“Jane, look at this.”
Jane walked into the room. “What is it now, another rat?”
“I think someone’s living here. Look.”
“Well, I’ve seen people live in worse places.”
“But you don’t expect it, you know, not out here, in the country.”
“Well, let’s just go before they come back.”
“I wonder who it is.”
“Who cares, come on sugar, let’s go.”
A door creaked at the rear of the house. Someone coughed, a deep phlegmy sound.
Chase froze.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” Jane whispered. “Now.” She tugged at Chase’s arm.
Chase backed out of the room, trying to be as quiet as she could, but she was sure her heart was beating loud enough to be heard.
For once, even Jane looked worried.
They exited the house the way they entered and ran along the lane. Chase glanced over her shoulder, relieved when she didn’t see anyone in pursuit; not that she really expected to see anyone. They hadn’t done anything wrong so why would anyone come after them? She was being foolish and she slowed to a walk. Jane stopped altogether and leaned over with her hands on her waist as if she was going to be sick. Chase wiped sweat from her brow, took deep breaths and sat beneath the shade of an oak tree at the side of the lane. She couldn’t remember the last time she had run so fast.
“Who do you think was living in that derelict building?” Chase asked between breaths.
“Who cares? But if they want to live there, it’s not someone you or I would want to know.”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t have run away.”
“Run away. I call it a tactical withdrawal.”
“Yes, but it does seem a bit stupid now, doesn’t it?”
“Sugar, if you want to live in the middle of nowhere, stupid is as good as it gets.”
Chase rolled her eyes.
“Perhaps it was the man with the knife,” Jane said.
“That’s comforting.”
“Well you asked.”
Chase sighed. “Well, we’re going to have to go and buy some food. My stomach’s rumbling like a freight train and I could do with a drink. Come on.”
“Can’t a girl catch her breath first?”
“In that top, you’ll catch more than your breath.”
Jane pushed her bosom out even more. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it.”
Although she cringed inside, Chase smiled. Jane didn’t normally embarrass her, but from what she had seen, she didn’t think Paradise was the right place to let it all hang out.
CHAPTER 6
The sun beamed down from high in the sky, throwing short shadows before Chase and Jane as they walked along the lane to the general store. The village remained quiet, as though still sleeping. A bird whistled a mournful tune in the distance, but nothing replied.
“Happening place isn’t it,” Jane said, shaking her head.
“It’s called getting back to nature. People pay a premium to live in a place like this.”
“Well, I’d want a refund. Nature is for the golden oldies. Me, I want the bright lights, not a retirement home.”
Chase disagreed. She loved Paradise. It was quintessentially English, and it had an attractive doctor that she wouldn’t mind being ministered to by. She smiled to herself, the wicked thoughts making her blush. She hoped Jane didn’t notice.
They entered the shop, and Ms Woods came scuttling out of the back room. Thankfully this time, the shopkeeper appeared unarmed.
“Hello my dears, are you new around here?” Ms Woods asked, wiping her hands on her apron.
“We came in this morning,” Chase replied, perusing the shelves.
“No, I don’t recall seeing you this morning. Shop was shut this morning. Are you new around here?”
Chase looked at Jane and pulled a quizzical expression.
Jane shook her head and shrugged.
Needing food, Chase picked up a shopping basket and selected some of the white labelled tins from the shelves: beans, spaghetti, tinned carrots, pasta sauce, potatoes, tomatoes and curry sauce. She also took a couple of cartons of orange juice out of the fridge. They felt deliciously cool and she rubbed one of them across her brow.
“You’d better hope none of those labels come off,” Jane said, “otherwise, you could end up with curry on your spotted dick.”
Ignoring Jane’s remark, Chase went to pay for the shopping, eager to leave the shop and its clinical atmosphere. She felt anxious around people with mental problems. It was as though they existed in another reality, one that didn’t have borders of acceptability, right from wrong, past from present; they lived in the twilight zone of their own minds. She still couldn’t understand how Ms Woods was allowed to carry on working, not when her brain seemed to be blowing fuses like candles on a birthday cake.
“Will that be all?” Ms Woods asked.
Chase nodded and took out her purse.
“Oh no. Don’t worry about that. It’s all free due to the fog. Emergency rations, you see.”
Chase looked surprised. “Free?” Perhaps Ms Woods’ mental problem was worse than she thought, and if it was, she couldn’t take liberties and walk off without paying.
Before Ms Woods could reply, Jane dropped more items into the basket. “If it’s free,” she said, shrugging.
“Go right ahead,” Ms Woods said. “All I have to do is tick the items off on my list.” She picked up a pen and a clipboard and started to scratch at the board, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth like a bloated leech.
Chase didn’t know what to make of the shopkeepers behaviour. “Let’s get out of here,” she said as soon as Ms Woods finished tallying up.
