The Faceless (30 page)

“What?” The torchlight flashed into her face. She squinted. God, big brothers never changed.

“Martyn, come on. We can’t stay here.”

“What?” He flicked the torch-beam at Vera. “Her brother’s in here too–”

“And what good are we going to be? You’ve seen the size of this place. And what if we run into something?” Vera caught Anna’s arm again, drew close to her.

“I’ll sort the buggers.” Martyn stood, feet apart, like the rugby forward he’d once been.

“They’re dead,” said Vera, in a taut, trembling voice. An unlit cigarette shook between her fingers. “Don’t you get it, for Christ’s sake? They’re fucking
dead
. Normal rules don’t apply here.”

“If they’re ghosts, they can’t hurt us, then,” said Martyn, “can they?”

“Oh for God’s sake, Martyn.” Anna managed not to stamp her foot. “What do you think happened to the others? Old age?”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Alright, then. You two get going. But I’m stopping here.”

And it would’ve been so easy, but she could hear Dad’s voice even here.
The family, lass. Always the family
.

“Martyn, no,” she said. “We’ve
all
got to get out of here.”

He shook his head. “I’m not going without her.”

At least he wasn’t still pretending it was about Allen. “Martyn–”

“What?”

“Martyn, you know she has to be–”

“Don’t say it, sis.”

“Martyn, you’ve got to accept–”

“I said
shut up, Anna
–”

Vera snatched the torch from her hand.

“Vera–”

“You heard him. Let him stay. He’s a grown man–” Vera broke off. She was shining the light back down the corridor, the way they’d come.

“What?” Vera whispered. No more than ten yards behind them, a brick wall barred their path.

“That can’t be right,” said Anna. From behind her came Martyn’s heavy, scuffing footsteps. She took Vera’s arm, gently took the torch back, went to the wall, held out a hand.

“Don’t touch it,” said Vera.

But Anna did. Her fingers encountered cold, damp brickwork, nothing more. Solid.

“Fuck,” said Martyn.

“We have to get out of here.” Vera’s voice shook.

“The window.” Martyn yanked at one of the window bars. It made a gritting, scraping sound and a little powdered rust fell, but it didn’t budge. Martyn let out a muffled roar and yanked harder.

“Anna?” Vera’s voice was thin, tiny. She was looking out of the window, across the lawns, which weren’t empty anymore. There were maybe twenty or thirty of them, advancing over the grass, swaying slightly. Some wore uniforms, others hospital smocks; some had the dulled, slack faces of people staring into a different world, while others wore the now-familiar masks. And others still displayed faces lacking jaws, noses, eyes, faces with gaping bloodless holes and trenches sunk into them, faces where the skin seemed to have crumpled inwards as if shrink-wrapped, moulding itself to the absent bone; brandishing their mutilations at the world. They halted, staring at the building.

There weren’t so many of them at a glance, and they were spread out thinly. It was almost possible to believe you might avoid them if you ran fast enough. Except that Anna doubted they were as slow as they looked. Even if they were, by the time Martyn could force a way out through the window they’d have ample warning and would have closed in around it before the first of them could even try and wriggle free. And even then, beyond them were the woods, where the tall thin shapes of the bare trees seemed constantly poised to shift into something else.

“Martyn, no,” she said. He was still gripping the window-bar, poised to wrench at it again. “It doesn’t want us to leave.”

“What do we do, then?” Vera’s voice was almost level now.

“Like you said,” Anna told her, “the normal rules don’t apply here.”

“So what do we
do
?”

“We keep moving until we find a way out,” Anna said. How calm she sounded; more surprising, how calm she
felt
. “Normal rules don’t apply. Some kind of rules must. So we work out what they are and we might just get out. Come on.”

“OK.” Vera nodded.

“You gonna be alright?”

“I think so.”

“Martyn?” He was staring out of the window, pallid light playing across his face. “Martyn, come on. We need to get going.
Martyn
.”

He blinked, looked across at her, finally nodded. “Alright,” he said at last, then released the window bars and followed.

T
HE DARK WAS
alive with whispers. That was unusual. Normally Alan only found silence among the dead. That blanket, velvet hush. Well, it didn’t matter. He saw Johnny, Mark and Sam up ahead, in their pools of light, guiding him on. Alan kept his eyes on them, not looking at the shadows or what moved there.

