He knelt in front of the TV and pressed his hand to the wooden side. It was warm. Not by much—just a degree or two hotter than the air temperature, as though it had been running for a few minutes and only just been switched off.
Guy pulled his hand back. His pulse throbbed behind his eyes, and the night of broken sleep had left him feeling sluggish and disoriented. He tried turning the TV’s knob. It clicked around to different settings, but the screen remained dead.
Someone shifted on the couch behind him. Guy froze as the cushion squeaked. Shock kept him rooted to his spot, and he couldn’t look away from the reflections in the screen. They were distorted and blurred, but he could identify four unique shapes on the lounge. The two largest cuddled together with a child on either side, watching him as though he were their entertainment.
It’s not real. It can’t be real. It’s impossible—
One of the corpses sighed. The sound sent a rush of horror through Guy. He swivelled around. The couch was empty.
Guy stayed on his knees, his arm pressed over his mouth, though it was more in preparation of being sick than a fear of the mould. The room was empty. Quiet. Dormant.
What the hell is wrong with this house? He clenched his fingers into painfully tight fists. What the hell is wrong with me?
Guy blinked stinging eyes and stood. Burning, aching anger had returned to scorch his chest and fry his mind, but he had nowhere to direct it. Are the teens here, pranking me? Is the mould sending me crazy? Have I been crazy all along, and the symptoms only decided to show themselves while I’m at Rookward?
He wrenched open the window. Normally, he would have taken more care with the glass—it was brand-new—but right then, he didn’t care. He grabbed the TV and hauled it off its stand. It was heavier than he’d expected, but he had energy to spare. He hurled it out the window. It made a satisfying smashing noise as it hit the yard.
Next, he went to the couch. The lumpy, discoloured object still repulsed him, but he snatched up the decorative pillows and threw them through the window then went to work dragging the cushions out. The mould had wormed its way into the couch, and Guy knew he should have worn a protective facemask, but he was afraid if he lost his momentum, he would never get it back again. He settled for breathing as little as possible as he yanked out the first gummed-up cushion.
A massive red stain coated its back. Guy blinked at it as shock tore through the anger. It was like the bloom of gore he’d seen in the dream, where the woman had died on the couch. Only in reality, it was facing the wrong way, as though someone had turned the cushion around to hide it.
It doesn’t matter now. Trying to regain his impetus, he pitched the cushion through the window. He kept his motions sharp as he tugged up a second cushion, but the fury had calmed, like a wave spent on a rocky shore.
All of the pillows and cushions were outside, leaving just the couch’s base. Guy tried kicking it. The wood was spongy and decayed, and two woodlice scurried away from the impact site. Guy kicked it again, bearing his weight down with each motion, to break through the structure. It came apart in large splintered pieces, still bound together with the cloth covering. Guy tried to tear it with his hands, but was forced to admit defeat and go in search of a knife. He found himself a facemask and work gloves at the same time, and when he returned to dismantling the couch, it was with perfunctory efficiency rather than the earlier blind anger.
The room’s atmosphere felt better once the couch and TV were removed. The mould had set up a camp under the couch, leaving a large, rectangular black patch to mark its location, but Guy felt less uneasy without the hulking chair filling the back wall.
He stripped the mask and gloves off as he went back to the dining room. He bagged them then went outside to wash himself as well as he could with the jug of water and a bar of soap.
What’s happening to me? He lathered his hands an extra time and stared at the suds multiplying between his fingers. Am I really having delusions? I can’t believe I’m crazy. If I was going to lose my mind, it would have been after what happened to Savannah, not all of this time later.
The swing was audible, even though the house hid it from sight. He stared up at the building. One of the upstairs curtains shifted in the breeze, its off-white fabric curling in a pattern that made it seem alive. He remembered the photograph showing the woman pressed to the window, face inscrutable as she stared down at the photographer. For the first time, he seriously considered the possibility that he was staying in a haunted house. A spike of terror rushed through him, making his limbs twitchy and his chest tight. Pushing the idea aside, he swallowed the tang of fear that had flooded his mouth.
