by R. H. Dixon
Tactfully done, Mother, he thought, shaking his head. Tactfully done.
On the way upstairs the dogs scurried past John and Seren as if partaking in a race. They snapped and yapped at each other on the landing, evidently excited at the prospect of having and entertaining guests. John showed Seren the bedroom he’d shared with his older brother Nick first. Two single beds had been replaced by a double, and the old grey and black striped walls had received the same magnolia treatment as those downstairs. Now devoid of teenage-boy angst the long room was bright and airy: a lilac bedspread along with his mother’s trademark lace at the window and a set of pine drawers, with a few dust-gathering trinkets, made it a pleasant enough guest room.
‘Can I have this room?’ Seren asked, picking up a porcelain greyhound from on top of the drawers and tracing her finger along the line of its long snout.
‘Don’t you want to see the other two first?’
She shook her head, the display of decisiveness making her ponytail whip the sides of her face. John went to the window and looked out across the rain-glistening roofs of bungalows in the street to the rear of the house, each bit of tile and guttering surprisingly fitted together in his mind like the pieces of a well-used jigsaw puzzle. In the distance the rest of Horden was slouched in a grey funk as the weather busied itself besmirching summer and the resolute stone hulk of St Mary’s glowered at him. Mocking. Where have you been, John? I’ve missed you.
John glowered back. Fuck you.
When Seren joined him by the window he put his hand on her shoulder and said, ‘It’s all yours, kidda.’
Next he showed her what used to be his eldest brother Chris’s room. In the nineties it had been a taboo space full of black upholstery, semi-naked women staring brazenly from the walls, angry music, bad smells and a black ESP and amp that John was forbidden to touch. Now the room was all whites and pastels. Plain walls were offset with a pink dado rail that ran around the middle like gift-wrap ribbon. Beneath the window a desk was home to his mother’s sewing machine, against the right wall was a pink futon, smothered in pastel scatter cushions, and against the left wall a bookshelf was filled with books, reels of ribbon and jars containing buttons and beads. The room was a far cry from the decadence that had once been Chris’s private space.
John noted that the furniture would need to be shuffled around and the futon dismantled and laid out lengthways if he was to occupy this room, because in its current sofa position the futon wasn’t long enough to accommodate his fully stretched six-foot-two. He wasn’t altogether keen on disrupting his mother’s feng shui, though. ‘Sure you don’t want this room instead?’ he asked Seren.
‘I want your old room,’ she insisted.
‘Alright. Looks like I’m left with Gran and Norman’s room then.’
This seemed to amuse her, she giggled into her hand. ‘I bet it’s all pink and frilly.’
‘You have to remember that Gran’s rediscovering her feminine side after all those years being surrounded by testosterone.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The stuff boys are made of.’
‘Yack.’
‘Indeed. That’s why Gran likes pink.’
‘But, still, poor Norman.’
‘Hey, there’s nothing wrong with pink.’
‘Pink’s for girls.’
‘Gran is a girl. So are you.’
Seren’s eyebrows lowered and she gave him stink eye. ‘Did your old room used to be blue?’
‘No,’ he admitted. ‘Black and grey. But teenagers are a whole different breed.’
She looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Can I have a black and grey bedroom back home?’
‘Pretty premature for the goth years, kidda. Maybe in a few years. Now come on, let’s see how pink my new room is.’
As expected his mother’s bedroom was elaborately floral and too lacy. The smell of roses and talc was inherently stronger. Aside from the kitsch décor the room retained the best view from the house. Beyond the net-curtained window, past the railway lines, allotments and fields, the North Sea was right there, staring back at him. A stark band of pewter beneath leaden clouds. The rain was fairly coming down now, sheeting against the window and not looking like it would let up any time soon.
‘Can we go over there?’ Seren asked, pointing to the railway bridge.
‘Yeah, course we can.’
‘Did you fetch my wellies? I’ll go and put them on.’
‘You mean now? You want to go now?’
‘Otis and Mindy need to go for a walk,’ she reminded him.
