Uninvited

by David Anderson

  A film reel of the last few hours played over again in his mind; his immense relief at finding Abby alive and seemingly unharmed; quickly replaced by the sudden realisation that something was seriously wrong with her after all; then the uncanny experience of her complete remoteness and emotional numbness. She had withdrawn into a secret world. Would she ever come back?

  What if it was permanent? She seemed to be having ongoing conversations in her head, and as a psychiatrist he knew the diagnosis only too well. He refused to let his thoughts go any further in that direction.

  But he couldn’t detach himself at the personal level. Her internal conversations totally excluded him. Abby had locked him out.

  She had to be talking to Sanders. Ned had watched them on the way back up to the house, seen how they had exchanged looks, and some instinct told him they had been silently communicating. At least they both thought they were.

  What had happened between Sanders and her all night on the boat? Ned had asked her about that but got no reply. He would ask again tomorrow and keep asking. Something was definitely going on. They had some kind of strange connection. It was like Sanders could start a sentence and Abby finish it, and vice versa.

  He thought of the couples he saw in his practice. A few of them were so intimately attuned they could make their thoughts known to the other by just a deep, meaningful look. He’d seen it happen. Somehow or other, Sanders and Abby had achieved that intimacy overnight.

  The rat gnawed his belly some more and he almost threw up. Anger coiled in his chest. Everything had been fine until this trip, until Sanders’ stupid accident. If it hadn’t been for that, nothing else would have happened. Abby had somehow ‘gone over’ to Sanders, left her normal self behind. Now all she wanted to do was sit silently staring into Sanders’ eyes, like a love struck teenager. That she did it in front of Wheeler and everybody else was humiliating.

  The bed creaked and the black shape next to him moved. Abby slipped out from under the sheets and stood at the door with her back to him. She was fully dressed and Ned could even make out shoes on her feet. The wave of anger in Ned’s chest subsided quickly. He was relieved that she was out of his bed, physically as well as psychologically apart from him. There was a strange danger about her that he’d never encountered before in all their years of marriage.

  And yet, he had to make a gesture, show some concern he no longer really felt.

  He pulled the sheet down off his torso. Abby turned in response to the sound. Her face entered a shaft of moonlight and two cruel diamond eyes pierced him where he lay. Like a cat’s eyes fixing on its prey.

  “No, not you tonight,” she said in a voice he barely recognised.

  She went out the door, leaving it open behind her. He rose quickly to follow her but stopped in the doorway. She must have heard him and looked back.

  “I said not you tonight.” The words penetrated his head like a sharp knife and he recoiled back into the room. Her footsteps sounded on the wooden floor, going in the direction of Sanders’ room.

  Ned closed and locked the door with shaking hands, sat on the edge of the bed and wept.

  * * *

  I was having another nightmare, or at least a very strange dream. Nora had read a book on interpreting dreams and wanted me to tell her mine so that she could analyse them. I’d told her to bugger off and mind her own business. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that.

  It started out feeling very pleasant, as my dreams usually did. I was in an imaginary small town somewhere in the countryside, far away from the big city. The sort of pokey little country place that had low stone walls around green fields full of woolly sheep.

  The convoluted storyline ultimately made little sense and seemed to be a mishmash taken from novels I’d recently been reading. After a while I ended up walking down the main street of this place, and the dream turned into one of those ‘travelling but never arriving’ things, where the frustration gets greater and greater until you wake up. This time was different though. Suddenly there was someone beside me. I couldn’t see who it was or even if the person was male or female. Maybe both; or neither? This person wasn’t happy with me, not at all. As the old saying goes, the writing was on the wall.

  My unease deepened, and I walked faster and faster then started running. The other person or presence, whatever it was, had zero problems keeping up. He or she was right there, by my side, whispering something in my ear. A hand reached out, grabbed my arm, making my skin crawl. I opened my mouth, but no scream would come out.

  The nightmare ended abruptly.

  I woke, heart thundering and gasping for breath. Had there been a sudden noise? I remembered Wheeler’s barricades and wondered if furniture had fallen over or been tossed aside. Or was it something closer?

  With my eyes still closed, I listened for sounds. There were none. I rolled over onto my back and breathed deeply and evenly, calming myself from the effects of the nightmare.

  Immediately there was a noise from across the room, the sound of the door clicking shut. For several seconds there was absolute silence then soft footsteps came closer. Someone was here with me. I fantasised that it was Georgia. Then two piercing eyes appeared in my mind and I knew it wasn’t her.

  I tensed under the clammy sheets. Somehow I managed to keep my own eyes shut. My mind cleared, and I thought about what to do. Should I pretend to be asleep till the last moment then attack the intruder? What if there was more than one of them? The thought made me open my eyes in abject terror.

  My head lifted and I looked across the room. Two shadowy figures were standing at the foot of the bed. I already knew exactly who they were and what they wanted.

