by Amy Cross
Getting to my feet, I head over to the doorway and listen, waiting in case -
Suddenly I hear another, loud bump, accompanied by a distant growl of anger.
My heart sinks.
For a moment there, I actually allowed myself to believe that the horror had ended, that Catherine had overcome her condition through sheer force of will. How foolish I am, and how desperate. Then again, perhaps it is possible that she might come to take back control of her own body, in which case time might be the only cure. Until that moment comes, however, I must continue to search for an answer in my books. Slowly, then, I turn and head back to the desk, where the books await my attention. I am so tired, I feel as if I might collapse at any moment, but I know I must keep going. I cannot afford to rest, to even close my eyes for a minute, until I have come to an answer.
Just as I am about to sit down, however, I happen to glance out the window. At which point, I see the most remarkable sight in the garden.
***
“What are you doing, man?” I ask, as I stop in front of Jack. “Have you lost your mind?”
He does not answer. Instead he remains on his knees, with his head bowed and his eyes closed, as if he is engaged in some form of religious study. I saw him apparently meditating earlier, and I assumed that was the limit of his superstition. Now, however, he seems almost to be praying. That cannot be the truth, though. A man such as Jack – so lowly and so craven – would never turn his mind to spiritual matters. How could he, when he is so unintelligent? Frankly, I am amazed he can even read and write.
“Answer me,” I say after a moment, exasperated by his behavior. “I demand to know what you think you're doing!”
Again I wait, and again he does not reply.
How can some impoverished, pathetic little runt dare think he has the right to ignore one of his betters?
“Answer me!” I bark, determined to put him in his place.
Yet somehow, unfathomably, he says nothing.
Finally, infuriated and out of patience, I storm over to him and grab the fellow by his chin, forcing him to lift his head. And when that does not work, and his eyes remain closed, I force the lids open until there can be no doubt whatsoever that he sees me. I do not like touching the wretch, but in this moment I feel I have no choice.
“What are you doing?” I ask yet again, with pure anger in my voice. “My wife is in terrible danger, my house is filled with something I do not understand, and you choose to spend your time out here on your knees?”
“I am searching,” he replies, very matter-of-factly.
“You are what?”
“I am searching,” he continues, as if it is the most natural answer possible. “There are many religions in the world, Doctor Grazier, and many other forms of belief. I do not know all of them, not nearly, but over the years I have spoken to many men from many different walks of life. And women, too. People who have journeyed to London from all the continents, who have settled in poor dwellings and who have nothing to trade but their stories. From time to time I have performed services for some of them, receiving as payment only their wisdom and their knowledge. I am trying to remember whether any of them ever mentioned anything like this. Anything that might help to explain your wife's condition.”
“What nonsense is this?” I whisper, letting go of his chin and taking a step back. “I did not have you down as quite this type of fool.”
“Forgive me for saying this,” he replies, “but it seems to me that medical science alone cannot explain what is happening. When I was down there in the basement, Sir, and I had my hand over your wife's mouth, I had a great deal of time in which to merely ponder the situation. I must confess, I began to consider possibilities that had previously seemed incredible. Some of my certainties crumbled, Sir, and I thought it would be wise to reconsider the various options.”
“Reconsider the options?” I stammer incredulously. “What options?”
“Causes, Sir. Things that might explain what is happening to your wife.”
I am just about to tell him that he is out of his mind, but then I realize that perhaps I should at least hear what he has to say. As wrong as he might be – as he will inevitably be – it might do me good to hear the ravings of a madman, if only so that my own thoughts might become more ordered as a result.
“Have you come to any conclusions?” I ask finally, even though the question seems so utterly foolish.
I wait, and now I see the fear in his eyes.
“Tell me,” I continue, feeling a ripple of fear in my chest. “If you have anything to say, then say it.”
“There are some superstitions that I had previously dismissed,” he says cautiously. “Stories that even now seem insensible, yet which might contain grains of truth. Things I was told by people who have traveled the world far beyond London's border. Stories about...”
Again I wait, and again he seems incapable of getting the words out.
“Stories about what, man?” I ask, although I immediately wonder whether I want to hear.
“Stories about the dead,” he replies, “and about what happens to them after their lives are over.”
I shake my head. I have always known that other cultures have their superstitions, stories rooted in ignorance and credulity, but I had hoped that modern enlightenment might have pushed such stories to the margins. Instead, here I am standing in the garden of my own home, in one of the most civilized cities in human history, listening to more of this prattling nonsense.
“These are stories about the spirits of the dead,” Jack continues, clearly believing every word, “and about their bodies. There are so many different stories, Doctor Grazier, and most of them conflict heavily with one another. I am not a fool, not am I an unduly credulous man. I know that a great many of these stories are mere fairy-tales. Yet as I stood in your basement, with my hand over your wife's mouth, I began to think about whether some of these stories might contained different version of some fundamental truth. I began to meditate in the basement, even with my hand over your wife's mouth, and I am continuing that meditation now.”
