Room 13

by Robert Swindells

  Fliss snorted. ‘You’ve got to believe it, you div – you saw it. The point is, what do we do when Ellie-May gets here?’

  ‘We stop her,’ hissed Gary. ‘By force if we have to. We agreed.’

  ‘OK, but which of us actually goes out there and grabs her – or do we all go?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘We can’t all go. It’d scare her to death. It should be a girl, Fliss – you or me. But I think we should try calling her first – from here.’

  ‘Sssh!’ Trot pressed a finger to his lips. ‘She’s here.’

  They looked out. Ellie-May was standing on the top step, looking at the door to room thirteen. She hesitated for a moment, then moved forward. Lisa nudged Fliss. ‘You, or me?’

  ‘Me.’ As Ellie-May drew level with the bathroom, Fliss cupped her mouth with her hands and hissed, ‘Ellie-May!’

  The girl didn’t turn or pause, but continued walking slowly towards the cupboard. Using her full voice this time, Fliss called out, ‘Ellie-May – over here!’

  It made no difference. The girl was standing before the door now, reaching for the knob. Fliss felt a push in the small of her back and Lisa hissed, ‘Go on, for heaven’s sake – before she opens that door!’

  She left the bathroom and moved across the landing, approaching Ellie-May from the rear. As the girl’s hand closed round the knob, Fliss took a gentle grip on her shoulder and said, ‘Ellie-May – You don’t want to go in there.’

  She felt the thin shoulder stiffen under her hand. Ellie-May’s head turned, slowly, and Fliss found herself gazing into eyes which were dead as a shark’s. The girl’s lips twitched. ‘Let go of me,’ she hissed. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘Ellie-May!’ Fliss swung her round and held her by both shoulders. ‘Listen. We’re trying to help you. If you go in that room, you’ll die!’

  Ellie-May snarled, shaking her head. ‘Never die. Never. You, not me.’ She tore herself from Fliss’s grip and turned, scrabbling for the doorknob.

  ‘Gary!’ cried Fliss. ‘Lisa. Quick – I can’t hold her!’ There was a scampering of bare feet on carpet and they were with her, the three of them. Hands reached out, snatching fistfuls of Ellie-May’s clothing, circling her wrists. She hissed and fought, amazingly strong, freeing one hand to twist the doorknob and push.

  The door swung inward. Fliss, one arm crooked round Ellie-May’s neck, glanced inside and saw not a cupboard, but the room of her dream. There was the table with the long, pale box upon it and beyond, a small, curtained window. A window which wasn’t there in the daytime. The eye that sleeps by day! She dug her heels into the carpet, threw her weight backwards and fell with Ellie-May on top of her.

  ‘Quick, one of you – close that door!’ She flung both arms round Ellie-May’s waist and held on as the girl bucked and writhed. Lisa dropped to her knees, grabbed Ellie-May’s legs and fell forward, pinning them under her. Fliss heard the door slam, and then the boys were there, catching the girl’s wildly flailing arms. Ellie-May fought on for a moment but they were too many for her. Fliss felt the thin body go limp, and the girl began to cry. When they let go of her she lay curled on her side with a thumb in her mouth, moaning softly.

  They got up and stood, looking down at her. ‘What do we do now?’ asked Lisa.

  As she spoke, they heard voices below and footsteps on the stair. ‘It won’t be up to us,’ said Gary. ‘Here comes the cavalry.’

  ‘WHAT ON EARTH’S going on here?’ The landing light came on, and there stood Mrs Evans, unfamiliar in a quilted dressing-gown and no make-up. She saw Ellie-May on the floor and hurried forward, dropping on one knee beside her.

  ‘She was – we were –’ Fliss floundered, seeking words which might make their story credible, while the teacher lifted Ellie-May’s head on to her lap and checked with hands and eyes for damage. Mrs Marriott appeared in a beige nightie, followed closely by Mr Hepworth in maroon pyjamas. The door of room ten opened and Marie’s sleepy face peered out.

  ‘Marie Nero!’ snapped Mr Hepworth. ‘Get back into bed – now!’ The door closed. He looked at Ellie-May, sobbing in Mrs Evans’ arms, then at Gary, then at Fliss. ‘What’s all this about, Felicity Morgan – what’s happened to Ellie-May?’

