Something grabbed me as I tried to escape. It’s not my imagination. A dream can’t hurt me. Mental tricks can’t cut my skin.
Guy tilted his head upwards. He was just in time to see a long, sheet-white arm retract back into the hole in the ceiling. The disquiet transformed into a stomach-churning terror so intense that he thought he might pass out. Guy scrambled away from the attic ladder, only stopping when his shoulder blades hit the wall. His mind, still jarred from the drop and fogged with stress, fought to understand.
Was there really someone up there? It couldn’t be—the dust hadn’t been disturbed—
He touched his leg. Five long lines had been dug into the skin around his ankle, in a shape reminiscent of fingernails. Blood flowed freely.
It’s not a dream. It hurts too much to be fantasy. Does this mean the other nights were real, too? Seeing that thing on my ceiling, hearing the TV, the footsteps and slamming doors and faces in the window—
His mind wanted to revolt. The implications were too awful to examine further. Guy shuddered then buckled over as he threw up. He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and sucked air into his burning lungs. In amongst the panic, one thought rose to the front of his mind: Get out. You’ve stayed far, far too long already.
Guy pushed himself to his feet. The leg hurt, but shock helped to numb it. A weight in his back pocket told him he had the car keys, which was a relief. He kept the leg elevated and leaned on the wall for support as he limped around the puddle of what had once been breakfast and made his way down the hallway.
Above him, wood creaked. The thing—monster or human, he wasn’t fully sure—followed his progress through the attic. Gut clenched his teeth to keep a panicked moan inside. Is it really Amy? Did her ghost become trapped here after death, like Tiff said?
He reached the staircase. The steps were harder to navigate without jarring the cut leg, but he used both hands to stabilise himself. Guy knew he was leaving a trail of blood over the carpet and floorboards, but he didn’t care. He no longer wanted anything to do with the cursed building.
An upstairs door groaned open. Guy braced himself, but he still flinched when it slammed. He focussed on each new step and how much closer it brought him to the outside world. He reached the foyer and passed over the flour barrier into the dining room. Guy stopped just long enough to grab the hammer out of one of the crates, then he continued into the kitchen, across the second flour line, and outside.
The cool afternoon air burned his lungs, but he kept drawing in huge gulps of it. Shivers ran through his arms as the shock-induced adrenaline lent him excess energy. He pulled his keys out of his back pocket as he neared the pickup truck.
I should have done this long before now. He jumped into the driver’s seat and locked the doors before wiping the sweat out of his eyes. I was an idiot to ignore what was happening. At least it’s not too late to escape.
His right leg ached, but he knew he’d be able to drive well enough with the left. He put the key into the ignition and turned it. The pickup truck’s engine clicked but didn’t start.
Sickening fear latched on to Guy’s heart and dragged it into his stomach. He licked at dry lips and tried again. The clicking repeated.
Come on, girl. You’ve never failed me before, no matter what sort of awful conditions I put you through. Show me some of your fighting spirit.
Tk-tk-tk-tk-tk. The noise matched Guy’s thundering heart. He bit his tongue to stop from yelling as the familiar burning sensation replaced the lump of ice in his stomach.
It was startling how quickly the fear mutated into anger. Guy smashed a fist into the horn then shoved the truck’s door open and lurched out. His vision blurred as he yanked up the hood of the car, bent over the engine, and gripped the metal frame so harshly that his hands hurt. He waited for the fury to abate. When he blinked, his vision had cleared enough to let him see what he was doing.
There was no smoke, which was a good sign, but at first glance, Guy had trouble identifying the parts of his engine. A large, lumpy grey shape rested over the instruments. As Guy stared at it, the shape started to undulate.
“What the hell?” He reached out. As soon as his fingers touched the shape, it whirled into motion, breaking apart and spreading like a sentient liquid. A scratchy sensation covered Guy’s hand. He yanked it back to stare at the fuzzy grey shapes crawling over it, then he choked on a scream, thrashing his arm to free it.
