3AM

by Amy Cross

  “If you knew Megan at all,” she continued, “you'd know that there's no way she'd just give up like that.”

  “But that's just it,” he replied, “I didn't know her. Besides, how was I to know that she hadn't found your aunt alive and well, and gone off to fetch her? I wasn't exactly expecting to receive daily updates. To be honest, when your sister arrived it was the first time I've ever known a concerned relative to show up here. Most people, after they move to Marshall Heights, they just get forgotten by the rest of the world.”

  “And what about the creepy stuff?” Rose asked, watching as he made his way over to his desk. She was enjoying setting him on edge, and she felt as if she was close to prodding him into making a real mistake. “Did Megan mention any of that?”

  “I'm afraid you'll have to be more specific.”

  “Bumps in the night, that sort of thing. The stuff that people were warning her about.”

  “I'm not aware of your sister experiencing anything like that,” he replied, taking a seat. “Really, all the ghost stuff gets blown out of proportion. Sometimes I think Marshall Heights is like an echo chamber. One person starts a rumor, then it spreads, then by the time it gets back to the first person they've forgotten, and then they believe it, and then it snowballs from there and so on and so on, forever and ever in a vicious circle. Excuse the mixed metaphors, but when you take a whole load of very bored and very boring people, you can end up with quite the urban legend. Honestly, it's all -”

  Before he could finish, the phone on his desk rang and he fumbled to grab it and answer. As he held it to the side of his face, he almost seemed grateful for the interruption.

  “Yes, Mrs. Partridge,” he said after a moment. “Of course, Mrs. Partridge, I can come and take a look right now.” He listened for a few seconds. “Well, that's strange, the gas supply should be absolutely fine, but I'll help you figure out the problem. Don't worry, it'll be back to normal in no time.” He listened again, while maintaining eye contact with Rose. “That's what I'm here for, Mrs. Partridge,” he continued finally, with a forced smile. “I'll be up in two shakes, okay?”

  Cutting the call, he got to his feet and headed over to grab his coat from the hook on the wall.

  “Duty calls,” he said. “I'm sorry, I have to go and see a lady on the first floor about a malfunctioning stove.” Heading over to the far side of the room, he grabbed a spare gas canister.

  “That's cool,” Rose replied, stepping out of the office and watching as he pulled the door shut behind them and locked it. “I hope you didn't think I was giving you the third degree or anything. I wasn't trying to interrogate you, I just want to know what happened to Megan.”

  “That's entirely understandable,” he continued, as he carried the canister toward the elevator. “I imagine it's very alarming when someone goes missing, and I know from experience that the police often aren't very helpful when Marshall Heights is involved. I can't help thinking that you might be looking in the wrong place, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if she's really gone missing, I figure there's more chance of it having happened after she left. On the way to the train station, or when she got there, or...” He hit the Call button, and a moment later the elevator's mechanism could be heard springing to life in the shaft. “She's not here,” he added finally. “That much is clear. Search all you like, peer into every nook and cranny, but you won't find anything. There are a lot of other places between Marshall Heights and your sister's front door.” As soon as the doors slid open, he stepped inside and turned back to her. “Coming up?”

  “Nah. I'm heading into town for a bit. There's no internet in this goddamn building, and I need to get online.”

  “What for?”

  “Research.”

  He paused. “Into what?”

  “Just stuff.”

  “You mean Marshall Heights?”

  “Among other things. It's the first floor you're heading to, isn't it?” Reaching inside, she hit the button before stepping back. “I guess I'll see you around. Unless I go missing too, of course. And then someone will come looking for me, because I don't know how things usually go here at Marshall Heights, but when someone from my family disappears, the rest of us care. If someone thought they could steal my sister and I wouldn't come looking for her, they made a very, very bad choice.”

  “I'm -”

  Rose smiled as the door slid shut. A moment later, she heard the chamber starting to rise in the shaft.

  “Well,” she said finally, “you're a dirty liar, Michael Powers, and I don't like liars. You're hiding something.”

  Two

  Pressing the mute button on the remote control, Beth stared at the T.V. for a moment and realized she was right:

  Her mother was talking to herself in the kitchen.

  “It's just not like that,” she heard her saying. “There has to be some other way.”

  Glancing at the nearby table, Beth saw that her mother's mobile phone was plugged in to charge, which meant she wasn't talking to someone else.

  “She's just a child,” her mother muttered a few seconds later. “I don't know what to do, I don't know if there's anything I can do. I'm supposed to look after her, but everything I do is just delaying the inevitable. This is no place to raise a kid, God knows what it's doing to her. By the time I get her out of here, the damage might be irreversible. I should call mum, maybe send Beth off to Bristol but...” Her voice trailed off.

  Getting to her feet, Beth made her way to the door and leaned around the corner until she could see her mother in the kitchen, pacing up and down as if she was stressed. She was used to seeing her mother in an agitated state, but this seemed like something else again, as if all the stress and fear was really starting to get to her now. Beth had long worried that her mother might crack one day.

  “I have to get a job,” she was muttering, “and then I have to get money together, and then somehow -”

  Suddenly they made eye contact, and Charmian stopped dead.

