Creed

by James Herbert

  It was another twenty minutes before the paparazzi became agitated and suddenly dashed across the street in an overexcited and disorderly gaggle, with just one objective in mind: to preserve the next few moments for posterity (or, to be less fanciful, to make the next buck). But Creed was way – no, just – ahead of them.

  He had positioned himself at an angle to the long windows of the brasserie, which gave him a perfect view of the target, and had thus witnessed the actor rise from the table. Still he’d waited until the last moment before walking swiftly to the restaurant’s entrance (to have moved too soon would have alerted the others) to take his place squarely in front and barely five feet away from the door. His camera was already raised, his finger poised on the shutter release.

  He steadied himself as the pack hit him from behind, all jostling to stake their claim on a suitable piece of pavement.

  One half of the swingdoors was opening. Somebody was emerging.

  A non-face. Nobody recognizable. But the actress was with him. And not with Nicholson!

  Anjelica barely smiled at the cameramen as the man who had preceded her took her by the arm and guided her to a vehicle parked further along the street while flashes flared and shutters clicked in a peculiarly hushed cacophony. And only when they were at some distance did Jack Nicholson appear on the doorstep, grinning that sardonic grin of his.

  Bastard! He’d done it on purpose. He’d sent his lover out ahead of him!

  ‘Take it easy, boys,’ he drawled, showing his teeth.

  His presence sent the pap back into a frenzy. White sheet lightning was almost continuous, the cries of ‘This way Jack over here Jack another smile Jack’ almost a screeched litany. The ‘boys’ were claiming their scalp.

  All except one, that is. Joe Creed was sprawled on hands and knees on the hard stone.

  Someone – and he knew precisely who – had cracked an elbow against the side of his head at the exact moment the actor stepped from the entrance.

  Spitting curses, he hauled himself up as the mob followed Nicholson along the pavement – followed him from the front, that is, for they hobbled backwards, snapping all the while, tripping over each other, but never losing their feet. Creed scrambled after them, then dodged between two parked cars, guessing the actor’s intention. Nicholson abruptly stepped off the kerb and, to the amazement of everybody, crossed the street. The diners watched the fuss from the large windows with equal amounts of disgust and amusement.

  There were no vehicles parked on the other side, so the photographers couldn’t understand what he was up to. Nevertheless, the change of direction allowed Creed to reel off some choice shots unhindered by the other lensmen.

  The pack swarmed after the star, but Creed hung back. He’d seen this trick of Nicholson’s a few years before.

  A car engine started up behind Creed. A Ford Scorpio began to move away from the kerbside. The photographer backed away from it as someone in the passenger seat leaned over and, with some difficulty, pushed open the rear door on the road side.

  Suddenly the movie star was hurtling across the street, his body aimed at the slow-moving car.

  Creed got shots of Nicholson running, then diving full length on to the back seat of the moving vehicle. It was a magnificent manoeuvre which left the photographers gawping.

  The Scorpio sped away leaving the pack mesmerized. A good few seconds went by before they scattered for their own transport.

  The idea had been to prevent the paparazzi from following and discovering which hotel he was staying in, and the ruse appeared to have worked, for the Scorpio’s rear lights were already disappearing round the corner of Stratton Street.

  Normally, Creed would have taken up the challenge; even if he lost the Scorpio, he could have whizzed around the top hotels in the locale in the hope of catching the car parked outside or nearby. Tonight, though, he felt he’d had enough. It’d been a long day and there were still other things to do before he could hit the sack. Maybe he was getting old. Maybe the thrill was beginning to fade. Maybe he didn’t give a fuck.

  Creed dropped that night’s film off at the Dispatch’s processing lab and called it a night.

  Well, he thought he’d called it a night.

  5

  Creed, his sleep disturbed, snuggled up closer to the pillow, pressing his face into its softness. A child might do the same with a teddy bear or favourite doll; in Creed’s case, the pillow substituted for the cushiony flesh of a woman. Occasionally he liked to sleep alone (and of late he’d had little choice), but generally he favoured the warmth of a female body next to him. He mumbled something that might have been quite rational in the dream he was still half involved in, then twisted in the bed, taking the pillow with him.

