Under a Watchful Eye

by Adam Nevill

  ‘Maybe he did know, but the truth was too sad to acknowledge. Or maybe he was a total narcissist. A psychopath. No conscience. And you were his perfect victim. That might explain why he’s tracked you down. You might not be hallucinating, Seb. Because that’s what I don’t get, why you keep seeing him . . . or think you’re seeing him now.’

  ‘That makes two of us. No one can appear and disappear like that. It’s no trick. And it doesn’t explain how . . . everything seems to change before he appears.’

  6

  Down the Last Valley

  A sense of having been amongst a group of whispering people, who were moving through a cement culvert, receded from his mind.

  Seb could see the darkened room surrounding the bed.

  Becky was already sitting up, her fingers spread across her cheeks. A gesture she made if something upset her in a film.

  She said, ‘Can you hear it? Outside?’

  Her frightened eyes increased the disorientation of Seb’s own rousing. And he could hear something too, a noise that he shouldn’t have been able to hear from inside the bedroom. For the second time recently, he believed that a large animal was moving along an external wall of the house.

  Becky had gone to bed before him. He’d stayed in the living room and moved from beer to bourbon. She’d been asleep by the time he joined her, which was only when his mind had finally exhausted itself, adrenalin having run through him like rusty water mixed with ethanol, to leave him shaky. He’d always assumed that his apprehension before he retired led to the frequency of the troubling dreams. But if Becky had heard it too . . .

  They both saw the blinds moving over a window that Becky must have opened. He hadn’t noticed it was open when he came to bed, and now they were too frightened to get out of the bed to close it. The disturbance outside neared the open window.

  Other objects in the dark room became clearer, as if the room was close to a source of illumination. Though the soft light’s origin was not visible, the outlines and shapes of the bedroom furniture offered some familiarity.

  But when Seb finally sat up, he saw that a tall man was standing at the foot of the bed, on his side.

  Becky now slept soundlessly beside him, unmoving, her face turned away.

  How?

  He realized he’d just dreamed Becky being awake. But his shock at having passed from a dream into the actual room, without noticing the seam, was worsened by the lingering silhouette of the figure.

  Seb couldn’t see a face, but was certain the form belonged to the man they’d been discussing for most of the evening. Ewan Alexander was inside the house.

  Seb didn’t speak or move. Bewildered and cold with shock, he waited expectantly until he noticed that the ill-defined head of Ewan did not appear to be looking down at him, but was angled away. The head was turned to the window, the one that had been open just before. It was now closed and covered by the unmoving blind.

  From inside his own mind, or perhaps these sounds originated from within the room, Seb heard several muted voices that ran over each other.

  He was reminded of when Ewan used to talk to himself, when he was drunk and he produced streams of nonsense in odd voices, spoken quickly and horribly. When they were students, Seb had often overheard him doing that in his room. Back then it had been much louder as if there were other people inside his room. It was something Seb had always put down to drugs, that ability of Ewan’s to speak in tongues. He’d also imagined that he was overhearing a cartoon filled with devils.

  When the stench hit him, Seb stuffed bedclothes against his mouth.

  He’d never smelled anything as foul since the time he’d entered an empty tube carriage, years before in London, and then quickly realized why the carriage was deserted. A pile of clothes had lain discarded on a seat. The foetid odour arising from them had made the unventilated space unbearable. The refuse’s odour had attained a specific pitch, when the smell of an unwashed human body became akin to the stench of regurgitation. He’d been more aghast at the circumstances that had forced another citizen to reach that state, and to undress on public transport.

  Seb felt fully awake now . . . but realized he was lying in the bed beside Becky again. She was asleep and lying in a new position, facing him.

  Two dreams. One into another. Am I even awake now?

  Seb sat up.

  The figure was gone from the end of the bed and so was the smell. Or so he thought, though he may have detected a residue of oily sweat in the air. Maybe the second dream had been so vivid that his nose was deceiving him.

