Kane's Scary Tales: Volume 1

by Paul Kane

  Hannah had been so wrapped up in her walking, and then in her fascination with the house, she’d totally forgotten about food. Not that she had any. Sometimes she’d stuff a couple of chocolate bars into her pockets, or maybe a bag of crisps or two before setting off, but today she’d been so eager to get out of the flat before her mum or “the boyfriend” crawled from their pit, it had completely slipped her mind, her unpredictable, sometimes untrustworthy mind. Hannah wished it would slip it again right now. But she was hungry, and once she knew she was then to argue with it would be pointless.

  Another growl. “All right, all right,” she whispered, “I’ve heard you.”

  She was in a kitchen – granted not the most up-to-date or hygienic of kitchens, but a kitchen nonetheless; and homely in a peculiar way. There was bound to be something to eat around here somewhere. She found herself walking towards the fridge. Then stopped.

  No, no… What are you doing? You can’t just help yourself to other people’s food!

  Yet another growl. Anything was better than having to listen to her stomach doing that for the rest of the afternoon, the rest of the day.

  Hannah took the few remaining steps and opened the fridge up. It was slim pickings and no mistake: a solitary egg sitting in its door-mounted compartment like Humpty Dumpty on the wall; on the top shelf a piece of cheese well past its prime by the looks of things, with mould creeping up from underneath; and a couple of tomatoes, also on the turn, luxuriating in the space on the middle shelf. On the bottom shelf stood an opened can of lager. Nothing that would stop the rumbling in there.

  She turned to the units and started opening them. At first she found nothing but a few cobwebs with the corpses of flies glued to them. Then, as she was just about to give up on the hunt, she came across a box of Frosties in a cupboard. She picked it up and shook it. There were still flakes inside. Hannah snaked her hand into the box and grabbed a fistful. They looked edible enough, unlike the cheese and tomatoes, the cereal still a sugar-coated shade of orange. It wasn’t exactly a Big Mac with fries, but then she wasn’t in a position to be choosy.

  Hannah wolfed down the sweet flakes, dipping her hand in for more. As she ate, she wondered about the owners of this house again. Maybe they were squatters, the place wasn’t in the best of shape after all. That would certainly explain the open door… perhaps the food belonged to them? If so, they couldn’t really lay any claim to it, could they? It was open house – so to speak.

  All she knew was there was nobody around right now, except her. And she was hungry, so hungry in fact that she ate the rest of the Frosties in the box. It would keep her going for a while.

  Hannah put the empty box on the work surface. Now she was thirsty. She looked over to the sink and the tap. A drink of water? Then she remembered the lager in the fridge. She’d never had any alcohol before – unless you counted that time when her granddad had given her a sip of wine at Christmas. She’d often wondered what the attraction was, especially for her mother and her boyfriends. There was no time like the present to find out. While she had the chance why shouldn’t she try it, just a little bit, just to see?

  Like mother, like daughter.

  She shrugged and took the can out of the fridge. Hannah wiped the top with her sleeve, then took a sip. It was flat and had a sour taste that made her shudder. Nevertheless, she polished off what was left in the tin and put it back.

  Her hunger sated and her thirst quenched, she decided to look around the rest of this house, her confidence and cockiness growing by the second. There was a door that opened out onto a hallway, the frayed patterned carpet leading all the way to the front door at the other end. Hannah fancied she saw faces in those swirling patterns: noses, ears, the occasional eye. Her mind making sense of random shapes, like it always did with clouds up in the sky on a summer’s day. The wallpaper was just as bad, striped and clustered with rising damp patches.

  There was a staircase on her right, with a door underneath it. Hannah walked down the hallway and tried the doorknob. It was a small cubby space under the stairs, home to bits of bric-a-brac and rubbish, as well as what looked like the electricity meter. She closed the door and focused her attention on another, larger door on her left. This one, like the back door, was slightly ajar. Hannah squinted through the gap but saw nothing of any significance, so she eased the door open a bit more. It was the room she’d looked into through the front window, a living room as she could see now.

