Chapter 4 #2
“Are you the only one here?” Scott asked.
Thomas scrunched his nose, and Scott thought he’d touched a nerve.
“I have a cleaner who comes here three times a week, two chefs who come on a Sunday, and a gardener who keeps the grounds looking beautiful.”
“But apart from them? You live here alone?”
Thomas shook his head. “No. Virgil, Gordon, Penelope, John, Alan, Lucy and Parker live here too.”
“Oh.” Scott bit his lip. “And they are?”
“Friends of mine.”
“I didn’t wake them too?” Scott whispered. “You know, buzzing the intercom?”
Thomas flashed him a look. “I imagine they were still awake. You can stay in this room.”
Thomas opened a door, then switched on the light. Scott widened his eyes at the huge king-sized bed in the middle of the room. The walls were white, the carpet was soft and spongy, and the sheets were crease-free.
There were three doors inside the room.
“Where do they go?”
“The one on the left is the en-suite bathroom, the one in the middle is the walk-in closet, and the one on the right is a passageway that leads to… I think you’d describe it as a panic room.”
“You’ve got a panic room?”
Thomas snorted. “It’s a room you’d panic in, yes.”
“I…I don’t understand.”
“Whatever you do… Don’t use the door on the right.” Thomas turned to leave. “Goodnight.”
“Wait,” Scott said, gripping Thomas’s arm.
Thomas tensed, and Scott released him.
“Where are you going to be?”
Thomas narrowed his eyes. “In my bedroom.”
“Which is where?”
“In my quarters on the top floor.”
Scott stared at him blankly.
“You keep taking the corridor until you get to a spiral staircase. Any issues, I don’t want to hear about them. Night, Scott.”
“Wait.”
Thomas paused in the doorway.
“Thank you,” Scott whispered.
“Don’t mention it…and I mean, don’t mention it.” He glanced back at Scott. “And don’t use the door on the right.”
“Not even if I think I’m in danger?”
Thomas shook his head. “You won’t find help at the other end.”
He stepped out into the corridor and closed the door without looking back.
Scott slid the bolt lock across, then dropped his bag.
He wanted to have a shower, wash his face and brush his teeth, but exhaustion led him over to the bed.
He kicked off his shoes and threw himself face down into the pillow.
His eyes slid shut as he inhaled a stale kind of cleanliness.
No one had slept in this bed for a long time, and the crisp white sheets had lost most of their fragrance, but if Scott burrowed his nose deep, he thought he could pick out the scent of lavender.
He slipped under the duvet, telling himself he just needed to rest his eyes for a moment, then he’d get undressed and wash ready for bed, but his brain had already gone into shut-down mode, and he closed his eyes with a long sigh.
When Scott woke up, he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
No unhappy face stared back at him.
There were voices outside, and the sound of a reversing truck.
Scott dragged the duvet with him as he crossed the bedroom to look out the window.
He pulled open the blinds and peered through the glass with blurry eyes.
It was another sunny day. The gates were wide open, and men in high-visibility jackets were walking back and forth along the front of the property. They were collecting the chairs and stands used the day before for the auctions.
The sun was high in the sky, directly overhead. Scott stumbled back towards the bed and snatched his phone off the nightstand. It was midday. He’d slept better than he thought he would, so good in fact that he hadn’t noticed all the workmen outside loading up their trucks.
Scott took his bag into the bathroom, relieved himself, then stood beneath the rainfall shower. He sighed in pleasure as hot water poured down his body and steamed up the glass around him.
Once he had brushed his teeth and got ready, he went in search of Thomas. Although he could hear people on the ground floor, there was no one outside his door. He carried on going down the corridor until he got to the spiral staircase that led up to Thomas’s living quarters.
Scott knocked on the huge black door at the top before trying the handle and finding it locked. There was no button to press to speak to Thomas or a doorbell to let him know Scott was there.
A single camera pointed down at Scott from the corner of the hall. He waved at it, but nothing happened. Scott sighed and trudged back the way he’d come until he was in the room Thomas had given him for the night.
He stared at the door on the right, the one Thomas had told him not to use, before shrugging and swinging it open. No one jumped out at him, but Scott had picked up his duffel bag to swing at them just in case.
The passage only led one way, and you had to crawl, presumably beneath the windows, to get to the destination. Scott took a deep breath, then got down on his hands and knees.
Fairy lights led the way, red at first before fading into white, then green, then white, then red again. The colours repeated, and Scott felt half hypnotised as he made his way along the length of the house.
At the end of the tunnel, there was enough room to stand up, then a ninety-degree turn, followed by a narrow staircase.
