‘Where’s Lawson?’ it asked, in a voice that shimmered all around them as if coming from the walls of the building itself.
‘We’re friends of his,’ said Daniel. ‘Lawson’s dead. We’ve come to collect a flask. Is it here?’
The figure drifted towards Daniel and pressed its fingers into the boy’s chest, making him gasp, then pulled them free.
‘A friend indeed,’ said the ghost. ‘Yes, the flask is here.’ It floated towards Mason and looked at him. ‘I’m the keeper of the flask. I decide who has it. It’s your fate to be the one. You’re destined to have the flask. That’s what you’ve always believed, isn’t it? That you and this boy met for a reason.’
Mason nodded. Little flecks of spit were caught in the corners of his mouth and he licked them away. ‘Yes,’ he said in a trembling voice. ‘Yes.’
The cellar was lit by three cross-beams of light from Mason’s and Jiff’s phones and Daniel’s too. There was no reception down beneath the house and, before the Skype connection had been lost, Mason had told Frank to stay with Agatha. But the man hadn’t seemed too pleased, worried about missing out on his cut that Mason had promised if they found the flask, cursing and shouting, his tongue flicking out like a viper’s over his cleft lip. But Mason didn’t seemed too bothered, shouting that Frank was paranoid before clicking off the phone.
The ghost pointed at a section of wall and asked Mason to push in one particular brick. As soon as he did, a trapdoor in the cellar floor sprang open and Mason strode towards it and peered down into the dark hole. The man took a few careful strides down the slippery stone steps until he was low enough to be able to stoop and see what was below, using his phone. A large dark room. Windowless. The walls damp and tinged with green.
Mason waved Jiff and Daniel and Rosie closer and the beams of light from the two phones moved with them across the floor until they were standing above the stone steps beside the trapdoor. Mason beckoned Jiff down a few steps and they panned their phones round the secret chamber.
‘There!’ shouted Mason. ‘Look, right there, on the far wall.’
When Daniel stooped to look too, he saw a golden flask set into the wall at the end of the chamber. It looked exactly like the one he had hidden in his pocket.
‘Daniel,’ said Mason excitedly, a big hand sweeping across his sweaty brow. ‘I want you and Rosie to remain at the top of the steps and keep your light focused down so I can see where I’m going. Jiff, stay where you are, and keep your phone straight. I want to see what we’ve got here.’
Daniel stood beside Rosie, shining his phone past Jiff’s humped back, and lighting up the steps. Mason walked carefully down and stood on the last step. ‘Hello!’ he shouted as if expecting someone to be there. ‘Hello!’ He turned and grinned at Jiff. ‘Keep that light directly on the flask so I can see it,’ he said and then he turned and stepped down on to the stone floor.
He crossed one flagstone, and then a second, and then a third, walking along the shaft of light from his own phone as if it was a balance beam. The ghost was beside him, drifting above the stone floor, telling him that the flask had been put here by its maker, Francis Green, and that Lawson had known about it and had wanted to keep it a secret from him. Mason was chuntering and cursing, calling Lawson all manner of names.
And then there was a click, like a bone snapping, as he stood on a segment of floor and heard the trapdoor at the top of the stairs flipping up.
As Daniel and Rosie jerked sideways so as not to be hit by the door closing back down, the last thing they saw was Jiff spinning round, humpbacked, to look at them, his eyes wide, and the phone in his hand lighting up a spot on the ceiling of the cellar.
And then the trapdoor locked shut back into the cellar floor.
Daniel heard shouts. Muffled through the stone. And then he realized he could hear nothing, that his imagination was only telling him that, and he turned to look at Rosie.
Inside the chamber, Mason was whirling round like a devil. He didn’t know which way to go, towards the flask or back to the steps where Jiff was lying, knocked out by the trapdoor which had swung over and hit him, his phone beside him.
The ghost was telling Mason things he could barely hear above his own cursing. That Francis Green had made the trap to protect the flask from men like him. That Lawson had discovered where the flask had really been hidden in the house. That he had found the trap and had come up with a plan to get rid of Mason.