  She walked inside.

  God, it reminded her of her granddad’s old place. So much so that she could do nothing but gape for the first few minutes, mouth open. There was that same ancient wooden sideboard, probably just as infested with woodworm, those same bookshelves on the wall (these contained just a handful of tatty old paperbacks, thick as bricks and probably just as interesting), even down to the kitsch paintings that hung on the walls and were in dire need of straightening. No TV, just an upright armchair, a settee and a smaller comfy chair in the middle of the room, arranged in a disjointed semi-circle around an empty fireplace. The upright looked way too uncomfortable to sit on; how on earth you were supposed to walk after a few minutes planted on that was anyone’s guess. The settee looked inviting – especially after all that walking – but something was drawing her to the smaller chair. Hannah sat down on the faded brown cushion, and let the armchair envelop her. It hugged her, and for a moment it was just like being hugged by her granddad again. She felt safe, warm, at home. She closed her eyes. It was so quiet, so peaceful…

  There was a pinging sound, and Hannah felt one of the springs give beneath her. Her eyes snapped open as she tilted to one side. Panicking, she scrambled to get up, but only made things worse. There was a tearing sound as the cushion sank in, white stuffing exploding out of the arms like solid puffs of smoke.

  Hannah escaped from the clutches of the chair and pitched forwards onto the hearth rug in front of the fireplace. “Shit!” she said, turning around to look at the damage she’d done. She hadn’t meant for that to happen. Getting up, she walked over to the chair and tried to lift the cushion, tried to stuff the stuffing back into the holes in the arms. It wasn’t happening; she was doing even more damage, if that was at all possible.

  She backed away, leaving the scene of her crime. Hannah retreated from the room and ended up in the hallway again. She should get the hell out of there, right now.

  But the staircase caught her eye.

  Don’t you want to see what’s up there? Go on, you might as well, now you’re here.

  No! She wasn’t going to listen this time. She’d eaten the cereal, broken the chair… No more, no more. But still she found her foot on the first step, then the second, and the next one. Within moments she was halfway up the stairs, hand on the banister. I’m only going to the top. Just to the top, she told herself.

  But when she got to the top, to the landing, she knew she’d end up checking out the rooms up here too. There were three doors, measured out along the length of the landing. Behind door number one was the loo, stained yellow porcelain and a smell she couldn’t identify. Behind door number two was a bedroom, with a huge double bed taking up most of the space – again it was of the old-fashioned variety, complete with brass bed knobs, castors on the legs. It was unmade, the sheets turned down revealing the mattress beneath. Hannah walked over to it and pressed down on the mattress. It was remarkably soft and springy.

  Why not have a lie down?

  Hannah shook her head and left the room immediately. Yes, she was tired and sitting down in that chair had made her even worse, but she wasn’t about to have a kip in someone else’s bed. No way – that was too weird.

  Too–

  When Hannah opened the door to the third room, she found another bed in there. It was a single, this one, and looked even more enticing than the double she’d left behind. She wondered how it would feel to just lay her head down for a minute on that pillow, to know she didn’t have to keep awake to listen out for–

  But wha
t about whoever lived here? What if…

  Too late; she was already sitting on the edge of the bed. She’d just lay her head down for a second, just for a second…

  Bang!

  Hannah opened her eyes. Where the hell was she? This wasn’t her bed, her home. And what had happened to the light outside?

  Then she remembered. She was in the house, the house she’d found and broken into. No, it had been open. It–

  Jesus, how had she fallen asleep like that? How could she have let herself drop off? The lack of sleep from the night before, the walking, and probably even the lager, had all ganged up to work against her. But it had been her decision to lay down, hadn’t it? Her–

  Hannah heard a voice downstairs.

  Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck!

  More voices.

  Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit, fuck!

