When Darkness Falls - Six Paranormal Novels in One Boxed Set

by Shalini Boland

  I recognise the tour guide from the leaflets in the hotel. He’s the kind of guy you’d see treading the boards at the local amateur dramatic production of Dracula. He wears the full get up, tall Victorian black hat, coat-tails, black nail varnish… he out-Goths the Goths I’m with; shows them how to do it old-school, with class.

  Everything is a performance, from the way he speaks, to the dramatic sweep of his arms. As we walk through the cobbles of the old streets, I discover the sordid history of the sleepy town, the opium dens and the arsenic murders, the mobsters hiding in the shadows, the organised crime that filtered all the way down to London from Nettleby; smugglers and wreckers who worked the nearby coastline; desperate men. He then goes on to talk about serial killers from the last thirty years and I can’t suppress my shudder.

  “You all right, love?” Neil whispers. “I didn’t peg you for the easily spooked.”

  If only he knew the truth. “I’m not. Serial killers give me the chills.”

  Lemarr leans forward. “Me too.”

  Our tour guide moves on. As we walk around the village, the isolation of the place hits me. I think of the way the moors stretch out on all sides, connected to the nearest town by one main road and a criss-cross of narrow lanes. There must be something about the moors that attract these murderers—that draw them out.

  “Tell us about Little Amy,” someone asks.

  Igor pauses. A shadow crosses his face. “That’s one murder I’ll never forget. I knew her, you know, I knew her parents. I don’t like to talk about it, because I knew her.” He shakes his head and looks away.

  “Did they ever find the murderer?” another voice, male, pierced eyebrow.

  “No,” he says. His voice is small and quiet. “No, they never found him.”

  Lacey glances towards me. “Don’t you think it’s strange that Amy knew Seth?”

  The words cut through me. Her face says it all. The murderer was never caught. It happened five years ago. Seth would have been fifteen, Amy twelve. I shudder. No, what is she saying? That can’t be right. I shake my head, no.

  “Think about it, Mares. Think about the teenagers who have killed younger children, those with troubled childhoods and a fascination with death. It fits. I don’t trust him.”

  I want to scream at her. She’s the one who told me to ask him out in the first place. She told me to go for it, to take a chance. When we almost died on the Ferris wheel, she encouraged me to put my life in his hands. Now she’s saying she doesn’t trust him?

  “Not here,” I say with a hiss.

  Neil turns to me with a questioning look in his eyes.

  We move on. Lacey is quiet and I exhale with relief. But she never meets my eyes, instead she stares into the shadows between houses like she sees more than we can.

  My mind is abuzz with thoughts, so I try to focus on the tour guide and the ghost walk. I almost will the ghosts of Nettleby to reveal themselves to me, longing for a distraction. At one point, a burnt girl stares from a window, her face an ember, a lump of coal. Charred ribbons hang from what little hair she has left. I never realised how many remnants there are left from those who have died. It’s not just the ghosts or spirits from the dead, it’s the echoes too—memories from those who knew them, items of clothing passed on to charity shops, antiques sold at auction, the houses standing tall and proud, trodden ground, walked on by millions of feet. No matter where we are, it’s an intrusion on where someone has been, where someone has died. I’m a speck—nothing more, nothing less—one of the billions who will come and go as the echoes remain. Instead of fear, it brings me comfort. I don’t feel so alone, somehow.

  Neil gets us a cup of tea from a burger van outside the one nightclub in Nettleby.

  “Fancy it?” Lemarr asks, nodding towards the entrance.

  A parade of girls, barely legal, in heels as high as the stack of books I have to read, stagger their way down the steps. One pauses to puke.

  “Erm, no. I think I might head back to the site.”

  “We’ll walk you home,” Neil says. “You’re pale as milk. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I can’t help glancing at Lacey with a smile. She returns the smile, but with a guilty look in her eye.

  “It’s okay. If you want to go to the club—”

  “We’re coming with you,” Lemarr insists, putting his arm through mine. Neil does the same on the other side.

  “Someone wants a threesome,” Lacey says with a smirk. “You up for it, Mary?”

