Authors: MAYNARD SIMS
HIS OTHER SON (14 page)
“I saw it,” he insisted.
“You frightened me.”
“It was there, I saw it.
A long grey shape.
It was…”
She pulled a little away from him. “There
isn’t anything.”
Their nakedness suddenly seemed
inappropriate and they looked for their towels, wanting to cover themselves,
Adam and Eve, an unseen serpent causing them to open their eyes for the first
time.
Moving off the steps in silence they
failed to see the ripple on the surface of the pool. It was followed by a
second, and then others, until quietly but with eager urgency the blue water
was alive with white froths of movement.
Grace was terrified. The
water of the pool was frantic with movement now, grey shapes weaving patterns
beneath the surface. Misshapen heads breaking through the clear blue frothing
water, droplets of white caught in the rough skin.
The humans never had a
chance.
EXCERPT
ENDS
EXCERPT from STILLWATER a ghost story novel out in 2014 on Amazon from
Samhain
When she opened her eyes the clock was reading 4:10. “What the…” She was
disorientated; her mind woolly. She was still fully dressed and lying on the
bed, not in it, yet the bedroom was in darkness. Eventually her thoughts
cleared.
“So much for an hour,” she
muttered, and lay there watching through the window as the dawn light chased
away the night. It was too early really to get up, but she couldn’t settle,
lying there wearing yesterday’s clothes, and her body needed a shower; her skin
scratchy and prickling. After ten more minutes she bit the bullet, and hauled
herself from the bed.
As she sat in the shower
stall, letting the hot needles of water rake her body she was grateful for all
the special conveniences the agents had installed. For her the shower was a
novelty and a luxury. At her London home, getting herself in and out of the
bath with a system of electric pulleys and belts had quickly lost its appeal,
but Stillwater’s wet room simplified everything.
There was a dry area for
her wheelchair, and strategically placed rails that she could use to support
herself on her way to the shower stall. Once seated in the stall the controls
for the shower were just inches away.
To add to the luxury there
were five showerheads; two on each side of her, and one above. Next to the
control unit was another smaller one that dispensed shower gel and shampoo. But
the best feature was reserved for when Beth finished showering. At the touch of
a button warm air blasted out from dozen vents positioned from the floor to
just above head height, guaranteeing that, not only was she clean from the
shower, but she was also dryer than any towel could manage.
Relaxing into the seat,
she reached out and pressed the button for the hot water. As the fine needles of
spray raked her body she cupped her hand under the nozzle for the shower gel.
Within seconds her body was smothered in creamy, delicious smelling foam. For a
moment she sat there enjoying the feel of water on her skin.
The moment passed, and she
set about the laborious task of washing herself. When she looked up again she
saw the room was filling with steam. She frowned. The water wasn’t hot enough
to produce that much
vapor
. It was as if the clouds
she was staring at in the sky had entered the bathroom.
She was suddenly aware of
another sensation. Warm water was lapping around her ankles. She could feel it,
when there really shouldn’t be any feeling there at all.
This was impossible.
The water in the wet room
ran down the sloping floor to a large central drain. It was six inches across
and she could see nothing to impede the flow, nothing to block it sufficiently
to cause a
buildup
.
She reached down and
splashed the water that had almost reached her shins. She could barely see her
hand through the cloud of steam.
“Ridiculous,” she said
aloud. “All wrong,” and reached out to turn off the water.
She pressed the button but
the water continued to flood from the showerheads. If anything, the flow was
increasing. She looked to the door, or rather, doors. There was an outer, wood-
paneled
door that matched the ones to the bedrooms and her
office, but in here there was also an inner glass door, fitted with rubber
seals to keep the wet room watertight. She could make out the pale reflections
on the glass but nothing else.
She became aware of the
smell at the same time as the water lapped at her shins; a dank, fetid aroma
that conjured up images in her head of something submerged and rotting.
The steam was swirling
around her, making her eyes sting and making breathing more and more difficult.