  His eyes flickered open.

  Light from a streetlamp further down the mews came in through the window, but it wasn’t much and certainly not enough to make sense of the objects in the room. The chair over which he’d hung his coat resembled one of the gravestones he’d so recently wandered among. A navy-blue dressing gown hanging on the open door could have been a figure watching over him. The tall wardrobe in one corner could well have been the entrance to a tomb. The ornaments on the mantel—

  He blinked twice, rapidly.

  His dressing gown lay over his feet on top of the duvet (his feet got cold at night in the winter when there wasn’t another body present to steal heat from). He lay on his back and looked towards the door without moving his head.

  He’d been mistaken: there was nothing there at all.

  He allowed his head to follow the movement of his eyes. He frowned in the dark. He was sure there had been . . . Dickhead. Obviously the dream hadn’t let go quickly enough, an image had lingered. Creed turned on to his side, bristle on his cheek scratching against the pillow’s fabric. That was all he needed, a frigging bad night. Just can’t settle into a steady sleep, keep stirring, waking for a second or two, drifting off again. Mind’s not settling down, that’s the problem. Maybe a smoke would soothe the old think-box. No, too tired to get one. Need to rest, heavy day tomorrow. Count sheep? Deep breathing would be better. Six seconds in, eight out, from the stomach, not the chest, fill every corner, then expel every last bit of puff. One, two, three . . .

  He yawned with the fourth breath, spoiling the rhythm. Start again.

  Up to five when a noise from somewhere brought air to a halt halfway up his throat.

  What was it? What the fuck was that?

  He stared at the ceiling. Grin mooching around. Had to be. Cats were born to be night moochers. But Grin was too lazy even for that. She rarely woke up even when he arrived home at two or three o’clock in the morning. Still, tonight might be the exception. She might even be on the prowl for mice, God help us! Maybe the cat had more sense than he’d given it credit for and had actually heeded his warning. Don’t let me down, Grin, go get the little buggers. It’s better than exile.

  But the next noise was too heavy to have been made by the soft paws of a prowling cat. It sounded like a footstep.

  And there was another.

  Creed stiffened. Judas, there was someone in the house. He swallowed spit. He listened again. Nothing now.

  Could’ve been creaking floorboards, old timbers. Yeah, yeah, that was it.

  But that wasn’t a floorboard shrinking, nor was it a footstep!

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Creed whispered as he sat up, still clutching the pillow. Somebody was rummaging around upstairs. He listened intently and prayed there wouldn’t be another sound.

  There was though.

  Creed groaned inwardly. What the hell was he supposed to do? Go up there, confront the burglar? No bloody way. Ring the police? Whoever it was would hear. What then? Get out fast, he answered himself. Leave them to it, it was only property, after all; flesh and bones were more sacred.

  And our hero would have done just that had it not been for one thing. The sounds had come from directly overhead and directly overhead was his photographic room. Creed’s li
velihood was up there. Files, records, cameras, film stock, equipment. Shit, his history was there! The accumulation of his years as a photographer, shots he’d taken for himself, ‘overs’ he’d kept from numerous jobs, transparencies, black-and-whites. All the best from twelve long years of working his butt off. Okay, pal, you’re in trouble; nobody was taking away any of that stuff. Only over my dead bod—Get serious, Creed. Equipment and stock could always be replaced, new shots could always be taken. This guy might be dangerous.

  Didn’t the police always maintain, though, that in most burglaries, the burglar was more frightened than the victim? With his luck, he’d get the villain who was fearless. Creed’s grip tightened on the pillow.

  Only the inescapable fact that there was precious else that he could do finally drove him from the bed. He tugged on his dressing gown – nothing like nakedness to make you feel utterly vulnerable – before peeking through the open doorway. Again he held his breath and listened, realizing he hadn’t heard another sound for a while now.