  I narrow my eyes at her. Neil notices and frowns. I know he suspects I’m hiding something. What I don’t know, is how deeply he actually believes in ghosts. If I told him, if Lacey revealed herself to him, would he turn and run a mile? Or would he help? Is he someone I can trust?

  It’s a fairly short walk back to the campsite. I glance at my watch, not even midnight yet. My mind turns to Seth. There’s no way he’s the killer. He can’t be.

  But how else would Amy know him?

  Could I risk it? Could I risk talking to him? I think of how relaxed he made me feel, how at ease. Women felt like that around Ted Bundy as well, you dolt.

  But Seth is no Ted Bundy, and Nettleby doesn’t have a high murder rate. There aren’t scores of missing little girls unaccounted for. There could be many reasons why Amy recognised Seth. Igor mentioned that he knew her. It’s a small village. I can’t make any judgements until I know more about the facts. Then, I’ll have to decide whether Seth could be a murderer. For now, I have to trust my instinct, and my instinct says he’s innocent.

  The Five Moors sign comes into view, illuminated by the moonlight on a clear summer night.

  “Home, sweet home,” Neil says.

  “What the hell?” Lemmarr stops stock still next to me. His grip tightens on my arm. “Do you see that?”

  Large, scrawled red lines appear on the sign as though they are being written by an invisible pen, except the strokes are unlike any kind of pen I know. It’s more like a fingertip dipped in… in… blood.

  No.

  My throat tightens, my chest heaves, and panic rises from deep in my bowels.

  The words spell: You’re next.

  Chapter Twelve

  You’re next.

  You’re next.

  A cruel taunt followed by a sleepless night of imagining bloodied fingers scrawling along the walls of my tiny bedroom. And when I eventually fall asleep, I dream. Seth features in those dreams. Sometimes the bloodied fingers belong to him, and his impish grin, the one I found so swoon-worthy, turns into a manic smile.

  Death seems as attracted to me as a moth to a flame. It’s not so much a lingering odour as a downright stalker. My thoughts are tinged with it, the world is tinged with it, the bright yellow glow of July turns to the gloomy fade of the coming winter. The few glorious days of summer we get each year in Yorkshire are on their way out. This is it. This is the end.

  “Sausage?” Mum lifts one up with her fork.

  My stomach churns. “No, thank you.”

  “Is it because of that nice young man? Hasn’t he called, sweetheart?”

  Dad raises an eyebrow. “Probably for the best.”

  Mum shoots him a glare. “Ignore your father. I thought he was nice. I have good instincts for people, you know.”

  “He never gave me his phone number. He had to dash off the other day and we never had chance.”

  “Oh, that is a shame. Still, there are plenty more fish in the sea, darling. What about that nice Goth boy with the hair?”

  “He has a boyfriend.”

  Mum’s brow creases. “Really? Well, I never would have guessed.”

  “I think I’m gonna go for a walk,” I say, pushing away my untouched plate.

  On the way out of the caravan, I hear Mum say, “Poor thing.”

  It’s one of those mornings where the sun is struggling behind low mist, the kind where there is a dusting of dew in the grass and you button your cardigan to the neck. There’s a hint of a sunny da
y trying to escape and in need of a little encouragement. The group of Goths in the nearby caravans haven’t woken up yet, but the elderly couple from the disco are power walking around the footpath. I raise a hand to them and say good morning. Then I make my way around our van.

  “’S’up, bitch?” Lacey leaps out from behind the caravan, her image flickering like a flame.

  “Do you want to give me a heart attack?” I ask, rolling my eyes in her direction.

  “Well, that would give me some company in the afterlife,” she says with a grin.

  On most days, even the tough ones, Lacey’s comic relief is just that. A relief. A breath of fresh air. But today, I can’t stand it. I can’t stand her flippancy when I know what is happening all around me.

  “Hey,” she asks. “What’s the matter?”