Grey spiders had grown a nest over his engine. They’d stayed clumped together and, once disturbed, swarmed through the pickup truck’s belly, spiralling across the metal and plastic in a frenzy of waving legs. There must have been more than ten thousand of them, all smaller than a penny but daunting in their quantity.
Guy tried not to gag as he rubbed his arm to get the spiders off it. He’d seen plenty of them around the house, but his nerves were raw and his patience thin. He hopped around to the truck’s back and grabbed one of the large jugs of water.
Carrying the weight with a compromised leg was a challenge, but desperation propelled Guy toward the car’s bonnet. He yanked off the jug’s lid and poured its contents over the spider nest.
A frenzy of grey gushed out of the truck’s underside. They washed around Guy’s shoes and disappeared into the long grass. He didn’t stop pouring until the jug was empty and only a handful of stragglers remained. Then Guy threw the jug aside, breathing heavily, and returned to the driver’s seat.
He re-fit the key into the ignition. Then he released a muffled, miserable groan as the familiar tk-tk-tk-tk-tk filled the space.
I’ve only been parked here for one day. That’s not enough time for a spider nest to be laid, mature, and hatch. Unless the nest has been in the engine for a week or more, and I just didn’t realise… but if that were the case, wouldn’t I have cooked the eggs while driving around?
Guy flopped back in the seat. A single tiny grey spider descended from the windscreen and hung off its web in front of Guy. He twisted his mouth at the waving limbs.
It’s got something to do with the creature in the attic. Guy turned to the building. He couldn’t see movement in the open door or any of the windows. Whatever it is… it’s not human. It can change things. Create hallucinations. Make electronics work again. If it really is Amy, is it her ghost? I thought spirits weren’t able to touch physical objects.
Guy looked down at his leg. The cuts were clotting, but blood still soaked his sock and trickled down into his shoe. He would need to bind it somehow. His first-aid kit was in the kitchen. He could take his shirt off and tie that around the cuts, but that left him open to infections. And if he couldn’t get his car working that day, falling into a feverish delirium at Rookward could easily kill him.
He twisted the key a final time and listened to the motor click futilely. Then he swore, released his grip on the steering wheel, and unlocked the car doors.
Chapter Twenty-Two
His leg hurt more as the adrenaline faded. Guy set his jaw as he limped towards the kitchen. Shifting the hammer from hand to hand, he peered through the doorway. The house was almost disarmingly calm. Still, Guy waited for nearly a full minute before hopping over the undisturbed flour patch.
I’ve been here for a bit more than three full days. It didn’t hurt me until I went into the attic. It probably won’t try to do anything as long as I stay on the lower level. Right?
Guy was acutely aware of how vulnerable the injured leg made him. Walking was hard enough; running might prove impossible. He moved with agonizing slowness as he shifted from the kitchen to the dining room. Even with the window clear of vegetation, the interior of the house felt too dark. Guy lit the gas lamp and set it in the centre of the table. Then he shuffled through his supplies to find the first-aid kit.
He’d brought the kit from his family home. His expectations of Rookward were so tame that he’d only checked it had plenty of plasters and a packet of painkillers before packing it. As he dug through the supplies, he found there wasn’t an
y antiseptic.
Mum must have taken it. He chewed on his lip as he fought the rising panic. Then an idea occurred to him. Moving so that he didn’t turn his back to any of the doors, he fished the bottle of brandy out of the box. It had been half-drunk, but there was plenty left to disinfect the scratches.
Guy boiled some of his bottled water while he collected clean cloths and selected bandages. Every few seconds, he paused to listen and watch the open doorway to the foyer. There was no sign of company, but that didn’t do much to comfort him. He eased the shoe off as carefully as he could. Blood had pooled in it and mixed with the water he’d splashed while cleaning out the car. A single grey spider crawled out from amongst the shoelaces, and Guy squashed it against the table with a grimace. He set the shoe aside and worked the sock off next.
The woman—he’d started thinking of her as Amy—had torn through the sock. He discarded the bloodied item then worked on cleaning the cuts.
