Ghoster

by Jason Arnopp

  By the time I reach the left-hand corner of the house, I can breathe a little easier. From my new position, I can see no vehicles parked further along the drive, which helps.

  Edging along with my back to the wall, I arrive at the first window, then crane my neck around to look inside.

  Moving boxes, that’s what I’m looking for. Boxes and also abductees. Swathed in blacks and greys, this wide open space, a living room, has a ceiling striped with low wooden beams. There’s plenty of clutter – way too much furniture and further empty wine bottles – but I can see neither Scott’s stuff nor fraught people bound with electrical tape.

  The next window along looks into the same room, and the next is all frosted bathroom glass. Can’t picture Scott’s boxes being stored in there. Can definitely imagine someone chained to the radiator, though.

  Aware that the next window could so easily belong to a bedroom, I devote maximum effort to stealth. And yet, underfoot, every autumn leaf sounds like a whip-crack.

  Behind the glass of this next window, the curtains sit almost entirely shut. Could Scott really have chosen these terrible curtains? Yep. I once thought he had taste, but now I can picture him conning some design student into decking out the Van Spencer flat so nicely, then failing to pay them.

  Dare I investigate the gap between these curtains?

  Ever so slowly, I press my face close to the window, so that my nose almost touches.

  Inside, all I see is black. This inconsiderate moon is ill-placed to help me out.

  Softly…

  So very softly…

  … I squash my nose against the window.

  An explosion of vampire teeth, savage eyes and gunshot barks jerk me away from the saliva-splashed glass, as if I’m being yanked back by a noose.

  My brain knows the Rottweiler is inside the window, but my reflexes don’t, so in what feels like one single instant I’m sprinting back to the gate, swearing as I go, in an attempt to process the shock.

  When I’m halfway there, the barking stops, but I continue to make like my arse is on fire, in case the beast has been set loose.

  The world becomes a clumsy blur of gate and night sky.

  Partway up, I lose my grip and fall. My chin snags on a wooden bar, clacks my teeth together and damn near severs my tongue.

  Please don’t let me hear the sound of paws pounding gravel. Or worse, a shotgun being cocked and someone calling for me to Stop right there.

  Finally landing on my feet back outside, I cling to the wooden bars and cough hard until a strand of drool connects my mouth to the ground.

  By the time I’ve regained control of my saliva, there’s no sign of life from the house. One thing’s for sure: if my dog had barked that violently around the witching hour, I would patrol every single window, bare minimum. So that’s encouraging.

  I feel satisfied that there are no neighbours close enough to hear this dog. Even if they can, they’ll only shove those foam plugs deeper into their ears and go back to sleep.

  My tongue throbs unhappily as I massage my jaw. Despite the watery ruin of my eyes, I keep them nailed to those front curtains. Not one single twitch over there, far as I can see.

  For added safety, I wait until my lungs hold enough oxygen before I tackle the gate again, this time far more systematically. Then I stride back towards the house.

  You could break into this place… if it wasn’t for that pesky mutt. Which doofus failed to bring the diazepam-infused pork chop?

  Silly me, eh? Anyone would think I’ve never done this kind of shit before.

  This time, I cover the right-hand side of the house. All but ignoring the first two windows, which will only show me the same big living area, I check out the third. Here, open curtains reveal a small bedroom. Hmm, could Scott’s boxes be under the bed? No, it’s one of those solid beds with drawers built into the side.

  What if he already unpacked his stuff and tossed the boxes? Most normal people do that, you know. And another thing—

  A new volley of canine gunshots heralds the arrival of a fast-moving bulk of slobbering muscle. The Rottweiler piles into the room and crashes against the glass as if hell-bent on breaking through and ripping out my throat.

  Need to keep my nerve. If this dog could escape the house, it would already have done so. Moving along, moving along…

  As I near the back of the house, my attention strays to a big, separate garage that I previously couldn’t see. Planted at the very foot of the hill, next to a gentle dirt slope that disappears up out of sight under trees, this behemoth could house two ambulances. A corrugated iron shutter guards the front. Garage or lock-up? There’s no need to decide.

