Peter shook his head. “This baby is the reason!” he said, hoping he was making some sense. “The reason why the Hathaways are still here! They discovered and removed four bodies from the house back in the fifties – three murders and a suicide – but what they didn’t know, what they couldn’t have known, was that there was a fourth murder.” He swallowed, and it hurt like a sonofabitch. When (if) they ever got out of there, Peter knew it would take many drinks just to get the taste of the place – the stench of death – out of his mouth. “That baby’s body is still here, and that’s the only reason why Roger Hathaway’s tearing the place up like it’s 1959, why the wife and daughters are still lurking about the house. We have to find where that baby was buried. It’s the only way we’re ever getting out of here in one piece.”
“Go on then, dear,” Dawn said. “You go and have a good rummage around, and we’ll wait here. If you’re not back in ten minutes, we’ll just wait longer.”
Peter was about to argue his case (even though he didn’t really have one) when he had an epiphany, one that he hadn’t really asked for and didn’t care for, but an epiphany nonetheless.
“The loft,” he said, pinching his nose between thumb and forefinger.
“Yes, the loft, lovely,” Dawn said. “You go and have a little looksee up the loft, and Lorna and me, well, we’re quite alright where we are, thankee very much.”
“What about the loft?” Lorna said.
“It’s where the baby is,” Peter said, staring toward the damp, stinking ceiling. “It’s where Roger Hathaway buried the body, beneath the floorboards.”
Lorna shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Why would he bury the baby’s body but leave all the others where they were? Why bury the baby at all if you’re only going to shoot your own face off in the bathroom?”
“He didn’t kill the baby,” Peter said. It was the second epiphany he had had in the space of two minutes, and he had to admit, they hurt like a bastard. A third would probably finish him off. “Like you said, childbirth was different back then. Midwives were in short supply, mothers preferred to give birth at home with nothing more than a warm towel, a copy of Women’s Own, and a packet of digestive biscuits.”
“Can we skip to the end of this?” Dawn asked, shivering. “I’ve got a tit out here, and it ain’t getting any warmer down here.”
Peter took a deep breath before speaking. “Let’s say Rose Hathaway was here, about to give birth. She’s got Roger Hathaway running around the place looking for warm towels and digestives. The girls, Belle and Veronica…well, they’re up in their rooms doing whatever it is that young girls do, because the last thing they want to see is their mother’s dilated vagina. With me so far?”
Lorna and Dawn nodded.
“Right, so, it’s all very stressful, but Roger Hathaway is probably smiling for the very first time in the last ten years because he’s hoping for a boy, you know? Just to even the score around here. So Rose Hathaway eats her digestives, does a crossword, whatever it is women do when they’re pregnant, and then when the time comes for her to pop Baby Hathaway out, things go accordingly, and out it pops, and lo and behold, it’s got a little willy. So Roger Hathaway is over the moon. He’s finally got his lad and, after chewing through the umbilical cord, or whatever it is that fathers do when their wife’s just dropped a sprog, and so off he goes to plan fishing trips and football matches and visits to whatever passes for a strip club in the fifties.”
“But then…?” Lorna was intrigued. She made a mental note to pick up one of Peter’s books if they made it through the night, for he was a damn fine storyteller.
“But then a few weeks down the line, Little Boy Hathaway develops a nasty cough; perhaps he chokes on one of Rose Hathaway’s thimbles. Whatever happened, the poor kid didn’t make it, and so, deeply saddened by the loss of his only boy, Roger Hathaway marches up to the loft and buries the child beneath the floorboards. Since there were no records of the kid being born in the first place, there’s no funeral, no cemetery burial, just a clawhammer, some nails, and a miserable afternoon in Hathaway House at the edge of the Forest of Dean.”
“This is like something out of Poirot,” Lorna said. “Have you ever thought about growing a moustache?”
“Anyway,” Peter continued, “A few weeks – months – later, the house is still in mourning, only Roger Hathaway’s taken it worse than anyone. He’s up in his room, crying, losing his damned mind, when all of a sudden he realises that he doesn’t want to live anymore.”
