Читать книгу Dark Ages - John Pritchard - Страница 18

CHAPTER I

Fiends and Ashes

1

Martin woke abruptly, with the dusk.

The gloom had seeped in silently, and caught him unawares. The bedroom was engulfed in it, the furniture submerged. The double bed, his life raft, was awash.

Panic clenched his muscles; he almost struggled upright straight away. Then slumped, as he remembered where he was. The dull, familiar room took shape again. Gloom clung to the wallpaper like filth. Only the window showed some light – a segment of colourless sky. From where he lay, the rooftops almost masked it.

Everything was in its place. The digits on the bedside clock were bright and reassuring. But the coldness in his limbs took several moments to recede. He felt as if he’d woken with a spider on his cheek.

He sat up stiffly, swinging his legs off the bed. The change in equilibrium made his empty stomach churn; he waited with his head down while it settled. Muzzily he rubbed his face; felt bristles rasp and chafe against his palms.

The flat was very quiet. The dusk had flowed right through it, soaking in. A couple more hours before Claire got back: sighing her way through the door and switching lights on. She’d find the place deserted, yet again. It would be full dark by then – and he’d be out there, in it.

Martin stretched inside his slept-in clothes; then got to his feet, and walked through to the bathroom. The cold tap knocked and shuddered as he filled a glass and drank, rinsing out the fetid taste of sleep.

A dim shape peered towards him from the mirror. He switched on the light and met it face to face. He was looking pale, his eyes half-sunk in shadow. They had a slightly mournful cast: it made his grin engaging, in a way that women liked. But when he was expressionless, like now, his stare was sombre.

The beard was five days old. His fingers reached above it, brushed the small scar on his cheek. A tiny nick of callused skin. He realized it was itching.

Still healing, after all these years.

Lyn had done that. He’d just turned five, but remembered every detail. At seven she’d been insufferable, a spoilt little brat: always bossing him around, as if two years made any difference. They’d been fighting in the playroom and she’d thrown a building block. The gashing pain had made him cry; the blood had made him bawl. But even through his tears, he’d seen her horrified white face, and known he was the winner after all.

He’d had to have a stitch, and been the centre of attention. Mum had fussed and held his hand, while Dad waited in the corridor with Lyn. She was going to get what for when they got home: that spiteful hope had kept his tears in check. But Dad had seemed to think that she’d already learned her lesson. And when Martin had emerged and seen her waiting – all big, scared eyes and tear-stained cheeks – he’d realized that he didn’t want to see her this upset. Her fear was there for him, he sensed, as much as for herself.

Naturally, they’d fought again – but never quite as fiercely. From that day on, it sometimes seemed, they’d started drawing closer.

Lyn.

He savoured her name in silence – then swallowed it. A lump in his throat, then a dull ache in his stomach. But there was no point wondering what Lyn was doing now. Tonight, of all nights, he could do without the niggling dilemma: whether to get in touch, or keep his distance.

He killed the light again. The dusk, already thicker, closed around him. He went back to the bedroom, and walked over to the window. His heart began to thud against his ribs.

The sky was pale and clear outside. There would be stars tonight.

2

The house was on the corner, just down from the junior school. The orange streetlight bathed its bricks, which made it seem less menacing – at first. But even from across the road, he could see where smoke had blackened it: freakish shadows underneath the lamp. The chipboard in the windows stood out clearly.

The Burnt House – that’s what everybody called it. The kids had told him so. On winter nights they hurried past it, straggling in groups. A ghost was boarded up inside, and that was gospel. A little boy’s ghost – burned black.

Martin looked both ways. Nothing was coming; but still he hesitated.

He’d been working as a cleaner when he picked the story up. Some of the kids had been talking in the corridor: clearly trying to dare – and scare – each other. Intrigued, he’d slowly mopped his way towards them, feeling his breathing tighten as the pieces made a whole.

‘Someone went in there, right? Went in there, and they found him, and he’d been trying to crawl under a door. Something in the room had scared him so much … he was trying to crawl under the door.’

He’d ventured to intrude, and they’d been happy to include him. ‘Do you believe in ghosts at all?’ a fair-haired boy had asked him.

‘Yes,’ he’d told them solemnly. ‘I do.’

Or something like them.

So they’d told him what they knew about the Burnt House. Different people had subtly different versions; there were elements of urban myth developing already. But he didn’t doubt the truth behind it all. The knowledge seemed to suck his stomach dry.

