by Peter Laws
‘See you later, alligator …’
Matt turned and walked at pace through the empty lobby, and he had that horrible notion that Richie was coming up behind him the entire way. One, maybe two footfalls behind. Though Matt dared not turn. He entered the lift, with that persistent thump-thump inside his head. He turned to brace himself, but Richie hadn’t followed him at all. He was still sat there in that high-backed armchair all alone, still talking to the air and looking up from under his cap. As if Matt had never left.
With a genuine shiver, Matt jabbed the button and the mirrored doors slid shut. Breath returned as he headed up. His corridor was eerily empty, and he passed rooms that housed either crew members or demoniacs, settling down for a nap. Dammit, Nupa. Why didn’t they have stickers on the doors of the possessed? The puking emoji, maybe. Or a biohazard sign.
When he got to his room, he closed the door behind him, and noticed something he hadn’t spotted before. There were no locks on the door. What? His arms prickled. Such a simple security oversight from Nupa and her crew. He wondered what others they’d skipped over. The lack of a lock made him decide to sleep in his clothes, even though the room was clammy and hot, with no sign of air con. In fact, he’d not bother with sleep at all. He’d just lie on the bed and keep an eye on the door. He wasn’t quite elderly yet after all, and he’d pulled all-nighters before.
The fluorescent light panel above him was harsh, and Matt didn’t like seeing a familiar-looking silhouette of a fly walking in circles on the plastic. So he tapped the switch by the door, and darkness came. There was no bedside lamp. He climbed onto the bed, kicking the overly thick duvet into a mountain at his feet. He lay there as the minutes clicked by and tapped the Wi-Fi password into his phone. The mobile connection here was still non-existent, and the Wi-Fi signal looked abysmal. He tried watching some videos of people falling over or squirrels riding skateboards, but the signal was too weak for even the first frame. But still, it seemed, a signal was there. He set the phone to the side and waited.
The door. It hovered there, like a creamy-coloured box in the shadows. The lack of a lock was making him picture glassy-eyed strangers, dragging bare feet along the corridor and then stopping, so they might turn that handle slowly. He thought of Richie, sniffing his fingers and coming up in the lift.
‘Nope,’ Matt said, and promptly slipped off the bed. He dragged the small wooden chair that sat at the desk and shoved it under the door handle. Satisfied it was secure, he climbed back into bed. Sweltering in the heat, he unbuttoned his shirt, and almost fell asleep when the phone suddenly lit up the room.
An email, from DS Fenn.
I looked into Claire Perry’s car. It was definitely in Sneddon on the afternoon of the murder, but brace yourself … we’ve found CCTV footage of her meeting with Tom Riley, in the park. Something’s fishy but I’m not sure what. I’ve been told she’s up at The Reed with you all. Keep an eye on her. When you get back I’ll pay her another visit. Cheers. Martin. (ps. told you she gave me the creeps!)
Matt leapt in a spasm when the fly’s spiky legs landed on his chest and scuttled at speed across his body. But when he jerked up and slapped at himself he couldn’t find a fly anywhere. Which wasn’t helping at all.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Turns out Matt Hunter was elderly after all, because sleep did come, in the end. The last few days of craziness had finally caught up. And closing his eyes brought a very strange dream with it. Matt dreamt that he was lying right here in this odd, stuffy room, only now the bed sheet was completely off him. He lay exposed, in nothing but his boxer shorts, with one arm lolling off the side, and he was listening to someone sing to him. It was Lucy, his stepdaughter, humming a melody from somewhere in the shadows.
It was nice to hear her, and he really wanted to call her name, but his back was locked to the bed. Each time he murmured a sleepy groan she just said shhhhhhh and carried on with her strange song. This dream went on for some time, and the only moment it changed was when Lucy stepped out of the shadows into a very dull pocket of moonlight from the window.
Then it wasn’t Lucy’s voice at all, but the bizarrely low and raspy whisper of Tom Riley. And Richie Gregor and … and Ian Pendle too. Fancy that. The schizophrenic lip-eater who murdered Matt’s mum. Those three male voices rolled together effortlessly. As if they had always been one single voice all along. Which turned the room exceedingly cold. The man’s voice was talking about what it was like to kill a woman. How thrilling it was to chew through lips and tongue. His voice sounded like a fly’s voice might, if it ever learnt speech.
