Defender

by G X Todd

  They stayed crouched and hidden, with Lacey throwing uneasy glances over her shoulder every few seconds, but the voices didn’t get any louder, the muffled clomps of their shoes and the odd clink of gear and weapons fading as they moved off down the street one over from theirs.

  The Boy Scout made them wait a further five minutes, their legs cramping from kneeling so long, silence all around, before allowing her to stand and move back on to the sidewalk. Lacey had to knead out her thighs before she could walk without hobbling, but she was relieved to get away from the black-windowed house with its gaping, blind eyes. From then on, he became extremely wary, walking ahead to each junction to check the way before coming back for her. It made their progress excruciatingly slow, and left Lacey torn, her impatience mixing with her gratefulness for the delay.

  Soon, lavish three- and four-storey Victorian houses hemmed them in. The towering oaks eclipsed them in size, their thick, gnarled branches twisting every which way as if trying to claw upwards to the sky and, in failing that, simply clawing outwards at the obscuring structures built all around. The oaks were scary in their contorted majesty but staggeringly beautiful nevertheless. They made Lacey feel small and pathetic.

  She halted at the steps leading up to her sister’s house, dread opening up hands inside her that reached to grip her by the throat and heart and stomach. She was barely aware of the Boy Scout moving past. It was raining freely now, and she was already soaked through, but the evening was warm and the rain didn’t chill her.

  She gave the house a long look. The single gothic-style turret jutting skyward on the house’s right flank made her think of locked-up princesses and evil stepmothers. The windows were all dark, and the rain made a comforting pattering sound on the roof’s slate shingles, the rainwater trickling like mini-rivers along the guttering and spilling down pipes with soft gurgles. The house was alive with noises. She thought she saw a glimmer of light dance past the turret’s top window, and the dread that gripped her reared up and became a fearful kind of excitement. But then the flickering light disappeared so quickly she couldn’t be sure it hadn’t been a reflection of some distant star, now lost behind the rainclouds.

  Maybe it was Tinkerbell on her way up to visit Rapunzel.

  Lacey wanted to scream at Voice, open her mouth and let out all the terror and frustration and blind hope in one breathless shriek.

  He must have felt how close she was to breaking, because Voice backed off immediately. I’m sorry. That was a bad time to crack a joke. Are you sure you’re ready for this, Lacey? You might not find what you’re looking for.

  ‘It’ll be OK,’ she whispered, more to herself than to Voice. ‘It’ll all be OK.’

  PART FOUR

  The Man Who Was Flooded

  CHAPTER 1

  Pilgrim waited for Lacey to try the door. It was unlocked, and it silently swung inwards on well-oiled hinges. He could have easily imagined a loud squawking issuing from the joints, but this wasn’t a haunted house. At least, he hoped it wasn’t.

  He warned the girl to be careful, and she nodded while she fished out the flashlight and flicked it on. Only gloom greeted them from beyond the half-opened door. The flashlight’s beam slashed through the darkness as Lacey cautiously stepped inside.

  She softly called out to her sister. Her voice trembled as it echoed up the dark, wooden stairs.

  The house felt like a shell. Vacant and dead.

  A mausoleum, that small voice whispered.

  The floorboards beneath Pilgrim’s boots were shiny and worn, smoothed over by hundreds of passing soles.

  Or souls.

  He carefully stepped over to a padded, straight-backed chair set in the corner of the foyer and lowered the dead girl into it, his back muscles screaming as he bent at the waist, sitting the body so it wouldn’t slide to the floor. When he straightened and looked at her, Red was slumped over to the left like a ragdoll, the arm of the chair holding her in place. Her scarf-covered face and the slight depressions of her chin and nose beneath the cotton gave her a macabre appearance, as if at any moment she might slowly rise from her seat and begin walking around these empty rooms. He placed the car battery on the floor beside her and briefly cupped his palm over his ribs, the warmth of his hand easing the soreness a little.

