After Z-Hour

by Elizabeth Knox

  ‘Try another one,’ the big woman advised, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

  ‘It’s hard to get a grip; this board’s practically flush with the sill.’

  ‘Try kicking it,’ a third woman, small, curly-haired and blond, suggested.

  ‘I’d break the window.’

  ‘Do we have to get inside?’

  ‘No, but it might be more comfortable.’

  The Canadian let go; he’d given up. ‘With tools I could do it easy.’

  ‘There’s a crowbar in our toolkit.’

  ‘I’m not going back down there.’

  (You certainly are not, not while I’m standing here.)

  The small woman turned to the man on the steps. ‘Do you think you could do it, Simon?’

  He walked over, forgetting the sleeping bag so that it slipped from his shoulders. ‘Probably,’ he said dopily, as though he’d been asleep. He put his fingers on the edges of the board, pressed hard and pulled away. The plank creaked, nails straining a fraction out of the wood. Then he slipped the tips of his long fingers behind the board and ripped it off the window.

  ‘Great. Now you can do the rest.’ The big woman sounded almost resentful.

  Simon put down the first plank and continued to tear the others away, then, once there was a space large enough to climb through, he hauled open the sash window.

  While this was going on the Canadian had sidled slowly out of the others’ sight, down towards the far end of the veranda. He lifted something out of the dark niche of a window and strolled back to the group. He was holding a flashlight.

  ‘Do you want to go first, Hannah?’

  The big woman ducked her head inside, then swung her leg over the sill and vanished. The others followed.

  I went to the window and listened to them shuffling around inside. I watched their shadows, in the beams of the flashlights, swoop, flare and cross one another. The light faded from the window as they moved into another room. I put my bike helmet down and climbed in after them.

  The air indoors, full of disturbed dust, ran burning into my chest—it was like filling my lungs with poison gas. I didn’t cough, and the sensation passed.

  From the next room I heard a click and creak, then, ‘There’s wood in here!’

  ‘And no spiders as far as I can see.’

  ‘That’s because there aren’t any flies. Contrary to ancient belief they aren’t spontaneously generated—puff! Fly appears.’

  ‘With a white head and white front leg, and going, “Help me!” in a thin, wavering voice.’

  Laughter, rustling sounds. A strong upper-middle-class English accent: ‘What a gorgeous ottoman! It shouldn’t have been left to moulder.’

  ‘Shall I make a fire?’

  ‘I’ll do it—the wood will be wonderfully dry.’

  ‘Hey Simon, it’s a pity you didn’t know about this place when you were doing that Bradbury book.’

  ‘Be sparing with the wood, Ellen, it has to last.’

  ‘What are you working on now, Simon?’

  ‘A Gavin Paton. About taniwha—disinherited taniwha. It’s rather sad. And conservationist.’

  ‘What do yours look like?’

  ‘What are they supposed to look like?’ The Canadian again.

  ‘Mine are thin, with flat heads and wide mouths.’

  At this point I stepped into the doorway and said: ‘Housebreakers.’

  Basil

  I had been listening to the conversation Jill and Wrathall were having, while rummaging in my pack for a paraffin fire starter. Hannah was hovering over Ellen, who was laying the fire. Wrathall was holding my torch so that I could see what I was doing. Hannah and Jill were also holding flashlights.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure appear in the doorway, a blur of red and black with a white face. It spoke. Jill screamed and dropped her torch. The ray of Hannah’s swung up to the ceiling as she lifted it over her head as a club. Wrathall turned his beam on the figure.

  The long eyes closed into slits. He didn’t take his hands out of his pockets to shade his face. He laughed. ‘What are you expecting? A monster?’

  Hannah lowered her torch, growled, ‘Arsehole.’

  He sauntered into the room. A slender, long-legged young man wearing a leather jacket, and fatigue pants tucked into walking boots and thick woollen socks. His hair, though wet, was too thick to cling to his skull, and short, except for an off-centre fringe that arched over, rather than fell against, his brow. The skin of his face was smooth and pale, his eyebrows arching, nose short and turned up over a wide, full-lipped mouth. He picked up Jill’s torch and handed it to her, self-possessed, graceful, arrogant.

