The House

by Eden Darry

  “Right. His car was spotted on CCTV near your old house.”

  Fin felt the rage build. She licked her lips. “He’s still after Sadie then.” She stood and began to pace because she couldn’t sit down.

  “We have no reason to believe he knows your new address, and he’ll slip up at some point.”

  “He hasn’t so far,” Fin shot back.

  “London alone has tens of thousands of CCTV cameras. There’s no way he can go anywhere in the city—in the country, for that matter—undetected for long. After he attacked you, Ms. Tate, we have strong evidence to show he went to Spain. We caught him coming off a ferry from France at Dover using a false passport. We used CCTV to track him to South London, where he lives. We’ve got his picture out to every traffic patrol and every station. We will find him sooner rather than later.”

  To Fin’s surprise, Sadie reached over and took Helen Lyle’s hand. “Thank you. I know you will.”

  “So what do we do in the meantime?” Fin asked, feeling calmer. If Sadie wasn’t going to flip out, then nor would she.

  “With your permission, I’d like to put a car outside your house on the lane. I see you’ve had an alarm installed, and I’d like you to make sure you use that every night. Like I said, we don’t have any reason to believe he knows where you live now. But it’s best to be cautious.”

  “You said you caught him hanging around our old house?” Fin asked.

  “Yes. We checked it out, and there was no forced entry. He was probably having a look and realized it was empty and that you’d moved.”

  “Darling, sit down. You’re making me dizzy,” Sadie said.

  Fin pulled out the chair next to her and slumped into it. “Maybe it would be a good idea if you and the kids went on holiday for a bit.”

  Sadie looked at her like she’d gone mad. “What? No.”

  “Sadie, think about it.” Fin grasped her hands. They were still so cold. “You’ll be out of the way—you’ll be safe.”

  “And how will we pay for it, Fin? Magic beans?”

  “Your dad wanted to give you money a while ago. He can lend it to us for this.”

  Sadie stroked her thumb over the back of Fin’s hand. “Fine. But you’re coming with us.”

  “I can’t, babe. I have to work.”

  “It might not be a bad idea, Ms. Tate.” Helen Lyle spoke up.

  “I’ll think about it,” Sadie said. “Like you said, he doesn’t know where we live. You’re posting a car at the top of the road.”

  “We’ll let you know tomorrow,” Fin said.

  * * *

  Sadie was numb. She tried to concentrate on the box in front of her. All she could think about was Lance Sherry.

  Sherry was back, and he’d headed straight for their old house. If that didn’t signal his intentions, nothing did. He wasn’t finished with her, and until he was caught, he never would be. Sadie didn’t try to understand his vendetta against her because there wasn’t much to understand. She’d met him, she’d sat across a desk from him, while he’d calmly discussed stabbing someone in cold blood. Sadie had watched his face as he recounted the incident, and she saw not a flicker of remorse. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoy it. That was when she told him he couldn’t plead not guilty. He truly didn’t understand why she couldn’t defend his not guilty plea in court.

  She was sure there was a medical term for him. A neat little box to put him in that made him seem less malevolent. Except Sadie knew differently. Lance Sherry was the thing that lived under the bed. His was the hand that reached out in the night and grabbed your ankle if it wasn’t under the duvet.

  Lance Sherry was a monster, and she had brought him into her children’s lives. If she hadn’t been sure before, she was sure now. There was no way she was going back to her old job.

  For the first time in her life, Sadie felt despair. She hated this house, and she hated Lance Sherry, and between the two of them, she was trapped.

  Fin brushed off the incident the other night as faulty electrics. She refused to see anything else. Sadie sensed a badness in this place. She felt silly for thinking it, and her rational mind kept telling her it was only the stress of Sherry making her feel this way. Another part, the primitive part, nodded its head in agreement and whispered to her to run, get away from here.

  Sadie pulled out a dog-eared book she vaguely remembered packing away. She turned it over in her hands. It was an old Ray Bradbury novel.

