The cold invaded the room and stole what remaining heat it had left. She gasped in the icy, fresh air. It was painful to her chest but welcoming at the same time, revitalising.
From her position on the second floor she could see the vast, perfectly square lawn that dominated Old Court, enclosed on all sides by perfectly formed borders of pebbles which formed an effective barrier between the grass and the ancient grey flagstones of the adjoining courtyard. Now a thick blanket of snow hid the greenery and grey of the lawns and stones. It looked like another inch had fallen last night.
Along the buttresses and lancet windows of the thirteenth century buildings, trickles of water from the leaking drainpipes and dilapidated eaves of the overhanging slate roof had frozen, creating skeletal fingers of ice which clung possessively to the blackened clunch stone and the creeping clusters of ivy that spread moss-like around the lower levels of the Great Hall. The mullioned windows were heavily coated in a thick pane of ice that concealed the rooms and their occupants from casual view.
Not that there were many occupants. All but a few had gone home for the Christmas vac. Those remaining were the die-hard academics, mainly postgrads using the quiet time to put in extra study. Others were committed to staying on in the city and putting in some extra hours at whatever part-time jobs they had, like her. Study was an expensive business when you didn’t have rich parents to fall back on.
She considered the view before her. Pristine snow, lit by a fresh winter sun, encasing the ancient and medieval stonework of academia. Still, motionless. As if the snow and ice had frozen not just the buildings but time itself.
She glanced behind her, a heart-stopping moment when she thought the whispers had returned. It was just a gust of the cold air disturbing some of her papers.
Rob hadn’t heard them. He’d gone long before it started. She stared at the dried pool of vomit that coated the keyboard of her laptop.
For Christ’s sake, Rob! You know how much that cost me?
A giggle and a sheepish grin. “S alright…Santa’ll get you a new one.
Oh Jesus, I’ve got my thesis on there! I haven’t backed it up…that’s it! Get out! OUT!
He’d staggered off with a hurt expression. And come back less than five minutes later. Dan ain’t here. His room’s locked. Can I come in…
No! Fuck off home!
Em, I can’t. I’m too pissed to drive.
Bloody well walk home, then!
Shuffled footsteps that faded from hearing. Then the metallic clang of fire extinguishers knocked from their mountings and a repeated thudding noise as he fell down the stairs.
She’d sighed and approached her laptop, her heart sinking at the sight of sparks and the smell of burning plastic. She turned it over and disconnected the battery, grimacing at the rank liquid that dripped onto her jeans.
Emma.
The voice wasn’t Rob’s. It was a soft, sibilant whisper: like seawater retreating over shingle.
Emma. Hear my song.
More voices joined the first. Whispers that filled her ears with horror.
A choir of disembodied voices spoke to her from all points of the room. She whirled round to face the source of one voice, only to see nothing. Then another would speak to her right, she would turn to face that, and so on. Voices that spoke of things beyond the grave, of decay and putrefaction that destroyed the soul as well as the body. Whispers of violent and agonising acts performed, witnessed and relished. Gleeful voices that murmured descriptions of lives violently taken: bodies shattered and tormented in ways beyond human imagining.
She sank to the floor, hands clasped around her ears, trying in vain to blot out the terrible voices.
They continued singing their gleeful song of destruction, the voices now inside her head. She shook her head violently. What the hell am I doing to myself? This isn’t real! Get a grip!
She grabbed the empty absinthe bottle. She stood up and drew her arm back…
She’d expected the bottle to shatter as it made contact with the wall. Instead, it hit the wall and bounced back, knocking the ceiling light and smashing the bulb before dropping to the carpet. Light still shone from an Anglepoise lamp, but not enough. Shadows were created and the whispering remained. She sat on the bed, dropped her glasses onto the bedside cabinet and buried her head in the pillows. Wrapping herself in the duvet, she repeated the mantra…
“They’re not real. They’re. Not. Real.”
It was a mantra she repeated, shouting it out to the shadows in the room until the sunlight had arrived and the voices faded.