Five slices circled his ankle where she’d tried to drag him back into the attic. When he poured the brandy over them, they stung so badly that Guy had to bite his forearm to keep silent. He was shaking and sweaty by the time he cleaned the wounds with the boiled water, then he gave them a final wash with the brandy for good measure and bandaged them. A soft groaning noise behind Guy made him startle, but it was only the kitchen door swinging on its hinge.
The cuts weren’t too deep, but they were long and would need stitches once he was back in civilisation. He’d dripped blood all through the building in his desperation to escape. But thankfully, he didn’t feel dizzy. He hoped that meant the blood loss wouldn’t impair him too badly. Guy’s mother had been a nurse before she married his father, and he remembered her telling him that the body needed a lot of water to regenerate blood. He drank deeply from the jug then set about packing up his kit.
The house had remained quiet while Guy worked. He stayed alert for the scraping, dragging footsteps, but as far as he could tell, he hadn’t been followed.
She can look into all of the second-floor rooms but not downstairs. Guy still couldn’t keep himself from scanning the ceiling for tiny, dark holes, but he couldn’t pick any out amongst the myriad of aged stains.
Guy threw out the dirty water then leaned against the table as he assessed his situation. Tiny patches of blood had begun to ooze through the bandages, but he didn’t think the foot would start bleeding seriously again as long as he didn’t use it too much.
The sun was close to the skyline, which gave him less than an hour to work on the car while he could still see. He knew his way around mechanics, but the pickup had never failed him before, and Guy still didn’t know what had broken. He didn’t like to think about what he would do if the truck couldn’t be repaired. Guy fished a rain jacket out of one of the crates and fastened it around the injured foot to protect the bandages, then he hopped back outside to the car.
He’d brought a lot of tools for the trip, anticipating having to sand wood, drill holes, and plug leaks, but car repair tools weren’t amongst them. Guy was reduced to hunting through the engine with his hands and a spanner.
Dozens of the little grey spiders still clung to the motor. They’d begun to weave webs through the area, and Guy used the spanner to knock most of them loose. He couldn’t immediately see any cause for why the car wouldn’t start, unless the spiders had somehow gotten inside the pipes and clogged the engine. That was a grim thought: he had no way to dismantle it without seriously damaging it.
Guy muttered under his breath as he went over the engine. Again and again, he traced the cables and checked the connections, hoping he’d missed something obvious. Every ten minutes, he went back to the driver’s seat and tried the key again. The result never changed.
By the time blood-red stains began spreading over the horizon and the forest’s shadows stretched halfway up Rookward’s walls, Guy was forced to admit defeat. His shoulders ached, and his head hurt as he sat on the edge of the vehicle and stared at his hands.
Where does this leave me? My phone will be thoroughly flat by now. Without a car, there’s no way to leave.
If he took too long to come home, his mother would worry and either look for him or call the police. Guy groaned and pressed his hands over his face. He’d told her his stay at Rookward might last as long as a week. That left six days before she would become alarmed enough to talk to someone.
I could walk… He peered over his shoulder towards the forest. Hobbled as he was, it would take at least three hours to reach the main road. Then he would either have to walk to town—a half-day trip on foot—or pray a car happened to be travelling along the remote street in the middle of the night.
And that was if he didn’t get lost. His mind conjured up an image of stumbling through the tangled underbrush, blind in the depths of night, while wild animals chattered around him and the freezing air bit at his skin. He repressed a shudder. Travelling through the day would be safer, but it would mean spending another night at Rookward.
Is that a better choice than risking the woods, though? That… thing… has disturbed my sleep every night since I arrived here.
The sun had almost fully disappeared behind the trees, and the temperature was dropping. Rookward’s driveway had become so overgrown that Guy doubted he could follow it at night, even with a lamp. It also opened him up to the risk of hypothermia, something he would be increasingly susceptible to after losing blood.
Rookward’s going to be the safer option. He almost laughed at that idea, but the thought of spending the night in the house with Amy made him feel too sick for mirth. I’ve gotten through three nights here, carried by ignorance and probably a bit of luck. I can manage a fourth, surely?
