Haunted by the Past, page 14
part #11 of Ismael Jones Series
“Does it ever bother you, that you’re always looking for the worst in people?”
“No,” I said. “Most of the time it comes under the heading of self-defence. Get them, before they can drop a piano on you. So I look for the worst, and hope to be pleasantly surprised.”
“And are you?”
I smiled at her. “Sometimes. But, there’s nothing like an old dark house for bringing out the sinister in people.”
“Catherine believes that like calls to like,” said Penny. “And evil calls to evil.”
“We need facts,” I said firmly. “Good solid evidence....Right now, we are so mired in theories and possibilities that we’re just spinning our wheels, unable to get any traction. Normal motives don’t seem to make sense, in a setting like this. Still...I have no doubt that when we finally get to the bottom of things, it will all make perfect sense.”
“I really would like to believe that,” said Penny. “But what if Arthur is right, and the Hall honestly can get inside your head? What if it can make you think and do things you wouldn’t even consider anywhere else?”
“Anyone trying to get inside my head does so at their own risk,” I said calmly. “I wouldn’t go in there without a chair and a whip.”
Penny laughed, because she knew I wasn’t joking.
Time passed. Penny dozed off, and made low snoring and snuffling noises. The Hall made all the sounds you’d expect from an old house settling in the night. Creaks and groans, a clump of soot falling down the chimney, and a brief water hammer in the pipes downstairs. A gusting wind swept around the Hall, and out across the grounds. I still couldn’t hear any of the usual nocturnal birds or wildlife...as though they had more sense than to go anywhere near Glenbury Hall.
I concentrated, listening for the sound of a door unlocking and opening, followed by surreptitious footsteps on the landing or creeping down the stairs...but there was nothing. The Glenburys and their guests slumbered peacefully in their beds. The clearest thing I could hear was Penny’s slow breathing beside me, as familiar to me as my own. I nudged her in the side and she surfaced reluctantly, muttering slurred words from a dream language. She yawned and stretched, and looked at me reproachfully.
“I only closed my eyes for a moment. Is it time to go walkabout?”
“Not yet,” I said. “I was thinking...there’s something we should do first.”
Penny smiled at me dazzlingly. “Darling, have we got time? Shall I put my big hat back on? You know you like that.”
“I think we need to turn off the light,” I said.
Penny stared at me for a long moment. “Why?”
“It could be shining past the cracks in our door, and spilling out into the corridor,” I said steadily. “Letting the others know that we are still awake.”
“You have got to be kidding,” said Penny. “You really think anyone would notice that, from inside their rooms? We don’t all have alien-issued eyes.”
“If they have their lights off, ours could stand out in the dark,” I said. “It’s the first thing I’d look for.”
“Yes, but you are an experienced secret agent and extremely weird,” said Penny. She looked at me accusingly. “Did you wake me up because you were you worried I might freak out, if you just went ahead and did it?”
“You’re my partner,” I said. “I run all my decisions past you. It would only be for a while, to lure anyone who might be watching into a false sense of security.”
“You worry about the strangest things, Ishmael.”
“And I’m usually right.” I looked at her carefully. “Are you worried, that you might freak out in the dark?”
She snorted loudly. “The house isn’t getting to me that much.”
I wasn’t entirely sure I believed that. I could feel the tension in her. But she just shrugged quickly, and knuckled grumpily at her eyes.
“Oh, go ahead then. Get on with it then.”
There was no switch or pull cord near the bed. I swung my legs over the side and padded quickly over to the switch by the door. I turned the light off, and it was suddenly very dark. I could just make out a shimmer of moonlight past a crack in the drawn curtains, and I used that to find my way back to the bed. Penny made a startled sound as I dropped onto the bed beside her, and punched me in the arm.
“Give me some warning next time! I’m blind as a bat in this darkness.”
“I’ll get you some echolocation equipment for Christmas.”
“You buy me the sweetest things.”
She snuggled up against me again, a warm and friendly presence in the night, and I held her close as I kept a watchful gaze on the dim shapes of the furniture, so I would know if anything moved or suddenly wasn’t where it should be.
“I can feel the Hall around me,” Penny said quietly. “Not the people in their rooms, but the house itself. As though the Hall is listening to our every movement, just waiting for us to do something unwise and leave ourselves vulnerable, so it can pounce on us.”
“It’s just a house,” I said.
“Is it?” said Penny. “What if the Glenburys did something here, long ago, to change the very nature of the Hall?”
“Concentrate on the people,” I said firmly. “People are always the most dangerous elements in any situation.”
Penny sighed slowly. “Any idea what time it is?”
“Ten to twelve,” I said.
There was a pause.
“You didn’t even look at your watch, did you?” said Penny.
“I didn’t need to. I always know what time it is.”
“Alien. Come on; I’ve had enough of lying around here, waiting for something to happen. I say we go out into the corridor and make something happen.”