  The creak of a floorboard had him glancing over. Lacey had advanced to the bottom of the stairs and was looking upwards, her flashlight dispelling enough of the gloom for Pilgrim to make out picture frames hanging staggered along the wall every few steps. Family portraits.

  ‘David?’ Lacey called. ‘Addison?’

  The names of her niece and presumably her sister’s husband.

  No one answered.

  Ghosts cannot talk.

  ‘Can’t they?’ he whispered, as if he knew better.

  Lacey looked over at him.

  ‘Let’s search the house,’ he said. ‘From the ground up. We’ll find something.’

  She nodded, a hint of relief in the movement, as if in action she could disperse her uneasiness. Pilgrim didn’t feel a sense of unease; he felt only resignation.

  They started in the sitting room. It was a big house, and old. It was all dark woods and fake lamp sconces and wainscoting. There were shelves upon shelves of leather-bound books, gilt lettering on their spines, and Pilgrim stood for a moment simply to appreciate the view. But the scene was tinged with sorrow; a purplish-black vein that had sewed itself through it.

  The downstairs rooms were remarkably untouched, as if they had been preserved in some mysterious Victorian time loop. The house hadn’t been ransacked, or vandalised, and although there were untidy piles of clothing and bedding and miscellaneous items sat in the corners or on side tables or draped over the backs of overstuffed chairs, it didn’t detract from the mournful beauty of the place.

  ‘Look at this!’

  Lacey stood at the far end of the bookcases, where a neat little alcove housed a small writing desk. Papers were strewn haphazardly across the blotter. A cork noticeboard was pinned to the wall beside it, a multitude of letters and postcards tacked there, none of which Pilgrim could read. It was the sheet of paper sectioned off into blocks that Lacey was pointing at.

  ‘They’re alive! Look, they’ve been keeping track of the date!’

  He squinted at the place her finger marked out. ‘What’s the last date say?’

  There was a pause. ‘August 8th, three years ago.’

  Neither of them spoke. Pilgrim could hear Lacey breathing.

  ‘Whose writing is it?’ he asked.

  ‘My sister’s.’

  ‘OK, that’s good.’ It was better than good. It was far more than he’d expected. ‘Let’s keep looking.’

  As they moved from room to room, ghosts in their own right, rain lashed at the windows, showery, back-handed gusts that rattled the glass in its frames. Pilgrim shivered in his damp clothes, not chilled but in sympathy with the shivering of the house in the storm’s onslaught.

  On their way to the kitchen, he opened his mouth to suggest lighting a fire – they had already walked past two cast-iron fireplaces, one in the parlour and another in the attached dining area – when a cracking thud came from above their heads.

  They both looked up at the ceiling. The brass light fixture rocked gently on its chain.

  They waited for another thud, a scuff – anything – but nothing came. Eventually, they lowered their gazes and looked at each other.

  Lacey moved off, her stride purposeful, but Pilgrim caught her by her arm.

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said, his voice low. ‘If there’s anyone, I’ll flush them out and down here to you.’

  She pulled her arm from his grip. She did it easily, his hand too weak to hold on to her. ‘No. I should go.’

  ‘Chances are they’ll hear me coming and run in the opposite direction. Your face should be the first one they see.’

  She looked undecided. Worried and undecided. ‘You won’t shoot anyone, will you?’

  He ma
de a sound somewhere low in his throat. It was a non-committal kind of sound, one that could be easily dismissed if ever questioned. Lacey didn’t question, and he left her with his Zippo while he took the flashlight and found his way back to the staircase in the foyer.

  He made sure to examine the family portraits as he ascended – he wanted to be able to identify them in case he did come face to face with someone upstairs, didn’t want to blow their head off before realising it was Lacey’s long-lost sister. This scenario was unlikely; Lacey had already called her sister’s name upon entering the house, and no answer had been forthcoming. The last sign of her existence was three years ago. More likely, he would find a stray animal, or an open window where a blast of wind had entered and blown a standing lamp or coat stand over.