Guy slammed the bonnet. It was tempting to sleep in the vehicle’s truck bed, outside the creaking house and away from its bulging-eyed host, but that wasn’t a practical option. The pickup truck was only a few paces from the house, and he would be vulnerable, even if he brought enough blankets to stay warm. He limped around to the truck’s back and hunted through the supplies stacked there.
He still had plenty of food, but washing the spiders out of the engine had wasted a full jug of water, which left Guy with what remained in the jug in the dining room. It didn’t have much liquid left. If Guy ended up being stranded at Rookward for more than a day—either because of an infection or something more malevolent—he would run out.
The weather forecast had promised rain that night. Guy re-arranged the supplies in the back of the pickup so that they were all gathered towards the edges, then he fastened down the tarp so that it had some slack. He put a small wrench in the centre of the tarp to weigh it down, creating a bowl to gather water. Then he picked up the hammer, rolled his shoulders, and limped indoors.
No way in hell did he intend to sleep upstairs. It was too close to the attic’s opening and too far from the door. Instead, Guy fashioned a bed for himself in the kitchen, using spare clothes and blankets, then stood back to admire his work. Guy hadn’t brought enough spare blankets to protect against the kitchen’s tile floor. He would be cold without the insulated sleeping bag.
How dangerous would a trip upstairs be? He peered through the window. Night had set in, and birds chattered in the trees as they settled. Guy thought of the attic trapdoor. He’d left it open. I’ve only ever seen her in lightless places. If Amy becomes active in the dark, she could come crawling out of the hole any minute.
On the other hand… if she’s physical enough to cut my leg, she wouldn’t be able to move through walls, would she? I could shut the trapdoor. Find a way to lock it. Then she’d be trapped up there.
Just the idea of going upstairs made stress squeeze around Guy’s heart, but he’d already made the choice to spend the night at Rookward, and that meant securing it to the best of his abilities. The trapdoor opened downwards, which meant he would need something to jam against it. He shuffled towards the family room. During the trip home, he’d bought new planks to cover up the holes in the floor. T
hey were long but thin, so Guy gathered three of them, duct tape, the lamp, and a saw. Then he turned to the staircase.
Dragging the wood upstairs with a bad leg took Guy more time than he was comfortable with. Panting and sweating, he took a minute to lean against the wall in the upstairs hallway while he gathered his energy.
A muted crackle came from the master bedroom. Guy nudged the door open with his elbow and extended the lamp inside. It was empty, but the baby monitor sat on the bedside table. It looked too innocent. Guy waited, but no other noise came from it. He lifted his gaze towards the ceiling. There, above where the bed had been, was the tiny, pencil-thin hole in the plaster. It really did look like a stain or an exposed screw head. Guy shut the door then lifted one side of the planks.
He dragged the wood down the hallway, letting the back ends of them scrape over the runner and shred the decayed fabric, creating a cloud of dust. He stopped before the hallway’s bend and peered around the corner. The trapdoor hung open like a gaping mouth, its insides impossibly dark. Guy lingered by the corner for a moment, waiting for the blanched-white arm to extend out of the hole. When it didn’t, he squared his shoulders and moved forward.
Getting the wood around the bend took a lot of manoeuvring. Though Guy struggled to keep his movements as quiet as possible, he ended up having to scrape one end of the wood against the peeling wallpaper to get them all into the second stretch of the hall.
A floorboard flexed above Guy’s head. He froze, scanning the wooden ceiling for any of the tiny holes, but it was hard to find them amongst the wood’s natural colour variations. He swallowed and quickened his pace towards the trapdoor.
Guy stopped underneath it, dropped two of the wooden boards, and used the third to bump the trapdoor shut. The latch made a faint clicking noise as it caught. He knew it would be wishful thinking to imagine that would be enough to keep Amy in the ceiling; she’d come down on previous nights, after all.
The Haunting of Rookward House Page 13