  “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” She read the title out loud. Then she laughed. Then she started to cry.

  * * *

  Lance Sherry looked out the window. The man was still there, sitting on the wall and watching him. The first time Lance saw him, he thought he’d lost his mind. The bloke was dressed like something out of a period drama. He was the same man who stood in the window at the bitch’s house. Lance wondered about that. He wondered how he knew it was the same man, when he thought it was a trick of the light before. Somehow, he knew it was the same person, the same way he knew the man didn’t mean him any harm.

  Lance rubbed his eyes and glanced at the coffee table behind which was littered with takeaway containers and empty vodka bottles. Maybe he was losing it after all. He certainly hadn’t felt like himself since he came back from that house. He couldn’t sleep and he was restless. He had dreams. Weird dreams that left him terrified and exhilarated at the same time.

  Lance couldn’t tell anybody about the man on the wall because what if he wasn’t really there? What if he was? Lance sensed the man wanted him for something. He got a feeling of rightness and comfort when he looked at him.

  Now the man was smiling. His long-fingered hand was outstretched as he beckoned Lance outside. Lance wanted to go out there. Had an almost paralysing need to go out there and see this man because he would make everything all right again. Yeah, he wanted to help Lance. He was a friend.

  Lance turned away from the window and looked for his shoes.

  * * *

  That night, Sadie dreamed about Lance Sherry. In the dream he’d cornered her in the spare bedroom with all the boxes. The door was shut, and she couldn’t open it from this side. She tried to scream for Fin, but no sound would come out. Sherry lunged at her with the knife, and she jumped back. She fell, scattering piles of old bills everywhere. He stood over her, grinning. Going to fuck you and kill you, bitch. He held out the knife like he was going to stab her. His face came closer and closer, and then it changed. She wasn’t looking at Lance Sherry any more, though the face was still familiar to her. She couldn’t place it. It was a man. He was blond and thin and his smile was cruel, but the knife was gone and that was a blessing. Above her, she heard the hiss of gas, like when you turned on the stove.

  She looked at the man and his face changed again. He looked like a monster. She screamed.

  “Sadie. Sadie.” She woke up with Fin’s arms around her. Her skin was greasy with sweat, and she was crying and gasping for air.

  Fin rocked her steadily back and forth, and eventually she felt her heartbeat slow down. Fin muttered soothing words into her hair.

  “I’m okay. I’m okay now,” she said and sat up, pulling the duvet around her. The sweat was drying, making her cold. “I’ll call my dad in the morning,” she said.

  “Thank you.” Fin looked relieved.

  Sadie nodded. “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “Why? I’m a mess.” It popped out before she could stop it and she saw Fin flinch.

  “You aren’t a mess. You’re a strong, capable woman who’s been through a horrible trauma, and it’s still not over. That piece of shit is still out there. I wish I could kill him.”

  Sadie suddenly had a horrible thought. “You won’t do anything stupid while we’re away, will you, Fin?”

  Fin didn’t answer.

  “Fin. Promise me you’ll let the police catch him. He’s dangerous. The people he’s involved with are dangerous. Promise me.”

  “Of course I�
��m not going to do anything. Don’t worry.”

  But Sadie was worried, and Fin still hadn’t promised her.

  “Promise me, Fin.”

  “Fine. Okay. I promise.”

  Sadie supposed that would have to do. She wasn’t sure if Fin still kept in touch with people from where she used to live. Sadie knew she had a couple of uncles—her dad’s brothers—who were just as horrible as Lance Sherry. As far as she knew, Fin didn’t have anything to do with them any more, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to find them if she needed to.

  Sadie hoped the promise she’d made meant something to her. She’d never broken one before, and Sadie prayed she wouldn’t now.

  She climbed out of bed and went into the bathroom.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Fin waved to the police parked on the lane outside the house. She’d just dropped Sadie and the kids off at the airport and missed them already. She pulled up out front of the house and sat with the engine running. This house was supposed to be their new start. It was supposed to be somewhere Sadie could feel safe and begin to heal. Instead, she was running from here too. All because that bastard Lance Sherry decided he wanted to hurt her.

