by Amy Cross
“Mac!” I shout, trying not to panic. “Mac, please!”
When he fails to reply, I turn and start dragging myself toward the top of the stairs. Pushing through the pain, I finally manage to grab hold of the banister.
“There's someone here,” I whisper, thinking back to the figure I saw a moment ago, back in the room. I take a moment to get my breath back, while still holding onto the banister and trying to gather the strength to drag myself down the stairs.
I pause for a moment, listening to the silence all around.
“No,” I stammer finally, “there's no-one else. It's just -”
Before I can finish, there's a loud crashing sound right over my shoulder. I turn to look, but at the same time I drop my phone and I only catch a brief glimpse of a figure stumbling toward me. Holding my arms up to protect myself, I feel someone bump against my arm, and a second later I hear the sound of wood cracking and splintering. Someone just slammed into the railing at the top of the stairs, and a moment later I hear a heavy thumping sound from down below in the hallway.
Reaching out, I grab my phone again and hold it up. The light from the screen picks out the broken railing, with a large gap where something crashed through. Dragging myself forward, I lean through the gap and look down, and I immediately spot a crumpled figure far below.
“Mac?” I whisper, waiting for the figure to show some sign of life.
He's not moving.
“Mac!” I scream.
Turning, I drag myself to the top of the stairs. The pain in my leg is intense, but I force myself to keep going as I start crawling down on my elbows. After just a couple of steps, however, I slip and start falling, letting out a pained cry as I tumble all the way to the hallway floor far below. At the same time, the phone slips from my hand. When I hit the bottom, I roll onto my side and cry out, and for a few seconds my mind is filled with pain. Finally, however, I reach out and grab the phone again, and I immediately start dragging myself over toward Mac's crumpled body.
“Mac, please,” I gasp, reaching out to him. “Mac -”
“Leave this house,” a voice whispers suddenly, and I feel a brief rush of cold air against my ear. “Let it stand empty.”
I turn, but all I see is darkness. Still, I know the voice was real, and that it sounded like a man. I wait, just in case it returns, and then I continue to drag myself across the floor until finally I reach Mac. Placing a hand on the side of his neck, I search desperately for a pulse.
“Mac!” I shout, even though he feels cold to the touch. “Mac, please, you have to wake up!”
I nudge his body, but deep down I can already tell that he's gone.
“Mac, please,” I sob. “You have to be okay. Mac, I need you. I'm hurt. Come on, we have to get out of here together. I can't drive like this. I need your help...”
I wait, even though I know there's no chance that he'll reply.
Suddenly I hear a bump in the distance. Turning, I look back toward the stairs, and to my horror I see a dark figure halfway up. I can immediately tell that the figure is male, and I feel a rush of panic as I turn and start dragging myself toward the front door. My broken leg trails behind me, but pure fear forces me to keep going despite the pain.
“Leave this house,” the male voice whispers again.
“Stop!” I yell, turning and seeing that the figure is closer now. I can just about see the face of a man watching me from the shadows. There's fear in his eyes. Whoever he is, he seems to be warning me away.
“Never come back,” he continues. “Just leave this house alone. The house is the only thing that's holding her back.”
Too terrified to look at him for a moment longer, I turn and haul myself to the front door. I reach up and fumble for the handle, but I'm trembling too much to get the door open. Finally I manage to grab the handle and pull it down, and I swing the door wide before dragging myself outside and then hurling myself down the steps until I land in a heap on the grass.
“Help!” I scream, sobbing as I feel a fresh wave of pain. “Somebody -”
Before I can finish, the front door slams shut behind me.
“Help,” I sob, as I start pulling myself further from the house. “Please help me...”
A moment later, I hear the sound of a car approaching. I look around, convinced that I must be imagining things, but the bright lights of a car's headlamps are bursting through the night air, and I watch as a Land Rover screeches to a halt in the mud. The door opens and a figure steps out, and I immediately recognize him as Whitmore, the groundsman who came to visit us the other day.
“What happened?” he shouts, hurrying toward me and crouching down. “Where are you hurt?”
“Help me,” I gasp, reaching up and grabbing his arm. “There's something in the house”
“Where are the others?”
“Dead,” I stammer. “It killed them. I don't know why or how, but it killed them! There are ghosts in there!”
He looks toward the front door, and I can see the fear in his eyes.
“I knew this would happen again,” he says finally. “Everyone tried to convince themselves that the house would be safe if it was just left alone, but I knew people would always want to come out here. I knew it wouldn't be left well enough alone!”
He hesitates for a moment, before looking down at my leg.
“Where else are you injured?” he asks. “Is it just your leg?”
“I think it's broken.”
“I'm going to get you to a hospital,” he continues, moving around me and then reaching down to lift me up. “This is going to hurt, but there's nothing I can do about that. I'm sorry.”
Before I can reply, he gathers me into his arms and gets to his feet. The pain in my leg is intense, and I cry out as he carries me to the vehicle, but finally he manages to slide me onto the back seat. The engine is still running, and it takes a moment before he's able to ease my broken leg onto the seat, but soon I'm safely inside.
