The Future of Horror

by Jonathan Oliver

  She pretended to be taking in the room but she was really taking in Suzy out of the corner of her eye, in her smart dry-cleaned business suit and shirt, top button undone, healthy tan and glowing good looks, her sun-loving glow, lush nut-brown hair swept from that side parting, draped over one eyebrow. It made her think how sickeningly pale she herself was, with her too-long body and too-short legs stuck in ugly running shoes instead of the polished high heels Suzy wore, showing off her shapely calves.

  “How long has this house been on the market?”

  “A week.”

  “Has there been any interest?”

  “A bit.” Suzy grinned cheekily. The grin said: I’m bound to say that, aren’t I? I’m not going to tell you nobody else is interested, am I? I’m doing my job. You know the game.

  Miriam had started to give her surroundings the once over and wasn’t impressed. Everything was dark. Dark wood, dark carpets. Never the taste of anybody born since 1970, she thought. Perhaps it was an old person’s house. An Asian family. She didn’t know why she thought that, but there was the smell of cooking in the air, curry perhaps, from next door even, or was it the long ingrained smell of dog? Wet dog?

  A nail stuck out of the wall where a painting once hung. What kind of painting? And where was it now? Sold? Sold so that someone could eat? So that a mother could feed her children? She wondered what else had been removed. Where were the owners anyway? Where were the signs of them? There should be children playing, toys, something. Even the absence was an absence...

  Miriam rubbed her arms, eager to move on. “Right.”

  “Right, Mrs Lehr... Upstairs? It is Mrs Lehr?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Hadn’t she noticed her wedding ring? Women usually did. It was the first thing they noticed. But then, that’s no guarantee you want to be called Mrs, is it? There were plenty of married women who wanted to be called Ms. There were plenty who retained their maiden name, too. Probably thinking they were hanging on to their beloved ‘independence,’ but to Miriam it sounded non-committal, like clinging onto their old name was an escape plan, a glider in the attic.

  She climbed the stairs behind the estate agent, noticing her calves again. Perfect. Muscular. Not rugger-player’s legs like hers, as her husband called them. Miriam was mesmerised for a few minutes by the way her ankles rose out of the high heels, leaving a little gap as she went from step to step, and by the way her slim hips jutted gently from side to side.

  “This is the master bedroom. Nice size, again,” Suzy said. “How long have you been married, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Not long. Only six months.” Miriam followed her into a room with heavy net curtains over two large windows. The filtered sunlight fell on a large double bed with cheap, ungenerous pillows and a hideously drab duvet which Miriam tried to blank out of her consciousness. She wondered how long ago the bed had been made. That morning? Had the man lain sweating against the pillow? Had they made love? Perhaps – ghastly thought – the stains were still under there, drying...

  “Oh. That’s nice. So you’re still quite newly-fangled?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Newly-fangled. With each other?”

  “Oh, no. Not really. We’ve known each other for a while. About four years, in fact. We know each other well. He used to live in a flat with some other blokes and I used to live with my mum and dad.”

  “So this is your first home together? Lovely.”

  “No, I won’t be staying here. Not a lot. Maybe occasionally, if we come up for the theatre and we can’t get a late train back, sort of thing. But mainly it’s for my husband, you see...”

  “Lovely.”

  Miriam looked at the flowers on the bedside table and felt sure they were the work of the estate agent in a vain attempt to brighten up the place. It didn’t quite work, but it was a gesture. Suzy was good at her job, and she cared, that was obvious. Miriam wondered if she did those little touches in her own home. Wondered if she had a husband or boyfriend – windsurfer – tanned, successful, waiting for her when she got home from work and kicked off those high heels and rested those perfect calves.

  “We have a cottage in the country,” Miriam said. “Near a place called Marshfield, just off the M4. That’s our main home.”

  “Sounds gorgeous,” Suzy cooed, interlocking her fingers and raising her shoulders to her ears. “Does it have a thatched roof and stuff and roses round the door, and a pond with ducks in?”

