The House on Rectory Lane

by Stuart James

  He jumped out and found the gate locked. Thanking the gods that he had found his tools and put them in the boot. He got to work on the padlock and removed it in no time. Jake eased the gate open and drove the car through.

  ‘Babe. Be careful. That nut could still be waiting for us. It’s not safe.’

  Looking around the next field, he noticed a plume of smoke coming from the chimney of a ram-shackled, old, stone cottage at the bottom of a gravelled driveway. It appeared to be the easiest route to get them out of the field but they were unsure where it led to, or what they would find along the way. Jake decided he would scope it out on foot first. Explaining the plan to Kate and June, he told them to lock the car doors behind him and, after hearing them click in place when he got out, he crunched down the driveway.

  Other than the smoking chimney, there were no signs of life at the cottage, checking around the back for the black Jeep, he still found no evidence that the occupants were home. No lights were on inside. No cars parked outside.

  Going back to the front he knocked on the door, and it slowly opened at his touch. ‘Hello? Is there anyone home?’ He called out. ‘I’ve had an accident of sorts and need to check if your drive leads back to the main road please? Hello?’

  ‘You’ve made a grave mistake, young man.’

  ‘What? Who’s there?’

  ‘You should leave. Now. While you still have a chance.’

  A light came on in the far corner of the room and, pushing the door further open, he saw her, the old woman sat in a rocking chair by the fire, slowly moving back and forth, a moth-eaten shawl around her bony shoulders, pulling her faded grey hair in underneath it.

  ‘I’m Jake More—’

  ‘I know who you are – what are you doing here?’

  ‘We were run off the road by a maniac, I was hoping you could hel—’

  ‘Help?’ She interrupted him again. ‘The only help I can offer you is to tell you to get out … get your family and go back to where you came from before it’s too late.’

  ‘I … I … d-d-don’t … understand …’

  Her piercing blue eyes stared straight at him for the first time. ‘It’s happened before, and it will happen again. You’re not safe. Not by a long shot—’ A fierce cough rose from her chest and Jake backed out of the doorway.

  Spurred by her words to get back to civilisation, he took out his phone and shone the torch down the driveway, his shoulders sagging with relief when he saw that there was a streetlight a short way in the distance and it looked to be at the end of the drive. Hoping that this meant the drive started on the main road, he made his way back to the car.

  Telling June and Kate nothing about his encounter with the crazy old lady, he got back into the car and, checking that they were all as OK as could be expected, he started the engine and directed the car down the driveway as fast as he dared to. Once again praying to the gods he hadn’t believed in before, that his instinct was right, and it led them to the main road …

  ∞∞∞∞

  Kate took Sean straight to bed when they got home, while Jake directed June to the kitchen where he poured them both a large glass of her favourite whiskey. When she joined them, Kate grabbed herself a glass, slugged more than a large measure of whiskey into it, refilled the other two, and took a deep breath as her mother started saying they were safer in London as the traffic was too dense for people to drive that fast. Noticing the looks passing between Kate and Jake, she demanded they told her what was going on. So, they spent the next half hour relaying the story and leaving nothing out, from the day they first viewed the house to the car chase. June sat still. Listening. Taking it all in. When they finished, she asked, ‘What are you going to do? You can’t stay here, surely?’

  ‘What choice do we have?’ ‘Speak to that bloody estate agent for one. Elton, Atom, whatever the bloody hell his name is.’

  ‘Mum, Anton told us about it before we moved. He said the family couldn’t be traced. We went ahead and moved in anyway.’

  ‘He may have said they were uncontactable, Kate. He didn’t tell you the shit that comes with the place. The DVD. The attempt on our bloody lives.’ June was livid.

  ‘Look. Let’s all calm down, shall we? We’re here now, and we need to sort it.’ Kate got on the phone and spoke with the police. She told them about the Jeep and what had happened. They assured her they’d look into it and asked if she wanted someone to call over. Jake shook his head. He wanted some peace and quiet this evening. If that were possible.

