by Gary Fry
Everything felt good…but after getting home later that afternoon, they discovered they’d been burgled.
——
No, not burgled, after all.
Ian had yet to tell his family about the incident with the hire car, and after entering the lounge, he also tried preventing them from witnessing all the destruction in their home. Before the police arrived, he persuaded Sally to takeVanessa out again until he’d sorted out much of the mess. He watched them drive away—both bearing fretful expressions—and an hour later, a panda pulled up outside the house. There was no sign in the neighbourhood of the hooligans who’d surely caused this damage.
While Ian wondered why he was being targeted by vandals in such a peaceful area, one of the two constables asked, “So what’s been stolen?” Ludicrously, Ian’s first thought was about the data from his research project. For ethical reasons, it was supposed to be locked away at all times and now he realised that he’d failed to do that. But then he pushed aside this concern; it was surely his family’s property he ought to focus on.
Following a brief inventory of the house, however, he discovered that nothing obvious was missing. The TV’s screen had been smashed and many of their cabinets damaged, but everything remained where it had once stood in the lounge. The kitchen bore similar evidence: uncooked morsels of food were splayed across the floor, but everything else was still in place. Upstairs, the beds looked as if they’d been bounced on violently and there was a maelstrom of sheets on each. Nevertheless, the damage here was more restrained than on the ground floor.
Ian hurried back down to the police officers, and soon found himself fielding more awkward questions.
“So you let yourselves inside by unlocking the front door, sir?”
“That’s right. ”
“And the back door is locked, too?”
“Yes, I just tried it. ”
“And none of the windows has been opened or broken?”
“None that I can see. ”
The constable stared at him. “All this makes me wonder how the perps got inside, sir. Do you see where I’m tending with this?”
Did the man think this was some slipshod insurance scam? Maybe Ian should show him his university ID card or his PhD certificate. Either might demonstrate how financially stable and socially responsible he was.
In the event, he did neither of these things, because the other constable had just located, on a high shelf, one of the horror magazines in which Ian had published a tale. It had a hideous monster on its cover.
“Is this you, sir?” asked the woman, pointing at the name under one of this creature’s lethal-looking claws.
“Er, yes, that’s me, ” he replied, feeling foolish and guilty. He wanted to explain that his fiction bore no resemblance to the gaudy portraits chosen by editors to draw a wider readership which preferred gore to subtlety. But what would be the point?
The other officer—looking at Ian, while speaking to his colleague— then added, “We could tell you some scary stories, believe me. ”
The implication seemed to be that invented terrors were incomparable to the real horrors involved in everyday life. Ian was well aware of this observation about his field, but was also keen to point out that he didn’t write the kind of work unrelated to episodes no doubt experienced by these worldly constables. His job also involved a similar recourse to the darker side of life, and he thought he’d maybe draw more on this in his future fiction…
It was hardly the right time to reflect on such issues, however; he had the house to tackle before his wife and daughter returned.
Once the police had departed with a promise to be in touch soon, Ian began tidying up. This was no easy task; most of their electrical goods would need replacing, while countless fragments of ornaments were scattered across the carpets. It was peculiar that items located higher up—his many publications, framed photos, a few mirrors—had been left untouched. Had the assailants been short in stature…children, perhaps? Whatever the truth was, there’d surely been more than one intruder; the house looked as if it had hosted nothing less than a group rampage.
An hour later, Ian heard the family car pull into the drive, and at that moment he chanced upon the thing he’d first considered after being questioned about the burglary: his laptop bearing his digital recordings.
The files onscreen were now disordered, the one he’d uploaded into his transcription software no longer there. Another recording had taken its place, and Ian immediately activated the Play icon.
Then, as the front door opened and his family entered, he discovered that the voice on this recording was that of the last person he’d interviewed during his latest fieldwork trip: the woman with the dead autistic son.
——
“Do we know anyone with a key to our house?” Ian asked his wife later, once they’d put their daughter to bed. The girl had been distressed by the disorder in her home, and coupled with her nightmare recently, had refused to be left alone until tiredness had got the better of her.
Ian and Sally were now in their bedroom, having locked the house’s doors and every window. The evening outside crept with stealthy sounds: a breeze blowing, trees whipping, animals at work in grubby hedges.
Then Sally replied. “Not to my knowledge. Unless of course somebody has made an imprint of yours or mine and had another cut. ”
Ian had considered this possibility: perhaps an enterprising teenager at university had sought to supplement his or her meagre student loan…But that explanation was problematic, of course: nothing had been stolen. The case was genuinely puzzling.