Looking out onto the outside world she was glad that so few college members remained. What would they have made of her cries?
“No more absinthe,” she croaked to the winter sun. “Ever.”
And no more dates with Rob Benson. She thought of calling him, just to make sure he hadn’t driven back in that state. She shuddered, remembering the amount of absinthe he’d knocked back and the weed he’d smoked. God only knew what he might have done in the van, what he might have hit…
She felt goose bumps on her bare arms, their arrival delayed by the numbing effect of the alcohol in her system. Now she could feel the cold. Teeth chattering, she slammed the window shut and looked around the room.
Her mobile was on the bookcase, just beside her textbooks. She grabbed it and looked at the screen.
Voicemail. Okay, guess I wouldn’t have heard the phone going off with that racket. She pressed a button and held it to her ear.
“Oh my God…” she said in a voice as low as the returned whispering. Her fingers tightened around the handset, inadvertently pressing the Motorola and its hideous voicemail message closer to her ears.
A new voice spoke this time, a fresh addition to the choir of hate. A young woman and it was the most terrifying of all. a young woman’s voice, the most terrifying yet. Speaking not only of atrocities already witnessed, it told of horrors yet to come: horrors involving Emma, listing them with a poetic flourish, filled with sadistic anticipation. Emma knew the voice but had never heard it say such terrible things before: not Stacey, the sister she loved more than anyone else on Earth.
The sister who had been in her grave for the last two years.
Emma Robertson threw the mobile away in disgust. It hit the wall, the back cover flew off and the battery slipped from the connections. But still the voice could be heard.
She grabbed the absinthe bottle and brought it down hard on the exposed innards of the handset. Twice, three times, until the Motorola was smashed to ragged chunks and the voice was silent.
Now she knew things were going to change . This was no hallucination brought on by weed and absinthe. This was connected to the events of last year.
There was no other logical explanation. A full twelve months after Jason Franklin had been caught and sectioned for what he had tried to do, it seemed that he had been right all along. And that meant that all hell was going to break loose.
She grabbed her fleece and slid into it. She didn’t bother looking in the mirror: she didn’t care what sort of state she was in and, for the first time since she was five, she left without cleaning her teeth.
She took her keys from the dresser, picked up her swipe card and pocketed them both.
Those whispers - exactly the same ones Jason Franklin had heard. The ones that had driven him to destruction.
And weren’t they all oh-so-pleased that he had been stopped just in time? She remembered the smiles of relief on the parents’ faces at the start of the new term in January as they dropped their loved ones off at All Souls. Thankful that there was no maniac around their children determined to burn the college to the ground, regardless of who was in it.
Good God, she had been just as relieved as well - at the time when the fires started she had only just left for home. If she’d stayed another night as originally planned she’d have been caught up in it.
Thanked my lucky stars that night, didn’t I? She shook her aching head in d
isgust. And all this time we should’ve been thanking him.
Or helping him. She stopped suddenly and glanced at the calendar. December 20th. Almost a year to the day…
The hallway was deserted. The door to Dan Bailey’s room was not just unlocked but open. Not like him. Even if he’d gone for a run as he did every morning he would have locked the door.
She poked her head around the door. His rucksack and suitcase lay on the bed. Open to reveal clothes, books and toiletries, ready for his trip home to his parents.
Something was wrong. His mobile phone was there as well, and she knew he always took that with him for his runs. An icy chill prodded her stomach.
She approached the communal bathroom. Empty. The pristine porcelain of the toilet and sink basin gleamed in the golden light slicing through the frost coated window. No more vomit from Rob Benson - as if that was possible, after what he’d ejected over her laptop - but she also noticed that there was no condensation on the mirrors. No water on the shower curtain. With Dan’s fastidious, almost anal fixation with personal hygiene - a shower before a run, then one afterwards - that spelled trouble.
Wherever he’s gone, he hasn’t gone willingly.