I smiled into the darkness. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
We got up off the bed. I managed it easily because I could see what I was doing, but it took Penny several tries before she could even figure out where the edge of the bed was. I put a hand on her arm to steady her, and she snatched it away.
“I told you; give me some warning! I nearly jumped out of my skin!”
“But you knew it had to be me,” I said reasonably. “I’m the only other person in the room.”
“I wish I could believe that,” she muttered. “But I keep getting this feeling that we’re not alone in here.”
I remembered Catherine talking about guests at the Hall who became convinced there were more people in a room than they could account for. There was no one but Penny and me. I was sure of that. Unless...there was something in the dark that not even my senses could detect.
“Follow me to the door,” I said. “And we’ll take a look outside. Unless you need to use the chamber-pot first.”
“The only use I have for that thing is to smash it over someone’s head.”
In the end Penny allowed me to take her by the elbow and steer her over to the door. We pressed our ears against the wood, and listened carefully.
“I’m not hearing anything,” Penny said finally. “How about you, space boy?”
“Not a thing, spy girl,” I said. “No, wait a minute. I think...there might be footsteps, somewhere down the corridor.”
“Who do you think it is?” said Penny. “Catherine, out looking for ghosts? Or Wendy, looking for answers?”
“It could be Ellen, waiting to meet some boyfriend she invited over from town,” I said. “Her performance at dinner could have been just a cover, so no one would try to stop her jumping the bones of some local boy she knew her parents wouldn’t approve of.”
“That’s sort of sweet,” said Penny. “In a sweaty, hormonal, teenage sort of way. Young lust would actually make a nice change from some of the possibilities we’ve been considering.”
“Or it could be Arthur and Marion out there,” I said. “Setting the stage for a special ghostly performance, to justify the Hall’s reputation.”
“You think they’d play tricks on us?” said Penny.
“What better way to attract guests to a failing business, than a dramatic haunting witnessed by a whole bunch of impeccable witnesses? Arthur and Marion could end up with so many new bookings they’d have to beat off the enthusiasts with an ectoplasmic stick.”
“What if it isn’t any of those people?” said Penny.
“I suppose it could always be Lucas Carr, come back to explain himself.”
“You know what? I would really like that,” said Penny. “We could take it in turns to slam him up against a wall and ask him pointed questions about what the hell he’s been playing at.”
“He could have escaped from some secret room where he’d been held prisoner,” I said, and then smiled into the darkness. “Unless he’s come back as a ghost, to join the spectral throng infesting Glenbury Hall.”
“Don’t even go there,” said Penny.
Something in her voice made me turn my head to look at her. She was just a dim shape in the gloom, standing very still.
“This house really is getting to you, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Penny. “It is. And no, I don’t know why. We’ve gone charging headlong into worse situations than this, armed with nothing more than a really bad attitude. I think it’s just that the whole place feels wrong. Some old houses do go feral, and turn on their occupants. That’s an established fact.”
“In your world, maybe. Do you want to stay here, while I go and check out the lay of the land?”
“You even try that, and I will trip you up and walk right over you,” said Penny. “You know you need me, to guard your back. Are you still hearing the footsteps?”
“No,” I said. “They stopped, while we were talking. But I’m not sure when...”
“Maybe the house is getting to you as well,” Penny said sweetly.
“That’ll be the day,” I said. “Or the night.”
I reached out to open the door and then stopped.
“Hold it,” I said quietly.
“What is it?” said Penny.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It just suddenly feels like...we’re not alone.”
“If there is someone in the corridor, we need to get out there and jump on them, before they get away!” said Penny.
I turned my back on the door, and stared into the darkness filling the room. “Whatever it is, it’s in here with us. Listen! Did you hear that?”
Penny moved in close beside me. I could feel her arm tensing with anticipation, where it pressed against mine.
“I can’t hear anything. What did you hear?”
“A kind of...scratching,” I said.
“And you think this sound is coming from inside the room?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “It might have come from inside the wall.”
I gestured at the wall to our right, and then realised Penny couldn’t see the movement. I put a hand on her arm, and quietly turned her to face the wall. Her bicep bulged under my grip, as her hand closed into a fist. We both stood very still, listening hard. The silence and the darkness had a weight and a power all their own. And then the scratching started up again. Quiet, but very distinct, like claws, or long fingernails, scraping against the wood of the wall. I could just make out Penny nodding quickly, as she heard it too. The long, slow scraping continued, and something in the sound make me think of fingernails grown long in the grave, scraping against the underside of a coffin lid. I pushed the thought aside, and made myself concentrate on exactly where the sound was coming from. And then it broke off, and all I could hear was Penny’s elevated breathing beside me.
“It’s stopped,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
“What do you think it was? And don’t say rats in the walls.”
“There are bound to be some,” I said, in my most reasonable voice. “In a house this old, this far out in the countryside.”
“I heard rats when I was growing up in Belcourt Manor,” said Penny. “Rats don’t make noises like that. There was something...deliberate, about that sound. As though whatever was making it wanted to be heard.”
