by Ben Yallop
Then they shuffled outside where a plot had been found for Adam next to Sam's parents. It was cold standing out on the damp grass, amongst the trees and gravestones. Breath fogged in the air and the whole place smelled of dampness. Orange-brown leaves stuck to the front of Sam's black shoes. He absent-mindedly wiped them away with the heel of the other shoe. He had been particularly dreading this part of the proceedings. Tears welled in his eyes and he rubbed them away. To see his grandfather's, his mother's and his father's graves all next to each other was almost more than he could bear. He felt sick. He rubbed at the scar on his forearm, hidden under the white shirt and black jacket. A faint pink puckered line ran like a fleshy snake from his third finger, twisting around his arm to his elbow, a souvenir of the car accident which must have nearly killed him and had certainly killed his parents. No-one had ever managed to work out how Sam had survived it and come to be lying, almost entirely unhurt, on a tuft of grass by the side of the road.
Suddenly feeling as though someone was watching him he looked up and thought he saw a figure slip behind a tree but although he watched for a few minutes no-one reappeared.
After it was over Sam said his thanks to those that had come before sending Valerie back to the house without him. He took himself back into the church and took a seat at the end of one of the long wooden pews. He needed a moment alone. Adam had become more and more frail but still it was all so sudden. Not long ago Sam and his grandfather had been laughing and joking. Then he had begun acting so strangely. Jumping at shadows, talking about places and people that didn't exist, the bizarre ramblings of an old man, who had always been strange and prone to bouts of oddness, suddenly and inexplicably struck by apparently complete senility. Now he was gone. Sam lowered his head into his hands and rubbed his eyes, salty tears under his fingertips leaving cold patches on his cheeks.
He took a deep breath and sat up again to face the front of the church, and started. A man was standing there, staring at him, a strange grin on a smug face, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore a dark pinstripe suit, a black shirt and a bright pink tie which seemed completely at odds with the sombre outfits that the other mourners had been wearing. His black hair was plastered across his head, wet and shiny.
The man held Sam's gaze a moment longer, his fixed grin immobile under his pale pointed nose. Then he strode towards Sam, a single hand extended. Sam looked at the hand, unsure. The man gave a small nod of encouragement and Sam reluctantly put out his own hand and they shook a limp clammy handshake.
‘Fiddler.’ said the man. Still the grin did not move. Sam was confused for a moment until a business card appeared in his hand almost magically. It read ‘Adrian Fiddler & Co. Solicitors’ and gave an address in central London.
‘Oh, er, Hain.’ said Sam.
‘Yes, I know.’ said Mr Fiddler, his smile slipping momentarily. ‘I'm here to execute your grandfather's will.’ He brought his other hand from behind his back and held out a package wrapped in thick brown paper. Sam's name was written on the paper in black felt tip. It looked like his grandfather's handwriting. Sam held it for a moment, running a finger over the lettering. The package had the feel of a medium-sized hardback book.
‘Well, aren't you going to open it?’ said Mr Fiddler, a thin line appearing on his forehead. He was practically drooling with anticipation, leaning over Sam on the tips of his toes.
‘Um, not just yet.’ said Sam, unzipping the rucksack he had brought and placing the package into a hidden inside pocket. He did not want to open it now. His feelings were just too raw, and he certainly didn't want to open it in front of this irritating, grinning man. Sam just wanted to be alone.
‘It's been in our possession for some time now.’ said Mr Fiddler. ‘It came to us in quite, uh, unusual circumstances.’ He was clearly frustrated that he was not going to get to see the contents.
‘Oh right.’ said Sam ‘Well, thanks very much.’ He zipped his bag closed and slipped one arm through a strap. If he was not going to get to be alone here then he would find somewhere else.
Mr Fiddler twisted his hands and looked sideways at the floor as if he was trying to think of something else he could say to prolong the conversation, but Sam got up and began to walk away, towards the door, leaving the man to stare at his back, his grin gone and frustration etched upon his features.
