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It wasn’t until he found himself sitting alone at the table that Tristan realized how stoned he was. He wished he had some music, he wished there was a telley, and he wished he was anywhere but here. Bree was right after all. The place was spooky as hell. He would never admit it to anyone else, but that was why he had made light of the whole thing. It made him nervous. If he hadn’t been so intent on frightening the girls when he went outside, the short while he’d spent out there would have freaked him out. As it was, sitting alone in the kitchen with the window open he could hear all sorts of things creeping around in the dark. He was a city boy, more accustomed to sirens and the all night rumblings of the lorries up and down the road, and the sounds of neighbors arguing and people singing when the pubs emptied out. The sounds outside were deafening. Animals he couldn’t name cried and croaked in the dark, and there was the tramping of other, larger things moving about in the wood. He tossed back another cupful of wine. The pattern of the paper on the wall opposite began to breathe; the details of the ornate Victorian design skittered around like bugs. Tristan shuddered. He hated bugs. And he hated the noise from outside. And he hated the fact that he was still having mild hallucinations. He poured more wine and drank, hoping the alcohol would dull the effects of the acid soon. At least Barnard had left the bag of dope lying on the table. He might come back for it, but he was preoccupied with Bree at the moment, so Tristan had no qualms about helping himself.
He was surprised that his hands shook as he rolled the joint. He lit the joint, took a few deep drags, drank more wine, and when something screeched just outside the window, he thought he would burst out of his skin. He gathered the camera and slung it over his shoulder and, pinching the joint between his teeth and squinting as the smoke drifted past his eye, he picked up the last bottle of wine and the cup and headed upstairs.
8.
Pandora couldn’t sleep. The heat in the room was unbearable. The lace curtains hung limply in front of the open window. There was no breeze. The night was so black she could barely make out the tops of the trees that surrounded the house. She lay on top of the sheet in just her knickers, wondering how long it would be before she went downstairs to help herself to a bottle of wine. She hadn’t had a drink the entire time she’d been in clinic, and though this might not be the best time to start, she was less worried about alcohol than she was about drugs. Her sponsor would wring her neck if she found out she was drinking. But she wasn’t drinking, not yet – just thinking about it. What she needed was a distraction, something to help her get outside of her head. If the night wasn’t so black and the woods pulsing with sounds, she would have gone outside for a walk. Maybe that’s all she needed. Just get up and walk around the house a bit.
She pulled on her shirt but left her jeans lying on the floor. When she went out into the hall there wasn’t a sound from the other rooms, no light creeping out from beneath any other doors. At the end of the hall she could see light filtering up from below.
“Tristan?” she called as she went down the stairs. The light in the main hall was still on, as well as in the kitchen. There were three empty wine bottles on the table, but no full ones in sight. Good.
A lamp burned on a table beside a large, wing-backed chair in the library. She could just imagine Peter’s Great Uncle Basil sitting there in a smoking jacket, reading Proust or some such rot. But then, he wouldn’t read much literature would he? Books on Black Magic would be more the old boy’s speed. What a bunch of nonsense, Pandora thought, amazed that people actually believed in that stuff. She had known a few people over the years, mostly men grasping at desperate measures to score with women, who were involved in all sorts of rubbish, dressing in black robes and using naked women as altars. If that’s what they thought it took to get laid she felt sorry for them.
She turned around. There in front of her was the door to the museum room. Wasn’t that dodgy – all that weird stuff from all over the world, and that lovely yellow scarf?
She tried the knob on the door. Peter had forgotten to lock it. Pandora opened the door. She could feel the power inside the room. Despite her disbelief in hocus pocus, the feeling was undeniable. It was evil, all of it. There was no other word for it.
Except for the yellow scarf.
She found a book of matches in the library and, stepping into the room, lit a single candle.
