Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
Victoria
As we wait at the door, Reese seems to shrink into herself, her shoulders hunching and her head dropping. At least she’s here when I know she would rather be anywhere else.
When no lights come on, and there seems to be no movement from inside the house, I rap again, for a long time, ending with a few kicks for good measure, not caring about my boots scuffing the blue paint.
But there is still no answer. ‘Let’s just go,’ says Reese, and I can hear the relief in her voice. She wants this to have been some game that simply ends now.
‘Screw that,’ I say and I give knocking again one more try, and then I grab the door handle and turn it, expecting nothing. But it turns and the door opens.
‘You can’t do that,’ whispers Reese frantically.
‘It’s been left open for a reason.’ I have a momentary vision of police jumping out of the bushes, guns pointed at us because of what we are doing, but I dismiss that thought. Whoever is here wants us to come inside.
I go first, stepping into the dark house. ‘This is mad,’ Reese says but I wave my hand at her. I switch on the torch on my phone, shining it down so that I can see where I’m going.
We walk around the house with slow shuffling steps, moving carefully in the dark, expecting someone to jump out at us at any moment. It’s so quiet, I can hear my own breathing, can almost hear my own heartbeat, as I move along the carpet.
I don’t completely remember the layout of the house but it’s simple enough. We walk into the living room from the front door and off to the side is a hallway with three bedrooms and a bathroom. The kitchen is on the other side of the living room along with a laundry room and another bathroom.
We stop every few seconds to listen for sounds.
We hear the screech of the bats in the distance and the wind blowing in through a gap that we can’t see, but nothing else.
No one stops us as we make our way slowly around the small house.
After a few minutes I realise why. The place is empty.
It’s filled with the smell of stale unmoving air and only the hum of an old refrigerator.
‘No one’s here,’ I whisper.
‘Yeah, let’s go,’ Reese whispers back. Odd that we feel the need to speak quietly.
‘No, I want to see more.’
Using my phone to find the light switch, I flick it on and a dim light fills the space. Looking up, I can see that only two of the light fittings are working in the living room.
‘What if someone sees the lights on and calls the police?’ Reese sounds panicked.
I shrug. I’m not going to stand here discussing, ‘what ifs’. I need to figure out what’s going on.
There are two sofas in a rich blue and I remember that they used to be white.
The coffee table is different as well. It’s white timber and I know the last one was a dark honey colour.
But the carpet looks worn so it may be the same one that was here all those years ago.
Looking around I see pictures of Sophie and Lia, just like there was the last time I was here but as I go closer to them, I see some have been added.
There’s a picture of Lia in a graduation cap and gown with Camilla’s mother and stepfather, both of them beaming with pride.
And there are more pictures of Sophie but in most of them, she’s with a child, a little girl.
She looks far too young to have a child.
In one with her and the baby, she looks like she’s still a teenager.
The pictures of the little girl are everywhere now that I look properly.
There are lots of her with Camilla’s mother and with Sophie as well.
‘Sophie had a baby,’ I tell Reese who is walking around looking at photos as well.
‘She was obviously very young when she did,’ Reese whispers. ‘Let’s keep going. I don’t want to get caught here. I feel like someone must be watching us.’
I switch off the light as I leave and move towards the kitchen. Reese follows behind me, her breathing getting louder the more panicked she becomes.
‘Calm down,’ I murmur.
‘I just want to go, we should go,’ she says.
The small kitchen is exactly how I remember it and I’m shocked that it hasn’t changed in sixteen years. It still has the same old upright stove and grey laminate countertop with pale grey cabinet doors.
‘Victoria,’ says Reese.
‘Just a few more minutes. We need to find out who owns this house now. Maybe we can even find the computer that’s been used to send us messages.’
I turn and Reese follows me. The first bedroom is where Camilla’s parents slept. My hand trembles as it moves towards the light switch in case someone is here, waiting, ready to pounce, but then I just flick it and the room is illuminated.
There is a double bed, covered in a patchwork, handknitted blanket, the squares in red and yellow. The cupboard doors are ajar and when I look inside, they are empty, and the chemical smell of mothballs hits my throat.
An old-fashioned dressing table with a yellow fabric skirt is clear and when I open the drawers, they are empty as well. No one lives here and, I’m willing to bet, no one has lived here in a long time. Camilla’s mother must have moved or died. I can’t remember how old she was.
We move into the next bedroom, which must have belonged to one of the girls. It has faded purple curtains and a princess canopy bed decked out in the same colour. Empty except for furniture it feels sad, lonely. I’m sure that whoever buys this house will simply knock it to the ground.
We stop in the bathroom to find it unchanged as well. I can almost smell the acidic vomit from Reese in the green tiled room, as though it has lingered here for nearly two decades.
Finally, we are standing outside what used to be Camilla’s bedroom. It became one of her sister’s rooms, Sophie, I think.
The door is closed. ‘Don’t open it,’ says Reese, her voice still whisper quiet.
But I’m obviously going to open it. It’s cold in the house but my palms are clammy and I wipe a hand on my pants before I turn the door handle, expecting it to be locked for some reason.
But it’s not so I push the door open slowly.
If someone is in here, could we run? Could we get out of here fast enough if they want to hurt us, like physically hurt us?
A hinge creaks and I feel acid in my throat. As the door swings open, I realise that there is the same empty smell in the room and I don’t even give myself time to think before flicking the light switch.
Dazzling white light is everywhere and I squint in the brightness, black dots appearing before my eyes as I blink quickly.
When I can see properly again, my gaze goes first to the pink canopy bed and then to the walls. I turn around slowly, studying them, my brain struggling to make sense of what I’m seeing.
‘Oh God,’ says Reese. ‘I think I’m going to throw up.’