T
HE CORRIDOR TURNED
right, leading deeper into Warbeck House. No windows here to shed light; only the endless corridor and the dead ends of empty offices. The only light came from the torches. And Martyn’s was fading.

“Shit.” He rattled it, thumped it with the heel of his hand. Anna looked back at him. “It’s going out.” He felt stupid even as he said it.

“It’s clockwork. Just wind it up.”

He fumbled with the handle and looked down. His face burned. Stupid. He’d just wanted to find Eva, get her out, but this place didn’t play fair. Childish and petulant, yes, he knew that. But he was tired now. Empty. Anna had talked about learning the rules, but that wasn’t going to count. The house was playing with them; they’d no chance of getting out. It was choosing when and how to finish them. But that didn’t matter, nothing did, if he couldn’t find–

“Martyn. Baby. My big bear. Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”

Martyn stopped.

“Martyn. Baby. My big bear. Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”

“Martyn?” Anna said.

“Sh.” He held a hand up. “Sh. Listen.”

“Martyn. Baby. My big bear. Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”

“There,” he whispered.

“Martyn. Baby. My big bear.” It came from the right. He turned into a long, deep corridor. He didn’t think it’d been there before. “Martyn. Baby. My big bear.” He could hear the words echo.

“Martyn?”

Martyn shone the torch ahead. The beam didn’t seem to reach very far. He remembered the winding mechanism and cranked it.

“Martyn,” Anna said.

“You can hear it too. Don’t pretend as you can’t.”

“Martyn?” He wouldn’t look at her,
would not see
the pity in her eyes. “Martyn, it’s not her–”

“Bollocks.”

“Martyn. Baby. My big bear. Martyn. Baby. My big bear.”

“It’s her. I know my own wife’s fucking voice, for Christ’s sake.”

Anna tried to grab his arm but he shook her off, and then he was walking, then running, and it was easy because the corridor was straight. He heard Anna behind him, shouting his name, but she got fainter and further away as he ran, and then the corridor bent round and he couldn’t hear her anymore.

Martyn disappeared round a bend in the corridor. Anna followed, and found herself facing a blank wall.

Vera sucked breath in through her teeth and gripped her arm tighter. Anna reached out and touched the wall, pushed at it, hoping something would yield. Nothing did.

“Martyn!”

Vera gripped her arm. “Sh.” Anna shook her off.

“Martyn!”

“Anna, for Christ’s sake.”

Anna put her ear to the wall. For a moment she thought she heard a fading echo of a woman’s voice.

“What now?” whispered Vera. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know.” She took Vera’s hands. “But we stick together, OK?” Vera was nodding. “I mean it, Vera. Whatever you see or hear, we don’t split up.” She gave the blank wall a last glance. “This place is playing games with us. If we get separated, we might not be able to find each other again.” She wouldn’t think of Martyn. Mustn’t. He could take care of himself. Her best chance of helping him was saving herself. “OK?” she said.

Vera nodded, breathing deep. After a moment, Anna stroked her cheek; Vera closed her eyes and leant into the caress. Despite everything, it would have been so easy to take things further. In that giddy moment, Anna was sure she could take things as far as she chose. But now wasn’t the time. She took her hand away, tracing a line down Vera’s cheek with the tip of her thumb. Vera breathed out, opened her eyes. “What now?” she asked.

“Back the way we came. Come on.”

Was she relieved Martyn was gone? Not that she’d ever admit it, but perhaps she had a better chance of getting out now. Nan still needed looking after. And, most of all, there was Mary.

They hadn’t retraced their steps very far before coming to a bend she knew hadn’t been there before. Beyond it, the corridor forked.

“Left or right?” asked Vera.

If the house was playing games with them, what difference did it make? But they had to try; if they just stayed here they’d never get out.

“Let’s go right,” she said at last.

“OK.”

S
AM VANISHED AS
Alan neared him. That was nothing new by now, but he didn’t reappear. Alan stopped, waited. Up ahead, Johnny and Mark gazed at him. The whispers had faded; there was only silence now.

Come on, Alan.

As Alan reached Johnny, he vanished too. Like Sam, he didn’t reappear.

