by John Kitchen
He put a foot on the first cellar step and switched on the light.
But when he got to the foot of the stairs, there was nothing.
The strong musty smell was there. That always hung around the place though.
There were dust-strewn floors, junk and various furnishings, and the detritus that he’d seen dumped there earlier.
It was certainly colder, but there was nothing else.
He stood, gazing at the crumbling walls, baffled and confused, because something had scared her. He was certain of that. No one could have screamed the way Caitlin did for no good reason.
Chapter 5
When he got back to his room there were still noises – banging doors, groaning floorboards, an odd flutter in the ceiling and, upstairs, interminable moans from Caitlin, and what he’d just seen left him stupefied.
If this kind of thing happened to Caitlin every night, it was no wonder she was so stressed out and kept falling asleep in school.
He still didn’t want to believe there was anything that couldn’t be explained though. He buried his head under the duvet. The fluttering would be a bird trapped in the eaves. The banging was doors left open – and old timbers always groaned.
But the icy wind hurtling down the corridor, and the jammed door of the cellar, that was harder to get his head around… and, if there had been some old man down there, or something else making her shout those words, why wouldn’t he have seen it? He wanted to believe she’d been dreaming, but – all the other things that had been going on, and the way they all stopped when the screaming stopped – there was no way he could match that with dreams.
Sleep only crept over him well into the night – and it was restless and spasmodic.
… And, when he woke, it had happened again.
All his drawers had been opened. The clothes he and Rudi had stacked were strewn over the floor. His wardrobe door was swinging and his letters and photos were scattered over the bed.
He didn’t know what to do, and it was worse confronting it alone.
If he’d been with Rudi and Martin he might have contained all this; but he wasn’t, and he really began to wonder if he could get through it without them.
The feeling only lasted a few seconds. After that the programs kicked in. Doing stuff – that was the way to tackle this kind of thing. He breathed deeply, calming the adrenalin, and then he began to retrieve his clothes – methodically folding them, re-hanging his shirts, gathering the letters and photos into a neat pile.
His travel bag was lying open by the window.
There was a key in one of the side pockets and, when he’d placed the bundle of papers in the case, he locked it, returning it to the corner of the wardrobe, and he put the key in his trousers pocket.
Rudi and Martin were in the bathroom when he went through, and Rudi looked enquiringly.
But Lloyd didn’t want to say anything – not yet anyway. Rudi said something to Martin. Then they headed back to their own room.
Breakfast was the same anarchic chaos as everything else at Sarson Hall – only, this morning it was quelled by an oppressive tiredness.
Rudi was attempting to stir the lumps out of his porridge and he said, “Are you going to tell me what it was like?”
“Someone went through my things again,” Lloyd said. “All my drawers was open and my stuff was everywhere.”
“It couldn’t have been Martin,” said Rudi. “I’d have heard him. I was worried about you, stuck in that room on your own, and I hardly slept all night.”
“I got through it, and I didn’t reckon it was Martin anyway.”
“Do you know who it was?”
Lloyd shook his head and shovelled some of the tepid porridge down his throat. He was beginning to suspect Justin might be right, and he didn’t want to admit that, even to himself. Besides, how could you tell a guy like Rudi that you thought there was some weird force down there, brought on by a sick old house, and it was this that was messing with his stuff. In an effort to deflect Rudi’s curiosity he steered away from the subject. “This stuff is like wallpaper paste, man,” he said.
Rudi sniffed his bowl and laughed. “It even smells like wallpaper paste. Did anything else happen?”
“There was weird stuff going on all night,” he admitted. “Worse than when I was in with you. Did you hear hailstones banging on the windows?”
Rudi shook his head.
“You didn’t feel no shaking in the room?”
“No,” Rudi said. “Did you?”
“Windows banging – hail and wind – the bed was shaking – I thought it might have been an earth tremor or something.”
“That’s weird,” Rudi said. “Just thinking about it freaks me out.” He shovelled in some porridge. “Me and Martin are going to see Dave. We’re going to tell him we want you back with us. You shouldn’t be left down there with stuff like that going on.”
But Lloyd shook his head. “Dave won’t agree to me coming back. He don’t like me. I stand up to him see. That’s why he put me down there in the first place. It was spite. If you say anything it might make things worse.”
“I’ll see what Martin thinks,” Rudi said.
People were barging out now. The congealed gruel seemed to have heightened their aggression. They were supposedly getting stuff for school; but there was mayhem and the carers were ranting at everyone they saw.
As they were bundled through the door, Lloyd looked for Caitlin, but she wasn’t there. He wondered whether he should check her out.
He hadn’t mentioned Caitlin to Rudi. He could tell him his own personal experiences… but Caitlin… and the old man in the cellar… that was Caitlin’s business and it was a bit like an intrusion to talk about that.
Caitlin did turn up for the minibus, and she looked as though she’d been put through a mincing machine. Her hair was wild and she had a pasty complexion. He could see her eyes, darkened with shadows and there was an expressionless pallor about them. As she sat in her corner of the bus she glared at the world, almost daring her surroundings to come near her.
