Horror showcase, p.9
Horror Showcase, page 9
I begin the hunt.
I keep my distance, allowing two cars to stack between the van and Rose’s car, my elevated position keeping the metallic blue shimmer in sight. I’m aware that at the car park exit there a “right turn only” sign that will lead Rose into the city. I won’t lose them; the one way system will be my ally for a good few miles.
On the street the night is making itself known, blackness nuzzles against the city skyline. Street lamps have woken, their sodium flare in competition with the multifarious side lights of vehicles clogging the streets.
Rose is still two cars ahead. I’m adept at being incognito, a predatory chameleon, fuelled by caution and prowess. As the traffic thins out I drop back, waiting for Rose’s car to peel away from the city and into suburbia. It happens within ten minutes. Now there is only distance between my van and her tail lights.
She takes a right turn. Then a left. Buildings are becoming both sparse and squat. I recognise it as a fledging exclusive estate, an elite ghetto that faces the river, giving extensive, executive views.
The car pulls to a stop at a gated entrance. I pull over, three hundred yards behind and watch as White Orchid gets out of the vehicle and types a code into a keypad bolted to the gate house.
My eyes scan the walls circumventing the luxury incomplete apartments. It is token, more statement than a valid means of protection. It can be scaled easily, and I prove this once the tail lights have crossed the threshold and the gates have clicked shut.
On foot I follow, keeping to the deep shadows cast by the buildings about me. There are few lights in the windows of the four storey buildings. Not all it appears yet have occupiers. I see Rose’s car park up outside one of the smaller apartments. It has only two floors and is mostly dark; the sign outside suggesting that it is part apartment, part show home. I guess this as White Orchid’s cover. The consummate salesman making the ultimate deal. I hunker down and wait; my breathing slow, steady. A light comes on in a ground floor window, a rectangle of yellow, quartered by its frame. I move quickly, time is now a more pressing enemy. I make it to the foyer, a small space furnished with a small sofa and an abandoned reception desk. In future times I’m sure it will manned by a man on the minimum wage, now it is but a show piece, a façade that, like the perimeter wall, offers little security.
The computer in my brain has already identified a means of escape once I have secured my Rose, saved her from one kind of death only to introduce her to another. Her car will become the Trojan horse, I will subdue White Orchid; the beast making short work of him. Then Rose will be grateful, will come to me and then in a moment of trust, I shall make her mine. She will move from apartment to car boot and then to the van, where the night can truly begin.
The corridor ahead has four doors, two embedded in each wall. Three of the four have “for sale” labels slapped upon surfaces of rich mahogany. The fluorescents overhead are hidden behind ornate, frosted glass, but the light is low wattage, casting a gossamer motif on the walls and floor.
In the stillness I hear the delicate tinkle of glass and a loud thump. It is a sound I can place in an instant: the sound of a body hitting the floor. And it has come from behind the door without a label.
White Orchid works fast. Again I have misjudged him, the beast inside curses me for my complacency.
I stride towards the door, hoping beyond hope that my Rose isn’t too damaged. My palm encapsulates the brass handle just as the first scream slices through the air.
It is high pitched, the sound of someone in great pain, no, not pain; agony. I can hear another noise, the rhythmic metallic chime of hammer against nail.
White Orchid is working hard on Rose. The beast within can no be contained no longer, it knows its prey is in danger of being wrestled away, sullied and spoilt.
I lift a foot. It meets mahogany, the force of the blow taking the door off its frame with a harsh, splintering crash.
Inside the apartment all the lights blaze. There is opulence here, leather and crystal and chrome. But all pale in significance next to the blood. It has pooled in plate sizes patches, seeping into the lush white carpets. It splashes against the walls like some macabre abstract painting. Even the beast is quelled by its beauty, and the sight of the thing in the room. The thing that was once a person, but now nailed to the floor, through the wrists, the feet, the groin.
It’s mouth remains open, the scream no longer high pitched since vocal chords have been expertly severed so that only a bubbling hiss remains rising into the air as a fine red mist. And the white orchid is now out of the box and jammed in the things mouth.
The beast salivates, but the computer calculates. Then it draws its conclusions.
The thing nailed to the floor of the apartment isn’t Rose Delaware. It is White Orchid. But no sooner do I realize this I also recognise that I have once more misjudged the other predator holding this city in its maw.
My red Rose is White Orchid.
