I am so sorry I worried you tonight.
“Do you know what made it worse?” he asked, suddenly without turning. It was a rhetorical question and he continued, “That nurse who called me tonight, she said that they had treated my wife. And it struck me, anything could have happened to you. I mean, that woman could have just as well have told me that you had been killed, and I could have lost you without even having had the chance…”
His voice faltered.
Tears pricked Ashley’s eyes.
He turned to her with a knot in his throat. “The thought of losing you…”
“Oh, baby.” She rushed over and flung her arms around him, ignoring the shockwaves of pain the impact invoked.
“I’m sorry,” She cooed. “I’m so sorry.”
“I love you,” he said, pulling her tightly to him. “I love you, Ashley. Please marry me.”
For a perverse moment, she thought she had misheard. He, Rupert Harrison, could never have asked her to marry him. He didn’t believe in all that, not after his first wife, she had jaded him, and he wasn’t interested in jumping into another marriage.
He wasn’t. Was he?
“Please say yes,” he said as if he had heard her thoughts.
For Ashley, the room started to spin and her stomach was fluttering.
It is true; he wants me to marry him. Oh God.
Slowly, the reality of the proposition sunk in and it was quickly followed by a tidal wave of joy.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly. “Of course.”
He squeezed her tight and she let out a little cry of pain.
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” he said, pulling away.
She laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said, quickly.
“I am so sorry, I didn’t think. Does it hurt that bad?” he asked, anxiously, delicately feeling her arm.
“It’s okay.” She cupped his boyish face with one hand and shook her head, “Rupert, I’m so sorry I worried you,” she said, earnestly.
“Don’t apologise. You can’t help being you, I suppose.” He smiled, pushing her hair back from her face, exposing the patch of gauze on her forehead and placing a delicate kiss on her nose.
She closed her eyes, and gently leant her face into his hand, enjoying his touch.
“You still haven’t told me what actually happened,” he said softly. “How exactly did you get hurt?”
She opened her eyes as fear strummed the strings of her memory.
She remembered the eyes.
Although, after everything else that had happened tonight, they now seemed more like a distant dream, a nightmare. Had there really been someone in that house? Did she really see those eyes? It all seemed so confused, so blurred right now, and would telling Rupert all about it actually help in any way?
Probably not.
“Later.” She said, kissing him full on the lips. “Right now, I just want to enjoy this moment. Remind me again, what you just said. You see, the bump on my head, I forget things really quickly.”
They laughed.
Rupert considered whether or not to push Ashley on the issue. He wanted to know what happened. On the other hand, he’d just asked her to marry him and she’d said yes. Which conversation would he rather pursue right now?
“I love you,” she said, interrupting his thoughts, and pretty much making the decision for him.
There would be plenty of time to talk to her tomorrow.
“You sure?” He asked.
“I’m sure. But I need a favour.”
Rupert cocked his head as his wife-to-be suddenly looked serious.
“Right. What is it?”
“My head is killing me and we don’t have any painkillers in the house. Well, we do, but I think I need industrial strength, if you know what I mean.”
“Of course. You sure we don’t...”
“I’m sure… I made a mental note to get more today then, after everything that happened…”
“No problem. I’ll nip out to the 24/7 down the street and get some.”
“Thank you so much,” she said, kissing his hands with eager anticipation.
“Come on,” he said with a wink, “let’s get you undressed.”
He ran the bath for her, added bath salts and an array of herbal oils, which he knew were her favourites. Then, he placed the house phone and a bottle of water by the tub, and told her to ring if she needed anything else.
Then, with the promise to bring comfort food and that he wouldn’t be long, he left.
Ashley had slipped into a red silk gown, a gift from Rupert, and prepped for a bath by putting her hair up. She wished she hadn’t bothered when she spotted her reflection in the half steamed up mirror.
God, I look awful.
Her eyes were puffy, her cheek grazed and purple, and her skin was slightly swollen around the gauze on her forehead.
The evening’s events were starting to sink in now, but they were nothing more than hallucinations, nightmares, manufactured from the stress of the moment.
At least, that’s how she preferred to remember them. However, the pain in her wrist, the throbbing in her temples and behind her eyes, reminded her that they were not, that they were real. She did go to Jackie’s home, and that boy was dead.
Murdered.
She shuddered.
Don’t do that. Think about Rupert’s proposal. Think about being his wife!
Mrs Harrison.
She did, and it brought a big smile to her face, as she secured her hair with a bull clip and felt the bath water. It was hot, and that is just what she needed to soak her aching limbs.
She let the gown fall to the floor, and gingerly stepped in.
33 The Darkness
Rupert thought he was going to get trapped in the elevator. The doors had only just closed when a power drain dipped the lights, and threatened to bring the lift to a halt. Luckily, the symptom was temporary. The hum of power returned and the elevator resumed its journey.
He made a mental note to have a chat with Tom, since this wasn’t the only problem he had experienced today. Early this morning, he was taking a shower when the hot water had suddenly turned freezing cold.