  Sick of Cujo’s racket, I pad across grass to the garage and peer in through one dust-caked, cobwebbed window.

  This room looks jam-packed with stuff. Definitely a storage facility, rather than a place where anything gets parked.

  I see boxes. Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re Scott’s, but fuck it, I’m going to find out right now.

  My heart sinks when I see the heavy padlock that secures the shutter, only to rally when I remember the trick I literally have up my sleeve.

  Scott’s phone carries a mere eighteen per cent charge. Shit! There’s been a text from Izzy. Did she see someone come past her?

  No, she only wants to know where the hell I am and how it’s going. I’ll update her in person as soon as I’m done here.

  Switching to the browser, I Google for break padlock hammer. Once upon a time, the internet seemed irresponsible for being full of guidelines for doing bad stuff, but tonight this feels awesome.

  On the first swing, I bring the hammer down on the very tip of my forefinger, then perform a truly fucked-up pain dance while sucking the bruised nail.

  For the second swing, I wise up and whack the metal in the correct place.

  The padlock springs open. I tug the bastard free, drop to my haunches, then heave the shutter up into the garage ceiling. The foul, grinding screech only infuriates Cujo all the more.

  My phone torch reveals a light switch, but dare I use it? Nope. All this way back here behind the house, I might not hear someone arriving at the gate, and chances are they’d soon notice the glow from these overhead strip-lights.

  Everything has been piled up to form a towering block in the centre of the room. Reaching about two-thirds of the room’s height, this block leaves enough space to walk around the outside, like a breakfast bar island made from junk.

  The phone buzzes my hand. An incoming call. Izzy?

  Unknown Number. Does anyone with an actual fucking name ever call this phone? Having quickly considered my options, I rip the duct tape off the top of the phone so that I can pick up and listen.

  When the static clears, a man speaks in a grim, flat tone. His German accent distinguishes him from the Scottish guy who told me You’re going to love it here. As does the fact that he sounds so very afraid.

  “For God’s sake, don’t come in here. Don’t let it suck you in.”

  I find myself taking several quick backwards steps away from the garage, while imaginary insects bustle around inside my clothes.

  I peel the tape off the handset’s microphone. My tongue and jaw hurt as I say, “Don’t let what suck me in?”

  I catch a th sound from this guy, but the rest is smothered by static, and finally the line becomes one continuous tone.

  The garage doorway now looks, for all the world, like a gaping black mouth. Waiting for me to dare defy the warning and step inside.

  Why can’t I stop shaking?

  The guy said Don’t come in here, suggesting he’s literally inside this garage. Where the fuck is he hiding, then? Inside one of the boxes? Beneath a hidden trap door, with Scott’s other victims? How did he know I was coming inside? Can he see me? Beyond a doorway this dark, several pairs of eyes could be trained on me. They might watch from the walk-space behind this central block of junk, or through spyholes drilled into the concrete floor.

&nbs
p; Can’t lose the feeling that a ghost is about to fly out of the black at me. The flat, dark, slowed-down tone of this caller’s voice and his predecessors’ voices had made them all sound… almost as if they were all…

  … dead? Time to face facts. The dead have been calling you. And this guy had a German accent – ring any bells?

  Dieter.

  “Dieter Keppler?” I say aloud.

  Somewhere in the trees up on the nearby slope, the spirited hooting of an owl snaps me out of waiting for a reply. I allow the hammer to slide down from my sleeve, then take hold of the handle and swing it to test the weight.

  Nice. Because a hammer’s gonna be so much use against the dead.

  I swipe the hammer to intimidate any human who might skulk within. Scott, for instance. In case they can’t see me, I throw in a verbal warning.

