EIGHTY-SIX

The air of the garage bloomed with the fragrance of stagnant toilets, stale tobacco smoke, fusty carpet worn white to the weave, underfloor exhalations: dusty, mouse-tainted, nitrate-sharpened, pissed upon, scented, and pissed upon again.

Amber began to hyperventilate.

She fell more than stumbled back to the kitchen.

Outside the kitchen windows, the security lights clicked on.

‘What is my name?’

The voice in the hallway outside the kitchen either changed quickly, or was replaced by a more nervous speaker, as if these familiar words had been uttered by a young woman who stood near the front door. But the urgency with which the second woman spoke transmitted an even greater panic into Amber. ‘Before here . . . that time . . . Nowhere . . . to where the other . . . the cold . . . is my name? . . .’

A third voice announced itself and sounded as if the speaker was halfway up the staircase. And whatever now spoke sounded exhausted. ‘And then you said . . . I said . . . I wouldn’t . . . unreasonable . . . but who was I . . . you, you told me . . . you swore . . . it was . . . meant something . . . a sign . . . frightened, the more I . . . and now I know . . .’

Amber stepped into the hallway. There was no one there, and no one on the staircase.

‘Involved . . . you are . . . you said . . . not that simple . . . must understand . . . Not going . . . refuse. I said it. I said it . . . wouldn’t stop . . . and look . . . what happened . . . the lights . . . even listening.’ This was the voice from a distant fireplace. The words swilled through the air, accompanied by a gust of dilapidation that came out of the kitchen.

Amber backed towards the doorway of the living room. Slapped on the overhead lights.

Another voice rose from the kitchen she had just fled; that of a teenager, a frightened and confused girl, once buried beneath the floorboards of hell. ‘I . . . don’t . . . can you find . . . where . . . where . . . this . . . am I?’

A spark of blue across the ceiling of the living room and hallway, a sound of thin glass imploding, and the house went dark.

Amber screamed.

From the garden a yellow glow hit the house and sought cracks to seep through. It took Amber a few seconds to realize the halogen security lights on the rear exterior walls of the farmhouse had come on. Intruder.

She wanted to be sick. Her mouth managed nothing but a whinny while her thoughts fell apart inside black chaos. Losing her balance, she stumbled then righted herself, only to thump her face against the wall at the bottom of the stairs.

Get out, get out, get out! The front door; she had to get to the front door and get out of the building. Behind her, close to her back, the quiet, tremulous voice of a young girl whispered, ‘I’m cold . . . I’m so cold . . . Hold me.’

Amber turned to see who was now standing at the foot of the stairs.

No one there.

Footsteps thumped around her in the hall to get ahead of her and to the front door. A slipstream of cool air prickled about her throat like ephemeral hands. There was a snigger, ‘Ho, ho, ho!’, from across the darkened living room.

From another unseen mouth, inside the garage, came the voice of an older, brittle, aggressive woman, that slowed the flow of blood inside Amber’s seemingly weightless body to what felt like a sluggish trickle: ‘To speak evil . . . no brawlers . . . all meekness unto . . . Foolish, disobedient, deceived . . .’ The voice flowed through the unlit air of the ground floor, to hit the ceiling and slap the walls, to fill the entire space of the hallway that Amber had stopped moving within. ‘Diverse lusts and pleasures . . . Malice and envy, hateful . . . hating one another . . . Kindness . . . love of God our Saviour . . .’

Amber crouched down and covered her ears. The sound of the voice was too horrid, was maddening. Every word from the woman’s mouth chipped away another fragment of her restraint. Behind the restraint was something red and black and thoughtless; she sensed its wild, addictive furnace of energy. Pushing.

‘A man that is an heretic . . . first and . . . admonition . . . reject . . . Knowing that he . . . subverted . . . sinneth . . . being condemned of himself . . .’

Shoot yourself.

‘Stop it!

In the mouth.

‘No!’

They’re filling you, filling you up with black things, with dead things.

Something began a tapping at the patio windows, on the far side of the lounge.

The rear garden remained flooded with an orange glow from the security lights. The light seeped across the lounge and into the hall. Through the living room doorway, Amber could see fresh clumps of dust spread about the floor. Could make out the black trees and dark grass of the garden, highlighted by an orange tint of what looked like premature, or fake daylight. Someone was standing on the patio, looking in.

She inhaled so quickly she issued a little shriek and nearly fell. So severe was her fright, her mind felt disembodied from a sense of where her physical form had been moments before. She stared at the long, blackened shape, at its head bowed and its filthy body withered and hunched over what it held tight to its chest.

‘I see you,’ she whispered, or thought she whispered, but was so beside herself with shock she may have thought she had spoken without actually speaking. She pointed the gun at the figure. What stood before her eyes was no illusion.

So dramatic was the switching off of the security lights, and the sudden return of the darkness outside, Amber thought she heard a click.

She fired the gun. Her hand rocked. A flare flashed. The window splintered.

The house had long returned to silence. Amber remained still, listening hard, waiting for her eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness inside. Across the living room, the gradual seeping of dawn revealed a spider-webbed glass door and an empty patio.

Her phone vibrated against her buttocks in the back pocket of her jeans.

It was Josh and he didn’t waste his breath on preliminaries. He had always been direct, if not abrupt, but his tone startled her. ‘Amber. Where are you?’

‘Here—’

‘Where’s here?’

‘Home. The farmhouse.’

‘OK. Listen to me. I do not want you to be alarmed. This is a precaution. Think of it as a fire alarm at school. A drill. Take it seriously, but it’s almost certainly nothing to worry about. Can you get to your car?’

‘Of course.’

‘I need to see you right away. Now, where is your car?’

‘The garage.’

‘Good.’

‘Josh?’

‘No time. Listen up. I need you to get into your car with your little friend and pepper spray. And I need you to make sure your car is locked and that your windows are sealed before you leave the garage.’

She could tell Josh was speeding and that he was speaking on his phone at the same time as driving, something she had not known him do before. ‘Josh. My messages—’

‘Forget them. Just listen. Open the garage door. Then open the gate from inside your car. I’m coming towards you. Meet me at Pit Wood.’

Pit Wood was not far from the farmhouse: by the crossroads, about two miles from her. ‘What? What is it? I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what this is about.’

There was pause as Josh chose his words. ‘He’s here. Devon. Has been all along. You were right. Now bloody move, please. Get out of that house.’