  I screamed, flung back the sheets and leapt out of bed in one panicky action. My heels hit the rug which shifted and slid, and I almost fell over. Hands reached out and seized my left arm. Thank God it was Abby and not Sanders or I’d never have got free. I wrenched her stiff fingers off my wrist and fell forward in a stumbling run for the bedroom door. In blind terror I crashed into it and bounced back off its solid wood, straight into Abby’s waiting arms. I elbowed her like crazy, digging sharp, bony points into her ribs. Sanders got a hand on my shoulder and his fingers clamped into my flesh like the metal pinchers on a crane. I fumbled in the darkness for the door handle. For one terrifying moment that was eternity I couldn’t find the knob, it had vanished, melted, evaporated, gone up in a puff of smoke.

  The grip tightened on my shoulder like a vise. My fingers curled around the doorknob and time started again. I flung the door wide open and heard it smash into Sanders behind me. His hand fell from my shoulder, releasing me, but I knew I only had a few seconds till it came back. I leaned forward and hurtled headlong into the deep blackness of the passageway outside.

  My head connected with something and there came instant, terrible pain. Sharp, searing, overwhelming pain.

  Then nothingness, as consciousness left me.

  * * *

  When I resurfaced, dark figures loomed over me. This time I screamed at the top of my lungs. When I finally stopped, someone went, “Ssssssshhh,” in my ear. It was Nora’s voice. I shut my mouth, focused my eyes, and tried to sort out my head.

  I was back in my bed, with the sheets pulled up to my neck. Had it all been a nasty nightmare? The light was on and it was hurting my eyes. A terrible pain flooded down from the top of my skull, through my forehead and behind my eyes. I reached a hand up and discovered it had been no bad dream

  “So, you’re finally awake?”

  Wheeler’s accusing voice. I was still relieved to hear it. My lips felt like two bananas and I had trouble shaping my mouth to reply. Another wave of pain swept right through my head.

  “Here, take these extra strength Tylenol, they’ll help,” Toby said from the other side of the bed, “You got quite a bang on the head.”

  I pushed myself up slowly, feeling dizzy and nauseous. “Thanks.” I had to force the word out between the mashed bananas.

  Swallowing the
two tablets was going to hurt. I slipped the first one in through a tiny gap between my thick lips. One in, one to go. Inserting the second pill wasn’t as bad.

  A glass of water appeared in front of me and I got my hand around it, afraid I might spill it all over myself. I raised it and gulped the water down, causing yet more pain. My head throbbed as if someone had hit me very hard with a baseball bat. Gradually the throbbing eased, went more into the background of my awareness. I gave the glass back and rubbed my jaw and mouth.

  The memory of Sanders attacking me flooded back. I opened my eyes wider and looked around, wanting to see and think about something other than those scary images, and checking that he wasn’t here. My present pain and these people surrounding me meant I’d survived. Always look on the bright side of life, isn’t that what they say?

  Four people stood around my bed. Wheeler, Toby, Ned and Nora.

  “What time is it?” I managed to ask.

  “It’s after five in the morning,” Wheeler replied, “You’ve been out of it for a long time.”

  “What happened to me?”

  “Seems you had a bad nightmare or something,” Toby replied, “And ran out of your room screaming.”

  “How’d I get this?” I said, touching the bump on my head.

  “You must have tripped and smashed your head against a wooden column,” Toby explained, “Nora found you lying unconscious on the floor.”

  “You smacked your head pretty hard,” Toby added, “Knocked yourself out.”

  I groaned with embarrassment. Why me, why always me?

  “Don’t worry, it’s not serious,” Nora assured me, “The pillar’s round with no sharp edges or you’d have cut your head open. You’ll just have a big bruise for a while.”

  “Head wounds always feel worse than they really are,” Toby confirmed, “A good sleep and a good breakfast will have you on your feet again.”

  They don’t know about what Abby tried to do to me. I have to tell them. I scanned the room again, my eyes searching every corner. Sanders and Abby were gone, thank God.

  “Where’s Brett and Abby?” I asked.

  “Why do you want to know that?” Wheeler shot back.

  I thought for a moment. “What are you not telling me?”

  Wheeler said nothing. “Tell him, Julius,” Toby urged. Wheeler nodded reluctantly.

  “I had Peterman check on them, but they aren’t in their beds,” he answered, “They’ve disappeared again. I had a feeling they would.”

  “And there’s more,” Toby added, “Now Georgia is gone too.”

  The news stunned me. I thought of my conversation with her, and of my hesitation outside her room. Sanders and Abby must have gone there after they’d left me. Or had they taken Georgia first?

  “It’s damned strange,” Wheeler added, “They’ve definitely left the house but not by the front or back doors. We’ve double checked all the doors and windows and everything’s locked and barred. They can’t get back in and that’s how I’m keeping it.”

  I was relieved that I’d escaped their clutches then felt guilty that they’d taken Georgia instead of me. If only I’d knocked on her door. I wanted to tell the others what had really happened to me but didn’t fancy answering all their questions and giving long explanations. It was all too much to think about right now and my head hurt too much. I badly needed sleep. As long as Sanders and Abby didn’t come back, I could close my eyes again.

  In the meantime, my story could wait a few hours. I pulled the bed sheets up to my chin and hoped they would all leave.

