by Simon Clark
‘And he’s still out there?’
‘Yes,’ David said. ‘At least, he was a minute ago.’
‘What’s he doing now?’
‘Just standing in the corridor like he’s on sentry duty or something.’
‘He’s mad…Christ, the cruel bastard. How could he do this to a woman?’
‘Look,’ David said in a low voice. ‘I’ll phone for an ambulance.’
‘And the police.’
‘The police as well,’ David agreed. He picked up the bedside phone. ‘That’s no good.’
‘Why?’
‘You need to get reception to give you an outside line.’
Bernice stood up.
‘Wait,’ he said, ‘Where are you going?’
‘Down to reception. I’ll use the phone there.’
‘You can’t,’ David said, horrified.
‘We can’t sit here until Doomsday, can we?’
‘Look, Bernice. Someone attacked this woman. You can’t roam about the hotel alone.’
Bernice looked really in gear, driven by anger from seeing the bruised and naked woman; he thought she’d sail out of the room alone.
She sighed. ‘OK, point taken. What do you suggest?’
‘I’ll go down. You lock the door after me.’
‘What about Black?’
‘Look, I don’t know if he’s done this. He’s not behaving like someone with a guilty conscience, is he?’
‘David, he certainly isn’t behaving as if he’s sane.’
‘Point taken.’
Their eyes met and an understanding flickered between them. He gave an appreciative smile. They were working together on this now.
‘Bernice,’ he said in a low voice. ‘On second thoughts, I think all three of us should go down to reception. We can phone from there. We’ll get Electra up, too.’
‘Right.’ She glanced in the direction of Black beyond the doorway. ‘It’s time she grabbed the bull by the horns.’
‘OK,’ David said. ‘Give me a hand with Fiona; that’s it, take her other arm. Careful with her elbow; that graze will be sore.’
Gently Bernice said, ‘Fiona…Fiona…we’re going downstairs. Can you stand by yourself?’
She looked round for a moment, confused as if she wasn’t sure where she was. ‘Where’s Matt?’
‘Is Matt your husband?’ David asked.
She shook her head. ‘He was with me…they came in…they just…just hurt him…they’d have got me, too. I ran when they pulled him out of the room; I got in the lift. I just hid inside there…I thought it would be all right when I came out. I used to have magic words when I was little — Pomerania, Beetlejuice, Antimacassar — I said those when Grandad took off his belt.’
‘It’s OK,’ Bernice said soothingly. ‘Come on, stand up.’
‘Pomerania, Beetlejuice, Antimacassar. I said…I said those words when Grandad took his belt to me. If I hid in the lift and said it long enough and — and with enough…conviction, it would be all right. Matt would come back. He’d be alive. Pomerania, Beetlejuice, Antimacassar, Pomerania…’
‘She’s in shock,’ David said to Bernice. ‘Pulse is shallow, she’s breathing way too fast.’
‘Beetlejuice, Antimacassar. Grandad took his belt off, took it off, went down, fell…doornail-dead — uh! — dead as a doornail.’
‘Come on, sweetheart,’ David said gently. ‘We’ll get you downstairs.’ Then to Bernice he added. ‘Don’t be shocked if she faints on us; she’s looking a bit groggy.’
‘Groggy? Me, too.’
David looked at Bernice. She was doing a good job, helping the distraught woman, but she’d started to shake.
He gave her as big a reassuring smile as he could. ‘You’re doing fine, Bernice. Almost at the door.’
‘What about Black?’
‘Ignore him.’
‘And the boyfriend? Matt, was it?’
‘Once we’re in reception and I’ve made those phone calls I’ll check the room.’
‘What do you think happened?’
He shrugged, but he was deeply troubled. ‘I don’t know…I really don’t know.’
5
They guided Fiona to the doorway of the hotel room. David used his heel to pull the door open as fully as it would go.
Now Jack Black stood about ten paces down the corridor. His back to them, his arms dangling loosely by his side.