She stopped talking, as the scratching sound started up again; only this time it was coming from the left-hand wall. Heavier now, as though something was trying to claw its way through the wood of the wall, to get to us. I started to put myself between Penny and the sound, but she elbowed me aside and swept her hand back and forth until she found the side table by the door. She picked it up, and I heard the phone fall to the floor. Penny hefted the table, getting a feel for the weight of it.
“Try to remember that I’m here with you, when you start flailing around with that thing,” I said.
“You can see what I’m doing, in this darkness?”
“Of course.”
“Can you see what’s making the noises?”
“No,” I said. “I think it’s outside the room and trying to get in.”
“Let it,” said Penny. “I’ve got its welcoming present right here.”
The scratching stopped, as suddenly as it began.
“Has it broken through?” Penny said softly.
“I don’t think so.”
I concentrated as hard as I could, and still I couldn’t see or hear or feel anything in the room with us. I took a cautious step forward, and Penny was immediately there with me, holding the side table out before her. The scratching sounds hadn’t struck me as particularly threatening, but I was still ready to jump on whatever was causing them with both feet, the moment it showed itself.
The scratching started up again; short rhythmic strokes this time, coming from directly above us. Penny and I tilted our heads back. It sounded as though something was trying to dig its way through the ceiling.
“What’s above us?” said Penny, her voice barely a whisper.
“I don’t know,” I said, just as quietly. “This is the top floor of the house. I don’t think there are any attics.”
“Maybe one of the gargoyles has got restless.”
“Do gargoyles have claws?” I said, just to be saying something.
“No idea. And I really don’t want to find out the hard way.”
“Give me the improvised weapon,” I said.
Penny handed me the side table, and I threw it at the ceiling, right where the scratching sound was loudest. The table hit hard, with a flat solid sound, and fell back again. I caught the table, put it to one side, and then listened hard. The scratching had stopped. Penny and I stood close together, straining our hearing against the dark, but the sounds didn’t start up again.
“What the hell was that?” Penny said finally.
“Definitely not a ghost,” I said. “Unless it was in urgent need of a manicure.”
“But what was the point in just...making noises?”
“Someone, or something, was trying to scare us,” I said.
“Why?” said Penny.
“Perhaps they thought they could intimidate us into leaving the Hall,” I said. “Because they’re worried we might find out something. Which of course implies that there is something to be found out. Or maybe they just thought it was funny.”
“It didn’t feel funny,” said Penny. “It felt like a threat.”
“Yes,” I said. “It did. But if whatever it was had really wanted to get into the room, why didn’t they just kick in the door?”
“I’m more concerned about how they were able to move around so quickly,” said Penny. “From one wall to the other, and then on the ceiling...I didn’t hear anything moving; did you?”
“No,” I said. “And I should have.”
I thought hard, considering the possibilities, but all my mind could manage was an image of some huge horrid insect, scuttling around the outside of the room.
“At least it’s over now,” said Penny. “We’re safe.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“What?” said Penny.
“Mr. Scratchy might be gone,” I said quietly, “but I have a strong feeling there’s something else, watching us.”
Penny stood very still. When she finally spoke her voice was so low only I could have heard it.
“You think something might have got into the room, while we were distracted?”
“I don’t see how,” I said.
“I’m not seeing or hearing anything,” said Penny. “But if you say someone’s here, I believe you.”
“Look at the window,” I said quietly. “Straight ahead of us.”
“I can’t see a damn thing in this darkness. Can’t we turn on the light?”
“We don’t want to scare it off,” I said.
“We don’t?”
“Not until we can get our hands on it. I can just make out a shape, at the window.”
“Good,” said Penny.
“Not necessarily,” I said. “I’m not hearing a heartbeat, or any breathing.”
“Really didn’t want to hear that,” said Penny. “Okay, point me at it. I am definitely in the mood to hit something.”
I moved slowly forward across the room. Penny stuck close beside me, keeping her shoulder pressed against mine so she could always be sure where I was. I kept my gaze fixed on the window.
“What exactly are you seeing?” Penny whispered.
“A silhouette of a shape, on the other side of the curtains.”
“What kind of shape?”
“Sort of human.”
“Only sort of?”
“You don’t get much in the way of detail, from a silhouette.”
“All right, don’t get tetchy. How do you want to handle this?”
“I think you should hang back, while I go check it out,” I said.
I could sense Penny glaring at me, even if I couldn’t see it.
“I am not being left out, now something is finally happening!”
“Think about it,” I said steadily. “If this thing is on the other side of the curtains, that means it has to be outside the window. And we’re on the top floor. So how did it get there? If this is something out of the ordinary, it makes sense for me to have first crack at it.”
“I hate it when you’re sensible,” said Penny. “All right...you’re up. But if it does turn out to be just a Peeping Tom on a ladder, feel free to punch them repeatedly in the head.”