He’d wondered if the tale they told was giving them bad dreams. Perhaps, with some of them, it was – but they kept on coming back to it. Their growing minds could stretch to fit. But Martin had felt nauseous for hours.

The house looked unassuming in the daytime, despite the sooty marks around its windows. The sheets of board were blank and bland – screening off the gutted depths within. But the first time he’d walked past it, he had sensed the void inside. The place was light-proof: sealed against the day. Tonight, by sallow streetlight, it seemed so full of darkness it might burst.

The sound of footsteps reached him, coming up towards the corner from the south. The railway arch was back that way, an unlit lane beyond it. He turned his head uneasily – then breathed out as he recognized her shape.

She paused at the junction, spotted him, and crossed: relief had put a spring into her step. He didn’t blame her. The Burnt House was the last place you would want to get stood up.

‘Hello,’ said Martin drily.

Lucy smiled. ‘All ready, then?’ Now that they’d met up, she seemed quite perky.

‘Yeah,’ he said, encouraged. ‘Thanks for coming.’ He glanced towards the house again. ‘Romantic, isn’t it?’

Looking, she laughed softly. Eighteen now, with college in the autumn. She had a pleasant, snub-nosed face and short dark hair. Claire – who didn’t know – would be suspicious: naturally. But Lucy was a friend, and nothing less.

He’d met her at a vigil in a local, ‘haunted’ church: the sort of thing he would have jeered at once. Like many of the ghost-watchers, she had a sceptic’s mind: always on the lookout for an easy explanation. And yet she felt the mystery, like he did. She had a real scientist’s awe for that.

He felt he could see eye-to-eye with someone who’d enjoyed The Selfish Gene. He’d heard about the Burnt House and had called her. He didn’t want the group along, with all their paraphernalia. Their vigils were too organized. They made the dark too safe.

‘So what are you expecting?’ she had asked him.

‘To see if something’s in there. To get close.’

She’d hesitated. ‘We’ve nothing to record it with.’

‘Maybe not,’ he’d murmured. ‘But we’ll know.’

They went in round the back way, under cover of the over-grown garden. The back door had been forced before, presumably by squatters. It occurred to him to wonder just how long they’d stuck it out. A night, perhaps. Or maybe less than that.

The dark inside was choking – like a foretaste of extinction. He flicked his torch on quickly and played it around. The kitchen was bare, its walls begrimed, but the damage here was minimal. The seat of the fire, for once, had been elsewhere.

A foul smell still lingered in the air. The stench of stuff corrupted by the flames.

Grimacing, he looked up towards the ceiling. The plaster and paint had cracked like a drought-ravaged field. The light-fixing was gone, the flex protruding. It hung in the penumbra of the beam. He moved the light away, and glanced at Lucy.

‘Okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ she murmured calmly.

He led the way in deeper, hearing brittle cinders crunch beneath their boots. The fire had swept the front room and the hall. The walls looked black and oily in the beam; there were traces of a pattern in the rags of wallpaper. The ceiling had collapsed, exposing skeletal charred wood. The ruin of an easy chair still squatted in the corner.

Lucy had her own torch out: she shone it up the stairs. The gloom up there absorbed the light completely.

‘It started up there?’ she asked – almost whispering now.

He wet his lips and nodded. ‘In the bedroom.’

The glow of her torch slid down onto the staircase. ‘Reckon it’s safe?’

The stairs looked fairly dodgy, but he wasn’t sure she’d meant them. ‘Let’s … just wait for a bit.’

‘And see what happens?’

He waited for her to turn her head; then nodded grimly. ‘Yeah.’

She shrugged. ‘Is it all hearsay, then? Or has anyone actually seen it … heard it?’

‘Well, one of the girls claimed she heard something knocking on one of the window boards, when she was running past one night. She always runs past the place, she says.’

‘Could have been anything, then. Or anyone.’

‘That’s what I thought. But one thing’s for sure, she’s scared of something. They all were, underneath their smiles.’

‘And one child was killed in the fire here, right?’

‘Right. About a year ago, I think. But there’s more to it than that … or so they said.’

She clicked her torch off and came back into the shell of the front room. ‘Oh yes? You didn’t tell me that.’

‘It isn’t nice,’ he muttered flatly.

‘No …’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose it is. Well, you’ve obviously been saving it, so better tell me now.’

He let the torch beam sink, and pool between them.