Scott had made it too far to turn back, and he kept going until he knew he was on Thomas’s floor, crawling through the walls.
Another tunnel, then enough space to stand, then a door.
Lights shone around it, the same, red, white and green combination but less intense.
“What’s the worst that could happen?” he murmured before turning the knob and stepping into Thomas’s panic room.
Scott gaped.
There were green lamps in each corner, a huge chandelier with red bulbs hung from the ceiling, and the walls were painted like a rainforest – no – they weren’t walls.
They were glass – huge sheets of glass in front of a rainforest. Scott stumbled closer, unable to comprehend.
There were trees, and water pouring down a rock face, and mud, and rocks, and moss and vines and a mirror.
It gave Scott an idea of the depth of the tank in front of him.
Tank.
It was a tank.
And there, watching him from a branch, was the biggest fucking snake he’d ever seen. Scott launched himself away, tripping over his feet. His arse hit the floor – the fern-leaf painted floor – and he scrambled back on his hands until his head hit something hard.
“Please don’t be another snake,” he whispered, before turning to see what he’d crashed into.
Scott screamed.
Thomas, sat behind him on an armchair that matched the floor, glared.
“Fuck,” Scott spluttered, clutching his chest. “It’s just…too much…snake.”
“I bet you’ve never said that at work.”
“Ha, fucking ha,” Scott replied. He took a moment to get his breath back, then said, “The panic room, the room to panic in. I get it now.”
“I thought it funny.”
Scott hummed, unimpressed. “Well, it’s not. Why is there a tunnel in your house that leads to a pit of vipers?”
“Only two of them are vipers.” Thomas shrugged. “And why not?”
Scott had many answers to that, but none of them materialised.
“Besides, it’s a tunnel out of this room, rather than into it. If someone broke in and tried to steal my collection, I’d need a secret way of getting them out.”
Scott shuddered. “I’m not going to sleep tonight knowing there might be snakes slithering in the walls.”
“Who says I’m going to let you stay another night?”
“How many are there?” Scott asked, deciding he wasn’t ready to ask if he could stay for longer.
“Seven. Virgil, Gordon, Penelope, John, Alan, Lucy and Parker.”
“Your friends,” Scott said, deadpan.
“Yes,” Thomas agreed. “I prefer their company over people.”
“Are they all in the same tank?”
“No. Virgil and Gordon are, but the rest have their own tanks. They’re a couple.”
“You have gay snakes?”
“Yes. The zoo they used to live at wanted to separate them, so I bought them so they could live out their lives together. They’re Burmese Pythons.
” Thomas tilted his head towards the closest tank.
It took Scott a minute to see them; they were so well camouflaged in the foliage, but there were two snakes, tangled together to look like one.
Scott could only tell there were two because of their black tongues sticking out to taste the air.
“Lucy…” Thomas pointed at a tank with yellow and black stickers all around it. “She’s highly venomous. She’ll stop your heart in ten minutes.”
Scott widened his eyes. “Then why the hell have you got her?”
Thomas leaned back in his chair. “She’s beautiful.”
“I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
“No. She’s beautiful. Full stop.” Thomas looked down at Scott. “I told you not to go through the door on the right. Have you ever heard the expression ‘curiosity killed the cat’?”
“Yes, I have,” Scott said, lifting his chin. “But do you know where that expression came from?”
Thomas opened his mouth to reply but snapped it shut again. He frowned. His snake eyes burned a hole in Scott’s head, but Scott didn’t look away.
“I do,” Thomas said.
“Then tell me.”
Thomas shook his head. “I don’t want to.”
“Bullshit. You don’t know.”
“I do.”
Scott smiled and slid his phone from his pocket. Thomas bristled as Scott typed in the saying.
“You cheated,” Thomas hissed.
“How am I cheating? I didn’t know.” Scott locked his phone. “And now I do.”
“Well?”
“I don’t need to tell you, you know apparently.”
“You’re insufferable.” Thomas huffed.
“And yet, you’re suffering through me.” Scott used the arm of the chair to heave himself up onto his knees. “Now, are you giving me a tour of the mansion or not?”
“I never said I would.”
Scott winked. “I’m a curious cat, remember?”
Thomas looked away with a sneer.
“And you can start with your friends…”
Thomas turned back to Scott. It was hard to know whether he was lifting his eyebrow or not, considering he’d shaved them to keep the tattoo on his face seamless, but Scott imagined it would’ve been raised in an expression like seriously?
“Yes, I’m serious,” Scott said. “They scare the hell out of me, but you love them, so show me…”