by Wood, Rick
Jenny dropped the dishes in the sink and stood over them, her arms stiff and her fists clenching. She closed her eyes and gathered her thoughts, urging herself not to jump into a rant.
“How about you get a job, then you can pay for it?” Jenny answered, turning toward him, clutching a mug filled with mould that he had left out for weeks. “I understand you tried to harm yourself, I do. I understand you’re on crutches. But welcome to the real world. This is it. And we have to work to make a living.”
Lacy walked over to her girlfriend and put her arm around her. Jenny leant her head against her chest and allowed her to calmly stroke her hair. She always seemed to become calmer when Lacy had her arm around her.
“I’m sorry,” Eddie said, attempting to put some emotion into it. “I am. I’ll be out of here as soon as possible. Maybe there’s a shelter or something.”
“Nonsense, Eddie, you are not staying at a shelter,” Lacy answered, prompting Jenny to slam the mug down into the sink and storm out of the room. Lacy took a seat opposite Eddie, clasping her mug in her hands.
“But maybe you should think about contributing something here,” she advised. “Or at least cleaning up your shit. I mean, have you seen the living room? You’ve left it looking like town centre on a Saturday night.”
“I know, I know.” He shook his head to himself. He did know and he felt like an arse. “I’ll do it. Got any bin bags?”
“Under the sink, loser. You don’t even know where the bin bags are?”
Eddie laughed. Her voice was playful and bouncy and she was always smiling.
“You know, you’re too hot to be a lesbian,” he told her, instantly regretting it.
“Right, well, don’t tell Jenny that. Or she will kill you. We leave in ten. Get the crap picked up before then.”
She left the room and he sat there, alone. He thought about his mum and his dad. He had no idea where his mother was; she’d left him when he was fourteen, as he was in and out of getting sectioned, claiming she was unable to cope. His father had two years left of a prison sentence for Eddie didn’t know what. He never asked, so was never told. Maybe after his father got out, he could live with him. It would be nice to have some semblance of family.
He was sixteen when all of that happened, at which point Jenny’s family selflessly took him in. She had done far more for him than he had ever acknowledged, and as he realized it, a wave of guilt came over him. Jenny was fantastic, though understandably irritable; he felt bad for putting so much on her.
Reluctantly, he grabbed a bin bag from under the sink, limped his way to the sofa bed and tidied up his rubbish.
*
It felt weird to be sat on a couch, spilling his guts to a total stranger who just sat there writing it all down. Eddie wasn’t sure how this was supposed to help him; surely, she should give him some kind of advice? Not just let him ramble on incessantly and self-indulgently. Was she waiting for him to have an epiphany? Some kind of realisation that meant he wasn’t a complete fuck-up anymore? Well, it hadn’t happened yet.
He glanced over her credentials, framed proudly on her desk. Doctor Jane Middlemore, first-class honours degree in clinical psychology, master’s in mental health research, PhD in some word that sounded way too complicated for him to make out.
“And your father, you said he’s in prison?”
Eddie snapped out of his daze and nodded vacantly. He was tired; even though he’d had a full night’s sleep, he was up and moving for most of it.
“And how does that make you feel?”
Eddie shrugged. How did it make him feel? He felt nothing. His father had stopped being is father the day Cassy had died. The caring, loving family man he once was had disappeared and a sad, cynical, abusive drunk who spent his time beating on him and his mother took his place.
There was one Christmas when he was very young, when Jenny’s parents took him to visit his father. He was able to look at that day with adult’s eyes now, and he was able tell they only did it for some kind of closure.
“So what does make you angry, Eddie?”
Eddie shrugged again. What kind of question was that?
“Surely there has to be something?”
“I dunno,” he mumbled monosyllabically. “Cats.”
“Cats?” she replied, a look of confusion etched over her face.
“Sure. Cats, they piss me off when they shit on the lawn and stuff.”
It may not have been the kind of answer she was looking for, but honestly, there had been many mornings when he’d woken up on the lawn after a night of sleepwalking to find himself laying in a lump of cat shit. It had taken him around four rounds of lather, rinse, and repeat to shampoo it completely out of his hair.
“Surely there’s something that annoys you more than that? Something to do with your family maybe?”
Oh, who cares? he thought to himself. Honestly, so what if he was annoyed his mother disowned him and his father got put away. What was moaning to some sanctimonious doctor going to do about it?
He gazed out of the window. He could see a playground in the distance. Fathers pushed their children on the swings. Mothers sat on the bench gossiping; students played football on the adjoining field. He had never known that. Was he angry about it? Sure. Did he care enough to show it? Probably not.
In the distance, in the wooded area beyond the playground, he saw something. A figure. A familiar, slouched posture.
Jane began peering over her shoulder to see what he was staring at. He was transfixed, as if in a hypnotic gaze. She couldn’t figure it out. She was desperate to, as he was too focused on whatever it was to even notice that Jane was glancing behind herself and back to him in an attempt to understand what he had seen.
The figure moved in an over-exaggerated limp, moving in the shadows that mixed so completely with its darkness that the contours of its body became barely intelligible. Its hair fell over its face, greasy, black and long. Its eyes were black and deadened, its features scarred and broken.