She ran down the stairs, nimbly avoiding the fire extinguishers that lay on the floor of the first landing. Knocked from the wall mountings by Rob’s drunken exit, she assumed.
She pushed open the door. Onto the gravelled path that bisected the court, she headed for the archway by the porter’s lodge leading to Trinity Street and away from All Souls College. Her trainers kicked up small flurries of snow but almost slipped on the harder, frozen layer beneath. She grunted, forcing herself to slow down. The sunlight was stronger now, the reflected glare from the snow of the Court making her eyes hurt. She stared at the ornamental fountain and the gaping hole in the lawns next to it. Chunks of earth were covered by tarpaulin that in turn was covered by fresh snow. Barriers marked out with hazard warning tape surrounded the grave that awaited the culmination of the Founder’s Feast tomorrow night, which was unnecessary seeing as no-one but Fellows were allowed to walk on the lawns.
And who’d want to get close to an open grave, anyway? she thought with a shudder.
The cold air was agony to her aching head, but it was at least clearing the alcohol fog.
She folded her arms over her breasts and trudged cautiously to the lodge. She heard the gentle hum of early morning traffic and bicycles clattering down Trinity Street filtering through the archway.
Old Court itself was completely silent. And there were no signs of life from the lodge, either. She tried the door, frowning when she found it locked.
She was alone. That wasn’t too worrying - at least she wouldn’t have to face John Franklin. She shuddered again, and this time it wasn’t down to the cold. God, that man gave her the creeps. If Jason Franklin really was insane it was no surprise when you considered who he had for a father. She would never forget the sight of the head porter repeatedly slamming the head of Jason into the low wall of the fountain - his own son, for God’s sake! -an expression on his face that could not be mistaken for anything other than pure enjoyment.
That hadn’t “reasonable force” used to overpower an arsonist. It was nothing less than pure hatred. And like everyone else associated with the college of All Souls, she had wondered why it was so intense. But no answers were forthcoming. She’d heard rumours, but that was all they were. Rumours. It was something Rob had asked about last night when he brought the first round of drinks. And she could only -
She blinked. She’d seen something out of the corner of her eye, a brief movement outside the tiny chapel. Something red…and green.
The doors opened. A woman’s head peered out…and then sharply withdrew as her eyes met Emma’s.
Stacey!
She let out a strangled cry. There was no mistake. The red hair - as wild and unkempt as her own - was a sodden mass that flicked droplets of sea water on the dark oak doors before disappearing into the stone confines of the chapel.
Emma could smell the salt tang of the ocean waves that had killed her sister. The aroma of putrefying flesh and intestinal gases as the body was dragged from the harbour two years ago now filled the cold silent court.
Her head swam with the memory and she felt the frozen ground beneath her feet tilt violently. She sank to her knees and vomited.
She stared at the vomit steaming on the fresh snow for a long time. Anything rather than look to the chapel entrance.
I have to know.
She climbed to her feet and looked around her. The court was still devoid of human life.
But what about the chapel? Human life in there? It couldn’t be. Stacey Robertson was dead. Whatever had disappeared into the chapel, it was not her sister. Someone was playing a sick joke.
Just like the voices I heard earlier? The voice of Stacey on my mobile? That’s no joke, Em.
She had to know. She had to find out. Stepping over the rapidly cooling vomit and onto the grass of the lawns, she made her way to the chapel.
The doors weren’t closed, but they had been pulled to. She put a shaking hand on the knob and pulled it towards her. The droplets of sea water had run down the timber, forming small shining crystals of salt.
The doors swung open on rusty hinges. She stepped in and her glasses steamed up. She took them off and wiped the lenses on her jeans. The musty smell of old, damp stone filled her nostrils. She couldn’t detect any aroma of seawater now.
Sunlight coming through the open door provided the only illumination, not enough to completely banish the darkness. She replaced her glasses but could only just make out the pews and the altar. The carved image of Christ loomed over the silver eagle on the lectern, His agonised expression hidden by the shadows. She shivered. That sculpture gave her the creeps.
