When Darkness Falls - Six Paranormal Novels in One Boxed Set

by Shalini Boland

  Lacey leans forward and my skin chills again. “Seriously. Forget about him. He’s not worth it. He’s not worth you.”

  Lacey Holloway, the one-woman-ghost committed to bolstering my self-esteem. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. A hesitant smile forms on my lips, but then I remember how Lacey will never have another relationship and that smile is replaced by a heavy feeling of guilt: like a woollen blanket, familiar but itchy.

  “Mum said I might have a holiday romance,” I say.

  “That is a perfect idea. You need to get over Mo.” Her eyes widen with excitement. “I can be your wing-ghost.”

  I start laughing, but then catch my reflection in my dressing table mirror. My hair is long, thick and dark. Destined to never be tamed, it falls over my eyes and ripples down to my collar bones. But from the laughter, I’ve shaken it away from my pale, oval face.

  My fingers rise to my throat, which has become exposed from me tipping my head back. There I trace the lasting reminder from the fire at Magdelena. There I trace the translucent white marks left to me by Dr. Gethen. My nightmares are filled with that night. I replay it over and over. My skin warms beneath my fingertips, as though I’m there again. I pull myself away, move my hair over my neck, and try not to think about it.

  “You’re coming camping with me, then?” I ask Lacey. “Because there’s no way I’m getting through the week on my own.”

  She winks at me. “Do ducks fart underwater?”

  I frown. “Eh?”

  She laughs. “I dunno, my dad used to say it. Yes, Mary, of course I’m coming!”

  To drown out the sound of me talking to a ghost, I put on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs at full blast. Before long we’re wailing along with Karen O. Lacey dances around the room, crackling and sparking like a broken television. My suitcase fills up and I don’t even care about camping, anymore. At some point, I forget that Lacey is dead. I forget about how her body is in the graveyard three miles away, off the main road heading north. The Lacey I know is the vibrant, dancing, singing girl pogoing up and down with her arms spread wide. A rush of something—I don’t know what—fills me up from my toes to my ears. Maybe it’s that freedom I wanted.

  *

  The smell of exhaust fumes sneaks in through the open car window. The leather seats stick to my bare thighs, and the sound of honking horns is my soundtrack as everyone decides to try to travel on the motorway at the same time. In the front of the car, my parents argue while holding the AA road map across the dashboard. I lean back against the head rest of the back seat in our stationary vehicle, and zone out the traffic jam, parental swearing, and fumes by plugging in my iPod and escaping into the music.

  A few hours later—after a greasy meal at the motorway service station—we leave the major roads behind at last, and navigate the twisting rural lanes of North Yorkshire. It’s moorland here, heather growing amongst the spongy grass, stretching out for what feels like forever. Jagged rocks peek out of hillsides. The occasional sheep looks up and stares at our car, chewing its grass in a languid, deliberate motion, as though its mind is occupied elsewhere.

  I lean forward, hitting the back of Mum’s seat with my shoulder. “There’s nothing here. What are we going to be doing?”

  “We’re not there yet,” Dad reminds me, grinning at me in the rear view mirror. “Positive thinking, Mares.”

  I sigh and lean back into my seat. I guess he’s right. I let my head swing to one side, watching the world go by. This bit—I like.

  I love the way the greens and browns merge together as the car travels through the countryside. Beneath me the car rocks like a cradle. I used to read wherever we went somewhere, but now I follow the landscape with my eyes, picking out the occasional stream, the flowers in the grass verge, and the black and white splodges of cows.

  A fleeting memory pops into my mind—driving through the countryside with Dad, him slowing the car to a crawl so I can reach out of the open window and pick the long flowers swaying above the reedy grass. He had one of those “Dad” smiles—the ones where their eyes are sad because you’re growing up so fast. Then he whispered, “Don’t tell your mum. If she knew you’d had even a finger out of that window…” I’d giggled. Knowing that we were breaking Mum’s car-rules made it even more fun.

