27. A Most Horrifying Turn of Events
twenty-seven
A Most Horrifying Turn of Events
Liam
The stairs creak beneath my sneakers, and why wouldn’t they? This is a haunted house. This is a haunted house that I’m going into, all by myself.
This may be the stupidest thing I have ever done.
But it’s hardly my fault my colleagues keep quitting. Not my fault Archer’s decided he won’t let me do my job that I’m here to do.
This is fine. I’ll go upstairs, and I’ll kill this thing all by myself.
The gun, which I’m holding with two hands right by my face as if I’m in a bad action movie, seemed pretty powerful in the ExorSquad office. And they’ve given it to us to kill ghosts, so presumably, it kills ghosts.
I really hope it kills ghosts.
Not that this thing is a ghost. The salt circle and blue paint didn’t stop it yesterday. Archer’s used to dealing with ghosts, and he’s terrified of it. But this is all I have, so I push on, up and up the creaking stairs.
That weird veil of darkness lies ahead. It’s almost like a web, stretching across the hallway at the top of the stairs. Translucent.
A whooshing sound next to me knocks me off balance through sheer fear, and I grab hold of the bannister to stop myself from falling. A second later, talons dig into my shoulder, and a gurgling sound races down my spine, throwing steadying calm into my frayed nerves.
“Hey, Edgar.”
He rubs his head against my cheek.
“You sure you want to come up here?” I’m only asking because the sound of my own voice is a comfort, given the appalling silence all through the rest of the building. But he coos in response, almost as if he understands. “Suit yourself.” I shrug, and he flaps his wings a little to keep his balance.
We summit the stairs together and step through that almost-physical barrier—the curtain between light and dark, real and whatever world this creature has created here in ours. Cool humidity slips over me, and I could swear Edgar ruffles his feathers against it.
I’m on high alert for the obvious reason, but also because I’m half expecting Helena to jump out at me, or Simon, or those weird kids, or honestly, who knows what? But so far it’s just silence and this thick atmosphere.
I wish Archer were here.
This isn’t how I imagined this going. Not any of it.
I imagined, in my wildest dreams, a nice kiss like the one we had when I arrived.
Maybe the breakfast too. Then me charging up here, gun loaded and ready to blast that thing away.
It might have jumped out at us from the end of the hall.
One well-aimed shot and it would be gone.
The darkness would lift. And Archer would be so thankful.
So impressed. And I’d ask him out. And he’d say yes.
And it would be so much better than how things have played out in the real world.
Though he did ask me out. Kind of. So I’d really better survive this.
Bolstered by the thought of the date waiting for me, aware that he’ll be upset at me if he finds me up here before I kill that thing, I hasten my steps.
Along the hall, past the doorway that Archer said I should never, never go through.
Past his bedroom and the spare room, and on and up the hall to another set of stairs.
A terrifying and forbidding set of stairs, skinny and rickety in a way I wouldn’t have expected in this robust building.
I follow the line of them up and into complete darkness. Not even the strange mid-light of the hallway reaches there. The square entrance at the top is dead black.
I pull back to see Edgar’s head thrust forward, peeking up towards the attic too. His beak opens and a quiet gurgle comes out, so I give his feathers a stroke. “I’m not convinced it’s a good idea either.”
He dips his head a few times. I’m not sure what he means by it. I only know I’d be much happier here studying raven behaviour than going up there and doing what I have to do.
Then Edgar stills. He cocks his head as if he’s listening.
“What is it?” I whisper, assuming it’s some kind of horrible ghost noise only he can hear.
He listens a moment longer, blinks, then takes flight, soaring back along the hallway and away down the stairs.
“Thank you very much, Edgar,” I mumble.
It’s not that I expected much of him, but the company was nice.
It’s tempting, the idea of following him. Popping back out the front door and waiting there for Archer as if nothing happened.
But no. Imagine his face when I tell him all his troubles are over. And mine too, for now.
So I press a foot onto the bottom step, but the second I do, reality shifts.
It’s the blink of an eye, and I’m back in that strange stone world, carvings on the walls, moss in the cracks, leaves on the floor, vines snaking in and out.
When I look down, it’s a stone step beneath my foot, solid, followed by another, and another, leading to a platform of some sort, lit by bright sunshine streaming through a circular hole in the stone ceiling.
Some instinct tells me, this is it. This is where it has wanted me to go this whole time, where it’s been leading me. This is where, maybe, I fight it. Kill it.
A wave of adrenaline slams through me, my heart thundering, every sense alive. The scents of smoke and some kind of sweet and rich incense-like odour hit me, pungent beneath the damp, earthy smell of the decrepit leaves.
I click the chamber of the gun open. I know it’s loaded.
I know it’s ready to kill. But it settles me the tiniest amount to double-check.
I press my finger against the trigger, ready for whatever I’ll find at the top of these stairs, and I move forward.
Faster now, driven by fear and the urgency to get this over and done with.
But just before my head breaches the base of the platform, a voice reaches me. I stop dead.
It’s not the monstrous clicking and rasping voice of the creature. It sounds perfectly normal. Perfectly human. A perfectly common and normal London accent.
I press myself against the stairs to listen as it drifts over me.
“Tell me how they fucking knew.”
