by Wood, Rick
Not even a murmur.
“Kaylee?” she called out, then remained still as she waited for an answer.
There was no reply.
Maybe she hadn’t heard her.
“Kaylee, are you there?” she shouted once more, this time a little louder.
Impeccable silence drifted up the stairs and flooded into the room with a succinct absence.
She shuddered. Not entirely sure why this was so disturbing.
Kaylee was allowed to be quiet if she wanted to.
It was all just so…
Unusual.
Nancy placed her sewing upon the desk and wandered into the hallway. She looked back and forth, scanning every corner and crevasse of the house; not entirely sure why.
It was her daughter, for God’s sake.
She needed to stop thinking there was something wrong when there wasn’t.
Pausing at the top of the stairs, she strained to listen. The living room was opposite the bottom step, so any hustle or slight movement would carry, and Nancy could take it as a surety that Kaylee was safe.
But the only thing that carried up the stairs was silence and dust clouds.
The creak of the step as Nancy placed her first foot down was far louder than it normally was, but this may have been because quiet noises always sound louder in silence.
Nancy reached the bottom step and cautiously thumped the worn-out carpet of the hallway. The open door to the living room displayed an empty presence.
Edging forward, Nancy slowly peered around the doorway, scanning the room.
A pile of dolls were left scattered across the floor, a half-empty orange juice on a cabinet, and an overwhelming emptiness encompassed the room.
This was where Nancy had left her daughter.
The windows were shut.
The front door remained locked behind her.
Where was she?
Nancy slowly rotated and took a few small steps back into the hallway and toward the kitchen. The only other room Kaylee could be in.
She tiptoed warily, keeping her eyes glued on the vacant entrance.
Why am I tiptoeing?
She shook her head to herself. Why was she so worried?
It was her daughter she was looking for.
Not some monster.
It was her nine-year-old daughter.
But, as she approached the doorway, an overwhelming chill sent itself coursing through Nancy’s body; first through her bones, seizing her muscles, and inflating her lungs.
She peered around the doorway.
She nearly jumped out of her skin.
Kaylee sat at the kitchen table.
Why am I jumping? It’s Kaylee…
There was something about the way Kaylee had propped herself up.
There was nothing casual in the way Kaylee was sat. It wasn’t like she was in the middle of an activity, or even in the middle of a thought. She sat at the table, her hands laid down upon the wooden surface with symmetrical precision as she stared back at Nancy with wide eyes and a wide grin.
“Hello, Mummy,” Kaylee sang out.
Kaylee never calls me Mummy. It’s always ‘mum’ or nothing.
Nancy’s breath caught in her throat.
What was going on? Why was her daughter so different, and why was it freaking her out so much?
Nancy withdrew for a moment, backing up into the hallway.
She paused. Gathered herself. Shook herself back to earth.
It was her daughter. Just her daughter, but a little… off. Unwell. Unusual.
Get a grip, Nancy.
Be strong for my family.
It wasn’t unusual for young children to change their dialect. Perhaps she’d heard ‘mummy’ somewhere else? A television program, or at school perhaps.
Once she had composed herself, shaken her mind back to normality, she returned to the kitchen.
And froze.
What the hell…
The glasses in the cabinet, through the glass door… they were upside down.
The chairs were balanced upside down on the table.
The cereal boxes along the kitchen side.
The kettle.
The handwash.
The egg timer, with its sand rushing wildly downwards.
Every single thing in this room was upside down, except for Kaylee, the chair in which she sat, and the table she rested her arms upon.
And Kaylee was in the exact same position.
Her arms hadn’t moved an inch. Her smile was the same, her eyes were the same, and her unfaltering stare remained eerily on Nancy’s.
Nancy’s eyes scanned back and forth in disbelief.
She had been out of the room for seconds.
She hadn’t heard anything but sickening silence.
Chairs, when they had touched the table… surely they would have made some noise. The glasses, to all be turned on their heads at that speed, would have created at least a gentle thudding sound as they were placed downwards.
Being able to precariously balance the kettle on its head.
How…
“Hi Mummy,” Kaylee repeated.
“How…” Nancy muttered. “How did you do this?”
“Do what, Mummy?”
Nancy flinched at the way Kaylee said Mummy. It was with such a happy bounce, such pride. But not pride at Nancy being her mummy; pride at the kick in the teeth it gave to Nancy that she called her such a name.
“The objects… how did you do this?”
Kaylee showed the first utterance of movement she had shown since Nancy had entered the room. Keeping her body in the exact same position, Kaylee’s head turned robotically to the left, then to the right, then resumed her stare.
Nancy awaited an answer.
Kaylee just kept smiling.
Kept smiling that sinister, sordid, sacrilegious smile.
“Who are you…” Nancy whispered, quiet enough that only she could hear it.
“What’s the matter, Mummy?”
“I… I’m going to go lie down.”