Damn, it really did look like the man was standing guard. What the hell had happened? Had Black attacked the woman? Perhaps even raped her? Where was the boyfriend, Matt? Maybe he’d roughed up the girl after an argument?
The woman’s thought process was really screwed.
She still mumbled, ‘Pomerania, Beetlejuice, Antimacassar…’
‘Is the lift there?’ David asked.
‘Gone. It automatically returns to the ground floor.’
‘Never mind. Can you manage to reach the call button?’
‘Yep, got it.’
Christ, he thought, don’t we make a strange sight? Bernice made up like the Queen of Goth complete with blood-red lipstick and over-the-elbow black lace gloves; I’m wearing no shoes or socks; and we’re both supporting a grazed and bruised woman between us who’s mumbling magic words from her childhood.
And to top it all there’s Jack Black standing in the corridor, shaved head in grim silhouette; he’s staring in the direction of the stairs as if the bogeyman’s going to jump out and shout YA-HOO!
He looked at Bernice; she was biting her lip and watching the illuminated lift counter — a green numeral enclosed by a little brass frame just above the wood-effect doors. The numeral told them the lift had reached the third floor.
David shot a glance down at Jack Black. He still stood there — a weird statue of skin, bone and tattooer’s ink.
Thunder rumbled. A deeply ominous sound.
David joined Bernice watching the numerals climb as the antique lift clunked its way up the lift shaft. Now at the fourth floor.
He looked back at Jack Black who stood with his head tilted to one side looking for all the world like a Rottweiler guard dog who’s just heard a stranger’s step.
Black suddenly turned to look at David, eyes fierce.
‘They’re coming up the stairs,’ he said quickly. ‘Go into your room and lock the door.’
‘No,’ David said, losing his patience at last. ‘We’re taking this lady down into reception.’
‘In the lift?’
‘Yes.’
Jack Black nipped his bottom lip with a thick finger and thumb, considering. ‘OK,’ he said bluntly. ‘Get in the moment the door opens.’ He really is traced up, thought David in exasperation. What was it? Solvent abuse? E? Nitrates? This guy’s on another planet.
But as Black walked towards them — a rapid pace, savage as a crocodile’s — David couldn’t see any of the usual signs of substance abuse. No staggering. No goofy grin. No vacant expression.
The lift door opened.
At that moment, the woman sagged, almost pulling Bernice off balance.
‘Oh hell,’ Bernice said, shocked. ‘David, she’s gone, she’s gone.’
‘Don’t worry, she’s only fainted.’
Black kept shooting glances back at the staircase. ‘Hurry up. They’re almost here.’
‘Who’s almost here?’
‘Stand here another two minutes, you’ll find out.’
Jesus H. Christ, thought David. This I don’t need. ‘Bernice, hold the lift door for me. I’ll — uph…no, Jack, it’s OK; I’ll hold her.’
But he might as well have tried reasoning with a crocodile.
Jack Black took the woman under one of his massive arms and carried her into the lift. She hung there limp as a cloth doll.
‘Stay inside,’ Black told Bernice as she tried to get out of the lift, a look of fear on her face.
‘Let go,’ she said, frightened. ‘Let —’
‘Stay,’ Black grunted. Then he looked out throu
gh the doors of the lift at David. ‘Inside, Leppington.’
David hesitated.
‘Get in the lift now,’ Black ordered.
David felt as if events were whirling out of control. It was a sickening experience. He was used to being in control; for Godsakes, he was trained to be in control. All this had become a bizarre, no, a downright lunatic ride, with the madman Black at the steering wheel.
Just then he heard a noise from the far end of the corridor. Shadows played on the wall opposite the stairwell. Someone was climbing the stairs to the fourth floor.
‘David. Get in, please,’ Bernice pleaded from the corner of the lift.
‘Someone’s coming up the stairs,’ he said.
‘Get in,’ Black ordered. ‘Now.’