  The three of them did their best to keep themselves busy. After all, June had come over to visit, and they needed to make an effort. June suggested cards. Poker. Jake had a professional set. A proper mat. Chips. Instructions for the running order of cards held. June was a little rusty. One Christmas a few years back they’d tried to teach her. She’d been dealt some great hands but didn’t know how to lay them properly. Sometimes starting with a pair of Queens and by the time the flop was shown, losing to three of a kind. It was a complicated game, but she was determined. Jake was a poker player. He frequented the local pub most Thursdays a few years back and learnt the hard way. He knew what to play and when to play it. As the game went on through the evening, June was getting the hump. She was a bad loser. It didn’t take long before Jake wiped her out of chips. Kate had done a little better. She had a nice stack built up and went all in with four Queens. Jake had a straight flush.

  ∞∞∞∞ On the other side of town, Shelly Greenwood was finishing up her weekly drama class. They were gearing up for a stage production of Guys and Dolls. Shelly had the lead female role, playing the part of Sarah Brown. She’d had singing lessons from an early age and went on to study drama in high school. Her parents also brought her to a workshop once a week and most of her weekends were spent practising lines. She was still single and didn’t have children, so she threw herself into her career. Now, at twenty-four, it had been all she ever knew and needed to make money. The hours were long and the pay minimal, but she loved the stage and bright lights. There wasn’t anything in this world like the buzz of being centre stage.

  ‘OK, gang. Let’s call it a night, shall we?’ Shouted Tony, the larger than life drama teacher.

  Born to act, Tony was incredibly camp, vivacious, and commanded respect.

  ‘Shelly, darling, you were superb.’

  ‘Thanks, Tony. Can I give you a lift anywhere?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’m meeting a couple of lads for a dry Martini.’ He air kissed Shelly and

  waltzed out the double doors. She gathered her coat and bag and made her way to the car, parked on the main road outside the studio. Shelly couldn’t wait to get warmed up. The studio was cold. The thin walls and wooden flooring were hard to warm at the best of times. The students had often complained to Tony to get more heaters. He responded that if they were cold, it meant they weren’t moving enough.

  Once inside the car, she ramped up the heat, waited until the warmth defrosted her toes and she could move them again. She pulled out onto the main road. As she drove, she practised the song she had to learn. ‘If I Were a Bell.’ She was watching herself in the mirror, over exaggerating the words.

  ‘From the moment we kissed tonight,

  That’s the way I’ve just gotta behave,

  Boy, if I were a lamp I’d light,

  And if I were a banner I’d wave!’

  She turned onto a lane a couple of miles from home and flicked on the full-beams. She’d been overdoing it lately so when she came to a sharp bend; she slowed right down. She couldn’t see any lights coming from the other side, so she eased around the corner. Slamming on the brakes, she stopped with a judder. Was that someone lying in the road? Bending closer to the windscreen, she peered out trying to make out the shape on the floor about fifty yards in front. Silence surrounded her as she debated what to do. She couldn’t leave whoever it was just lying there – to die. Maybe they already had? She turned the engine back on and eased the handbrake off. The car mov
ed slowly– a snail’s pace. Twenty yards away. The figure still wasn’t moving. Shelly feared what she’d find. Blood? Guts? She didn’t have the stomach for this sort of thing. Couldn’t even watch a horror movie without hiding behind a cushion. Ten yards. The figure lying on the road was blocking the way completely. Shit. A hit and run? Poor sod. I need to help. Fast. Shelly put the car in neutral. Lifted the handbrake and turned the keys. The engine stopped, and the lights went out. Shit. That was clever. She turned the engine back on, and her lights returned. The figure was gone. She looked around. In her rear-view mirror. Lifted herself slightly off her seat to look over the bonnet. She couldn’t have driven over them, could she? Shelly opened the door and stepped out. She used her phone torch to look under the car, leaving the full lights glaring. Where the hell? She crept over to the side of the road to see if they had pulled themselves out of the way of her car.

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice echoing. ‘Hello! Are you OK?’ Something was wrong. Shelly knew it now. Racing back to the car she looked behind her at the same time. She had to get out of there. Why the heck didn’t I just reverse? She got into her car and simultaneously closed the door and clicked the handbrake down. Pressing the accelerator, she looked in the rear-view mirror. His face, the last thing she saw as darkness descended around her.