‘Wait.’ called Mr Fiddler, ‘I almost forgot.’ He scurried towards Sam, pulling a sheaf of pages from an inside pocket. ‘You need to sign these papers, young man. You are now the sole owner of your grandfather's home and his possessions. He left it all to you.’
‘What?’ asked Sam, dumbfounded. He had not thought about what would happen to all the things that his grandfather had owned.
‘Yes,’ said Mr Fiddler, ‘Quite the surprise, eh? Just sign here and here’ he said, directing Sam to the appropriate places on the paperwork.’ You know we would be happy to continue acting for your family’ he added ‘We’ve been solicitors to your grandfather for some time.’
Ferus crept from his hiding place at the edge of the woods to peer at the house. He was pretty sure that this was the right place. He would have to check. It seemed deserted. There were no lights on and no sign to suggest that the boy was there. He pushed the hood of his black robe back from his face with his huge hands. He crossed the empty road and ducked into the alleyway which led to the back garden. A tall wooden gate blocked his way. Looking behind himself to make sure he was not in view he ran and, pointing his outstretched hands to the floor, effortlessly leapt the gate in a single jump, his cloak billowing behind him as he moved. Despite his massive size, he landed soundlessly in the paved yard. He looked around but could still see no sign that anyone was home. He walked to the back door and examined the lock carefully. He closed his eyes for a moment, his hand outstretched and the lock clicked. Turning the handle he entered the house.
Chapter Three
Sam walked home slowly, his eyes on the grey stone beneath his feet. He reached the house and stole a quick look at the window where he thought he had seen the face before. The window was empty except for a little condensation on the bottom half, trickles of water running through it. That must have been all it was. Sam turned his key in the front door and stepped into the hallway. Immediately the house felt wrong. He crept towards the stairs, holding his breath, listening. A faint noise came from a room ahead of him and Sam's heart skipped a beat. A floorboard creaked under his foot and he immediately snatched his foot up, leaving it hanging in the air. A silent moment stretched out.
Valerie stepped into the hallway. ‘Hello, dear’ she said. She looked at Sam standing on one leg, the door open behind him and she raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you alright?’
Sam lowered his leg sheepishly.
‘Come on,’ said Valerie, ‘Shut the door, it's getting chilly out there. Did you know we left the back door unlocked?’ She turned and went back the way she had come, leaving Sam to close the door and follow her.
Having changed into jeans and a thick hooded jumper Sam called to Valerie that he was going out as he stuffed a scarf, gloves and hat into his rucksack. He crossed the empty road and ducked between some bent and rusted railings into the thick woods opposite his house. The morning mists had mostly cleared but the air remained grey and damp. Sam threaded his way through the trees, green and yellow leaves still clinging to skeletal branches above a carpet of brown. He followed a faint path to arrive on an old tarmac road, long since disused. The undergrowth was slowly reclaiming it from the sides and weeds poked through cracks and bubbles in the surface. He vaulted one of the square-pyramid shaped concrete blocks, with its rusted red-brown metal hooks set on top. These blocks were, Sam knew, designed to stop any vehicles from passing down this road, not that any would or could now. The road led nowhere. It started at some rusted gates and led through the woods to a disused tumbledown building, more a pile of stacked bricks than a structure. The army owned the land but had not used it for many years, allowing it to become overgr
own. It had had some importance in the last war but now it was forgotten. A patchwork of deep woods, cratered and tussocky fields and even deep brick-lined trenches, the woods were full of places to explore and hide. There were even a number of small, single room concrete and brick bomb shelters, but the most striking feature was the tunnel. It was called Seven Floors by all the local kids. The entrance lay in an unassuming building, deep in the heart of the woods and it drew children from all over the area. Not that many went in. It was rumoured to be haunted. Sam had been as far as the entrance inside the building to look down the long slope that led into darkness. Older and braver people had told him that that tunnel sloped down and down for miles, with rooms off each side holding old army equipment from the Second World War. Everything not bolted down had been stolen, old radio equipment here, a helmet there. Sam had been told that the tunnels could be used to get to secret places all over the county, perhaps even as far as the very edge of the London Underground. He wasn't sure he believed that but they certainly ran under his house. But Sam wasn't brave enough to go down. He preferred to climb the trees at the edge of the nearby field. He had a particular favourite. It was tough to climb, and he almost fallen from it more than once. But in its centre were a number of boards and planks, nailed in place by someone years ago. Up there you could see anyone coming into the woods. The cracked road was in plain sight, as well as the yellow grasses of the open field and the rope swing in the distance, the only really open parts of the area. Sam felt pretty safe whenever he was up there, hidden behind branches thicker than his chest.