‘It might be Electra,’ David told him.
‘It isn’t,’ Black grunted through his thick lips. ‘Now get in the lift.’
For an instant David was ready to run to the end of the corridor to see exactly who was climbing the stairs, but at that moment some residual sixth sense kicked in. His skin prickled: instinctively, he found himself backing away, his eyes locked onto the shadows cast on the wall as someone, with a ponderous slowness, climbed the stairs.
This isn’t rational, he thought, shivering. Why are you afraid of those shadows?
His gut feeling overrode that rational segment of his mind.
He backed towards the lift, shooting a glance over his shoulder as he did so. Black carried the still unconscious Fiona under one arm. The dressing gown had pulled open, revealing her bare legs and pubic hair. Bernice was wedged into the corner of the lift behind Black’s broad body. She peered over his thick arm with frightened eyes. She was shooting silent pleas to David to get into the lift, and not wait any longer in the —
Then her face was gone.
David stared at the lift door sliding shut.
‘Open the lift door,’ he called. ‘Press the hold button.’
‘I am pressing it,’ Bernice cried. ‘I am! It’s not working. It’s…’
The door closed. Then they were gone.
Lift motor humming, barely audible above the thunder. He looked as the green numeral morphed from four to three.
He heard a muffled clunk — as if a heavy object had been dropped on a carpeted floor.
It came from the direction of the stairs.
David Leppington’s mouth turned dry. Again he couldn’t explain this current of fear surging up inside of him. The clunking sound came again.
He had no alternative now. He turned to see what was coming up the stairs.
CHAPTER 21
1
Bernice could hardly move. The lift was tiny enough as it was. The pine-lined box rumbling down the brick shaft was as narrow as a coffin.
With the huge form of Jack Black standing there, solid as an iron statue, the unconscious woman clasped in one of his big tattooed arms, there was hardly room to breathe.
Bernice reached out, squeezing herself between Black’s body and the pine lift wall, and pressed the lift button marked with the number four.
‘What are you doing?’ Black asked in that flat, sinister voice of his.
‘I’m going back for David.’
‘That won’t work. The lift’ll go down to the ground floor first.’
‘I can try,’ she said defiantly.
He shrugged; in his arm the bruised woman rolled her head. Her eyes — matted and blackened with lumps of mascara — were closed. Even so, she muttered: ‘Pomerania, Beetlejuice…Anti —’ Then muttered something Bernice couldn’t pick up.
‘Can you move to one side?’ Bernice asked, glaring up at the back of the shaven head. ‘I can’t breathe.’
‘Soon be there.’
She let out an angry breath of air. He thinks I’m just a stupid little girl, she thought. She tried to feel anger, but all she could feel was a kind of despairing acceptance, as if her imagined observation was the right one. I must look like an idiot, dressed like this — long black dress, lace gloves stretching up over my elbows, make-up caked on like I’m Dracula’s daughter or something. God, I must look stupid.
Why did I dress up like this?
Because I wanted to hide my body.
I don’t like the shape of my body.
It embarrasses me, so I wanted to hide behind as much lace and satin and make-up and bright red lipstick as possible.
Suddenly the clothes and make-up seemed transparent to Jack Black’s eyes. She felt as naked as this poor girl here in his arms had been.
Naked and stupid…and deeply unattractive.
The lift bumped.
‘Almost there,’ she said, feeling she had to break the silence. ‘Another two floors.’
He said nothing. She looked at his bullet-shaped head.
Again she wondered if Jack Black had attacked the woman.
And here I am alone with him…well, as good as alone.
She felt intensely uncomfortable. Black’s masculinity was a force of nature — like gravity: she sensed it pressing down on her with a Godawful weight.
Oh, come on, lift…hurry up…
The moment the doors opened she’d run across the lobby to the reception desk, then she’d have that red phone in her hands.
…dial the police first. Then ambulance. She wanted the hotel flooded with solid-looking policemen.
