When he did, he brought with him the spare sweater he kept in the car. He handed it to Lucy.
“Here, put this on.” Doctor Bachman could see his breath as he spoke. “They’re forecasting snow this week.” He ran his hand over the kitchen radiator. It was as cold as the rest of the house. “Where’s the thermostat for your heating?”
Lucy couldn’t answer that. She hadn’t thought to look.
Doctor Bachman filled a bowl with warm water and knelt beside her. He gently wiped the clotted blood from Lucy’s feet. She winced and gritted her teeth, ready for the pain to come. She’d pulled the largest shards from her feet while she’d been locked in the car, parting the slits of skin and working the pieces out. But the smaller ones, the ones too deep or too painful for her fingers to grasp, remained. Doctor Bachman rinsed the cloth. Lucy’s blood melted into the water, streaks spiralling to fading trails. Fragments of glass glimmered as they sank to the bottom of the bowl.
The house creaked. Doctor Bachman felt Lucy start. Her head snapped up. She watched the ceiling with wide eyes. “What on earth happened, Lucy?”
She thought before answering.
“I dropped a mirror,” she lied.
“Last night?”
Lucy nodded.
“What were you doing with it?”
Lucy avoided Doctor Bachman’s gaze. She’d always been honest with him. She hated not telling him everything. “It’d fallen off the wall.”
“You dropped it, or it fell?”
“No, I... It just fell. I didn’t drop it.”
Doctor Bachman smiled warmly, “You know, all that bad luck stuff? It’s just superstition, nothing to worry about.”
Lucy didn’t smile back. “I still don’t believe in that sort of thing.”
Doctor Bachman returned to tending to her wounds. With a pair of tweezers, he pulled the shards he could reach from the raw slices in her feet.
“There are some pieces of glass I can’t get to. You’re going to have to have them removed at the hospital. I can make you an appointment today when I’m at the General if you’d like.”
Lucy watched the doorway behind Doctor Bachman.
“Matt said you’d seen Alex here.”
She looked back down to him.
“I think so.”
“Is that why you bought the house?”
Lucy nodded. Doctor Bachman rested a gauze dressing on the edge of the bowl. The water was pink with Lucy’s blood.
“Have you seen him again since?
Lucy looked away. A tear streaked her cheek.
“It’s okay, Lucy.”
“No, no it’s not!”
Lucy planted her hands on the kitchen table and used it to take her weight as she pulled herself up. “Come with me.”
Tottering on her injured feet, Lucy led Doctor Bachman to the lounge door. It was shut. She hesitated. “I don’t remember closing...” Last night she’d run terrified from the living room. She hadn’t closed the door behind her.
She leaned in towards the door, listening for the slightest sound from the living room. The house was silent. She took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. It didn’t work. Slowly she turned the handle and pushed the door open.
She could see her cuttings scattered across the floor, the words that had drawn her to the black house now stuck together with her blood.
Enough morning light bled around the curtains to pick out a trail of broken glass leading across the room.
Doctor Bachman followed Lucy, stepping carefully, avoiding the pieces of bloody mirror that traced Lucy’s frantic escape from the house.
As they crossed the room, Doctor Bachman noticed the high-backed chair drawing out of the gloom. He wondered why Lucy would have positioned it facing the wall like that. He tried to focus on following her but the chair pulled his gaze back. He grew increasingly uneasy that he couldn’t see if someone was sitting in it.
“Look.” Lucy’s words made the doctor start. He turned to see her pointing up to the ceiling. “I found this last night. I… I’ve no idea how it got there.”
PEELED OPEN BELLY
“There are more of them.”
This was far worse than anything Doctor Bachman had imagined.
“Lucy, how...?”
Lucy fumbled for words to explain.
“I did it! I bought the house to try and contact Alex. After I’d seen him, upstairs in that room, I swore I’d do anything to get a message from him.”
PEELED OPEN BELLY
“I don’t know what I’ve done, but it’s bad. It’s really bad! Whoever wrote this, wrote these messages, they’re evil, insane.”
Doctor Bachman was furious with himself. How could he have let this happen?
“You have to leave this house, Lucy.”
“No!” Lucy backed away from the doctor. Shards of broken mirror crowded her bare feet. “I can’t! Don’t you see? If I’ve contacted someone, something, I have to keep trying. Doesn’t this mean that it’s possible at least that I might contact Alex?”
“Lucy, listen to me. I’m a scientist. I don’t believe in ghosts. I do believe in monsters but they’re human beings like you and me. If someone is doing this, writing these messages, then you need to be as far away from them as possible. I want you to pack a bag. Lucy, come to the hospital tonight. You’ll be safe there.”
Lucy shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
“You have to. Look, I’ve got appointments at the General today. You can come with me.”
Lucy’s eyes darted from Doctor Bachman up to the scrawled threat carved above her. She wanted to go, wanted to run, but while there was any chance at all that she might contact Alex, she had no choice but to stay.
“I can’t.”
Doctor Bachman edged back. Lucy’s feet shifted. There was a wildness in her eyes, an unpredictable fear. He was afraid that if he kept pressing her she might bolt, panic and run across the pieces of the mirror.