  Could be, he tried to reassure himself, could be it really was only mice. Rats, even. He shuddered. It was possible. Yeah, it was likely. Those bastards could make a hell of a noise, and in the dead of night sounds were amplified anyway. Anything might sound like footsteps once the imagination got itself into a tizz. Sure, and rats could easily get in through the rafters of these old buildings. Didn’t he read somewhere that rats were taking over the city? Good idea for a book there. Somebody ought to do it. So where was Grin? Why wasn’t she up there sorting them out?

  He could see across the hallway into the kitchen, but that didn’t help at all. The question was, should he make the climb up the spiral staircase to chase the vermin away? If it was vermin, of course.

  It’d been quiet up there for some time now. What if an intruder was waiting for him to put his head through the round hole in the floor? But there was an alternative to sticking his neck out, so to speak, and it would probably deal with either burglar or beast.

  He grasped the key in the bedroom door, ready to slam it shut and keep it that way.

  ‘Okay, I know you’re up there, I’ve rung the police, you better get out now while you’ve got the chance!’

  He’d shouted loud enough to wake the dead, and the near-hysteria hadn’t shown. They might get cocksure, villain or vermin, if they thought he was afraid.

  Nothing scuttled, nothing panicked. Nobody returned his call.

  He tried again. ‘You’ve got about four minutes to get out, the police are pretty quick round here, go now and we’ll say no more about it!’

  Nothing at all.

  Creed waited a while longer before reaching out and switching on the hall light. Christ, Creed, you’re like a bloody maiden aunt, he scolded, feeling just a trifle braver with the light on. No one was up there. No one. He’d been mistaken.

  Nevertheless, he crept into the kitchen with considerable caution and took out a long carving knife from a drawer just in case. He stood at the foot of the circular staircase and peered into the dark hole over his head. Gotta check it out, Creed. You’ll spend the rest of the night listening if you don’t.

  He put one foot on the bottom step, paused, made it to the second.

  The hell with it. He continued the climb, bare feet quiet but not soundless, his eyes soon drawing level with the next floor. He took his time looking over the rim.

  It felt as if his heart had thickened into a heavy, glutinous lump inside his chest when he looked across the loft room.

  The lightswitch was near, but it couldn’t be reached from his position. Not that it mattered, for there was another light source: the amber light from the open darkroom spread softly towards him.

  And in the darkroom, its bald skull like a dull setting sun in the orange glow, was a crooked figure. It stood sideways to Creed, holding a strip of film to the light with fingers that appeared extraordinarily long, like talons. But its awful face was turned towards the round pit from which Creed’s head protruded, as though it had been waiting for him to appear.

  Not a sound came from Creed, but his mind babbled, Oh shit oh God oh Christ . . .

  Then he was running backwards, not taking time to about-face, descending the circular staircase in a flurry of limbs, scrabbling at the rail and the centre-post for balance, shins scraping against the metal steps.

  Choosing not to linger in the kitchen, he finally turned to face the direction in which he was fleeing and ran into the hallway, virtually leaping down the stairwell leading to the front door.

  Unfortunately Grin was making her way up those same stairs at that precise moment, her purpose being to investigate the ruckus caused by her master. She was a mere shadow in the darkness, but an extremely loud one when Creed’s foot landed on her back.

  She screeched and Creed fell.

  He grabbed air and found it insubstantial; Creed tumbled, headfirst, then over, then headfirst again. The street door at the bottom of the stairs shook in its frame as he hit it.

  Moaning, he rolled over, consciousness sinking fast but not yet quite gone. Eyes barely open, he looked back up at the shadowy hallway to the top of the stairs.

  He muttered something before fading completely, and that partial word came from extreme shock.

  ‘Nos . . .’ he said quietly, and that was all he could manage. His eyes closed as though he were falling asleep and his head lolled to one side, a hand slipping from his lap on to the floor, fingers uncurling.

  6

  Envelopes dropping on to his head were the first thing to disturb him. He opened bleary eyes with difficulty and noted that three of those envelopes lying on his chest were brown, the kind that contain bills. He drifted off again.