They’d take Jack Black away in handcuffs…lock him in a cell…
He said: ‘They won’t, you know.’
‘Won’t what?’
‘The cops. They won’t take me away. I didn’t do this to the woman.’
She felt a swirl of confusion. It’s almost as if this thug had read my…
The lift juddered. The lights dimmed, flickered, brightened.
She shot a look at the floor counter. The numeral morphed to one.
Nearly there.
Thank God.
Once they were out she’d send the lift back up to David.
‘It’s not stopping,’ Black said in a low voice.
‘What?’ Shivers shot through her scalp. ‘Press the button. The ground-floor button.’
‘I did. It’s not stopping.’
This is absurd, she thought. She couldn’t move in the lift. She could hardly breathe, pressed there into the corner of the pine walls. The bruised woman muttered.
Bernice swore. ‘Just when you need it, the lift goes haywire. Damn thing.’
She pushed by Black again and punched at the button marked with a letter ‘G’ as the ‘G’ flicked up on the floor counter then blanked as the lift trundled on downward.
‘It’s not working,’ he said.
‘I know the damn thing isn’t working. We’re going down to the basement.’
Basement.
The word seemed suddenly shocking.
Memories of her going down to the basement earlier in the evening and unlocking the steel door came rushing back…someone was behind that door, she thought. He’s waiting in the basement now. He must have pressed the call button down in the basement. He knew we were getting into the lift.
Aghast, she looked back at the door as the lift shuddered to a stop.
Oh my God, someone is down there. That same someone who attacked the woman. The realization came thundering through into her head. Wide-eyed, she stared through the gap between Black’s arm and the lift wall at the doors.
Any second they’d slide open. She’d see…
She pressed the lift buttons; it was a frantic, panicky action, her lace-covered fingers seeming to slide off the buttons without making proper contact.
A letter ‘B’ flickered up onto the panel. The lift light flickered, too. Went off.
Darkness.
The light came back on — only more dimly.
‘Turn round,’ Black ordered.
‘Do what?’
‘Turn round.’
‘No — why? Why are —’
‘Do it.’
He turned around in the confines of
the lift. Still holding onto the unconscious woman, he used his free hand to grab Bernice by the shoulder.
She resisted but found herself being effortlessly pushed face forward against the back of the lift.
He doesn’t want me to see, she thought frightened. Why?
The lift door opened.
Instantly she heard a loud hissing. Like air escaping from an air hose at the garage.
She felt rather than saw Jack moving behind her. Desperately she tried to turn her head. But she couldn’t twist her neck enough to see out. She only saw the grain of the pine wall in front of her.
‘Pomerania, Beetlejuice — ah!’
The woman’s incoherent muttering jerked up into a sudden shrill cry.
Then the lift door closed.
Oh my God, Bernice thought, bewildered. He’s thrown her out of the lift.
He’s just gone and thrown her out into the basement.
Why? For Godsakes, why?
At last Black released her. She turned round.
The doors of the lift had slid shut once more.
Shocked, she looked round the tiny lift.
She was all alone with Jack Black.
2
David had watched the numerals on the wall, indicating the lift’s descent —
-4,3,2-
The speed of events had dazed him.
Now, there seemed to be people coming up the stairs. Only they came up slowly, furtively.
Perhaps muggers had slipped into the hotel and robbed the couple in Room 101. That seemed the most likely explanation.
But why were they venturing so high into the hotel? Surely they’d have turned tail and scarpered when the naked woman ran screaming blue murder from the room?
David thought about simply going back to his room and locking the door, then perhaps trying to raise Electra or reception on the internal telephone system.
But, strangely, he felt a sense of guilt at the thought of hiding away. What would his Uncle George have said to that? A Leppington with Viking blood in his veins, hiding in a hotel room?
Where is your pride?
David realized what he was going to do was stupid. There might be a gang of psychopaths roaming the hotel.
But he gritted his teeth, then walked quickly along the corridor.