Nancy glanced once more at the room.
Her eyes were not deceiving her. It was a painting of perfectly balanced rotation, everything on its head but Kaylee.
Kaylee was such a sweet, kind girl. A friendly girl who loved her mother.
This was not her Kaylee.
17
April’s words spun around Oscar’s mind like a hamster on a wheel.
Julian had turned to her and announced, “We need to visit, there are things we need to clarify.”
“Where is it?” April replied.
“It’s in Loughborough. It’s around a hundred-mile drive.”
April had turned to Oscar with a sexy glint in her eye, a cheeky half-smirk, and announced:
“Let’s take Oscar. See if he’s ready for the big time.”
So there he was. In the back of the car heading up the M42, watching Julian and April having a quiet conversation between them in the front. It took him back to being a kid, an only child stuck in the back, whilst his parents had grown-up conversations in the front that he wasn’t privy to.
He ruminated on April’s sassy grin and declaration that they should take Oscar. He’d found himself really wanting to impress her, somehow wanting to justify her belief in him. So that she could eventually announce, “Yes, we were right, he is ready for the big time!”
Maybe it was because he was lonely. Maybe it was because it was the first girl he had ever met who gave him an ounce of attention. Or maybe it was just because it was something different that could take him away from the monotony of life.
Tewkesbury wasn’t the most exciting place. It was advertised as ‘a historic riverside town.’ They were close.
History – yes. Everything was old and crumbling down, including the majority of its inhabitants.
Riverside – yes There was a small river.
Town – well, there was a WHSmith. And a pharmacy. And enough charity shops to make you suspect they were taking over t
he world.
But as for activities, it hadn’t been a particularly thriving place to grow up in, or dwell with his parents.
But now – ghosts, exorcists, demons possessing people; and he had these crazy powers that could do something about it.
Even if all this excursion was accomplishing, was to entertain and encourage April and Julian’s joint delusions, at least it meant that he was doing something. Being useful.
As they joined the slip road at junction thirteen, entering a roundabout, Julian peering at his satnav, an overwhelming sense of doom overtook Oscar.
His muscles tensed, his bones stiffened, and his armpits began perspiring.
What was going on?
What was this feeling?
He abruptly choked. His lungs expanded, but it felt like no oxygen was filling them. He was wheezing, coughing, spewing up vague air from his sore throat.
Fear had taken him over.
A certainty that he was going to die overcame his immediate thoughts.
What was going on?
Why?
How?
He reached into his pocket, grasping a packet of pills, and held them out in his hands. He struggled to pop any out, such was the shaking of his hands.
After missing a few times, he finally managed to burst some medication into his palm.
He lifted the pills to his mouth.
April’s hand clamped tightly around his arm.
The pills hovered away from his gaping lips, unable to cure his anxiety due to the rigid hand firmly placed around his wrist.
“What are you doing?” Oscar frantically cried.
He was starting to well up, and he really didn’t want to cry in front of these people. They would think he was sad, or pathetic, or a loser.
Please don’t cry.
But his arms shook, his legs seized, and his neck stiffened.
Every piece of him was consumed with a colossal need to take these pills.
He pulled at his arm, reaching his mouth forward, gaping for the release of his medication.
“Don’t!” April barked.
“What?” Oscar wept. “Why?”
“Because you don’t need them!”
Don’t need them?
Fucking look at me!
“Yes, I do!” Oscar blubbered, reaching his jaw forward as April pulled his arm further away.
“No, you don’t!” April insisted. “These feelings are not anxiety, not mental health issues, none of that. These feelings are your gift, having been suppressed for so long.”
Before his eyes, a sudden premonition appeared. Of a house. A tranquil, serene, family home. A father. A mother.
A daughter.
The daughter he saw.
Kaylee.
She was laughing. Cackling, even. Sadistic roars of humour.
The girl.
The family was in trouble.
His shaking increased.
“I’m going to collapse, I need them!”
“No. You. Don’t!”
April’s insistent eyes reached out to him, boring into him, devouring him with her determination.
“Do not suppress your gift,” she instructed. “Do not numb it. Embrace it. See what it will tell us.”
April jarred his arm and the pills flew into the side of the seats and the crevices of the car’s floor.
“No!” Oscar jolted upright.
Then the vision of the daughter left him.
He relaxed.
His muscles calmed, his breathing slowed, and his mind became an ecstasy of tranquillity.
“What did you see?” April asked.
“The family… the girl… they are in trouble.”
April glanced at Julian, who grinned back.
“See,” April smiled sincerely. “Your gift is of use.”
18
As he stepped out of the car, Oscar’s mouth dropped in awe.
It wasn’t that the house itself was particularly impressive. It was your standard middle-class-family house; two floors, probably three bedrooms, nice brick, generously sized drive. Beside it was a collection of trees, with a lake just about visible beyond them.