‘You killed me,’ said the ghost. ‘Just like I’m going to kill you.’
‘I’m not dying. I’m not,’ roared Mason. ‘You can’t do anything to me.’ He went to the flask on the wall and reached out for it, only to find that it was a picture drawn with such skilful perspective that it looked real from all angles.
Mason roared again. ‘Let me out,’ he screamed, like some wild animal caged. ‘Daniel!’ he screamed at the ceiling.
But then he stopped when he heard the sound of rushing water.
‘What’s that? What’s happening?’ The ghost was drifting higher as two sluice gates opened in the walls at either end of the chamber and water started gushing in.
Mason roared again as the cold water quickly started filling the room. But the ghost was gone. Vanished through the walls.
66
The ghost led Daniel and Rosie to a body that was hidden in a priest hole in the wall of a large room downstairs. The corpse was covered with car air fresheners and the hole was full of a sweet chemical smell.
Dust moved in tiny tumbleweeds as Daniel leant down over the curled-up body, his movement disturbing them. Something had nibbled one of the ears. Spiderwebs trailed over the dead man and caught the dust and grime. The clothes had something white and furred growing on them in patches. Daniel put his head to one side and held his breath as he took the flask out of his pocket.
After the ghost had told him what to do, he unscrewed the cap and paused, wondering how much of the liquid he should drop on to the corpse’s head. Two drops at first. And then another two. And one for good luck.
They all disappeared. Nothing trickled out of the hairline down the neck or the throat. The body had soaked up every drop.
‘This is the secret of the flask,’ said the ghostly man. ‘This is what Lawson knew would happen,’ it said as its outline started to fade away. And then it vanished as if someone had turned off a projector and the image was gone.
Daniel and Rosie waited to see what was going to happen.
But when they heard footsteps running round the paving stones outside the house, and the front door being pushed open, they squeezed each other’s hands.
‘What’s happening? What’s going on?’ asked Rosie and Daniel could only shake his head.
They stood up and turned to face the doorway as they heard feet frantically running in the hall.
‘Mason?’ shouted a voice. ‘Mason!’
They knew who it was before Frank appeared in the doorway, a black revolver in his hand.
He stared at them. Sunlight glancing off the muzzle of the gun.
‘Where is he? His car’s still here. What’s happened to him? Has he mugged me off? Has he?’
Sunlight mottled the floor.
Daniel heard a sound behind him.
The crick of joints.
The gasp of a breath.
And he looked back round at the body in the priest hole as it started clawing the webs from its dirty clothes, combing the grime and dirt from its hair. Its lungs like paper bags as they crackled.
As the man opened his eyes, he smiled at Daniel. And then he looked beyond the boy and saw Frank moving towards him with the gun pointed, his mouth wide open.
‘What the hell are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead!’ Frank’s tongue whipped round the outside of his mouth like a lizard licking its lips and he fired a shot.
The man put his hands to his chest and suddenly they were leaking red. He tried to push the blood back in, but it was coming too fast and he looked up with bri
ght blue eyes as he fell back into the priest hole, the dust flying and the air fresheners scattering in his wake.
67
Rosie tried pushing the brick into the wall of the cellar again, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘Give her a hand,’ growled Frank, waggling the gun at Daniel.
But it was no use.
‘Harder or I’ll shoot the girl first.’
The two of them pushed with all their strength and the brick began to move. At first they heard the sound of something opening beneath the floor of the cellar and then water starting to rush away. The trapdoor popped open as the water continued to run.
Wet steps below. Bright and grey.
The water was still going down and all three of them watched the slick walls grow taller, Frank flashing his phone as he told Daniel to wave his too.
At first a black heel, like a fin. And then a trouser leg, bedraggled, pasted to the leg of Jiff, his humped back emerging like a tiny island until the rest of him began to appear. When Mason floated up against the bottom step, they heard the gentle thock of his bald head against the stone.
