John Wiltshire - [More Heat Than the Sun 07]

by Enduring Night [MLR MM] (epub)

  But still he couldn’t command his muscles.

  He wanted to jerk awake, to roll off the bed, but the prospect of actually seeing what was behind him, what was in the bed with him made him completely incapable of action. If he moved, would motion make it…real?

  The mattress shifted once more, something…stirring.

  He moaned.

  Nikolas called, annoyed, from the bathroom, “Good, about time you woke up. Look at this fucking thing, Benjamin. I could audition for a role in that ridiculous film we watched last night.”

  Ben flung himself from the bed, his paralysis finally broken by the mundane ordinariness of Nikolas speaking with him about such shit. He fell to the floor, twisted up in the sheet, struggling to be free, to be able to rise and see.

  Finally, he was clear of the entanglement and shot up from the floor, his heart still pounding.

  The bed was rumpled—but empty.

  “What’s—?”

  Ben backed away then turned and pushed past Nikolas, shoving him out of the bathroom and shutting the door. He leant against it, bringing his heart rate back to normal with slow, deep breathing.

  He’d had nightmares before. Of course he had. But they’d never been dumb. Never been about ghosts or vampires or things that didn’t exist. He dreamt of coffins, of giant men with plaited coloured hair, and of losing Nikolas in the snow and desperately searching for him.

  It was this endless fucking night.

  He closed his eyes and repeated this.

  Only the unrelenting darkness.

  But he knew it wasn’t.

  He knew the difference between being asleep and awake.

  He knew the difference between reality and dream.

  He inhaled deeply once more and went back into the bedroom.

  He wanted to leave.

  He glanced at Nikolas as they were dressing. Nik hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. He was going insane without his internet connection, although he was covering this well, Ben had to admit. Nikolas was only there because he’d wanted to come.

  “It’s kinda boring…this storm.”

  “No trip to the glacier today, no.”

  “Not much point being here really.”

  Nikolas caught him around the waist and kissed him. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  Ben smiled faintly, manoeuvring them so he could keep his eye on the bed. “We could go anywhere—go to Squeezy’s cabin if you want to be holed up in the snow with me.”

  Nikolas went to find his shoes, discarded in haste on their return to the bedroom the previous night. “You’re the one who likes snow.”

  “I might be going off it.”

  “What’s wrong? You’re—”

  “I don’t like this place.”

  Nikolas sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Don’t do that.”

  Nikolas frowned. “Do what?”

  “Stand up.”

  “Stop being infantile.” Nik started to pull on his shoes.

  “I think this place is haunted.” There, he’d said it.

  Nikolas stopped and straightened. He regarded Ben for a moment then ventured carefully, “You don’t believe in ghosts.”

  “You do.”

  Nikolas pursed his lips a little, toying with a shoelace. Eventually, he offered, “Not as an actual thing, of course.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Ben moved to the window, despairing at seeing only darkness still.

  Nikolas came to join him, putting a warm hand on the small of Ben’s back. “I don’t actually believe they are real. I know they are only in my mind.”

  “What? You said you heard your mother playing in your old house! You said you saw—”

  “Yes, but as manifestations of something in my head. Not real—or you would hear and see them, too. What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Ben told him. The salient parts anyway.

  Nikolas glanced to the bed, frowning. “And you think it more probable that you were visited by a ghost than that you had watched a horror movie a few hours earlier, ate too much as usual, drank more than you ever admit you do, and had a nightmare?”

  “I know the difference between reality and fiction.”

  “Maybe you got turned around again.”

  “Huh?”

  “Like you did in the fog, yesterday. You don’t like accepting things are outside your control. That you are sometimes…fallible.”

  Ben considered this calmly, which was unusual for him. Usually he just blew up at such unhelpful comments from Nikolas or brooded on them for a while and exploded later. But it mirrored too closely what he’d been thinking lately—the changes to his independent life when a holdall was all he’d had to his name, one step had been the only distance between him and complete freedom.

