More Horowitz Horror

by Anthony Horowitz

  “I really don’t think things are working out,” my dad said quietly.

  “You want me to go? Is that it? You want a divorce?”

  “Perhaps we might both be happier . . .”

  “Oh no, Andrew. If you want to divorce me, it’s going to cost you. I want half of everything you have. And I’m entitled to it! You’ll have to move out of this house—and that’s just for a start. I’ll tell the social workers how you’ve always left Ben on his own when he gets back from school. That’s not allowed. So they’ll take him away and you’ll never see him again.”

  “Louise . . .”

  “I’ll tell the university how cruel you’ve been to me. I’ll tell them you battered me and you’ll lose your job. I’ll take your money. I’ll take your son. I’ll take everything! You wait and see!”

  “Please, Louise . . . there’s no need for this.”

  After that, things quieted down. Louise knew she had my dad around her little finger and every day she found new ways to be cruel to him. I think she only asked him to move to upset him. She knew how happy we’d always been in that little house.

  As always she had her way. About three months after the argument, my dad said he’d found somewhere.

  The somewhere was a little house called Twist Cottage.

  If Louise wanted to move into the countryside, she couldn’t have chosen a better house than Twist Cottage, although it wasn’t actually her who had chosen it. Dad found it. He came home one day with the details and we went to see it that same afternoon.

  Twist Cottage was buried in the middle of a forest not far from the aqueduct where the Avon Canal and the River Avon cross paths. It’s a strange part of the world. There are small towns scattered all over the place but walk a few yards into the woods and you seem to tumble into the middle of nowhere. Twist Cottage was as isolated as a cottage could be. It seemed to be imprisoned by the trees that surrounded it, as if they were afraid of its being found. And yet it was a very pretty little building, straight out of a jigsaw puzzle, with a thatched roof, black beams, and windows made of diamond-shaped pieces of glass. The cottage was as twisted as its name suggested. My dad said it was very old, Elizabethan or earlier, and time had worn all the edges into curves. It had a big garden with a pond in the middle. The grass was already long.

  “We’ll need a lawn mower,” Louise said.

  “Yes,” my father agreed.

  “And I’m not doing the mowing!”

  Now, I don’t know a lot about house prices but I do know that Avon is an expensive place to live, mainly because of all the Londoners who’ve bought second homes there. But the strange thing was that my dad bought Twist Cottage for only a hundred thousand dollars, which isn’t very much at all. Not in Avon. I wondered about that at the time. I also noticed that the real estate agent—a Mr. Willoughby—seemed particularly happy to have sold it. He had an office in Bath and the day he sold Twist Cottage, he gave everybody the day off.

  As it happened, one of my best friends at school was a boy named John Graham and his older sister, Carol, was Mr. Willoughby’s secretary. I was around at their house the week after the sale had been arranged and she told me about the day off. In fact, she told me a lot more.

  “You’re not really moving into Twist Cottage, are you?” she demanded. She was nineteen years old, with frizzy hair and glasses. She had a slightly turned-up nose, which suited her attitude about life. “Poor you!”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “Mr. Willoughby never thought we’d sell it.”

  “Is there something wrong with it?”

  “You could say that.” Carol had been painting her nails with scarlet polish. She closed the bottle and came over to me. “It’s haunted,” she said.

  “Haunted?”

  “Mr. Willoughby says it’s very haunted. He says it’s the most haunted house he’s ever known.”

  John and I both burst out laughing.

  “It’s true!”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” John asked his sister.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” I said.

  “Well, there’s something wrong with the house,” Carol insisted. “Why else do you think your dad got it so cheap?”

  She probably wouldn’t have bothered talking to us, but she had nothing to do while her nails dried. So that was how I found out the recent history of Twist Cottage. And it wasn’t very nice.

  Over the last few years, six different couples had moved into the place and something horrible had happened to every one of them. A lady called Mrs. Webster was the first.