  There was more than one person downstairs: the squatters, or maybe the owners of the house? God, what had she been thinking? What–

  Another bang. Sounded like a door slamming.

  Shit! Fuck!

  Hannah rose from the bed, terrified. She went to the window. Perhaps she could climb through and escape that way. It was really dark out there now, really dark. She tried the handle on the window but it was jammed, probably hadn’t been open in ages, maybe even stuck with paint. Another tug, but it still wouldn’t give.

  She crept over to the open bedroom door. Now her mind was saying: I told you this was a bad idea, told you not to come in here. But she had to see, didn’t she? Had to explore. Had to eat the food, drink the lager and sit in the chair. The broken chair.

  Hannah tiptoed out onto the landing. Floorboards she hadn’t noticed before were creaking like mad now, or were the noises just amplified because of her tense state? No matter how hard she tried to distribute her weight evenly, there was always a complaint from below. She shushed the boards, finger up to her lips – aware of how stupid it was, ordering inanimate wooden boards to be silent, but at this point she’d try anything.

  The voices from downstairs were louder as she approached the top of the stairs. And as she craned her neck around the top banister she caught a snatch of dialogue, delivered in a gruff tone:

  “…telling you. There was half a can left in there. It’s empty now. Have you been at my ale, boy?”

  Another voice, softer than the first: “No Pops, honest.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time. Christ, can’t a man even have an ale when he wants one anymore?”

  “Pops, honest I swear. It wasn’t me.”

  “He’s telling the truth, Art. Look at this…” A third voice, a woman. Hannah heard a swish as something was shaken. She risked a couple of steps, trying to get a glimpse of who was in the kitchen. It was no good, she couldn’t see a damned thing.

  “I put that back this mornin’. Now it’s empty as well.”

  “My Frossies,” said the softer voice, now filled with genuine sadness. “Who’s been eatin’ my Frossies?”

  “Someone’s been in this house, Art,” said the woman. “In our house!”

  “Now who’d be stupid enough to do a thing like that?” asked Art.

  “Better check round,” said the woman.

  Hannah swallowed dryly, then pulled back when she heard someone stomping along the hallway. The light from the kitchen cast a shadow of this person, large and black, flitting across the walls. Then another someone put the hall light on and Hannah just spotted the back of a large man entering the living room. The light came on in there seconds later.

  “Christ! Mabe, come and look at this.”

  In answer to the call, two more figures came rushing to the living room. From her tenuous hiding place, Hannah could see that one was a plumpish woman and the other was a well-built youth of around her age.

  “My… my favourite chair.”

  “Oh, Junior, baby, I’m so sorry,” said the woman, Mabe.

  “The fuckers,” Hannah heard Art say.

  “Anything missing?” Mabe asked him.

  “Not that I can tell.”

  “I told you again and again, fix that back door. Fix it good and proper.”

  “I know, I know,” snapped Art.

  Hannah put a foot on the next step. If she could get down the stairs, maybe creep past the living room while they were all in there occupied – looking at the damage she’d done – then she could make a break for the back door.

  “Upstairs, Art,” said Mabe.

  Art said nothing, but Hannah could imagine him nodding. She scrambled back up the stairs and onto the landing. What now? She could hear him heading for the bottom stair, then putting his foot on it. The light flickered on upstairs.

  Hannah ran back to the big bedroom and ducked inside. She bit her lip, shaking her head as she heard him make it to the top of the stairs and kick open the loo door.

  This room was next. Art opened the door, again switching on the light.

  From underneath the big bed, Hannah saw his boots clomping on the floor, walking towards her. More feet appeared. Mabe’s.

  “They been in here too, Art?”

  Hannah heard a sniffing sound. “Yep. I can smell ’em. Same as in the living room.”

  “Pops! Mam!” The cry had come from the youth’s – Junior’s – room next door. “They been in my bed. Come an’ look.”