The elevator stopped, the doors opened onto darkness and not the subdued lighting of the lobby. Rupert looked up; the floor indicator read 8.
He peeked out, into the pitch black, and the proximity sensor controlled lights sprang to life.
He returned to the elevator cabin and pressed various buttons; it did not budge. Instead, he succeeded only in making the overhead light flicker and the control panel lose power and die.
He tried the intercom.
Nothing.
“Come on!” He said, frustrated.
He stepped back out into the corridor, walked over to the stairs, and flinched when he pushed on the door. The damn thing squealed like a dying pig. The sound so loud, it raked at his last nerve and echoed around the stairwell.
He swore.
Then, he began the descent with haste, his footsteps clicking loudly on the concrete steps. He was eager to get to his destination, back to the apartment, to Ashley, and bed.
He was irritated.
Talk about a bad day. Everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong, and it all started with this morning’s cold shower.
Slam!
The sound of one of the doors, several floors below, made him come to an abrupt stop.
It seemed somebody else was experiencing the same problem with the elevator, and had joined him in the stairwell.
He looked over the railing, but couldn’t see anyone. He listened, but heard nothing, just the echo of his own footsteps from moments before, ringing in his ears.
He resisted the urge to call out to whomever it was, and wondered why.
Was he scared?
A little boy was murdered tonight.
The thought pushed its way into his mind.
He swore again, and hurriedly restarted his descent for two more flights of stairs, before stoppin
g again, to listen.
Nothing.
He was alone.
Or was he.
Rupert Harrison was unable to explain it, but while he could not hear the presence of somebody else in the stairwell, he could certainly could sense them.
Several floors below; someone was standing, perfectly still.
Someone was waiting.
He leant over the metal railing, looked and listened, carefully.
Nothing.
He squinted all the way down as far as the dingy brown light would allow, but he couldn’t see anything.
Then, the lights flickered.
Oh no, not now.
On, off, on, then off, then on again.
He blinked rapidly, trying to refocus his eyes.
Did he just see something, a few floors down? Was it just a shadow, an optical artefact of the darkness? He leant further over the handrail to scrutinise the shadows.
There’s someone down there.
No, there isn’t. It’s just your imagination!
But there was.
Down on the second floor. He could just discern the crook of an arm. Was it someone leaning on the banister? Someone in a black coat?
Pull yourself together, it’s just your imagination…
The arm, or whatever it was, moved, and at that moment, a gust of freezing cold wind blew in his face, pushing his hair back and stinging his eyes.
Then, he watched in horror as, one by one, each and every light from the floors below died, plunging that level into a deathly blackness that, like a giant leviathan, rapidly ascended toward him, bringing with it the loud, nerve-jangling slam of each door.
Instinctively, he turned and raced back up the steps, away from the tsunami of darkness, as if exposure to it would drown the very life out of him.
2nd floor!
SLAM!
3rd floor!
SLAM!
Closer…4th floor!
SLAM!
Closer…5th floor!
“Nooooo!” Rupert yelled as he reached and wrenched open the door marked Level 8, and just as he was about to step back out into the hallway, he tripped and fell sprawling onto the carpet.
He instantly flipped over, just in time to see the door pull itself shut.
He crawled backwards, heart pounding, lungs bursting until he felt the metal cage of the lift press against his back.
He watched the dark press against the fire door glass, like a surge of crude oil.
What the fuck…?
He didn’t even know what he was running from, nor did he have time to consider it, for he was distracted by a pair of raised voices.
He turned to see a slither of light peeking out from the partially open front door of Apartment 8, and while he couldn’t work out exactly what was being said, it was obvious from the intonation of the voices, that the protagonists were not happy with each other.
Apartment 8 is supposed to be empty was his last thought as the shadow fell over him.
Rupert Harrison screamed.
Time evaporated as Ashley languished in the bath. The warmth of the bathwater was soothing her into a snooze.
That was until the steam shifted, and a cold draught danced across the nape of her neck.
Her eyes sprang open, she sat up and listened hard, but there was no sound, just the shifting of the steam and an unnatural quiet.
Somebody was in the other room. She couldn’t hear anything, but she could sense a presence, it was as if someone was waiting outside the door.
“Rupert?” she called, suddenly wide awake.
She had been in this situation before.
She watched the door. She remained perfectly still, as if to move would be to solicit unwanted attention.
She was naked, vulnerable.
“Rupert?
No reply. Just her voice echoing around the bathroom, closely followed by her eyes, as she searched for a solution to her current predicament.
She took in the steamed up mirrors, the shower cubicle, the toilet, and the bath towel hanging nearby.
Slowly and as quietly as she could, she emerged from the sanctuary of the warm water and stood, as goose pimples instantly formed on her skin.
The room had turned as cold as a frosted winter’s morning, and the lighting had dimmed, or at least it seemed that way.
The bathwater sloshed loudly as if protesting against her departure, as she reached for the towel and quickly wrapped it around her body.
Her teeth began to chatter, involuntarily.