It was the feeling in the pit of Oscar’s stomach that perturbed him. A stabbing feeling, as if he had swallowed a hundred knives and they were now swirling around inside his stomach, poking rashly at each and every component of his body.
Something was wrong with this house.
Or with something within it.
“Shall we?” Julian prompted, grabbing a leather bag and marching up the porch. Oscar noticed the edge of a cross poking out of this bag, which struck him as being eerily old-fashioned.
“Come on,” April prompted, and Oscar scuttled behind them to the front door.
The sound of Julian and April greeting Nancy Kemple occurred in the background, as if it was on a television with a low volume. Oscar was concentrating on other things. Like the walls.
The hallway was decorated with a light-green coating of paint, leading to a circular flower pattern on the wallpaper in the living room. Flashes of red appeared splashed against the walls, then went, like a hazy static.
A sucker punch landed into his gut, a hard hit of wind that came from nothing, and he fell to the floor.
When he lifted his head once more, the room had faded to black-and-white. He was the only one in it.
Whilst the room was modestly furnished and vacant of any person, there was something in the background. Some kind of screaming, or shouting, or moaning.
Before Oscar could find the source of the sound, he had sunk through the floorboards. In an instant, his arms disappeared and his whole body sank through the wood like quicksand, and he fell upon a solid stone floor.
Clouds of dust floated around him and, even though he had hit a hard surface with excessive velocity, he felt nothing.
The stabbing pain inside him remained, but there was no pain caused by his falling through the floorboards, and into what looked like a basement.
He laid out on his front, slowly lifting his head. The basement was consumed by shadows, coated in darkness except for a single light bulb flickering softly above him.
In the shadows, something moved.
He couldn’t make out what it was.
But it was everywhere.
Encompassing the edges of the entire room, up against the walls, cloaked in the protection of the light’s absence.
Crying. There was crying.
Oscar squinted.
There was movement. They were bodies. Children.
Lots of them. In rags. Cowering. Covering their heads, shielding themselves.
Oscar rose to his knees, looking to his left, to his right, and over his shoulder. They surrounded him, filling the shadows.
“What’s going on?” he whispered, barely audible.
Despite the silence of his whimper, the cowering children all gasped at the sound of his voice.
So he spoke louder.
“Who are you?” he forced, trying to sound assertive, despite his voice breaking in the middle of the sentence.
Whispers echoed him, “Who are you?” being quietly gasped around the room.
“Why are you all here? What is going on?”
One of the children stepped forward, allowing a fraction of light upon her face. This girl’s face revealed a deadly, charred burn up her cheek and a pattern of red scratches along the other.
“Oh, God.” Oscar flinched away. “Who did this to you?”
The girl looked upwards.
“She did…” she whispered in a timid cry.
“Who’s she?”
The girl lowered her head back down, focussing her eyes on Oscar’s.
“The girl. She’s not who she says she is.”
“Which girl? Who is she?”
The child cowered. Another child stepped forward, taking her place. This time a boy, half-stripped, with scars from whiplashes spread across his chest, and a deep wound spread upon his face.
&nbs
p; “The young girl who lives here is not that girl,” the boy told Oscar.
“Then who is she?”
The boy’s eyes searched back and forth, trying to summon the others; but they just cowered further into the shadows.
“She is her,” the boy said.
“Her? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“The one who tortures us. The one who keeps us enslaved.”
“The girl is keeping you enslaved?” Oscar repeated, filled with confusion.
“Please… help us…”
An unprecedented bolt jolted through Oscar’s body, sending him to the floor, his head smacking against the ground.
This time he felt it.
Only, when he lifted his head, he wasn’t in the basement anymore.
He was in the living room.
Everyone was staring.
Henry and Kaylee’s wide eyes fixed upon him. Julian watched, intrigued. April knelt by his side, rubbing his back.
“It’s okay, Oscar,” April assured him.
But it wasn’t okay.
Oscar was far from okay.
“Oscar, just calm down, tell us what you saw.”
With complete disregard for April, he flung himself to his feet and attempted to charge at the front door. He found himself unable to balance and collapsed against the nearest wall.
Doing all he could to gain his balance, he forced himself back to his feet.
He felt someone’s arms around him, trying to help, but he reached out and shoved them off him.
He didn’t want help.
He didn’t want anyone to touch him.
What the fuck just happened?
Using the door to steady himself, he dragged his feet to the front door and burst out, stumbling onto the lawn.
The sun shone down on him, casting burning rays over his skin, initially blinding him as he dove to the floor, shielding his eyes.
He vomited over a patch of flowers.
18
The world spun like he was drunk.
Oscar was on his knees, coughing up that morning’s cereal, squinting with pain as his stomach churned, overcome with a painful acidic stab. Any time he tried to look up he’d stay rigidly still, but the lawn would spin to his right, the same patch of grass moving around and around and around.
“Cool it, Oscar,” he heard April’s voice instruct him.