  “I’m off to bed now myself,” Nora said right on cue, encouraging the others.

  “I’ve sat up long enough,” Wheeler grumbled and rose.

  As I adjusted the sheets, one last thought struck me, an embarrassing one. I had run out of my room straight from bed. These guys must have picked me up and carried me back in just as they had found me. I was still that way under the sheets.

  In other words, I’d been stark naked the whole time.

  Chapter Eleven

  I woke from a deep, dream-free sleep with an overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom. The painkillers had worn off but the sharp, stabbing pain from earlier was now only a dull ache right at the top of my head.

  After I’d peed for about a century, I decided to stay up and have a nice long shower to get the sweat and grime off. I dressed in fresh clothes and looked in the mirror. Apart from the big bruise, still too tender to touch, I looked surprisingly normal. It helped that my hair partly covered the swelling.

  My stomach gave a long, angry rumble and demanded to be filled. I was starving. The kitchen down below was stuffed with food, so the solution was obvious. I hurried downstairs.

  At the kitchen door I tried my best to raise a smile and went inside with what was probably a stupid grin on my face. Wheeler, Nora, Toby and Ned sat around the table, coffee cups in front of them. Their plates were gone but my nostrils twitched to appetizing fried food smells in the air.

  “Good morning, Nick,” Toby said, “There’s breakfast for you in the fridge, just give it a quick microwave, and there’s plenty of coffee left.”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I fetched the Saran-wrapped plate, punched sixty seconds into the microwave, and poured himself a mug of steaming coffee.

  “I want to know exactly what happened last night,” Wheeler said before I got the first bite in my mouth. “What does it have to do with Sanders and Abby, and now Georgia?”

  Between mouthfuls of ham and cheese omelette, I told them the whole story. Well, apart from the bit where I’d hung around outside Georgia’s bedroom. To my surprise, it already seemed a long time ago. My raw feelings of horror had faded away.

  “The door walloped into Sanders behind me and I charged out,” I said, “Then I woke up back in bed with my head feeling like a watermelon with a hatchet buried in it.”

  I paused and then asked the question that had been bugging me since I’d got up. “How did they get out of the house?”

  Wheeler flinched as if I was criticizing him personally.

  “Last night Peterman found a window open in an empty bedroom. There was a rope dangling out of it, with the end fastened around a bedpost.”

  “Very convenient,” Ned added sourly.

  “They must have seen the furniture blocking the doors,” I guessed.

  Wheeler snorted. “Yup, our barricades last night didn’t do much good in the end, the clever bastards.”

  “Why didn’t they just use a ground floor window?” Matthew asked.

  “I wondered about that myself,” Wheeler replied. “Maybe they thought I’d be prowling around or that opening a downstairs window would set off the security system.”

  “Did you have it switched on?” Ned asked.

  “No,” Wheeler replied, “I didn’t think it necessary. Peterman and Marie use it when they’re alone up here but not when I have house guests. It would keep going off.”

  “They must have heard us coming,” Toby said, “And knew they couldn’t get past us unseen. So, they hid in an empty room and climbed down the rope.”

  “Sanders had climbing gear with him,” Ned added, “It’s disgusting what he’s done to my Abby.”

  Toby turned to me. “What do you think they wanted with you, Nick?”

  “I don’t know.” I hesitated and then added, “Actually I think I do know.”

  Wheeler leaned forward. “What?”

  I looked at the expectant faces around the table. It’s now or never.

  “I think they were coming to make me join them and take me with them. When I went unconscious, they couldn’t do it. So they took Georgia instead.”

  There was a long silence. No one seemed to know what to say. Once again, I felt my face redden and glow. But I’d blabbed it out now and it was too late to take it back. Under the table, Nora squeezed my hand and I was grateful.

  “I think I’ll go back up to my room now and get some more rest. I’m still not feelin
g well.” I rose and made for the door. Toby called after me.

  “I think you’re right about them, Nick. We all do.”

  * * *

  I lay in bed again, half asleep. There was a knock on the door and Toby Andrews came in. He held a coffee mug in one hand and a small leather-bound book in the other. As I pulled myself upright, he nudged the door shut with his elbow and drained the mug.

  “Good coffee they have here,” he said, taking the comfy chair beside the bed. “Thought I’d check in and see how you are.”

  “A lot better, thanks.”

  He set the mug down and looked at me. “Pretty strange business, eh? Brett Sanders’ miraculous recovery – resurrection really – and Abby Mackie’s disappearances. I’ve been thinking and praying about it.”

  I had absolutely no idea how to respond. Sun shone through the window and onto the brown leather cover of the book that Toby was fingering. He saw me look at it and spread it open on his lap. I guessed it was a Bible. I used to have a children’s version when I was a kid, with big colour pictures of Noah’s Ark and scary stuff like that.

  “Mind if I read a short bit?” he asked.

  I nodded agreement. That’s what these guys do, right? I half expected him to read one of the Nativity stories that I was used to hearing at the carol service we went to at Christmas.

  “Gospel of John, eleventh chapter,” he began.

  Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.

  Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”