  ‘Sir, she came up again. To go in the cupboard, only it’s not a cupboard. Look.’ She pointed, and then her heart sank. There was no number on the door. ‘There was a number, Sir. We all saw it. Thirteen. And Ellie-May opened it and it opened inwards, and inside –’ She stopped. There was disbelief in the teacher’s eyes, and the hard glint of anger. She dashed across to the door, twisted the knob and pushed.

  It was locked. She pulled, but the door didn’t move. She turned, pointing. ‘Look at Ellie-May’s neck, Sir!’

  ‘Yes, look at it,’ said Mrs Evans, grimly. She tilted the girl’s head to one side and lifted the hair. Ellie-May’s neck was bruised and scratched.

  ‘She was fighting, Miss – fighting to get in the room. We had to stop her, Miss.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Mrs Evans glared at Fliss. ‘If Ellie-May came up here of her own accord, then she was obviously walking in her sleep. It’s quite common among young people, and all you had to do was come down and tell me or one of the other teachers. Instead, it seems to me that you woke her in a sudden, violent way and she panicked, as anybody would. You’ve been silly and irresponsible, and there’s to be no more of it. Go to your beds, and in the morning I’ll want to know what you, Gary Bazzard, and you, David Trotter, were doing up here on the girls’ landing in the middle of the night.’

  Ellie-May was helped to her feet and taken away, supported by Mrs Marriott on one side and Mrs Evans on the other. Gary and Trot followed a grim-faced Mr Hepworth downstairs, and Fliss and Lisa were left gazing at each other, nonplussed.

  ‘What can we do?’ whispered Lisa, almost crying. ‘Nobody believes us.’

  Fliss sighed and shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Lisa. I’m too tired and fed up and scared to think. We’ll talk in the morning.’

  She crept into bed, and jumped when Marie’s voice came out of the darkness. ‘What happened?’

  Fliss sighed. ‘Nothing, Marie. Nothing much, anyway. I’ll tell you tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘OK.’

  She expected to lie awake till dawn, but she didn’t. She had just time to wonder in a muzzy way what she was going to tell Marie, before sleep rolled in like a black tide and bore her away.

  THURSDAY DAWNED CLEAR and sunny after the rain. Ellie-May appeared at breakfast, smiling wanly and saying she was feeling much better. Fliss watched her across the dining-room and wondered if she remembered anything at all about last night. From the way she was behaving, it seemed she did not.

  Practically everybody had heard something of the disturbance – even the boys on the first floor – and the talk over breakfast was mostly about sleepwalking. Fliss had told Marie that Ellie-May had been found on the top landing, sleepwalking, and had reacted badly to being woken up. Trot and Gary, she said, were in trouble because they had done the waking. When Marie asked what the boys were doing on the top landing in the first place, she said they’d seen Ellie-May pass their floor and followed her up. It didn’t sound too convincing to Fliss, but it had got around.

  Trot and Gary had been interviewed by Mrs Evans before breakfast. When Trot started to tell her what he saw as he reached for the door to pull it closed, she cut him off, saying, ‘The door opens outwards, David, and anyway it was locked.’ And when Gary said there was a vampire in the hotel, she told him not to be so stupid. ‘If I catch you spreading that story among the other children,’ she said, ‘a letter will go to your parents the minute we get back to school.’

  They were lucky in a way though. Mrs Evans decided they’d gone to the top floor because they were worried about Ellie-May. ‘There was absolutely no need for you to worry,’ she told them, ‘but I can see you were trying to be helpful, so we’ll say no more about it.’


  So, in spite of the midnight rumpus, and against all the odds, the four found themselves back in favour, free to join in the day’s activities. It was to be a busy day, and Fliss hoped this might help her to forget the horrors of the night. This morning they were taking the coach six miles to Robin Hood’s Bay where, according to Mr Hepworth, there was a good beach and quaint, narrow streets. At twelve o’clock they would return to Whitby for a fish-and-chip lunch on the seafront, before being turned loose to do their shopping in the afternoon.

  Robin Hood’s Bay was good. The sun shone all morning and they ran along the sand and played hide-and-seek up and down the little streets. By the time they piled back on to the coach, everybody had worked up an appetite and fish and chips sounded just right.

  When they arrived back in Whitby, the teachers got the children settled on some benches not far from the jetty, and Mr Hepworth chose a boy and a girl to go with him to the chippy. Fliss knew he wouldn’t pick her – not after last night – and he didn’t. He chose John Phelan and Vicky Holmes, and the three of them went across the road and tagged on the back of the queue. Fliss watched. The service was fast, but the queue didn’t get any shorter because people kept joining it. She smiled to herself, wondering what the people behind would say when old Hepworth ordered fish and chips thirty-four times with salt and vinegar.