  That does it for me. I find my voice raising. “What’s the matter? What’s the matter? Well, let’s see shall we? First of all, I have a date with a guy and almost die when a bloody Ferris wheel goes bonkers. Then I get attacked by a ghost on the moors, oh, and almost die again. Then I find out that the guy I’m sort of seeing might be a psycho, and then, on the way home from a stupid ghost walk, I find out that the stupid ghost who tried to murder me, has sent me a creepy message in blood. That’s what’s wrong. Don’t you get it?”

  Lacey’s blue eyes flash. Her image distorts like an un-tuned TV picture. “Amy appeared to you again?”

  “No,” I reply. “She wrote the message but while she was invisible.”

  “Don’t worry, Mares, we’re going to sort this out,” Lacey says. “We’re going to stop her.” She pauses, watching me with slightly narrowed eyes. “There’s something else bothering you, isn’t there? What is it? Is it what I said about Seth?”

  “I don’t think he’s a murderer,” I say.

  “Well, I don’t think we should rule out the possibility—”

  “No,” I repeat, firmer this time. “I don’t think he’s a murderer. Look, you remember how I felt like something was wrong with Dr. Gethen in Magdelena? Well, it’s the opposite with Seth. I know he’s a good person. I know he isn’t capable of murder. It sounds stupid, I get it. I’ve known him a couple of days and that’s it, but it’s more than that. It’s about me. I think I have some sort of power that means I can suss people out. I think my instincts are stronger than most people. I can see badness.”

  “Fine,” she replies.

  “You don’t sound fine,” I say.

  “I thought you’d listen to me, that’s all,” she replies. “I’m serious, you know. Amy recognised Seth and that means he could be dangerous. You shouldn’t see him.”

  “You sound like my dad,” I say with a forced laugh. It’s starting to freak me out how serious Lacey is.

  “Well maybe your dad’s right. You don’t know anything about the guy.” As she gets more and more annoyed with me, her hands begin to flail and her hair lifts from her shoulders. In one heart stopping moment I see a similarity between her and Amy, in the way they move.

  I blink it away and let out a long sigh. “This is silly. We shouldn’t be arguing, we should be figuring out how to stop Amy from killing anyone else. I nearly died out there. She nearly killed—”

  “She nearly killed Seth,” Lacey finishes. “That means we need to look at why she targeted Seth to figure out what happened to her. It might help stop her.”

  “Mary?”

  I turn away from Lacey. I never heard Neil approach me, and now he’s seen me talking to an invisible ghost.

  “Neil,” I breathe. “It’s not how it looks.”

  “Well, it looks like you’re talking to yourself, Mary. Are you all right?” he frowns.

  “Tell him,” Lacey says. “He can take it. I know he can. I’ll show myself to him. He can help us stop Amy.”

  “I don’t know…”

  “You’re still talking to yourself,” Neil says. He keeps a safe distance away, in case I’m crazy enough to be violent. I’ve seen that look before, that keep-the-hell-away-from-me look.

  “Neil, you know how we were talking about Amy’s death, and the fact that she haunts the campsite?” I say, carefully. “Did you mean it? Do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Where is this going?” he says, still keeping his distance.

  “If we go somewhere a little more private, I’ll show you.”

  “Yeah, I’m not too sure about that, Mary. I think public is good, right about now.” He takes a step back.

  Just once, I’d love it if someone gave me the benefit of the doubt, instead of treating me like a damn leper as soon as I act differently to everyone else. There could be a bloke with a gun walking down the street and people would still be more frightened of the unarmed guy talking to himself. Well, you know what? Maybe he has a ghost friend too, or he’s having a bad day, or the voices in his head are actually nice, you know? We’re not all murdering lunatics, us crazies.

  “Please, Neil.”

  He tilts his head, measuring me, weighing the chances of me running him through with a knife.

  “For God’s sake, I weigh like half of you, as if I could hurt you.”

  He sighs. “Fine. But within screaming distance of the campsite.”

  “Agreed. You might be an axe murderer, for all I know.”

  “I’m really not,” he replies.