No, he decided as he towelled dry. Rookward isn’t haunted, because ghosts don’t exist. Which means I’m dealing with some kind of psychosis. I’ll clean the mould out of the family room. If the visions persist after that, then I’ll have to leave.
That wasn’t a pleasant thought. If something about the location was affecting his mind—and there was no way to remove it—then the house would be unsellable. Guy had precious little money left to spend on inspectors and specialist repairmen, let alone doctors. When he’d committed to restoring the building, it had been with the idea that he would pay for raw goods and learn whatever skills the job required. Outsourcing any part of the work was unfeasible.
Don’t panic. Fix what you can, then re-assess. Who knows, it might just be the stress getting to you. Except for that night you went home, you haven’t had a full eight hours of sleep since you first came to this place.
As Guy re-entered the house, a scratching noise echoed down the stairwell. He pressed his lips together tightly and exhaled through his nose. If I’m going to remove stress, getting rid of whatever’s in the attic is the first step.
He hadn’t brought any trapping equipment. Without knowing what kind of animal he was dealing with, it had been difficult to prepare. Whatever it was sounded heavy—possibly a racoon or a large stray cat. Guy tucked a roll of plastic bags and a torch into his back pocket and put on a fresh pair of work gloves. Then he picked up the crowbar and prayed that whatever lived above him wasn’t in a bitey mood.
The trapdoor had been built into the second section of the hallway, just past Guy’s room. It had been painted to match the ceiling’s plaster, but the dark outline was unmistakable. A small hole told him there had probably once been a stick to bring the trapdoor down, but he didn’t know where to start looking for it. Instead, he dragged the chair out of his room and stood on it to reach the ceiling.
Dust rained over his head and made him cough as the trapdoor came loose. Guy hopped off the chair then squinted at the retractable ladder dropping out of the ceiling. It hit the carpet beside him with a heavy thud, and Guy brushed the last of the grime away from his face. Whatever lived in the attic had gone silent.
The rungs flexed under his feet. For a moment Guy was afraid they were too old and would break, but they carried him. He climbed slowly and cautiously, putting as much of his weight on his hands as he could. The hole above him was darker than the hallway. Guy shifted through the opening and blinked as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the attic’s dim light.
Chapter Twenty
The attic spanned the length of the house. Guy switched on the torch and panned its beam across the space. Rookward’s attic had less clutter than the loft in Guy’s childhood home, but boxes and old furniture had been stacked around the edges. The cobwebs that hung from nearly every surface created a bizarre blurring effect, as though Guy were peering through a light fog.
The ceiling was high enough to let him stand in the centre, but it sloped down on both sides until he would have to crawl. Like he’d seen from the outside, a handful of ceiling tiles had come loose, but insulation packed into the space eliminated nearly all of the sunlight. Even with light coming through the attic door and his small torch, Guy had to squint to see the rafters and crates.
Plenty of places for a wild animal to hide out. He moved alon
g the attic with slow, cautious steps. Every movement echoed back at him. He couldn’t see any motion or disturbed dust, so he stepped towards the wooden crates grouped together in the centre of the floor near the opposite side of the attic. At least two dozen of them were stacked nearly to the ceiling. Guy found not just their arrangement but also their position strange. They were made of cheap wood, which had decayed significantly. Splintered gaps in several of the crates let him glimpse inside, but as far as he could tell, they were empty.
What made them important enough to be separated from the rest of the boxes? And if they were important, why were they left so far away from the trapdoor?
He moved around the edge of the cluster and drew a quick breath. Hidden behind the crates, out of view of the trapdoor, were signs of habitation.
A thin mattress and blankets had been arranged in the centre of the space. Both were grimy. They appeared to have been used often and never washed. The blankets had been left askew, and the pillow was bumped off the edge of the mattress, as though the occupant had left in a hurry.