“But lopping the heads off his baby girls?” Dawn said. “That’s a bit bloody much, wouldn’t you say?”
“Quick, though,” Peter said, almost defending the butcher of Hathaway House. “One slice with an antique sword – job’s a good ‘un.”
“And strangling his wife with the belt?” Lorna said. “Why not just shoot her? Shoot them all?” She couldn’t believe the words falling from her lips.
“Maybe he only had one shell,” Peter surmised. “Do you know how hard it is to commit suicide by chopping one’s own head off?”
Dawn and Lorna shook their heads: no.
“Well, I should imagine it’s not easy,” Peter said. “Anyway, we’re digressing. The baby is the thing keeping them here. Once we locate the body – which, as I’ve already told you is in the loft – the spirits of the Hathaways will be on their merry way.” Not that they had ever been merry in life, if their photograph collection was anything to go by. “And once they’re gone, I think we’ll be able to get the hell out of here without disintegrating on the porch.” Of course, that was all speculation; he wouldn’t want to be the first to step over the threshold.
“Go get ‘em then, tiger,” Dawn said, planting her arse on a stack of dusty suitcases. “If you run, we can be out of here before sunrise. ITV7 will be in court by lunchtime, and that dratted producer, Callum Whatshisname, will be serving a ten-stretch by sundown.”
“I need your help,” Peter said. “If I’m going to make it to the loft, you’re going to have to distract the master. He’s not going to be in a very good mood, so if you could just give him the runaround for a few minutes, that would be grand.”
Lorna looked like she might cry once again; Peter was quite surprised when she didn’t. “Okay,” she said. “We’re in this together, and together we’re going to get the fuck out of here.”
“Very nice,” said Peter, making his way toward the stone steps leading up to the door that led out to almost certain death. “And Dawn?”
“Yes, dear?”
“Cover that crusty nipple, will you? It’s terribly distracting.”
25
They’ll be waking up soon, thought Trev, at roughly the same time his brother thought the exact same thing. Waking up, doing things…thank fuck for that. He’d endured slow nights before, but this one…well, this one had left him depressed and bilious in equal measure.
“I-Spy,” said Noddy, “with my little eye, sumfing beginnin’ with D.”
“Do we have to?” Nev said. He was reluctant to continue the game due to Noddy Holder’s insistence that ‘Yower sleepin’ bag’ was an acceptable I-Spy object. “I feel like we’ve been playing this shit for days.”
“I think we have,” Trev added.
“Cum on, lads,” Noddy said. “It’s passin’ the time, ay it?” He looked pleadingly at each of them. Nev couldn’t stand those sad puppy-eyes.
“Alright,” he said. “Something beginning with D.” Nev glanced around the room; Trev didn’t bother. “Something… beginning… with the letter… Deeeee.” It would, Nev knew, be something close by, for they were in a large tent, and there was nothing, no object, more than six metres away. “If this is something like ‘drunk cup o’tay’ I’m not going to be impressed, Noddy.”
“It wow be,” Noddy smirked. His huge ginger sideburns did a little dance on the sides of his face, almost as if they were independent of him. Whatever the answer was, he was feeling pretty smug about it.
“Deeeee,” Nev said, still scouring the tent. “Is it dials?” He was referring, of course, to the many dials set out on the console at the desk.
“Nope.”
“Is it desk?”
“Nope.” Noddy shook his head this time, still grinning.
“AH!” Nev said, convinced he had the right answer. “It’s Doritos!” He pointed to the empty bags lining the edge of the tent.
“It ay,” said Noddy.
Nev visibly deflated and, in that moment, could have quite easily reached across, latched on to the Slade frontman’s massive porkchops, and pulled him in a for a peppering of headbutts. Instead, he took a deep breath, said three Hail Mary’s, and moved on with the game.
“Dairy?” he said, motioning to the empty carton balancing precariously at the edge of the desk.
“Nope.”
“Dates?” He pointed to an open calendar.
“Nope.”
“Dick?” He whipped his penis out and shook it from side to side.
“Nope,” Noddy said. “And yaw might want to see a doctor about that.”