  Chapter Seventeen A bang, followed by darkness made June jump.

  ‘What’s going on?’ She asked.

  ‘A regular occurrence. It’s happened most evenings,’ said Jake. They sat in darkness for the

  next few minutes before Jake held a torch and Kate lit some candles. Jake checked the fuse box, and as before, everything was switched on. When the lights didn’t kick back to life, Jake decided to go outside to check the main box.

  ‘Please be careful,’ said Kate.

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ Opening the front door, he shivered at the cold and drizzle that was now falling. Making his way around the house, using his torch in place of the outside security lights, he approached the mains box, trying to recall how it had been the last time he checked. His limited knowledge of electrics told him that things inside the box looked OK, all the switches were up, but as his torch swept the area around the box, he noticed something that didn’t look right, even to his untrained eyes. The wires underneath the box were damaged as if someone had bashed it with a sledge hammer. This has caused the electrics to fault. It’s been tampered with. What on earth?

  Someone had been on his drive within the last hour. Were they still here? Waiting for him to come out? Watching? Jake backed up slowly.

  Trying silently to get Kate’s attention through the kitchen window, he cursed when she failed to acknowledge his mental pleas for her to turn around. Tapping on the window, she finally noticed him and came to the window as he mouthed to her that she should call the police and then take June upstairs.

  She understood. He watched the two of them running out of the room. Up the stairs. Safe, he hoped. Jake didn’t know if he would be. Too much had happened. He wanted Holloway Road again. Camden Town. His friends. His old life. The grass wasn’t greener here. It was a dark brown, shit colour. What had been happening? Anton didn’t explain any of this. You’ll love it here, Mr Morley. Just like a funhouse. One-way in. No way out. It’s part of the adventure, Mr Morley. I did say you’d never be bored. Always something going on.

  Jake made his way to the wooden gates at the end of the drive, holding the torch in front of him. He crouched on one knee, peering underneath, trying to see if anyone was on the other side. He moved his head to the gap between the gate and the floor. He backed up. Looking left and right. Jake was muttering to himself, ‘Why the heck hadn’t the alarm gone off when we bloody needed it? Wait till I call Adam. He will get such a mouthful. Knob head.’

  He reached the house and heard the siren in the distance.

  ∞∞∞∞ Shelly had been lying in the back of the vehicle for twenty or so minutes. As soon as the bag was over her head, she’d felt a thud, a huge fist landing into the side of her face. Now she’d been dropped in the boot. She tried to move her hands and feet. They were tied hard, probably a thick rope. She wriggled her hands making circular motions. Rotating them to get out of the restraints. The bag was still clinging to her face and the taste of blood on her lips. She ran her tongue around her mouth and tasted the sweet, metallic liquid.

  She shouldn’t have stopped. This was obvious. From an early age, her parents were forever telling her about stranger danger. Don’t answer the door. Don’t talk to people you don’t know. She was always the kind-hearted one. Stopping to assist, playing nurse. Now look where it’s got her.

  Shelly kicked the roof of the boot making dents from the inside, hoping someone would hear. She screamed louder than she ever had but it was dimmed by the bag, tied with rope around her neck. Nodding her head, she did her best to remove it, spitting and blowing her cold breath to get it off.

  The harder she blew, the more the bag filled her mouth.

  The car bumped over the road at great speed, and she was flung to the other end banging the side of her face. She landed against a hard object. Possibly a spare tyre. Her side felt like it had been bruised. Her face hurt as she spat more blood from her mouth. She gagged, filling the bag with her own vomit and covering her head with the sick as she clawed her way back up. Her nail snapped on a side bar, and she collapsed on the floor of the boot in a heap.

  She muffled for the guy to let her go. She had money. She begged him to stop and let her out. No-one would know.

  Shelly knew he couldn’t hear. She could barely make out the words herself.

  When they finally stopped, Shelly heard the car open and footsteps coming towards the rear of the car. There was a pause before the boot opened. He grabbed the sack from over her head. She let out a huge gasp. ‘What do you want with me?’