  “I’m coming in now,” I say, doing a surprisingly good job of making my voice fearless. “Try anything and I’ll bash your fucking brains in.”

  Good old Jack Torrance. Always an inspiration.

  Spurred on by the stillness of the garage, I step up to the threshold, theoretically poised to strike. Having had first-hand experience of the life-changing impact of blunt force trauma, I doubt I could ever actually harm anyone. How I hope this won’t be put to the test.

  I shine the phone torch around inside, steeling myself for the sight of a blank-eyed ghoul staring right back at me.

  On the back wall, something spindly, the diameter of a coffee cup, scuttles up the back wall, away from the intrusion of my light.

  Some of the lower boxes in the central block appear much older; they look crumpled, discoloured and damp. A few have collapsed altogether. Many of the higher, fresher boxes have marker-pen scribbles on the side. Do I recognise Scott’s handwriting? Nope, because I never got to see it. Who writes anything by hand these days? Painstakingly composed love letters are long dead and gone…

  … just like whatever’s waiting in this garage to suck you in.

  My torchlight falls on a box marked BLUE RAYS, right at the top of the pile, on the left-hand side towards the back. Oh Scott, did you really misspell Blu-rays? I feel more disappointed by this than by some of your other misdemeanours.

  My pulse quickens. Come on, this is only a fucking garage. There’s no one here. And if this stuff does belong to Scott, I need to take a look before he comes back.

  Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly.

  The reek of musk and mould make my nose itch. Edging inside, I walk with a crouch and the hammer raised, heading along the left-hand side of the block. Really bothers me that the boxes are stacked so high that I can’t see around the back. Someone…

  … or something…

  … could so easily be standing…

  … or floating…

  … around the far corner I’m moving towards. Need to rule out this possibility before I do anything else.

  The breath stalls in my chest as I creep past the assembled junk, towards this rear corner that turns off to the right.

  Hey, enjoy these next few steps! They may be your last.

  How I’d kill to have a mirror on a stick.

  Come on, let’s do this. You are, after all, holding a hammer.

  I sidle along, my steps tiny, until the rear walk-space inches into view.

  There’s no one and nothing here.

  What if whoever or whatever was back here has moved silently around into the walk-space on the far side of the block? Creepy thought, huh? You’re welcome.

  I haul the BLUE RAYS box to the ground, while throwing glances along the rear walk-space and back to the open door. This box has no trace of damp. In fact, it feels brand-new. Almost as if it was brought here only a few days ago…

  I separate the interlocked flaps that seal the box, then haul them open.

  Two faces greet me from inside.

  Hello, Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. Here they are on the cover of the Blu-ray of True Romance, which sits on top of the likes of Goodfellas, Starship Troopers and a film called Eden Lake that scared the hell out of me.

  Okay, so True Romance is hardly an obscure indie flick, but could this still be a coincidence? What other films can I recall from Scott’s curated collection? Come on, think: what else did we watch while curled up on that sofa?

  Ah, Labyrinth. The movie we were excited to discover that we both loved, prompting Scott to hurry over and pluck the disc from his shelves for us to view. Of course, in retrospect, he’d almost certainly learnt that I liked Labyrinth via Facebook or something, but that’s unimportant right now.

  Outside, back in the house, the dog’s barking again. Big deal, Cujo, you don’t scare me – I’m gonna search through your master’s BLUE RAYS and you can’t lift a paw to stop me.

  Doesn’t take long. Five or six layers down, I discover the faces of David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly on the Labyrinth cover.

  That’s it, then. I’ve actually found Scott’s stuff. When I find his leaflet full of passwords, I might even allow myself a victory dance, but for now I still have a great deal of frenzied searching to do.

  My hunt starts with the rest of the Blu-ray box, in case the leaflet happens to be here, but of course that would be way too easy. I close the box back up, place it behind me, then survey the other stuff. Given that I saw the password pamphlet on Scott’s desk, what I really need is a box labelled DESK, OFFICE or WORK. I heave one box after another from the block, twisting them around to see what’s written on the side.