  He left the room and lit up the hall, then the other three empty bedrooms. He checked the two ensuite bathrooms and a little dressing room nervously, checking for legs and feet under the suit bags on their hangars.

  Turning the lights on and clearing his throat as if to provoke an intruder, he went upstairs and searched the living room and dining room, the kitchen, his office, the small utility room. All were neat and empty, the windows closed and locked.

  Seb moved to the ground floor. There was a short hallway down there, a spare toilet and the door that opened into the garage, the latter occupying most of that level. He found nothing unusual. All was secure, pristine and as empty of life as it had been when he’d gone to bed. Only he and Becky were inside the house.

  It wasn’t yet four a.m., and he’d not turned in until one in the morning, but he had no desire to return to his bed.

  Hours later, dawn had already come and gone when the phone’s trilling jerked Seb awake on the sofa. It was his agent, Giles White.

  ‘You might have seen them, Seb. Another hundred went up yesterday. I’ll be doing all I can to get them removed with the help of your publisher, first thing Monday morning. So don’t worry about a thing.’

  Seb’s head wasn’t the only thing that remained thick with sleep. His voice was as much a gargle as it was a word. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The reviews. I’m afraid that sock-puppeteer has been at it again.’

  Stupid paper-thin story, poorly developed characters, clichés.

  Piss poor. Keep it in the toilet and wipe your arse on it!!!

  Avoid at all costs!!! Don’t waste your time, even if it’s a free download or you find it in a bargain bin in a charity shop.

  A chore to get through. Have no idea what all these people think is frightening about this tosh. The ‘author’, and I use this word lightly, knows nothing about the wonder and terror of the supernatural.

  Total tripe. Author’s friends are giving him five stars. He’s a total fake.

  Lazy . . . completely unsatisfying . . . worst book ever . . . no stars . . . free books are better than this . . . worst book I’ve ever read . . . how did this rubbish ever get published . . . couldn’t have been more wrong, bored me to tears . . . worst book I’ve ever read . . . ‘convaulted’ (but must have meant convoluted) . . . gave up halfway, gave it to a charity shop . . . one of the worst books I’ve ever read . . . rubbish . . . waste of time . . .

  The reviews had piled up on Goodreads and Amazon, all penned by his old enemy who went by names that were now so tediously familiar: goddess50, hindererfolk, phakerevealer, crookidityidity62, sixthsenser, keirosmaster, parasoma_guru, arosoma+mage, vastjetblacknessboy, praiserofnothingness, extremelyrelaxedsleeper, perceptualmaestro, weightlessness&freedom, nonexistanttravellar, terminationofliars, hazzardouscognition, vitalvehicle, summerlandman.

  Seb had mostly stopped caring about bad reviews years before, and mainly because he’d stopped reading them. He found they taught him little about his books other than that they confounded many expectations, or were simply not to the taste, or even sophistication, of some readers. And their taste was often mistaken for an arbitrating authority on quality. Many commentators appeared to want attention at any cost. The need to be heard and acknowledged the motive. Others were just unstable.

  A glance at the new crop of stinkers revealed the traits of the hater that his books had mostly encountered over the last two years. He’
d assumed the sock-puppeteer was an undiscovered writer. User names often changed, but the puppeteer still occasionally littered his reviews with literary terms, as if possessing some expertise, or believing that he did, while attempting to adopt an ordinary voice to disguise a more knowledgeable status.

  The earlier reviews had been composed more carefully. There had been some affectation of erudition and attempts at wit. But the author now repeated himself with hyperbole, and with the telltale emphasis of ‘ever’ and the four exclamation marks. The juvenile toilet analogies were repeated as imagination failed and the fatigue from repetition set in. These notices were shorter and shriller.

  The puppeteer had roared for two years, but Seb had work to do and readers who waited.

  His agent and publisher had complained to the retailers and review sites favoured by the puppeteer, but these days, who had the staff to deal with the great numbers of people who passed through and left their graffiti everywhere? Even bad reviews suffered from discovery hell.