  I take him near to the abandoned fair. Lacey stays by my side, subdued, her eyes cast down towards her feet. There’s a part of me wondering if she hates Seth because she’s jealous that I’ve found someone. It must be frightening to see anything change in my life, because nothing can change in her life again. She doesn’t even have a life anymore. I can’t help it, the thought is there. How long will it take for her to turn into an Amy?

  And if she does? What will I do?

  “All right,” Neil says. “I get the feeling I’m either going to meet my violent end, or you’re going to show me something that blows my mind. Which is it going to be?”

  “Prepare to have your mind blown,” I say. “Lace, you ready?”

  No witty come back. She must be upset. But she nods, and then closes her eyes to concentrate.

  Instead of watching Lacey I turn towards Neil, so I see the look on his face when he finds out that ghosts are real. I want this to work. I have high hopes that Neil and his death-obsessed friends can help us find out how to get rid of Amy once and for all.

  “Remember last night, when we saw the words appear on the sign?” I say.

  “I half thought that was a dream,” he says.

  “It wasn’t. It was real.”

  Neil jumps backwards when Lacey appears. His foot catches on a clod of dirt and he falls on his bum. I walk towards him and hold out my hand to help him up.

  “What the…? Who’s that?”

  “I’m Lacey,” she says with a small, hard smile on her face. “We’ve already met. Remember that cold chill you got when we were on the ghost walk last night? Yeah, that was me.”

  Neil lets out a breath that’s more like a nervous laugh. “That was… that was… you? You’re… you’re…”

  “A ghost, a spirit, a ghoul… whatever, yeah, that’s me. The dead girl who follows Mary around and inconveniently makes her look like a mental case.” Two cold little eyes turn to me.

  “I’m a mental case anyway. I have the prescription to prove it,” I say.

  “This is…” Neil can’t take his eyes off Lacey. “Can I… If I touched you, would my hand disappear right through?”

  The questions continue for a while. Neil pokes Lacey in the shoulder over and over again, manically giggling every time he feels the electric charge of her ghost form.

  “There’s something… I don’t know, magnetic? Static? Electric? How does it work?”

  “I don’t know,” Lacey says. “Mary doesn’t know, either. And we don’t know any ghosts to ask.”

  “So you see ghosts all the time?” he asks.

  “Only if they choose to be seen, which many of them don’t. I
guess they don’t want to be seen by anyone, not even someone touched by death, like me.”

  “And regular people don’t see anything at all?”

  “I have to concentrate hard to show myself,” Lacey explains.

  “Huh,” Neil says. “And Little Amy, she really exists?”

  “Oh, she exists all right, and she’s nothing like Lace. She’s a monster. She nearly killed me. That was her with the sign. She’s sending me a warning.” I finger my throat. “I’m next.”

  “Why you?”

  I shrug. “I think I know someone she doesn’t like.”

  We tell Neil all about Seth and how he saw Amy and even talked to her. The hairs stick up on the backs of my arms as I relay the story, my heart twisting.

  “I hate to break it to you,” Neil says. “But Lacey is right. Seth has a connection to Amy. There’s a good chance that he could be linked to her death. I’m sorry, Mary, I know you like this guy, but you don’t know anything about him.”

  My skin prickles with the chill.

  “Do you know how to kill a ghost?” I ask him. “I know you guys came here to see Amy. What do you know about ghost hunting? Do you know how to get rid of them? How to send them back to hell, or wherever they come from?”

  “Does hell exist?” He turns to Lacey with his eyes open wide with fear.

  She shrugs. “Maybe. I dunno. I think once you finally let yourself go, you don’t come back. It could be nothingness, for all I know. Maybe I’m nothing but a shadow, an imprint left by my existence. Maybe that’s why it’s all tied to static, to this weird electrical charge. I’m still matter, still functioning, somehow.”

  “Is that how you feel?” I ask, surprised. She’s never revealed those fears before.

  “Kinda,” she admits.

  “But how would your brain work?” Neil says. “If you were an imprint, you wouldn’t be able to think the way you do. You’d be stuck in a loop, forever living out the last moments of your life. No, I think this is your soul, and your soul is controlled by you. As soon as you decide what you want to do, your soul moves on.”