  Nikolas gave him a small pat, much gentler than he usually did. “Have you seen my tie?”

  Ben shook his head, drawing a small pattern through the faint condensation on the window until a gust of the storm battered at him as if he were poking his finger through the bars of a starving bear’s cage.

  Had it simply been a dream?

  The wind hit the glass again. He turned to consider the exposed mattress. One thing was for sure, there was no way, no way on God’s Earth, he was sleeping in that bed again, with or without Nikolas. The thought actually made him smile a little at his own foolishness, and now, watching Nikolas fasten his tie, trying to get his hair to stay off his forehead, all such normal moments of everyday life with Nikolas Mikkelsen, Ben was able to see the funny side of a ghost in his bed.

  But he wasn’t sleeping in this room again.

  §§§

  More guests arrived that morning. Mattie Mayberry was in the lobby, anxiously peering out into the storm, watching the large vehicle easing up in front of the hotel. When two people stepped down, she went through the small airlock doors to embrace them out on the ice, despite the life-threatening temperatures. Ignoring Nils who was struggling with the bags, she quickly ushered an older couple in toward the fire.

  Ben watched this little drama play out as he was waiting to speak to Claire about changing rooms. He’d decided on the switch without consulting Nikolas. Once the exchange was done he’d just have to accept it. Hopefully, he’d let it go without any fuss or…teasing…or mentioning it at strategic moments, probably when Tim and Squeezy were present. Ben’s ghost. He could see a depressing litany of jokes at his expense playing out for years to come. He didn’t care all that much. He wasn’t sleeping in that bed again.

  He was about to take his opportunity when Claire emerged from the drying room behind the reception desk, but when she saw her husband taking off his vast down coat, she hurried over to him and began a whispered conversation, thrusting various pieces of paper at him.

  As far as Ben could make out, it appeared they were running out of supplies and she was insisting on another six hour round trip to the town to stock up.

  Nils looked haggard, as though the thought of another traverse in the storm was beyond him.

  Ben eyed the Hagglund with some interest and debated volunteering to drive it for them. The only trouble was, he had no intention of returning. He and Nikolas would head straight to the airport and catch the first flight home.

  He’d endured this endless night for long enough. How much darkness could one person tolerate?

  He had a sudden and very welcome memory of lying in the sun on top of Horse Tor and closed his eyes to smell the bracken and hear the skylarks.

  Nils eventually moved away from his wife to see to the new guests, and Ben took his opportunity to make his request. As he’d suspected, Claire agreed—there was no shortage of empty bedrooms, after all.

  Just as he was debating how to break the news to Nikolas, a hand landed on his arm. “Breakfast is nearly over.”

  They began to walk together to the dining room, and Ben said quietly, “I think they’ve run out of food.”

  Nikolas’s brows rose. “This’ll be inte
resting.”

  “Not literally. Or at least, I hope not. What wealthy people think running out of food is. No caviar, probably. But very low on fuel too apparently.”

  “We’re three hours from an international airport. I’m not sizing up other people’s fat levels quite yet.”

  “We’re moving rooms by the way. Seeing as there are so many free. Away from the prevailing wind I thought. Quieter.”

  “Ah. Quieter.”

  They were silent for a while, Ben eating, and Nikolas reading a week-old newspaper which he’d read before.

  After a while, Ben asked, “Do you ever have dreams in which you seem to be awake exactly where you should be?”

  Nikolas glanced over. As before, he seemed to be giving this more serious consideration than he would normally. “Occasionally.” He leant back in his chair. “You’re still thinking of the—?”

  “It was real, Nik. I was awake. I woke up. I was thinking back to the previous night. I was about to wake you up.”

  “Well, I agree that sounds familiar and real. Next time perhaps think to yourself, ‘No, I’ll let Nikolas sleep in for a while.’ Then you’ll be able to see it for the fiction it is.”

  “Why did you get up? It was early for you.”