‘This is what they said, all right? The little boy who lived here kept having bad dreams. Someone was coming to get him, you know the kind of thing. Anyway, one night he wakes up screaming: says that someone’s in the bedroom, running fingers through his hair. So his mother comes, and gets him settled down. Then half an hour later, he’s screaming again. So she goes to him again. And it’s a demon, apparently. A demon keeps appearing in the room. She gets him off again. And then, on her way to bed, she decides to look in on him … and when she gets to the door, and touches it, it’s hot.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ Lucy whispered.

‘So she opened it, of course she did, and the fire was just let loose. She and her husband got out with severe burns. The boy died in his room.’

She stared at him; then brushed her mouth, as if to wipe a sour taste away. ‘Bloody hell.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Any … cause for the fire, do they know?’

‘Not that I’ve heard. Could have been an electrical fault … or something.’

‘Or something. Yeah.’ She looked up at the ceiling. ‘So what do they reckon is haunting here? His ghost? Or … whatever might have killed him?’

‘Maybe both.’ He paced around; then looked at her again. ‘My dad told me a story once. A legend of King Arthur, ’cause he’s into all that stuff. They were caught in some place, his knights and him – besieged by burning ghosts. And when the ghosts were stabbed, they lost their shape, becoming fiends and ashes.’

Lucy’s smile was wry enough; but her shudder didn’t look entirely faked. She watched as he unstuffed his bag and spread a tattered blanket on the floor. They both sat down. She’d brought her Thermos flask. Pouring a cup, she paused and glanced around.

‘You can’t feel anything, can you?’

He hesitated. The house itself felt looming, ghastly, steeped in its despair. But nothing seemed to move within its walls. He shook his head.

‘Neither can I,’ she said, and gave a wan little smile. The perkiness had died away long since.

By midnight, he’d worked up the nerve to try and broach the subject.

The Burnt House was still dormant, but its aura felt increasingly oppressive. A claustrophobic itch had started nagging: as if the place was sealed again, and they were trapped inside. He glanced more than once at his propped-up torch, almost willing himself to see it flicker.

The past – his past – was creeping up: the atmosphere congealed to give it shape. He knew he’d talk before the night was out. Like the onset of a stomach ache that has to end in sickness. And this would be a purging, too – and maybe a relief.

He glanced at Lucy. Their small talk had subsided, but the silence was companionable enough. He’d never breathed a word of this to anyone before; he wasn’t sure how even she’d react.

So begin at the beginning. Building-blocks.

‘What’s your theory, then: on ghosts?’

She looked at him over the plastic mug. ‘I thought you knew.’

‘After-images and such?’

She shrugged. ‘Or psychic echoes. Call them what you like. I think they’re just a way of seeing into the past. Not sentient at all.’

‘And not things that can hurt you.’

She shook her head.

‘So what about demons, then?’

‘Doesn’t that imply a Christian view?’

‘Other religions have them. Evil spirits.’

‘Active agents, you mean; rather than passive images?’

He nodded slowly, thinking of the burning room upstairs. The house had always felt unsafe, but now the air of dull threat seemed to grow.

‘Maybe,’ she conceded – and looked at him quizzically. ‘Why?’

He glanced around; then back at her. ‘I think I might have called one up, one time.’

Lucy straightened up. ‘What, in a seance or something?’

‘No, I was at home and it was the last thing on my mind. I never believed in things like that.’ Restless now, he clambered up as if relieving cramp.

‘But now you do?’ she murmured.

He looked around, and nodded.

‘So what happened?’

‘I don’t know. I was looking at something in one of my dad’s old books; just stringing names together in my mind …’ He wet his lips. ‘Dubhe and Merak; Alioth. Mean anything to you?’

‘No, but they sound like mythical names. Forgotten gods, or something?’

He gave a small, tight smile and shook his head. ‘They’re the names of stars, that’s all: the stars in the Plough. This was just a picture of a medieval star-chart. One that was used for magic of some kind.’

She frowned at that. ‘So … what was it like? This thing that came.’

‘There were more than one,’ he said.

‘You saw them?’

‘I just heard them. That was worse. It was like I’d been struck blind – I couldn’t see. But in my head, I saw these images.’

Lucy was absorbed by now. ‘Martin. How come you’ve never mentioned this before?’

‘Because I couldn’t fucking cope with it. I’ve not told anyone before – not even my own sister. I’d trust her with anything, but not this. I can’t lump her with this.’

Her bright eyes didn’t blink. ‘What happened then?’

