Nightmares in the Dreamhouse

by David Churchill

  “Don't, Abby,” Gary begged. “You know I don't like it.”

  But Matthew was already climbing the steps, shifting the slopping cans further to one side as he went. Then he was at the top and pushing open the door. In a moment the yellow light from the kitchen bulb flooded down and the three faces shone back, haloed by glittering coal.

  “Let's go!” Cherry yelled, and they stampeded up to join him, into their house, taking possession of the best den ever. The ginger cat followed carefully behind.

  18. welcome to the House of Horror

  “Hey, Matt,” Gary said, as they stood for a moment looking around the kitchen again. “What did you say about those two?”

  “They got me. Up at the hospital. I think they were going to kill me or something if I didn't tell them, where we hid. But I got away... ”

  The others listened, without interrupting, while Matthew described his escape. At the end Cherry said, “You were great! That settles it. They mustn't ever follow any of us here. And we'll have to stay together as much as we can outside.”

  “I do admire your disguise, Gary,” Abby broke in. “And what's in the basket?”

  Gary grinned happily at her.

  “I got a light bulb,” he said. “Out of the lamp my step-dad broke. And I've got some bits for my modelling. We've got to choose our rooms, haven't we.”

  This was a new idea to Matthew, but before he could speak Cherry was already claiming the room off the kitchen as her own.

  “It'll be better for the cats,” she explained. “They can get out easiest from here. Got a bulb I can have, Abby, please? Ta. How can we reach?”

  “Get on my back, Matt,” Gary said promptly, crouching down. Matthew scrambled on to Gary's solid shoulders and in a moment the old dining room flooded with light. It was a dingy room, with a rectangle of bare brick and squeezed-out mortar where the window used to be, and splinters of wood and fragments of glass littering the floorboards under it. The fireplace had a high wooden mantelpiece. Otherwise there was nothing at all except the dank smell.

  “It's perfect,” Cherry was saying. “Puss thinks so too.” She bent and gently lifted the ginger cat up, so that she could look into its eyes. “I'll soon have a bed for you and all your friends. It's going to be great.”

  “Look,” Matthew said, “what are you on about exactly? I mean, choosing rooms and all. I don't get it.”

  “I'm going to have a cattery, stupid. A home for lost cats. In my room here. I'm going to look after them. I've got it all planned. If we leave the cover propped up a bit and put a box or something on top of the coal, they can get in and out. No-one would take any notice. And I'll feed them when I come and make beds for them and they'll have kittens and - ”

  “I'm doing modelling,” Gary broke in. “No-one'll make me get rid of it before it's finished. And I've got scissors and glue and all and I can easy get other stuff like paper and plastic. Me and Cherry got told off for talking about it in French.”

  Abby looked at Matthew and shrugged. Cherry and Gary were obviously one step ahead of them.

  “Let's see the rest, anyway,” she said, leading the way out into the hallway. She pushed open the door further along it, which lead into the front room. Dry hinges squealed. “Ace!” she said appreciatively, and she peered into the shadowy room. Then she hissed, “Welcome to the House of Horror!” and walked straight into the darkness.

  Next moment she yelled, “Ugh!” and shot back out, nearly flattening Matthew who was nearest.

  Without knowing how they got there, the four found themselves in a huddle back in the safe light of the kitchen.

  “Abby, what was it?” Cherry asked, being the first to find her voice.

  Actually looking paler than usual, Abby said in a shivery tone, “Something touched my hand. Like fingers. Like dead fingers on someone hanging from a beam. Ugh!”

  Gary groaned, and Cherry asked uncertainly, “It wasn't... really... what you said - was it Abby?”

  Abby paused and they all waited.

  “Well,” she said at last, “it felt like it. Honestly it did. All dangly and cold.”

  Again there was a silence. Then Cherry said, “We'll have to look. Or we'll have to go. We can't stay in the house if we're afraid of what's in one room. I can't, anyway.”

  “I'm afraid of all the rooms now,” Gary said. “Why did you have to do that Abby!”

  “It's not my fault if there's a body in there,” Abby said. “I didn't put it there. Get the torch Matt and let's leave all the doors open for a quick getaway. You can stay here if you like, Gary.”