She couldn’t just sit here and do nothing. If she didn’t suffocate in the
cloying steam, she’d drown as the room increasingly filled with water. She
reached out for the rail that ran around the side of the room, and her fingers
touched something wet and slimy. She snatched her hand away and stared at it,
bringing it up to within inches of her face. Her fingers were stained with
green and black streaks, with some kind of slime adhered to them. And they
stank; the smell of the room amplified tenfold. Gritting her teeth she reached
out again, this time grabbing the metal rail, trying to ignore the sponginess
that was coating it.
She pulled herself out of
the seat, trying to lock her knees and stand upright. Taking her weight on her
arms she inched along the rail towards her wheelchair. The water was getting
deeper, halfway up her legs now, and she was sure it should be scalding her but
she couldn’t feel any pain.
As she took another inch
along, her hand slipped on the treacherous rail and there was nothing she could
do to prevent herself falling. Her shoulder hit the tiled floor with a crack,
and, as she cried out, hot water poured into her mouth and down her throat,
making her gag and choke. She thrashed under the water trying to break the
surface, and reach precious oxygen, but her legs were dead weights sucking her
back down.
Don’t let me die like
this
, she thought, as water seeped into her lungs, making them burn.
Gradually her thrashing arms fell still. She lay on her back beneath the water,
staring up at the ceiling, consciousness slowly slipping away from her.
The last thing she was
aware of was a face staring down at her; a woman’s face framed by long dark
hair. The expression on the woman’s face was impassive, showing no concern for
Beth’s predicament; showing nothing at all, even when Beth raised her arm, and
used only the expression in her eyes to plead for help.
The woman’s face receded,
moving further away from her, until it was lost in the swirling water.
Beth finally let go of the
breath she had been holding, letting it out from between her lips in a cascade
of bubbles. As the air drained from her lungs, the darkness swooped in, driving
her down to a place she had no wish to go. The darkness was absolute and pitiless.
She closed her eyes and let it sweep her away.
EXCERPT ENDS
And a
BONUS NOVELLA – THE BUSINESS OF BARBARIANS was published in INCANTANTIONS, our
collection available on AMAZON
THE BUSINESS OF BARBARIANS
Maynard Sims
The spotlight picked out the girl as she
stood on the stage. She was naked, swaying slightly, rubbing her eyes with her
fists, but the spotlight held steady, spreading a pool of silver light around
her feet, bathing her pale skin. It was so bright it blinded her, and she
shielded her eyes with her hand.
‘Hello!’
she called into the velvet blackness of the silent theatre. ‘Hello! Is there
anyone there?’
Small sounds, of someone moving in a seat, a rustle of cloth, a choked
off cough.
She could almost sense them, sitting, watching her. She was
frightened. Her mind was spinning, trying to make sense of what had happened to
her, trying to peel back the layers of confusion, but it was hopeless. She
couldn’t even remember her name, let alone how she came to be standing naked in
the centre of an otherwise empty stage.
She’d
long ago stopped trying to conceal her nakedness, and there was certainly
nowhere to hide on that huge wooden expanse. She just waited to be told what to
do.
She
stared into the darkness, convinced she’d heard another movement. ‘Please let
me go. I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t hurt me.’
‘Are
you frightened?’
At
last, a voice spoke from out of the darkness. She seized upon it hopefully.
‘Yes, yes I am.
Terrified.’
She tried to smile, to
show that despite her fear she could still be brave, able to laugh in the face
of adversity.
‘Good,’
said the voice softly.
It
was familiar that voice. She was sure that she’d heard it before, but her
muddled mind could not place it, and no matter how much she repeated its
cadence over and over in her head, the face associated with the voice remained
maddeningly elusive.
‘Who
are you?’ she called out into the blackness of the auditorium. ‘Why won’t you
let me go?’
‘Do
you really want to know who we are?’
She
rocked slightly on her feet.
That drink
. It was
drugged. She was remembering now – fragments, glimpses of rooms and faces,
snatches of speech. ‘Yes,’ she said defiantly. ‘Yes, show yourselves.’
‘Very well.’
With
a suddenness that startled her, the house lights came up, and she saw with
total clarity the audience sitting in the stalls watching her.