  “Not quite.” Miriam laughed. “But there are ducks within walking distance.”

  “Waddling distance.”

  “Feeding distance. Just a stream. It’s a nice little routine we’ve got into, throwing breadcrumbs to them on the way to getting our paper in the morning.”

  “Now I’m envious,” Suzy said.

  “Well, Rollo got to the stage in his career he wanted to move out of London. We both did. For our sanity, he said. But he still needs somewhere to lay his head during the week. Just a pied-à-terre. You can’t commute a two-hour trip each way, every day, can you? That’s asking for trouble.”

  “Absolutely.” Suzy smiled a big smile like she’d forgotten about doing so and suddenly realised the fact. “Bathroom?”

  Miriam followed.

  “You’ll miss him during the week, though.”

  “I will. Of course I will, but this is more about creating quality time together, as a couple. That’s our priority. That’s what we’ve talked about. That’s our plan.”

  “Lovely.”

  Suzy opened the door to the bathroom and Miriam stepped inside a box-like room with brown cork-tile walls and an avocado bath and sink.

  The colour combination she found massively claustrophobic, and the window, daubed opaque with gloss paint – (so badly done, look, God, not even neatly done) – conspired to make her feel vaguely, definitely trapped. What’s more, the boiler in the airing cupboard, she was sure, was physically pulsating, the heat a Mecca for bedbugs. The combination of which meant the nausea she’d experienced earlier welled up again, the unwelcome pulsing in her forehead back with a vengeance. Searing, this time. Unrelenting. Her skin tightened across the front of her head...

  Ka-chunk!

  What was that? What was it?

  Then, hush... a kind of hushing, pitter-patter...

  Her head twisted round, almost cricking her neck.

  She stared wide-eyed at the sink. At the taps.

  “What’s that noise?” Miriam said.

  “What noise? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “You did. You must have. It was really loud. Like something turning on somewhere. A clunk.”

  Suzy slowly shook her head, mouth downturned at the edges.

  “Like a tap running. It’s stopped now,” Miriam said.

  “I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t hear a thing. Honestly.”

  Miriam stepped closer to the sink and vigorously turned both taps on full.

  Stupid. What are you like, eh? Stupid!

  She took a deep breath and fluttered her fingers quickly under the water and wiped her cheeks. Reaching out, she covered her face with a towel that was old and hard and cheap and past its best, then quickly put it back on its rail. The ghost of a towel. A shroud.

  She turned the taps off again. Clunk.

  “I’m sorry. I...”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t know what I...”

  “Don’t worry,” Suzy said, smiling. “Onward and upward?”

  Miriam nodded. “Please.”

  Following, she pressed the index finger of her right hand against the place that was now agony on her forehead, holding it there and massaging it the way Astrid, her friend the aromatherapist, did.

  “Just the central heating, I expect,” Suzy said. “I put it on boost to take the chill off. It’s probably just the pipes expanding, that’s all.”

  “Rollo says I’m too jittery. Too jump
y by half. He tells me to calm down. But I can’t help it.”

  “Of course you can’t.”

  Miriam listened to the silence of the house, and she wasn’t sure whether that pleased her or made her more nervous. She wasn’t entirely sure anything would put her at ease now, because as she followed the estate agent up the stairs to the top floor, the air seemed to become thinner and hotter, all the fresh air and life sucked out. Shroud, she thought again. Ghost, she thought again – and tried to rid herself of those words, and those thoughts, but they wouldn’t go away.

  And anyway, why did Suzy have to boost the heating? Did the family no longer live here? Had they absconded? Fled? What makes a person flee? A family, flee?

  “This could make a nice office. For Rollo,” Suzy said, walking towards the grimy Roman blinds covering the attic window. “Desk here, overlooking the street. His space. His den.”

  Miriam tried to see the glass-topped trestle table, right there. Tried to see Rollo’s laptop, open, on top of it.

  “How did you meet?”

  “Whuh?”