“I’m sorry, Lucy, I’ve got to go now but I’ll be done by three. Pack a bag. I’ll come back and collect you.” Doctor Bachman made to leave the living room. He looked back at Lucy. “Please trust me. You mustn’t stay here another night.”
As Doctor Bachman descended the overgrown path he felt the gaze on his back. He turned, expecting to see Lucy standing in the doorway, hoping she’d changed her mind and would come to the hospital with him after all. But the doorway was empty. He must have been mistaken. He tried to laugh at himself—he’d let Lucy’s ghost story get under his skin. But, if that was the case, why did he feel the same sick unease he’d felt in the living room when he’d seen the high-backed chair? He pulled his coat closed. He was shaking. Even though he’d left the house, its creeping cold remained with him.
20
Doctor Bachman switched on the heating and wound the dial to the hottest setting. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of Marlboro. He tapped the pack on his leg until a smoke stood out far enough for him to grab it between his teeth. He lit it and clicked on the radio. Golden Gate Greats. He hoped the music and the nicotine would help calm his nerves.
As he drove, he felt warm air beginning to rush over the back of his hand on the wheel. He angled the vents to get the full benefit of the heating. Doctor Bachman drew deeply on his smoke. He tried to dismiss the unease he’d felt in the house—it was just the guilt he felt over Lucy’s situation, the concern that had been growing ever since she’d left the hospital. No, there was more to it than that. He kept returning to that chair. He wondered what would have happened if he’d continued on, rounded its high back. What black thing would have waited for him there?
The words had been carved into the wall with such force that they were scored right down to the brick.
NEVER OVER
As Doctor Bachman put some distance betwe
en himself and the house he began to relax. Eventually the stream of hot air blasting from the car’s heater became stifling. He wasn’t ready to switch it off, so he wound down the window. Even though his face and hands felt flushed, he couldn’t rid himself of the cold that had lingered at his back ever since he’d gotten into the car.
Rush hour had passed and the roads outside the city were quiet. Doctor Bachman lit another cigarette off his last, something he hadn’t found himself doing for years. He was driving too fast, worried about Lucy. He had to get her out of that house. If she wouldn’t leave when he returned from the General, he’d look into getting an order for an involuntary commitment. Alex’s death had utterly destroyed her. If she remained at the house the consequences could be terrible. How could he have let the situation spiral so far out of control?
He threw his half-smoked cigarette out of the window. He shouldn’t have lit it in the first place. The nicotine made him feel shaky and nauseous. He leaned back in his seat. As he did, the cold that had followed him from the house closed around him.
He heard his seat belt unlocking. He looked down to see what was happening. In the same instant the belt was ripped upwards. It caught on his jaw, jerking his head back, before pulling taut around his throat.
21
Doctor Bachman tore at the belt, his nails gouging his throat as he fought to force his fingers between the seat belt and his neck. The car swerved out across the road.
He groped frantically for the wheel, managing to catch a hold of it with a flailing hand. He jerked it back, swinging the car out of the oncoming lane. All the time, the belt was pulled tighter from behind. He stamped blindly in the foot well, trying to find the brake. His foot found the accelerator instead.
The car tore forward over the brow of the hill and launched into the air. Doctor Bachman dropped the wheel, throwing his hands up in front of his face, bracing…
Moments later the car slammed back to earth, metal scraping, sparking on the asphalt. The impact threw the Doctor forward, his whole weight straining against his trapped neck. He felt the muscles in his throat tearing, and howled in agony.
The car fishtailed, the back end spinning out. It skidded sideways into the oncoming traffic in the junction at the foot of the hill.
Only then was the belt around his neck released.
The woman in the SUV didn’t have time to react as Doctor Bachman’s car swung into her path. She slammed head on into his passenger side door. The door buckled and caved—metal and glass punched into the cabin. The sudden, dead stop ripped Doctor Bachman from his seat, hurling him towards the passenger door.
The seat belt snapped taut and locked. Doctor Bachman was jerked back with such force he slammed into the half open window, smashing his collar bone and shattering the window into a glass spider’s web.
For a moment everything was black.
In the dream, it was trying to strangle him, grey skin, putrid, it stank of oil and rotten meat. Its glass fingers scraped at his neck, tightening around his throat, scratching, tearing. Blood was pouring over the glass.
Doctor Bachman opened his eyes. He could still feel the cold around his throat. The force of the collision had left him slumped, his head hanging out of the driver’s side window. His neck lay on the shattered pane: he could feel it digging into his throat. He tried to move but couldn’t lift his head. The cold around his throat was his blood.
He felt the glass shifting, the weight of his head pressing his throat down on the jagged edge of the shattered window. The veins in his neck bulged, swelling over the pane.
As he lay helpless, he heard a car speeding down the hill towards him.
The Audi driver had been talking on his cell. He saw the accident too late. Now he hammered on the brake, tires screaming.
Doctor Bachman closed his eyes.
Christ, let it be over quickly.
The Audi skidded down the hill, closer and closer.
