“Did you get any sleep?” Seth asked, then looked at Jemma, perhaps realising that might have sounded funny.
“A little,” she lied, “You?”
“Crashed in the study. Listen, I wasn’t expecting any visitors. The place is a bit of a mess.” He noticed the bags in her hands. “What’s going on?”
“We needed somewhere to stay.”
He hesitated. “One minute. Do you mind waiting in there?” he said to Jemma, indicating the study. She shrugged. Seth led Judy to the kitchen.
Once across the threshold, her eyes snapped to a plain wooden door in the corner. From its position, she figured it could only lead to the basement. If it had eyes, it would be watching her warily. She didn’t want to turn her back to it so positioned herself on one side of the breakfast bar to face it.
She nodded at the door. “It’s down there isn’t it? Your collection.”
“You can feel it?”
“I’d be surprised if anyone couldn’t feel it. It knows we’re here. Almost like it’s waiting. How can you bear to be in the same room?” She shivered. “There’s nothing going on with the rest of the house is there? Jemma’s safe in your study?”
“Unless she’s allergic to dust.”
“Right.”
“What’s up? This isn’t a good place to be right now.”
She told him what Jemma had told her about the woman who’d cornered her and warned about getting involved. When she’d finished Seth looked ashen. “I don’t know what to say.”
This was the point she was meant to be angry at him, but she found it impossible. Seth was as much a victim in this as she was, more so, as he’d been the main target of the Ravenmeols nightmare. She put her hand on top of Seth’s and patted it. “No point in blaming yourself. We are involved and we might as well move on and deal with it. But I don’t know what to do. They know who Jemma is. I can’t leave her unprotected. I can’t take her to school, I don’t want to leave her with her grandparents.”
“What did the police say?”
Judy looked at her hands. “I haven't called them. It’s the Adherents isn’t it? What good are the police going to do? They’ll take a statement, then I’ll have to explain I was involved at Ravenmeols, then they’ll be on my case about that.”
“They threatened your daughter.”
She shot him a look that could have sliced his head in two. “Yes, I’m aware of that.”
“Doesn’t she think it odd that you’ve not spoken to them?”
“She thinks I already have.”
“Oh.”
“I hate that I don’t know who these people are. I came here because my house didn’t feel safe anymore.”
“It’s not safe here either.”
“For one night, until we sort out what we’re doing.” She didn’t want to have to face the threat of the Adherents on her own. At least with Seth, she knew she was with someone capable of handling himself.
Seth’s frown deepened. “Are you not hearing me? It’s not safe here. I’m not safe.”
“It’s not your fault they’ve targeted you. Your uncle could have given the collection over to that other group you told me about. And he didn’t want to do that. He had some faith in you. Maybe you should have some faith in yourself.”
Seth sighed. Judy hated beating him down like this but she needed him.
Eventually, he nodded. “One night. See how it goes. If we don’t have a plan by tomorrow, I don’t think it will matter where any one of is staying. The Adherents are moving quickly.”
“So, we must do the same.”
“Hi.” Jemma was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. How long had she been waiting there, listening? “I don’t suppose I could get a drink?”
Seth leapt to his feet and scrambled to find a glass in the sink. None were clean, so he rinsed one under the tap and wiped it with a tea towel that Judy was deeply suspicious of. “Maybe we should go out and have breakfast,” she suggested.
“McDonald's?”
“If you like.”
Seth meekly returned the glass to the draining board. “Sounds like a plan. To be honest, there’s hardly anything in. We’ll stop off at Tesco’s on the way back. Let me find my wallet.” And he left the room.
“Are we staying?” Judy asked.
“One night. Then we’ll see.”
Jemma nodded. “Does he have wi-fi?”
Judy shook her head. “Somehow I doubt that even if he did, it wouldn’t work.”
“I’ve left my phone in the car.”
“I’ll get it. Stay here. Touch nothing.”
Judy rubbed her daughter’s shoulder as she slipped past. She heard a toilet flushing upstairs, then nipped out to the car. It would pay to keep Jemma onside as much as possible for the next few hours. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad. A day away from the house to reflect and plan.
She leant back against the car and enjoyed the morning sun, closing her eyes for a few seconds, just long enough to fully take in her daughter’s screams.
Her daughter’s screams.
Judy thundered across the tarmac, slammed open the front door and almost collided with Seth in the hallway.
“What’s wrong?” Judy hollered as she ran into the kitchen, but she saw what was wrong as soon as she rounded the corner.
The basement door was wide open, and Jemma stood before the opening, on the top step.
Seth took her and pulled her back from the doorway, kicking the basement door closed with his foot. Judy slipped the locks back home, then grabbed Jemma’s arms, helping her to her feet and across the room, away from the doorway.
“What happened?” Judy said as much to Seth as Jemma.
Seth checked the door was secured, double-checking the bolts, turning the key, before yanking at the handle again. The thing was closed.
Jemma stared up at her mum with wide eyes.
“I was getting a drink, then I heard him.”
“Who, babe, who did you hear?”
“Dad.”