John sighed, a long exhalation that marked his reluctance. ‘Yeah, I suppose they do. But I thought you didn’t like the rain?’
Tapping her fingertips on the window sill, an unrhythmic tune, she shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I don’t mind it now, Petey Moon says people don’t get lost in the sky and that rain’s just rain. He says people do sometimes get trapped, but if that happens they mostly stay where they were. So that means they couldn’t get lost because they’d be where they were in the first place and they’d know where that was, isn’t that right?’
John breathed in slowly and looked down at her in wonderment. ‘Er, yeah, I suppose so.’
‘So can we go out in the rain? Please.’
‘Oh alright,’ he said, smiling, despite his lack of enthusiasm to go out and get wet again. ‘Go find your wellies and raincoat amongst the stuff in the hall, I’ll be down in a tick to see if I can find some dog leads.’
Seren scampered off and John rested his forehead against the lace fabric that covered the cold window pane. He listened to her feet beating an excited dance on the stairs and wondered at the possibility that things might finally be looking up. Seren actually seemed to be enjoying herself. And him? He could deal with this. Surely it was no coincidence he’d come full circle. In fact it could prove to be the therapy he needed. He jogged downstairs and whistled with a chirpiness that was founded on genuine optimism, and when he realised he was doing it he whistled all the more loudly. This was the start of something new.
What he didn’t realise, however, was that something within the house was stirring, awakening to the sound of him being there.
Something dormant that had never forgotten.
Something profoundly evil.
_
8
_
The care assistant with the overweight midsection and jiggling breasts looked at Sissy Dawson’s plate of untouched food. Mince and dumplings had congealed. A mound of mud-brown gravy with a film of greying white fat resting on top was accompanied by pasty dumplings, which looked spongy and undercooked. Piled to one side were boiled carrots and potatoes, slimy in their watery residue, and next to those a spoonful of boiled white cabbage. The cabbage was the smallest portion of Eden Vale’s Saturday evening meal choice, but the smell of it dominated above all else. It infiltrated every nook and cranny of the care home, tainting fabric and upholstery and lingering like a stale fart in every under-ventilated sleeping quarter and enclosed corridor. The stink would take a day or two to shift, by which point something equally as unpleasant would no doubt take its place. Human decay or vegetable soup, it didn’t much matter. It was all horrible. And bad smells were par for the course at Eden Vale, where people waited to die.
‘Aw now come on, Mrs Dawson,’ the care assistant said, ‘you’ve got to start eating your dinners.’
Sissy, her face drawn and withered, collapsing into a dentureless mouth, clucked her tongue and said, ‘When they make me something nice, Kevin, I will.’
Kevin was a big lad in his early thirties. He had a likeable face, much younger than his years, and his skin looked impossibly soft, perhaps because there was no evidence of a beard or moustache. His thick, fair hair was a kick in the arse off ginger, and his pale blue eyes were patient pools of empathy. He was a six-foot man-child who Sissy preferred to all the other care assistants at Eden Vale. There was nothing outrageous or deviant about him. Sensitive to others’ nee
ds, often putting them before his own, Kevin was a genuine caring man who’d probably been mollycoddled too much by his mother as a boy. He carried too much weight, particularly around his stomach, chest and neck, and Sissy wondered if it was this or the fact he was shy that hampered his efforts to find a wife. He interacted well with all the old biddies at Eden Vale, being a bit of a mother hen himself, but Sissy could imagine he’d be awkward around women his own age.
‘What’s wrong with mince and dumplings?’ he asked, fussing with the propped pillow behind Sissy.
‘Nothing, when they’re done right.’
Kevin shook his head and smiled despairingly. ‘You’ll waste away to nothing if you don’t start eating properly.’
‘Good.’
‘Oh don’t say that.’
‘It’s true. I wish God would hurry up and decide what He wants to do with me, Kevin. I’m tired. Can’t be bothered no more.’