  For no apparent reason I felt that I had to get this person’s attention, and quickly. I yelled, ‘You may well say!’

  He stared at me. ‘What an excitable person,’ he said, as though to an unseen audience. ‘I may well say what?’

  ‘You know—sepulchral tones, talk of monsters, meaningful laughter.’

  He laughed again, a dry, frail, awkward laugh—not the sort of sound one would expect him to make. It was a very pretty laugh, conveying not just amusement, but also some other, alien sentiment. ‘Did I disturb you?’ he asked.

  I humphed. He was still staring at me with an expression of delight when Wrathall said, ‘You are—badly behaved.’ The young man looked at him and blinked; he had been grinning at me, now the wide grin closed into a smile. ‘I’m sorry.’ Graceful, self-possessed, humble.

  ‘Do you know the owners of this place?’ Hannah asked. ‘Because you’re acting kind of proprietorial.’

  The young man shook his head. Wrathall had ceased to look dreamy and detached, startled out of it. He was awake now and watchful.

  ‘Where did you spring from?’ Ellen asked the stranger.

  ‘My bike’s parked between your cars. I drove across one slip—with difficulty—but I wasn’t counting on the road being gone further on. What made you all decide to come up here?’

  ‘I saw the house when it was still light,’ I said.

  ‘And investigated,’ he said playfully. Not asking—telling me. Jill glanced in my direction, almost as though she could sense it was a significant remark and was waiting for a reaction. I didn’t answer. If I told him I’d been up there before, then they would want to know why I’d come back down to walk on the road in the rain. Still the little bastard persisted, saying, ‘What did you think?’ Looking around himself, appraising the room. I remained silent; he turned back to me, points of light appearing in his eyes. ‘It’s haunted of course,’ he said.

  I was at once shocked and curiously relieved. It was horrible to hear someone say what I was thinking, but to know that someone else thought the place was haunted was like being absolved of an enormous responsibility. I babbled, ‘When I was here before, something picked me up and looked me over, sort of—’

  The lights in his eyes flickered. ‘I was only kidding. Of course it isn’t haunted. Haunted? Yeah sure, by a giant frog who goes up and down the staircase every night, and is really the Marquess of an old Scottish family, who, cursed with immortality, shrank into a frog-creature over three hundred years—’

  Jill said, ‘I thought I was the only person in the world to have seen that movie.’ I had the impression she was trying to take everyone’s attention off my embarrassed confusion.

  ‘You must watch a lot of old horror movies,’ the newcomer said. ‘Do you remember its name?’

  Jill shook her head.

  ‘The Maze.’

  ‘There’ll be a test afterwards,’ I said, then, ‘My name is Basil, in case you’re interested.’ I continued to rummage in my pack, found a fire starter and passed it to Ellen.

  In a few moments the fire was lit. The light grew, first from the single streaming flame wrapping the paraffin cube, then the dry wood caught. The warmth was wonderful.

  Ellen said, ‘We’ll know soon if the chimney’s blocked.’ But the smoke continued to rise and disappea
r.

  The young man came over and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Sorry. You gave me a fright, which I suppose I deserve, since I was trying to spook you. Do you really think the house is haunted?’ His expression was open and earnest.

  The others were listening and I didn’t want to look a fool again, so I played down what I felt. ‘It did occur to me that it might be. I do believe in ghosts.’

  He nodded. ‘OK. I’ll keep my eyes open.’

  Hannah touched his arm with the back of her hand. ‘Will you help me shift the couch closer to the fire—ah, what’s your name?’

  ‘Kelfie.’ He helped her carry the ottoman over to the hearth.

  Wrathall was still glaring at Kelfie, who ignored him, with studied composure. It was an amusing picture—Wrathall looked so formidable and fierce. Jill saw I was looking from one to the other and smiled at me in a conspiratorial fashion. Then she poked Wrathall lightly in the ribs. He looked surprised, then abashed. The bad-tempered expression diminished to one only slightly irascible.