  She looked up at the dark windows, at her empty house, and gripped the steering wheel so hard her knuckles went white. There should be children in there, her wife. Except they were on a plane, running away from a piece of shit the world wouldn’t miss if he was gone. Fin had grown up with people like him, leeches who fed off others’ misery. They enjoyed making people suffer. It made their own pathetic lives seem less shit. They were like a disease, people like Lance Sherry. The only way to beat them was to play them at their own game.

  Except she’d promised she wouldn’t do anything do him, and she always kept her promises to Sadie. The silent, dark house seemed to mock her. If she couldn’t keep her family safe, she didn’t deserve to have them or this place.

  Fin sighed and rubbed her eyes. She turned off the engine and got out. She’d made a promise that she’d leave this to the police. She decided she’d give them a week to find him. After that, all bets were off.

  Fin tossed and turned all night and woke up exhausted. She remembered snippets of dreams, most of them involving a long dark tunnel that seemed to go on forever and passages and stairs which led to nowhere. She sighed and checked her phone. Sadie and the kids would still be asleep, so she couldn’t call them. There was a text from Rose. Maybe she’d go down to London for a visit. One of her uncles and a cousin still lived in the area, and she hadn’t seen them in years. She quickly dismissed this thought because there was only one reason she would ever see them, and she’d assured Sadie she wouldn’t.

  Downstairs, she put the kettle on for coffee and stared out the kitchen window. She still had a fair bit to do around the house, clearing the basement and fitting a handle on the spare room door. She had the furniture from her old workshop being delivered later, and a couple of pieces she was behind on. Then there was the trapdoor she found. She wanted to check that out. At least she’d have plenty to be getting on with while Sadie and the kids were away. It would take her mind off Lance Sherry as well.

  After her coffee, Fin took a torch and ladder and went back to where she’d found the trapdoor. It looked the same as she’d left it. She kicked away the dirt she covered it with and pulled on the handle. She eased the ladder down and leaned it against the side of the pit. She tested a couple of rungs and then climbed down.

  Like before, it smelled of damp earth and rotten leaves. The ground was spongy beneath her feet. She shone her torch on the narrow tunnel in front of her. It was about four feet high by three feet wide and went in the direction of the house. Fin crouched and shone the torch inside. Wooden beams shored up the tunnel, and when she pulled on them, they seemed sturdy enough. She’d never been claustrophobic, but the idea of crawling through there gave her the creeps. Not to mention the idea of the tunnel caving in and trapping her down here.

  She guessed it probably ran about six hundred and fifty feet or so to the house. Not too far. Should she chance it? She felt drawn to it and repulsed by it at the same time and couldn’t explain why. It was just a tunnel. Probably someone had dug it as an escape route a long time ago. It might be interesting to get hold of a history of the house. Somewhere as old as this was bound to have a few interesting stories. Especially if someone needed an escape tunnel.

  As she was about to stand up, she heard footsteps above her. They were quiet, as if the person didn’t want to be heard. Fin froze, her mind immediately going to Lance Sherry. What if he had found them? She turned off the torch.

  The footsteps stopped, and she could sense someone up there, listening. They’d probably found the trapdoor and were trying to hear if anyone was down there. Some instinct told Fin to stay quiet. She waited. The person up there waited too.

  Suddenly, the ladder was pulled up and away.

  The trapdoor slammed shut.

  Fin tried not to panic. She left the light off in case it could be seen around the edges of the door. She waited to see if anything else would happen. When it didn’t, Fin flicked the torch back on. It looked like she was going through the tunnel after all. If it had been Sherry up there, he didn’t know the house, so she was confident she could get out the other side before he found it. She tried to remember if she’d locked the front door.

  A horrible thought occurred to her: What if there was no other way out? What if this was a dead end like in her dreams last night? She felt sick.

