by Rich Hawkins
Coats hanging on a rack. A throat of stairs led to a darkened landing. The smell of floor polish. Past the cramped hallway and the kitchen, a television flickered in the darkened living room. A jumble of tinny voices.
He opened his mouth to call out, but his voice failed him. It was a struggle to move his feet, but in the end he did, and he stepped slowly through the kitchen and into the living room, where he found a man and woman sprawled on a sofa, their lifeless eyes still intent upon the black-and-white film on the television. Their throats had been torn open and their clothes were stained with blood. The woman had lost a slipper. Her dressing gown was open down the middle. Mason’s eyes didn’t linger. The man was leaning to one side, his head upon the armrest. The wound of his neck still gleamed wetly.
Mason stepped back until the wall stopped him. He put his hands to his mouth. A flashbulb image of the Dead Girl in his mind only helped the bile rise in his throat.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” His voice faded to a whisper then to nothing but the movement of his mouth.
He tried the telephone on a table in the corner, but there wasn’t even a dial tone when he placed the receiver to his ear. Nevertheless he dialled 999 and waited, but there was nothing. His heart shivered in bursts and hitched with each breath. The pit of his stomach fell away. He put the phone down then returned to the bodies on the sofa, and considered going through their pockets for their mobiles before he realised he was standing in a crime scene.
He stood shaking in the middle of the room, facing the darkness past the patio doors. Blood spray on one of the white walls and upon the cream-coloured carpet.
When he heard the creaking of floorboards upstairs, he looked towards the ceiling then noticed the framed photos on the shelves at the edges of the room. Family photos.
A man, a woman, and a boy.
A little boy. Shit.
He raised his face again to the ceiling. A breath caught in his throat. Then he went to the foot of the stairs and looked up to the landing with one hand upon the globe-shaped finial at the foot of the bannister.
Beyond the top of the stairs and the landing, soft footsteps padded across the floor. The brush of fabric against a wall. And then a soft voice, drifting out of the dark, wordless and almost mewling.
Mason waited, unable to move, covered in cold sweat.
The boy appeared on the landing and looked down. He was dressed in blue pyjamas and his hair was combed to one side above his moon-white face. Mason raised his torch towards him, and the boy shied away too late to hide the awful wound on the left side of his neck, that had bled onto his pyjama top and down one leg.
Mason’s heart sank. He lowered the torch.
The boy took the first step down. He showed sharp teeth inside his curved mouth.
“What the fuck?” Mason gasped. “What’s happening?” He felt the world shrink until it was just them both, facing each other. The edges of his vision fluttered and shook.
“You should stay,” the boy said, descending the stairs. “We can wait for my parents to wake up.” He grinned, but it was a cold thing, devoid of any warmth.
“Wake up?” Mason said. “But they’re dead.”
“Death is not death anymore, not when you’ve been blessed. Not when you are visited by him. Because he came here, to this house, and gave us his blessing. His gift. It’s beautiful and terrible and wonderful. But the gift is hungry, and that hunger burns and craves. And I am so very hungry.”
Mason’s knees locked rigid with fear.
Something moved in the living room. He took his eyes away long enough from the boy to see the man and woman rising unsteadily from the sofa.
“Stay with us,” the boy whispered. “Be of our flesh and blood.”
The man and woman made low sounds of yearning when they saw Mason at the foot of the stairs. They started towards him with intent, stalking across the floor on bare feet.
Mason turned back to the boy just as he lowered and reached for him. He shrank away from the grasping hands and lurched towards the door with a terrified cry in his throat. His foot slipped, he almost tripped on a fallen umbrella, and he knew that if he fell down now that would be the end of him.
He stumbled into the door and pulled it open. The night air pricked at his face. The starless sky above was indifferent to his terror.
“Stay,” the boy said, grinning. “Please stay.”
Mason staggered from the house, back into the dark he’d previously fled. The boy and his parents called for him to return with their tender voices and promises of comfort.
*
He emerged gasping and without thought into the streetlights of a suburban street and narrowly avoided a speeding car as he fell into the road. The car’s horn blared, and the driver’s reflection glared at him from a side mirror before the car dwindled to a small shape down the street and took an adjoining road at a mini-roundabout.
The sudden silence. The cold pavement. Air so frigid that his teeth ached with each breath. The houses to one side of the road, their windows dark. No one came out to help him.
Mason swayed on his feet and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened his eyes, his vision swam and the voice of the boy echoed inside his head. The peel of a distant siren somewhere in the city. A helicopter rattled overhead and disappeared beyond a row of houses.
Hunched over next to a streetlight, he dry heaved onto his feet and wiped his eyes with shaking hands after he was done. He thought of Calvin and Zeke, and the family in the house. Dead people. But they weren’t really dead, were they? They were something else. He put his hands to his face and cried, and realised he had left his rucksack at Zeke’s place. He bit at the tips of his fingers when he thought of returning to that house for his belongings.