  “You and your husband.”

  “Oh. In work. We worked together. Venom Records. I was in the accounts department. Boring. He was on the management side. Much more impressive.” Miriam’s mobile phone emitted a bleep and she delved into her handbag to fish it out.

  “I thought that was him now, but it isn’t.” Her eyes narrowed as she thumbed the tiny keys. “I don’t recognise the number. Probably someone trying to sell me something...” She switched it off and put it back in the dark where it belonged.

  “So you don’t need to be in London, too?”

  “No, I was made redundant. No, I was happy about it. I’ll get a job locally,” Miriam said. “In a shop or a garden centre or the pub... I’m not bothered...”

  Then, again, just as she’d begun to forget it, tooth-achy pain spread up her brow and across her scalp like running water seeping along fissures... along unsheathed nerves... she felt as though her skull was open to the elements, to the dark.

  Tsch-tsch-tsch-tsch...

  “Are those footsteps?”

  Suzy turned to look at her with a frown deeply etched on her face.

  “I’m sure they are. Listen. Footsteps. Downstairs!”

  Suzy kept staring at her. The frown didn’t go away.

  Don’t be stupid. You’re imagining things. You imagine things.

  Miriam flinched. Shut her eyes. Tried to stiffen, straighten her back.

  “Mrs Lehr? Miriam?”

  She couldn’t look at Suzy any more. She couldn’t stay in the room any more. It was crushing in on her, like a great cement block pressing down on her head. Some rollercoaster was doing a figure of eight inside her. Some wave was coming up through her chest and she had the terrible feeling that when it hit she was going to collapse, and she feared that, feared it desperately and ran from it – ran from the room.

  Gulping air, she hung onto the chest of drawers on the landing as if it were a piece of driftwood.

  “Are you all right, Mrs Lehr?”

  “Yes, I’m all right.” Miriam closed her eyes again, tighter this time. “I’m being silly. I’m always being silly...”

  “Why do you say that? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Look, I don’t like the feel of this house.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t. I really don’t. I don’t like it. There’s something about it. I can’t explain. I don’t have to explain! I don’t think it’s what we’re looking for. At all, actually! I’m sorry...”

  “Well, maybe a studio flat might be more suitable? More in your price range?” She wished Suzy would leave it, just leave it, just shut up. “We’ve certainly got some of those on our books. Perhaps if you came in with your husband...”

  “No. No! – you don’t understand...”

  “Well, this is a big decision for you to make all on your own...”

  “I know! I know, all on my own. But I have to!” She could tell how pathetic that sounded. Knew how pathetic it was. She was. “You can’t possibly...”

  She looked into Suzy’s eyes and Suzy waited for her to speak. Why did she wait like that? Why was she even interested, this beautiful girl – interested in her?

  “You see, the thing is, the thing is I’ve got to get this right. It has to be the right decision, for us as a couple. It has to be. I don’t want to get it wrong because... because I always get things wrong.” Miriam felt her lower lip quivering. “I know it probably sounds pathetic to you, but you’re not me and it’s different for you and I want to please him, for once. I want him to be pleased with me. I want him to say, ‘Good girl, brilliant.’ I want him to go, ‘My god, if I was there that’s exactly what I would’ve done.’ Not...” Why the hell did you do that? You idiot! Can’t I trust you, ever? Can’t you do anything?

  Miriam caught her own breath in a gasp.

  Not wanting to let it out. The words. The thought, even.

  She felt Suzy’s hand on her shoulder, on the muscle just beside her neck, pressing where it hurt. Where everything hurt. And felt the heat lifting, the soreness cooling. But still she couldn’t open her eyes. Maybe it was the only way to say things, when she couldn’t see the world, any of it. Just...

  “He’s not always like that, but sometimes...” Miriam said, wiping her eyes with the heel of one hand. “And I’m not always a moron, but I am sometimes... I know I am, and I don’t blame him for getting irate. And when he’s irate he loses it and words come out and I know he doesn’t mean them. Not really.” She gulped on her inhale and shuddered. “Why am I saying this? God...”

