by Rob Sinclair
Despite the weed-filled front yard and the obviously cheap plastic windows which were grimy and discoloured, Liam Dunne’s house didn’t look particularly out of place on the street, and there were one or two others which Dani noted were in a similar or even worse state – awaiting a property developer with a keen eye and a tight budget who would flip them, making a few thousand pounds in the process.
‘I really have no idea what to expect in here,’ Easton said as the two of them crunched across an inch of untouched snow to the front door.
Dani didn’t answer as she took the keychain from her pocket and first unlocked the mortice deadlock before moving on to the more lightweight cylinder lock. She pushed the door open, some effort needed to prise it far enough to step in, what with the amount of post – largely junk – which had accumulated beyond.
The inside of the house was dark and cold, and there was an awful smell. Dust and mould and something else Dani couldn’t put her finger on. She went to flip on the lights. Nothing. Not a surprise. It wasn’t as though there was anyone around to pay the bill.
‘Leave the door open a minute for some light,’ Dani said as she moved through into the front lounge and held her breath as she pulled open the curtains, which caused a swathe of dust to fill the air.
She squinted and hunkered down and brought her arm up to her mouth to breathe before she turned around. The room, although not old in its furnishings, was like some kind of relic; the type of room seen on sci-fi movies when the crew of a spaceship intercepts another which has been lost in space in a time-warp for decades. The two leather sofas might have, at one time, been black or dark brown but were now grey with thick dust. The TV was the same, as was every other object. Black mould climbed the walls all around and reached down from the top corners of the room.
‘What shall we do then?’ Easton said, coming through the doorway.
‘Let’s split up. I don’t want to stay here any longer than necessary. Look for anything that gives us a clue as to who Liam was, what he was up to in life.’
‘Got it.’
‘You start down here,’ she said to him. ‘I’ll head upstairs.’
In the hallway the front door was now closed, though there was just enough daylight coming from the lounge to give a good glimpse of the space. But upstairs… it remained pitch black, with all of the curtains drawn. Much like in Brigitta Popescu’s house, Dani thought with a shiver.
She took her phone out, torchlight on, as she went up. Flashes of her unsettling trips to Brigitta’s house pulsed in her mind. Not to mention the stories Easton had been telling Dani on the trip over here. In the car, with him as company, the stories of vampires and roaming undead corpses had seemed trivial, almost amusing. Now Dani wasn’t quite so sure, and there was definitely an added chill as she ascended, which caused her skin to prickle all over.
Dani reached the first bedroom, at the back of the house, and stopped in the doorway to shine the torch around, the unsettling feeling steadily building as she gazed into the dark space.
She took a deep breath then rushed across the room to the windows and hurled the curtains open, then spun back to stare across the room.
A shadow flicked across the far wall, moving towards the door, and Dani’s heart lurched as she swept the torchlight to that spot.
Then the shadow crept back again, and she realised it was only coming from the curtain flapping behind her.
She exhaled heavily and muttered under her breath at her own frailty.
The room she was in was mostly bare: an unmade single bed, a basic wardrobe and drawers. A spare room that perhaps had never been used.
Dani only spent a minute or two in there before she went into the next room, at the front of the house. She performed an almost identical routine as before, darting into the room, pulling open the curtains in a quick motion. Except this time, more prepared, the sweeping shadows didn’t bother her half as much, at least. And there was still no sign of vampires anywhere.
This room was clearly Liam’s, she decided, with pictures on the wall and knick-knacks all over. The double bed still had covers on, the washing basket in the corner was half filled with laundry. Dani felt a wave of sadness as she stared over the space. Whatever had happened to him, whether he was dead or still alive, Liam Dunne’s life, as he’d known it, had ended the day he left here. It was as if the house was now in perpetual mourning, a feeling of ingrained misery seeping through every brick and every fabric.
Dani, heart heavy, rummaged through the dusty belongings. She could understand why, five years on, no one had come to properly clean this place out; why the police hadn’t carried out a full, forensic-type search. Before now they’d had no reason to do so, but seeing the house like this, with everything in place, was unsettling to say the least.
And to think that Liam’s sister had recently been living not far from here, busily searching for her brother, but had never herself been in here to sort through his things. As far as the law was concerned Liam was still alive, and Clara would have had no right of access.
Dani opened the bottom bedside drawer which was half filled with bundled socks and a collection of dead spiders, all shrivelled.
She ignored her squeamishness and dug a gloved hand inside and felt about. She frowned when her fingers brushed against something hard. She grasped the object and took it out. A mobile phone. A pretty antiquated handset at that, certainly from before Liam went missing in 2015, although in reality it was probably only ten years old or so – the industry had moved so swiftly.
Dani held down the power button but it didn’t come on. She put the phone into an evidence bag then moved over to a set of drawers. Most were filled with dusty cobweb-covered clothes, plus more dead spiders and insects, though the top one was a clutter of odds and sods. Within it she found what looked like an old-school petty cash container – metal, red, all scratched up from years of use. It was locked, but Dani was sure she’d seen a small key across the room in one of the other bedside drawers.