  It took them ten minutes to get served and come staggering back with armfuls of greasy little packets. Mrs Evans and Mrs Marriott gave out the portions, and everybody sat in the sunshine munching, chatting and throwing scraps to a gang of gulls which appeared out of nowhere, on the scrounge.

  Gary looked at Fliss. ‘Where are you going first when they turn us loose, Fliss?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. A gift shop, I suppose – I want to get a pressy for my mum.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he told her. ‘I’m off round that “Dracula Experience” place we saw the other day.’

  Fliss pulled a face. ‘Haven’t you had enough of that sort of thing in real life? I know I have.’

  ‘No! I know what you mean, but this is different – a bit of fun. And anyway, I might find a clue there to the mystery of room thirteen.’

  ‘Will you heck! Anyway, I’m not going – it’s the last place I want to be.’

  ‘You’re chicken, that’s why.’

  ‘Am I hummer! Chicken of some daft show after what we’ve seen at The Crow’s Nest? You must be joking.’

  ‘Come on then – prove it.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Like I said – chicken.’

  ‘Naff off, Gary, you div!’

  ‘Chicken!’

  ‘OK then – I’ll come, and I bet you’re more chicken than me. You were scared spitless Tuesday night – I could tell.’

  He scoffed. ‘You were, you mean.’

  The argument might have continued for ever if Mrs Evans hadn’t called everybody together to speak to them. Fish-and-chip wrappers had been gathered up and deposited in bins, and the place left tidy as always.

  ‘Right. This is it – the moment you’ve all been waiting for. You are free to go off now with your friends and spend what’s left of your pocket-money. You may go into shops or, if you must, into amusement arcades, but you must stay on the seafront, on this side of the bridge. There’s to be no crossing into the old town, and nobody is to go wandering off up the streets leading to the West Cliff. Mrs Marriott, Mr Hepworth and I will be keeping our eyes open, and we don’t expect to see anybody charging along the pavements, shouting. Remember, there are other people here besides yourselves, and they don’t want to be shoved into the roadway or deafened by children yelling. And please – ’ her face changed, so that she looked to be in great pain, ‘think before you buy. Seaside shops are full of cheap, tinselly rubbish which looks tempting, but falls apart if you breathe on it. There are nice things – good things – you can take home to your parents, but you have to look for them. Off you go, then.’

  Fliss felt like slipping away with Lisa to look in shop windows, but Gary wouldn’t let her. ‘Come on,’ he demanded. ‘You said you weren’t chicken, so let’s go. Last one there’s a plonker.’

  In spite of Gary’s taunting, neither Trot nor Lisa came with them. The only ones who agreed to come were Gemma Carlisle, and Grant Cooper, who arrived last but offered to break the face of the first person who called him a plonker. They paid their fifty pences and went in.

  The first bit was a sort of shop, with mugs, T-shirts and badges for sale. ‘Huh!’ snorted Gary, ‘I don’t call this scary.’ He bought a badge with a bat on it, and they moved on into a dark tunnel. ‘This is more like it,’ said Gemma. As she spoke, there was a blood-curdling scream and something brushed Fliss’s cheek. She ducked away with a cry, and Grant and Gary laughed at her. They were wading through some sort of smoke or vapour which swirled low down, hiding their feet. In the tunnel walls were windows through which weird scenes could be seen. In one, a coffin-lid was lifted by a ghastly hand. In another, a woman with bloodstained clothing lay on a bed, while a red-eyed vampire leered at her through her window. While Fliss gazed at this scene, wishing she was somewhere else, a hand came out of the darkness. Shrinking from it, she walked right into another which grabbed at her throat. She recoiled and started walking faster, wanting only to get to the end of the tunnel and out into the sunlight. But now the floor was moving, and she had to walk fast just to stay where she was. It was like her dream. She wanted to go one way, but her feet were taking her another. Sobbing, she broke into a run, and after a moment the moving section was behind her. She looked down, and the floor was glass. Under the glass was soil, and in the soil, half-embedded, lay the half-rotted heads of corpses.