  “She drowned in the bath,” Carol said. “Nobody knew how it happened. It wasn’t as if she was old or anything like that. When they found her, she was all bloated. She’d completely swollen up inside!”

  That was the first time Willoughby sold the house. It was bought by a second couple, a Mr. and Mrs. Johnson from London. Just four weeks later, one of them had fallen out of the window and gotten impaled on the garden fence.

  The next victim was a Dr. Stainer. Carol knew all the names. She was enjoying telling us her story, sitting in the living room of her house as the sun set and long shadows reached across the room. “This time it was a tile falling off the roof,” she said. “Dr. Stainer’s skull was fractured and death was instantaneous.

  “After that, the house was empty for about six months. Word had got around, you see. All these deaths. But eventually Mr. Willoughby sold it again. I forget who bought it this time. But I do know that whoever it was had a heart attack just two weeks later and the house had to be sold for a fifth time.

  “It was bought by a Professor Bell. The professor lasted just one month before falling down the stairs.”

  “Also killed?” John demanded.

  “Yes. With a broken neck—and the house went back on the market once again. Poor Mr. Willoughby never thought he’d get rid of it. He didn’t even want to handle it. But of course he was making money every time it was sold, even though the price was dropping and dropping. Who would want to live in a house where so many people had died?”

  “Was my dad the next one to buy it?” I asked.

  “No. There was one more owner before your dad.

  An Australian. Electrocuted while adjusting the thermostat on the deep freeze.”

  There was a long silence. Either Carol had been talking for longer than I thought or the sun had set more rapidly than usual because it was suddenly quite dark.

  “You’re not really moving in there, are you, Ben?” John asked.

  “I don’t know,” I replied. All of a sudden I wasn’t feeling too good. “Is this all true, Carol? Or are you just trying to scare me?”

  “You can ask Mr. Willoughby,” Carol said. “In fact, you can ask anyone. Everyone knows about Twist Cottage. And everyone knows you’d be crazy to live there!”

  That night I asked my dad if he knew what he was getting himself into. Louise was already asleep. She’d started drinking recently and had gotten through half a bottle of malt whiskey before dragging herself upstairs and throwing herself into bed. Dad and I talked in whispers but we didn’t need to. She was sound asleep. You could probably hear her snoring on the other side of Bath.

  “Is it true, Dad?” I asked. “Is Twist Cottage haunted?”

  He looked at me curiously. For a moment I thought I saw a flicker of anger in his eyes. “Who have you been talking to, Ben?” he demanded.

  “I was at John’s house.”

  “John? Oh . . . his sister.” My dad paused. He was looking very tired these days. And old. It made me feel sad. “You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?” he asked.

  “No. Not really.”

  “Nor do I. For heaven’s sake, Ben, this is the twenty-first century!”

  “But Carol said that six people died there in just two years. There was an Australian, a Professor Bell, a doctor—”

  “It’s too late now!” my dad interrupted. He never raised his voice as a rule but this time h
e was almost shouting. “We’re moving there!” He forced himself to calm down. “Louise likes the house and she’ll only be disappointed if I change my mind.” He reached out and tousled my hair like he used to, when I was younger, before Louise came. “You don’t have anything to worry about, Ben, I promise you,” he said. “You’ll be happy there. We all will.”

  And so we moved in. I’d tried to forget what Carol had told me, but I have to admit I was still feeling a bit uneasy and things weren’t helped by two accidents that happened the very day we arrived. First of all the driver of the moving van tripped and broke an ankle. I suppose it could have happened anywhere and it wasn’t as if a ghost had suddenly popped up and gone “boo” or something like that, but still it made me think.

  And then, at the end of the day, a carpenter who had been called in to mend a broken window frame slipped with a saw and nearly cut off a finger. There was a lot of blood. It formed something that looked almost like a question mark on the windowpane. But what was the question?

  Why have we come here?

  Or—What’s going to happen next?

