It Knows Where You Live (23 page)

“Unless they always do it with the lights off.”

“Do ‘it?’” Billy sniggered. “Do your folks do ‘it’ with the lights off?”

“Oh, piss off. You know what I mean.” Tony elbowed him in the ribs, but it didn’t hurt. He enjoyed the human contact.

“Tony!”
 

“That’s Mum.” He shut the cover of his games console and stared at it.

“Get in here! Turkey sarnies are ready!”

“I bloody hate turkey sarnies. He hopped off the wall and walked along his path, then slammed the door when he went inside.

Billy sat there for a moment or two more, looking over at Number 10. He could see the dim outline of the grotto, and something made him want to look inside. But he was afraid; he was always afraid. He was afraid of everything. He walked across the road, opened the door, and started to climb the stairs to his room. “I’m home,” he said, but all he heard by way of reply was the television.

He woke up in the night desperate to pee. Straining to keep it in, he left his room and padded down the stairs to the bathroom, and then urinated in the toilet. When he was done he went back upstairs, but he didn’t go straight to his room. Instead, he walked across to the spare room, where Aunty Nancy was staying. He listened at the door; he could hear her loud snoring. Carefully, he pushed open the door and went inside the room. She was a vague hump under the bed sheets. He walked to the side of the bed and stared down at her. The side of her face and a few grey wisps of hair were visible against the pillow.

“Bitch,” he whispered. “Fucking bitch.” He clenched his hand into a fist, raised it, and then let it fall. He stopped it about an inch away from her old, weathered face. “Easy,” he said. “It would be so easy.”

Suddenly, he became aware of another presence. He turned and faced the door. Dad was standing there, framed in the doorway, in his vest and pyjama bottoms. Billy said nothing; he just waited. Dad did not move for what seemed like a long time, and then, finally, he turned away and went back to his and Mum’s room. When he heard the door gently close, Billy left the spare room and went back to bed.

•
   
•
   
•

Boxing Day. More grey skies. More wet sleet in the gutters. They were driving Aunty Nancy back to her sheltered housing, where they were going to meet Mum’s brother, Uncle Pete.

“He should take his turn,” said Dad, fiddling with the radio, trying to improve the signal as he drove. “It’s always us. Every year, it’s us.”

“He’s busy,” said Mum.

Dad did not reply.

Tell her
, thought Billy.
Shout at her... Make her jump. Shock her into life!

But Dad did not say another word until they reached the row of squat little bungalows on the outskirts of town.

Uncle Pete wasn’t there. They got Aunty Nancy inside and waited for an hour, but he didn’t show. Mum received a text message when they were halfway home. She wouldn’t tell Dad what it said, just repeated the mantra: “He’s busy.”

Billy spent the rest of the day in his room. Tony was out somewhere with his parents. Their car didn’t drive back along the street and park outside their house until after 7 p.m. Billy watched from his bedroom window as Tony’s mum and dad got out of the car, shouting at each other. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it looked bad. Tony slunk off the back seat and out onto the footpath. He glanced up at Billy’s bedroom, shrugged, and followed his bickering parents inside.

That evening he watched television with Mum and Dad. It was an old comedy show, Morecombe and Wise. Dad had loved them as a child. It was tradition, he said. They were forced to watch it.

Dad laughed too loudly at all the bad jokes and Mum just sat there with her arms crossed, uncrossing them occasionally to reach for a chocolate from the box she kept at her feet or to take a sip of wine from the big glass on the coffee table.

Billy couldn’t see what was meant to be funny. It was just two old men sleeping in the same bed, and making breakfast together while some stupid music played. He did not understand. None of it made any sense.

He closed his eyes and thought about the grotto. How the darkness inside beckoned to him, and the old stone walls would keep him warm.

“I’m going out,” he said, standing.

“Don’t be out late.” Mum’s voice was slurred; the first bottle of wine was empty and she’d opened another.
 

Dad laughed again, his shoulders shaking. He looked desperate.

Billy went outside and walked over to Tony’s house. He stood at the gate and listened to the wordless yelling coming from inside. Shadows moved back and forth across the front window. He heard the sound of breaking glass.