  Suzy’s fingers squeezed, but she said nothing.

  “Most of the times it’s okay because I know he loves me. Most of the time...”

  Bang!

  Suddenly Miriam’s head exploded, hit by a fist. Her eyes sprang open, glazed, pupils contracting with terror into pin-pricks. Her breath, caught between an exhale and an inhale, knotted in her throat. A metal rod shafted through her spinal cord, lifting her to her feet.

  The door had slammed.

  The door downstairs. The front door.

  “What was that?”

  “Mrs Lehr?”

  She swung round to look at Suzy, but Suzy just stared at her. Of course she did. What did she hear? Nothing.

  “Miriam?”

  The naked light bulb hanging over the stairwell went off.

  Ghost!

  She held her breath. She felt her bladder loosen. A squirt like acid inside. In some organ inside her. Some substance. Some poison wanting to get out. Please.

  Just as suddenly the light bulb came on again.

  Then off. Then on again.

  Please!

  She bleated. Pulse pounding.

  “Miriam, what is it? You’re frightening me. Say something.”

  But she didn’t. Couldn’t.

  Instead she toppled, caught herself, stumbling, ran downstairs – almost leaping the entire first flight of steps and risking breaking her ankle in the process. But she wasn’t even thinking about that. She was thinking about the dog-smell that was back, and the nail in the wall, and the absent picture, and the absent family, and careering down the next flight –

  Clinging to the banister rail because her feet were hardly touching the floor now –

  Swinging round the newel post, not even letting the half open door to the master bedroom (smelly duvet, net curtains, bed bugs) catch her eye. Didn’t want anything catching her eye, ears, nose, throat, senses, brain, especially brain –

  Desperate to get to the front door, desperate to find the front door and open it and be free –

  She was there.

  She could see it.

  The front door, closed – as she knew it would be, must be – with day, sunlight, life beyond.

  She ran towards it – please! – hands stretched out with fingers splayed in front of her until they found the wood, spidering to the Chubb, the lock, the s
nib – all that now stood between her and –

  Ka-chunk!

  Again!

  She froze. Turned. Back to the door, the Chubb, the snib.

  Eyes pulled open. Eyes unable to close.

  Staring down the tunnel of malignant wallpaper – turning the narrow passage at the kink at the electricity meter, down one step – back into the kitchen (where she hadn’t set foot!), lit from the yard (what yard?) where she could see her...

  Nail... Family... Shroud...

  Ghost!

  Oh, Jesus Christ!

  A man bent over the sink – twenties, overweight, puppy-fat, paunch – head arched in profile, eyes unblinking, staring down at the running tap. Holding up a spoon and looking at it. Polishing it on his sleeve and looking at it again – and looking through it, past it – at her.

  Oh, Christ!

  The ghost lowered the spoon.

  She felt pee ooze into her knickers. And she thought, don’t let me be afraid. I don’t mind dying, God. Dying is fine: just don’t let me be afraid...

  “Mrs Lehr?”

  The young man placed the spoon on the stainless steel draining board and wiped his hands on his jacket. He walked towards her in a shuffling motion. A little gawky, she thought. A gawky ghost. His long-toed winkle-pickers – all the rage recently – clicking on the tiled floor.

  Tsch-tsch-tsch-tsch...

  He took her hand and shook it.

  “I heard a voice upstairs. I was starting to get a bit spooked, to be honest. I thought the house was empty. What time do you make it?” He looked at his watch. “Only, when you weren’t here on time I phoned the office. Couldn’t get a signal indoors, so I went up the street. Is something wrong?”

  Miriam walked past him to the staircase and stood with her back to him. Suzy hadn’t followed her down.

  “In the time I was out, you came in. Obviously,” the young man said. “I wondered why the lights were on. They tried to phone you, by the way, the office, did they?” Miriam didn’t answer and hadn’t moved. “My name’s Olly, by the way.”