“I was parked nearby,” he explains. “I do that sometimes, late at night. Just watching the house, in case anything happens. Given what happened last time there were people here, I couldn't bring myself to go home. And then I heard your scream and...”
He pauses, staring at me for a moment.
“Last time I heard someone screaming here, I didn't come to help them. But this time I came, I had to. Blackwych Grange is...”
“They're dead,” I sob. “Something killed them...”
“More people will die too,” he replies, “unless...”
He hesitates again, his eyes wide with horror. Silhouetted against the dark house, he seems lost in thought.
“Unless I do what someone should have done a long time ago,” he adds, before stepping back and hurrying around to the rear of the Land Rover. Pulling out a couple of large metal canisters, he comes back to the door. “You'll be fine here,” he tells me. “There's just something I have to take care of first. If I'd done this years ago, no-one else would have had to suffer.”
“Wait,” I stammer, watching as he hurries to the steps and then up to the front door. “Stop! Don't go inside!”
It's too late. He pushes the door opens, and then he starts pouring the contents of the first canister all over the floor. Once he's done, he disappears into the house, and I wait for a couple of minutes, my heart pounding until finally he comes out again. Stopping in the doorway, he seems to be mumbling to himself, and then he makes the sign of the cross on his chest before reaching into his pocket. A moment later, he lights a match and drops it to the floor, and then he hurries back to join me.
Behind him, a fire is already starting to burn.
“Someone should've destroyed the place years ago,” he mutters as he clambers into the driver's seat. “I don't care what they do to me. They can lock me up and throw away the key if that's what it takes, but at least I know I'm doing the right thing. God would never forgive me if I left this place standing.”
“Wait,” I gasp, watching as th
e flames spread through the house. For a moment, all I can think about is the vast array of equipment that's going to be destroyed. It's possible that there are tapes containing actual footage of what happened to us, but I can already see that there's no chance of going back inside. The fire is getting stronger, and now all the windows of the house's lower level are starting to flicker orange.
Mac and Helen's bodies are in there too, and now they're going to burn with the house.
“I'll get you to the hospital as fast as I can!” Whitmore shouts, putting the Land Rover into gear and then flooring the pedal, sending us bumping across the mud and grass. “Just hold on!”
Feeling a fresh wave of pain rushing through my body, I nevertheless force myself to sit up until I can see out the rear window. In the distance, Blackwych Grange is now engulfed by the growing fire, casting an orange glow against the night sky as flames fill the house. We came to explore the house, to uncover its secrets, and now the place is going to be destroyed. Perhaps nobody will ever get hurt there again, but we might never know the truth about what was really happening within those walls. And I'm the only witness left alive.
Unless... As the Land Rover speeds up, I realize that maybe there's still one other person who might know the truth about Blackwych Grange.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Two weeks later
“Are you okay there?”
The orderly reaches out to help me, but I pull away slightly as I limp along the hospital corridor.
“I'm fine,” I tell him, even though I'm having to lean heavily on the crutches. “Please, don't fuss.”
In the two weeks since I left Blackwych Grange, my leg has barely had time to start healing, and a heavy cast has left me pretty much immobile. I should be resting, but I've tried sitting around on my bed for days on end and I ended up going stir crazy. I also tried reviewing the few remaining files from the house, although eventually even that wasn't enough to keep me occupied.
Finally, after a fortnight's procrastination and fear, I realized that there was no point delaying any further. I had to come here.
“Name?” the woman at the desk asks. She sounds bored and annoyed, and she barely even bothers looking up at me.
“Paula Clifton,” I reply, trying to ignore the nerves in my chest. “I called ahead. I'm here to visit Doctor Josephine Pullman.”
She looks at me. Finally, I seem to have the woman's attention.
***
The door swings shut behind me, leaving me standing in a large, high-ceilinged cell. At the other end of the room, a woman is sitting on the floor with her back to me. She's hunched over slightly, and twitching, and there's a small pile of books nearby. Otherwise, the cell is entirely empty. Even the walls are padded.
I wait, but so far she hasn't acknowledged my arrival at all. I was told this was the most likely outcome.
“Hi,” I say finally.
Again, I wait.
Silence.
“Doctor Pullman?” I continue, trying but failing to keep the fear from my voice. “You don't know me, but my name is Paula Clifton. I'm a research student at...”
I pause, realizing that she really doesn't need to know all the details.
“I worked with Doctor McAllister,” I tell her. “With Mac.”
Nothing.
Not so much as a twitch of recognition.
“I'm a graduate student,” I continue. “Doctor McAllister asked me to be part of a time he was putting together. Two weeks ago, we...”
My voice trails off.
Still, she seems not to be aware of me at all.
“We went to Blackwych Grange,” I say finally.
I watch, and finally – slowly – her head starts to turn. I still can't see her face, since she has a mass of unruly black hair, but at least I know now that she can hear me, and that she's aware of my presence. I've heard that she usually ignores people, and I was worried she wouldn't react at all. Apparently she hasn't said a word to her doctors, and she didn't even acknowledge Mac when he came to see her.