  He stuck to the left-hand side of the steps, a less travelled path compared to the more creak-heavy middle. He had to go about halfway up before he came across a good picture of all three family members. Karey, Lacey’s sister, was bigger-boned than Lacey, broad across the shoulders, square-faced with widely spaced hazel eyes. Although her demeanour was sturdy and no-nonsense, the dimples on each of her cheeks softened her almost to the point of cuteness. David, her husband, had thinning, sandy-blond hair, so fine as to appear almost wispy as it brushed over the gold rims of his glasses. The man compensated for being folically challenged by having a studiously serious countenance and a full beard.

  Cradled in her mother’s arms and staring into the camera’s lens, Lacey’s niece had the best of both her parents. She was perhaps three months old in the photograph and had a head of dark wispy curls, and dimples to die for. There was no guile in the baby’s eyes, just the innocence of the young – totally unaware that the world was getting ready to take a huge, painful bite from her.

  Pilgrim reached the top of the stairs and turned left, making his way along the carpeted hallway to where the thump had come from. He gripped the shotgun in both hands, the flashlight held along the barrel and pointed at a partially closed door. He steadfastly ignored the muscle-deep trembling in his left arm. Beyond that door was a bedroom or, if not a bedroom, a study or playroom. Whatever the room’s purpose, inside was where the noise had originated.

  Be careful. We don’t want to spook anyone.

  Pilgrim kicked the door open and charged inside.

  He had a moment to see the flash of an alarmed face, pale and dirt-streaked, on the other side of the king-size bed, and then it darted out of view, disappearing behind the wall.

  Behind the wall? How . . .

  As he leapt over the bed in pursuit, he spied a wooden panel retracted back from the wall to reveal a hidden space behind. And, from the scuffling sounds rapidly moving away and down from him, the hidden space went far deeper than appearances indicated.

  Rats in the walls.

  ‘They’re on the move!’ he bellowed.

  The space was so narrow he had to turn sideways in order to fit. His flashlight revealed bare bricks and steeply ragged steps leading downwards.

  A secret passage.

  Christ.

  ‘There’s a hidden stairwell. They’re coming down!’

  Pilgrim took the steps as fast as he dared, which wasn’t as fast as he’d have liked. He scraped his elbows and shoulders on the rough brickwork as he went down, the flashlight bumping along with him, throwing distorted shadows on to the walls. The fleeing figure couldn’t be far ahead of him, but the enclosed stairwell amplified sounds and made him think there were only a few feet separating them, the twisting and claustrophobic nature of the steps keeping them out of sight and just beyond his reach. There was a low scraping – another panel sliding out of the way? – and Pilgrim increased his speed a little, meeting the last turn in a rush and running into the wall, rebounding off it with a grunt of pain and almost falling, catching himself with a hand on the wall and stumbling forward, wedging himself into the narrow gap and squeezing out.

  A gunshot went off.

  The bullet thunked into the panelling not far to his right, the distinctive sound of splitting wood making him flinch back.

  ‘Watch out!’ he shouted.

  Lacey yelled at whoever it was to wait, to come back, don’t run! and then a clatter of feet as she took off after them.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lacey cursed herself as she dashed out of the kitchen. What had she been thinking, firing her weapon like that?

  Calm down. You weren’t thinking, Voice said.

  The sitting room was a dark landscape of lumpy furniture and shadowy hillocks – in her haste, she’d left the Zippo on the kitchen table. At the far end, backlit by the large picture window, a figure darted past an armchair and disappeared through the doorway.

  ‘Wait!’ Lacey called.

  They didn’t wait; a light patter of feet scurried across the hard-wood floor of the entrance hall. Lacey ran, grabbed the doorway and swung herself around, skidding to a stop in the middle of the foyer, listening hard and holding her breath.

  She heard a creak through the archway to her right, which opened up into a large parlour fitted with more sofas, a dead entertainment system and two coffee tables. She rushed into the room, her footsteps falling silent as they hit the rug. There weren’t many places to hide in here; behind the heavy drapes or the sofa, maybe. Possibly even inside one of the wall-length cabinets next to the TV system, where DVDs and Blu-rays and PlayStation games were undoubtedly stored.

