From Dark Places (2 page)

She’d left the grandfather clock until last, reluctant to defile what had been her mother’s favourite possession, even if it gave her the creeps. Crouching at its base, Katie laid the handkerchief on the floor and removed the nails, trying not to think of it as a family heirloom, and more as a problem in need of a solution. She’d never liked it anyway.

With the penlight torch jammed between her lips, she wrapped the head of the hammer in the fabric, selected a particularly shiny nail and focused on the door of the casing. The foul thing ticked loudly at her, the cogs grinding through the remaining precious minutes of respite as she fumbled with the nail. It had to be positioned in just the right place; hidden from a casual glance, but still able to hold the door shut.

Her hand trembled and the nail wavered beneath the cushioned head of the hammer. Katie lifted it an inch above the tiny nail head and went to strike. Light flooded the room.

“Katie, what are you doing?”

She spun around to see her father, just inside the doorway, dressed in his tragic striped pyjamas, his hand still resting on the light switch. The nail dropped onto the floor, along with the torch. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest.

She said nothing; there was no way to make this look innocent. While the two of them stared at each other across the living room, the clock struck away the seconds between her and the torment beginning again.

Desperate to get it done, regardless of whether he was there or not, she turned back, picked another nail and began to position it. Before she could swing the hammer he was there behind her, wrenching it from her hand and leaving her kneeling before the infernal timepiece, tocking and ticking its way to the top of the hour.

“Dad!” She fought to wrestle it from his hand. “I need that!”

He held the hammer out of her reach effortlessly, his face a picture of horrified concern. “What the hell are you doing?” he repeated.

“Just let me nail it shut and I’ll tell you!”

“You’re not nailing anything shut young lady. And especially not that clock. It’s nearly two hundred years old. Now tell me what you’re doing for Christ’s sake!”

She glanced back at the clock face. Less than four minutes left! She felt sick.

“Give me the hammer!” she yelled, tears pricking at her eyes. “Dad, please!”

He stepped back from her, frowning. She lunged for it, grabbing at his wrist, he raised it even higher, its backwards arc smashing into the light fitting and plunging the room back into darkness, save a sliver of yellow torchlight stretching across the floor.

“Now look what you’ve done,” he said, pushing her away. “Katie, don’t move. There’s glass everywhere.”

“I don’t care, give me the hammer.”

When he made no move to hand the tool back, she threw the nail down and balled up her fists. “I have to nail the door shut!” she yelled. “It’s the last place they can get in.”

“Who?”

“Them! The—things, the people that come out and talk to me.” The confession burst from her.

“Things? People? What on earth are you talking about?”

“The voices.” She started to sob. “They come through dark places, like—like drawers and cupboards and –”

“Katie, calm down,” he cried over her words. “This is just—oh God, this is not real ok? These things you hear aren’t real.”

“They are!” The words tore out of her, riding the pressure that had built up over weeks of keeping her secret. “They are real, and they tell me to do things, terrible things and I want them to stop. I have to keep them out.”

He said nothing for a moment, speechless as the meaning of her words sank in.

“Give me the hammer! Please,” she wept. “Give it to me Daddy before the clock strikes and they come through again.”

“Why don’t you look inside it?” The suggestion came from the shadow in the doorway, speaking with Jen’s voice. “Let her see there’s no-one in there.”

“We shouldn’t encourage this…” her father’s voice trailed off as Katie watched the shadowed form approach slowly.

Katie swallowed and wiped her eyes, not entirely certain it was her step-mother. “You don’t believe me, Daddy?”

He was still holding the hammer out of her reach.

“You said that things come through from dark places,” the shadow said. “Why don’t we open the clock and look inside?”

Katie frowned. “No. They won’t be there. They’re always quiet at this time.”

“Then we’ll wait till the hour strikes and then open the door.”

Katie backed away, but the shadow carried on until the shaft of torchlight revealed her step-mother wrapped in her father’s dressing gown, slippered feet gently crunching over the broken glass. She looked between her father and her stepmother uncertainly.