Nev tucked himself back in. “Okay, I give in,” he said. Truth be told, he’d had enough of the stupid game, and the sooner the sun came up, the better. “What’s the answer?”
Noddy smirked. “Yow sure yow’m givin’ up?”
Nev nodded. Next to him, Trev sighed and contemplated suicide.
Noddy leaned in, as if what he was about to say would blow their minds. “Dead midget,” he said.
Nev closed his eyes. Telepathically communicating with his brother, they discussed which one of them was going to do the murdering and which one would do the burying. “Noddy, you have to be able to see the thing you’re naming,” Nev said.
“I know!” Noddy said, pointing up at the bank of monitors. “And I’m bloody seeing it. If that ay a dead midget, I dow know what is.”
The Lovecraft brothers sighed in unison, spun their chairs around to face the monitors. “Oh,” said Trev. “He’s right. Well done, Noddy.”
“Cheers.”
“Hang on a minute!” Nev lunged to his feet, so quickly that he almost blacked out. “What the fuck is a dead midget doing in a room that used to have a live midget in it?”
Trev stood slowly, for he wasn’t as stupid as his brother. “That’s Victor Hoof!” he said. “Oh my GOD! What’s happened!?”
From monitor to monitor they went, taking in the massacre, the brutality, the fucking inhumanity of it all. After several upchucks, Nev Lovecraft reached for his mobile phone and began to frantically push at the buttons. Trev stood motionless, hands on head, sweat pouring down his face. They weren’t insured for something like this! This would be the end of them…
“Callum?” Nev said into the phone. “Get down her right now. Something… something terrible’s happened!”
A pause and the sound of a distant and panicked voice.
“No, Noddy hasn’t shit all over the tent,” Nev said, exasperated. “Just get down here right away. We’re in big trouble! They’re all dead, Callum! The celebrities! They’re all fucking dead!”
“Not all of them,” Trev said, motioning to the screens, upon which three dark figures gingerly stepped out onto the hallway from what appeared to be the basement. Five brutal slayings out of eight was still pretty bad, though, even for a reality show.
Nev hung up and turned to the screens, watching as the trio of survivors moved through the shadows.
“Do I still get a point for me answer?” Noddy asked.
26
“Stay close,” Peter said. A moment later, he added, “Not that close, Lorna.” He was almost certain he’d heard a rib crack.
“Do you know where the loft is?” Dawn whispered.
Peter nodded. “It’s up-fucking-stairs,” he said. “On the penultimate floor.”
“No need to be terse with me, dear,” Dawn said as she rustled alongside him like some sort of monochrome-photograph-dress-wearing hobo. “You’re not too old to put over my knee.”
“Shhhh,” Lorna reminded them. This wasn’t the time for in-fighting.
At the foot of the stairs they came to a stop. Around them, the cameras seemed to be whirring into life for the first time that night. It was as if they were powering up – clicking and bleeping and generally making themselves known. Which meant that everything that had happened here – the murders of some of Britain’s most favourite Z-listers, not to mention the emergence of several spirits that would have finally put an end to all the speculation about the afterlife – had not been recorded.
Peter was suddenly struck by a terrible thought. What if they made it out alive, only to become suspects? To the outside world, ghosts and evil entities were about as real as honest politicians and 100% genuine chicken KFC. In other words, they would all need damn good lawyers.
That could wait, though, for now they had bigger problems.
Like how to traverse the creaky-ass stairs without making a sound.
“I know three, five, six, nine, and twelve are pretty noisy,” Peter said. “If we avoid those ones—”
“We’ll end up on our arses at the bottom of the stairs,” Dawn muttered.
“We’ll end up on our…no we won’t,” Peter said. He was about to say something else when a long, almost wolf-like howl echoed down the hallway. It was, like nails down a chalkboard or dubstep, a terrible sound, and on and on it went. After about thirty seconds – in which Peter, Dawn and Lorna would have been much better off running away – the noise tapered off to reveal a wheezy voice.
“Blimey!” said the voice, which belonged to Roger Hathaway. He stepped out through the wall, knocking a painting of a couple of buzzards askew. “Must be getting old. Years ago, I could have kept that up for hours.”