  The door, Voice pointed out.

  A second door led out of the room. It was open a crack. That wasn’t how she and the Boy Scout had left it. She hurried across the carpet, whacking her shin off the corner of one of the coffee tables, gasping as pain streaked up her leg. She hobbled the rest of the way and opened the door: the dining room, three doors leading off it, all of them shut. She stooped to look under the table. Only chair legs; no human ones. No more creaks or clattering footsteps clued Lacey in as to where to go next.

  She went for the nearest door, footsteps thudding hollowly on the floorboards, and pulled it open.

  Watch out!

  She ducked and cried out, lifting a blocking hand as a cascade of chaotically piled boxes toppled down on top of her. The corner of one clipped her in the neck, eliciting another sharp gasp of pain.

  When the last box fell, she stood silently in the wreckage of the storage cupboard, her shin throbbing, her neck stinging.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered.

  CHAPTER 3

  Pilgrim squeezed out through the opening in the wall and spilled into the kitchen. He placed a hand on the table for support, inhaling a few deep breaths, wincing as his ribs creaked in complaint. Straightening up, he wound his way around the table and chairs and headed back down the hallway. He was halfway across the sitting room when Lacey cried out – a sound like a mini-avalanche crashing through the ground floor.

  His heart clenched in his chest and he burst into a run, sprinting past the overstuffed armchairs and into the foyer, shouting her name.

  She called back. Told him to wait where he was, that she was coming to him.

  His heart thundered far too fast after such a short sprint. He’d halted next to the straight-backed chair and unconsciously backed up a step, putting some space between himself and the dead girl. Her mummy-like appearance seemed to fit in with the rest of the house, as if she’d been on display here the whole time and not on a cross-state journey in the back of a truck with a motorbike and a dead man for company.

  ‘Look where you ended up, Ruby-Red,’ he murmured.

  Lacey appeared in the archway and Pilgrim couldn’t pretend he didn’t feel a flood of relief at seeing her whole and unharmed.

  ‘Did she come back through here?’ she asked, speaking again even as he shook his head. ‘I almost shot her. Shit. I freaked out when you yelled, and then it was like the wall was caving in from the inside. She just popped right out of the wall in front of me. I panicked.’ She paused to catch her breath, twisting to look behind her again, as if hoping the elusive s
tranger had waltzed back in to say hi. ‘Shit,’ she said again, louder this time.

  ‘I take it you know who it was,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’ She inhaled deeply, the next words coming out on a long stream of expelled breath. ‘I’m pretty sure it was my niece.’

  It made sense to Pilgrim. The kid had slipped down those steps like an eel, easily keeping ahead of him – only a smaller, slighter person could have done that.

  They called out for Addison, moved from floor to floor and room to room, but the girl was well and truly in hiding.

  Lacey rubbed at her face, looking defeated. ‘I scared her to death, firing a shot off like that. I’m such an idiot.’

  ‘We’re all a little jumpy.’

  ‘We need to find her.’

  He nodded, but he knew the girl wouldn’t be found unless she wanted to be. Not this time. He had caught her off guard once. According to Lacey, the kid was seven, which made her old enough to be wily but young enough to hide in any tiny nook of the house. She could be anywhere. They went from room to room and, at least in the searching, Pilgrim satisfied himself that the rest of the house was unoccupied and there weren’t any more surprises waiting for them.

  There was a small wood-burning stove in the kitchen – probably more of a decorative piece, as there was an expensive-looking cooking range along the opposite wall – that would serve them nicely, and Pilgrim soon had it lit, the nostril-tickling scent of dust burning along with the wood and paper he had stuffed it with. If anything would bring the little mouse out in the open it would be the smell of cooking. Plus, Pilgrim was hungry. In less than five minutes he had both cans opened and emptied into saucepans, and they were bubbling nicely on the stove top.

  Lacey sat at the table, arguing with herself and shaking her head, still upset. She periodically got up and went to the hidden staircase behind the kitchen wall and peered up it.