by Lee Isserow
Chapter 1
Its latest victim
He had been watching the house intently through the day, waiting for night to fall, waiting for the right moment. As much as every sign had brought him this far, nothing about it sat right. He was parked up in a car he had borrowed―stolen would have been more accurate, but he intended to return it. . . eventually.
The street was picture book London suburbia, a real neighbourhood, where people knew the folks living next to them, houses full of apparently happy families. Hardly the place for nefarious forces to be lurking. But “hardly” and “definitely not” are two very different things, he knew that all too well.
As with many of the capital's suburban streets, it rarely remained quiet for longer than batches of ten or fifteen seconds at a time. The road was a thoroughfare for the nearby dual carriageway. There was a constant stream of traffic driving back and forth, and he couldn't risk being seen breaking in, not until he was certain this was the right house. There was a part of him that was restless, a part that wanted to act, to do something before it was too late. But, he reminded himself, sometimes the only time to act is when it's too late.
The old lady that lived in the house pottered around constantly, dusting and vacuuming, polishing and cleaning. She sat down briefly to drink tea and do a crossword, but as soon as she had drained the pot dry, got back to her feet and returned to her regime of making everything spick and span. Something was compelling her to clean. From his view on the street, it felt suspicious, the house looked damn near flawless, the window frames acting as borders for photos from Perfect Elderly Person's House magazine. Maybe that was him projecting. After all, his place looked like the resident was a hoarder who died along ago, and weasels had been cohabiting with squirrels since his demise.
This could be it, he thought, if it is here, perhaps this is the way the possession has manifested. It wasn't how these things usually went down: it was much more common for these things to make a mess rather than tidy things up. However, as he knew full well, every possession was different, depending on the possessee, let alone the variety of possessor. That said, he couldn't comprehend, if this was the creature manifesting, how it would result in the old woman's death.
He took a deep breath, let it out with a yawn that he tried to dispel. It had been a long day of staking out the house, on top of a long week of tracking the box with his crude attempts at scrying and divination, from its last location all the way back home in Australia. He almost got caught at the scene of that one, amongst the blood-spattered walls, the grotesque mess of flayed flesh, and skulls that had been pounded into a pink and grey mush―ground to the point he couldn't tell bone from brain.
He had arrived too late that time, but he had also gone in with a cavalier attitude that was not conducive to getting the job done. This time, he would be smarter. He would not let the creature have its fill, not again. Its path of death and destruction would end there.
Assuming he was at the right “there”. . .
The warm embrace of slumber was a spectre on the periphery of his thoughts. Its siren song sounding so inviting. His eyelids growing heavy as he nuzzled into the seat of the car. He had never sat in a heated seat before, it was like a warm baseball glove holding his body. It wouldn't hurt to just knock the seat back a few turns, get more comfortable. After all, he reminded himself, comfort is an important part of stakeouts.
*
An ungodly scream woke him. It was dark, night had fallen whilst he had been asleep, and the agonising howl was most definitely coming from the house. He burst out of the car, peeling straight into a run across the road. Damn being seen―there wasn't time for subtlety. His fingers danced through the air just before his shoulder slammed straight into the door, blowing the latch apart into its individual components as it swung open, each of them clanging to floor as they bounced off into the darkness.
The wail ceased. Sickly slopping sounds, slapping and sloshing somewhere deeper in the house. His ears pricked up, all too aware that there was no logical explanation for why the screaming would stop on his entry. Not unless the creature had finished with its latest victim. Or, worse still, was lying in wait for a more substantial meal. . .
Cautiously, he stepped from the wooden floorboards on to a Persian-style runner carpet that went along the length of the hallway. It'd dampen his footsteps, and if he were lucky, the damn thing wouldn't hear him coming for it. Not that luck was often on his side.
Scanning the darkness, waiting for his eyes to adjust, he caught sight of a postcard sitting on a sideboard, a generic 'we tried to deliver' slip, from an unfamiliar courier. He pocketed it, and continued onwards. There were no further sounds in the house, but there was a breeze coming from somewhere ahead. Turning left through the closest door, he found himself in the sitting room, to the left was one of the windows he had been monitoring for the best part of the day. And to the right was the old woman. Or at least, what was left of her.
Her body lay faced down, clothes torn open from the back, skin ripped apart, revealing her crooked spine and ravaged organs to the world. Lying in a pool of her own fluids that was spreading out, slowly seeping into the carpet around her.
He cursed himself for not acting sooner. The creature had been there, but whether it was still there was another matter entirely. Tentatively, he walked towards the body, stepping around it, out of the reach of the withered old hands. He had learned the hard way that the hands of corpses he encountered often had a habit of grabbing him at inopportune moments. The door to the back garden was open, sending a cool chill through the house. There was a sound at the door. Not at the back door, but the front, where he had entered. A light, hesitant knock, followed by a shrill voice shouting “Hello?”
He held his breath. Froze in place. Running into the house was an idiot move, and he knew it. Someone must have seen him. . .
“Mum? You left the door open again!”
A daughter. That's why she was cleaning the house. . . not some damn manifestation of the thing that crawled out of her. He grunted to himself softly, there was no time to check the rest of the house, he had to get out of there. Soft, plodding footsteps were already coming his way. He slipped through the back door and darted across the garden. He was too late again, and this one was on him. There was no sign of the creature, no sign of the damn box. Once again, it had slipped through his grasp.
- - - -
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