She went back to get that key and stuck it into the lock and turned. It worked. She placed the box onto the window sill and flipped the lid. Inside was…
A creak outside the room, on the landing. Dani froze and listened. There it was again.
‘Easton?’ she shouted.
‘What? You got something?’ His voice carried thinly in the air. He was still somewhere downstairs.
Dani closed the lid on the box and was about to head to the door when her attention was grabbed by movement outside the window, down on the street outside.
She was sure she’d seen a dark shadow scooting between two parked cars. As she stared now, she could see nothing, no one at all.
That same creak again. Dani, trying her best to calm her already wrecked nerves, grabbed the biggest, hardest thing she could – the cash box – and confidently strode for the door.
She jumped out into the hall, box held aloft.
She was left staring ahead, across the landing, into the dark bathroom. The noise came again, this time accompanied by a swathe of cold air. Dani rolled her eyes. The window in the bathroom was either ajar or broken, and the breeze coming in was sufficient to cause the roller blind to flap back and forth against the pane.
Dani sighed, turned and moved back into the bedroom. She placed the box back on the sill, opened it up and took out the picture of Liam Dunne, arm wrapped around the shoulder of a young and striking blonde woman. She flipped the photo over, hoping for something. No. There was no writing there.
Dani stared at the woman’s face. Not Ana. Not the dead woman from the van. Did she look Romanian? Eastern European? Slavic?
What was Dani reaching for?
As her brain rumbled, her eyes unconsciously flickered again, looking to the street outside. No, that was no act of her imagination. Nor was it a shadow or a Strigoi or whatever else. Across the road, now hidden at the edge of an alleyway, was a person. Definitely a person. Dressed all in black, head covered by a thick hood. Lurking.
Spying?
It was too big a coincidence to ignore.
Dani dropped the picture.
‘Easton!’ she shouted, already rushing for the door. ‘Get outside, now!’
Chapter 28
Dani hurtled down, was already on the second-to-last stair when Easton bounded out from the back of the house into the hallway.
‘What?’
‘Someone’s spying on us.’
Dani reached the door first, was about to fling it open when she paused. The watcher hadn’t spotted her. Had he? So what was the point in charging out there and scaring him off?
She took a deep breath.
‘There’s an alley about five houses down,’ Dani said. ‘Some guy, all dark clothes, hood over his head, hiding at the edge.’
She looked over at Easton. She knew well his doubtful face. Did he not believe that she’d seen the watcher at all?
‘I thought you’d found a bloody bomb or something.’
‘We’ll go out calmly, as if we’re heading for the car.’
‘And then what?’
Dani ignored him. She opened the door and a blast of fresh icy air smacked her in the face and her eyes watered. She took a step out onto the powdery snow and cast her gaze across the road. She didn’t have a good view of the alley at all, beyond the parked cars, and could see nothing of the man now.
Easton banged the door shut and Dani stuck her hands in her pockets and casually walked towards the road. At least as casually as she could with her legs twitching with surging adrenaline.
Another problem was that her car was parked in the opposite direction to the alley. Surely the lurker would know as soon as Dani turned right, rather than left onto the road, that she wasn’t heading back to the car, but for them.
Nothing she could do about that. She moved out onto the pavement, headed straight between two parked cars and looked left and right up the road to make sure it was clear before crossing to the other side. A quick glance told her Easton was a few yards behind her. Hardly subtle, the way he was lagging.
Dani reached the pavement on the other side of the road and could now see the head of the alley, though no sign of the person who’d been there. Had they slunk further down, or already scarpered?
Dani picked up her pace a little. Her boots slid on the snowy surface, previous foot traffic having compacted parts of it to thick and glossy ice. Every step she took brought another sliver of the alley into view. Still no sign of the watcher.
Dani pushed her legs a little harder still, not far from a jog now. She reached the edge of the alley, her brain already filling with embarrassment at the thought of how she’d explain not just her jitteriness to Easton, but the fact she was perhaps seeing things too.
No. As she stood at the head of the alley and stared down, there he was. Twenty yards further on. Head down, hands in pockets, steadily walking away. Judging by the clothes, his large frame, and gait, Dani was sure it was a man. And he was just about to turn out of sight. The alley intersected two back-to-back rows of terraces, providing an entrance to the otherwise blocked-off backyards and the man was just reaching the next parallel street.
As he turned off to the right, he glanced back up towards Dani.
Then he ran.
‘Easton, go around that way!’ Dani shouted, pointing off to her right as she rushed forwards into the alley.
She moved into a sprint, though every other step her foot failed to gain traction and she skidded about, trying to stay on her feet. Rather than falling flat on her face, she pulled back a little, only adding to her frustration as she reached the end of the alley. Her eyes darted across the street she’d come out onto – an almost carbon copy of the one she’d just come from. The guy was thirty yards ahead now, almost at the main road just a few yards further ahead.