  But then the world changes. That safe feeling is pulled out from underneath me, as though I’ve leapt high into the air before glancing down to see the trampoline disappear. My heart freezes before it quickens and the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. My throat tightens. I clutch the edge of the seat so hard I feel the blood drain from my hands.

  You would think I’m used to seeing them now, but I’m not. I never will be.

  Standing like a scarecrow in the middle of a crop field, is one of them. Its skull shines through its face, and haunting sunken eyes stare at me, dark as night. A chill passes over my body.

  This is a warning.

  Chapter Two

  I call them Things. They are hideous monsters conjured up by my mind to warn me when I sense a disturbance about to happen. Their existence had me sent to a psychiatric ward and fed anti-psychotic drugs. During that time I struggled to decide if they were real or not. Now, I don’t care. I’ve learnt to trust in them. I trust that their appearance means bad things, and now I have an opportunity to stop the bad thing.

  Dad steers the car around a tight bend and I find myself thrown against the glass. The hot, still air wraps around me like a stifling duvet. What if we’re about to be in a car accident?

  “Dad, slow down,” I say, a tremble in my voice.

  “Honey, we’re running late. I told the campsite we’d be there by—”

  “I don’t care. You’re going to kill us! Slow down.”

  Mum’s disapproving eyes appear in the rear view mirror. “Don’t you dare speak to your father that way. Have some respect, young lady.”

  I grip the arm rest by my seat. “Please. Slow down.”

  “All right,” Dad says. The car slows and the landscape outside no longer blurs. “If it makes you uncomfortable I will.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Dad.” My palms are slick with sweat and I shift in the back seat to let my legs get some air. Outside, the sun beats down on the crumbling tarmac of the old road. My eyes search the landscape for any more Things hidden in the surrounding moorland. I pull in a deep breath to steady my breathing. Everything seems back to normal. I lean back against the seat and close my eyes. It’s a mistake; that skull face seems burned onto the backs of my eyelids, its grinning face mocking me.

  Unease spreads over my skin.

  I catch a glimpse of myself in the car mirror: little more than a tangle of black hair against pale skin. I’m even paler than usual.

  Dad pulls the car off the road and onto a track and I let out a sigh of relief. Surely we can’t have a car accident on a single track at five miles per hour. Mum jabs her finger at the sign by the verge:

  Five Moors Campsite

  Five moors. The middle of nowhere. How did she even find this place? It was probably on one of those discount sites she likes, the ones where they tell you it’s 50% off a five star hotel, but it’s only that cheap because they overcharge all year, and reduce the price to make it seem like a bargain.

  The gravel crunches beneath the tyres as we move along the driveway into the campsite. On either side the moors stretch out as far as the eye can see. They will be bleak in winter. I think of how the wind must howl and how the rain will fall unhindered onto the grass. I wonder about grass snakes lurking between the reeds. Today the sky is bright blue above the smudge-brown and green carpets. The sun is bright enough to make me squint as I stare out of the window. Up ahead, the static caravans come into sight, with a wooded area behind them. The trees line up in the distance.

  Aside from the countryside and glinting white caravans, another sight catches my attention. In between the trees and the campsite there are tall, metal sculptures encased with blinking lights. I know wh
at that means: a carnival.

  At least there will be something to do here. Lacey’s gonna love it.

  Dad pulls the car into the tarmac car-park and guides it into a space. When the handbrake goes up, he glances around him, as though waiting for the round of applause. In the middle of the campsite is a tall building that looks a lot like a small hotel.

  “Why are we staying in a caravan when there’s a hotel here?” I ask Mum.

  There’s a click and a zzhup as we undo our seat belts.

  “The hotel is expensive, honey,” Mum replies. “It’s one of those sorts that specialise in corporate retreats. There are lots of conference rooms and what-not. They do team building out on the moors, apparently. I think there are some guided walks and orienteering for holiday goers. You should have a go at that, get some fresh air and exercise.”

  I meet Dad’s eye in the rear-view mirror. I can tell he’s smiling without even seeing his mouth. When we’re alone we sometimes make fun of Mum’s obsession with how fresh air and exercise will cure everything.