Again, I shake my head.
“Ludicrous,” I mutter under my breath.
“That is not your wife in the basement,” he says. “It just isn't, Doctor Grazier. You know that, I can see it in your eyes. It is your wife's body, animated by some force, but her soul is elsewhere. I fear the two might never be reunited.”
“You don't know what you're talking about,” I tell him.
“Indeed I do not,” he replies, “which is why my meditation must continue. I shall need to check your journals as well, if that is acceptable. There is so much to draw together, so much I must consider. It will all, surely, take a great deal of time, but I am fearful that we have perhaps done something in this house that we should have left well alone. The creature that even now attempts to climb those steps from the basement, the thing that -”
“The answer is in medicine!” I snap, barely able to string a sentence together as I feel a flash of anger. “Only a truly feeble mind would fall back upon primitive superstitions.”
“I hope you are right,” he says with a hint of fear in his voice. “Truly, I do. I hope you are right and that I am the greatest fool in all the world.”
“That is indeed the case,” I mutter, before turning to head back inside. “There is no point trying to explain any of this to you. Clearly you are like all simple-minded idiots. At the slightest hint of trouble, you turn away from rational thinking and resort to primitive superstitions. I would tell you to be ashamed, yet I doubt you are even capable of such a thing.”
“You spoke of God earlier,” he replies.
“I did what?”
“You spoke of God. Three times, I believe. I noted this at the time, Doctor Grazier, because I was so very surprised. Such utterances seemed to mark a break in your character, a change from -”
“How dare you?” I snap, slapping him hard on the side of the face.
“I a
m sorry,” he mutters.
“You would do well to attend to your own needs and fears,” I sneer, “and leave me to worry about my own. I will not be lectured by such a primitive creature, especially not one that I have invited into my own home. And I shall certainly not explain a few simple slips of the tongue.”
“Of course,” he says, bowing his head. “I should not have mentioned what I heard. I am sorry.”
Once I am back inside the house, however, I stop for a moment in the hallway and listen to the silence all around. I am still clinging to the hope that Catherine has reasserted herself, but I know that I cannot afford to assume that this is the case. Finally, even though I know that I should simply go back to my books, I cannot help making my way to the basement door and turning the key.
I hesitate for a moment, listening for any hint of movement on the other side, and then I carefully pull the door open a little way.
A shudder passes through my chest as soon as I see that Catherine is now around one third of the way up the steps, clinging desperately to the wood as if she fears she will slip at any moment. I stare at her for a few seconds, and then suddenly she looks up at me and lets out another hideous snarl. In the process, she loses her grip and falls back down the steps, collapsing in a heap at the bottom. For a moment she seems less like a human and more like a collection of limbs that cannot determine how they might work together. She struggles desperately until finally she manages somehow to grip the bottom step once again. I watch as she starts to climb again, and then I shut the door and turn the key in the lock.
I am trembling with fear. I must go back to my notebooks, but first there is one other possibility that I must try. Even though, deep down, I am ashamed of such thoughts.
Chapter Five
Maddie
Today
“Of course I came,” Alex says, stepping past me and heading over to the bottom of the stairs, where she stops for a moment and looks up at the dark landing. “That a-hole Simon told me you'd brought my stuff here. Can you believe he threw me out of that place?”
“Alex -”
“Hello!” she calls out, cupping her hands around her mouth and looking up toward the top of the stairs. “Anyone here? Any ghosts hanging around, thinking about haunting us? That'd be kinda lame, so you might as well just come out!”
“You shouldn't shout like that,” I tell her.
“Why not?”
“It just -”
“Hello!” she yells again, even louder than before. “My name is Alex and this is my friend Maddie. If there are any ghosts here, we come in peace but we'd really love to see you! Don't be shy. Come out and rattle your chains a bit!”
She waits again, and then she starts laughing as she turns to me.
“There,” she says, “how's that for challenging the dead? The silly old man said there's some kind of presence here, so I figured we should invite any spirits to come and say hello. Do you think your new pal could hear me from all the way over in his house?”
“I hope not,” I mutter.
“I thought I told you never to come in here,” she adds, turning to me. “Seriously, Maddie, I told you several times. This house is supposed to be totally out of bounds. Like, no-one's supposed to ever come in here, not for any reason.”
“I needed to go somewhere,” I tell her. “Things were getting kind of crazy.”
“Huh.” She looks me up and down for a moment, as if she's inspecting me. “I figured you wouldn't go to one of the shelters,” she adds finally. “Me neither. There's no way I'm letting myself get shepherded into some kind of camp. They're still on about that, you know. I had to keep looking over my shoulder on the way here. It's like anything the government does. They pretend it's for our benefit, and maybe it helps in one small way, but then they're figuring out other ways to totally screw us over.”
“The killer's still out there?” I ask.
She nods.
“Have more people died?” I add.