  Jill

  I dreamt I was lying in a pit full of snow and icy mud. The woollen glove on my right hand was frozen fast to a wound in my throat. Every time I drew breath there was a sharp, terrible pain. My lungs were burning, my eyes swollen and streaming, my mouth foul with the rusty flavour of blood and some other throat-scalding taste. My legs were tangled in wire. The warmth was bleeding out of my body.

  A flare floated in the sky above me, trailing smoke and droplets of fire, the sky around it light grainy grey.

  A crackle of gunfire. The white radiance declining slowly. Silence. Buried alive in snow.

  Strange shapes had entered my space and peace. I felt a touch on my cheek and the ice there crack into a stinging web of fire. Someone was busy cutting the wire around my legs. I was mesmerised by the two gold stars above the seam of his shoulder. I tried to speak, hearing words, hollow and garbled, like a snagged tape. His face turned to me, pale and furious, tears on his cheeks. I heard him clearly: ‘Because—you stupid ass—I’ve been reading your letters for months!’

  Someone was shaking me. I blinked blearily at her. ‘You’ll wake everyone.’ It was Ellen. I sat up.

  Basil was sprawled on the floor, his head flung back, mouth open. Hannah was sitting curled up, her head rested on the seat of the ottoman—Ellen and I had been sharing it, our legs entwined. Simon lay on his stomach, the sleeping bag rolled up under his head, his clothes still steaming in the fire’s heat. Kelfie, with inexplicable confidence and familiarity, was asleep with his head partly pillowed on Basil’s midriff—the two of them as relaxed as if this was a customary position.

  ‘I had a nightmare.’ My voice sounded as thick as treacle.

  ‘I gathered that.’

  ‘I was a man—’

  ‘Oh God! That is a nightmare!’ She grinned at me mischievously.

  I shivered and stretched out my hands to the fire.

  ‘The room’s warming up really well,’ she said.

  ‘I was lying in a pit—’ The nightmare seemed to still have hold of me; I felt cold and sluggish. The room was dark, blurred, as though filled with water.

  ‘“This narrow place, this dark pit in which I now am lying, of what bird is it the talon?”’ Ellen quoted. ‘Was it a really bad nightmare?’

  I nodded. She curled her feet up under her and tilted her head onto her hand, burying her slender fingers in her hair. ‘I don’t sleep very well, because I have nightmares,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t usually have nightmares. Even when I’m upset. I only have those anxiety dreams—of trying to make tea for thirty people and not being able to find thirty cups.’

  ‘I’ve been having some success with lucid dreaming,’ she said. ‘You should try it.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘When you dream lucidly, you tell yourself you are dreaming, then take control of the dream and rearrange it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well—I have one dream where a man chases me through the corridors of a school. It’s after school and no one’s around.’ Ellen’s face became intent and serious. ‘It used to be a terrible dream, till I took control of it. Now, the most I’ve been able to do is make this staircase appear—he pursues me up it, but it gets narrower and narrower as it climbs. Till finally it is so narrow he can’t go any further—I’m smaller than him, so I can go on till I have to stop, crammed into a little space, but safely out of his reach.’

  ‘I think you’d better keep working on that one, Ellen. Try to get hold of an elephant gun next time.’

  She smiled. ‘Trauma,’ she said.

  ‘I gathered that.’

  She brushed some lint off her jersey, not meeting my eyes, suddenly shy.

  ‘How long have you been travelling?’ I asked her.

  ‘I haven’t been at home for three years.’ She did some mental calculations, then nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. When I finished my degree I took a holiday in the Greek Islands. Met some people there and travelled—Turkey, Egypt and so on. Then my brother joined me and we went through Kashmir and India, then over to Malaysia, Indonesia and down to Australia. When Jon and I were camping on a beach in Queensland Hannah came along and started bossing and running our fire—we had it too close to the trees—’ She broke off, remembering. ‘It was a lousy swimming beach, there was a rip, and stingers, but the sand was beautiful, soft and creamy white. Anyway—Jon and I trailed around after Hannah, then we all had a big fight and he pissed off back home. I’ve been with Hannah ever since.’

  ‘How long’s that?’