The building was tiny, an apology for a chapel. It had none of the grandeur or ornate decoration that other Cambridge College chapels boasted - the Fellowship didn’t even have a chaplain amongst its numbers - but it had something unique. A wooden carved representation of the Passion that was unlike any other she had seen..
Christ’s legs were folded at the waist, the knees pointed to the left. A wickedly blunt nail entered the right ankle and came out of the left behind it, pinning both to the wood. Two more nails shattered the wrists, not the palms, the fingers clenched inwards like claws, the fingernails penetrating the palms and drawing fresh blood. His head was slumped on His right shoulder, the crown of thorns penetrating the skin.
She walked slowly towards the altar, her mouth dry. The snow on her trainers melted, soaking into the faded, threadbare carpet that led between the cracked and chipped pews. The winter sun rose higher, and Christ’s face was reclaimed from the darkness.
The expression wasn’t one of beatific sacrifice - it was an all too human representation of physical agony. The flesh coloured paint was unnervingly close to the real hue of tortured human skin, right down to the mottled blue and purple patches of the bruising meted out during the buffeting. His piercing blue eyes were wide and staring, the shining pupils dilated. The mouth was open in a silent scream, the thin lips curled and the yellowed teeth broken. The fresh blood trickling from the nail and flagellation wounds were a vivid scarlet in the glare of the December sun.
She heard the sound of dripping water. She frowned, and cocked her head.
There it was again. A steady drip-drip-drip, of liquid falling on stone. She thought of the seawater falling from Stacey’s red hair and put her hand to her mouth.
This wasn’t seawater. The coppery aroma was unmistakeably that of blood. Blood dripping from physical wounds and falling to the stone flags.
Emma let out a strangled cry as she saw the source. Around the nails pinning Christ’s wrists to the cross something glistened and squirmed. Fresh blood, running from the gaping wounds to the ends of the trembling fingers before falling to the floor.
The head of Christ then raised itself from the shoulder. Thorns from Hi
s crown were pulled free from the taut muscles in the arm with a wet sucking sound. The emaciated chest rose and fell, shuddering breaths taken and exhaled. Breath that misted in the cold air of the chapel.
The head turned to face the intruder. Emma was frozen solid, immobile, under the gaze of the figure that was no longer made of painted, carved wood. The terrifying expression fixed her to the floor as surely as the nails held the flesh of Christ to the cross.
His eyes had changed. The piercing blue irises were now scarlet: blood-red irises that encircled the rapidly shrinking pupils, constricting them, as though squeezing them out of existence. The lips moved slightly. More mist rose into the air to accompany the barely audible words.
“Confess your faith…”
There was no trace of agony or fear in Christ’s expression now. The lips were twisted into a mocking smile as Emma opened her mouth to scream.
“Confess your faith unto him who said All Souls are mine…”
The words were louder now, clearly audible. Calm, confident and commanding, accompanied with mocking laughter.
“All Souls are mine…and ALL SOULS IS MINE!”
The laughter at the thing’s own joke increased in volume, echoing around the stone walls of the small chapel and drowning the scream that tore from Emma Robertson’s lips.
It wasn’t just the blasphemous words, nor the animated carving of a leader sent to free mankind from death and evil. It was because the words were delivered in a woman’s voice. A young woman’s voice that was painfully familiar.
Stacey’s voice.
Emma’s scream finally drowned the laughter of the abomination on the cross. Blotted out everything. She was oblivious to the closing of the chapel doors behind her.
She was oblivious to the slow, measured footsteps of the man who walked towards her with outstretched arms.
CHAPTER FOUR
As Rob drove down Cherry Hinton Road Andy regretted his sharp words; Rob hadn’t meant to rub his nose in it, but it was something that wasn’t going to be forgotten and would have to be discussed in length at some stage. And there was no doubt about it - Rob Benson would have to be fully informed of his mission in Cambridge. It was only fair. Besides, he had a feeling he might need some assistance, no matter what shape it came in.
The Caretakers (2011) Page 4