Dani had no choice. She gave it everything she’d got. Sprinted as fast as she could. As she passed the next road on her right there was Easton, almost in line with her. She’d hoped they’d be able to intercept the target, but no such luck, and they were soon running side by side down the middle of the road where at least the passing traffic had done a good job of clearing the snow, with two parallel grooves providing snow and ice-free tarmac to tread on.
‘This is… nuts,’ Easton said through laboured breaths.
Dani said nothing. She just wanted to catch up with this guy. Why was he spying on them at Liam Dunne’s house? Could it even be Dunne himself?
They soon reached the intersection with the main road where traffic blasted in both directions. Rows of shops and takeaways and other small businesses lined both sides of the street, and the pavements were dotted with pedestrians.
Dani couldn’t see the man anywhere. But there was another side street ten yards down.
‘This way,’ Dani said.
Picking her moment she darted across the road to the other side and turned into the street and stared down. There he was. Moving more casually again. He thought he’d lost them.
‘You go that side,’ Dani said, pointing across the street.
Easton nodded and moved to the opposite side of the road and Dani continued right behind the man.
He might have stopped running, but he was still clearly edgy, and it was only a few seconds later when he glanced over his shoulder and spotted Dani who was too slow in her attempt to duck behind a parked van. As soon as the man spotted her he jumped into action again, darting to his left, in between parked cars.
‘Easton, he’s coming to your side!’
Dani did the same, squeezing between two parked vans. The man was out of sight to her, and as she came into the road she stared down. Couldn’t see him at all. Easton was there, the other side of the road, looking similarly bemused.
‘You see him?’ she said.
Easton shook his head.
‘Keep going,’ Dani told him.
She carried on along the middle of the road, now moving at a steady pace, though her body was primed and tense, ready to spring into action.
She was sure the man had moved in front of the blue Transit van a few vehicles in front. Was he hiding there?
‘Anything?’ she mouthed to Easton. Another shake of his head.
She reached the back end of the van and took cautious steps towards the front. Easton was still on the other side of the road, looking up and down.
Dani jumped out past the van’s bonnet.
No one there.
‘Dani, behind you!’
She swivelled and crouched but had no time to raise a defence as the dark blur rushed towards her. The object – a frozen plank? – smacked into the side of her head. The impact, together with her own momentum, sent her sprawling into the slush.
There was shouting and thudding as Easton raced over to her aid.
Dani shook her head and pulled herself onto her haunches. The man was racing away, back to the main street, Easton right behind him. The man darted left onto the busy road, just as a bus flashed past. Then came a cacophony of horns and tyres screeching and skidding on frozen ground. The man was already out of sight as a car slid into view, swerving viciously… right for Easton.
He jumped back but couldn’t move quickly enough and the rear end of the car swiped Easton off his feet and knocked him flat on the ground.
‘Easton!’ Dani screamed as she hauled herself on to her feet.
The next couple of seconds passed agonisingly slowly as Easton lay unmoving on the ground, Dani hobbling towards him.
Then he flinched and raised his arm in the air. Gingerly, he propped himself up.
‘I’m fine,’ he groaned as pedestrians and bemused drivers closed in to check on him. ‘I’m OK,’ he said again as Dani reached him.
Although he didn’t sound it, and his face was screwed-up in pain. And even if there was some doubt about Easton, Dani was absolutely sure about one thing: the man was gone.
Chapter 29
One of the many pedestrians at the scene called an ambulance, althoug
h the decision was perhaps a little premature, and it didn’t arrive until five minutes after the first police squad car arrived from nearby Bloxwich Police Station. By that point it was clear there were no major injuries, and the officers were already in the midst of taking details of what had happened from bystanders and the drivers and passengers of the cars involved in the mêlée – which hadn’t just included the vehicle that had side-swiped Easton, but two others which had shunted each other.
To Dani it was a lot of fuss about nothing, even if the scene had drawn quite a crowd of onlookers. But once the ambulance departed – empty – and soon after the squad cars, too, the street quickly returned to normal.
‘You were lucky,’ Dani said to Easton as he limped alongside her, back to her car.
‘You too,’ he said.
Her head was throbbing from the blow she’d taken, and they’d bagged the plank that she’d been hit with – a broken piece of a garden fence – as evidence. She had a lump on her forehead the size of a ping-pong ball, but there was no cut and she felt fine, even if she was a little woozy.
Easton would have a hefty bruise on his leg from the impact of the car, and on his arse from when he’d fallen backwards, but together their minor injuries were far less aggravating than the fact that the man they’d chased had got away.
‘Who was he?’ Dani said, not sure if the question was rhetorical or not.
She shivered as the words passed her lips, the chill this time not because of sinister thoughts, but because her clothes were sopping wet and freezing cold from her having been laid flat out in the slush. How she was desperate for a long, hot bath right now.
‘More importantly,’ Easton said, ‘why was he spying on us? Do you think he was following us? Or already here?’
Dani had no clue, and wasn’t even sure which scenario made the most sense.
Both cold and glum, they were soon back outside Liam Dunne’s house.
‘Had you finished?’ Easton asked.