  ‘About eight months. Hannah had been in Australia for a while. She’d picked grapes, gone alligator hunting, then opal-digging. She has quite a bit of money put by.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘I have a little trust fund, and I’ve managed to support myself—mainly by living off other people.’ She burst out laughing at what she’d said. Simon shuddered, but didn’t wake. Hannah lifted her head and regarded us with bleary eyes.

  Ellen got up and, stepping over Kelfie, moved closer to the fire. ‘You can have my end of the sofa Han, I’m not sleepy.’

  I followed Ellen. Hannah frowned at me. ‘You don’t have to get up. Lie down and rest.’

  ‘Stop being so solicitous, I’m getting up to stretch my legs,’ I snapped.

  She shook her head, an exaggerated gesture of exasperation, and lay down on the ottoman. Ellen settled on the brass firebox, stretched out her legs and folded her arms. We were both quiet for several minutes, Ellen watching Hannah as though waiting for her to go back to sleep. Before long Hannah was still, her breathing becoming regular again.

  I said, ‘It’s strange, how deeply asleep they are.’ As soon as I’d voiced this thought I realised it was a peculiar thing to say—to think. I looked at Kelfie. In his pale throat the veins ran green beneath the skin. A pulse was leaping at the base of his neck, his face was slightly flushed, his mouth dark, its shape blurred, lips full of blood, as though they had been kissed.

  Short, nearly transparent flames flickered in the fireplace. As the fire shrank slowly the light faded. When the last little flames had drawn back into the coals they lay tinkling like breaking wires. I picked up the fire tongs and fished out an ember. A shadow moved within its radiance, like some imprisoned creature struggling to be free. As it cooled a thin velvet of ash formed over its surface. I blew on it, the velvet shredded, the shadow was obliterated, and heat touched my face. I put two more logs in the fireplace; they smoked for a moment, then caught. Around the room shadows clambered back up the walls away from the firelight.

  ‘I suppose I won’t start feeling tired till around midnight,’ Ellen said quietly. ‘Hannah and I weren’t up till ten this morning; I’m surprised she’s able to sleep.’

  ‘It’s the dark, and the sound of the rain. And it’s weird not to have something to do, like ironing, or letter writing, or the paper to read, or TV to watch.’

  ‘That’s right. Because I haven’t got som
ething to occupy me I feel as though I’m visiting, or at a party—you know—waiting to be entertained.’

  I said, ‘Know any good stories?’

  And Ellen said, ‘Can you still remember your dream?’

  After a few short minutes it seemed to have retreated from me. I concentrated and felt a lethargic peace steal over me. ‘I was lying in a pit, and I was hurt, I couldn’t move.’ I touched my throat. At the touch a cloud of feelings coalesced inside me: helplessness, despair—familiar feelings—but also hunger. Intense, terrifying, black-hole hunger.

  ‘What’s wrong, Jill? What’s wrong with her, Ellen?’ someone demanded in an angry penetrating voice. An arm—Ellen’s, I recognised her scent—clasped my shoulders. ‘She had a nightmare.’ Ellen was staring at me, her expression tense and confused. I realised I must have cried out.

  Kelfie was crouching before me, not touching me. Yet I could feel his presence as strongly as I could feel Ellen’s. A physical presence not like that of a man, or a woman, but unobtrusive, soothing, inhuman, like a cat.

  ‘Sorry, Jill, I shouldn’t have got you to think about it.’

  ‘But it wasn’t about Nicky or Dan,’ I said, trying to explain how strange it was that this dream should disturb me when it seemed in no way connected with my life. They didn’t remark on this, either leaving me to calm down or waiting for me to elaborate.

  Kelfie said, ‘I’m sorry for scaring you before.’ His expression was contrite and childlike. He put his thumbnail in his mouth and gnawed on it, looking from Ellen to me in consternation.

  ‘That’s right!’ Ellen said fiercely.

  He sat back on his heels, his eyes slightly unfocused, face attentive, as though he were listening to something, then in a quiet, deliberate tone he said, ‘I had been listening to you. You were all so vivid it was like you were setting the scene for my entry. I couldn’t resist it.’

  ‘You were eavesdropping. That’s a nasty habit. And perhaps you ought to learn to curb your passion for the dramatic.’