  Nikolas frowned. “I—The wind woke me.”

  “It’s all wind! What specifically?”

  Nikolas tipped his head back, considering the rooms above them. “I thought I heard a cat scratching to come in. But it was a dream. Obviously. We don’t have a cat.”

  Ben pushed his chair away and stood. “That’s it. We’re leaving.”

  Nikolas put a hand on his arm but Ben shook it off. The wind rattled the windows so hard there was a slight creaking from the wood frame.

  He strode back to the reception area but it was empty. The Hagglund, their only link to civilization, had left, swallowed whole by the driving snowstorm.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  They were going to be moved later that morning when an alternate room had been cleaned.

  After breakfast a sense of complete desolation came upon Ben, a restless ennui that was utterly unlike him. He couldn’t settle to anything and nothing Nikolas suggested they do interested him. He knew he was behaving badly so he decided they needed some time apart and went to the TV room to see if there was a film to watch. He’d never realised before how seamlessly he and Nikolas lived such close lives, whilst at the same time pursuing their own concerns. He guessed it was how they’d stayed together so long, so harmoniously, neither in honest employment, always together. Except they weren’t actually—always together. Nikolas spent most of his days in his study…working…and when he wasn’t, he was riding or swimming, or off somewhere spending money, and then he passed days in the London house without Ben, visiting St Albans frequently, always busy. Ben spent his days with his friends, riding his bike up and down to London at ridiculous speeds, running, also too fast, working out, eating…And somewhere in all this activity, there they were, always together, reliably coming back from different lives to their shared one, which was then like re-joining with an absent limb.

  But now, in this endless night of enforced inactivity, Ben felt a desperate, trapped energy he couldn’t inflict on Nikolas. It wasn’t fair.

  He entered the TV room to find it already occupied. Mattie and the elderly couple who had arrived earlier were sitting around the fire. He began to back out with a mumbled apology when the old man rose and offered his hand.

  “George Mayberry. How’d ya do? ‘S m’ wife, Terry.”

  Not so old after all, Ben thought, as he shook the man’s hand. He was a squeezer, a tester of male certainty. Ben didn’t play that game, he was English—but he could. He squeezed back, harder, and saw with an amused flicker in the other man’s eyes that territory had been marked.

  Mattie was George and Terry’s daughter. George was Airborne. Had been. Terry, Miss America in her day. It was amazing what you could learn about complete strangers in five minutes. They learnt nothing about Ben other than a fake name and that, yes, he was with the Russian guy. He didn’t define with. Let them ponder that for themselves.

  They offered to let him join their little group around the fire. He made the excuse he was looking for the gym and saw something ripple across Mayberry’s face. Admiration? Envy? Or something else. Ben wished Nikolas were there. He’d have these people summed up in a minute and know exactly what they were thinking.

  He’d probably accuse them all of some devious plot.

  Ben smiled as he pushed open the gym door. He’d lasted approximately six minutes on his I-need-some-space-from-Nikolas-Mikkelsen regime.

  He wanted to tell Nikolas that as well.

  §§§

  When Ben came out of the gym, where he’d worked off much of his angst, the new room was still not ready, so he had to return to their original one. Nikolas wasn’t there and had probably gone to find an internet connection, or, failing that, a bottle of vodka. As Ben knew the net was still down, he suspected Nikolas would be telling maudlin Russian stories later. Nikolas also found ways to create some needed space between them, only his methods weren’t usually healthy or legal.

  Ben genuinely couldn’t remember whether it was day or night. He’d eaten breakfast last, which meant it must be morning, but he felt entirely adrift. Unhinged. It struck him that if they went to bed now then he could legitimately stay up all night. But it also occurred to him that as it was permanently dark, the advantage of sleeping during the day—sleeping while it was safe—was also entirely lost.