Judy’s heart froze. Her breath caught in her throat and she coughed to get life going again. “What do you mean?”
“I turned, and the door was opening. By itself. It opened.” And Jemma stared into the corner, beyond her mother.
“It’s closed now.”
“What was in there? Dad’s dead.”
“That’s right. He’s not coming back.”
They hugged.
Seth appeared by their side. “Maybe we should get out of here.”
“We can’t stay here, Mum.”
“It’s OK. We won’t.”
Judy helped her to her feet and out of the kitchen. Seth was wrong. He wasn’t the curator of the collection. He couldn’t even guarantee the safety of anyone in the house.
In the hallway, she stopped again. A sensation hit her. Like stepping from outside on a sunny day, into the dark interior. Her vision flickered, concentric circles flowing across each other, expanding from the centre and tracking to the edge of her vision. There was more in this house than she’d realised. Something was hiding in plain sight.
“Seth, whatever you’ve got downstairs in your basement, you need to keep better control of it.”
“I don’t know what happened. I’ll look into it.”
“How? Is there an instruction manual?”
He was floundering. Judy felt a twinge of guilt, but this was stuff that needed to be said.
“I overestimated you. I thought you had things in control, but I was wrong. You’re winging it. Making this up as you go along. And it will hurt you. I can feel it in my bones. You’re in more danger here than you ever were at the hospital. Can you not even feel it?”
And the more she spoke, the more she could feel it herself. This place was toxic and it would hurt him and everyone that stayed here.
“It will be fine,” he responded. “We don’t know what happened back there.” And then to Jemma he asked, “Were you messing with the door?”
“No!�
� Jemma replied, vehemently.
Judy squared up to Seth. “Don’t accuse her. This is on you, Seth.”
And then she saw what she should have been able to see all along.
“Seth,” she started cautiously. “When did you stop counting the doors?”
She’d been so focused on finding somewhere to stay that she’d not even thought. That’s what was messing up her vision.
Seth straightened. He peered around, focusing between the rooms, patches of wall which should have had nothing significant about them. He put out a hand to touch the wall to his right.
“Don’t,” Judy warned. “They’re all around. How did you not see them?”
It was like one of those three-dimensional pictures that were all the rage twenty years ago. Once you knew what you were looking for, it was easier to make out the shapes. That was what was making it clearer now, for her and Seth. He took a step away from the wall. “Oh my, why couldn’t I see them?”
They were everywhere. On every surface, every piece of wall that didn’t already have a real door, now had an Almost Door. And the more that Judy stared at them, the firmer they appeared until they were indistinguishable from the real doors.
“What do we do?” Judy cried, reaching for Jemma’s hand and taking it firmly. “How do we stop them?”
“I don’t know that we can,” Seth replied.
Back at the hospital, they’d been able to close open doors, but it had taken both of them to do so. No way would they be able to handle this many.
Around the frame of the front door, a new shape was forming. If they didn’t leave now, they would be trapped in the house.
“We’re going,” she said, yanking the front door wide open and ushering Seth and her daughter outside.
The door slammed shut behind her, and beneath her feet, she could feel the discontent from the basement, a broken vibration that felt like laughter.
Only then, as they hurried out onto the tarmac did she take a good look at Seth and realised the shock he was in.
“I’m sorry. Maybe we can get Malc and stop them together.”
But Seth was shaking his head. “It’s not the doors I’m bothered about. It’s the book.” He was getting exasperated.
“What book?”
He broke her gaze then glared back at the house. “I had it in my hands. The Book of the Fourth. It had all the answers I needed. But now it’s gone. They’ve come to take it back.”
Seth’s phone buzzed, and he checked for messages. His face dropped.
“What’s wrong?” Judy asked.
“It’s my dad. He’s had a stroke.”
30
It was hot in the vicarage. Uncomfortably so. Georgia could feel the light sheen of sweat in the small of her back and wiped at it anxiously. Joe was on the PlayStation, not quite believing his luck that he wasn’t in school.
You keep playing. Keep focusing on something else.
She envied him the ability to do that. Focusing on something else was a gift she was not good at in the best of times. After what Malc had shared with her, she didn’t think she’d be able to focus on much else for days.
Malc was behind the vicarage, sitting on his bench, gazing out across the lawn. His back was to her, but she could still imagine the look of concentration on his face. He was a typical man; she’d known that since they’d first met at Katie’s party fifteen years ago. Katie was known for matching people; she saw two people that needed to get together and she made it happen.
That first dinner party was about as awkward as it could have been. Katie had sat them next to each other and conversation soon meandered onto what they both did for a living. For Georgia it was simple and boring. She was a science teacher at a high school in Crosby. Then whilst she was sipping her Prosecco, Malc, somewhat sheepishly, announced he was a vicar. Georgia had spat out her drink in a giant spray that had hit Malc full in the face. If hell was real, a spot had just been reserved for her. Her apologies persisted well past such a time as seemed reasonable and Malc continued looking more and more like he didn’t want to be there.
But then again, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her all evening.
Katie was an expert.