  It was an hour later – although Creed wasn’t aware of the time lapse – that pounding from the other side of the door roused him again.

  He groaned, he moaned. He barely moved.

  Pounding again, matching the pounding inside his head. Somebody was putting hearty force behind the knocker. Creed attempted to push himself upright, but the effort of doing that seemed to hurt his head more than anything else. More cautiously, he tried again.

  ‘Mr Creed.’

  The letterbox flap above him had sprung open as if it were a mouth. The voice was female. ‘Mr Creed?’ it came again, the caller not realizing just how close he was.

  ‘Okay . . .

  ‘Mr Creed!’ Louder knocking this time, too.

  ‘Okay, for f——!’

  He sat, the top of his head only inches below the letterbox.

  The voice was much quieter. ‘Mr Creed, is that you?’

  He strained his neck to look round and upwards and saw a pair of eyes gazing down at him. Even without the rest of the face they looked astonished.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he was asked. ‘It’s me, Mr Creed, Cally. We met last night – at Hamiltons gallery, remember? What are you doing down there?’

  He made it to his knees and rested there, knuckles digging into the carpet. ‘A minute,’ he begged. ‘Just wait a minute. Oh Judas . . .’ He gingerly touched a hand to his forehead and groaned aloud once more when he felt the fresh contour. He pressed against the swelling to see if it would go down and instantly regretted the attempt.

  ‘Mr Creed . . .’

  ‘All right, all right!’ That hurt too.

  Drawing in a breath, Creed dragged himself to his feet, clinging to the doorcatch for support. The door scarcely budged when he released the catch and pulled; he remembered the bolt and bent to slide it back. That hurt even more.

  The girl’s face was full of concern when he opened the door six inches. ‘What happened to you?’ she said. ‘You look as if you’re growing another head.’

  It was then that it all came back to him. He staggered for a moment and quickly sat down on the stairs behind him; he stared ahead blankly, without realizing the girl had stepped inside and was kneeling before him, looking earnestly into his eyes.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she said. ‘Shall I
call for an ambulance?’

  He was too occupied with his own thoughts to reply.

  ‘Let me get you something,’ he heard her say without understanding what she meant. ‘Where do you – never mind.’ She glanced into the room off the hall, then climbed over him to go upstairs.

  Still he stared ahead, oblivious to the chill breeze coming through the open door. Soon there were footsteps behind him and a blue-denimed leg slid over his shoulder.

  ‘Here, drink this.’ Cally put a glass to his lips and tilted it towards him.

  He choked, then spluttered as she patted his back. ‘What . . . what the . . . brandy? Brandy this time of the morning?’

  ‘It’ll bring you out of shock.’

  ‘I’m not in shock.’

  ‘I told you so. Come on, take another sip.’

  He did, a small one, and had to admit it helped some.

  ‘Do you want to go to a hospital?’

  He shook his head and wished he hadn’t.

  He shivered, not because of the brandy, but because he was almost naked. He quickly drew the dressing gown around himself.

  Cally pretended she hadn’t noticed anything. ‘Let’s get you somewhere comfortable. D’you think anything’s broken?’

  ‘Yeah, my skull.’

  With her help, Creed rose to his feet, suddenly not sure whether he was shivery or shaky. They slowly climbed the stairs, Cally helping him all the way, and found the cat waiting for them at the top.

  ‘Move, pussy,’ Cally said. ‘Let’s get by.’ She could have sworn the thing was grinning.

  The cat studied the girl, and then Creed.

  ‘You—’ her master began to say, but the sharpness of his own voice made his head hurt even more. ‘She was the one who tripped me,’ he complained to the girl.

  ‘Ah, I see. You fell over the cat. My God, I thought you’d been attacked.’

  He froze, remembering again what had happened the night before, this time more vividly. ‘That’s not poss . . .’ His words trailed off.

  ‘Hey, steady. Let’s sit you down. I’ll make you tea or something.’