So he decided to tell the strange dream figure to go away.
‘Go away …’
But when he spoke the words in the dream, he heard them in real life. Because he was, it turns out, awake. And he’d been half-awake before.
When he strained his eyes fully open, he saw a figure, not far from the bed, and it moved.
Matt’s limbs shot out in a scramble backwards. He felt his bare back slap against the yellow brick wall. Loud and cold enough to make him know, beyond doubt, that this was real.
There was a figure in his room and it was covered in a white sheet. His white bed sheet, that now left him bare. Wait … bare? … Why were his trousers off? Did he kick them off in the heat? The quilt itself and his trousers were gone, and the chair lay upturned on the floor. The one he’d wedged under the door handle a few hours before.
The figure, standing like a cheap, fancy dress ghost, was swaying. Matt dragged a pillow over himself. As if that might protect him. ‘What do you want?’ he said, and his voice sounded deeply pathetic.
It just swayed a little more in the moonlight and also … yes … yes … he could see it now. The material was trembling at the face, just under what must have been the subtle jut of the nose. Where the mouth must be. Something was making the material flutter. Whispers perhaps.
It’s the flicking of an unseen tongue.
‘Hey …’ Matt went for a strict parent mode whisper. ‘What are you doing in my room? Who are you?’
The sheet rattled more frantically and a very low moan came back. It sounded like a man. Surely this was too small and skinny for Richie? Was this … was this Ethan?
‘Get out of my room, right now. Or I’ll …’ he trailed off. Or what, Matt? What will you do? The guy could have a knife under there. Are you going to pillow-fight him to death, or maybe grab the chair and—
Shit …
The figure was changing. The material was being sucked and gathered into fingers, as they tugged the material … downwards. He heard the very low hiss of the sheet sliding up the man’s back, towards his head. Going slowly (so damn slowly) up and up and up his spine. Matt wanted to call out for help, but some deep wisdom said, don’t do that. Shouting’s going to set this guy off.
Matt frantically looked around for a weapon. Now, why didn’t retreat centres come with Samurai swords? All he saw was a half-filled glass of water. That’d have to do. He grabbed it and tried to figure out a plan in as cold and dispassionate a way as possible. Where on the head should he smack this glass? How about right into the temple? That seemed good. That should disorientate the weirdo long enough to get past him and run.
He knew it wasn’t Ethan when he saw the tuft of long black hair spring out from under the sheet, and then as the sheet fell, her face emerged, eyes staring, mouth moving.
His voice came out as a gasp. Then, setting the glass down, he glanced at the door and back again. ‘Abby? What are you doing?’
Her whispers kept rolling, rhythmic, a mantra, the ocean.
‘Abby!’ he snapped, then he slapped his hands together in a clap.
The sheet dropped completely to the floor. She was standing in her flannel pyjamas of pink tartan doing something exceedingly strange. She was leaning forward, awkwardly. Now free of the material, she kept curling her wrists, sometimes forwards, sometimes backwards, so that her fingers and hands were turning and swirling.
He
immediately recognised the movement. He’d seen it in some security footage that went viral a few years back. A troubled Cantonese woman in a hotel lift, Elisa Lam. She was last seen curling her wrists exactly like this, staring at someone unseen through the lift doors. Then she went missing. A couple of weeks later, hotel guests complained about their tap water looking black and tasting vile. They found Elisa’s naked corpse in the water tank, up on the roof. She’d suffered from bipolar, but of course the Internet was convinced she was possessed.
Had Abby seen this video too? Had she presumed this was how possessed people act? An unhelpful, sleepy voice (that lacked the logic of morning light) whispered in his head, Or is she just possessed by the same demon as Elisa Lan was …
‘Whoa …’ He shook his head. ‘Don’t do that.’
She’d pulled her still twirling hands back and had started to tug at the top button of her pyjama top. She mumbled, ‘Where’s Pavel?’
‘Huh?’
