Under a Watchful Eye

by Adam Nevill

  Ewan wasn’t inside but the television was still on, as were the ceiling lights and a lamp on a side table. The bulging bin liners and rucksack were still in place beside Seb’s favourite chair. Cider cans littered the floor, the rug was stained in three places and the floorboards were tacky from spillages.

  Seb turned the television off. The house fell silent.

  He searched for his guest and found him behind a closed door on the first floor, passed out, mouth hanging open, lying on his back. He’d eventually gone into one of the guest bedrooms and climbed onto a bed, fully dressed. There was a long, arcing smudge of dirt at the foot of the white duvet cover. Seb anticipated burning the bedclothes in the garden later.

  Maudlin and feeling sorry for himself, Seb returned to the living room, removed the empty cans and dropped them into the recycler. Ewan had also eaten three bags of crisps, two Magnum ice-creams that he’d found in Seb’s freezer, and put bread in the toaster but forgotten about it.

  Methodically, Seb cleared away the mess.

  At seven he rinsed the mop he’d used on the living-room floor a final time and straightened his spine, rubbing his lower lumbar. And immediately became dizzy as if the blood had drained from his head.

  Blinking rapidly, he tried to clear his eyes of the red motes of light that fell through his darkening vision. The ambient sounds of the room, and the sea beyond the nearby cliffs, retreated as if sucked down a drain. Sensing a scrutiny from behind, he turned.

  Ewan stood at the far end of the dining room, seeming taller than ever, his form entirely dark save for the bloodless face. Seb dropped the mop.

  Ewan smiled and stretched out a long arm to point into the living room, to somewhere near Seb. Through the unnatural silence came Ewan’s voice, but in a tone that was older and gentler, even emotionless. For a moment Seb was unsure whether the voice sounded from within the house or inside his head.

  Work to be done.

  Seb stepped backwards and submitted to an overpowering compulsion to look down. The first thing his startled eyes settled upon was the stained covering sheet of Ewan’s manuscript, spread out on the coffee table. Breathe in the Astral.

  Seb peered back at the doorway. Ewan had vanished.

  Through the open balcony doors returned the distant buzz of a lawnmower, the soft hum of a car engine, the song of the thrushes in the garden below.

  Inside the kitchen, a room now pungent with lemon disinfectant and bleach, there was no sign of Ewan.

  Unsteadily at first, but gathering purpose as he moved, Seb walked downstairs to the bedroom that Ewan had occupied.

  And found him lying upon the bed. His eyes were closed but twitching. His chest rose and fell.

  You have no idea. No idea. Ewan’s voice announced itself from behind Seb, or again from within.

  Seb turned as if he were turning inside a dream, and in the hall outside he saw the black form of a man, Ewan, who stepped away, out of sight and deeper into the passage.

  Seb forced himself to follow. He heard no footfall, not even his own, and passed into an empty hallway. There was no way that Ewan could have hidden himself in so short a time by making it into another room. Besides that, the man was still stretched out on a bed in the spare room.

  A noise erupted from the room where Ewan slept. A deep moan that rose and broke into a whine. The sound of an animal in pain.

  By the time Seb was peering through the doorway, Ewan was making the noise of a man choking to death. His freakishly double-jointed hands had also bent inwards and shook about. Tremors returned along his forearms to his shoulders. His spine suffered a spasm, arching his body into the air. Gangly legs kicked spastically into the duvet, before bending at the knee and thrusting out from his pelvis at odd angles. His eyes opened and rolled white as the muscles in his face convulsed. Froth gathered in the messy beard.

  Staring in shock and revulsion, Seb feared Ewan’s neck was close to snapping when it pulled the big head backwards. The entire weight of his upper body appeared to be supported by the crown of his skull. One of Ewan’s lower legs bent back behind his thigh and his body jumped as if electrocuted, onto its side. The muscles of his arms shuddered violently and the contorted form propelled itself, or bounced, off the bed and onto the floor. Out of sight, a coconut crack issued from the connection of a skull with a wooden floor.

  The seizure – because Seb was certain that he was witnessing one – continued on the floor, where Ewan’s body thumped about, his thin legs kicking while his torso bent backwards from the waist. The bearded face gulped at the air between mouthing words.