It hit him. This figure… what it was…
The demon woman from his coma.
He backed up in his chair with severe urgency, lifting his feet up and recoiling against the back of the sofa.
Jane peered over her shoulder. She just saw children in the playground.
“What, Eddie? What is it?” she asked, anxious to know.
He couldn’t speak. The terrifying vision of his nightmare, the woman who had appeared to him both as a child and as a man. He had only seen her in his unconscious, yet here she was, standing across the playground as clear as Doctor Jane was beside him.
This was the first time he had ever laid open eyes upon her and it sent his blood racing, surging through his veins with rapid urgency.
His legs went numb. All down his body he felt shivering, coldness, tension. His hands gripped the sides of the sofa and continued to claw at them.
“Eddie?”
His face turned to horror, his skin turned to ice. How was she here? She had only appeared to him when his eyes were closed; how was she here? What was she after? Why now? Why him?
“Eddie?”
Her arm reached out, a stained finger with a broken nail pointing toward him. Her head lifting up, lifting, lifting, her eyes focusing on his. He didn’t blink. He couldn’t. He was paralysed to the spot.
“Eddie?!” Jane screamed.
Eddie brusquely refocused his eyes on her. He snapped out of whatever daze he was in, his head full of mist, confused, derailed.
“Eddie, what were you staring at?”
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t answer. What would he even say?
He turned his head back to the playground, peering at the wooded area beyond. She was gone. He was alone. He couldn’t speak or move.
Even though he could no longer see her, he felt her near. Her presence consumed his mind.
14
3 August 1995
Derek stepped out of the car and placed his feet on the gravel beneath hi
m. Clutching the case report in his hand, he took in the beauty of the old, decrepit manor house that stood (barely) in front of him. Pieces were falling off, paint was peeling, and it looked in good need of a fix-up; but it was still a special commodity of a house. Just as you would picture a typical haunted house in a movie, it stood there with character and plenty of shadows.
Levi made his way around the van from the driver’s side and stood beside Derek, surveying the house. He was younger and far scruffier than Derek. Derek prided himself on his appearance, making sure he was always dressed in a full suit with a top button done up. Levi was much younger and far ‘cooler’ than he, dressing with a scruffy plain red t-shirt and baggy jeans with fashionable rips in the knees. Buying jeans with rips in them sounded like a ludicrous idea to Derek, it was like buying a half-eaten apple. Why would you buy something that was already nearly done with?
“Shall I unload the van, like?” he asked.
“Yes please, Levi,” Derek answered, gazing at his notes in front of him. Whatever he thought of Levi’s fashion sense or youth sensibilities, he did the job he was employed to do and he did it well. Unfortunately, he had no idea the kind of pressure the department was under having finished its second year at the university.
“I employed you because you showed me results and a fascinating thesis,” Jonathon had ranted at him, having called him to his office. “I expect you to be doing proper research and finding real things to talk about, not loads of failed cases and no grounds for what you are able to teach your students. I mean my God, if I wanted to learn about false claims and how to spot a phony, I’d go to church!”
Derek greatly respected Jonathon and knew he was right. His thesis had been an intriguing piece of writing that had gained more attention than he ever thought it could. But he had not provided results since; every case he’d investigated had been easily explained by other means. He was growing tired. His students weren’t getting the insight they had hoped for, and the dean of the university was growing vastly impatient, and with good cause.
But this could be the one. The things the family had said about this house were so fascinating and unlike any case so far, it had to be true. He had to be getting somewhere with them.
He read of the notes again, written in the case files as bullet points in Levi’s scruffy handwriting.
Gargling sounds echoed throughout the house every night
Intermittent flickers of light whenever they walk past
The cross upon the kitchen wall burnt when touched
The list went on.
As Levi brought the equipment into the living room, Derek introduced himself to the family living there. They were an ordinary family, though they looked poorer than the grandness of the house would have you believe; a father called Guy who worked in real estate, a mother called Helen who worked part-time as a teaching assistant and two young daughters; Kaley, five, and Yvonne, eight.
“Do you mind if I look around the house?” Derek enquired, taking the cup of tea in his hand they had offered.
“Yes. We don’t leave the living room anymore,” the father admitted. “We get sleeping bags and camp out here, we are too scared.”
“Tell me, has anyone else been in this house recently?”
“No. We had a plumber here, but that was a few weeks ago.”
With a nod, Derek sipped his tea and carried it through the living room. He looked around himself, listening for noises, feeling for a difference in temperatures, smelling for disgusting odours. He noticed nothing to note in his initial assessment, but delayed his scepticism until he had been there a little longer.
He walked into the kitchen and spotted the crucifix on the wall above the oven. He noted that it was made of metal.
As he made his way up the creaking stairs, each step giving a wooden moan beneath his foot, he placed his ear against the wall. He heard a faint gurgling sound and paused to listen to it for longer.
After passing through the hallway a few times, he made his way back downstairs and returned to the living room. As he passed the fuse box on the way, he fiddled with the switches a few times. One of the switches fell off and he put it in his pocket.