She felt guilty walking out of the shop without paying and she expected Ms Woods to come charging after her with the knife, shouting, ‘Thief, stop, thief.”
As they made their way back up Slaughter Hill, Chase noticed the village was still quiet; everyone still indoors. Or in hiding. She didn’t know where the strange thought came from, but it sent a chill down her spine and gooseflesh erupted along her arms like volcanoes.
It was certainly a strange village, but she was loath to talk to Jane about it, as she would use it as more ammunition to try and get her to leave. She absently wondered where the name Slaughter Hill originated; the image of virgin sacrifices to a pagan God suddenly invaded her head, and she was glad that she wouldn’t be on that particular list as she lost her virginity at 16 to Daniel Bloor at a friend’s party. From what she recalled, the incident proved more embarrassing than exciting.
Back at the house, Chase prepared a quick pasta meal with a tin of sauce. The smell made her feel slightly nauseous and again she wondered if she was coming down with something.
As Chase cooked, Jane stoked the fire. She shouted from the living room, “If the food’s free, perhaps it isn’t so bad living here after all.”
Chase grinned and stirred the sauce. “You’ll want to move out here yourself next.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Oh I don’t know. At least you and Gina would give the locals something to talk about.”
“I think you and the doc will give them plenty to be going on with.”
Chase felt her cheeks turn the same colour as the sauce.
The meal proved bland and unexciting, and when they had finished, they both retired to the living room. The fire roared away in the hearth, giving out waves of heat. Chase watched the flames, mesmerised until she fell asleep, overcome by a tiredness that penetrated down to her bones.
When she awoke, darkness pervaded, the fire burnt down to embers. Soft moonlight filtered through the window and she sat up, wondering how she could have slept so long. She yawned and stretched, easing life back into her body.
“Jane, wake up.” She looked at the chair where she had last seen Jane, but it was empty. Walking to the foot of the stairs she shouted up, but her call fell flat as
the walls absorbed the sound like water in a sponge.
Thinking that Jane might be dead to the world, she walked up the stairs, knocked on Jane’s door and entered. The room was empty. Chase frowned. Where the hell is she? The wardrobe door stood open and Chase walked toward it and peered inside. All of Jane’s clothes were gone, leaving nothing to suggest anyone had even been there.
Her heart started beating faster and she ran to the front bedroom. Pale moonlight illuminated the walls, giving the room an ethereal quality, but Jane wasn’t there either.
What the hell was going on?
For a brief moment, she thought Jane might be playing a trick on her, but she knew Jane wasn’t like that.
“Jane.” Panicked, she ran down the stairs, calling her friends name. Perhaps she had fallen and knocked herself out, she thought. But that wouldn’t explain why her things were gone. Outside the back door, the garden was a wash of cold, silvery light, nocturnal blooms nodding in the slight breeze that caressed her face. “Jane, are you out here?”
But Jane was gone.
CHAPTER 7
She searched the house for any sign of Jane, but there was nothing. Even the dishes had been washed and put away. As though she had never even been there, all trace of her had been removed. Think, damn it, she thought. Where could she have gone? Why didn’t she wake me? More to the point, why didn’t I hear her and wake up anyway? Thoughts surged through her mind like a raging river, but no answers bobbed up.
Without the fire, the house felt cold. At night, the character of the building seemed different. As though it sensed her fear, the walls closed in; the ceiling pressed down. The effect made her feel claustrophobic and she ran out of the front door to breathe in a deep lungful of fresh air. She walked to the bottom of the garden and looked back at the house. The lights she had switched on illuminated the windows with a crystal veneer, a facade for the hollowness that lay within. When she had company, the house felt warm and inviting, but now, it seemed cold, aged with secrets. She knew houses had a character of their own, the walls imbued with the identity of who lived in them, but this one seemed to have a Jekyll and Hyde character.
A thought occurred to her, and she went back into the house and up to her bedroom. She rummaged through her handbag until she found her mobile phone, noticed a text message waiting for her, but there was still no signal available to make calls. Chase frowned. Accessing the message she read:
Chase. Moon showed up. Told me I had the chance to leave, so I took it. Didn’t want to wake you. Be in touch, Jane x
Chase read the message several times. It didn’t seem right, the syntax all wrong. Jane never wasted time spelling all of the words out properly. It should have read something like:
Chs. Moon shwd up. 2ld me Id th chnc 2 lev, so I hv. Dnt wnt 2 wke u. B in tuch, Jne.
Jane’s text messages were usually such a cryptic nightmare you needed the Enigma machine to decode them. This just wasn’t right.
“Damn it. Jane, where are you?” A seed of fear sprouted in her gut, and her heart beat rapidly. She bit her thumbnail, thinking. After a moment she grabbed a green parka jacket from the hallway and left the house.