‘Now don’t be like that, Mrs Dawson.’ Kevin’s broad forehead creased. He stepped back and regarded her, then his eyes sparked with something of an idea. ‘Listen, it’s Kitchen Lynn’s birthday today and there’s some chocolate cake on the go downstairs. Do you fancy a slice? You can have mine if you like.’
Although it was a very kind offer, Sissy didn’t hear. Her full attention was now on the open doorway to her room. There was a distant, compelling noise drawing closer. Like brooms sweeping dead leaves into piles on a crisp autumn morning. She listened, her intrigue quickly turning to dread.
Something bad had arrived at Eden Vale.
The air had altered. There was a sharpness to it as though someone had opened a window nearby, which couldn’t be the case, she knew, because none of the first floor windows could be opened. Eden Vale’s safety regulations saw to it that the clientele were as trapped as the stagnant smells from dinner. Fear chilled Sissy’s veins and the hairs on her arms stood on end. She sensed wrongness, and not the day-to-day wrongness of the staff. Something much, much worse.
‘Mrs Dawson?’ Kevin stroked the back of her blue-veined, arthritic hand. ‘Is everything okay? Would you like me to fetch you a piece of…’
‘Shhh.’ Sissy looked at him. Her sunken eyes, the indiscernible colour of puddle water, were wide and fearful. ‘Can you hear that?’
‘Hear what?’
‘All that…whispering.’
‘Whispering? I’m not sure I know what you mean.’ Kevin cocked his head to one side and listened hard. He heard nothing more than the usual comings and goings of the care home. ‘There is no whispering.’
Sissy’s bottom lip began to tremble. She clutched the care assistant’s fleshy wrist with one shaky hand and reached up to her hollow mouth with the other. ‘There is. There is. Make it go away, Kevin. Please make it go away.’
The whish-a-whish-a-whish of dead leaves had changed. The imagined autumnal debris was now a chorus of muted voices. Their exact words went unheard, but she knew they spoke of death. They ascended the wide staircase and, step by dreaded step, moved along the dowdy corridor closer to Sissy’s room. Growing louder and louder. Numerous voices spoke at the same time, but none of the speakers listened to each other.
‘Mrs Dawson? Are you feeling alright?’ Kevin stooped so that his face was in line with hers. His eyes showed alarmed concern. ‘Would you like me to call for Dr Chatterjee?’
‘They’re coming for me,’ she whimpered. ‘What should I do?’
The television in the corner of the room burst to life with a crackle of white snow and a high-pitched whine. Kevin lurched backwards, clutching a hand to his chest, and Sissy gripped his beefy arm. ‘Oo yer bugger,’ he said, laughing nervously while looking at the television. ‘Scared the life out of me that did. Has it done that before? I’ll get Gerard to come and take a look at it.’
Sissy didn’t answer: the television was the least of her concerns. The voices were now right outside her door, the noise of eternal unrest surging into the room with a tumultuous roar like a gale force wind ripping through the lattice tower of a pylon. She held fast to Kevin’s arm, watching in horror as strange figures began to file into the room. An army of anthropomorphised swirling dust motes that moved towards her. The television’s whine stepped up in pitch and Kevin tried to pull free from her so that he could clamp his hands over his ears. But she wouldn’t let go.
‘No,’ Sissy shrieked. ‘Don’t. I can’t…no. Go away! Make them go away, Kevin.’ Her fingernails dug into the softness of his skin and Kevin carefully, but firmly, tried to prise her hand off again. He didn’t seem to notice the figures at all. The figures whose grainy white faces were surreal masks of incensed pain. Their words were clearer now and, even above the squeal of the television, Sissy caught snatches of the ghostly cacophony: ‘Sissy, Sissy, Sissy…You know, you did…The end of all…Now.’
Instinctively she knew who the phantoms were, but didn’t know what they wanted or why they’d come. Her heart was beating too fast for someone of eighty-five and she wondered if this was it, if this was her time of reckoning. Had God sent them to take her away? Was He answering her prayers at last? And if so, would they escort her up or down?
Up. Please, Lord, let it be up.
Or could it be that they’d been sent to taunt her? A last test of endurance, a final debt to be paid.