He was beginning to feel sorry for her. He’d already decided, if there was something going on down in that cellar, it had to be stopped and the stuff he’d heard down there last night was seismic. It had rocked his brain, and it was seriously gnawing at his belief that all this was natural. He still wanted there to be explanations, but even the thought of natural explanations made him shudder. It was unthinkable that there was some old man down there, and if it wasn’t a man, then, what made her cry out?
There were two things on his mind as they drove towards Brookley. One: he’d got to find out exactly what was going on with Caitlin, and, in order to do that, he’d have to convince her he was on her side. He knew she was a walking piece of malevolence… but… if stuff was happening to her, then it was down to him to stop it.
The second thing he had to do was get to Justin and talk it through with him. He’d go and find him after tea.
There were a couple of stormy geography periods before break where the teacher discovered Caitlin out for the count and decided to give her a bad time – but that was a big mistake, because Caitlin could respond to goading with more venom than an adder.
At break he searched her out.
She was moping by the bicycle racks, still looking as though she’d been in a fight with a polecat.
“What do you want?” she demanded… and he didn’t know what to say. Starting a conversation with her was like plunging into sulphuric acid.
“You all right?” he said, and, immediately the scowl on her face deepened.
“That hasn’t got nothing to do with you.”
“Only, I noticed you wasn’t at breakfast and I thought…”
“Yeah? Why was you looking for me at breakfast?”
For a moment he wondered why he was bothering. “It’s just – well, I’m in the North Wing too, now… and…”
“You keep away from me then. You come near me and I’ll gouge yo
ur eyes out.”
This was hard and his lungs were on the brink of exploding. “Just shut up and give your ears a chance,” he said. “It isn’t that I fancy you or nothing. It’s just there was stuff going on last night – weird stuff – noises and beds shaking and all that… and I just wondered…”
It was no use though. It was yesterday all over again.
She stepped back and her knees crumbled. Her eyes narrowed and some kind of fear distorted her face. “You’re bent – telling me stuff about noises and that.”
“I was just worried, that’s all. I heard you sort of crying out… and you was shouting stuff.”
“I wasn’t shouting nothing, and if you say I was I’ll stuff my fist down your throat so far it’ll come out your backside.”
The idea was so surreal he nearly laughed, but Caitlin wasn’t laughing. She kicked out at him, and, desperate to get it all out in the open, he said, “You was sleepwalking too. You know that, don’t you? You went down the cellar.”
By now she was crouching, with her hands gripping her ears, and she was yelling, “Yeah, yeah,” in an attempt to drown him out.
“It isn’t that I’m trying to scare you nor nothing. I want to help. We got to stop what’s going on down there.”
But the chant just went on and he had to shout to get through to her.
“Who was the old man?” he said at last. But then she hit out with a vehemence that knocked him sideways and by now she was screaming some really foul stuff.
A load of kids had gathered and she barged through in an effort to get away but, as she did so, one of the politburo pushed into the crowd demanding what was going on. She looked accusingly at Lloyd. “What have you done to Caitlin, Lloyd Lewis?”
“I didn’t do nothing,” he said, but he was marched off to Mrs Cherry all the same and, by the time he got there, the combination of tiredness and injustice had wound him into just the right mood.
She was sitting behind her desk with her face like an over-ripe tomato.
“So, what’s all this with you and Caitlin, young man?” she demanded.
He stuffed his hands into his pocket and gave a shrug. He knew that aggravated most teachers. “Nothing,” he said.
“Caitlin doesn’t rush across the playground screaming and blocking her ears for nothing.”
“I was trying to help her, wasn’t I? I got to share the same wing as her back at the home, and I could hear she wasn’t sleeping too good. I heard her like, moaning all night, and I asked her what was wrong, that’s all.”
Mrs Cherry pursed her lips and simpered, “Oh. That’s all, is it?
A gentle enquiry into her well-being and she goes charging across the playground like someone shot out of a cannon.”
He was amazed how many of these people turned to heavy sarcasm whenever they had a go at him. Dave was just the same. He gave another shrug, pushing his hands even deeper into his pockets.
“Well?” Mrs Cherry said.
“Well what?” He stared at the bulbous mole on her left cheek. He imagined it bursting – spurting pus across the room and he wondered if her face was red enough to light up at night. “I said did she know she’d been sleepwalking – and she was sleepwalking – because I saw her, didn’t I?”
“Exactly as I thought,” Mrs Cherry said. “You were winding her up.”
“That isn’t winding no one up, that’s just showing concern.
I wanted to know what was going on in her head to make her sleep walk.”
“You wanted to frighten her,” Mrs Cherry said. “You know Caitlin is fragile and you wanted to exploit that.”
Lloyd stared at her. “If she’s so fragile,” he said. “What was the geography teacher – Mr Simms or whatever his name is – doing, getting at her all through geography, just because she went to sleep in his lesson. She needs that sleep, and she isn’t getting none back at the home. If she’s so fragile he should have left her alone – and I was worried about her – like I said.”