Alan looked at Mark. There might have been sorrow in that round, pale face. Alan didn’t move. When he reached Mark, he’d go too. And Alan would be alone, in the dark. And he’d never feared anything more.

Mark shook his head.
You won’t be alone, Alan. And I won’t go straight away.

But he would.

Yes. Everything has to end one day. But don’t be sad. It means you’ll soon be free. We all will. You won’t have the Sight anymore, after this. You’ll have a normal life. But you have to do what comes next on your own. And I won’t leave you without saying goodbye.

Was it just Alan’s imagination, or had Mark emphasised
I
and
you
? No more than Alan deserved if he had.

He reached Mark’s side; his hand hovered briefly over the head of blond hair below him. Mark looked up with those black holes, eyes once clear, blue and innocent.
It’s alright.

Alan had never touched one of his dead before. Mark’s hair was fine and soft, the scalp beneath warm. Nothing to suggest he wasn’t alive.

“I’m sorry,” Alan said, and realised he could hear the words – faint, muffled, but they were there.

The skin between the worlds is very thin here. That’s why you can hear yourself. You’ll be able to hear him too. It’ll be like talking to a living man.

“Who? Hear who?”

Alan?

“Yes.”

I’m sorry too
, said Mark.

And Alan was alone.

A
NNA STOPPED.
“W
AIT.
Listen.”

“What?”

“Listen.”

The shuffle of feet, the faint mumble of voices, growing louder in the stillness. There was an alcove in the tunnel. Anna shut the torch off and ducked into it, pulling Vera after her.

A torch-beam flickered down the corridor, inches from them. Vera huddled behind Anna. The footsteps shuffled closer; a man, jowled, sagging and oyster-eyed, black hair threaded with grey. He wore his officer’s uniform; must have been wearing it the night he died, part of the act. He looked tired beyond words and full of grief. As he passed she saw the exit wound in the back of his head.

Others shuffled after him; dressed in 1940s fashions. One man, bloodied face beaten almost shapeless, eyes gouged out, was guided by a woman in a yellow dress marred by a dozen red stab-wounds; white as chalk, her sunken eyes gazed off into the distance, void of hope. There were a dozen more.

They shuffled past, oblivious, until the last of them, an ashen-faced, severe-looking woman in trousers, hair gathered in a tight bun, stopped and slowly turned. There was a ragged wound in her face where half her lower jaw had been torn away; a jagged piece of bone stuck out. She stared at Anna. The others stopped and turned as well, then began to advance, faces dull and empty. Emaciated, grey-white hands reached out. Behind her, Vera was keening.

Light flashed into Anna’s face; she flinched, heard Vera gasp. Then it moved away. When she dared look again, it was playing over the faces of the dead. One by one they lowered their eyes, and as the uniformed man flashed the beam back and forth over them, they shuffled back towards him. He shone his torch into Anna’s face again, then aimed it back along the corridor and began walking again. Heads bowed, the others shuffled after him. The procession rounded a corner and was gone, the light dying away and the soft shuffle of footsteps swallowed up.

“That was him, wasn’t it?” Vera whispered. “St. John?”

“Yes, it was. And by the look of it, his last tour party too.”

“But didn’t they die in E Block?”

Your great-grandfather was there the night it happened. The night Mister St. John died. He wasn’t supposed to be, but he was
. “Yes.”

“So why are they here?”

“Maybe the ghosts in E Block don’t want them. Come on. Let’s go.”

U
P AHEAD, A
dim, hazy light. Alan went towards it. Go towards the light sounded like the kind of thing he told his audiences. Up ahead, the corridor opened out into a room. It was bare, wide and long; archways held the ceiling up. To his left, a row of windows; the pale light came through them and lay in weak, watery pools on floorboards crusted with feathers and birdshit. Here and there were pigeon bones.

Alan looked out through a window. Below were the lawns and the woods; beyond them the moors and hills rose clear. He hadn’t been aware of climbing upwards, but he must have done. He was in the attic space of the Warbeck building.

He heard rustles and whispers. Pale shapes moved in the shadows. They never came too close to the light, but he glimpsed faces like faded photographs; in one, a gaping trench between forehead and nose obliterated the eyes. Another was a shiny globe of burn scars; eyes stared out, bared teeth and gums snarled, through ragged holes where fused lips and eyelids had been cut away.