  The feet disappeared. Now was Hannah’s chance, she had to take it.

  Climbing from beneath the bed, she ran to the door and looked out onto the landing. It was clear. She shot out and made a dash for the top of the stairs, for freedom. Once she was down there, she’d get out through the back and she–

  There was a hand on her shoulder, a heavy weight clamping down on it then spinning her around.

  “Now where d’you think you’re goin’?” snarled Art. He pressed his face into hers and for the first time she saw it properly: the bulging eyes, long, curly hair and sweaty brow. He looked like one of those wrestlers from WWF, ready to slam her to the floor and jump on top of her. Hannah tried to pull away from him but he held her fast.

  “I found someone,” he called back over his shoulder. Mabe and Junior appeared behind him, trying to see past his bulk.

  “Who is it?” asked Mabe.

  “Hold ’em Pops,” said Junior.

  Hannah was petrified. This scene was all too familiar to her. She knew what would happen next – these weren’t the sort of folk to call the police and press charges. They’d deal with things in a more… personal way. Just like Freddie.

  “Now then, little lady, you got some explainin’ to–”

  Hannah bit down on Art’s hand, and he yelped in surprise. He released his grip for a moment, allowing her to slip away. She stumbled backwards, her foot catching on the top stair. Turning her head, she lost her balance momentarily, then found herself falling.

  The three faces of Art, Mabe and Junior became smaller as the distance between her and them increased. She reached out a hand, desperate to latch on to something. She fell fast, yet at the same time everything slowed down. She saw herself grabbing the rail, the wood burning her skin as it slipped through her hand. Then all the air was forced out of her body as she hit the floor. Hannah let out a huge groan, and through watery eyes she saw the triad descending on her. Art was rushing down the stairs, taking them two at a time. Mabe was close behind, Junior last.

  Get up. Listen, get up Now! You have to get out of here, Hannah! Get the fuck up!

  Hannah tried to move. She ached in places she didn’t even know she had, which was surprising given all the knocks she’d taken in the past, but she had to ignore that. Had to escape. As Art got to the last step, Hannah managed to roll out of the way, flipping over onto her stomach. The front door loomed before her. Unlike the back door, she had no idea whether it was even open or not. But it was her only hope. She got a knee underneath her and jacked herself up. Her hand was on the knob; she turned it.

  Nothing happened. Was it locked, or stuck like the window upstai
rs – jammed with old age or paint? Hannah could almost feel Art’s breath on her neck again. He was so close, so close.

  Suddenly the knob clicked, turning that last fraction, and she yanked the door open. Hannah fell through it and into the blackness, tripping over the step but recovering herself just in time.

  She could hear footsteps behind her. Three sets. But that didn’t matter. Hannah blinkered herself, narrowed her tunnel vision, heading for the gate. Again it seemed to take forever for her to reach it, but it could only have been a matter of seconds.

  And once she was through, she ran like she’d never run before.

  ***

  Hannah had no idea when she’d lost them exactly. She hadn’t turned back to look, she just carried on running, past the pain threshold, blocking out the twinges in her back. She’d had more than enough practice at ignoring pain. For all she knew they might even have given up at the end of the lane, figured it wasn’t worth their trouble. Just some little kid who’d broken in, broken a chair, and basically used their home like a doss house.

  All she knew was they weren’t behind her when she arrived at the flats. She’d finally checked over her shoulder and found nobody there chasing her. No Art, no Mabe, no Junior. What the comeback for this whole sorry episode would be she had no idea either. They might phone the police now. They knew what she looked like, didn’t they? And she had broken the law.

  Hannah didn’t want to think about it. For the first time in her life she just wanted to get home, the only one she knew anyway. The only one she had. So she used her key to get into the flat, turning it as quietly as she could.

  Her mother was waiting on the sofa, cream robe pulled around her. She rose, and for one minute Hannah actually thought she was going to give her a hug, just like mums are supposed to do. God knows she needed it.