And then it stopped. The bumper nudged against Doctor Bachman’s driver side door. He could feel the heat of the car’s engine radiating through its hood. He whimpered—a sigh of relief that smoked and faded on the freezing air.
Doctor Bachman raised a trembling hand to grab for the door handle, trying to get some leverage to pull his neck from the broken window. He could feel the two halves of his snapped collar bone shifting beneath his skin, scraping awkwardly against one another. Every small move was agony.
A large splinter of metal, shrapnel from the mangled passenger door, had been driven into Doctor Bachman’s wrist in the crash. It had sliced through the cuff of his shirt, cutting deep into the flesh beneath. Blood trickled over his fingers as he felt across his door.
He found the handle, closed his wet fingers into a fist around it, then pushed down, trying to lift his weight.
Doctor Bachman’s wrist snapped with a sickening crack. He screamed as the bone shattered, bursting through his skin and slamming forward into the electric window control above the door handle. The window started to life, beginning to rise in its frame.
He screamed for help, stretching his neck as much as he could but the broken glass dug into his skin. Then it was slicing into his throat. The pieces of the pane cracked loudly, forced together as they drove through the cords of muscle.
Doctor Bachman twisted, desperately trying to dislodge his forearm, but the dead weight of his broken body held it wedged against the switch.
His jugular swelled around the rising pane.
“No! No! Plea—”
Then it split, thick blood jetting down the door. Outside, a woman was screaming. “Call 911! Someone call 911!”
Then the window jammed.
The motor driving the pane cycled, locking, slipping back, locking, slipping back, trying to drive through the vertebra. The glass crackled, shaking, compacting, the window jolting forward and jerking back again.
With an awful snap, the window was free. It sliced through the remaining sinew of Doctor Bachman’s neck. The last cords of muscle and skin stretched and split.
Doctor Bachman’s body slumped lifeless against the shattered window. His head landed on the hood of the Audi.
The window fully closed.
22
There was nothing that stood out about the house, no detail to define it, no reason to pull it from the other houses in the quiet street. Nor was there anything about the small woman in her late fifties, standing, watching from the single glazed window, that would cause anyone to pull her from a crowd.
It had been raining for almost an hour. The clouds that had predicted snow had instead brought freezing rain. Lucy was soaked through. She barely noticed. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t this.
Emma had no idea how long Lucy had been standing outside her house. She’d only spotted her twenty minutes ago when she’d pulled herself from the couch to refill her glass. She’d known this day would come. Still, she wasn’t prepared at all. Her hands shook so badly she could hear her glass rattling on the sill where she rested it. She put down the empty glass and disappeared from the window.
A few moments later, she appeared at the front door holding an umbrella. She crossed the street to where Lucy stood. Emma opened the umbrella and held it over Lucy to protect her from the rain.
Eventually, they returned to the house together. Lucy stopped at the threshold. Emma didn’t rush her. She waited, patiently shielding Lucy from the freezing downpour, until she was ready to head inside. After a time, Lucy took the final steps up into the kidnapper’s house.
The first thing Lucy noticed was the silence. It hung heavy over the hallway, and filled the lounge where Emma led her to an armchair to sit. The same muted agony that followed Lucy everywhere she went. Without speaking, Emma left the room and Lucy alone.
Lucy could taste the dust in the air. A blanket lay across the sagging couch. An
empty vodka bottle sat on the carpet, within arm’s reach of the couch.
Emma returned and handed Lucy a towel.
She didn’t use it. Instead, she placed it on the arm of her chair. Like everything in Emma Roberts’ house, it smelt of dust, of another life that had ended on that terrible April night.
Emma sat on the couch opposite Lucy: two mothers who had lost their sons, wrapped in the silence of their grief. Lucy studied Emma. She sat with her hands clasped together in her lap. Her head was bowed. Long strands of grey hair had escaped her loose pony tail and spilled across her soft features. She hid behind them. She looked exhausted. Emma’s eyes flickered up and found Lucy. When their gazes connected, she tried to force a small smile to put Lucy at ease. What had Lucy expected? That his mother would be a monster too? That somehow seeing her would explain how he had come to be the thing he was? Looking at Emma now, Lucy only saw her own pain. She recognized the empty look in Emma’s eyes. She saw herself in twenty years’ time, and had to turn away.
Across the mantlepiece and walls, photographs of a happy family filled frame after frame. A proud mother and father posing with their young son, a toddler—squinting, the sun in his eyes—surrounded by sandcastles. First Christmas, first bike, year after year, photographs charted a happy childhood. The kidnapper had been a monster by the time he’d taken Alex; but he hadn’t always been that way.
As the boy became a man, the happy images became less frequent, until they ran out altogether.
“His father left six months after he started getting sick.” Emma’s voice was quiet, hoarse. Like Lucy, she barely spoke anymore. She reached into her pocket and took out a worn photograph.
“It was only after he died, I realized I’d only taken one picture of him in the past fifteen years.”
She looked down at the image, taking it in one more time, before carefully handing it to Lucy. “I guess we only take pictures of the times we want to remember.”
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