  Slowly, they returned to the front room. Gary brought up the rear, not wanting to be stay alone, even in the bright and ordinary kitchen.

  Matthew shone the trembling torch beam through the half-open door. There was nothing visible but dusty floorboards and, at the end of the beam, broken glass and bare brickwork.

  Abby leaned over his shoulder and slowly pushed the door. Again it creaked horribly, opening wider and wider. She made it last.

  Shakily, Matthew moved the torchlight to scan the whole room, frightened of seeing a slowly turning body, hanging from the ceiling.

  But the room was bare. In fact there was nothing in it at all, except for an old tea-chest with a flowerpot on it. Leaning sideways out of the pot was a long dead spider plant, with dried stalks and hanging brown leaves. Cautiously they edged into the room.

  “That's what you touched,” Cherry said, kicking at the chest. The pot rolled over and fell off, cracking open as it hit the floor; a clod of dried dirt rattled out and the plant crumbled into pieces.

  “Was that all it was?” Abby said. She sounded quite disappointed. “It felt like dead fingers to me.”

  Gary muttered, “I don't like this room. I don't want this one, do you Matt?”

  “I do,” Abby said keenly. “It's got potential - a nice creepy atmosphere and it's quite big. It'd be a shame to put a bulb in. Still, the one from my lamp's pretty dim. Here you are boys, plug it in.”

  Gary hoisted Matt and Abby flicked down the switch. The bare walls and floor seemed to drink in the light from the 40 watt bulb, and the room still looked shadowy and dreary. The wallpaper was a vague, dull colour, and damp had spread dark patterns across it. There was a musty smell. Abby sniffed approvingly.

  “Now for the upstairs,” Cherry said. The lights below lit up the stairway quite reassuringly. There was a worn-out carpet still on the stairs, rather sticky underfoot from dirt and damp. The bathroom at the top was a wreck; the fittings had all been wrenched out and taken. Fractured pipes stuck up through the floorboards like snakes in the torchlight.

  Two other doors hung open on the landing. The back bedroom looked bare and empty with pale, unpapered walls. The front bedroom was much the same, except for a litter of what looked like discarded shoe-boxes and some lumps of polystyrene.

  To Matthew's surprise Gary said, “Great! Here you are Matt. Put my bulb in,” and while Abby held the torch, Matthew and Gary repeated their electrician act. Within a moment Gary was sorting through the litter on the floor, arranging it in separate heaps. Then he began to unpack his basket, taking out a tube of glue, a pair of scissors and some old toilet-roll centres.

  The others looked down at him, squatting in his bulky anorak and ridiculous skirt. He was obviously completely happy and that was good enough.

  “What are you going to do with your room, Matt?” Cherry asked.

  Matthew stood puzzled. “I... I hadn't thought about rooms each. I thought it was just sort of... our house. All of us.”

  “Me too,” Abby said. “But it's nice for Gary - and for your cat, Cherry.”

  “Cats, if you don't mind,” Cherry corrected. “I'm going to have dozens. But it is our house, Matt, like you said. And we'll sort the kitchen out, and have feasts and - ”

  But Abby interrupted. Her face had lit up. “I know what I'm going to do with my room,” she exclaimed. “But I'm not telling. I'll have the room with the body in, down
stairs. You must all keep out until I tell you. It'll take ages, but it'll be brilliant. You wait!”

  She went downstairs at a gallop, her ponytail streaming behind. A moment later she rushed back up. “I forgot. Here's your bulb Matt. Hundred watt. See you,” and she was gone.

  With a rich purr, Cherry's cat arched its back against her legs. She bent to scoop it up.

  “Come on pussy,” she whispered in its tatty ear. “Let's go and see what your room's going to be like,” and she too disappeared down the stairs.

  Gary was already hacking away at some cardboard with his big, blunt scissors, entirely absorbed in whatever he was imagining. Feeling somehow flat and disappointed, Matthew wandered out onto the landing.