She
opened her mouth and screamed… and screamed… and screamed.
Mrs
Gafney
, the
landlady, led Meg and Gareth
up
the dingy stairwell.
The stairs themselves were covered in a threadbare carpet with a hideous floral
design, and they creaked alarmingly with each step.
‘Of
course,’ said Mrs
Gafney
, ‘I’ve had a lot of
theatricals staying here. We had Max Miller in ‘49. Remember him?
The Cheeky
Chappie
?
Lovely man.
And Old Mother Riley and Kitty
McShane
.
Of course, he was a
fella
– Arthur
Lucan
. He was
lovely too, a real gentleman. Never took to her though. A proper madam, I
thought... and far too young for him.’
Meg
and Gareth exchanged looks and Meg put a hand to her mouth to hide a smile.
Mrs
Gafney
led them along a dimly lit landing and stopped
outside a grey-painted door. ‘This is your room, Barry.’
‘Actually
it’s Gareth.’
‘Yes,’
the woman said absently as she opened the door and pushed it wide. She snapped
on the light revealing a cramped room decorated in a nightmare of faded chintz.
Gareth pulled a face and Meg once again hid her smile. The landlady handed the
key to Gareth. ‘The rules of the house are on the back of the door there.’ She
indicated a sheet of paper, a faded carbon copy of a typed original, stuck to
the door with brown and curling sticky tape. ‘Breakfast is at eight sharp, and
I expect all my guests to respect the comfort of others by not smoking in the
dining room.
All right?
I hope you enjoy your stay.’
She turned to Meg. ‘Now, Miss, if you’ll follow me.’
Gareth
shut the door on the awful woman and laid his suitcase on the bed. The mattress
hardly gave under the weight – a bad sign. Still, he’d stayed in worse
accommodation in the ten years he’d been in the business. He kicked off his
shoes and went across to the window. There were a few families down on the beach,
children playing in the sand, building elaborate castles that would soon be
washed away by the incoming tide. On the promenade was a row of deckchairs with
mainly elderly people occupying
them.
Gareth
was canny enough to realise that these people were the same ones who would be
paying their shillings to watch the show at the Palace Theatre, and would in
turn pay his wages.
He
sighed. Show business was a wretched existence. He found it difficult to
reconcile the fact that he’d spent three years at RADA, and the best part he
could get now was in the chorus of a
tuppenny
ha’penny
revue in a run-down seaside town. Of his
contemporaries three had regular positions with the Royal Shakespeare Company,
four had made it big in films, a couple of them inducted into the Rank Charm
School and giving Dirk
Bogarde
a run for his money in
the pin-up stakes; and of the others at least three of them had turned up on
television in various variety shows. He’d decided to give it until the end of
the year and if nothing serious had turned up by then, then he would give it
all up and get the ‘proper job’ his parents were always going on about.
It
was different for Meg. He’d been like her once – young, enthusiastic,
approaching his first major professional date with verve and vitality. Ten
years as a jobbing actor – of which at least half of those years were filled
with temporary menial jobs – had blunted his enthusiasm and made him slightly
cynical.
He
let the curtain drop and went back to lie on the bed. He groaned as the
mattress refused to give under his weight. The season was for three months. By
the end of it he would need the services of a chiropractor.
He
put his hands behind his head and thought about Meg. She was certainly pretty,
and had an easy-going personality, which was a bonus considering not only were
they going to be working together but also sharing digs. He’d had some
unpleasant times with fellow actors in the past and, he felt, if this was to be
his final year in the business, then he would like it to pass as smoothly as
possible.
He
wondered if he should ask her to come to the party tonight. When Martin Stein
called to invite him, he’d told him he could bring a guest if he wished, and
Gareth joked that he’d probably end up bringing the landlady, but that was
before he’d met Meg on the train. Now all sorts of possibilities were opening
up.
But whether or not to invite her tonight?
That was
the question.
