by Peter James
The lights went out.
Right behind them they heard a hideous cackle of laughter.
Jason froze. Then he turned, shining the beam of his torch into the darkness. It lit up the washing machine, the tumble dryer and a stack of laundry awaiting ironing; then the stark terror on Emily’s face.
The laughter cackled again.
He turned the torch back on the fuse box, and again reset the tripped switch.
This time the lights stayed on. For a few seconds.
They clicked off.
Darkness.
Another cackle.
‘We can’t stay here,’ Emily said. ‘We have to get out, now.’
The same malevolent voice rang out. ‘No one ever leaves.’
Emily clutched Jason as a strong gust of wind blew through the room. The door slammed shut behind them.
A scream rang out.
A baby cried.
Another gust of wind, even stronger.
Jason pointed his torch beam at the fuse box and pushed the switch back up.
It clicked straight back down.
A child screamed, followed by another child. Screams of terror.
Then a roaring, crashing, rumbling that sounded like falling masonry.
‘Jason!’ Emily shouted in terror, clutching him.
‘It’s OK, Em.’
‘IT. IS. NOT. FUCKING. OK.’ Emily gripped him even tighter.
They stood still for some moments.
Then everything went quiet. There was a click, and the lights came back on.
Jason looked at the fuse box. The switch that had tripped and had been down was now back up.
Their eyes met. Frightened eyes, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Both trying to find something in each other’s expression. Some explanation. Some comfort.
Jason had a thought. ‘Come with me.’
He raced through to the kitchen and over to the command box. It was plugged back in. On the wall, the television was on. A loud cackle came from it. The camera cut to a petrified young couple, as an old woman, in a blue dress and yellow shoes, with a hideously wrinkled face, glided, like an apparition, towards them.
A child screamed, followed by another child.
From the TV, there was the sound of falling masonry.
The couple onscreen turned and fled.
The old woman following them cackled, ‘No one ever leaves!’
On the screen, the couple reached the front door. It would not open.
The sound of falling masonry grew louder. Louder. The petrified couple looked up and around them.
An instant later they were buried in an avalanche of rubble.
Emily looked at Jason. ‘That was the woman.’
‘The one you saw?’
Looking numb, she nodded. ‘Did she switch the command box back on? Put the plug in?’
Jason had no answer. ‘Maybe one of us did – without realizing it?’
‘Oh sure, I do things without realizing it all the time, don’t you? Come on, get real. Neither of us plugged it back in.’
‘So, the lady on the screen did?’
‘She was standing behind me. Maybe she did.’
Jason looked at his wife. She claimed she hadn’t seen the Reverend Fortinbrass. She had no memory of the police officers turning up. Nor of so much else. Was there something seriously wrong with her? Could it be a brain tumour? Making her act oddly, imagining things – and forgetting so much?
Or was it him? Was he going mad? Was he the one who was imagining things? The accident on the building site? The meeting with the Bishop?
No question, they had both seen the ghost of Caroline Harcourt. But what about everything else Emily said she had no recollection of?
Had she been messing about with the fuse box switch in the darkness? Had she plugged the command box back in?
Instantly, he dismissed that as clutching at straws. And yet, could he dismiss the idea, totally, that Emily was, somehow, very disturbed? Disturbed enough not to have noticed she was filling the freezers with cockroaches?
He really did not want to go there, but what other explanation could he come up with?
Other than the one he did not want to face.
‘Jason,’ she said quietly, calmly. ‘We can’t stay tonight.’
‘Em, look, there’s something wonky with the electrics – a power surge or something – I don’t understand electricity that well. I’ve got to get on with my painting, and you’ve tomorrow to prepare for.’
‘You really think you’re going to concentrate on painting tonight? And that I’m quietly going to beaver away in the kitchen with a harridan standing behind me? There’s nothing wonky with the electrics. It’s not the electrics. The electrics are fine. It’s this house, that’s what’s wonky. We have to get out. You know we do, you’re just in denial.’
‘Fine, and go where?’
‘Anywhere but here. My parents?’
‘I’m not going to your parents.’
‘Why on earth not?’
Because I’d rather deal with a lady in a blue dress with a shrivelled face than have to endure your father’s scorn, he wanted to say.
‘We can come back in the morning, first thing, and get on,’ she said, pleading. ‘I’m scared. I’m really scared. We’ve made a terrible mistake moving here, you know it, too.’
‘Babes, listen. I’m with the Bishop on this one. All the stress we are going through is bringing up echoes from the past – that seems to make sense to me.’ He didn’t dare tell her that, according to the Bishop’s secretary, their meeting never happened.
She stared at him. ‘You are determined to find rational explanations at any cost, aren’t you?’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘You are, accept it. We’ve moved into a seriously haunted and dangerous house. One that does not want us here. You’re in denial.’
‘I’m not in denial. I’ve always had an open mind. We know there’s a dark history to this whole site. I accept that ghosts exist – we’ve both bloody seen at least one. But what I don’t accept is that they can do any harm.’