Mrs Cherry gave an aggravating sniff and her eyes narrowed, embedding themselves into the fleshy depths of her face. “You… worried?” she said. “Don’t give me that, Lloyd Lewis. Mr Trafford’s told me about you. You’re a troublemaker and you think Caitlin’s an easy target. And it won’t do. It won’t do at all.”
“Whatever,” he said. “You believe what you want. I know what I was doing, and it don’t make no difference what you think.”
The red deepened. She was really wound up now. “Get your hands out of your pockets when you’re talking to me,” she snapped. “And do not use that insolent tone.”
He slithered his hands out of his pockets, in one action that combined the movement with another massive shrug. “Is that it then?” he said.
“No, it is not ‘it,’” Mrs Cherry said. She stood up, and her body was quivering. “You can take a detention this lunch time, and make sure you keep well out of Caitlin Jamieson’s way from now on.”
He gave another shrug. “If you say so, teacher,” he said. “Is it all right if I go back to class now? I mean, I’m missing my education all this time and that’s what I’m here for, isn’t it – to be educated?”
“That’s quite enough,” she snapped. “I’ll see you in detention class immediately after lunch.” Then she heaved herself further over her desk, and pointed a finger. “And know this, Lloyd Lewis – I have you in my sights. Any more trouble and you’ll be on the slippery path to exclusion. Is that clear?”
He shrugged again and, as he turned, he pushed his hands back into his pockets.
He waited until he was well outside the door though before he said, “Whatever.”
She must have contacted Dave because, when they got back to Sarson Hall, Christine was on the steps waiting for him again. There was a look of malicious delight on her face, and she snapped out the words: “Lloyd Lewis” as he tumbled out of the minibus.
“What is it this time?” he said, and she gave him that in-the-know smirk that really irritated him.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
She grabbed his arm, and he immediately shook her off. “Don’t you touch me,” he said. “You can be done for that kind of thing.” He turned to the marauding crowd, searching out Rudi. “Rudi, you saw that, didn’t you, man? You saw her with her hands all over me?”
All the kids jeered and, for a moment, Christine looked confused. Then she pushed him, propelling him down the corridor. “Don’t be so ridiculous,” she said. “And get down there to Dave’s office without any more lip.”
Dave was waiting with the same malevolent delight that Lloyd had seen on Christine’s face.
“This seems to be getting a bit of a habit,” he said.
“I haven’t done nothing,” said Lloyd.
But Dave was adopting the praying mantis pose, fingers touching, and he leaned back in his chair. “That’s not how it appears according to Mrs Cherry. She said you had Caitlin in a state of hysteria at school today. And what is all this? She tells me you saw her sleepwalking. Is that right? I want to know what’s going on down in that wing, boy.”
Lloyd shook his head. Whatever was happening to Caitlin, Dave wouldn’t do anything even if he told him. “That don’t have nothing to do with you,” he said.
He watched the colour on his face deepen, so that the rim of hair around his balding head seemed iridescent in contrast to the rest. “You will tell me, Lloyd Lewis,” he said.
“It isn’t my job to tell you. That’s Caitlin’s business. If she don’t tell you, I don’t tell you, okay?”
“Tell me, boy,” he said again, and Lloyd looked at him.
“Like I said, it isn’t my business to tell you.”
He watched as Dave leaned back smugly in his chair. “Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to gate you,” he said.
He had a little intercom on his desk and he pressed it. “Fetch Christine in, will you?” he said. “Tell her she’s to take Lloyd Lewis to his room, and see he stays there.”
But he had to see Justin. He needed to talk about last night, and if Dave gated him, then that wouldn’t happen. In spite of himself he blurted out: “You can’t do that.” And the look on Dave’s face made his fist itch.
“Oh, yes I can, Lloyd Lewis,” he said. “You can stay in isolation until you decide to tell me what’s going on.”
“What about my dinner? The food here may be muck, but I need something. I got to live, man.”
“Your dinner will be brought to you by Christine,” said Dave.
“What if I need the toilet or something?”
“The carers will escort you to the bathroom – but I will know what is going on here.”
“If I told you, you wouldn’t do nothing. You never do.”
But Dave was deaf to everything he was saying and there was no way he was telling Dave what he’d seen and heard last night.
Christine took him to his room, and it would be Christine who would monitor him. There was a sadistic relish in her voice as she told him that. Her enthusiasm for the task squashed any hope he had of giving her the slip, and that was a problem.
As she stalked back to the main building, he splayed out on the bed and he felt a jangling in his nerves.
Up until now gating had just meant he wouldn’t be able to see Justin, but immediately, as the door shut, there was a shift. He’d forgotten the effect that room had on him and suddenly he was hit by the fact that he was stuck there to face the demons of the night.
He clambered off the bed and began to check his clothes. He wanted to see if there had been any more interference. Then he checked his letters and photos. But nothing had been touched, and he delved further into his travel case.
He’d got an iPod in there. He’d downloaded tracks, back in the other home.
He didn’t listen to it often. He was normally too active to lie on the bed listening to music; but stuck in here he had to do something.
For a while he didn’t touch it though. Instead he shuffled through his letters and photos.