“Whatever the truth is, I’m going to arrange to work from home next week, ” he explained while clambering under the sheets. “And I’ll take Vanessa to school and pick her up each day. ”
His wife nodded, clearly as concerned as he was, but what she said next startled him. “I know it’s a dangerous world, Ian, but we can’t keep Nessy locked up forever. ”
Ian was reminded of his interviewee’s parting comment about the death of her child: It appals me to say so, but maybe that was for the best. It was no kind of life, really …However, the two women’s sentiments were poles apart, one arising from sensible parenting and the other from despair.
Struggling for sleep once the light went out, Ian was unable to avoid thinking about the recording he’d found on his laptop. It was as if whoever had caused all the damage today had done so in the hope of making just a single point: Tell my story. The world needs to hear it, and you’re in a position to relate it to people…so do what you’re paid to do.
After eventually nodding off, he dreamed of things more frightening than any spook he’d ever invented.
——
After an uneasy night, Ian spent the following day working on a new tale for an American anthology whose uncomplicated theme was were-wolves. He’d tried to prise in thematic material concerning the multiplicity of human experience, but felt limited by the expectations of the market, which commonly involved straightforward storytelling with plenty of gore and shocks.
The recording awaiting transcription troubled him, interfering with his feeble attempt to elucidate life in prose. He refused to succumb to nebulous ideas stirring at the back of his mind, however. There were no such things as hauntings; that was silly, foolish, nonsense. Maybe this was why the material he was writing about failed to inspire him.
“Oh, just get on with it, ” he instructed himself, and then returned his attention to his story. Weekends were the only time he got to write and he was damned if he’d sacrifice that, too. He deserved some kind of life outside of his job. He wanted to be an author rather than an academic; he could surely still make a difference to the world if allowed to produce worthy literary material.
Later, after composing another few thousand words that stubbornly refused to come to life, somebody crept up behind him—a child, he thought in an intuitively alarming way.
After turning on his stool, however, he saw only Vanessa
, her face beaming with healthy mischievousness. Sally stood behind her, complicit in their daughter’s sneaky game. The ruined house was a shadow of its previous incarnation; Ian was unable to contact the insurance company until tomorrow. But that was okay; the three of them had each other, and what else mattered?
There were no more inexplicable events that day…well, at least none until it grew dark.
——
“Mummy! Daddy! He’s here again. ”
It took Ian only seconds to reach his daughter’s room and Sally wasn’t far behind. After slapping on the light, he saw Vanessa sitting up in bed…and a darker figure—like the girl’s negative in a photograph— lurking beside her. But then he rubbed his eyes and looked again. The shape he’d spotted on the pale duvet was something else, yet no less disturbing in its implications.
He went to his daughter, stooping in front of her disordered pillows. “Vanessa, did you bring this up here? What have I told you about playing with Daddy’s things? They’re for work and if they get messed up, we won’t…well, we won’t be able to afford all the nice things we’re used to, will we?”
His argument had floundered, because he’d recalled how many of their possessions had been destroyed yesterday. When Ian’s wife came to crouch beside them, however, he realised there’d been one item within reach of a short person that hadn’t been damaged: his laptop.
And this was now rested on the sheets of his daughter’s bed, as if someone had emerged from a nearby hidey-hole—maybe the wardrobe standing in one shadowy corner of the room—and left the gadget here, in the hope of it being found by someone significant: Ian Withers, Research Fellow in sociology, a man with significant responsibilities.
——
After walking Vanessa to school the following morning, Ian returned home slowly, mulling over the pattern of his life.
He’d been a shy child, preferring books and a close circle of friends to fashion, parties and consumerism. He’d always been well-behaved and had excelled in his studies, making both his parents proud. A-levels were followed by a degree in sociology. He’d chosen this subject because he’d always been interested in people, a consequence perhaps of all the novels he’d also enjoyed reading. But why was he attracted to the horror field? Ah, there was the key question…
Approaching his house, Ian speculated that being habitually withdrawn from life had possibly resulted in his preferred reading matter. This was not to say that he enjoyed violent or gratuitous fiction; rather, that the central tenet of his chosen genre involved darkness, pitiful facts of social life, existential travails, and other subterraneous material. The same subconscious forces had possibly guided his choice of career…but he didn’t want to pursue this now, did he?
Did he?