  He stood, looking into the back bedroom again. This must be his room, since everyone else had claimed one. It wasn't at all what he had thought they'd be doing. He felt lonely and miserable, and the stupid rhyme tried to start up again... Fell from the sky... butterfly... fell from the sky... and pictures of his brother falling, falling, entered his mind so that he could almost see them, imprinted on the air of the dusky room.

  But at that moment, as small as a seed, an idea suddenly came, took root and began to grow. With a rush of excitement he flashed the torch around the room, over its bricked-up window and across the flat, plain walls.

  The haunting, horrible words had gone now, driven away by the pictures that were forming vividly. He could see them, in full colour, somewhere just behind his eyes.

  “Gary!” he yelled. “Quick. Come and help me put a bulb in. I want to see my room. Properly.”

  He ran next door and pulled a grumbling Gary to his feet. Already, Gary's fingers were sticky and he had a job to put down the piece of cardboard he was holding.

  Within minutes Gary was back in his own room, hunched on the floor and working again, but Matthew was standing in the centre of the back bedroom, turning slowly to face first one wall and then another, his eyes full of visions...

  He felt that he knew exactly what it was that he had to do. It was as if all the confusion and fear of the weeks since John's crash had melted away. He knew what he had to do, and he couldn't wait to begin.

  19. three weeks that had passed like a dream

  Matthew looked at the lift doors, then at the stairs. He tossed an imaginary coin, muttering, “Heads, lift; tails, stairs,” and clearly saw the tenpenny-piece tumble through the air, fall on its head on the worn carpet, and then melt silently away.

  He walked over to the stairs and began the climb. The stupid words didn't come into his mind. They had been pushed out by what he had been doing, every evening he could, for the past three weeks. It had been three weeks of being told to wake up in school. Three weeks of scrambling just enough homework together to keep out of trouble. Three weeks that had passed like a dream, occupied really by only two things - either working in the house or thinking about working there. Roy and Karen had vanished - sent somewhere or under some sort of curfew - and while they were gone it had been wonderful to fill his brain with what he was doing for John, and telling John all about it in the hospital, every evening, before slipping away through the darkening streets, but still careful, still watching, because one day they must come back.

  Hello John, guess who. You know the house, John. It's going really well. I've done three walls and started on the last one. When it's finished... when it's all ready for you you're going to come and see it. It'll be the best I've ever done... it's for you. It's all for you! But it's got to be soon because those two are going to be back one day, and I don't know what they'll do to us. Roy is really dangerous like I've told you. He smiles but he doesn't mean it. Get ready John... please get ready, because we haven't got long now...

  He stopped there, staring fiercely down at his brother's face. Could he be just lying there, listening, waiting for Matthew to go on talking, hearing everything he was saying, just unable to move his eyelids... unable to move anything? Of course he wasn't, but Matthew made himself go on. He mustn't give up.

  Gary's given up models after he filled his room with wobbly buildings and a thing he called a space-car - Cherry tried to sit in it and she got stuck to it and it all fell apart. But he didn't mind, he said he was used to it. He mucks about up in the attics now. Matthew chuckled at a sudden memory. He put his foot right through the ceiling of his own room last night. He didn't half have a job to get it out. There's all plaster on the floor now, on top of his models. And Cherry's got dozens of cats coming in. We haven't been in Abby's room yet - still a secret. She says it's nearly ready, like mine is. When you come I expect you can see hers too...

  Then Nurse Beryl came stomping in through the swing door, puffing a bit as if she'd nearly been late and had to pedal all the way up the hill. Her hair was escaping from under her uniform hat. Matthew was right up on the bed but she didn't object.

  “How's my good little Titchy then?” she bellowed. Her voice was loud enough to wake up people under anaesthetic. Probably the only person in the hospital not to hear her was John, he thought, unless John did hear things but simply couldn't do anything in reply. Perhaps he could hear everything that was said to him and when he woke up he'd know the news already. It's not as if your ears shut, Matthew thought once, like your eyes do. When he had tried to ask Mum once what a coma was really like - for the person - she'd only cried and said she didn't know. Perhaps no-one knew.