  “Maybe,” I mutter, hiding my face from her gaze so she doesn’t notice how I’m trying not to laugh.

  When I climb out of the car, the warm summer air hits my bare arms and legs, making me forget all about the Thing in the field. I stretch out my muscles, enjoying the little clicks your shoulders and knees make after being cramped in a car for hours.

  Mum rifles through her handbag, mumbling about travel documents, while Dad gets the bags from the boot. I notice a strange group of teenagers standing near the entrance to the hotel, holding battered old holdalls and rucksacks covered in badges and iron-on patches. They aren’t the kind of people I’d expect to holiday in Nettleby, North Yorkshire. They look like the Goths that descend on Whitby every year, the kind obsessed with Dracula and vampires. A tall guy with a lip piercing nods to me and I nod back, feeling it would be rude not to.

  “Come on,” Mum says, waving us on. “I’ve found our confirmation email so we should go and get checked… oh.” I supress a giggle as Mum reacts to the Goths outside the hotel. She has her back to me but I can imagine her frozen expression of disapproval. She turns back to us and whispers, “Oh, I don’t like the look of them at all. I hope we’re not near their caravan.”

  “Stop worrying yourself, Suzie Q,” Dad says, grinning at her.

  Mum is Susan to everyone except Dad. Quirke is her maiden name and Dad finds it hilarious to call her Suzie Q; sometimes it even stops her fussing over whatever the latest crisis is.

  “I’m just saying that it seems strange that this place attracts that sort.”

  I roll my eyes.

  Dad sighs. “Let’s go and check in. It’s late, we need to eat, and we need to unpack.”

  By the time we get to the hotel, the Goth kids have dispersed somewhere into the campsite. Some of them clutch cans of lager, and one attempts to ride a skateboard over the grass. When it fails to move, the kid falls off and a bunch of his mates jump on top of him. The others stand around laughing and pointing.

  Mum tuts. “Look at that. They’re drunk already. Some of them can’t be eighteen, surely.”

  “It’s not our place, Su,” Dad reminds her. He ushers her through the door to the hotel.

  The woman behind the counter has set curled hair in a short do. Her face is powdered, and she wears a string of pearls around her neck. She must be about fifty. Her smile is fixed and there’s tiredness in her eyes. I drift away from my family as they check in, wandering across to the leaflets on display, telling us all about Nettleby and the surrounding area.

  One leaflet catches my eye. On the front cover a man stands leaning on a cane. His face is tilted down and a superimposed skull shines over his features. With a fright I think that it’s another vision of mine, that the Things had started appearing on informative stationery as well as in fields, through windows, and at school. But then I see the title: Igor’s ghost walk. I take in the top hat, the waistcoat and the old-fashioned cane. The caption reads: ghosts, ghouls and grisly murders. Igor will take you on a tour of the nastiest crimes in Nettleby.

  How many nasty crimes can there by in Nettleby? It doesn’t strike me as having a seedy underbelly of corruption. Nevertheless, I fold the leaflet and push it into the pocket of my denim shorts.

  When Mum and Dad are done checking in, we follow Mum around the campsite, looking for our caravan. The static white vans are lined up in grids, each with a little plot of grass around them. Elderly couples relax on deck chairs, their veined legs peeking out of pastel coloured shorts. Potted plants are dotted around the doors of some vans and it hits me that people live here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but moors and the occasional forest. I have a mild anxiety attack even thinking about stepping out of my front door and not being within walking distance of a decent café or a supermarket.

  “Here we are,” Mum says. “Oh, it’s quite nice.”

  Our van is larger than I had imagined, and as we get inside, it’s also pretty spacious; one of those large, mod-con types, with small flat screen TVs and a bedroom each. There are little floral curtains on elastic at every window. The kitchen sink has a surface that folds over to become a chopping board.