‘Go and get them,’ said Frank, as the last of the water gurgled away. ‘Now!’ he shouted and waggled the gun.
Rosie and Daniel struggled to drag Mason up the steps between them, treading carefully on the greasy stones, and laid him in the cellar. But Jiff had slid away from the steps and was lying in the middle of the floor and the two of them were wary of fetching him out until Rosie noticed that the floor was lower than it had been before, because a border of red brickwork was showing all around the wall.
They wondered why until Daniel worked it out. ‘I think it must have to be reset, otherwise whoever built this would have had the same trouble as us getting a body out.’
He stepped out on to the floor and walked towards Jiff, one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker going carefully. Rosie followed him too. And they picked Jiff up and carried him across the floor and up the steps. As they emerged into the cellar, they heard cogs grinding in the walls and the floor began to rise, finally locking back into place, the red section of brickwork gone.
Frank motioned with the light from his phone at the steps out of the cellar. ‘Take them upstairs,’ he said.
The two wet bodies were laid in the living room across bars of sunshine on the floor. They steamed like they were gently cooking on a grill.
Frank took the flask from his pocket and threw it to Daniel.
‘Now do to them what you did to the other one.’
‘I don’t know how it wor—’
‘Yes you do. That man in the hole, that body. He was dead. I killed him first time around a couple of months ago and then he was suddenly getting up. So I know that something happened. What he was doing here, you’ll tell me later. But first things first.’ He waved the black revolver at Daniel. ‘Bring them back like you did the first one.’
Daniel knelt in front of Jiff and tried not to look at his face or his eyes as he unscrewed the cap on the flask and tipped it up over the man’s head and allowed a few drops to escape. And then he moved across to Mason and did the same, the droplets hitting his bald head with a smack before seeming to melt and disappear into the skin.
Nothing happened at first.
‘More,’ said Frank. ‘Pour on more.’
But, as Daniel started to unscrew the cap again, Jiff began to move, squirming like a big fish landed on the deck of a boat. He rolled over on to his side and threw up the water in his lungs, rinsing the dust from the floorboards around him.
And then Mason began moving too, his body convulsing like he was being shocked, and when he threw up the water it came out green and dirty and Daniel stepped back from it until he butted up against the wall.
Jiff stood up and blinked and then looked at Mason who was still sitting on the wet floor, staring at Daniel. When he pointed at the flask in the boy’s hands, Daniel just nodded and Mason began to laugh. He slapped his wet thighs so hard he sent up a spray of water.
68
Rosie and Daniel were driven back to Lawson’s house in the blue BMW with Mason sitting between them in the rear seats. He smelt stale and wet. He was jabbering to Jiff who was driving. He wouldn’t stop.
Frank drove behind them in his own car.
It was only when they got inside the house that Jiff noticed that something was different. He looked at himself in the mirror in the hall, his clothes half drying on him, and stood sideways. And then he took off his jacket and his shirt and inspected his bare torso.
‘It’s gone!’ he shouted. ‘My hump’s disappeared.’
He turned to show Frank and Mason and they looked at his back, the spine straight and the shoulders back, the hump gone. Mason took off his jacket too and undid his shirt and checked his stomach.
‘That scar, the one I got at Jimmy’s . . .’ He trailed off, his fingers feeling the skin for any blemish. He cricked his neck. Shook his shoulders. ‘How do you feel, Jiff?’
‘Marvellous.’ Jiff grinned. ‘How about you?’
Mason struck a bodybuilder pose. ‘More than marvellous.’ And he slapped Daniel on the shoulder. ‘You little beauty,’ he said.
Mason and Jiff took showers, rubbing the dust and the grime from their bodies. Cleaning off what the dirty water had left on them. They put on dry clothes and toasted each other with brandies and then Frank who had come to save them.
And, all the while, Rosie and Daniel sat on the sofa in the sitting room, as Frank kept an eye on them.
Eventually, Mason came and sat next to them, landing on the sofa with a thump. He toasted them too and drained his brandy and put the glass down on the table in front of him.