Not tonight. Not ever.
Mason shambled down the pavement, slipping in puddles, beseeching the darkened windows of the houses. He was lost and half-delirious, glancing about like a frightened animal. He thought of Ellie, and his face creased and his heart winced at painful memories. The cold air and the exhaustion in his limbs slowed him until he was barely at a shuffle. His teeth chattered.
The moon was revealed from behind the clouds, and he stood and stared at it for a long while until the sky spun away from him. He reeled like a drunk. Stumbling about, he found a cramped nook between some recycling bins and a stone wall outside a community centre. He cowered next to stinking refuse bags and curled up against the wall, muttering to Ellie as if she were there beside him.
*
Two police officers found him some time later and directed questions towards his makeshift shelter of refuse.
“Excuse me, sir…”
“Are you okay, mate?”
Mason looked up at them and flinched from the torchlight. Words stuck in his throat. He sobbed. He shouted. Then he rose from his pungent nest, and before his legs buckled to send him back down, the officers held him by the arms and lowered him gently to the tarmac of the windswept car park. And he sat there, his shoulders trembling as he rambled and muttered, pressing the knuckles of one fist against his forehead.
He talked of monsters.
CHAPTER NINE
Mason woke to grey daylight, in a soft bed positioned against a white wall. There was a door on the far side of the room. He eyed the glass of water next to the alarm clock on the nearby table. Then he lay there listening to the palpitations of his heart and the stirring of his loose insides. He held his hands before his face and turned them over, examining them in the dim light, as if they were newly-formed appendages.
Beyond the foot of the bed was a window, with curtains pulled back to the edges of the rail. Floral wallpaper. A carpet coloured somewhere between white and cream.
Weak and aching, he sat upright, and the thick duvet fell to his chest. He rubbed his eyes, ran his tongue over his teeth. Scratched at his throat with dirty fingernails and swung his legs from underneath the duvet. He sat on the edge of the bed, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eye
s to let the dizziness pass from his head. And when he was done he looked at his bare legs, because someone had undressed him down to boxer shorts and his Metallica t-shirt. His clothes were draped over the back of a wooden chair near the end of the bed. He was flexing his toes on the carpet when the door opened.
He started, looked up, and was surprised to see Ellie enter the room.
*
In the awkward silence they regarded each other, and it was only broken by Mason’s nervous voice. “Is this real?”
Ellie didn’t move from the door, her face barely hiding her discomfort. Her hands were clasped together. She shifted on her feet. “How are you feeling?”
“What happened?”
“The police brought you here. They found you lying behind some rubbish bins.”
Mason exhaled into his hands. “I remember that part.”
“The bins?”
“Yeah.”
“What were you doing?”
He didn’t answer, for fear of being thought mad.
Ellie frowned. “They said you were delirious when they found you. Scared of something. Apparently you sat down on the pavement and cried. Told them that monsters were after you.”
His face burned red, and he couldn’t meet her eyes. He looked at the floor between his feet. “How did I end up here?”
“They found my address on a piece of paper in your jacket pocket. So, here you are.”
“I’m sorry,” Mason said.
“They knocked on my door at three in the morning. Woke me and half the street. You were almost passed out in the back of the squad car.”
He groaned and shook his head. “I am really sorry.”
“I told them you were homeless. They were going to put you in a cell for the night.”
“Thank you.” He kept his face lowered.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “But you’ll have to leave soon. You can’t stay here. You know that, right?”
He finally looked at her. The pensive shape of her mouth and the way she appraised him, with what was could only be embarrassment, broke his heart.
“I know,” he said. “I’ll leave once I’m dressed.”
Ellie drew in a breath and released it slowly through her mouth. She stayed by the door, keeping her distance.
“What happened to you?” There was genuine concern in her voice, and Mason loved her for it. But that unreciprocated love was like cold tendrils around his spine. Feelings change. Love dies. The remains of lost relationships were blackened hearts and broken promises.
Mason felt sick.
Ellie said, “You stank of weed when you arrived. Had you been drinking? I know it’s none of my business what you use now…” Her voice trailed away and she folded her arms.
“I’m not using anything; I only smoked a bit of weed.”
“Were you high?”
“Are you my mother now?”
“You’re a dickhead, Mason.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“You’re a mess.”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
Mason dipped his chin to his chest. He was accustomed to being ashamed, and self-hatred was a familiar travelling companion these days.
“You can stay the night, if you want,” Ellie said. “It’s late in the day, and I can’t throw you out on the street this close to dark. I’ll make you a cup of coffee and something to eat, if you want. You stink to high heaven, so feel free to have a shower and get cleaned up. Then I want you gone first thing in the morning, Mason, understand? I don’t know what happened to you last night, and I don’t much care, but you can’t go on like this. You need to sort yourself out and move on.”
He opened his mouth to speak, because he wanted to tell her about the things he’d seen last night, but in the end he just nodded in silence as she left the room.
The door shut. He sat there and listened to her walk away.