  He’d never been like this before in his life. His reaction to the odd occurrence in the bed was distressing him more than the actual happening itself. Once, in the army, when he’d gone on a course with a few mates, a four-week education and promotion course that he’d had to attend, they’d been barracked in an old, semi-abandoned mess annexe on Salisbury Plain. Some old sweat had told them it was haunted—that it had been used to house First World War glider pilots, and that one of the airmen still roamed the upper corridors, searching for his lost friends, his stolen life.

  Ben and his mates had loved it.

  They’d gone ghost hunting every night dressed in mocked-up Ghostbusters outfits, hooting and hollering and pissing themselves with laughter. This night-time revelry had probably contributed to him almost failing the final exam. They hadn’t found the phantom either. Upon reflection, it must have been a sensible spirit and kept its head down when it saw what was prowling its domain.

  So why was he like this now?

  It was pathetic.

  Ben thumped the window, feeling more like himself than he had before his workout. So like himself, in fact, that he decided this storm wasn’t going to defeat him either.

  He wasn’t stupid enough to consider attempting to retrace his steps to the hut, but he did want to experience the wind and the snow and to breathe some fresh air. If only the sun would appear!

  He debated finding Nikolas and dragging him out, too, but occasionally he took pity on his other half and tried to imagine what it would be like living with someone like him. They were on the opposite ends of a continuum of indolence.

  He told Claire where he was going but ignored her advice not to attempt it. It was only a few paces from the cabin to the shore. He fetched the Canada Goose jacket he’d worn the day before from the drying room, took a hat, some gloves, and boots with grip for ice, and set off.

  The cabin had a simple airlock system with double doors. Not spacecraft worthy, but good enough for a polar storm to not wreak havoc inside the reception area every time someone arrived or left. Ben stepped out of relative calm to a realm of utter chaos.

  He’d been in mountains all over the world. Skied in extreme conditions. Nothing prepared him for the strength of the wind on Svalbard. He was picked up and blown like something of no substance. He blessed the fact there was only flat ground. Colliding with trees was painful. He knew that from experience. As it was, he slid out of control, tossed by the gal
e, until he fetched up in soft snow, which arrested the slide and enabled him to get to his hands and knees. He couldn’t stand. He laughed out loud, the sound immediately whipped away. If he stood he’d be over and off again, like a bird tossed on high air currents. It was incredibly invigorating, exactly what he needed—just him and his superb body against nature. He crawled, slightly ignominiously, to the corner of an outbuilding, got around to the back in a little shelter from the wind and stood, panting and grinning in the dark.

  He thrust his hand out and it was like sticking it out of a fast-moving vehicle. It was whipped away, his glove stripping off and probably heading to the Arctic Circle. He tucked his bare hand into a pocket where he’d stashed a warmer earlier and felt a welcome, reassuring heat.

  From his vantage point, he could see one whole side of the luxury cabin. For the first time it struck him what an anachronism the place was. Why, how, had someone decided to build this here? The word abomination slithered into his mind unbidden and he forced it out. It was amber glow and warmth in this bitter, uninhabitable world. It stood against the storm, resisting it.

  By the faint illumination thrown out from the hotel, Ben could see a number of other small buildings—storerooms, and the shed where the Hagglund was garaged.

  Ben smirked evilly, calculated the wind direction back out of the lea of the hut he was crouched behind, the distance to the next one, and then launched himself into the storm. He sailed, he tumbled, he collided with a grunt and loss of breath but he was silently congratulating himself.

  He hadn’t entirely forgotten he had to return, but he was ignoring this obvious fact for a moment and revelling in what he did best.

  Slowly, he pulled himself around to the back of his new shelter and sat on the frozen ground, catching his breath. He was a hundred feet farther away from the cabin now and it was indistinct in the roaring, snow-filled world.

  The darkness was more profound.

  It was movement, therefore, that caught his eye.

  A figure came out of the dark, hunched against the driving force, struggling forward using ski poles. Ben rose to his feet, watching it. It appeared to be coming from the back of the cabin, the cliff face, and heading toward the side entrance.