“You said it was the last place, if they’re not in there, then maybe you were wrong, and this will all be over,” her father said.

Now, with them here and the voices silent, her motivation had the edge of ridiculous about it. She nodded. “Okay, but only if you stay with me.”

“Of course I will.” Her father handed Jen the hammer and pulled her into an embrace. “Everything will be fine, I promise.”

The clock struck the hour. Katie tensed, waiting for the voices to return, but nothing happened. Her father picked up her torch from where it had landed, and went to the door of the clock casing.

“Ready?”

Taking a deep breath, she nodded. Her father turned the tiny brass key, that had always struggled to do its job, stealing herself for the sight of something staring back at her.

The door swung open, revealing nothing. It was empty. Her father made a show of shining the light into all the inside corners of the case, illuminating the weights and chains and cogs.

“There, see?” He smiled at her. “Nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a clock, that’s all.” He closed the door, turned the little key and looked at her. “Let’s get back to bed, and talk about this in the morning. I think you need to see someone who you can talk to about this, someone who isn’t your Dad.”

Dazed, Katie nodded and allowed herself to be guided up the stairs and tucked back into bed like a small child. Her father even left the light on in the hallway for her and waited until her eyes closed. Katie slowed her breathing, pretending to sleep. She lay listening to the house shifting and groaning, her father’s voice in a hushed conversation down the hall, but no other voices.

Maybe he’s right?

She let her head sink into the pillow, as her father hid the claw hammer and nails, and switched off the light downstairs. By the time he climbed the stairs, sleep had taken her like a small death.

The light in her father’s room flicked off and the tiny brass key turned silently in the lock. The door of the grandfather clock swung out. No creaking floorboards warned her of its approach, no sound alerted her to its arrival. It was only when it lifted a lock of hair from her pillow and whispered into her ear that she woke.

“We’re going to have to do something about your father…”

THE STRAW

God, I wish I’d never opened that box.

Even now, in the living room at the other end of the house, on a different floor, with the television loud and a whisky in my hand, I can see it, lurking in the back of the wardrobe, lid askew. She’ll know I’ve found it.

The spirit hits the back of my throat and I wince. The single malt ran out days ago and I’m reduced to this; sitting on the edge of my sofa, knocking back cheap whisky, waiting for my wife to come home and the divorce to begin.

Here she is; key in the lock, door slam and keys dropped into the bowl, claws sliding on the new wooden floor in the hallway ending with the dog hitting the radiator.

“Hi Sid! Silly dog, still not used to it are you? You have to slow down. Yes.” The sound of wet licking wrinkles my upper lip. “I love you too. Where’s Daddy?”

“I’m not his ‘Daddy’, you stupid cow,” I mutter.

The dog bursts in, tail beating a path of turbulent air celebrating her arrival.          

“Hi,” she says brightly, following him, thrusting a bottle of wine before her. “I got pizza to go with it. Do you want Pepperoni or Meat Feast?” She’s too busy looking at the wine label to notice my knuckles go white, squeezing the glass. “Well?”

“Pepperoni,” I spit and she breezes out again, oblivious. “You bitch,” I add beneath my breath.

I listen to the din coming from the kitchen. How can she make so much noise unwrapping pizza? Humming and banging and crashing and the damn dog chewing the squeaky toy she bought just to piss me off.

That’s it. I slam the glass down, march into the kitchen.

“Hell of a day,” she moans, switching the oven on. “Would you believe that–”

“Leanne,” I say, cutting across the babble. “I know about your…” I struggle to find the words. “I found the box.”

“What box?”

“The one hidden in the wardrobe.”

She looks at me, all innocence. Oh, she’s good.

“The one with the pictures of –” Her hand flies to her mouth and a scarlet flush blooms across her cheeks. “Yeah,” I scowl. “That one.”

The dog savages the rubber bone in a constant barrage of protesting squeaks.

“How long?” My fists ball so tight my nails dig into my palms.

“You’re over-reacting.” She turns to fuss over the pizzas. “It’s just a –”

“I asked how long!”

The dog stops chewing and growls at me.

“What were you doing going through my private things?”