‘Where’s Pavel?’ She started smirking. The top button popped open and her strange, undulating fingers immediately moved to the next one down. ‘Where’s Pavel?’
‘That’s enough.’ Matt’s bare feet hit the hot floor.
‘Where’s Pavel?’ Another button pinged open. ‘With the cows, perhaps?’ Her chuckle chilled him.
‘Stop it.’ He pushed past her, and the narrow room meant his arm slid past hers. It dragged her pyjama top down a little. Her bare shoulder gleamed in the moonlight.
She raised her free hand up to her face and it was so strange. She let her hand revolve against her mouth. She laughed through her moving, spinning fingers. ‘Where in the earth is Pavel?’
Not where on the earth … where in the earth.
Matt had to step over the strewn chair. He turned back to see her, and just like Richie before, exactly like him in fact, she was still just standing there, talking to the bed as if Matt was still in it. Laughing, and moving down to the next button. Her other sleek shoulder now uncovered. ‘Do you like me, Professor?’
‘Abby, please, you need to leave,’ he yanked his door open. ‘Now come—’
Ethan was standing in the corridor, yawning with one arm held up and ready to knock. He wore Pokémon pyjamas, so that fifty screaming Pikachus were all over his body. ‘What’s all the rack—’ He saw Abby, standing by the bed, and snapped suddenly awake. Ethan’s goggled eyes skipped from Abby to Matt, who stood there in the doorway looking mortified, in nothing more than his boxers.
Ethan’s mouth flatlined. ‘Plot twist.’
‘You misunderstand.’
‘Oh, do I?’ He bit the inside of his mouth, in anger. ‘Yeah, thanks Matt. Thanks a lot.’
‘Hey, wait—’
‘No, you wait. Wait till I tell Nupa.’
‘Seriously, she just came in and …’ He trailed off. ‘Wait. Where’s Pavel’s room?’
‘Who?’
‘Pavel Basa. The Romanian guy in his twenties? From the tests yesterday?’
He shook his head. ‘You’re married.’
‘Dammit. Pavel Basa. The erection in the abattoir guy? Bald?’
Ethan kept looking over Matt’s shoulder. ‘What about him?’
‘We should check he’s okay.’
Ethan wasn’t listening, but his eyebrow was rising. ‘What’s she doing in there?’
‘Sleepwalking, I think,’ Matt turned and saw her still working down her buttons. He grabbed a shirt and trousers from the cabinet. By the time he was tugging them on, Ethan was already filming her on his phone. ‘We need this.’
Matt glared at him. ‘Don’t do that. Jeez.’
‘Relax. I’m not filming you.’
‘Still don’t.’ Matt put a hand against the phone. ‘I think she’s asleep. Now let’s check on Pavel. Okay?’
Matt stepped into his shoes and turned back to his room; Abby was still in her trance. Only now, it looked like her pyjama top was hanging fully open, though he couldn’t see. She started climbing onto the bed, face first, beautiful hair hanging. The sound of her laughing did not sound like a young woman at all. It was as if there was a pervy old man sitting in the corner in there. Some filthy old cockney called Frank, who smoked a lot and drank ten pints each night and was rubbing his knees right now. If that guy was in this room, laughing right now, he’d believe it. Throwing his voice into hers.
‘Abby,’ Matt shouted at her. ‘Wake up!’
She moaned and buried her face into Matt’s cushion. When she pushed her hips into the mattress, he turned away.
‘Ethan. Snap out of it. Come on. And radio your security guys. See if they’ve got any footage of Pavel.’ They started heading down the corridor, where other doors were now opening. Other sleepy heads were slowly craning out, squinting like moles in the light.
‘We’re looking for Pavel Basa. Does anybody know which room he’s in?’
He checked his watch as they went.
It was just after 1 a.m.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
It turned out that there were a lot of Kissell’s clients staying in Matt’s corridor. In fact, it rather looked like he’d been slotted into the ‘possessed’ tier, thank you very much, while the rest of the unpossessed crew had joined Kissell in the floor above. As Matt started knocking on the doors, calling out for Pavel, more strangers came stumbling and yawning from their rooms, scratching their heads.