  “What are you doing?” she snapped.

  Beth paused, not even sure that she was allowed to speak.

  “What are you doing?” Charmian asked again, clearly struggling to keep from shouting. “Why are you watching me like that?”

  “Who are you talking to?” Beth asked.

  “No-one. I thought you were watching something?”

  “I was, but...” Pausing, Beth could feel a creeping sensation in her belly, as if she knew that something wasn't right. “Who were you talking to?” she asked again. “I heard you talking to someone, but there's no-one else here.”

  “I wasn't talking to anyone,” Charmian replied, grabbing a glass of water and taking a drink. “Sometimes I just say things out loud so I can get them straight in my head, that's all.” She forced a smile, despite the sadness in her eyes. “Why? Who do you think I'd be talking to? I never talk to anyone, just... you, and the doctor, and the woman at the unemployment office. Who the hell else is there?”

  Beth stared at her. “I don't know,” she said finally.

  “There's no-one here,” Charmian continued, with a faint twitch on one side of her face.

  “Are you okay?” Beth asked. “You look funny.”

  “Funny how?”

  “You look pale and a bit poorly, like -”

  “Can you just stop?” she shouted suddenly, before sighing. “Jesus Christ... No, wait, I'm sorry.”

  Beth took a step back.

  “I'm fine,” Charmian continued, hurrying over and crouching in front of her daughter. “I'm not mad at you, see? Mummy's not angry, I promise.”

  Beth stared at her cautiously.

  Forcing a smile, Charmian's tucked some of Beth's hair away from her face. “You,” she continued, trying again to smile even though she seemed to be on the verge of tears, “do not have to worry about me, okay? I'm your mother and it's my job to worry about you, not the other way around.” She paused, staring into Beth's eyes. “We've go
t to get you ready to go back to school soon. You know I'm always going to keep you safe, don't you? No matter what happens.”

  Beth nodded.

  “Because that's another of my jobs,” Charmian continued. “Most little girls have a Mummy and a Daddy to do things like that, but you've only got a Mummy. That's okay, though, because I work twice as hard. I do everything a Mummy is supposed to do and everything a Daddy would do, and even more than that. And do you know what? I don't mind at all. I wish your Daddy was here, but he's not so you and I are just going to have to get on with things together.”

  “I know,” Beth replied, “but... you weren't talking to Daddy just now, were you?”

  “Of course not, sweetheart. How could I be talking to Daddy?”

  “I don't know.”

  “You don't ever hear Daddy's voice, do you?” she asked, clearly concerned. “Beth, you'd tell me if you heard anything unusual, wouldn't you? Anything at night?”

  Beth nodded.

  “Promise?”

  “I promise. But I could never hear Daddy's voice, could I? I mean, he's dead, so... I'm never going to hear it again.”

  “That's right,” Charmian replied, giving her a hug. “It's sad, but Daddy's gone and there's just no way he can ever come back.” Glancing over at the door, she took a deep breath. “That's what happens when someone dies. They have to go away and they stay gone forever.”

  “Where do they go?”

  “Nowhere. They just stop existing.”

  “Is he in heaven?”

  Charmian paused for a moment, with tears in her eyes. “Sure, honey. He's in heaven.”

  “I miss him.”

  “Me too,” she replied, keeping her eyes fixed on the frosted glass. “Me too.”

  “Mummy,” Beth said after a moment, pulling back from the hug. “I think...” Reaching into her mouth, she wiggled her loose tooth for a moment before finally slipping it out. A few trickles of blood ran down her fingers as she held the tooth up for her mother to see, and finally she opened her mouth to reveal the gap.

  “Wow,” Charmian said, holding out her hand so that Beth could drop the tooth into her palm. “My little girl is starting to get all grown up.” She stared at the tooth for a moment, filled with pride, before a sense of concern began to creep through her gut. “This is your last one,” she said finally, as if some awful realization had crossed her mind. “Your last baby tooth.”

  Three

  “This is pretty old-school,” Rose said as she saw the old T.V. monitor in the corner of the library's computer room. “It's like going back in time ten years.”

  “We don't exactly have the funding to buy state-of-the-art equipment,” the librarian replied, hitting a button on the front of the computer and waiting for a moment before it started up. A few seconds later, a Windows 98 logo appeared on the screen. “We're actually running a fundraiser right now. We need to find ten thousand pounds by March or we might have to shut down the whole library.”

  “Here,” Rose said, taking some money from her pocket and handing her a couple of twenty pound notes.

  “Thanks,” the woman replied as she took the money, “that's very generous. The truth is, we're running a bit behind schedule with everything. If the library closes, the local community will lose its only real focal point.”

  “You don't know anything about Marshall Heights, do you?” Rose continued, as the old computer continued to struggle with its slow start-up process. “Have you heard any stories about the place? Anything unusual?”

  “Just that it's best to keep away,” the librarian replied. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Why?”

  “Are you a journalist?”

  “Hell, no,” Rose replied. “I'm just... a concerned neighbor. I have family living there.”