A child—probably a boy—was hanging around the end of Ian’s lane. He was small and scruffy, no doubt a resident of the nearby council estate. Had this been one of the gang that had wrecked Ian’s house? Devilment was etched all over his distant expression, even though he appeared to be grinning malignantly. The sight forced Ian to face up to a restless truth lingering at the heart of him.
He advanced quickly up his garden path, ready to finish not the tale with which he’d been struggling yesterday, but to give the spook—a phantom far worse than any he could imagine—what it both wanted and deserved.
——
Among the mother’s comments was this:
“So it was just constant battles all the time, you know, and it wears you out; it wears you out mentally, and it wears you out physically. You become ill. You’re rundown all the time. ”
And this:
“We had to watch what we bought and where things were put. So my cupboards were not normal compared to your cupboards, because you did have to watch him. ”
And this:
“What we tended to say was that our son didn’t suffer with the autism, because he had no idea;he was in cuckoo land, you know, much as I loved him to death, but realistically he had no idea. It was us who suffered from the autism, you know. My husband had a nervous breakdown because he just couldn’t cope with it; he couldn’t accept our son and he couldn’t handle him. So finally, before the…accident, he left us. ”
And this:
“If I’d given it up, then autism would have completely taken over my life, you know, and that little bit of fight that you have left in you…well, it’s like I would not allow that to happen. ”
And this:
“I’d just got to breaking point, and I phoned social services and asked, ‘Can you just take him out, can someone take him for a couple of hours?’The answer was always basically no. So I got to breaking point and I phoned them and I said to them, ‘You have two hours to come up with some sort of thing to help me, ’ I said, ‘I’m bringing him down to your office and I’m leaving him there because I cannot cope with him any more with no help. ’You imagine how bad you would have to be to phone social services to say take my child because you can’t cope. ”
And much more.
——
When the typing was finished, Ian was crying.
And yet determined.
——
There were no more disturbances in the Withers’ home from that day forwards.
——
Ian never did start the horror novel he’d plotted as a young man. He’s now a Professor of Social Work at the University of Leeds. His wife works as a full-time foster carer, and their daughter, Vanessa Hooper, recently gave birth to a disabled son.
The unfortunate boy is in good hands.
SHADES OF NOTHINGNESS
Copyright © 2013 by GARY FRY
The right of GARY FRY to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Originally published in printed book form by PS Publishing Ltd in 2013. This electronic version published in September 2015 by PS by arrangement with the author. All rights reserved by the author.
FIRST EBOOK EDITION
ISBN 978-1-84863-340-7
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“Out of Time” first appeared in Subtle Edens: The Elastic Book of Slipstream (Elastic Press, 2008). “Abolisher of Roses” first appeared as a standalone chapbook, Spectral II (Spectral Press, 2011). “The Lurker” first appeared in TerrorTales of the Cotswolds (Gray Friar Press, 2012). “Fragment of Life” first appeared in Nemonymous 9 (2009). “The Jilted Bride of Windermere” first appeared in Terror Tales of the Lake District (Gray Friar Press, 2011). “Mother’s Pride” first appeared in The Monster Book for Girls (Exaggerated Press, 2012). “Behind the Screen” first appeared in Black Book of Horror 8 (Mortbury Press, 2010). “The Pincers” is original to this collection. “The Demons of New Street” is original to this collection. “Adam in Amber” first appeared in Postscripts 22/23 (PS Publishing). “Keeping it in the Family” first appeared in Black Book of Horror 6 (Mortbury Press, 2010). “The Way of the World” first appeared in Darker Minds (Dark Minds Press, 2012). “Double Space” first appeared in Terror Tales of East Anglia (Gray Friar Press, 2012). “Biofeedback” is original to this collection. “Strings Attached” first appeared in Nemonymous 10 (2010). “With Friends like These” is original to this collection. “The Careless Companion” is original to this collection.
PS Publishing Ltd
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Contents
SHADES OF NOTHINGNESS
Introduction to
OUT OF TIME
ABOLISHER OF ROSES
THE LURKER
FRAGMENT OF LIFE
THE JILTED BRIDE OF WINDERMERE
MOTHER’S PRIDE
BEHIND THE SCREEN
THE PINCERS
THE DEMONS OF NEW STREET
ADAM IN AMBER
KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY
THE WAY OF THE WORLD
DOUBLE SPACE
BIOFEEDBACK
STRINGS ATTACHED
WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE
THE CARELESS COMPANION
SHADES OF NOTHINGNESS