He crossed the road and entered the garden of Number 10. He walked right up to the grotto and stood there, daring it to do something. The stone walls remained upright; the slate roof did not fall in. Darkness swirled inside the entrance.

“What’s in there?” He moved closer, bending down to look inside.

He got down on his knees and stuck his head near the entrance. This was the closest he’d ever been to the grotto, and he felt excited and afraid. He realised he had an erection. “Come on... what are you hiding?” He could see nothing, just the shifting blackness, as if a river of night were churning inside the grotto. He felt a chill breeze on his cheek.

He raised his hand, opened his fingers, and reached inside.

Something grabbed hold of his hand, squeezing, tugging gently, trying to pull him inside. He was so afraid that he could not make a sound. His feet drummed against the ground. His other hand grabbed the side of the grotto, bracing his body so it would not be dragged forward.

He pulled.

It pulled back.

Billy was stuck there, locked in a tug-o-war with whatever was trying to pull him inside the grotto. He opened his mouth to scream but was so out of breath only a small, sad sound escaped his lips. He gave one last mighty tug, and his hand came free. He fell backwards, went sprawling on the ground. Moving quickly across the ground on his backside, he made it to the path. Then he stood, turned, and ran. He didn’t stop running until he reached his own front door. He dragged it open, slammed it shut, and slid home the bolts.

Billy stood with his back against the door, panting, gasping, trying to catch his breath. What had just happened? What was that, in the grotto, and why had it tried to drag him into its lair?

He went into the living room and looked at his parents. Mum was stuffing her face with chocolates; Dad was asleep in front of the television.
 

“Night, love,” said his mother. She did not glance in his direction. She sounded drunk.

He turned away, left the room, and slowly climbed the stairs to his bed.
 

He tried to sleep, but every sound he heard put him on edge. He heard Mum climbing the stairs, using the toilet, weeping behind the bathroom door. Dad followed her upstairs a couple of hours after she’d gone to bed. He heard the creaking of the bed springs, his father farting as he settled in for the night.

Who were these people? Had they ever been happy?

He got out of bed and looked out of the window. From where he was, the angle was all wrong to see the garden of Number 10, but he could see along the edge of the wall forming the boundary to the property. There was a cat sitting on the wall... Or was it a dog? Or maybe an urban fox. Whatever the thing was, it was big, and it started to creep along the top of the wall towards his house, as if it had been waiting there for him to notice. The more he watched, the more convinced he became it was not a cat or a dog or a fox. It was too large, with too many thin, angled legs, and moved much too slowly and awkwardly to be any of those sure-footed animals.

More than anything, it looked like a spider: a huge, grubby, crippled spider moving along the top of the wall.

Billy closed his eyes. When he opened them again the thing was still there. He closed them again... opened them. This time it was gone. He’d imagined the whole thing. He went back to bed, but was still unable to sleep. He was scared that if he did, something might come into his room, crawl across the floor, and climb up onto his bed.

•
   
•
   
•

It had snowed overnight.
 

Billy went downstairs and opened the front door, looking out at the fresh blanket of whiteness. Parked cars were transformed into silken white humps in the road; the roofs of the houses were piled with the stuff. He smiled, staring at its purity. Then he saw the marks. Small indentations, as if someone had used the end of a stick or a pole to poke a track along the garden path from the gate to the front door.

It’s real
, he thought.
It was here. It came right up to the door.

“Breakfast,” said Mum, behind him. He could smell burning bacon; the frying pan sizzled like a bad radio reception.

They were just starting on their breakfast when the phone rang.

“What?” said Mum, obviously shaken by whatever she was being told. “Now? Okay... don’t worry. We’ll go over there.”

She hung up the phone.

“That was Pete.”

Dad looked up from his plate. “What is it this time?”

Mum would not look him in the eye as she spoke. She looked everywhere but at Dad’s face: the walls, the sink, the dining table. “It’s Aunty Nancy. She’s ranting and raving, throwing things, breaking things. Her next-door neighbour called Pete. But Pete’s busy. We have to go.”