  ‘What you doing?’ Becky stood in the doorway. She looked ashen and tired and was wearing his gown. Her feet were bare, her hair tousled.

  ‘My agent called me. My number one fan is back.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said distractedly. ‘How many this time?’

  ‘Triple figures.’

  ‘New book?’

  ‘Yep, taking the ratings down to one star overall.’

  ‘Can I make coffee?’ she asked and Seb suffered the impression that Becky was no longer listening.

  ‘I’ll make it. I’ll get us some breakfast too. I have some rolls. Bacon and eggs.’

  She smiled and asked him if he’d slept.

  ‘Barely.’

  ‘Snap.’

  ‘Why? Sexual frustration and hysteria after my floundering yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘Stop fishing. That was no big deal. I think I just had the worst dream of my entire life.’

  Seb had to swallow. ‘Dream?’ He didn’t add me as well, but his surprise at Becky’s admission was tinged with the reckless excitement that precedes a corroboration of the unlikely.

  Becky mock-shuddered her shoulders. ‘Really weird. I don’t want to remember the bits that are still fresh. I’m off seafood for a bit, that’s for sure.’

  Seb followed her into the living room and took to the kitchen reluctantly. He was desperate to know what had upset her in the night. But he didn’t want to rush her and felt that this wasn’t the time, so they proceeded to eat the toasted rolls, coffee, juice, bacon and eggs when they were ready. He knew she liked the fare as an occasional treat, and only when she was away from home.

  The food, a shower, then an hour of being awake in a house bright with sunlight slowly brightened Becky’s mood, but not Seb’s. His own nightmares and the bad reviews were fresh intrusions, and his paranoia was sufficient to attribute the reviews to the same force that had recently pitted itself against him. Though a connection between the two would be hard to prove. The reviews had continued for years, the sightings of Ewan were recent.

  As he showered and dressed, Seb became angry. He still had no clear idea whether he was seriously disturbed, or if, by some miracle, Ewan Alexander had mastered the ability to appear and vanish from his sight like an illusionist. But this was his world, the real world, a place of comfort and technology made comprehensible by science. He liked it and refused to let it go. Admitting to himself that he was hiding at home, and cowering behind a female guest too, didn’t come easily, but he’d found a strength during Becky’s visit that had been lacking when alone. He wanted to fight back now, wanted to strike out at whatever it was that had crept in. Going about his business as usual would be a start.

  ‘I suggest we take a walk through the woods to the cove,’ he said. ‘Then grab a late lunch at the Court. Fancy it?’

  ‘Absolutely. Love to.’

  That settled it. They’d go out as a determined front.

  But things can change.

  ‘Us both having bad dreams?’ he said later as he pulled on his coat in the hall. ‘It seems odd that we both had nightmares last night. No dickie tummies and we both ate different meals.’

  Becky grimaced as she came down the stairs, rummaging through her bag. ‘Mmm? It was so strange because I was sure I’d woken up.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. I was in your bedroom. I could see everything clearly, as if the landing light was on and shining inside the room. And there was someone outside the house, crawling or something. It sounded like someone was rubbing themselves against the wall, or dragging themselves down the side of the house. You were asleep and lying with your back to me. You didn’t wake up. And the window was open. I was too scared to get up and close it, you know, before this thing got in.

  ‘I could hear these voices too. Tiny voices. They were tiny elderly voices. Old people. A crowd of them. They were in the room somewhere, like in a corner that I couldn’t see, or in the air above the bed. It was horrid. Where does this stuff come from? I never remember dreams. It must be you! Your fault, freaking me out about that face at the restaurant window!’

  With some difficulty, Seb opened the front door.

  He parked at the pub and led Becky to the stile at the edge of the farmland bordering Marriage Wood. This was an area of ‘outstanding natural beauty’ according to UNESCO. The wood would be carpeted with bluebells and Seb thought this area might enchant Becky, and perhaps help make amends for what he’d put her through that weekend.