The terrified trio stood motionless at the foot of the stairs, frozen like statues, paralysed with fear. If Peter hadn’t said something, they might have remained there in aeturnum. Luckily, Peter did say something, and that thing was, “RUN!”
Lorna was off the quickest, proving that she didn’t need water around her to move like shit off a shovel. Peter leapt the first four stairs from a standing-start, surprising even himself. It was only when both he and Lorna reached the top that they realised Dawn hadn’t moved a muscle.
There she stood at the bottom of the stairs, arms folded across her insubstantial chest, bottom lip pulled up over her mouth so that it almost touched her nose. She looked like that schoolteacher everyone gets, the one whose knowledge of snare-drums and recorders are second-to-none but whose people-skills are severely lacking.
“Dawn!” Peter screamed. There was no point in whispering now. You don’t shut the stable door once the horse has bolted. “What the effing hell are you playing at!?”
She threw a gnarled hand up dismissively. “Don’t try and stop me, Peter!” she said, not once taking her eyes off the approaching spirit. His eyes were red, glowing almost, as he moved toward her, licking his lips and salivating ectoplasm. “I’ve had enough of running, dear! It’s about time somebody stood up to this hoity-toity pound-shop Lord Lucan.”
“He’s going to kill you, Dawn!” Lorna screeched, jumping up and down for dramatic effect.
“Just tell Barry I’ve always loved the way he wipes off the excess mess,” Dawn said. Peter and Lorna grimaced. “Off my windows!” Peter and Lorna’s grimaces disappeared. “Tell him that he was my only window-cleaner, and that the gas-man didn’t get half the benefits he did. And tell him that—”
But that was as far as she managed to get before the ghastly master of the house lunged forwards, feet not even touching the ground, and slammed into Dawn Clunge so hard that she hit the wall behind at roughly two-hundred mph, breaking her spine instantly and leaving her wide-eyed and gasping for air. Peter Kane had never really been a fan of old people, but that was certainly no way to treat one, no matter how much they annoyed you.
“You…pussy…” Dawn said to Roger Hathaway, who was holding her u
p by her throat and slavering like a thirsty dachshund. Gone was the assured grin, replaced now by an expression of pure hatred.
“How very noble,” Roger said. “Buying some time for your friends by sacrificing yourself. Well, it won’t do any good.”
“It…already…has…” Dawn said, forcing a smile, from which blood was now freely pouring. She motioned to the top of the staircase with the only part of her she was sure she could still move: her eyes.
Roger sighed and, upon seeing that the other two were no longer standing there, said, “They can’t leave…they can’t hide…I’ll get them eventually. I’ve got all night. But unfortunately, this is the end of the road for you. On the bright side, you probably only had a couple of weeks left to live anyway. I mean, you’re older than me and I’ve been dead for nearly sixty years.” He chuckled, and it was a hearty chuckle, the kind of belly-guffaw one might associate with pirates, Santa or Brian Blessed.
“Go to…Helllll…”
A flick of the wrist later, the old lady crumpled like a refuse bag of coat-hangers. Funnily enough, she made roughly the same noise as a refuse bag of coat-hangers as she slid down the wall and hit the floor.
Roger Hathaway glared down at the dead old lady, and it was then that he noticed something. “Are you wearing my bloody photos?” he said. “Honestly, is nothing sacred around here? Of all the things you could have made a dress out of, you…” And on and on he went, and so on and so forth, until he remembered there was something he needed to be doing. “Ah, yes!” he said. “Chasing the ones that got away!”
The master’s ghost faded until nothing remained. It hurt like a sonofabitch, but he was fucked if he was taking the stairs.
27
“Quickly!” Peter said, ushering Lorna onto the wooden pull-down ladders. “We don’t have much time.” For all he knew, they didn’t have any time, but he didn’t think mentioning that would settle Lorna’s nerves. She was already trembling like an Inuit on wash-day. As she traversed the ladder, Peter kept an eye on the hallway. He noticed a blinking red light in the corner, hanging an inch or so from the roof.
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