“I was at Blackwych Grange,” I continue, watching the back of her head carefully. “Two weeks ago. I was there and...”
Again, I hesitate.
“I know that you were there once,” I tell her. “I know all about you. I even managed to read some parts of your journal from the project. I know you don't like talking about whatever happened to you at the house, but I thought... I mean, I've been there too.”
I wait.
Nothing.
“I saw things there,” I add.
Silence.
At least her head is still slightly turned, which I guess means she's still aware of me.
“Mac wanted to understand exactly what happened to you,” I continue, as I start cautiously making my way toward her. “The whole point of our project was... Well, it was about you. He wanted to know what you saw at Blackwych Grange. He wanted to know what made you like this, and he thought that if he could understand, maybe he could help you.”
Still, she says nothing.
The doctors warned me that she probably wouldn't speak. Then again, they also warned me that she'd most likely not acknowledge my presence at all, and at least there I've already made some progress.
“Doctor Pullman?” I continue. “I need to know what you saw at Blackwych Grange. I saw something there too, but I need to know if...”
Now that I've almost reached her, I can see that her whole body is trembling, as if she's freezing cold. Stopping just a few feet from where she's crouched on the floor, I realize I can hear her whispering too, mumbling something to herself under her breath.
“Doctor Pullman?” I say finally. “This is important. Mac...”
I should tell her that he's dead, but I'm worried about how she'll react. Maybe I should save that part for later. Assuming there is a later, anyway. This might be a dead-end, she might never say a word, but I have to try.
“Doctor Pullman, you and I are the only ones who... I mean, we're the only ones who made it out of that house. I know you saw something when you were there, something that left you like this, something that affected you very deeply. I saw something too, I saw a man, but that doesn't really square with the other reports about Blackwych Grange. In all the other accounts, people have talked a black-eyed lady.”
I wait.
Again, no reply.
“I didn't see a black-eyed lady,” I continue. “I saw a man, and I think he was trying to warn me to leave, but I didn't see a woman. I know about the stories, about Elizabeth Marringham, but...”
My voice trails off.
This is hopeless.
“Did you see her?” I ask. “I feel like I still can't fit the different sides of this story together. I'm missing something.”
Silence.
“Doctor Pullman? Please?”
I give her a chance to speak. I don't know exactly how long I wait, but it must be almost a minute. I guess I felt that I'd be able to find some way through, but maybe I was being naive. Mac was never able to make her speak after she left Blackwych Grange, and all the doctors and psychiatrists here at the hospital have failed too. How the hell was I supposed to make headway?
“Okay,” I say finally, turning to leave. “I just -”
“Did you see him?” she asks suddenly, her voice sounding very dry and cracked.
I turn back to her. “I'm sorry?”
“Daniel. Did you see him?”
I hesitate for a moment.
“I'm not sure who you mean,” I tell her. “I don't know anyone named -”
“He was weak,” she continues, interrupting me. “Good-hearted and honest, but weak. He lacked the burning passion that kept me going. He began to fade over the years, even as he begged me to let go, but I... I waited. I grew stronger with time. Finally I understood that to leave Blackwych Grange, I would have to take possession of a body. I tried with the Harrison girl, but I wasn't strong enough. I tried again with the Pullman woman, and this time... I though
t leaving would be enough, but I underestimated the lure and pull of the house. You have no idea how much I've struggled these past years, trying to anchor myself in this flesh, amid these bones. It took a while before I accepted that the house was still calling to me. I needed the house to be destroyed.”
“I don't know what you're...”
Pausing again, I realize that nothing she says is making much sense.
Suddenly she shifts her weight, and I hear her bones creaking as she starts to get up off the floor. The process is slow, and she's clearly very stiff and unsteady, but slowly she rises to her full height.
“And now it's gone, isn't it?” she whispers. “Blackwych Grange is no more. Just a smoldering pile of ruins, which means that I am finally freed from its embrace. Now I can find the descendants of the man who tormented me. I sense them, you know. More than fifty now, spread out across the country, all of them given the life that was denied to my own child. The great-great-grandchildren of Sir John Marringham. Why should they enjoy the gift of life?”
She turns to me, and I see that her face is lined with suffering. I just about recognize her from the old photos, but still, Doctor Pullman appears to have aged rapidly during her time here in the hospital. Her long dark hair, which in the old days was always tied into a neat bun, now hangs loose and straggly in front of her face, obscuring her eyes.
Instinctively, I take a step back.
“This child does not deserve life,” she spits. “That's what my uncle said, just before he fed the poor little thing to a pack of wild dogs. Can you believe that?”
She takes a shuffling step toward me.
“I'll show the Marringham family who really deserves life,” she sneers. “Every last one of them will know my name by the time I'm ready to go back to my grave.”
“Doctor Pullman,” I stammer, holding my hands up as I back toward the door, “I think maybe we should finish this some other day. You seem a little -”
“I waited so long,” she rasps, “and so patiently. Daniel's ghost kept begging me to forgive and forget, but I couldn't! The cowardly Marringhams might not have dared come to the house and face me, but now I'm finally free to go and hunt them down!”