“You shouldn’t need to keep things from me!”

“If you weren’t such a control freak I wouldn’t have to!” she yells back and the dog’s hackles rise. “You know you’re being ridiculous, don’t you?”

I lower my voice, glancing at the dog. “I thought we understood each other.”

“Don’t make me the bad guy. There’s something wrong with you, not me. Why don’t you stop and ask why that box even exists?”

The question hangs between us as the thermostat light blinks out on the oven. Something wrong with me? That’d be right. She always misses the point. What the hell did I ever see in her?

“It doesn’t matter, you know how I feel, you should –”

“Oh shut up, Tony!”

“That’s it. It’s him or me!”

Her mouth sets in a tight line, her hands planted on her hips. “Go then, piss off back to your mother.”

She smirks. I try to think of a parting shot, but I’m so angry the words get jumbled up and all I can do is stare back balefully. Then it hits me. It’s over. What am I hanging around waiting for? I storm upstairs to pack.

The bag is only half full on the bed when I hear her coming up the stairs. This apology had better be good. When she enters, I stand back from the bed so she can come over and admit her guilt, but she walks to the wardrobe.

Dumbfounded, I watch her retrieve the box and look me straight in the eye before marching past with it held aloft like she’s carrying home the science prize. I ball my fury up into my fists again, forcing myself to punch the rest of the clothes into the bag, rather than her face.

Downstairs, I decide to give her one last chance, drawn back to the kitchen by the sound of her voice.

“Looks like it’s just you and me again, Sid,” she says to the dog, like that stupid mutt could understand her. “
You
can have the Pepperoni.”

I can hear her opening the box, and can’t stop myself peering through the gap in the doorway. She removes the lid and smiles, lifting out the DVD resting on top. Her fingers play over his face, the BBC logo, the letters of ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

“And you and I can have the Meat Feast, Mr Darcy.”

I grimace, sickened. Time to go.

THE NEED TO CREATE

“They’re getting boring again.”

“Who?”

“Humanity.”

“All of them?”

She sighed. “Yes, all of them.”

“You’re just bored with everything,” he said, picking up the spoon and dipping it into the tall glass cup. He stirred the liquid into a vortex, sucking the froth into the dark coffee beneath. So beautiful. “How can you say humanity is boring in a place like this?” He gestured widely to the rest of the coffee shop. “And when there are such marvels as double choc latte coffee with caramel syrup? That’s wonder in and of itself.”

She rolled her eyes. “You can’t seriously be arguing against my observation with an overpriced beverage as your evidence?”

“Why not? It’s as good an example as any.”

“Of what?”

“Creativity.”

She turned away, almost as bored by him. “Look at them,” she said, after a few moments of gazing out onto the high street. “Rushing hither and thither–”

“Here and there.”

“What?”

“Here and there. Come on beloved, at least try to use the vernacular.”

“Here and there,” she said, mimicking his clipped English exactly. “And for what? Nothing important. Nothing interesting. Nothing—exciting.”

“It might be for them.”

“Darling, I love you more than it’s possible to express with this dull language, but you’re being tedious.”

He frowned at her jibe and went back to sipping the coffee. This conversation, her mood, it made him tense. It wouldn’t lead them anywhere good.

“It’s time.” She folded her hands on the table, businesslike. “I want to ‘shake things up’ again, to use the vernacular.”

He dropped the spoon back onto the saucer. “Not yet, surely? It’s hardly been any time at all since the last one.”

“Years!”

“Can’t we give Obama a chance?”

She wrinkled her nose and picked up the biscotti she had abandoned earlier. “He won’t do anything interesting at all. I guarantee it.”

“Hasn’t he already? First black president. That’s something.”

She dunked the biscuit into the coffee, watched the liquid soften it. “He won’t do anything big. He’s just one of them, tied into systems and rules and not really powerful at all. He won’t do anything radical or dramatic. Not like my last one.”

He winced. “The last one was a disaster.”

“The Cultural Revolution was not a disaster!”

He glanced at the woman at the next table who had looked over at the outburst. “Keep your voice down, beloved.”