Clouds shrouded the moon, the darkness pressing down. As she walked along the lane, something rustled in the hedge and her heart skipped a beat. Occasional streetlights lit her way, and as she approached one, her shadow crept up behind her like a stalker.
The night felt oppressive, made her feel vulnerable and exposed. Her footsteps seemed unnaturally loud, echoing. She wondered why the night amplified sound, why the dark became a stage for the minds invention. She quickened her pace. The houses on the hill were in darkness; she could almost believe she was the only resident of Paradise. Perhaps Jane was not the only one to have left.
At the bottom of the lane, she headed toward the pub. The sign outside creaked as the breeze played it. The Slaughtered Dog. Slaughter Hill. The names seemed out of place in Paradise.
A single light burned in the porch, circled by moths like the dark droplets of a macabre chandelier. She heard the beat of their wings as they flitted around the bulb, a papery, dried leaf cadence. She nervously opened the door and walked inside.
The dimly lit interior made her squint; darkness crouched in the corners of the room. The optics behind the bar glinted with the reflections of the dim, nicotine stained lighting. Round wooden tables sprouted from the wooden floor like bizarre mushrooms in an Alice in Wonderland pastiche. Chase licked her lips and walked toward the bar. She sensed more than saw that people were sitting silently in the corners of the room, hidden in the shadows. She felt their eyes, watching her and she swallowed, trying to wet her dry throat. What am I afraid of? she wondered.
A man with a heavyset face and bushy eyebrows shading small, beady eyes sat behind the bar. His thin hair appeared lifeless and greasy, his checked shirt stained with something that resembled blood, but which was more likely tomato sauce. He stood up as she approached and she noticed him limp slightly as he ambled down the bar to where she stood.
“What can I get you?” he grunted.
“Hello, I’m looking for ...”
“Miss Black, how nice to see you again.”
Chase turned to see Moon standing behind her. He wore a cocksure smile like a mask. She hadn’t heard him enter so she assumed he had already been in the bar, hiding in the shadows, which would have been easy enough in the dark suit he wore.
“Mr Moon, just the person I’m looking for. It’s about my friend, Jane.”
“Ah yes, she seemed quite eager to return home when I called at your house earlier.”
“You came to the house?”
“Yes, you were fast asleep. I imagine it’s a result of all the excitement. Yes, your friend ...” his smile faltered slightly as he said the word ‘friend’, “We arranged for her to be flown home. I advised her not to wake you as you looked worn out.”
“She wouldn’t have left without telling me.” Her voice rose slightly.
“I’m sure you will see her again soon. Now, how are you settling in?”
“What time did she go?”
“Let me see, it would have been about five-thirty, or thereabouts.”
“And what time is it now?”
Moon looked at his watch. “Ten-fifteen.”
“I slept all this time.” It was not a question. “Jane wouldn’t have left without waking me, I know she wouldn’t.”
“What are you implying, that she left against her will?” Moon laughed without mirth. “She was eager to leave. You yourself know that. I can assure you she was only thinking of you. Now let me buy you a drink, and perhaps George here can rustle you up something to eat, you must be hungry.”
Although she hadn’t thought about it, as soon as Moon mentioned her being hungry, it acted like a catalyst and her stomach rumbled.
“I would hazard a guess you’re a white wine drinker?”
“Forget the wine. I need to speak to Jane.”
Ignoring her, Moon ordered two white wines and George shuffled down the bar to pour the drinks.
“And George,” Moon called after him, “Rustle up a nice salad and baked potato for our newest resident, let’s make her feel at home, there’s a good chap.”
Chase noticed George glance back; the dim lights glinted in his eyes making them look feral and she shivered.
“Come, let us sit down,” Moon said when George returned with the drinks. He walked to one of the mushroom tables where he seated himself.
Chase followed, the chilled wine cradled in her hands. She felt slightly light-headed even before taking a sip. She could sense people around her, like cats stalking prey as she seated herself; the scraping of a chair being moved sounded like fingernails drawn down a chalkboard. She winced. Somebody coughed, and quiet chatter bubbled out of the darkness. Looking down at the table, she noticed it had been slashed, gouged. Remembering the man in the hall with the knife, she tried to make words out of the gashes, but Moon put his drink down and leane
d forward, casting a dark shadow that obscured the table.
Chase sat back, feeling threatened. “I’ll need to go home myself, to pick things up.” She needed to see Jane. Even if only to ask her why she left without a word. Moon was lying. He had to be. But why? She couldn’t believe her best friend had just gone. It didn’t feel right. She couldn’t have left. She just couldn’t. It made her think of Mat. He had left her too. Why did everybody leave her?
“You are home,” Moon said, fingering his wine glass.
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