‘Nothing. I just waited. I was too afraid to move. And Christ, I thought the dawn would never come.’ He breathed in deeply. ‘When it did, I found that I could see.’ Another pause. He shrugged. ‘The house was empty.’

‘And nothing since?’

‘Not a whisper. Nothing for two years. That’s why I’ve kept searching. I need to look them in the face again.’

Lucy sat there, watching, with her back against the wall. ‘You sound like my old boyfriend,’ she said drily. ‘He backed down from a fight one time, then kept on reliving it, and winning. It wasn’t as if I minded. Stupid git.’ Her tone was shrewd but amiable enough. He smiled thinly, scuffing at the cinders.

‘Believe me, girl, I’d run a mile from this lot.’

Her expression grew more pensive. ‘You’ve considered—’

‘That it might be something psychiatric?’ He shoved his hands into his pockets; took a breath. ‘Jesus, Luce: of course I have. That’s another reason why I have to keep on looking. I know what I saw. It’s just, I need to prove it to myself.

‘There’s something else. I’m sure that what I saw that night was something from outside. Something science doesn’t understand – not yet. And if it’s there, I want another look.’ He crossed the room abruptly, startling her. ‘I’m going upstairs now.’

She stared up at him. ‘Hey, listen …’

‘There might be something up there. If there is, I have to see it. Are you coming?’

She hesitated. He saw how much her confidence had dwindled; she was looking very young now. ‘No,’ she said, and shook her head. ‘I’m not.’

‘I don’t blame you. I really don’t. But don’t go away, all right?’ He turned towards the stairs.

‘What images?’ she asked, belatedly.

Looking back, he hesitated: trying to find the words.

‘Like predators with human skins,’ he said.

The house, of course, was empty. Though its past was real and horrible enough, he sensed no echoes from it. The upper floor was desolate: just empty, mournful darkness. If something evil had been here, it had gone its way long since.

His reaction was the same as always: frustration and relief in equal measure. They wiped each other out, and he was left there feeling nothing.

Lucy ventured up a short while later, not wanting to be left alone downstairs. He saw her torchlight flashing from the corner of his eye, but stayed where he was: letting her track him to the scorched shell of the bathroom. One of the window-boards was missing here. He’d switched his own torch off so that his eyesight could adjust.

‘What … ?’ she asked, still waiting on the threshold.

‘It’s all right. Put the light out. Come and see.’

She joined him cautiously. In the black frame of the window, the stars were very bright: scores of them compressed in that small gap.

‘There’s the Plough,’ he told her, peering out. ‘Up overhead … you see?’ The names began to form again, like whispers in his head. Dubhe. Merak. Phecda. Megrez … He forced them out of focus, and tried to fix his thoughts on something else. Like chasing Vicki round the field, beneath those same bright stars.

‘I had this girlfriend, back in school. I used to try and teach her constellations.’

‘And was she interested?’ asked Lucy wryly.

Martin’s smile came easier. ‘Only in the mnemonic for classifying stars. Wow, Oh Be A Fine Girl and Kiss Me Right Now – Smack.’

She giggled. ‘Snog or slap?’

He shared her grin, relieved at last. However briefly.

‘Now that would be telling.’

They left the house, and lingered in the road. Martin adjusted his rucksack, looking round. The junction was deserted. The Burnt House seemed to hold it like a strongpoint.

‘Want me to walk you home? I will.’

‘Just to the bus stop, Martin, thanks.’ They turned towards the railway arch. After a pause, she glanced at him. ‘You’re going to keep on looking?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I’m going off to Uni in October; but anything before that, let me know …’

He nodded wordlessly, and then looked back. The instinct was a primal one: alertness to some danger. Nobody was following, and yet the itch persisted: a nervous urge to grasp her hand and run. To flee, and keep on fleeing down these endless lamplit corridors of night.

3

It was one o’clock when he slipped into the flat. Locking the door, he tiptoed through the dark. Every sound seemed magnified; but Claire didn’t wake. Not even when he slithered into bed.

He settled down beside her, and listened to her breathe; trying not to think of how she must have spent her evening. Coming back from her shift to an empty house and a scrawled note on the table. Perhaps she’d cried a little, as she sat and watched TV. A pang of guilt transfixed him – but it faded soon enough.

Perhaps he’d feel the same with a more everyday addiction: alcohol, or gambling, or drugs. Hurting somebody he loved – and yet not sparing her. Watching while things went to hell, unable to let up.