  I can’t think like that. It won’t do anyone any good. Fin got onto her hands and knees and put the end of the torch in her mouth. She crawled forward.

  * * *

  Sadie got Fin’s voicemail again. She’d called a couple of times already. She’d slept badly—Liam kept waking up from bad dreams. Fin was usually the one who was able to get him back off to sleep, but Fin wasn’t here—she was at the house. When Sadie asked him what his nightmares were about, he couldn’t remember. All he could tell her was he dreamed Fin was in danger. That he’d seen her in a dark hole, and she couldn’t get out. During one particularly bad one, Sadie had tried to wake him but couldn’t. He suddenly sat upright in bed, gripped her arm, and said, “She found him.” The way he said it scared her. It made her think of the other night back home when she’d put him to bed, and he’d pretty much said the same thing.

  Sadie didn’t know what to do except call Fin and make sure she was okay. Now she wasn’t answering her phone, and all Sadie could think about was what Liam said. She found him. Did he mean Lance Sherry? Had he found out where they lived? Sadie knew she should have insisted that Fin come with them. It was so typical of Fin to think she would be okay, like she was untouchable. Sadie knew Lance Sherry, and if he couldn’t get to her, he would take Fin instead.

  Sadie tried to push the thoughts from her head. Tried to stop herself imagining Fin lying in a pool of blood. She got up, careful not to disturb Lucy who was laying starfish-like on the bed, and slid open the doors to the balcony. She breathed in the early morning air which was already warm. The sky was clear, and she could tell it would be another beautiful day. Sadie would take the children down to the beach, where Lucy would insist she could swim and keep making a break for the sea. Liam would want to spend hours looking at the tide pools in the rocks for little crabs and shells.

  She smiled at the thought. Fin was fine, Sherry would be caught, and they’d all live happily ever after. She repeated this over and over in her head like a mantra.

  Sadie stood outside for as long as she could stand it before going back inside to call Fin again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The tunnel wasn’t that bad. It stayed the same size all the way down, and the beams still looked sturdy despite being old. Fin could crawl on all fours and probably even crab-walk if she wanted, though crawling was easier.

  It was hard to tell how long the tunnel was, but Fin guessed her estimate of six hundred and fifty feet wasn’t far off. She reached the e
nd fairly quickly, relieved to see her fear of it being a dead end didn’t materialize. She stopped and sat back on her heels.

  Now she had another problem—two, really. The first was getting out of this tunnel, and the second was seeing if whoever shut the trapdoor was waiting on the other side. There was an archway cut roughly into the hard-packed earth. Pushed right up against it were piles of boxes and broken furniture. The same junk that was in the basement and where Fin must now be.

  There was no light down here, which didn’t necessarily mean no one was in the basement with her. They could be crouching off to the side or at the top of the steps. Even if they weren’t in the basement at all, if there was someone in the house, the noise of her clearing the junk out of her path would bring them running.

  Fin sighed and wiped sweat out of her eyes. It had mixed with the damp earth and made some sort of nasty face mask on her skin.

  Well, she couldn’t wait here forever. Fin hefted the weight of the torch in her hand, figuring it might be useful if she got the chance to use it.

  She sat back on her arse and used her feet to push against the junk. She’d seen it from the other side and knew it was stacked deep. The first push didn’t even budge the pile. She tried again, this time not trying to do it quietly. Sweat streamed down her face and into her eyes. Her lower back and legs throbbed. It shifted a fraction of an inch.

  Fin stopped to catch her breath. Her T-shirt was stuck to her back and soaked through. After a minute, she tried again. This time, she scooted around and wiggled her fingers so her hands were either side of the archway. She held on to it, and then pushed with her back against the junk. Her heels dug into the earth, and her arms acted as leverage against the heavy pile of crap. Slowly, it started to move. She pushed again, every muscle straining, her T-shirt ripped at the armpits, and she imagined herself as the Incredible Hulk. It made her laugh, even though her situation was about as funny as dysentery.