  In fact, nothing happened for a while. The next weeks were mainly spent unpacking boxes. There were piles everywhere—books, plates, clothes, CDs—and no matter how many boxes we unpacked there always seemed to be more waiting to be done. A new dishwasher was delivered and also a lawn mower big enough to deal with the garden, a great beast of a thing that Dad had found secondhand and that only just fit into the shed. Louise didn’t help with anything. I couldn’t help noticing that recently she had become very plump. Perhaps it was all the drinking. She liked to sleep in the afternoon and shouted at us if we woke her up.

  Of course, I was out most afternoons. My dad had bought me a new bike, partly to cheer me up, but mainly because I now needed it to get to school. There was a bus I could catch into Bath from the nearby town of Bradford-on-Avon but that was still a ten-minute bike ride away. In fact, I preferred to bike that whole way, following the canal towpath where dad and I had often walked. It was a beautiful ride when the weather was good and this was the summer semester—warm and sunny. I’d leave the bus until the weather got cold.

  Twist Cottage had three bedrooms. Mine was at the back of the house, with views into the woods. Well, all the rooms looked into the woods, as we were completely surrounded. It was a small room with uneven white walls that bulged slightly inward, and a curiously ugly wooden beam that ran along the ceiling just above the window. Once my bed was in and my soccer-team posters were on the wall, I suppose it was cozy enough, but in a way it was creepy too. All those trees cast shadows. There were shadows everywhere and when the wind blew and the branches waved the whole room was filled with flickering, dancing shapes.

  And there was something else. Maybe I was just imagining it, but the cottage always felt colder than it had any right to be. Even in the middle of the summer there was a sort of dampness in the air. I could feel it creeping over my shoulders when I got out of the bath. It was always there, slithering around the back of my neck. When I got into bed I would bury myself completely under the quilt but even then it would still find a way to twist itself around my ankles and tickle my toes.

  Dad was right, though. Louise did seem happier in Twist Cottage. She wasn’t doing anything very much anymore. All her art stuff seemed to have gotten lost in the move and she spent most of the day in bed. She was getting fatter and fatter. I often used to see her sitting with a magazine and a box of chocolates with the TV on and the curtains closed. My poor dad had to do everything for her; the shopping, the cooking, the laundry . . . as well as his job at the university. But at least she didn’t shout at him so much anymore. She was like a queen, happy so long as she was being served.

  And then the incident happened that very nearly removed Louise from our life forever. I was there and I saw what happened. Otherwise I would never have believed it.

  It was a Saturday, another warm day at the end of August. Dad was in Bristol. I was at home mending a tire on my bike. Louise hadn’t gotten up until about eleven o’clock and after her usual three bowls of cornflakes and five slices of toast, she had decided to step out into the garden. This was in itself a rare event, but like I said, it was a lovely day.

  Anyway, I saw her waddle down to the fishpond. She had a tub of fish food in her hand. Maybe her own enormous breakfast had reminded her that the fish hadn’t actually been fed since we moved in. She stopped at the side of the water and tipped some of the flakes into her hand.

  “Here! Fishy fishies!” she called out. She still had a little-girl voice.

  Something moved in the grass behind her. She didn’t see it, but I did. At first I thought it was a snake. A long green snake with some sort of orange head. But there are no huge green snakes in Avon. I looked again. That was when I saw what it was, and like I said, if somebody had described it to me I wouldn’t have believed them, but I was there and I saw it with my own eyes.

  It was the garden hose. Moving on its own.

  I was sitting there with a bicycle chain in one hand and oil all the way up to my elbows. I watched the hose slither and twist through the long grass while Louise stood at the edge of the water, scattering a fistful of food across the surface. I opened my mouth to call out but no words came.

  And then the hose looped itself around her ankles and tightened. Louise yelled out, losing her balance. Her hand jerked back, sending fish food flying in an arc behind her. She toppled forward and there was a tremendous splash as she hit the water. It must have surprised the fish.