  CLOTHES… XBOX/GAMES… VINYL. No good. Surely Scott must have dedicated a box to his desk stuff, and this password leaflet would surely be in there.

  OFFICE. Boom. Let’s get stuck in.

  The room floods with powerful light, its dingy colour filtered through the grubby windows behind me.

  Oh no.

  IZZY

  howzit going pls

  IZZY

  kate u said u were just gonna take a look n u been ages

  IZZY

  Kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate

  IZZY

  i really need the loo… if you dont reply soon im gonna pee in yr coffee flask

  IZZY

  i totally peed in yr coffee flask

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  6 October

  Car headlights dominate the room. The low thrum of an engine draws closer, then dies.

  Dogs make a fuss for two reasons: intruders and their master coming home. Why the hell didn’t I check outside when Cujo started barking again? I have no idea, and now I’m screwed. Where’s the hammer?

  The headlights blink out. A car door pops open, all too close.

  Fucking hell, where is the hammer? Must’ve put the thing down somewhere to focus on the boxes, but now my phone torch can’t find it. I kill the beam, for fear that the new arrival will see my light, if they haven’t already.

  Mercifully, the open garage door faces away from the car. Whoever this is, I really hope they don’t come around to check that no one’s broken in. There’s no reason why you’d do that, right?

  Not unless you’d spotted the light of a phone torch fluttering around inside…

  From outside: footsteps, heading this way. Shit! It’s way too late for me to reassemble the boxes the way they were, and the smashed padlock is lying on the ground outside. Ducking around the corner, I hide behind the junk-stack. Then, for the first time in my life, I pray to God.

  Look, I’m sorry for doubting your existence. I’m just more of a believe-it-when-I-see-it girl. You know, like Scully. But if you could do me this one favour and magically make this new arrival head straight towards the back door of their house then I’d be really fucking obliged to you forever. Oh, and sorry for swearing but I’m practically soiling myself.

  Everything’s gone quiet. No more footsteps. What does that mean? Didn’t hear them unlock the door to the house…

  All I can hear now is nothing.

  The brittle glass of silence.

  From the garag
e doorway comes a sharp intake of breath.

  And that’s me doomed. No hammer, nowhere to run, no chance.

  Why didn’t I listen to Dead Dieter when he warned me not to come in here? Because I am the cat that curiosity is about to kill, that’s why.

  I hear the transition that Curiosity’s feet make from the grass outside to the concrete floor of the garage. And now a series of clicks, as Curiosity toggles the light switch to no avail. I can’t decide whether the lights being out of commission will work in my favour.

  Think, think, think. Curiosity will see the fallen, rearranged boxes and head for those first. So I need to back off along this rear walk-space, towards the opposite side of the garage. This, I must do slow and soft, like a cat.

  I would feel so much better if I still had the hammer in my hand.

  There have been no more footsteps. What I really want to hear, though, is Curiosity picking up a box. Then I’ll know he’s over there, and I can sneak out the—

  Something strikes my left temple, hard.

  My brain judders, like a fairground punchbag. My vision triples.

  This is it.

  This is me, meeting my end in the middle of nowhere. This is me, waking up in half an hour alongside a bunch of my fellow tortured prisoners who have random parts missing.

  My legs have gone weak, but there’s no time to recover, only time to flee.

  Behind me, the silhouette of a person, almost certainly a man, swings another punch at me. Swerving away from the impact rips a muscle in my side.

  I run in what I hope is the direction of the fallen boxes.

  Behind me, hard and heavy footsteps.

  I stumble over a box.

  Losing my balance buys me momentum, makes me run faster, while trying to regain control.

  I hurtle towards the garage mouth like a freed champagne cork.

  Two strong arms seize me from behind. I would scream, but they’re squeezing my chest too tight and hauling me back several feet, while Curiosity growls angry, incoherent things in my ear.