childhood friends, we did not wait for him to reach us, instead we ran full pelt back up the road, and around the hairpin bend. We did not stop for him to catch up with us until the house was well out of sight. Danny came running up to us panting. His face was whiter than I’d ever seen anyone look. His eyes were wide. He looked terrified.

  ‘What did you see?’ Rob asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ Danny said, his voice sounding strange and distant.

  ‘You must have seen something,’ I said. ‘You look scared.’

  Danny barged past us and headed up the road, back towards Wyberton. He looked back at us.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said. ‘I just want to go home.’

  Rob, Wayne and I looked at each other, then headed off down the road after him. We walked home in silence.

  The years went by and things changed. Rob went off to university in Nottingham, Wayne joined the Army, and Danny went off the rails. He got in with a bad crowd and started stealing and doing drugs. I stayed where I was and studied for my degree at the local college. Rob and I still saw each other as often as possible, but rarely did we see the others. That night, and the house, faded into the dark recesses of my memory. I continued to suffer, undiagnosed, with bipolar disorder. There were some dark times for me over those years. Self-harm was the big thing, not in the attention seeking way that so many people do, no, I hid it carefully for years. For me it was all about the sense of relief cutting gave me. I was in control of it and it seemed to release all of the pressure and negativity that built up in my mind. Several times, I ended up in hospital being stitched after cutting too deep, yet still I always found an excuse to explain it away as an accident, and not as something I has deliberately done to myself.

  My next encounter with the house by the marsh came while I was studying for my degree in media studies. We had been assigned a photography project based on the theme of decay. The mention of that word brought the house screaming back into my head. I was still wary of the idea of going back there, but I told myself that we had just been scared kids, messing around. Danny was a twat, as he had proved since, and was probably just messing around. I decided to go back and take some photos of the house for my project.

  It was a lovely, warm and sunny day in early June when I drove back out there. I remember the time well as a friend of mine from college, Jane, had gone missing a few weeks prior. It had been so long, five years in fact, since I had last been to the house that it took me a few attempts to find the right road. I forgot about, and nearly lost control of the car going around, that final hairpin bend. I felt a chill as the house loomed into view. Even in the bright summer sun it looked dark. It was as though darkness clung to the place, refusing to let it into the light. I pulled up across the road and stepped outside, trying to shake off my trepidation, telling myself it was nothing but a silly childhood memory. I picked up the college’s Pentax SLR camera I had borrowed to take the shots. It was loaded with a roll of black and white film, with 24 shots. I had taken eight shots earlier at the old churchyard at Wyberton, on my way here. I had remembered those crumbling gravestones and thought they would fit in perfectly with the theme of decay.

  I took a few shots of the house from the, what I felt, relative safety of the road. I took a few wide shots, though I knew I would probably not use these. Then I got down on the ground and took a shot through the rusting fence and overgrown garden. Through the view finder of the camera, the house looked like a beast in the undergrowth, waiting to pounce. I knew the shot I wanted, though, and it would require me to get closer to the house than I was. I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. Once again I heard the sound of my own heartbeat, thumping in my ear.

  I stepped over the fence and into the jungle of dead plants that was the garden. I instantly felt light-headed and queasy. I had once suffered from vertigo, and that is the only sensation I could liken it to. I wanted to turn around and jump back over the fence, to get in my car and leave the place, never to return. Yet I needed this photo, my overall grades had been slipping a little due to one of my low periods so I knew I had to pull something special out of the bag for this project in order to progress to my final year.

  I shook off the feeling and marched towards the house. I went to the large window on the left of the house. It was boarded up, but there were plenty of gaps through which I could get the shots. I saw that the glass was completely gone from the window. I was going to be sticking the lens into the house. I imagined it being pulled away from me by an unseen force. I pushed this image out of my mind.

  There was a smell; it was prevalent even on the road, but was stronger near the house. It was unlike anything I had smelled before, except maybe when one of my cuts had got infected. It had oozed a sticky brown substance that smelt like death. That was what the house smelled of, infection and death.

  I quickly snapped a few shots blind. I was unwilling to look through the viewfinder for fear of what might be looking back at me. I hoped they would be in focus.

  Next, I moved to the door. This was the shot I wanted, through the gaps in the boards, into the open doorway. The same view my old friend Danny had got all those years ago. Would I see whatever it was that he had seen? I wanted this shot to be perfect, so once I had the lens through the gap, I knelt down and looked through the viewfinder. It was dark inside and I could not make much out. I tried to find something to focus on, and in the end, I spotted an old plant pot down toward the end of the hallway. I used this as my focal point, set up my aperture and exposure time, I set it for the flash knowing that without it I would see nothing.