Meg followed the landlady up another two
flights of stairs, along another gloomy landing, through a door and
up
yet another staircase, this one narrow, steep and
uncarpeted. At the top of the staircase was another door. Mrs
Gafney
opened it and stepped inside, beckoning Meg to
follow. In decor the room was very similar to Gareth’s, but whereas his room had
two large windows and a view of the promenade and the sea, the single window in
her room was tiny and looked out over the rooftops to the town.
‘This
must be the top of the house,’ Meg said anxiously. This was her first time away
from home and she was feeling apprehensive
‘Yes,’
Mrs
Gafney
said sharply, narrowing her eyes to slits.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘I
just wondered if you had a room nearer to Mr Barker, to Gareth.’
The
slits closed further and the eyes disappeared completely. ‘And why would you
want that? I keep a respectable house here. My reputation is exemplary.’
‘I’m
sure it is,’ Meg said quickly. ‘I wasn’t suggesting...’
The
woman smiled suddenly. ‘That’s all right then. So long as you understand. Where
are you appearing? Not the pier, is it?’
Meg
was thrown by this sudden change of tack. She stammered.
‘N...
n
...no, not the pier.
We’re at the Palace... the
Palace Theatre in the Winter Gardens.’
‘I
know it well. I didn’t think you were at the pier. They’ve got the Crazy Gang
there,’ said the woman, crossing to the plywood dressing table and stroking her
finger across the surface. She studied the tip of the finger closely.
Apparently satisfied she said, ‘So, what are you?
Dancer?’
‘Actress,
and singer,’ Meg said. ‘I’m in the chorus. The show’s called
Showstoppers of
‘58
.’
Mrs
Gafney
looked unimpressed. ‘So it’s all modern music,
then. Not my cup of tea this rock and roll
rubbish
. I
like proper singers. John
Hanson,
and that David
Whitfield.
Lovely voices.’
‘No,
it’s not rock and roll, it’s a revue. We have a comedian, singers... I think
there’s even an acrobat troupe.’
‘Now
tumblers I like.
Circus folk usually.
Never had any trouble with circus folk.
Is there anyone in
this show of yours I might have heard of?’
‘It’s
starring Ronnie Miller, the singer.’
‘Off the telly?
Oh yes, I’ve heard of him.
Him
and
Dickie
Valentine are my
favourites on the box. Don’t care much for that Frankie Vaughan though.
Too smooth by half that one.
And I don’t suppose I’ve heard
of you, have I, dear?’
Meg
shook her head. ‘No, I don’t suppose you have. This is my first revue.’
Mrs
Gafney
walked to the door. ‘Yes, I thought you looked
a bit green. Don’t you worry; you’ll soon get the hang of living in digs. So
long as you obey the rules and keep your nose clean, we should get along fine.’
She smiled, showing a row of tobacco stained teeth, then she slipped out of the
room closing the door behind her.
Meg
held her breath, waiting to hear the key being turned in the lock. All she
heard was the landlady’s feet as they clumped down the uncarpeted stairs. She
chided herself for being so melodramatic. Of course the woman wasn’t going to
lock her in. But she could not dispel the feeling that in some ways
Gafney’s
Guesthouse had certain similarities to a prison.
Mrs
Gafney
herself would make a suitable warder. Meg was
annoyed by the woman’s suggestion that there was something untoward between
herself and Gareth, when the truth was she barely knew him. It was sheer
coincidence that they’d been sitting in the same compartment on the train from
London. It was only when she saw he was reading
Spotlight
, the actor’s
trade
newspaper, that
she struck up a conversation
with him. They were both astonished to find that not only were they appearing
in the same revue, but also sharing the same digs.
For
Meg it came as something of a relief to meet another member of the cast before
turning up for the first day of rehearsals. First days were always
nerve-wracking, and this one especially so as the producer of the show insisted
that the cast assemble, not at some London rehearsal studio, but at the theatre
itself. This, he informed them, was to give them a chance to soak up the
atmosphere of a typical English seaside town, and to get to mingle with the
people who would be making up the audience.
She
found this particularly daunting because all her stage experience had so far
been based around her hometown of Sevenoaks in Kent; while she relished the
opportunity to expand her theatrical horizons; she was very nervous and
apprehensive about the reality of it.