‘You didn’t see that old woman standing behind me.’
‘You didn’t see the vicar.’
She looked at him and shook her head. ‘Are we going to play some game of tit-for-tat? Come on, we’re grown-ups, this isn’t about who saw what.’
‘I’m not playing games, that’s the last thing I want to do, OK?’
‘Fine. The last thing I want to do is spend tonight here. You can if you want. I’m going, I’m out of here. I’m going to my parents.’
Jason looked at his wife. Saw her resolute expression.
And realized he, too, was more than uncomfortable about the idea of staying here alone.
80
Thursday 27 December
Ten minutes later, with overnight bags hastily packed, and their coats on, they went outside. To Jason’s surprise, the street was deserted. All the emergency vehicles had gone, and the tractor, along with the wrecked purple car and all the police and emergency service workers. Emily’s van was back on the driveway.
It was as if nothing had happened.
‘What the hell?’ Jason said. ‘They’ve cleared this all up PDQ. Who drove your van?’
‘The police asked me to leave the key in it, in case they needed to move it,’ she replied.
‘Well, that was decent of them.’
Across the road, the Penze-Weedells’ house was in darkness. They walked over to Jason’s BMW, and just as they reached it, they heard the swoosh of a car, travelling at speed along Lakeview Drive.
It was a huge Cadillac convertible. At the wheel was a man smoking a cigar, the tip glowing red in the darkness. In the glare of a street light he saw a woman in the passenger seat and the shape of two children in the rear.
Moments later, its tail lights vanished around the corner. But the smell of cigar smoke lingered.
‘I’ve seen that car severa
l times,’ Jason said. ‘The estate agent said it doesn’t ring a bell, but I saw it arriving last week, followed by a removals lorry. I’m sure they’re living on the estate somewhere.’
‘It’s a bit vulgar, don’t you think?’
‘I love those big old Yank tanks!’ Jason said. ‘That’s a Cadillac Eldorado. It would make a great painting, the whole family in it, excited to be arriving at their new home – don’t you think?’
‘Mr and Mrs Flash-Vulgar,’ she said.
‘Too bad about the Penze-Weedells – I’m sure they would have ended up besties with these people.’ He pressed his key fob to unlock the BMW’s doors. To his surprise, nothing happened.
He pressed again.
Nothing.
‘Shit, the battery must have gone.’ He put the key in the lock, instead, and twisted it. There was a brief moment of reluctance, then the door locks released.
They climbed in. Jason was a little puzzled that the interior lights had not come on. He pushed the start button.
Nothing happened.
He tried again. A weak click from under the bonnet, then nothing. And again.
‘Shit, a flat battery. What’s caused that?’
‘Shall we try mine?’ Emily hurried out of the BMW and over to her van. She tried opening the door, but it was locked. ‘Don’t say they’ve taken the key? Bloody idiots.’
‘Your spare’s in the hall drawer.’
She opened her handbag and removed the house keys – and frowned.
‘The key’s here, on my key ring.’
‘I thought you left it in the van.’
‘So did I. I must have . . .’ She frowned again. ‘I’m certain I left it in the ignition.’
‘Maybe you took it out by mistake.’
‘And they pushed the van here? Wouldn’t the steering lock have been on?’
‘Yup, well, the police have tools for getting into cars, I imagine.’
She pressed the key fob to unlock the doors. Just like with the BMW, nothing happened. She unlocked it manually, got in and tried to start the engine.
The battery in this vehicle was dead, too.
‘What’s going on?’ she said.
Jason, standing in the street, was looking around warily.
‘Both cars can’t have flat batteries, Jason.’ Her voice was on a knife edge. ‘How can that happen?’
‘Maybe there was some kind of electrical surge that’s knocked them both out?’ he reasoned.
‘And this surge somehow plugged back in our command box? And fried your brain in the process?’
He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket. ‘I’ll find a taxi company.’
But as he brought the screen alive and tapped on the Google app, he frowned. The screen went black.
‘Em, can you try yours, I’m out of power.’
She took her phone out of her bag and tapped the screen. Then tapped it again. ‘Dead,’ she said. ‘It’s dead. How’s that possible? Bloody battery life on this thing – I charged it this afternoon.’
‘Let’s try the landline.’
They went back inside and through to the kitchen, where the cordless phone sat in its base station.
It was dead, too.
81
Thursday 27 December
Jason plugged his phone into the mains charger. After a short while, a red line appeared on the screen. Seconds later it vanished, to be replaced by two digits.
60
They were static.
‘What the fuck?’ he said.
‘Who are you talking to?’ she asked, jumpily.
He stared at the screen. 60.
Sixty what?
He felt clammy, a sick feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. The sense that someone – or something – intensely malign was watching him. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.
There was a distinct click. The sound of the front door opening. Someone walking in.
‘Hello? Who’s that?’ Emily called.
Jason followed her out of the kitchen. The front door was wide open and a bitterly cold wind tore through the hall. He hurried over and slammed the door shut. ‘Must have not closed it properly when we came . . .’