And in that time, what had changed between her and Malc? In those early days when they were still feeling each other out, there were the usual awkward firsts. The first time they’d held hands, kissed under the moonlight, walked back from the cinema. He was a throwback from an earlier time, a time she’d only ever experienced in the movies and old TV shows. It amused her to think that she, the one that was usually so prim and proper, could possibly be seen as a bad influence on this vicar who’d fallen into her life from a bygone age.
Malc didn’t need much encouragement to stray from the path as it turned out. She didn’t know what to expect from a man of the cloth but Malc did not fit the bill. Her other friends, the ones that would never have fitted in at one of Katie’s parties, would joke about what a loving couple they made, and that they fully expected Georgia to soon be wearing long summer dresses and opening up the village fete, making light jokes with the vicar, and running the Ainsdale branch of the Women's Institute. Georgia doubted there was even a branch of the Women's Institute in Ainsdale, and even if there was, she had no intention of changing who she was to please some man. And Malc had never expected her to change. She ran her life the way she wanted, and Malc ran his life the way he wanted, and somehow together they blended and out of this they’d created a family unit that worked.
What she wasn’t expecting was that Malc was such an exceptional liar.
She put the kettle on. This was the third time in the space of ten minutes. She kept forgetting to actually make the tea, but she also knew that this ritual was giving her time to process before she spoke to Malc again.
“Mum,” Joe called from the front room.
“In a minute,” she replied.
She grabbed a couple of mugs from the cupboard and dropped a tea bag in each.
“Mum!” And there was something in Joe’s tone that made her stop what she was doing and turn to face the kitchen door. Something in his voice wasn’t right.
“What’s the matter?” she asked as she strode to the front room.
There was a stranger in her house and he held a knife to Joe’s throat.
Time stopped. The man’s face was a mess. He was ill. From a fire, or a car crash. His skin was purple in places, scarred in others. An eye was missing. Parts of his hair had fallen out.
“Let him go,” she said, not so much a request, as a command. “Then, get the hell out of my house.”
There were other things in the room that she hadn’t noticed at first. The morning sun had passed over and a combination of clouds and the shadow of the trees from the garden blocked any direct light into this room. That was why she had paid no attention to the shadows around the edge of the room, nor the door behind the intruder. The door was halfway along the long wall of the lounge and neatly cut in two the mirror and the fireplace, both items were still there, but only half of each was visible, like two photographs had been chopped and sliced together. The door was made of wood. It was battered. Paint curled down it and flaked from its tired surface like heavy nails had been scraped across it. Claws perhaps. And the door was ajar. A dull green light outlined the edges and cast an unhealthy glow over the room.
Georgia froze, her limbs no longer able to move on command. Behind the decaying man, the shadows moved.
How could they do that?
It was the burning red eyes that helped define the two shadow creatures. Once she’d seen those impossibly bright berry lights, the rest of the shape fell into place. Georgia glanced to the window but Malc was no longer sitting on the bench.
“You really don’t want to call out. This knife is very sharp.”
The shadowman behind the intruder was drifting into and out of the shadows. And he looked insubstantial like he was melting into the dark corners of the room.
“Wha
t do you want?” Georgia asked, refusing to let the terror show in her voice. She had dealt with plenty of arrogant men in her life and as far as she was concerned, this was just another bully, although one with a particularly nasty guard dog.
“Your friend Seth stayed here. I want what he left behind.”
Of course, this was to do with Seth, she thought.
“All he left behind is a bag of dirty washing. I can get that for you if you like.”
The intruder turned to his guard dog and said, “check outside.”
The shadowman melted away.
“What do you want?” Georgia repeated.
“He’s looking for a fragment of a painting. He wants to bring about something he calls the Unravelling but he needs this piece of art complete before he can do so.” Malc had come into the room behind Georgia without her hearing and stood side by side, his shoulder brushing hers. He put an arm around her waist and squeezed gently, then he let go but kept his arm behind her.
“Is this?” Georgia began.
“Adam Cowl. Although, not in his original body. This is the body of a man called Johnny Oswald, a nasty piece of work, but a man all the same. He didn’t deserve to be taken and used like this.”
“He was an Adherent to the cause. His body belonged to me.”
“Is that a line from your recruitment pamphlet?”
The knife wavered before Joe’s face. The intention clear.
Joe began to cry.
Georgia locked eyes with her son, trying to convey the simple message that no matter what happened, Joe would be safe. This monster would harm none of them.
The shadows shifted again behind Adam and the second shadowman returned. Adam paused like he was hearing the creature speak but there were no words. If pressed, Georgia might have said that in that near silence, she heard a dull vibration like a broken fan in a faraway room.
“Let my son go. You don’t need him. Use me as your bargaining chip. I’ll call Seth.”
The response was a sneer. Georgia got chills across her back and she knew that whatever else this creature was, he was never to be trusted. Malc had told her the barest amount of detail about the Adherents, but from what she’d been able to retain, they were a desperate cult of madmen determined to cause as much havoc as they could.
The Dark Corners Box Set Page 41