Pandora saw the box right away. The small wooden box with the hideous visage intricately carved on the lid. She went straight to it, hesitating only a moment. She didn’t want to touch the lid, but the yellow scarf was inside, and if she wanted it…
Why did she want it? Pandora had no idea. But it was hers. She knew it the moment she had first touched it when they were all in the room together.
She raised the lid and peered inside. The yellow silk shimmered in the candlelight.
Pandora set down the candlestick and reached into the box. She lifted the yellow scarf and wrapped it around her throat. The silk felt cool and sensuous against her skin. She tied it loosely around her neck and felt a current ripple through her body. At first it was no more than an electric charge – no different than a simple orgasm. Her nipples became hard, her vulva wet. The sensation continued to build inside her until it expanded to fill not only her physical body which could no longer contain it, but the very essence of her soul. The feeling overtook her so swiftly, so suddenly there was no time to contemplate its meaning. It was better than any drug she had ever sampled, and she had tasted them all. She was the Great Mother. She was the all powerful center of the universe. She was the moonless night. She was the beginning and the end, the creator and the destroyer. She was the darkness within the void, and she was beautiful.
She wished for a mirror.
9.
Tristan couldn’t sleep. The sounds emanating from the woods surrounding the house were too much for him. He had never felt so freaked out in all his life. He’d thought that the wine – he’d drunk an entire bottle on his own – and the pot would have brought him down, but if anything they made him feel worse. The queasiness in his stomach was like a living thing, like a rodent had crawled up into his gut and was slowly, ravenously chewing its way out. The thought was revolting and he sprang up from the bed.
The heat in the room was stifling but he wrapped his arms around his body and shivered – not from the cold, but from fear. God, he hated this place. He wanted to leave. Perhaps if he went and woke the others they would want to go too. Bree would be happy to go, and maybe Pandora too. Barnard would make fun of them all and tell Tristan he was just as bad as the women. He hated it when Barnard called him effeminate names. Just because they were friends didn’t give him the right to be insulting, regardless of how Tristan behaved. Barnard was straight and never missed an opportunity to rub Tristan’s nose in it. And people complain about us shoving our lifestyles down their throats! People had no idea what it was like to be treated like something less than human for simply living life as one really was.
Tristan went barefoot out into the hallway. He listened at the door to Barnard’s and Bree’s room. Barnard was snoring, lucky bastard. It figured he’d be the one most able to get to sleep. Was Bree lying curled up next to him still counting sheep? Or were Barnard’s thick arms around her enough to make her feel safe and drift easily into slumber?
Tristan was about to listen at another closed door when he noticed the one next to it was open. Was someone still awake? It was either Peter or Pandora. It didn’t matter. Company was company and he padded eagerly downstairs, oblivious that he was only in his pants. He would be happy to see whoever it was, and hopefully an hour of small talk would be enough to calm him, but he was prepared to stay up all night if he must.
A lamp was on in the library, but no one was in sight. The door to Uncle Basil’s weird little exhibition was open, though, which Tristan thought was strange. He distinctly remembered seeing Peter lock the door. Or had he?
“Hello?” he called. There was a dim oran
ge glow coming from the room. Was someone inside? He stepped closer to the door.
“Peter?”
He listened, his heart beating wildly in his chest.
There was breathing coming from inside the room. It wasn’t normal human breathing. It sounded like an animal of some sort, an animal that had run itself ragged and was panting for breath. Bloody hell, he was sick of these damned hallucinations. It would be a long time before he dropped acid again, that much was certain.
He leaned into the room, holding onto the door jamb as if he were afraid the entire world would tilt and he would fall helplessly inside.
“Pandora?”
“Ahhh,” came the response, a coarse, guttural crooning. It wasn’t Pandora’s voice, and it wasn’t Peter’s. What the hell was going on?
It’s not real, Tristan told himself, whatever it is it isn’t real.
He stepped into the room. The breathing was louder inside, as if it was coming from the very walls themselves, as if someone had set up quadraphonic speakers, the noise coming at him from all directions.