He stopped, realizing the wind wasn’t coming from outside. It was inside. A howling gale, as if every door and window in the house was wide open. It rippled their clothes, tore at the roots of their hair. Panic-stricken, Emily’s eyes darted in every direction.
Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the wind died, completely.
They stood still, staring at each other in bewilderment.
‘What was that?’ she asked.
He shook his head. He didn’t know, he really did not know. He went through into the living room to check the windows, but they were all shut. They were shut in all the other rooms he looked in. How much more, he wondered, silently, could either of them take?
‘I’ll try online, see if I can get a taxi that way,’ he said, and headed up to his studio. Emily followed close behind, her hands gripping his waist all the way up.
He sat at his desk and tried to log on. But the computer wouldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi. The curves of the black fan symbol chased up and down repeatedly, hunting for a connection. Suddenly the room was plunged into darkness.
Emily shrieked.
It had gone dark out in the street, too. Pitch dark.
Jason looked out of the window. ‘The street lights have gone off. There must be a power cut.’
‘Shit!’ Emily said. ‘No, it can’t be – what about all the food in the fridge? All my prawns will be ruined.’
‘They’ll stay cold for several hours, won’t they?’
‘For a few hours, so long as I keep the door shut. Oh shit, shit, shit.’
‘The power will be on quickly.’
‘Oh yes? We’ve not had a power cut here before. What if it’s not back on in a few hours? Do you have any idea what that would mean? We can’t even phone the electricity company to find out what’s happening. If I could start my van, I could switch the refrigeration on in that and put them there for the night, they’d be fine. But I can’t do that. We should have bought a generator – I did think about it.’
‘A bit late for that.’
‘Yes. And now we’re totally trapped.’
‘We’re not trapped. We can walk down to the village. We’ll phone for a taxi from the pub – or the RAC, get them to start your van, then we can put the prawns in.’
‘What if the power’s out there, too?’
‘I’m sure they’ll have a landline, and the landlord’s a helpful guy.’
‘Anything’s better than staying here in the dark, with a fucking ghost wandering around.’
Holding hands and using his torch, they carefully descended the spiral staircase, carried on down into the hall and out of the front door.
‘Got the key?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
Jason closed the door behind them. A strong, cold wind had suddenly got up, and a gust, as ferocious as the one in the house, blasted them, as if it had followed them out. A tarpaulin in the front garden of the half-built house next door was flapping noisily. As they walked along the pavement, still guided by Jason’s torch beam, they both smelled the strong aroma of cigar smoke. A short distance along, on the other side of the road, there was a red glow.
Jason pointed the beam across and saw the silhouette of a man, standing beneath an unlit street light, smoking a cigar.
‘Hi!’ he called out.
There was no response.
He tried to step out into the road, but Emily held him back. ‘Jason, careful, who is he?’
In a lowered voice Jason answered, ‘Must be the chap Maurice Penze-Weedell was talking about, who he always sees on his evening constitutional. Hi!’ he repeated.
Again, there was no response.
‘Any idea how long this power cut is going to last?’ Jason called out, louder, to the stranger.
No response again.
‘Jason!’ she cautioned. Then louder, ‘Jason!’
As he reached the far side, a shiver ripped through him.
There was no one there.
He looked up and down the street. No one.
No smell of a cigar.
‘Jason!’ Emily cried out.
He turned, confused and alarmed, and hurried back over to her. ‘He – he’s vanished.’
‘Please can we go? Please?’ She began striding off at a fast pace and he had to step up his own to keep up with her.
‘We have to get out of here,’ she said.
‘He just – vanished,’ he said, finally catching her up.
‘If he was ever there.’
‘We both saw him.’
She said nothing, just kept walking, staring doggedly ahead. After a few minutes they reached the entrance to the estate, and turned left, down the hill towards the village.
The lights in all the houses down the hill were also off.
‘The joys of country living,’ Jason said. ‘Eh?’
‘I’m not finding too many joys.’
The wind was blowing even stronger now, a full-scale gale, and they were having to lean into it, struggling to walk against it. Almost, Jason thought – knowing how irrational it was – as if the wind was trying to push them back to the house. His hair was being torn painfully from the roots and he wished he’d thought to wear a hat or baseball cap. Emily reached in her pocket and tied a scarf around her head. A tin can rolled along, clattering loudly, blown across the lane in front of them. Leaves scudded, twigs and small branches skittered across their path.
‘Listen, Em, it’s going to be OK, I promise. We’ll be looking back at all this one day, soon, and laughing about it.’
‘We will? It’s never going to stop, is it? The house hates us, it wants us to leave.’
‘No, it doesn’t. Trust me, Em, it wants us to stay.’
‘Trust you?’
He stopped and turned her, gently, to face him. Staring into her eyes in the darkness, with the faint glow of his torch, he said, ‘We love each other and that’s all that matters. We’re strong together. Remember our wedding vows? To have and to hold, for better, for worse . . .?’
She just stared at him.