This is all your imagination, she told herself, although she didn’t believe it.
She stepped out of the bath, pulled the plug and instantly regretted the action as the water gurgled and squealed noisily, like a tortured animal, as it was sucked down into the abyss.
Eyes still on the bathroom door, Ashley inched her way across the room.
Rupert. Where are you?
A splitting sound smacked her to attention; it was cracking glass and it stung her already shredded nerves like salt on a wound.
Help me!
Her breath was now fogging in front of her. The air had turned so cold that all of the mirrors had begun to demist, slowly revealing a stranger with dripping hair, hollow, wild eyes, and a face creased into mask of abject terror.
It actually took Ashley a few seconds to realise that she was looking at her own reflection.
That’s when another loud splitting sound pierced the quiet of the room. It came from beyond the door.
She began to hyperventilate.
Someone or something is in the other room!
Something? Why did you think that?
The hideous thought had pushed its way into her head, along with a snapshot of those eyes. The eyes that had watched her from beyond the glass at Jackie’s home.
She jumped backward as a scream froze in her throat; the nearby full-length mirror was cracking! Then, slowly, like time-lapse footage, it frosted over.
The steam that had, just minutes before, licked then blanketed the glass surface of the mirror was being replaced by a veil of frost! It instantly turned it opaque and then white. As it did so, large cracks appeared and stretched to each extremity.
“Ashley…”
Her eyes darted to the bathroom door; somebody was calling her from the bedroom. The voice was hollow, distant; the remnants of an echo calling to her from the deep recesses of a catacomb.
“A s h l e y…” it continued, beckoning her, but now it was overhead, moving from the bedroom across the ceiling.
“Who… who is it?” she stuttered, as waves of shivers froze over her, but the only response was the sound of heavy footsteps as they fell heavily overhead.
Then, the lights flickered, beating on and off to the rhythm of her heart.
“A s h l e y…” the voice, continued, guttural and haunting.
She ran from the bathroom, clutching the towel around her, but stopped abruptly when she saw that the bedroom window no longer offered a view of the city, but that it had crystallised into a sheet of frost that glittered in the overhead lights.
She raced from the bedroom, bare feet slapping loudly on the parquet floor, as the wet footprints she left in her wake instantly froze over.
She was in the entrance lobby now, where the dome projected a view of a clear and starry sky. This was in stark contrast to everything else; glass, mirrors, picture frames, each and every item was covered in glittering frost.
And it was as Ashley turned in a 360 spin of the world around her, that she noticed it; the front door, it was wide open.
“HELP ME!” she shouted and, without thinking, sprinted for freedom, but a sudden gust of icy cold air tugged the door shut, killing the lights as it did so.
She screamed and closed her eyes, half expecting someone to rush at her, but they didn’t.
The entrance lobby was tomblike still. There was no sound of curious neighbours, no footsteps from security, just the pounding of her beating heart, and the scratchy sound
of her rasping breath, that continued to fog in the air in front of her.
She opened her eyes.
Slowly, they became accustomed to the dark, and the spectres of the furniture that haunted it. She was alone in the freeze of the blackness.
“ASHLEY!”
The voice was a loud whisper in her right ear. She slapped at the air in horror and leapt to her left, rubbing her ears as more tentacles of icy terror licked her skin.
“ASHLEY!”
She screamed, “No!” and leapt to her right.
“Ashley!”
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” she screamed, and retreated until she could feel the cold wall on her back, and the frame of Miriam Harrison’s painting pressing against her cheek.
“A s h l e y!”
This time the loud whisper was in front of her and when it spoke, an icy draught blew in at her face.
She shrank back, against the wall, as her shivering metamorphosed into convulsions, not just from the cold, but from fear, as she contemplated the inevitable.
“Nooo,” she whimpered and squirmed, but there was nowhere else for her to go. She was literally backed up against a wall.
Then, she stared in disbelief, as slowly and hideously, one of the shadows began to stretch and expand, like a giant ink stain. It ebbed, flowed and swelled until it smothered the starry dome view of the sky and replaced it with the thick inky blackness of eternal sleep, from which, Ashley knew, there would be no awaking.
Then, out of the dark, they slowly began to form, like the negative of a photograph, eyes, narrow and full of malice.
They glowered in the dark while drifting closer.
“NOOOOOO!”
Closer.
“A s h l e y…”
She slapped, maniacally, at the air in front of her.
“NO!”
“Ashley!”
“Let go of me!”
“ASH!”
She felt strong arms shaking her eyes open to dazzling spotlights.
Then, she was back in the bath.
Rupert was standing over her, his face full of worry.
“Oh Jesus, Ash, are you alright?”
She could say nothing; she just lay, shivering in the freezing cold bath water.
Rupert didn’t hesitate.
He snatched the towel from its hook, wrapped it around her, lifted her into his arms, and carried her dripping naked body through to the bedroom, but not before she managed to catch sight of the mirror; the cracks were like giant tentacles, stretching from the centre outwards.
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