Tins and glass jars, most opened but some still sealed, were stacked against one of the crates. Guy identified peaches, fish, beans, and soup. Behind them were boxes of cereal and long-life rations. The open tins were stained with the remnants of long-decayed food, and a musty, sticky smell made Guy gag. They looked as though they had been there since the sixties.
Papers had been stuck to the crates. They were lined up in orderly rows and arranged into distinct clusters with an unnerving level of precision. Guy had to sink to the ground and hold his torch up to the discoloured sheets to read them. Many of the papers seemed to be journals.
11 March: Thomas finished his book. I waited until he was asleep then took it to read myself. It is healthy to share our interests. 12 March: Thomas washed his car. Children played nearby. He still looks for me in the forest, but he cannot yet seek me out; the whore is ever watchful. 13 March: The whore argued with Thomas. She is ungrateful. Fate was cruel to trap him with her. I wanted to go into their room and slit her throat while she slept, but I moderated myself. He is not yet ready for me.
“Wow.” Guy ran a hand through his hair. This must be how Amy was able to stalk him for so long without being caught. She wasn’t in the forest. She was hiding in their own home, right above them. She would have been safe from the weather, and probably stole food from the house while the family was asleep. That’s sick.
Positioned amongst the pages were well-worn photographs. There was close to a hundred of them, all depicting the same man: brown hair, creases around his eyes, and a warm smile. A few showed him behind a desk in what Guy assumed was a bank office. Some were of him walking past buildings. Still more were of him in Rookward: Guy recognised the family room and the library.
In only two of the pictures—those taken in the bank—was Thomas aware of the camera. He was smiling in both of them. All of the others were candid shots, sometimes with leaves, fences, or dark, blurry shapes obscuring the camera’s view.
She must have been stalking him well before what he endured in Rookward. A handful of the pictures had melting snow banked against the walls. Others showed deciduous trees full of leaves. This would cover six months, at least.
It hadn’t been possible to see in the family portrait hung by the staircase, but Guy suddenly realised he and Thomas bore a lot of similarities. Their hair and clothes dated them to different periods, and Thomas seemed to have about a decade on Guy, but the resemblance was unmistakable, especially around the eyes.
Guy scanned the pages to find the last journal entry. The writing, which had been small and precise until then, became crooked for the final day. April 19: He has promised the whore that they will leave. Is he truly choosing her over me? I can’t believe he’s sincere. I have sacrificed so much for him, more than he’ll ever know. Now I will ask him to make a sacrifice in return. To prove his devotion. I will make him give up the whore and the whore’s children. Only then can we be together. Only then can I show him the depth of my love.
“Psycho.” Guy drew back from the tableau of macabre words and photos. A dark spot on the attic floor caught his eye. Amy had whittled a funnel-shaped hole in the wood next to the mattress. It was nearly as large as Guy’s palm at its opening but grew narrower until it was no wider than a fingertip. Guy had a horrible premonition about what the hole was for. He bent closer and squinted into it.
The hole opened into the master bedroom. He recognised the blue child monitor on the bedside table. The hole was positioned directly over where the bed had once stood, but if Guy twisted, its shape let him peer into almost any corner of the room.
They wouldn’t have known. Guy’s stomach flipped as he imagined lying in the bed and staring up at a black dot on the ceiling. It would have seemed like just a stain, or maybe a dark bug. Thomas would have had no way of knowing a woman was looking back down, studying him with a terrifying intensity.
Guy shuddered and looked away. Now that he was searching for them, he saw there were holes scattered across the attic—at least ten of them. One for every room. She could follow Thomas anywhere he went and listen in on his conversations. That’s horrible. It would be like having an extra member of your family you didn’t know existed.
Someone exhaled behind him. Guy twitched and turned to scan the shadows.
He couldn’t see anyone amongst the cluttered furniture, but the sensation of being watched had fallen over him, and he couldn’t shake it. “Hello?”
