3. Charlie #5
We followed them back through the corridor, past that scaffolding and those abandoned paint tins, and up the grand staircase. Each step creaked under our weight. The bannister wobbled horribly when I touched it. Dear lord. We might really end up needing another ambulance out here.
The upper landing stretched in both directions, doors lining the walls like sentries. Evelyn led us right.
“This one.” She pushed open the first door.
A bedroom. Not large, but not tiny either. A single bed shoved against one wall, its mattress suspicious looking but present. A wardrobe with one door hanging off its hinges. A window overlooking the front courtyard, the glass miraculously intact.
“And this one.” She moved two doors down and opened another.
Nearly identical. Same setup—bed, wardrobe, window, though bigger. The wallpaper in here maybe showed more water damage, brown stains bleeding down from the ceiling, but the bed looked marginally better.
Two rooms. Two beds. Two separate spaces.
I could have wept with relief.
“These will do perfectly,” Brad said, wheeling his massive case towards the second room. Of course he’d claim the superior one. “Cheers.”
Harrison pulled a business card from his wallet and handed it to Brad. Evelyn did the same, pressing hers into my palm with a smile that seemed genuinely grateful.
“Call if you need anything,” she said. “Anything at all.”
I looked down at the card. Evelyn Lancaster. Managing Director. A mobile number printed in tasteful grey lettering.
My hand moved automatically, pulling out my phone to save the contact. The screen lit up.
No signal.
Not even one bar. Just that empty space where the network indicator should be, mocking me with its absence.
I held the phone up, angling it towards the window. Still nothing.
“Ah.” Evelyn’s face fell. “Yes. I should have mentioned. The mobile signal here is… problematic.”
“Problematic,” I repeated.
“Almost non-existent,” Harrison corrected. “We’ve been meaning to get a signal booster installed, but with everything else…” He waved vaguely at the house around us, encompassing all its myriad failings in one gesture.
My chest tightened. “What if there’s an emergency?” The words came out far too high. A bit frantic, even.
Brad smirked. Actually smirked at me. I glared at him. Fine. Let him think I was scared of ghosts. I wasn’t. Ghosts weren’t real, and they certainly weren’t going to hurt me. But Brad? Brad was very real. And being trapped in an isolated manor house with him, no way to call for help, no witnesses—
And the spiders. Christ, were there venomous spiders in Wiltshire? There had to be. Big ones. Ones that crawled into beds at night.
“The carpenter managed to call an ambulance,” Harrison said, his tone suggesting I should stop being so dramatic. “There are patches on the upper floor where you might get a bar or two if you’re lucky. You’ll just have to… wander around until you find them.”
Brilliant. Fantastic. Peak efficiency.
“Anyway, hopefully that won’t be necessary,” Evelyn said to Harrison. “These are trained professionals. They’ll be able to handle whatever the house throws at them.”
Trained. Professionals.
I kept my face absolutely neutral. Didn’t let even a flicker of the hysterical laughter building in my chest show on my features. Training, yes, a.k.a. listening to Ted’s PowerPoint presentation about entities and reading a handbook that literally said “Run Very Fast” as its primary strategy.
“Well.” Harrison checked his watch. “We really must go. The drive to Brighton takes two hours, and we’re already running late.” He passed me a key. “This is for the padlock on the main gate, in case you need to drive out to grab anything. There’s no delivery service here, sadly.”
“One last thing,” Evelyn said. She glanced at her husband, then back to us.
“There’s a basement. We haven’t actually accessed it yet—you can walk down the stairs, but the door at the bottom is jammed shut.
None of the workmen have been able to get it open.
” She gave an elegant shrug. “It’s on our list of things to sort out, but with everything else… ”
“The fuse box is down there,” Harrison added. “Before the sealed door. In case there’s a power cut. Watch yourself, mind—the glass case is shattered. Sharp bits everywhere. This whole bloody house is falling apart faster than we can fix it.”
Evelyn and Harrison headed for the stairs. Evelyn paused at the top, turning back to look at us with an expression I couldn’t quite read. Worry? Hope? Some combination of both?
“Be careful,” she said softly.
Then they were gone, footsteps echoing down the staircase. We heard the front door open and close. The crunch of gravel. Car doors slamming. An engine starting.
The sound faded into the distance.
Silence rushed in to fill the void. Silence that pressed against eardrums, so complete it felt physical. No traffic noise. No distant conversations. No hum of electricity or modern life.
Just old wood settling. Wind against windows. The faint drip of water somewhere.
Brad stood in the hallway, hands on his hips, surveying the corridor with the confidence of someone who actually knew what they were doing.
“Right then, Chaz.” He turned that megawatt smile on me. “Time to get to work.”