“Yeah, I think there was one the night before last. It's getting pretty nuts, people are really losing their minds and getting totally paranoid. Who'd have thought it, huh? Some loser starts copying Jack the Ripper, and the entire nation loses its collective shit.”
“I saw some news reports the other day,” I reply. “There were people smashing things up.”
“So have you really been hanging about here all by yourself?” she asks, stepping past me and looking down the steps that lead into the basement. “That's actually pretty impressive, Maddie. I didn't know you had the balls to do something like that, especially after I told you how creepy this place is. Who was that old guy, by the way? Did you make friends with, like, some kind of old mental patient?”
“That was Jerry.”
“He's not getting you to do stuff for money, is he?”
“Of course not.”
“He looked a little pervy,” she adds. “I wouldn't put it past him.”
“He lives next door,” I tell her. “He's a nice guy.”
“That's how they lure you in!”
“He's not like that,” I say with a sigh. “Not everyone's out to get us, Alex. Some people genuinely just want to help.”
“Well, he sounded insane,” she replies. “Absolutely, clinically insane. But kinda funny too, I guess. All that talk of being scared of the house...”
Her voice trails off for a moment.
“I can dig that,” she adds. “I feel it too.”
“You do?” I ask.
She turns to me. “Hell, yeah. Don't you?”
“It just feels like a house,” I reply. “It's cold, and it's dark, but -”
“This isn't the first time I've ever been in here,” she says, interrupting me. “I came in a few years ago, when I was having a bad time. I climbed through the broken window. I only stayed for a few hours, 'cause the place seriously gave me the creeps, but those hours were enough for me to realize that something isn't right about this house. That's how I knew to warn you away, but like you said, desperate times call for desperate measures and when I got your note, I realized I might as well come along. I can still feel it now, though. It's like a kind of panic that hangs in the air, and it gets into you. It's like pure fear.”
“So you weren't too scared to come inside?” I ask.
“Well,” she says with a faint smile, “back then, I wasn't used to living in fear. It was new to me. Now I am used to it, after all the stuff that's happened, so I guess maybe I'm a little immune. Or maybe I don't really care anymore. It's hard to say. By the way, I was poking about earlier before I heard you come back, and I was wondering. Why is there a bowl of cat food at the top of the stairs?”
***
“This is unreal,” Alex says a few minutes later, once I've led her down into the basement. “Why did I not know about this?”
She has a flashlight with her, and she shines the beam around until she spots the slab in the center of the room. Heading over, she runs a hand across the slab for a moment before climbing on and settling down on her back.
“Maybe you shouldn't do that,” I point out.
“Why not?”
She places the flashlight next to her waist, before crossing her arms over her chest and closing her eyes.
“Do you think this was, like, a morgue or something?” she asks. “They probably put dead bodies down here, back in the day. Like actual dead bodies of people who'd only just died. Tell me that doesn't give you the willies.”
“I think it might have been an operating theater.”
“No way. It totally feels like a morgue. It's just got that, like, morgue feel. I know that might seem hard to believe, but trust me, I'm really good at picking up on these things. I've got top notch instincts.”
“There's equipment here,” I tell her, heading over to the counter and picking up a few of the scalpels and knives, before making my way to the slab and stopping next to her. “See?” I add, holding the blades up. “Apparently this house used to belong to a doctor
named Charles Grazier. I talked to Jerry, the guy from next door, and he thinks Grazier carried out procedures down here. Maybe on his wife.”
“Seriously?” Opening her eyes, she stares at the knives for a moment before snatching one from my hand. “These are actually pretty cool. I might nab a few before we leave. You never know when you might need a knife on the streets of London. I used to know a girl named Ophelia who told me I shouldn't be so quick to draw, but sometimes you've got no choice.” She pauses, and then she grins at me. “Are you planning something, Maddie?”
“Planning something?” I ask.
“The way you're standing there.” She passes the knife back to me. “It almost looks like you're about to plunge one of them into me. Did I ever tell you? I've always thought I'd make a kick-ass heroine in some low budget horror flick. You know, the kind of girl who gets tied up and tortured but eventually makes it out alive somehow. I've always felt like I've got a bit of that in me. And a house like this would totally make a good setting.”
She looks down at the knives in my hands.
“Are you sure you're not planning anything?” she adds. “You're not gonna suddenly snap on me, are you, and go full-on psycho? 'Cause people do that sometimes, and I've heard it's often the quiet ones.” She stares at me for a moment. “You are a quiet one, Maddie. Sometimes I genuinely don't know what's going on in that head of yours. Are you constantly holding back the urge to kill?”
“Of course not,” I reply, setting them down on the edge of the slab.
“No?” She sits up. “Pity.”
She pauses for a moment, looking around with a hint of wonder in her eyes. I've known Alex long enough to realize that she's planning something. In fact, I can see very faint, very mischievous smile starting to spread across her lips.
“What?” I ask.
She grins at me.
“What?” I continue. “Alex, what are you doing?”
She doesn't reply.