  I paused for a second, thinking I heard movement from inside. I listened intently, but there was nothing. I pressed the button on the camera and the flash illuminated the inside of the hallway for a split second. It was long enough for me to register a figure hanging in the hallway, by the stairs, an area that had been completely hidden in shadow. It was the spirit of the paedophile who had committed suicide in the house. I scrambled away from the door on my hands and knees almost leaving the camera behind. I got up and ran back to the car. I drove back home, my nerves shredded. Had I seen a ghost? I told myself that
it was not possible, it was my imagination. Of course when I developed the film I would know for sure.

  I used up the rest of the film on some gnarled driftwood, and a burnt out car. It was a few days before I got round to developing the film. By that time I had convinced myself that I hadn’t seen anything, that it had just been a product of my overactive imagination. I was sure that when the film was developed and the photographs printed, they would reveal nothing but an empty, ruined old house.

  I am not afraid of the dark, never have been. In fact, I have always kind of enjoyed it in a strange way. So, for me, standing in the pitch black studio while developing film was never usually a problem. That day however, with the memory of the house and the knowledge that soon my worst fears would be either confirmed or disproved, I felt more uncomfortable than I had in my entire life. I listened to the clock on the wall slowly tick by the seconds as I tried to load the spool of film into the developing canister. I became convinced I was not alone. It felt as though there was someone else in the room with me, standing behind me. I could feel breath on my neck, it made the little hairs rise. I quickly finished loading the film and flicked on the light. Of course, there was no one in there. How could there have been? I waited for the film to develop and then set it to dry. Usually I would have waited in the developing room while this happened. That day, though, after that feeling of not being alone, I needed to get out, see the sunlight, and other people.

  I went outside for twenty minutes. I spoke with a few friends and smoked a few cigarettes before returning to collect my film and prepare it for enlarging. The film was dry so I cut it into manageable strips. I went into the enlarging room and used a lightbox to examine the negatives. I could not believe or explain what I saw. All of the photos taken before I went to the house and the ones taken in the churchyard were fine. All of the ones taken after—the driftwood and the burnt out car—were also perfect, but every single photograph taken at the house was fogged out completely. Nothing was visible at all. It was as though the house had not wanted me to take the pictures. I could not think of any reason this would have occurred. If some light had gotten to the film, all of the photographs would have been corrupted, not just these select few.

  I considered going back with another camera and fresh film and trying again, but I saw the fogged out images and the feeling of someone being in the developing room with me as a warning I was best off not to ignore.

  A few weeks passed by, and the incident with the house was put to the back of my mind. There were other things to concentrate on, my slipping grades for one. I was in serious danger of not passing my second year. Also, there was the low I had sunken into. I was finding it hard to get out of bed most days and not sleeping at nights. Then, of course, there was the worrying about my missing friend Jane. She was not the only one. Two other girls from the area were missing, one I didn’t know and one who I had met briefly in passing. The rumour mill was flying with speculation that Boston had its first serial killer.

  When the news broke that the bodies had been found, I was only half-surprised to hear that they had been discovered in that house, the one by the marsh, the one that had been haunting me for years. The girls had been sexually assaulted and killed, their bodies left in the house to decay. They had been there some time. My stomach turned as I realised that this was what I had smelt that day I went to take the photographs. I had been nosing through the windows and door whilst my friend and two other young women were rotting inside the house.

  The real shock came when they announced that the killer had sent a letter to the police telling them what he had done and where they would find the bodies. He offered an apology to the families in this letter and said that he had not been able to stop himself. He had hung himself in the house.

  The figure hanging in the hallway I had seen as the flash of my camera went off had not only been real, but had been the body of a murderer. If only I had thought about the smell and not been convinced what I had seen had been an illusion at best, or something supernatural at worst, then maybe I would have called the police and the bodies would have been discovered sooner. It would not have helped the girls, they were already dead, but maybe the suffering of not knowing would have been relieved sooner for their families.

  The next day the police put out a statement naming the killer. It was my old school friend Danny. Danny the class joker, Danny the gentle giant, Danny who had stared into that house and seen something so horrendous it had sent him running in fear and left him unable to tell anyone about it. I had always had the feeling that the night he looked into the house had something to do with him going off the rails. He was not the sort of person I would have seen as a druggy or criminal up to that point. Now I wondered if it was also responsible for what he had done to those young women. If not, then why had he chosen that house?