Then he saw the shape crouched low on the floor. It was Pandora. She was hidden almost entirely in shadow but there was enough light coming from a single candle on a table that he could see something was wrong. Her skin was blistered and festering, glistening with whatever oozed out of her flesh. Her mouth was open and her tongue lolled out. She panted like a dog.
“Pandora, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”
It’s just another hallucination. It’s not real. It’s not real.
A bestial sound came out of her, like some jungle creature threatening its prey.
“Are you hurt?”
He moved closer. He could see the whites of her eyes, and the irises… he had never seen such blackness in a person’s eyes. Now he realized that she was naked. Her nipples were red and swollen, as if they had been pinched and pulled until they were enflamed, and the way she crouched he could see that her vagina was open. He wasn’t squeamish about girls but the sight of it was hideous. It was like a salivating mouth, opening and closing as if it wanted to eat him alive.
And that’s exactly what it did.
Tristan didn’t even have time to scream.
10.
Bree had to pee. She tiptoed up and down the hall, Barnard’s shirt buttoned loosely about her shoulders, peering into open doorways, cautiously opening other doors and poking her nose inside. Luck would be with her if she found a WC, but she was afraid the only one would be the one downstairs in the kitchen. The darkness in the hall was impenetrable, and it seemed as though night things crawled and slithered their way up the walls. She knew it was only the pattern on the wallpaper playing tricks on her eyes, but she brushed her arms as if invisible bugs crawled over her skin. Whatever had possessed her to agree to come to this awful place she’d never know. She couldn’t imagine a worse place to spend the night… on acid no less. Damn Barnard and his ghoulish sense of humor, and damn Peter and damn Tristan too. The things they had seen in that room were enough to give anyone nightmares.
She had half a mind to wake Barnard and tell him she was leaving and if he wanted to stay the rest of the night and come home with Peter in the morning he was welcome to it. She could probably get Pandora to leave with her, and the boys could have the whole place to themselves. Get into some of Uncle Basil’s things and have a go at raising spirits. That’s what they wanted, wasn’t it? That’s what they had really come here for. She saw the way Barnard had looked at the stuff in that room. He’d love to get his hands on any of those artifacts and see what kind of power he could unleash. What she was doing with a man like that she’d never know. Actually, she did know, and the thought of Barnard’s mouth trailing teasing wet kisses between her thighs was almost enough to make her release her bladder right then and there.
Bree scampered down the stairs on the balls of her feet and was about to whip around the corner and head to the WC in the kitchen when she saw the light coming from the library. It was probably Tristan, still awake and nervous as a puppy, taking a gander at Uncle Basil’s books on witchcraft. She didn’t see him trying to sacrifice a virgin anytime soon, but Tristan was full of surprises.
She poked her head into the room and called, “Tris?” knowing full well the room was empty. But the door to that other room, the inner chamber, yawned wide like a mouth waiting to swallow her. Without thinking, she crossed the room and peered inside.
“Tristan?” There was a candle set on one of the tables, and it shimmered darkly on something black and wet that pooled across the floor. She wrinkled her nose as the smell hit her. It smelled like something rotten, like something had crawled out of the grave. She turned her head to the side to gasp for fresher air and was about to turn and leave the room altogether when there came a growl from somewhere down low behind one of the tables. Oh, now we’re going to start the aural hallucinations are we? She craned her neck into the shadows. It truly looked like something was down there, panting heavily, like a dog. What was it?
She took another step deeper into the room. It was Pandora – but – something was wrong with her! Her eyes were wild like she’d gone completely off her trolley. Her tongue, long and thick, was hanging from the side of her mouth.
Bree was struck dumb with fear. In the single second the thought flashed through her that she had better turn and run, the thing that looked like Pandora sprang up from the shadows, teeth and claws tearing at Bree’s flesh. Hot urine sluiced down her legs. She lifted her arm to strike the thing, but she was no match for its power. Its jaws clamped around her forearm, wrenching it from her body amidst spurts of blood which spat helter-skelter from the torn and dangling tendons, and she thought to herself oh God oh God oh God as the thing that was once Pandora savagely tore every limb from her body.