“Jesus,” said Dad, rising from his chair.

“He’s busy.” Mum at last looked directly into Dad’s face. Her eyes were blazing.

By the time they reached the sheltered housing she was calmer. There was no noise coming from inside. The old neighbour man was standing on his lawn, watching as Mum opened the door with her spare key and they trooped inside. Aunty Nancy was sitting on the ugly patterned carpet in the middle of the room. Her skirt was hitched up over her flabby knees.

“Aunty Nancy? It’s us. Are you okay?”

She did not respond. She just sat there, staring at the wall.

Dad called an ambulance and they took her away. Billy watched as she was helped into the back of the vehicle, mute and with no fight left in her. She looked like a bag of bones, all soft and floppy and defeated.

I never want to be like that
.
 

He glanced at Mum and Dad, ashamed of his thoughts. They looked the same, as if all the life was drained out of them. He could not remember the last time he’d seen them hold hands, or share a tender kiss. They never even touched each other.

After the hospital, they went back home. It was early evening; they’d been out all day. Billy stared up at the sky, at the stars as they were coming out, at the flat, bright crescent of the moon.

He waited up as late as he could, hoping Mum and Dad would retire to bed before him. But they didn’t; they sat up, not speaking to each other, losing themselves in the television. So Billy went slowly to his room, wondering when this would all come to an end.

They couldn’t go on like this. None of them. It had to be stopped. He knew that now... He had no choice.

When the house went quiet, and he no longer heard the creaking of bed springs in his parents’ room, he got up and went outside. He walked slowly but purposefully down the street. He’d taken the rest of the Christmas turkey out of the fridge; cold cuts wrapped in foil. He hoped whatever was in the grotto was hungry. He hoped it liked meat.

The house lights were on at Number 10, but this did not deter him. In a funny way, it seemed like encouragement; the new people were giving him a sign. He went into the garden and knelt down in front of the grotto. It looked even more decrepit than the last time. Some of the roof slates were loose. The walls were bowed. He opened the foil package and took out the scraps of turkey, then laid them out on the ground outside the grotto. He stood, walked backwards to the gate, and waited.

“I’m ready. I’m ready for you now.”

The darkness just inside the grotto’s entrance began to twitch, and then it began to boil. He looked away just as a small, dark shape started to inch forward, moving painstakingly over the threshold.
 

He walked slowly along the street, making sure it would follow. He could hear pinprick feet crunching in the brittle snow behind him. He did not want to turn around and look. If he did, it might vanish. Or, even worse, it might prove to be real.

This can’t go on
, he thought again.
This is where it ends
.

He walked though his garden gate, approached the front door and opened it. Then he stepped to the side and turned his face away. From the edge of his vision, he saw something squat and creased with too many legs shuffle over the doorstep and go inside.
 

Whatever the thing was, it was made of discarded condoms and crisp packets, soggy leaves, broken twigs, crushed and rusted beer cans and those little plastic tie-bags people fill with dog shit when they’re out walking the family pet; it was held together with glue concocted from love and hate and resentment and all the complex emotions growing like mould in between. Its legs were pipe cleaners and lolly sticks. It smelled of dusty decay. It had the small white face of a shattered Plaster of Paris Santa Claus.

Billy’s need had somehow summoned this mix-and-match creature, this lucky-dip monstrosity, bringing it forth into the wider world outside the grotto.

He closed the door and sat down on the step, placing one foot behind the opposite ankle. It started to snow. A car moved slowly and quietly along the road past the house. Somewhere on the estate, a dog barked. Billy shivered.

“Happy Christmas,” he said, closing his eyes and clenching his fists.
 

Then he waited for the screaming to start.

HUNGRY LOVE

Stan wasn’t looking for love. Oh no, not this time. In fact, after the bitter and painful ending to his previous relationship, it was the last thing on his agenda. But he knew, as everyone knows, that love—or, as in this case, a
lust
that holds the promise of turning into love—often finds you when you’re least interested in encountering that particular emotion, or even when you’re hiding from it.