He went there now and stretched his legs out ahead of him across the planks, his back against the smooth thick grey-brown trunk, relieved to be alone at last. He could feel the cold of the damp wood underneath him along the backs of his legs. He pulled his scarf around his neck and let his mind wander. Perhaps here he could get some peace away from other people. He felt as though no-one really understood how he felt, although a small part of him worried that that was just the usual youthful perception of the world.
As he sat there, on the edge of being too cold, he thought about his future. He had just inherited a house. The thought of the house made him wrinkle his nose. He really didn’t know what to think about inheriting that place. He had always found it a strange building, sure there were restless spirits walking its hallways and stairs. He wasn't sure that he would be able to spend time there without the warmth of his grandfather's personality to push back the darkness into the corners. And knowing that his grandfather had died there. Sam shivered. He could sell it, he supposed, and buy somewhere else, but that felt like a betrayal of Adam Hain. His grandfather had always lived there, as far as Sam knew. Where Sam had felt nervous about the spookiness his grandfather had seemed to revel in it, often praising the location and delighting in its quirkiness. Sam remembered broaching the issue of ghosts but his grandfather had given him a strange look and waved away his fears. ‘Sam,’ he had said, ‘There are no such things as ghosts. One day you'll realise.’ He seemed to want to say more but Sam had ended the conversation. The only time he ever felt uncomfortable around his grandfather was when Adam got serious like that. Sometimes Adam Hain's mind seemed to wander during these sorts of conversations and he would tell Sam stories of other places and strange creatures and dangerous men in dark cloaks. As a child Sam had listened intently to these tales of other worlds, caught up in the enchantment of it all and often both thrilled a little scared, but as he had got older Sam had found it difficult to hear his grandfather speak so earnestly about things which were so clearly nonsense. He was too old for such stupid stories although, he had to admit, that these stories were perhaps no stranger that believing in ghosts. Belief. Was that what it was? He had once, when he was quite young, awoken in the night needing badly to go to the bathroom. He had crept from his bedroom and onto the stairs. As he had looked down into the hallway downstairs he had had a momentary vision of a small figure turning the corner and disappearing. He had known instantly that the person had not been real. Terrified he had dashed back into his room and, much to his shame, had had to relieve himself in a bottle that he had found. The next day he had smuggled it out of his room and flushed the contents down the toilet. The whole thing had seemed like a dream but Sam was sure of what he had seen.
Adam Hain had had his own strange beliefs, of magic and paranormal phenomena and people who had presence, whatever that meant. All Sam knew was that the house, ‘The End of the Line’ his grandfather had named it, was haunted. He had done some research into ghosts and hauntings on days when the summer sun shone through the windows and the terrors of the night seemed far away. He had read that some thought that certain places contained an undefined energy which affected the human perception at some undiscovered level. He had read that the buzz of electricity coursing through overhead cables could cause the human ear to do strange things and hear things which were not there. But at night when darkness fell upon the house and the lights struggled to push it back, such scientific theories did not hold much comfort for Sam. Other things had happened which could not be explained in such a way, physical things. Sudden changes in temperature and the movement of objects around the house. Such events were rare but they had happened. And Sam wasn't the only one to feel the weirdness of the place. What few friends he had didn't like to venture inside. He had once been getting on quite well with one of the girls in his class. After she had visited the house once she had refused to go back and, unable to meet at her house because of her strict parents, they had drifted apart and the relationship had ended before it had really started. So, Sam had mixed views and divided loyalties about the house. He’d think about it another time, but the thought of Valerie leaving and returning to her own house filled him with dread.