  The electricity in Ewan’s nervous system gradually earthed. The spasms of his muscles subsided, and soon his body merely twitched.

  Seb was clutching the doorframe with fingertips that had turned painfully white. He also acknowledged a desire for Ewan to die, right there. The moans rising from the floor, that evolved into sobs, only caused him disappointment. Suppressing the vengeful feeling, he entered the room.

  Ewan lay still and wept. The only movement remained in his long hands as they gingerly pawed about his head, in the place where it had connected with the floor and maybe the headboard too.

  Ewan was unaware of where he was. His eyes were wide open, the stare unfocused, tears adding a sheen to his cheekbones. On the carpet beside him lay a small plastic baggie. It contained speckles of a blue-white powder.

  Maybe chemical assistance was required for him to perform this unnatural transference. Seb had clearly seen Ewan in the entrance of the kitchen, and again, though less distinctly, in the hallway between the bedrooms. He had seen these apparitions while Ewan lay upon this very bed.

  Seb recalled Ewan’s silhouette standing in his room when Becky had visited. But from where had he travelled then?

  He wondered if he should call an ambulance. He supposed he should, but resisted the idea because a sullen, recalcitrant part of him wanted Ewan to remain incapacitated as oxygen deprivation caused permanent damage to his brain.

  For a while, he did nothing while a confirmation of the impossible sank through him. He just stared at the reduced, traumatized, weeping figure, until prolonged exposure to it initiated a shiver of disgust across his skin.

  A fuller awareness returned to Ewan’s eyes. When he tried to speak, he croaked. Raising one limp hand he managed to say, ‘Water.’

  ‘Is that what happens when you do this? When you perform your great miracles?’ Seb asked, and recognized the goading tone in his voice.

  Ewan said, ‘Help me,’ piteously. And it was only then that Seb saw a fellow human being in distress, one hurt and frightened and helpless. It was only then that he went to fetch water.

  9

  Sinking in Darkness, Rising in the White Room

  Jittery himself, Seb helped Ewan back onto the bed. His own shock was steadily becoming a trauma. He couldn’t see the end of it.

  He went to the bathroom and washed his hands, wishing he could cleanse away the entire mess that Ewan had imposed upon his life. Even his shirt reeked of the man. He stripped it off and dropped it into the linen basket in his bedroom.

  All this time, his head crowded with options: calling an ambulance, driving Ewan to a hospital, finding Ewan’s mother – she must be nearly ninety – scouring the local listings for hostels, and perhaps even initiating a committal by a psychiatrist.

  When he returned to the guest bedroom, Ewan was asleep. Mouth open, head back, his body limp upon the covers, he snored quietly, whistling through his nose.

  I wish you’d died.

  Seb shut the curtains, closed the door and went into the living room. Pouring himself a large brandy, he peered into the corners of the room and out to the balcony. His eyes finally rested on the darkened kitchen doorway at the far end of the dining room. Where next? And would he come again in that horrible, hooded form? The thought prompted Seb to say, ‘Never. Not again. That was the last time. It has to be.’

  He briefly imagined bringing one of his heavy crystal awa
rds down upon that greasy head that was staining an Egyptian cotton pillowcase in his spare room. A revenge fantasy because he’d never do it. Or could he, if pushed any further?

  Would death be any kind of barrier to Ewan’s influence? Was there any way of permanently getting rid of him, besides subjugating himself to Ewan’s demands and hoping for the best? Seb had to assume that a long period of time was destined to elapse before his usefulness to a man with a unique ability to terrorize his victims was exhausted.

  He checked on Ewan throughout the evening, repeatedly cracking the door to peer inside. He listened to the whistles, throat clearing and mumbles that arose from the man’s sleep. Alcohol, perspiration and the sebaceous miasmas of neglect eventually encouraged him to keep the door closed. He wished he’d opened a window in the room, but didn’t want to go back inside until Ewan was awake. God knows what might happen if he did.

  Sick with apprehension, Seb cobbled together a light tea in the kitchen. When he discovered three hairs that were not his in the butter he lost his appetite.

  Just before midnight, Ewan roused. Seb heard the bedroom door click open on the floor below.