11.
Barnard drifted vaguely up from the depths of sleep when Bree left the room. The poor girl probably had to pee, and he was not surprised. He’d given her quite a pounding the way she liked it. She always had to go afterwards which sometimes ruined the moment for him, but he had a surefire way of getting back at her. He’d roll over on his side and drop right off to sleep – only hours later when he’d briefly awaken, only then would he turn and wrap his arms around her. If he was hard, she would respond in kind by rubbing her arse against him. It was the little things that kept them together.
But something told him she had been gone just a bit too long – a quarter of an hour, a half? It was hard to tell with the various drugs warring in his system and the rising and falling in and out of sleep that was a hallmark of long nights on acid. He sat up in bed, scratching his chest and back, disgusted by how clammy his skin felt. The place was far too hot. It was like being in the middle of some African jungle, and with the sounds pouring in through the open window, it sounded like it as well.
He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and waited for a moment for his head to clear. Then he went out into the hall, naked, and looked up and down as if she might have popped into one of the other rooms for a wee bit.
“Bree?” he whispered softly into the darkness. Of course she wasn’t there. The only WC was downstairs. Perhaps she had lingered in the kitchen for a drink or a bite to eat.
Barnard trundled down the stairs, his penis slapping against his thighs. It would be just his luck to run into Tristan. It would give the old boy a thrill, and not for the first time. Tristan had walked in on them having a go before, and not only once. He was beginning to think the boy did it on purpose. Bree was usually too far over the edge to care, and it only made Barnard feel that much more virile, knowing that another man was watching him do his stuff.
There was light coming from the library. Maybe Peter was sitting in his Uncle’s chair, learning all about how to conjure Satan from one of his Uncle’s arcane tomes. He fully expected to see him there, but the chair and the room were empty.
His eye was drawn immediately to the door to the museum.
It was open.
Obviously he hadn’t, and now that the opportunity presented itself, Barnard couldn’t resist taking another look inside.
12.
Peter sat bolt upright in bed. How long he’d been asleep he didn’t know, but he’d had the most awful dream. He’d dreamed there was a demon in the exhibition room – something almost human with sharp teeth and ragged claws – some beast that had crawled up from the pit of eternal fire.
Gad, Peter! You’ve really let this place go to your head. There are no such things as demons, even if Uncle Basil believed in them.
Still, he wasn’t altogether certain he’d locked the door. It wouldn’t do for his friends to go wandering about in the middle of the night and wind up inside. The things in that room had spooked them all bad enough when they were all in there together. He couldn’t imagine having the nerve to venture inside by himself, alone, on acid. Just to be on the safe side, he’d better go down and see that the door was locked.
He pulled on his trousers and took the keys from the night table beside the bed where he had left them. Sure enough, when he entered the library the door to Uncle Basils’ macabre museum was wide open.
There was a candle burning inside the room, but he couldn’t bring himself to go inside and blow it out. Perhaps if he closed the door the flame would die down and burn itself out. If not, and it burned the place to the ground… well then, it was no great loss, was it? Besides, his imagination was running wild and he thought he heard something inside. There’s your beastie! He thought, and he quickly shut and locked the door.
Now he could be able to go upstairs and rest easy. He decided that when they got back to London he would advertise for someone to buy the occult artifacts. He’d sell them cheap – and the house as well. Profit was no object. He really didn’t want to have anything more to do with Hampton Close.
Peter went back upstairs and lay down on his bed. Odd, it didn’t feel quite as hot as it had before. The temperature outside must be beginning to drop, and the sounds from the woods were not nearly as overwhelming as they had been before. Peter drew the sheet up around him, and as he drifted easily into sleep, it seemed to him that Hampton Close breathed a peaceful sigh.
Peter slept, and the house dreamed.
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