  “Then you might want to think about getting them out.”

  “So what's going on in there? Everyone seems to dance around the issue but no-one really says what's up.”

  “There are a lot of stories. Sometimes late at night, you hear...” She paused. “I don't live too far from Marshall Heights,” she continued cautiously. “I mean, this is London, so at night you always hear weird things. People shouting, screaming... banging sounds, bumps, all sorts of stuff. Just the general noise of the city, you know? That faint moan on the horizon that everyone just accepts. The thing is, everyone kinda knows that most of the really weird sounds round here seem to come from Marshall Heights. Even the street gangs don't like going near the place.”

  “Street gangs?”

  “Kids who hang out at night. Most of them are just buying and selling drugs, although there's a little prostitution, some violence too. It's horrible, but...” Another pause. “You ask anyone, young or old, rich or poor, and they'll tell you the same thing about Marshall Heights. The best thing to do is just to keep away and not think about it. Some of the kids even dare each other to go inside. They treat it as if it's some sort of haunted house, almost like an initiation ceremony. For a while, some of them used to dare each other to run up the stairs to the roof and then back down again. I know it sounds stupid, but they seemed to think it was fun.”

  “But no-one actually does anything about it?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don't know,” Rose continued. “Dynamite the place? Move the people out and just knock it all down?”

  “There's no money for that,” the librarian explained. “The local council just ignores the problem, so do the police. Whatever's happening at Marshall Heights, it stays there and it doesn't seem to leak out. For most people, that's good enough. I just feel sorry for anyone who's forced to live there, that's all. You see them sometimes, when they come out to the shops or whatever, and they always look like they don't sleep. They have this expression, as if they're... haunted.”

  “Maybe they are,” Rose pointed out.

  “There was this one woman,” she continued, “who moved in a while ago, and she looked so healthy and vibrant. She used to pop in here and chat sometimes. I mean, she'd fallen on hard times, that was obvious. You don't end up being moved into Marshall Heights by the council unless you're at rock bottom, but she seemed really positive, you know? I thought maybe she'd break the pattern. And then week by week I saw the way that she just... She started to look tired and haggard, and then after a while she didn't come so often, and when she did, she'd generally be very quiet. She started to sit alone in the corner, looking through all these old It was like the life was being drained from her. She had a kid, I remember that much, a little girl. She never comes at all these days, I don't know what happened to her but the last time I saw her, she looked like...”

  “Like what?” Rose asked after a moment.

  “It's a horrible thing to say.” The librarian paused. “She looked almost like a ghost. Pale and thin, almost like she could fade away at any moment.”

  “Fade and disappear,” Rose muttered, as the desktop screen finally appeared on the monitor.

  “She's not the only one. They all get like that eventually. You can recognize someone from Marshall Heights a mile away, just by the look in their eyes, like they never sleep and they hear stuff at night. A few of them have mentioned things about voices, knocks on the door...”

  “The woman you mentioned,” Rose continued, taking her wallet from her pocket and pulling out a photo of her aunt. “Did she look like this?”

  As soon as the librarian saw the photo, a flicker of recognition crossed her face.

  “That's her. Why?”

  “When did you last see her?”

  “Weeks ago. I'm not really sure.”

  “But you said she started to look like a ghost?”

  “I don't mean like an actual ghost, just... pale and thin, and so gaunt...” Hearing the bell ring over by the counter, the librarian glanced at the door for a moment. “I have to go,” she added, “but I swear, you couldn't get me to live at Marshall Heights, not even if you paid me a million pounds. And I'd never, ever let anyone
I cared about live there. I'd rather have them sleeping in my front room.”

  Left alone in the cramped computer room, Rose sat at the computer and – despite having to use a browser from the late nineties – was finally able to check her email. None of her messages to Megan had received a reply.

  “Come on,” she whispered, trying to fight the sense of panic. “Where the hell are you?”

  ***

  “Ghost stories,” she said an hour later as she made her way out of the library, holding her phone to the side of her face. “That's all I found online when I searched for Marshall Heights. Lots and lots of ghost stories, mostly about creepy noises in the public parts of the building. Of course, none of them had any proof. You'd think someone would've actually snapped a photo or recorded some audio at some point. What is it about ghost hunters that makes them have the wobbliest, most out-of-focus cameras in the world?”

  “That building is wrecked on a spiritual level,” Ben replied over the phone, “but did you find the stuff about the serial killer?”

  Stopping at the top of the steps outside the library, she paused. “What serial killer?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Ben, I'm tired -”

  “Suspected serial killer, anyway,” he continued, “and when I say suspected, I mean suspected by me, 'cause I seem to be the first person who's pulled all the possibilities together. When you look at disappearances within a five-mile radius of Marshall Heights over the past ten years, excluding people who actually live in the building itself, you start to see certain patterns. From what I can tell, the police haven't latched onto it, or maybe they have but they haven't given it much time, but taking all the data into account, there's a serial killer sized hole right there where someone could have been active for years without being detected. I have the data to back up my theory, too. I'm going to email you a list of -”

  “I can't access my email easily,” she told him. “Give me the basics.”