  He raced down to catch sight of Ewan going into the bathroom, hobbling, head lowered, shoulders slumped. After a cascading urination, Ewan shuffled back out.

  Seb called out from the bottom of the staircase. ‘Ewan!’

  He was ignored. Glum, haggard and hatless, Ewan continued on his way down the passage and re-entered his room. He shut the door. The muffled noise of bedsprings depressing were detectable as the uninvited guest returned his weight to the mattress.

  It was the continuing contempt, the callous disregard for his feelings and rights, the man’s affected ignorance of deep social transgressions, that broke another chunk from Seb’s levee. He flooded again with a hot white anger.

  He thumped down the passage and threw the door open. ‘After what you pulled this afternoon, you are not staying here!’ But even as he spoke he could see that Ewan was in no fit state to move. He was exhausted, ill and bedridden. Close to a complete physical collapse.

  He’s making you responsible. Co-dependent, again.

  That was part of Ewan’s strategy. Insults followed by cries for help, grandiose literary delusions swiftly augmented by a childlike vulnerability, drunken rages interspersed with an obliviousness to any injury inflicted upon the reluctant host. Ewan had never changed. The actual sight and scent of him was maddening.

  His instability was also infectious. Seb knew this. It shook him up and then shook him apart. Ewan was loosening rivets in the scaffolding that kept him balanced. His own slide to despair was already in place. His entire existence was a construct of routines and activity born of self-discipline, of tight controls over his environment, counter-checks imposed upon apathy and listlessness, his potential for lazy thinking, persecution fantasies, paranoia, anxiety attacks and recourse to the drinks cabinet.

  He hadn’t written a word in three weeks or addressed his correspondence. Had not shopped properly, slept much or eaten adequately. He’d lost the ability to relax since his first sighting of Ewan on Broadsands. The script of his life was being rewritten while he impotently monitored the edits.

  ‘Don’t even think about getting comfortable.’

  Face drawn, the cast of his mouth doleful, the eyes pained, Ewan didn’t bother to defend his position. He was inside now. Try and move me was communicated by the collapsed posture upon the bed.

  Seb entered the room and fought with the blinds, then angrily threw two windows open. Pitch black outside. Another night with him here.

  Ewan’s sorrowful eyes watched Seb patiently, affecting innocence as if Seb were being unfair at an inappropriate time.

  ‘What happened? This afternoon, what was that? A fit? Are you epileptic?’

  Ewan swallowed. His voice croaky, he whispered, ‘It takes a lot out of me.’

  Ewan’s creepy appearances were not effortless miracles. They exacted a high price. Perhaps the processes were even life-threatening. Seb hoped so. ‘And you’re taking drugs in my house to facilitate your stalking.’

  Ewan didn’t blink, but his silent admission of how difficult this awful trick was to enact encouraged Seb. For the first time since his arrival in the area, not everything was going Ewan’s way, and Seb saw his first advantage.

  Until he regained his strength, or a modicum of it, Ewan would probably play the invalid card, in the same way that he’d played the poverty hand in London. Digressions until he’d regrouped and consolidated his baffling, controlling presence.

  ‘I want answers. You want to lie around in bed, then you’d better start talking, or you are bloody history, tonight. I don’t know who to call first, a doctor, a psychiatrist, the police, but you are out of here and this all stops, unless you start making sense.’

  The threats made no impact. Ewan continued to study Seb’s face as if trying to understand why Seb would feel this way. He’d expected terror while craving awe and admiration.

  The period of silence extended. Seb came close to shouting to break it. ‘Well?’

  ‘Do you have anything to drink?’

  ‘No!’ Seb slapped his hands against his thighs. ‘How can you even consider alcohol? I thought you’d died.’

  ‘Have you read my book yet?’

  ‘No, I haven’t even looked at it. Let’s just say I’ve had other things on my mind.’

  Ewan attempted to shake his head, dismissively, upon the pillow that was looking unhealthily dark since his head had been upon it. He winced and kept still. ‘We can exist in another place.’

  Silence resumed its frustrating command of the room.

  ‘And?’