Guy didn’t expect an answer, but he couldn’t stop himself from speaking. The mattress had fifty years’ worth of dust over it; no one had been here since Amy had made it her home. But at the same time, the attic felt less empty than when he’d entered.
Am I having delusions again? I should get outside, into fresh air. Guy turned towards the trapdoor—just in time to see it slam closed.
Guy gasped and stumbled back. His foot caught on one of the crates. He threw his arms out to catch his balance, and the torch slipped out of his grip. It clattered across the dusty floor as its light flickered then went out.
With the trapdoor shut, the attic was close to perfectly dark. Guy tried to swallow around the lump in his throat and stretched his hands forward. It’s all in your mind. It’s got to be. You’re safe. There’s nothing here that you need to fear.
Those thoughts didn’t stop his heart from jumping and the hairs on the back of his neck from standing on end. As tightly as he clung to the belief that he was alone in the attic, he had no rational explanation for what had closed the trapdoor.
Guy shuffled forward, hands extended. His fingers touched one of the crates that circled Amy’s home. Cobwebs stuck to him, and he had to repress a moan as he felt around the structure. The feather-light touches of tiny grey spiders crawled across his fingers.
Get downstairs. Get outside. You’ll feel fine in a few minutes.
A heavy, scraping foot shifted across the floorboards. Guy threw a glance over his shoulder, but all he could see was a mosaic of dark shapes filling the room.
“Thomas.” The name was like a whisper drawn from a dying person. Desperation filled the rasping voice. “Thomas.”
It’s in your mind! Guy’s eyes were useless, so he squeezed them closed and relied on his touch to guide him forward. He was past the crates, but the webs still clung to his fingers.
The figure behind him took another step forward. Its feet slapped the dusty floor then scraped against it as they were dragged forward again. Guy hadn’t noticed before how cold the attic felt. He blindly stumbled in the direction of the trapdoor.
“Thomas.” The voice was closer than before.
A whine caught in Guy’s throat. He clung to his rationality, repeatedly telling himself that the sounds weren’t real, but the more he said it, the less true it felt.
He knew he had to be close to the trapdoor. He dropped to his hands and knees, feeling for it. Dust clung to the cobwebs and the spiders skittering up his arms as he sought a h
inge, a ring, or the millimetre-wide gap that signalled his exit.
The shambling footsteps were almost on him. He could hear her breathing, sticky and quick, behind and a little to his right. She’s not real. She’s not!
Guy touched metal. He cried out from relief. His fingertips traced the shape of the hinges then felt forward towards where he knew the ring had to be.
A finger ran along Guy’s cheek. He jerked back. The place where he’d been touched burned. A desperate need to scramble away from the unseen figure rushed over him, but he kept himself where he was, beside the trapdoor and the escape it promised. Guy threw both hands ahead of himself, panning them in a wide arc, and found the ring. He pulled it up. Light flooded through the opening.
Two bleached eyes stared out of the shadows across the trapdoor. They were round and unblinking, bordering on manic as the pupils traced over Guy’s features. The intensity horrified him. He squeezed his own eyes closed and lunged, head first, through the opening.
Chapter Twenty-One
Guy realised the severity of his mistake as soon as his shoulders passed through the trapdoor. Rookward’s ceilings were high, and it was a long way to the threadbare runner below—especially with his skull in line to break the fall. He stretched his arms out in a desperate attempt to stave off the impact.
Sharp pain shot through his leg. Something had caught around his ankle as he fell. The pain dug in, burning and making him cry out, then he slipped through and hit the ground hard enough to blot out his vision.
He blinked rapidly and groaned as he rolled onto his side. His bones hurt. His head throbbed. The cutting pains in his foot refused to abate.
Idiot! What in the hell possessed you to jump out head first? There was a ladder right there! It wasn’t like you were in danger!
The belligerent internal voice faded into silence as Guy stared at the blood seeping from his leg. He tried rotating his ankle. Fresh pain flared, and with it came a stabbing, nauseating fear.
The Haunting of Rookward House Page 12