Deron Johnson came out wearing nothing but what looked like white speedos and a pair of golden-coloured flip-flops. Impressively, his chest had about three times more Afro than his head. ‘You’re looking for Pavel?’
‘Yes. Do you know his room number?’
He scratched the curve of his hairy gut and shook his head. ‘I’ll message him …’ He leant behind the door and came back with a tiny-looking phone. But he frowned and held it up in the air. ‘Wi-Fi’s gone.’
Matt checked his, and it was the same. He looked across the corridor and saw others doing replica forehead crunches at their own phones. ‘Has anybody got reception?’
A smattering of shrugs and shaking heads followed.
Into all this, Kissell himself appeared. He came around the corner in his long and red silky dressing gown, or rather he swung around the corner, with a blatant sense of ‘ta-dah!’ He tapped his glasses into place and stood to attention, hands clasped behind his back. Bare feet in tan leather slippers. Some seemed to relax at his arrival. He was, after all, the spiritual leader with all the answers. But others broke out into their predictable demonic twitches. It was like possession was an allergy, and Bernie Kissell was a fistful of butt hair from a dog, stuffed right into their faces.
Kissell unclasped his hands and swung his skinny hairless legs in a march up to Matt, tying his dressing gown cord tight as he went. ‘I am here to help, reporting for duty.’
‘Okay,’ Matt said. ‘Then we’re looking for—’
‘Pavel, I heard. How about we—’
Everybody froze when Ethan’s radio squelched. A voice fizzed in the speaker. ‘Ethan? You there, bud?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘We’ve checked the cameras. We’ve got Mr Basa walking towards the woods in his pyjamas. That was about an hour ago. Hasn’t come back since.’
‘Shit, shit.’ Ethan started pacing, hand lost in his silver quiff. ‘We need to get him back. I’m coming down.’
‘Good idea. I’ll get Simon and pray.’ Kissell swung around and the swirl of air lifted his thin gown, flashing both of his bony kneecaps. Not exactly Marilyn Monroe on a New York street vent. Matt followed Ethan to the lift and so did Deron, who didn’t bother grabbing any clothes. Deron wedged himself next to Matt in the lift. Speedos and flip-flops. What an outfit.
‘Shouldn’t you get dressed?’ Matt said.
Deron blinked at that, and just kept staring at his own reflection all the way down. He seemed to periodically frown at himself, like there was some other naked black guy staring back at him. Who looked like him, but wasn’t him.
Whe
n the doors finally slid open, the night breeze rushed against them and he and Ethan stepped out into it. Deron, however, didn’t move. He stayed standing in the lift, even as the doors closed over. Matt and Ethan shared a confused glance but said nothing. Odd behaviour wasn’t statistically odd, around here.
A long pathway led to the boating lake. A perfect, unnatural circle of water, gouged by bulldozers from the ground. Around it, Matt saw the forest. The tips of the trees looked like black knives, dragging across the dark belly of the sky. The normally silent woods were now punctuated with the regular shouts of ‘Pavel’ from the security guys, already searching out there.
Matt and Ethan, still in his pyjamas, jogged down the pathway, and joined the others in the woods. But after a while searching, twigs cracking underfoot, they both found themselves back at the lake. They saw two little boats bobbing on the water, just black shadows against the rippled, reflected moon.
‘Maybe this was all just too much for him,’ Matt said. ‘Maybe he just ran away.’
‘Maybe …’ Ethan pulled a torch from his pocket and flicked it on. The white beam danced across the still, silent water. Apart from the occasional bubble of air from an insomniac fish, there was nothing. ‘Unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless he’s under that water.’ He clicked the beam off. ‘Matt …?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you and Abby a thing?’
‘What? No. Absolutely not.’
‘She really just turned up in your room?’
‘Yes. Why? Do you really like her?’
‘Course I do, she’s stunning.’
‘Do you know she has a son?’
‘So? I don’t mind … it’s not just her looks, though …’ He shrugged. ‘I feel really sorry for her.’
‘Me too.’ Matt stared at the water. ‘For all of them.’
A sudden shout made them both jump. A figure back at The Reed was leaning out of the lobby window, with hands cupped around their mouth. ‘You two, back inside.’ It was Nupa.