He closed the living room door behind himself, glancing around at the faces of the terrified family before him and turned to Levi, unpacking equipment.
“Levi, sorry to be a pain, but please, could you stop unpacking and put all of the equipment back in the van?”
“What? You kidding? I just got it all out.”
“I know, and I do apologise, but I’m afraid we won’t be needing it.”
With an agitated huff, Levi shoved the bits and pieces back inside the boxes and began heaving them back to the rear of the van.
“What’s going on?” the father, Guy, enquired.
“You said there was a fault with the electric going on and off?”
“Yes, it keeps flickering.”
“Tell me, was it mainly the hallway landing?”
“Yes!”
Derek took the fuse switch out of his pocket and presented it in his hand.
“This is the fuse switch for the hallway light. It came off when I touched it. It has been loose for a while, I would reckon?”
“I guess…”
“That means that it isn’t secure and it keeps turning the fuse off at random times. You said your crucifix burnt in your hand?”
“Yes, every time, we can’t even touch it anymore.”
Derek smiled and rubbed his sinus. Another case of clear explanations.
“That is because you have it above the oven and it is on a metal base. Metal conducts heat, therefore every time you cook, you are making the metal hotter.”
“But what about the gargling sounds? Throughout the whole house?”
“Tell me, this plumber who was here a few weeks ago. Was he from an independent business? A small one?”
“Yes, yes he was… Byson or something.”
“Drison – the company is the same as its owner’s last name.”
Derek fumbled in his bag and took out a newspaper report, handing it to Guy. The headline read: “Drison Plumbing Company shut down after record number of complaints.”
“You weren’t the only one to report gargling to me, and you weren’t the only one who reported it that used this plumbing company.”
“Oh.” Guy’s mouth dropped as he continued skimming the newspaper article.
“Have a good day,” Derek spoke before anyone could object, leaving the house and making his way hastily to the passenger seat of the van.
“What is it?” Levi enquired.
“Another waste of time, Levi. Another bloody waste of time.”
15
15 August 1995
Jane sat across from Eddie, resting a cup of tea on her lap. She had devil horns on. Eddie wasn’t sure why. He was sitting in her office, wearing a suit. He never wore a suit. He couldn’t understand where it had come from.
“Do you see her, Eddie? Do you see her?” Jane kept repeating, over and over. “Do you see her, Eddie? Do you see her?”
“Do I see who? I don’t understand; do I see who?”
She smiled and continued to ask him. “Do you see her, Eddie? Do you see her?”
Then, as if by cue, the dark figure he had come to dread rose from behind her. It stood over her. Jane just laughed; more than laugh, she guffawed hysterically.
“I am here in Balam’s name,” it spoke.
The dark figure grew and grew and grew, ominously lurching over him. As its jaw expanded to the length of his body and slid toward him, he screamed a deafening scream.
“Holy shit, Eddie, wake up!”
Eddie’s eyes opened with a start. He immediately jolted upright, looking around. He was on the sofa bed. In Jenny and Lacy’s house. A blanket loosely draped over him, his pyjama shorts sticking to him through the sweat he was seeping. Jenny stood over the couch.
“Jesus, Eddie,” she exclaimed. “You were screaming.”
; “I – I had a bad dream,” he stuttered, still gathering his thoughts, still taking in what had happened. He was awake and safe. It wasn’t real.
But she was there. She was always there.
“Coffee, Eddie?” Jenny asked, drifting into the kitchen. Eddie followed her in and sat at the table opposite Lacy, who was already half-way through her Bran Flakes covered in pieces of banana. Eddie groaned at the sight of her breakfast. He didn’t know how she could eat that stuff.
Jenny placed a coffee in front of Eddie.
“So what was the dream about?”
Eddie sat back in his chair. He really didn’t want to have to relive it. It would take so much explanation, which he was not ready for. He didn’t want to have to face the questions; who was this woman? Why did he keep seeing her? Why was she in his dreams? All questions he didn’t have an answer for.
“I don’t remember,” he lied, sipping on his coffee.
“You’re sweating like crazy, it must have been bad.”
“I honestly don’t know.”
He covered his face with his hands, pressing his fingers against the excessive perspiration accumulated on his forehead. He’d gotten so used to waking up to a hangover he had almost forgotten what it was like to awaken without a headache.
“Well, don’t forget, it’s my nephew’s christening today. And you’re coming with me?”
Eddie bowed his head. He had forgotten. “Why can’t Lacy go?” he moaned.
“Because I have class, you chirpy thing!” Lacy joked, always bringing a happy edge to whatever tension was between him and Jenny.
Eddie took Lacy’s laptop from the seat beside him. “Mind if I use this for five minutes?” he asked.
“Sure.”
He loaded up Internet Explorer, Google displaying as the home page. He’d had enough of these dreams, these visions, whatever they were. He so adamantly didn’t believe in this stuff; yet there was a niggling doubt in his mind that everything that was going on inside his head, everything that was plaguing him, was true. That the image of his sister he had seen when in a coma was not fake.