Whatever the reason for their being there, they began to gather around the foot of the bed. Hideous deathbed angels. Sissy could feel the portentous nature of their turmoil sizzling in the air all around her like static electricity. It made her skin prickle with overwhelming fear. She resisted looking at them directly, but in the end couldn’t help herself. She saw that most of the apparitions had defining human qualities, adult ones, whereas a select few looked more alien. Six foot foetuses. And it was the sight of these ones, with their scrunched faces, underdeveloped blind eyes and domed heads, that made Sissy’s bladder open. Warmth spread beneath her, soaking into the sheets.
‘It’s the children,’ she mewled, trying but failing to sit up. ‘They’re all grown up. Look! Just look at them all, Kevin.’ She pushed herself backwards, wanting to distance herself from their accusatory faces.
‘Mrs Dawson what are you talking about? What children?’ Kevin sounded anxious. He finally freed his arm from her grip and placed a firm hand on her skeletal shoulder to stop her from scrabbling about on the bed. ‘You’re really starting to worry me, I’m going to call for the doctor. Now just try and calm down, okay? I’ll be back in a tick.’
Sissy watched his bulky body, in Eden Vale’s signature blue polyester, pass straight through the spectral gathering at the foot of her bed, unhindered. She begged for him not to leave her alone; a plea that came out as an unintelligible whimper.
Before he left the room, Kevin went to the television and jabbed its standby button repeatedly. When it refused to switch off he held his finger down for an indeterminable amount of time, tapping his foot, his face wracked with bemusement. When still nothing happened he bent and pulled the plug from the wall. Black and white fuzz continued to bluster about on the screen and the ear-ringing whistle hurt his head for a short while before the snow eventually condensed into a small white blip and the maddening sound ceased. Kevin’s shoulders sagged with relief and he gave Sissy the thumbs up. As he passed through the ghostly crowd once again to get to the door, he rubbed his freckled arms and said, ‘I’ll see Gerard about having your radiator switched on as well, Mrs Dawson, it’s gone a bit chilly in here, hasn’t it? And don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll get the telly sorted in time for Family Fortunes. Now hold tight, I’ll go and give the doctor a tinkle, see if she can pop round to see you.’
After he’d gone Sissy sobbed freely, tearing at the mattress with her misshapen fingers in an attempt to move her useless body away from the phantom mass, which had now filtered down both sides of the bed. This close their faces looked more substantial than mere dust motes, as though the peak of Sissy’s fear was somehow negating their transparency. Had she not known better, they could we
ll have been real flesh. Their sunken eyes and downturned mouths, which looked to have never known joy, were like Hallowe’en masks in a grisly parade. They all watched her watching them, and they seemed to gloat and revel in her state of helplessness. When their hands reached out to touch her, the transparent dry ice of their skin burnt hers. She closed her eyes and sank back into the pillow as far as she could, swatting their intangible hands away and rubbing her arms to shake off the piercing cold. She repeated the Lord’s Prayer three times, the words memorised and precise on her lipless mouth, but still the spirits remained, their voices an unrelenting raucous chatter inside her head: ‘You know, you did…With Her…We are…Sissy, Sissy, Sissy…You know, you did…End it.’
There was a new smell now, permeating the air with such rancidness that it thwarted the cabbagey fustiness and made Sissy gag.
‘Please, God, please, God, please, God,’ she chanted, over and over. ‘Please forgive me. Please do. You must know I didn’t mean to do it. You must know that I never meant to…I didn’t want to…you must know I never…you MUST!’
The black television screen exploded with a loud pop. Glass shrapnel sprayed as far across the room as the bed, tiny pellets lodging in Sissy’s face and neck. She shrank back and squeezed her eyes shut. The room was plunged into a thick, eerie silence. She whimpered, a pathetic sound lost to the quiet, and lay clutching the sheets, too afraid to move, too afraid to open her eyes. Her heart filled her ears with the sound of trying to pump blood too quickly from her core, and her bladder twinged, threatening to give out again.