  She hurried on, feeling sick, looking straight in front of her, thinking, I shouldn’t have come. I should never have let that idiot Gary persuade me. She was sweating. The screams were getting louder, and there was a sudden gust of wind. She didn’t know where the others were, and she didn’t care. She rushed along, her hair and face brushed by unseen things. Through her eye-corners she glimpsed spiders and graves and the toothy grins of skeletons.

  She blundered on, and then at last she saw a door with a sign on it. WAY OUT.

  Thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness! She pushed. It swung open. No sunlight. No. Darkness, and a standing corpse whose head fell off as she watched.

  She swerved and rushed past with her head down, and here was another corpse, blocking the way. She swerved again, and it stuck out a pale, bony hand. Sudden anger rose in her against this ridiculous place, and her own stupidity in coming here. Teeth bared, she struck at the hand, but it caught her wrist and the corpse whispered, ‘Wait – I have to talk to you.’

  She screamed, snatching back her hand. The corpse made a small, distressed sound like the mew of a kitten, and in that instant Fliss recognized it. It wasn’t a corpse. It was the old woman in the shelter. Mad Sal Haggerlythe.

  ‘What – what d’you want?’

  ‘Here – back here where there’s nobody.’ The old woman took her wrist again, gently this time, and led her through a gap in the tunnel wall. It was dark and cold and seemed to be a sort of storage space, with planks and trestles and paint cans, and a lot of stuff she couldn’t quite make out. There was a musty smell.

  ‘Where’s this?’ She didn’t know why she’d allowed herself to be led here – if she’d resisted there’d have been nothing the old hag could have done about it.

  ‘Behind the tunnel,’ Sal whispered, ‘in the real world.’ She chuckled wheezily. ‘Folks walk through tunnels all their lives, y’know. All their lives. Gawping in through lighted windows, thinking what they see’s real, but it’s not.’ She laughed again. ‘No, it’s not. They’re in a tunnel, see. Looking at a show. And all the time, the real world’s just inches away through the wall. And now and then, just now and then, somebody finds a hole and goes through and sees what’s behind it all, and d’you know what they get called then?’

  The old woman paused, and Fliss sho
ok her head.

  ‘Mad, that’s what. Barmy. They’re the ones who know what really goes on – what it’s all made of – and they call ’em mad. Lock ’em away, some of ’em. I ’spect they’ll come for me one of these days. D’you know what I’m talking about?’

  Fliss shook her head again, in the dark. ‘No. Not really. I’m sorry.’ She wondered where Gemma was, and Gary, and Grant. Out by now, probably. She wanted to be with them. ‘Look – I’ve got to go. My friends’ll wonder where I am.’

  ‘Listen, then. You’ve seen something, haven’t you, at The Crow’s Nest – something strange? And there’s a sick child?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fliss murmured, ‘but how did you know?’

  ‘I know, because I lived in that place a long time ago, before the Great War. It was East View then, not The Crow’s Nest. I went there when I was ten, as a scullery maid. It was a grand house then. Turnbull, they called the people who had it. Mr and Mrs Turnbull and their little daughter, Margaret. It wasn’t an hotel, you understand – it was a house. A private residence. You’ve seen the abbey, haven’t you?’

  Fliss nodded. ‘Yesterday.’ She wished the woman would come to the point and let her go. If there was a point. There might not be. That was probably one of the signs of madness. It occurred to her that Sal might be dangerous, and she wondered if she’d find her way back to the tunnel if she had to run.

  ‘Well,’ the old woman went on, ‘there was a bit more to it when I was your age. A gateway, with a little house. Children kept well away from that gateway after dark, I can tell you. Grown-ups too, come to that. That’s where he was, see?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Him that’s in The Crow’s Nest now.’

  ‘Who’s in The Crow’s Nest? Who is he?’

  ‘I think you know. Anyway, that’s where he was. Old gatehouse. Folks who knew, steered clear. Strangers didn’t. Not always. Now and then, someone’d vanish. Drownded, we’d say. Fell over the cliff in the dark. We knew better. Anyway, it come nineteen-fourteen, and the Great War. Near Christmas, a German battleship comes and stands off a mile or two and fires on the Coastguard Station. Some of the shells hit the abbey. One gets the gateway, and demolishes the little house. Doesn’t demolish him, though, ’cause there’s only one way to do that, and you know what that is. Anyhow, he’s lost his place and so there he is, in the middle of the night, seeking another. He’s got to find it before first light, and you know why. And out of all the houses in the town, he picks East View, and that’s the end of it.’