  ‘If you’ve never sunk in the dark room and risen in white light, you won’t understand. Nor believe that it’s possible.’

  ‘Let’s just say my scepticism is on pause right now. So what is this? Some kind of . . . I don’t know, ritual magic, or hypnosis—’

  Ewan didn’t like speculation, or any attempt at a definition that wasn’t his own. ‘This has got nothing to do with magic.’ He said magic as if the very word disgusted him. ‘What’s magic? Magic doesn’t exist. And I don’t have any time for any of your intellectualism either. Not for this. You don’t know this. It has nothing to do with religious dogma either. It’s different.’

  ‘So no magic, nothing spiritual –’

  ‘I didn’t say it wasn’t spiritual. It has nothing to do with organized religion, but it is spiritual. That’s exactly what it is. But the religious can’t handle it, not any more. They’re incapable of accepting the truth.’

  ‘This is a psychic thing?’

  ‘Hardly. That barely begins to explain it. That’s like one itty-bitty piece of an incredible fresco on a ceiling above us all, but one that no one can see, in the most beautiful cathedral. A tiny piece that has fallen to the floor of this . . .’ He looked about himself at the tastefully styled room, but in revulsion. ‘Do you remember any of the poetry you read, at uni? You did the same courses as me. He hath awakened from the dream of life! You know that?’

  ‘Shelley.’

  ‘No sudden heaven nor sudden hell for man.’

  Seb shook his head.

  ‘Oh, dear, the writer . . .’ Ewan rolled his eyes and intended to continue in that vein, but noticed Seb stiffen. ‘Dearie, dearie me,’ Ewan muttered instead, and then said, ‘Tennyson. And the poets had more idea than anyone else, especially Blake. This has to be felt, deeply. There has to be faith.

  ‘A man called Heindel tried to define it. Tried to describe the enlargement, the growing, that can take place in our awareness. He argued that because we exist physically in time and space, we can only recognize ourselves in that same time and space. But imagine shedding the physical body, the vehicle, and the time and space that imprison us physically, to become a double in another place, one nearby, that has no time or space. Imagine projecting into a place that intersects this one.’

  Ewan sighed when he
saw the look of incredulity grow on Seb’s face. He closed his eyes. ‘It’s hopeless. I’m tired.’

  ‘I’m still intrigued.’

  Ewan moved higher up the bed, using an elbow. ‘It’s all in my book.’

  ‘Pretend that you’re pitching your book. Every book needs a pitch.’

  Ewan scowled, then seemed to lack the energy to sustain the expression. ‘The body . . .’ He looked at his own as if such an appraisal was a subject unworthy of consideration. ‘The body is a prison cell. Once you know . . . once you understand that, you can have nothing but contempt for the body. Inside them we don’t even know what it is to be alive. You’re only really alive when you leave your body. That’s the irony, but you cannot believe the potential we have.’

  Ewan frowned as if confronted by an infant. ‘Let me make it simpler for you. Imagine if all of your sadness and pain, everything that troubles you, all of it, anxiety, grief, disappointment, anger, were to go. Imagine how you would feel if all of the misery of being alive just fell from you. You can’t. Because you’ve never projected. You can’t imagine the ecstasy. To become so strong, like you cannot believe. Powerful. You’re suffused with . . .’

  ‘There’s nothing here –’ he looked askance at the room again – ‘that matters. This existence is a shadow of what our souls can experience at a higher level. A place where I can go. Where time and space are no longer my captors. You cannot imagine the freedom, the elation. And you never will until you die. But imagine if you could experience that before you died. I have. You asked me what I’ve been doing for all of those years since I saw you last, well, there’s your bloody answer.’

  What Ewan had said, the very diction he’d used, made Seb feel uncomfortable and also mortified for Ewan. This talk of souls, ecstasy and of being ‘suffused’ was appalling, the discourse of the charlatan. Seb hated the very sight of him more than ever, this reeking, unwashed drunk, with the tangled ropes of hair spread across his bed linen, the weather- and drink-blasted face. He was reminded of emaciated holy men in India, mad hermits, swivel-eyed cult leaders, greedy preachers, the low animal cunning of the vulpine clairvoyant, and he placed Ewan amongst their absurd ranks.