  Naturally, there was a very poor turnout for Danny’s funeral, people generally don’t want to go and mourn multiple murderers. Yet due to that sacred bond of childhood friendship, I was in attendance, as were Rob and Wayne. The three of us sat at the back of the church, leaving a gap between us and the few members of his family who had shown up. I felt sorry for the vicar, trying to find nice words to say about a young man he obviously considered to be a monster.

  After the service, the three of slunk away to a nearby pub. It had been a long time since we had seen Wayne. He was doing well in the army. He planned to serve another eight years and then leave. He also informed us that he was getting married at the end of the year; he would have invited us but it was a small service for family only. He showed us a photograph of his little twin girls Iris and Emma. They were beautiful, eight months old and full of life apparently.

  Wayne left early to go and meet his fiancée and kids. Rob and I remained in the pub.

  ‘It’s fucked up,’ Rob said. ‘I mean, I know that Danny had turned into a bit of a twat, but murder?’

  I took a sip of my drink and nodded.

  ‘Why do you think he did it?’ Rob asked me.

  ‘Why do you think?’ I replied. ‘Why choose that house? It’s all down to whatever he saw that night when we were fifteen.’

  ‘Some one should buy that place,’ he said, staring off into the distance, ‘and level it to the fucking ground.’

  Four years later, that is exactly what happened. I was sat at home one day reading a book when my doorbell rang. I answered it to find Rob stood on my doorstep in one of his now trademark, designer business suits.

  After leaving university Rob had made a small fortune by developing some sort of all singing, all dancing, data processing software that I did not fully understand. All I knew was that Rob was now the richest man I knew and still my best friend.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I said, confused by his sudden appearance. Usually he gave me three weeks notice of when he was home, so busy was his schedule.

  ‘Get some fucking shoes on,’ he said, looking down at my mismatched socks. Then he grinned. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

  I pulled on my Converse and tatty old leather jacket and got into the passenger side of Rob’s brand new, drop top Mercedes. Never had I looked or felt more out of place than I did in that car as we drove through Wyberton. We crossed the A16 and drove past the church. I was still unaware of our destination at that point, but when we turned onto that familiar tree-lined road, my heart sank.

  ‘Where are we going?’ I said nervously.

  ‘You’ll see,’ Rob said with a wry smile.

  I sank down in my seat, not wanting to be heading where we were heading.

  As we turned that last hairpin bend, I looked up expecting to see that damned house staring back at me, like a monster from a fairy tale. To my amazement, though, I saw nothing. The house was gone.

  ‘What the fuck?’ I asked sitting up.

  Rob laughed out loud. This was the reaction he was hoping I would give.

  ‘You bought it, didn’t you?’ I said, shaking my head. ‘You bought that fuckin
g hellhole?’

  ‘I did, indeed,’ he said with a beaming smile, ‘and as of nine o’clock this morning that house ceased to exist. I told you years ago that someone should buy the place and level it to the ground.’

  ‘Yes but, I didn’t think you meant you,’ I said.

  ‘I know, neither did I,’ he said, still grinning like the Cheshire cat. ‘Then I got rich, and I couldn’t get the place out of my head.’

  I looked at him, scrutinised him, then I saw it in his eyes.

  ‘You came back here, didn’t you?’ I said. ‘You came back and looked through that fucking door.’

  He nodded.

  ‘When?’ I asked. I was worried now, what if his obsession led to the horrible things that Danny’s had?

  ‘That night after Danny’s funeral,’ he said. ‘You went home half cut, and I went for a walk. I don’t know why, but I ended up here. I stood there shouting abuse at the house, at Danny, at God even. Then I decided I was going to look in that door.’

  ‘You stupid tit,’ I said. ‘After what happened to Danny?’

  He looked at me.

  ‘You did it, too,’ he said. ‘You told me you took a picture through the door.’

  ‘That was before I knew what Danny had done,’ I said in my defense.

  ‘You didn’t see anything, did you?’ he said.

  I had lied and told him that I had not seen anything, how was I supposed to tell him that I had seen a hanging figure and been so scared I ran away, only to then find out that it was the corpse of one of our closest school friends.

  ‘No,’ I lied again. ‘Of course not. Did you?’

  Rob shook his head but refused to look me in the eyes. I knew in my gut that he was also lying. I did not know what power the house had held over us, but it had been there in the back of all of our minds since that first time we saw the place.