As Sam sat in his tree a faint noise reached him from the road away to his right. He drew his legs up so as to be better hidden by the branches around him. Other kids occasionally visited the woods, challenging each other to enter the tunnels or to hang on the rope swing across the field, and more than once Sam had been bullied into handing over what little money he had been carrying. He generally avoided others when he was here, preferring solitude. He peered from his hiding place to look at the buckled tarmac beneath him. A man stepped into distant view. This was unusual enough in itself. Adults rarely came into the woods, with the exception of Mr Edwards who used to exercise his soppy cocker spaniel in the field. But this man was strange and, Sam saw, very large. He stopped in the road, only just visible from Sam's hiding place. He was wearing a long black coat which stretched almost to his feet, a hood pulled up against the damp air. But there was something weird about the man, not just his apparent massive size. Having stopped he made no sound but turned his head slowly this way and that almost as though he were sniffing the air. Suddenly fearful Sam drew back again so there was no chance that the stranger might see him. He was glad that he had been sitting silently and motionless when this figure had appeared. He chanced another look and was amazed to see that the man was looking at a large black bird which stood directly at his feet. The bird looked much like a large crow but there was something odd about it. It looked mangy, almost scaly; its wings more leathery than feathered. The bird bobbed its head and then bounced away. The man quickly jerked his head upright as if he had heard a noise and Sam again drew back behind the branches, holding his breath. After a minute of listening to his heart hammer in his chest, sure that it would give him away, Sam looked back. The man had gone. This was much worse. Now Sam had no idea where the stranger might be. He waited as long as he could bear then carefully and quietly swung himself down from the tree. He ducked behind a holly bush and listened but could hear no-one. He wound his way through the trees back towards the gap in the railings. A crow above him cawed loudly, bending its body down to peer at him through a beady eye, before hopping sideways along the branch and taking flight. It landed in front of him and bounced along a few times, keeping an eye fixed on him before giving another caw and flapp
ing away. Sam hurried on until the trees were behind him.
Behind Sam, but unseen by him, a small pair of eyes seemed to appear within the shadow of a small oak tree and blinked up at the treehouse which Sam had just left. The eyes belonged to a small figure who was very good at remaining hidden to all but the most watchful and patient observer and the boy had not seen him. The figure rose and remaining in the shadows cast a glance at where the robed figure had appeared on the road before hurrying after Sam towards the house.
Still unsettled by the stranger in the woods Sam crept quietly into the house. His house, he remembered. He could hear a low voice coming from the room ahead and he tiptoed down the corridor to hear who was speaking. Valerie was on the telephone, speaking quietly, a sad tone in her voice. Something about the way she was talking caught Sam's attention and as he moved closer he heard her say his name. He hung back, curious to hear what she was saying, immediately feeling guilty about spying on her. She sat side on to him, her grey hair hiding her face.
‘Such a dear boy,’ said Valerie ‘but jumps at his own shadow. He could do with some more friends, a girlfriend too. He's handsome enough, anything to get him over Adam's death and the strange nonsense he was coming up with.’
Sam heard the indistinct mumble of a voice on the other end of the line before Valerie spoke again.
‘Yes, it was so sad wasn't it? It affects so many. It scared me. I mean, did he even know that he was going senile, bless him? He was always...hmmm, exactly, but all that talk of another world. I think he saw the end.’
Sam tensed. How dare she talk about his grandfather going mad on the very day they had laid him in the cold earth? He felt a flash of anger shoot through him and a bang came from the other room. He heard Valerie jump. And say,