*
Mason showered and dressed. Last night’s memories came in stop-motion images. Being hunted. Being chased. Calvin’s scream as he was taken. The dead family that wasn’t dead.
His limbs began to tremble, and he sat on the bathroom floor for a short while. Acid frothed in his chest; the worst case of heartburn in living memory. A haze of steam obscured the ceiling. The warm wet air. The dripping in the shower.
He thought about returning to Zeke’s place to try and retrieve his rucksack. He wondered if Zeke and Calvin would ever be seen again, and if anyone would miss them. Would anyone even notice? Would the world notice if he went missing? He didn’t like to think about that too much.
Maybe the police would return later and ask him questions he couldn’t answer.
He retched and vomited stringy saliva into the toilet. He lowered the seat then placed his brow upon it and closed his eyes. Afterwards he went to the misted mirror and wiped away the condensation. Stared into his face, his eyes, and saw a broken thing pretending to be human.
He turned away from the mirror because he couldn’t look at himself any longer.
*
After handing Mason a coffee, Ellie cooked bacon and scrambled eggs. There was silence as she worked. When she was done she placed the plate before him on the dining table. Despite the aching hole in the pit of his stomach, he ate slowly and forked small amounts into his mouth. She watched him from across the table, a mug of milky tea steaming between her hands.
Winter sunlight through the window above the sink. Mason glanced at the wall clock. How long until dark? He tried not to think about it.
“Why are you still wearing your wedding ring?” Ellie asked him.
He paused with a forkful of scrambled egg at his mouth. Looked at her. “I don’t know.”
“Really?”
“Does it matter?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
She placed her mug on the table. “On what you’re after…”
“I’m not after anything.”
She shook her head. “You came to the town to see me. Did you think we’d reconcile or something? You’d sweep me into your arms and we’d live happily ever after?”
“No,” he said, and sighed. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know much, Mason.”
He chewed his food and swallowed. “I know.”
She finished her tea then stood and put her mug on the draining board. She rearranged the dirty plates and bowls in the sink.
“I have to go out in a minute,” Mason said.
“Okay.”
“I won’t be gone for long, I hope.”
“Okay.”
“You’re not going to ask me where?”
With her back to him, she turned on the taps. Thin streams of water fell into the sink. Her hands moved in the basin. “None of my business. Like you said, I’m not your mother.”
He looked at her. She didn’t turn around.
CHAPTER TEN
Mason stood before the abandoned house. The sky had darkened. Specks of rain fell against his face. The bread knife he’d taken from Ellie’s kitchen was in the pocket of his jacket. In one hand was the penlight torch. He took a deep breath. Cramps in his stomach and bile in his chest. He looked around then started towards the house.
*
The front door had been thrown into a large patch of weeds and brambles. Despite the rain Calvin’s blood stained the grass. Mason stood at the doorway and pointed the torch inside. It was a struggle to move his feet over the threshold and the dried blood just inside it, but in the end he did, then walked deeper into the house.
The downstairs rooms were empty of life. He swept the torch over the bare walls. He recovered his rucksack and went through it to check nothing was missing. Calvin and Zeke’s bedding was still on the floor. Their belongings were still stored in one corner and along the wall.
Mason stood in the sorry little room that still smelled of smoke and dust, and listened to the quickening rain upon the old house. Such sadness
passed over him that he had to crouch upon the floor and bow his head for a moment.
And then he heard the creak of an upstairs floorboard.
*
Mason took the stairway one slow step at a time, his legs trembling, and mouth open as if he were preparing a scream.
The shifting of the walls around him. The voice of the wind through nooks and recesses. The flapping of something loose on the rain-dashed roof.
He stood on the landing in the dark, and the torch only lit a small patch of floor ahead of him. The bacon and eggs sloshed heavily in his gut.
He found them in a room at the back of the house, sprawled around one another on the floor. Sleeping or dead. Or both. Calvin, Zeke, and the family from the other house. And in the corners at the far end of the room were two women and three men huddled together, limbs entwined in rest, like creatures in a nest. All of them were pale to the point of being bloodless, and wearing the same clothes as last night, streaked and matted with dirt. There were dead leaves and black soil scattered around them. Twigs in Zeke’s hair, and scratches under his eyes. There was dried blood around Calvin’s mouth and on his beard, and smeared on parts of his face. A spider skittered across the little girl’s stomach and vanished into shadow. Her parents were locked in an embrace, their heads resting on the other’s shoulder.
Mason stood there for a while, too scared to raise his breathing above a whisper. The rain stopped. The torchlight waned, flickered for a heart-stopping second and then returned to its original brightness.
He stepped towards them. He crouched next to Calvin. The old man lay on his back; his face held an expression like the satisfaction of a long hunger had been sated. He looked at peace. His hands were clasped together over his stomach, raggedy fingernails filthy with blood and dirt.
Calvin’s silver cross hung limply from his neck. Mason thought about that for a minute.