  Matthew whispered goodbye into John's ear - he always felt a bit embarrassed with the fat nurse there - scrambled off the bed and slipped away from the room. He had the lift to himself and as it hissed gently downwards he daydreamed of John opening his eyes to look at him, and speaking to him, and getting out of bed to come and see the house and to see Matthew's room - as soon as it was finished.

  The thought of that sent him sprinting down the hospital driveway and out into the misty streets. An early firework burst with a shower of stars in the wet sky. He couldn't wait to go back to work on the room. There was still a lot to be done. The most important part of all...

  20. he wasn't cold, but his teeth chattered

  The kitchen felt good. It even smelled good. Matthew paused at the top of the cellar steps, enjoying finding that the house really was there, waiting for him. Even after three weeks it was still hard to believe. Some mornings when he woke up he had to look at the chalk under his nails to convince himself that it wasn't only a dream that he'd had in the restless night.

  There was a patchwork rug on the floor - rescued from the dump, dried out and shaken up into a comfortable thickness. A jumbo-sized bottle of coke stood on the draining board with four green plastic tumblers by it. There was a biscuit tin with pictures all round of Guardsmen in procession. Four paper plates were set out, and on each was a cake with icing. Cherry had cooking on a Monday.

  Vague noises filtered down from where the others were at work. It all felt friendly and safe. At that moment Matthew wished that he need never go out again, but could stay in the house - their house - for the rest of his life. But into the peacefulness of the kitchen the dreary rhyme threatened to start up again and he shook his head impatiently to clear away the stupid mocking words. His room had to be finished - quickly - then everything would be all right.

  “Thought I heard someone.” Cherry appeared in the doorway, arms round a black cat that looked too fat to be picked up at all.

  “How's its leg?” Matthew asked politely.

  “A bit suspicious. I reckon it only limps when it's hungry. Mind you, it's always hungry!”

  “It's having all that flesh to carry around. That's the problem.”

  Cherry was too happy to react. She tickled the cat under its double chin and was rewarded with a purr like a motorbike taking off.

  “Come and see the cattery. I've changed things round. They're going to have new beds soon.”

  He followed her into the back room. The walls were smothered in cat pictures, most from a falling-apart book that she had bought for 5p at a church jumble sale. All around
the room were cardboard boxes with cutouts for entrances. Gary had enjoyed helping her make those. A heap of old curtain in the middle of the room, with a cushion by them, showed where the bedclothes were being manufactured. By each box was a foil dish.

  Cherry's mum was letting her take a big flask of milk to school each day. She didn't know that it was Cherry's thirst for cats - not milk - that she was satisfying. Cherry always emptied the milk into a plastic bottle that she hid in her shed and took the empty flask to school and back. Her pocket-money was going on cat food and treats.

  Some of the boxes were unoccupied, but there was a black and white kitten lapping at one dish and it wasn't anywhere near as pathetic-looking as when Cherry had found it cowering under a bush a few days ago. The ginger one was there too, grooming itself contentedly, much plumper than the first time it had crossed Cherry's path. Even its fur looked thicker and had a shine to it.

  In one box a big striped tortoiseshell cat was curled up, snoring loudly. Cherry claimed to have identified it as a rare, long-haired something-or-other and spent hours combing knots out of its coat. She had dreams of showing it at Crufts one day and making it a famous champion.

  Then Abby poked her head round the door.

  “Hi Matt. D'you reckon Cherry's a witch, with all these cats. Don't tell Gary or he'll have a fit. They're her familiar spirits. Be great if you did turn out to be witch, Cher. I read a book about it. They're still around but they don't wear the witch uniform any more - you can't get the broomsticks these days... or pointy hats. They look ordinary in the daytime, but watch out at night. They dance in graveyards - stark naked!”

  “Be a bit cold,” Cherry said. “I bet they can really talk to their cats, though.”

  “How's John?” Abby asked kindly.

  “Same,” Matthew said, then he went on, though he didn't mean to, “but he'll be all right soon because my rooms nearly finished and -”

  He stopped and went hot. Nearly he had said it, and he wasn't ready yet. It would be risking too much. He went on quickly, to cover up. “When can we see your room, Abby? I bet it's rubbish.”