  The fish pond was deep and covered in slimy green algae. Despite the weather, the water was freezing. I have no doubt at all that if I hadn’t been there, Louise would have died. It took me a few seconds to recover from the surprise but of course I dropped the bike chain and ran down to help her. No. That’s not completely true. I didn’t go right away. I hesitated. And a horrible thought flashed through my mind.

  Leave her to drown. Why not? She’s ruined Dad’s life. She’s made us sell our old house. She’s cruel and she’s lazy and she’s always complaining. We’ll be better off without her.

  That’s what I thought. But an instant later I was on my feet and running. I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d done anything else. I got to the edge of the pond and reached out for her. I caught hold of her dress and pulled her toward me. She was filthy and sobbing, her yellow hair matted with dark green weeds. I managed to get her out onto the grass and she sat there, a great lump, water streaming down her body. And did she thank me?

  “I suppose you think that’s funny!” she moaned.

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes you do! I can see it!” She wiped a hand across her face. “I hate you. You’re a spiteful, horrible boy.” And with that she stomped off into the house.

  The hose lay where it was.

  That evening, I told my dad what had happened. Louise had gone back to bed after the accident (if that’s the right word). She’d also locked the bedroom door so he couldn’t have gone in if he’d wanted to. I told him first that she’d fallen into the pond and I described how I’d saved her. Then I told him about the hose. But even as I explained what I’d seen, I saw his face change. I’d expected him to be incredulous, not to believe me. But it was more than that. He was angry.

  “The hose moved,” he said, repeating what I’d said. The three words came out slowly, heavily.

  “I saw it, Dad.”

  “Was it the wind?”

  “No. There was no wind. It’s exactly like I saw. It sort of . . . came alive.”

  “Ben, do you really expect me to believe that? Are you saying it was magic or something? Fairies? I mean, for heaven’s sake, you’re fourteen years old. Hoses don’t come alive and move on their own . . .”

  “I’m only telling you what I saw.”

  “You’re telling me what you thought you saw. If I didn’t know you better I’d say you’d been sniffing glue or something.”

  “Dad—I sa
ved her life!”

  “Yes. Well done.”

  He walked out of the house and I didn’t see him again that evening. It was only later, when I was lying in bed, that I realized what had really upset him. It wasn’t a pleasant thought but I couldn’t escape it.

  Maybe he would have been happier if I had done what I was tempted to do. Maybe he would have preferred it if I’d left Louise to drown.

  My story is almost over . . . and this is where I have to admit that I actually missed the climax. That happened about a week later and I was away for the weekend. Perhaps it’s just as well, because what happened was really horrible.

  Louise got minced.

  She had been lying in the garden sunbathing and somehow the lawn mower, the one I’ve mentioned, turned itself on. It rumbled out of the shed and across the lawn and toward her. She was lying on a towel, listening to music through headphones. That’s why she didn’t hear it coming. I can imagine her last moments. A shadow must have fallen across her eyes. She would have looked up just in time to see this great, metallic monster plunging onto her, the engine roaring, the blades spinning, diesel smoke belching out thick and black. When the police arrived, Louise was a mess. Parts of her had hit the wall fifty feet away.

  Whenever a wife is killed in unusual circumstances—and circumstances couldn’t have been more unusual than these—the police always suspect the husband. Fortunately, my dad was in the clear. At the time Louise had died, he had been lecturing to two hundred students. As for me, I was in London, so obviously I had nothing to do with it either. There was an inquest, a month after the death, and we all had to go to court and listen to police reports and witness statements. The lawn mower had been taken apart and examined and there was a report about that. But in the end, there could only be one verdict. Accidental death. And that was the end of that.

  Except it wasn’t.

  We never went back to Twist Cottage. I was glad about that. I thought of all the deaths that had taken place there over the years . . . and now Louise! It could have been me or my dad next.