  I wander into the small single bedroom which will be mine for the next seven days. Our van is on the edge of the moor, and if I look through the small window, I can see the countryside extending for miles. Even in the bright sunshine the sight of the moors gives me a chill. For some reason it makes me think of the people who have been here before. It makes me think of the history of the world, and of all the feet that have trodden down the grass. It’s almost ageless; a small patch of untouched world.

  “Have you taken your medication?” Mum’s sharp voice pierces through the silence, startling me from my thoughts.

  “Yes,” I lie. I’ve been throwing my pills away for weeks. They make me groggy and disinterested in life. It’s like walking around inside a pillow case. I want to feel the world around me, even if it means seeing the Things, and if that makes me crazy, then I guess I’m crazy.

  Outside the van there are a few “whoops” and lots of laughter.

  Mum places one hand on her hip. “I asked the woman not to put us near that rowdy lot,” she says.

  “The holiday will be what you make of it, remember,” I say, unable to stop the grin spreading along my face.

  Mum lands a playful slap on my shoulder. “How did I raise such a cheeky daughter?” She smiles, and then her eyes mist over with tears. She sniffs, and shuffles out of the room.

  I unpack, listening to the lads outside in the campsite. They’re laughing and shouting, and being young. Part of me wants to join in with them, to feel like I’m in a gang. I’ve never had a lot of friends. At school, I have one good friend, someone who stuck by me after the incident. I had some not so good friends who didn’t. In Magdelena I had a group of friends, but—aside from Mo—we didn’t stay in touch. Now I just have Lacey.

  They sound so alive out there. To Mum’s ears they must be intimidating, a pack of young, untamed people; dangerous types who could be criminals. I wonder if I could walk outside and slip unnoticed into their crowd. Maybe.

  As I hang up my cardigans and t-shirts, the noises from outside change. Instead of the general whoops of laughter and fun, a terrible high-pitched, real scream tears through the air. I drop my clothes to the floor.

  Chapter Three

  “Wait here,” Dad says, rushing out of the van.

  Mum and I share a glance. We can’t just wait here. We hurry out after him, moving along with the flow of people heading towards the noise. There’s a heavy feeling in my gut.

  As we get closer, my skin begins to prickle. There is a group of people standing near the entrance of the campsite office, some of whom hold a hand to their mouth as though in shock. The air is thick with a tense silence. Even the group of Goth kids have quietened. A girl about my age hides her face in her boyfriend’s chest.

  “Oh my,” Mum says in a
breathy voice. “What on Earth could have happened?”

  The wind whips up my hair as I turn to the entrance of the campsite. Somewhere in the distance is the faint sound of sirens. A yellow blur of an ambulance whizzes along the main road in the bleak vastness.

  A woman wails. The grief stricken note chills me to the bone. I turn back to see her red face, wet with tears, lifted to the sky, her hands on either side of her face, clutching her cheeks.

  “Why?” She sobs. Her shoulders shake as she cries, uninhibited, no longer able to form words. She’s taken into the arms of a tall man, but she struggles, trying to break free. The sight is shocking, the kind of thing you see in faraway countries on the news.

  I shoot a glance at Dad. His mouth is set in a worried line.

  I step back away from the group, trying to free up some room. My legs are so shaky that I almost trip and fall onto the tarmac.

  The sirens are louder now, and I pull my eyes away from the grief-stricken woman to see the ambulance travelling up the path. It stops and paramedics surge out. The crowd parts to let them through and it’s then that I see what has happened. It makes me wish that I’d listened to Dad, and stayed in the caravan. A young boy, perhaps ten years old—it’s hard to tell—lies crumpled on the ground, with his arm and leg stuck out at angles that your brain tells you is wrong. Dark blood pools beneath him like spilled wood stain. His skull is smashed.

  I step back, tripping on my heel. My stomach lurches and lunch almost heaves all over the ground. As I try to steady myself, I see an image that I will never forget for as long as I live. The boy—not the crumpled version of him flat out on the cold tarmac but the boy as he should be— stands over himself, with tears running down his cheeks. He crackles, like intermittent television reception, and lurches backwards. His hands reach out to his mother, the woman who doesn’t see him, who is staring at his broken body instead.