  He stared. She tried again in desperation. ‘I have money. I can get you a few thousand now, the rest tomorrow.’ No response. Does he understand me? Shelly rubbed her thumb against her middle and forefinger. ‘Money.’ Still silence. He grabbed her by her sides and lifted her out of the boot with seemingly no effort, cut the rope around her hands and legs then moved her by dragging her hair.

  Shelly twisted on the ground making it difficult for the guy to drag her, reaching under her arm, he hoisted her over his shoulder. Her blood and vomit dribbled down his jacket.

  ‘Please. I beg you. Anything you want. Let me go, and I’ll never mention this to anyone.’ The guy walked up the drive to the house. ‘You must let me go. My dad. He’s a policeman. He’ll be out looking for me now.’

  Fumbling in his coat pockets for the front door key, she took the opportunity to kick out just missing his leg and tried punching him on the back only slightly catching him on his right shoulder. It had little effect on a man of his size, and all she accomplished was being dropped, banging her head and having the wind knocked out of her lungs – leaving her gasping for breath.

  Shelly noticed as she fought with her abductor, the size of the house where he’d brought her. A place she’d love to come for a weekend under different circumstances.

  Lifting her back up, he walked through the now open door and into the darkness.

  She was still too dazed to focus properly on her surroundings, but she heard his foot connect with something metallic, the squeak of a rusty hinge and then she was falling again. Longer this time. It felt like forever until she landed in a heap on the cold, hard floor, and, fighting back the tears as the slip of light from the hatch disappeared, she let out muffled screams through a gag he’d strapped around her mouth. Closing the lid, he applied the chain, locked it and slid the sofa over the door as she realised she was hearing his footsteps fade back the way they’d came.

  He listened to her scream as he left the house.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jake was pleased that it was Reynolds and Marsden who responded to Kate’s call. Having filled them in on the situation, he took them out to the mains box. ‘Well, it
certainly looks like it’s been tampered with, Jake.’ Marsden said, turning to face him, ‘Didn’t you have an alarm fitted during the week?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be getting my money back as well.’

  Reynolds told Jake to get on the phone to the electrical company to send someone over, which he assured her he would as soon as the officers left.

  They checked the place over but found nothing else of concern.

  Back inside, Kate and June bustled around making everyone a drink, they both clearly needed to keep busy.

  Reynolds was talking to Kate and June. ‘Ramsbury is a quiet place. Be assured. I’ve spent a lot of my life here. I’ve moved back to look after my mother as she isn’t well, and I didn’t have to think twice about it.’

  ‘Well. It doesn’t look that way to us.’

  ‘Yes. I can understand the way it looks.’

  Reynolds sipped her coffee.

  ‘Tell me about the car earlier. She aimed the question at all of them.’

  They explained how the car came from nowhere. How it rammed them off the road. ‘We’re lucky to be alive,’ June added.

  ‘And the car. Make. Model. Anything you can tell us.’

  ‘It was dark,’ Kate added. ‘Black. I think. Jeep, possibly Range Rover. It all happened so fast.’

  ‘OK. Anything else?’

  They thought.

  ‘The driver. I got a slight glimpse in the rear-view. He had some sort of mask covering his face. Like a pig or something,’ added Jake.

  Reynolds continued taking notes.

  ‘Look. I’m certain if there were anyone outside, they wouldn't return tonight. I’ll have one of us drive by a few times to make sure everything is OK. Call the alarm guy first thing in the morning and keep the door locked.’

  ‘You can be sure of that officer.’

  ∞∞∞∞ Shelly stood in the basement of the old house. The stench filled her lungs as bile-filled her mouth. She wrenched it out splattering the wooden floor. She pawed around in the darkness trying to get her bearings. A sharp object to the front side of her. Some sort of shelf on wheels which was empty. On the wall, she felt a box which was half hanging off and a little further down a light switch. She pressed the button, and the bulb dimly lit the room she was in, just bright enough for her to take in the surroundings. It was larger than she’d first thought, the entrance was small. Deceiving. The basement went the full length of the downstairs. Like a cave. Thick stone walls and the sound of water dripping every few seconds. As she made her way around, her strains echoed.