  If the treetops in the wood were a wind-blown chaos in a gale, the ground remained oddly still and Seb liked the airy, vaulted spaces extending for hundreds of feet between the myriad trees on the slopes. When Seb wandered through the wood he usually only came across occasional dogs and their owners, in the foot of the valley before the trees leapt up the slopes and loomed over the trails below.

  Amidst the sweet beech and larch that morning, and all the way to the sea, they came across no one. He led Becky along the main trail, passing the ruined limekilns that once produced the materials that built Torquay and fertilized the surrounding land. He pointed out to her the excavation craters that pitted the earth, all overgrown with ivy, as were the pale slabs that suggested ruins of a greater antiquity.

  The intended destination was a sheltered cove where the water became an enticing aquamarine colour as it deepened, while the shallows were so clear that a photograph failed to reveal the water’s surface. Seals often frolicked in the cove, or followed those patient fishers, the grebes, around the shoreline and towards Brixham harbour.

  As they lost sight of where they had entered the trees, and before they were in sight of the stone gateposts at the rear of the cove, Becky stopped walking and sucked in her breath as if she’d trodden on broken glass. Seb turned to see what was wrong. ‘What?’

  She didn’t answer him, but appeared troubled by something she’d seen. Her head was angled to peer up the slope on the right side of the trail.

  Seb moved to where she stood and noticed that her face had adopted an expression identical to the one accompanying her narration of her dream. She whispered, ‘I thought . . .’ Then added, ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  Seb followed her stare and peered through the trunks, part furred by khaki moss and black ivy. The bonier branches had once given him the idea that such trees might resemble the magnified legs of insects. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I could swear . . . up there . . . there was an arm that waved.’

  She wasn’t making much sense and struggled to find the words in the right sequence for whatever had caught her eye. ‘Sometimes trees look like people, don’t they?’ She tittered after she’d spoken, embarrassed. ‘I’ve been reading too many of your books.’

  Seb didn’t suggest a return to the car. That would involve going back the way they had come. Instead, as they were almost clear of the trees, they could follow the coastal path into the harbour.

  They continued towards the cove until Becky stopped again. ‘There!’ Her voice
was quiet, but tense and insistent. ‘God, it made me jump.’

  ‘It?’ Seb stared at the ridge above them. ‘Where?’

  ‘I’m not pointing,’ she whispered, as if nervous about drawing even more attention to herself.

  ‘Someone is up there? Where?’

  ‘Watching. Looking right at us.’ Becky seemed to retract her head into her shoulders as if suddenly cold. ‘Do you see? Or am I imagining it? Jesus, what is that? Something over their face?’

  ‘Who? I can’t see . . .’ And then Seb did see something that he had initially mistaken for a profoundly twisted tree.

  Surely people can’t grow so tall. Though if that was a person, then it was someone that must have been standing behind a groping branch, with a body that matched the trunk’s woody contortions, while peering down at them.

  Or were they? It wasn’t easy to see who was up there, nor easy to guess why anyone would be on the ridge. And if that was a man, then his legs must have been obscured by the thick nettles between the trees. What was visible, however, made Seb think of Ewan.

  Becky touched his arm. ‘I don’t know . . . Seb?’

  His concentration rewarded him with a suggestion of a figure in dark clothing, even a formal suit that was tight on a pair of impossibly long arms. And if he could see a hand then the hand was pale enough to be mistaken for limestone, or fungi attached to dead wood. The hand was positioned as if a long arm had been extended to grasp the fallen timber before it.

  The only other detail that struck Seb was a covered head. Was that a head? If it was, there was something about the position of the head, and how it was cocked but held still, that made him feel unwell with fear. And whatever was looking at them from within the hood compelled Seb to look away. A meeting of his eyes with those distant and indistinct black holes was too great an ordeal.

  Becky sucked in her breath. ‘Oh God. It’s moving.’

  Seb flinched, then looked up again and saw a flurry that later reminded him of a dancer able to swing the upper body to one side while their feet remained planted on a stage.