‘You know what you’ve done and I can’t put that behind me. I’m not a good man so I can’t forgive. It’s your fate to suffer for what you tried to do just as it’s my fate to go on living. It’s an indisputable fact.’ He rapped on his chest. ‘Because here I am, better than ever. Just like Jiff there.’ He pointed at Jiff on the opposite sofa who raised his glass.
‘And that’s given me an idea.’ He grinned at Daniel. ‘Go on, have a guess.’
Daniel shifted uneasily on the couch. Shook his head. But Mason kept staring. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.
Mason nodded, put his hands on top of his head and then went on. ‘Well, it’s a great idea. And it involves Rosie too. You see this collector is going to pay a lot more when he sees what the flask can do. We can show him. I’ll name my price once I’ve killed Rosie and brought her back to life in front of his eyes.’ Mason beamed as Rosie’s mouth began to open slowly, her face turning even whiter. ‘I’ll be gentle, I promise. Don’t you want to be cured, Rosie? Get rid of your tumour? There’ll be no more chemotherapy then. You’ll come back even better, like Jiff and me.’
‘I’m a new man!’ shouted Jiff and downed his drink.
Mason poured another brandy and swilled it round the glass, making the early evening sunlight spin inside it. ‘And then you two’ll make the fit whenever I want you to for as long as I want. You owe me that after your little scheme. You’re in my debt.’ He drank down the brandy in one and then stood up. ‘I’m going to give this collector a call.’
69
When Jiff held the brandy bottle upside down, a single golden drop landed on his tongue.
He set it down next to the first empty one and started opening a third bottle.
Sitting on the sofa, Daniel and Rosie could hear Mason upstairs, talking on the phone. He was laughing.
Frank sat back in his chair and raised his glass and then downed what was in it and cleared his throat. He licked the scar on his cleft lip. ‘Tell me what it’s like, Jiff.’
‘What?’
‘Feeling so great. Being reborn.’
‘What do you think?’ And Jiff started laughing as he tugged at the wrapping round the bottle. Then he stopped and looked round. ‘Why don’t you try it?’
‘Nah.’
‘Why not?’ Jiff raised his
hands and pointed at himself and then nodded over at Daniel. ‘I could do him and show you how quick it is.’
‘Wasted on him,’ said Frank.
Jiff nodded. He fumbled at the cap on the bottle when he felt a throbbing in his head and cursed as his fingers slipped. ‘I need a drink.’
He poured another brandy for himself and then filled Frank’s glass, bending down to study the man’s cleft lip. ‘You shouldn’t be so chicken. I could make you handsome, you know.’
Frank said nothing as he stared at the golden flask on the table in front of him. Then he took a sip from his glass and set it down. He took the black revolver out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Jiff. ‘Make it quick,’ he said.
‘How quick do you wa—’ but before he could finish, Jiff raised the gun and fired point-blank at Frank’s forehead.
Frank slumped back in his chair, dead in an instant.
Jiff tossed the gun into Frank’s lap and finished his drink. Sniffed and admired his handiwork.
He smiled at Daniel and Rosie, and then turned round to pick up the flask from the table beside the empty brandy bottles. He missed it and grinned. ‘I’m so drunk,’ he said. But, when he went to pick up the flask again, he missed a second time. He looked at his hand and then at the flask and reached slowly for it, watching his fingers slip through one side and out the other.
When he tried the other hand, it wafted through the flask too. He turned to Daniel. ‘Get up! Get the flask open. Get it open!’ But Daniel just sat there, watching Jiff’s panicked face. He managed to pick up the flask between his elbows and unscrew the cap with his teeth. But, as he spat out the cap, the flask fell straight through his elbows and landed on the floor, spilling the contents into the carpet.
‘No,’ gasped Jiff, shaking his head ‘No!’ He kicked out, but his foot went straight through the flask. He bent down and tried to lick the wet carpet, but his tongue touched nothing.
All Sorts of Possible Page 20