“I don’t know!” This voice comes high and anxious, but there’s no mistaking it. It’s Jem’s voice. I’d know it anywhere.
“Because you fucking told them!” someone screams.
“I didn’t!” Jem shouts. “I didn’t, I swear.”
“Then how did they fucking know?”
“Maybe they followed you?” Jem throws out, desperation clinging to every word. “Or maybe it was… I don’t know, someone else.”
There’s a laugh. A third voice. I don’t recognise it any more than I did the first.
“You know what?” Jem yells. “You don’t have to believe me. I don’t give a fuck. I’m getting out of here.”
The next voice is hard and cold. “You’re not going anywhere.”
There’s a scuffle, some scraping of shoes over head, but not like they’re on a stone platform. It’s a squeak, as if they’re on linoleum like we have at home, and their shoes are catching on it.
I know it’s not real. I’ve seen what this thing can do.
But hearing that, hearing Jem’s breath fast and harsh, a sound from him like he’s hurt, like he’s just been hit, I can’t help it.
I scramble up the stairs, prepared for the thing’s skeletal face, prepared for spiders, ghosts, whatever awful images this creature can cook up.
But I don’t come out onto a stone platform in a weird old temple or ruin like I’d expected.
It’s not sunshine through the ceiling that hits my face.
It’s harsh fluorescent light, emanating from a plastic casing that’s yellowed with age.
It shines down sickly on a small kitchen, messy, dirty plates and food all over the benches, empty beer bottles.
The people in this room, Jem and three other people I have never seen before, are all frozen, stopped still in time, like statues in a museum, or a hologram display waiting to be set in motion.
Jem’s directly in front of me, so close I could reach out and touch him. And opposite, by the fridge, some guy. Some guy with a gun. Pointing it at my brother.
Then a sharp crack splits the world apart, and my brother slams down on the floor half an inch from my face, his eyes staring at me, already lifeless, a hole in his head, blood everywhere.
A scream rips out of me. I can’t help it.
I scream, and I must fall, because it hurts.
It hurts my shins and my thighs, and I stumble, but I don’t stop.
I run. Bolt out of that place and away, through the temple corridor, on and on through darkness, vines catching at my feet, walls either side of me scraping my arms, bare walls and plants and carvings and nothing that looks like a doorway.
I run on. Blind. Anywhere, just to get away from it. That image of Jem. Dead on the floor. That place. That small and dirty kitchen. To escape all of the horror of what that thing showed me.
But more than all of it, to get away from something that felt… real. Too real.
So exact and so minute that I can’t turn back to face it. Not for anything.
A branch snags my shoe, and I’m tumbling, stumbling, trying to get my footing, but it’s too late.
My hip hits first, then my shoulder, and my head snaps down a second later, slamming into the floor.
I hear a door bang—a wooden door—then press a hand down to try to push myself up. My fingers meet carpet.
It’s a rug. Some soft rug on the floor of a room that’s lit by natural sunlight. My hands dig in, searching for purchase.
Head spinning, body aching, heart pounding, I gasp in air from my run, trying to figure out where I am, what’s happened.
It’s like Archer’s house. Like it in the wooden walls and the tall window off to my left that’s letting in grey daylight and a view of dark and stormy clouds swirling about the sky that must have come out of nowhere.
But it can’t be. This room has none of the floral decoration, the warm and rustic touches, fresh flowers and fresh bread that make everything achingly cosy. This place is…
It’s demonic.
Every wall is bolted through with shelves and shelves, stacked and dark, covered in books—big and old books with hard spines and bizarre writing.
There are strange jars, filled to the brim with blobs of things that I don’t even want to know what they are.
There are skulls, bowls overflowing with herbs or potpourri or god knows what.
Some kind of plant matter. More jars with what looks like..
Are those animals’ feet? Rocks and shells and feathers and… bones.
A wave of dizziness, driven by fear, sends me spinning backwards, where the backs of my legs meet a desk with a hard thump.
I reel forward again, tripping, planting both hands on the rug, blink once, twice, then realise…
the whole thing beneath me is a gigantic pentagram, taking up almost the entire room.
This is wrong. This is so wrong. How the fuck have I ended up here?
In a panic, I thrust myself up, using the shelves as leverage, reeling back to get off this symbol, as though just standing on it might suck me straight down to Hell. My back hits the wall, and I raise my eyes to red and bloody-looking writing, scrawled enormous across the wall: DEAD VENGEANCE.
My heel catches when I try to get away. I tumble to the left, landing in the window casement with a bump. With a bump and an eerily floaty feeling of displacement.
This room, all darkness and supernatural horror, like I’m on the film set of a bad sixties Hammer Horror movie. But outside… that’s Archer’s yard. That’s Archer’s barn. And there, on the ground, is Archer.
Archer leaning over Fabian’s body. Fabian laid out long and still. And Archer’s hands bloody, wrapped around a stake that he’s driven straight through my colleague’s body.
This is Archer’s house.
This is Archer’s room.
And that funny feeling I had about Archer this whole time slams home.
He’s not about to be my boyfriend. He’s about to be my killer.
That’s why Archer’s house is full of ghosts.
He’s a murderer.
He’s a serial killer.
He’s a killer, and he’s killed all of them.
And I need to get the fuck out of here.