I cannot help but smile with the knowledge of it, even as a shadow falls across me, and I feel the needle sting of a hypodermic in my neck and my muscles collapse under the influence of a powerful anesthetic.
My red Rose stands over me, still beautiful, yet now I see her for what she truly is: brutal and brilliant. Soon I shall begin screaming as she gives me her love. And through it all, my Rose does indeed weep. But her tears are not that of sorrow or regret.
They are the sparkling jewels of pure and absolute joy.
The Return of Borley Rectory by Stuart Neild
Two men and a dog strode forward, on top of the lonely snow drenched hills of Buxton.
“You could have picked a better time for sightseeing,” Nigel grunted. He wrapped his scarf back round his mouth, and into the position it had been in, before the wind had dislodged it seconds earlier.
“A little jaunt like this will do you the world of good. There’s nothing like fresh air,” Boag-Munroe assured him, “especially freezing fresh air. Anything that is that cold to your skin and breathing must be doing it good,” he smiled. Boag-Munroe seemed completely at ease in the sub zero temperatures and raging elements.
Besides Boag-Munroe strode his giant of an Alsatian dog, Toby, or as Boag-Munroe nick named him Toby Jugg, after a Dennis Wheatley novel, the haunting of Toby Jugg. The beast, for it did look a vicious brawler for all of its obedience to its master, had been nothing but a fluffy ball of fur when Boag-Munroe had bought it a couple of months after his return to England, but now nearly a year and a half on, the dog stood as a useful companion, and ally. Or at least that’s how Boag-Munroe saw it. Nigel was a little more dubious of the dog.
Nigel struggled forward as the wind pushed him back, the snow swirling into his eyes. “The elements won’t do me much good if they cause me to stumble blindly over a cliff.”
“You have to be over melodramatic don’t you,” said Boag-Munroe with no emotion, “there’s no cliffs round here. Well, at least I don’t think so.”
“Is it so melodramatic, to ask for us to go back to that pub we past, and wait for the storm to die down? We could freeze to death out here. They’d say we were two idiots, frozen for taking their dog for a walk into no mans land and deserved all we got,” Nigel blurted, his face red with the cold and from his own rising blood pressure.
“Did you know that pub we past, the cat and fiddle is the highest positioned pub in the country?” Boag-Munroe announced causally.
“Do you know what, I can believe that, and we’re still travelling up and out into the wilds. I’ve never seen anywhere so desolate.” Nigel went a little redder.
“I know, it’s beautiful isn’t it?” There was still no emotion in Boag-Munroe’s voice.
It was beautiful; the sight of deep snow in the heart of Buxton’s rugged countryside would have been a pleasure to anyone, or at least anyone that could stand such extreme elements.
“We could die out here,” Nigel’s lip trembled for a few seconds, until with mighty effort he brought it under control.
“It’s a possibility,” Boag-Munroe stopped. He stood knee deep in snow, the wind tugging at his three quarter length, black leather jacket, almost ripping it from his body.
Nigel noticed the coat was unbuttoned, as if Boag-Munroe was playing a game with the elements, goading them to do there worse to him. Nigel thought he caught a wry smile on Boag-Munroe’s lips, but then it was gone, hidden in the blizzard that raged about them.
“This snow hurts. In fact I don’t think its snow its just balls of ice attacking us,” Nigel whimpered.
A particular vicious gust of wind hit them blowing Nigel backward. Boag-Munroe stood his ground. Toby did so likewise beside him.
“I’ve been here before,” Boag-Munroe exclaimed.
“I’ve been here before,” Nigel snapped. “It was the height of summer and it was foggy and cold then. I didn’t like it then and I don’t like it now. Let’s go back to the van before we forget where we parked.
“With the rate of this snowfall,” Boag-Munroe shook his head, “I reckon the van will be pretty useless now to anyone. The roads were bad enough coming. Time is never kind, especially when you’re up against it. I reckon the roads will be cut off now.”
“We’ll go back to the cat and fiddle,” Nigel injected.
“We could, but wouldn’t that seem like giving up? I haven’t seen what I came to see.”
“What could you see out here? It’s all white, white and more white.”
“I want to see what I saw in my dream. I want to see it for real.”
Nigel didn’t have an answer for that statement. If anyone else had come out with such a proclamation, he would have been the first to have proclaimed them mad. But his good friend James Boag-Munroe was different, utterly different.
“If we press on we should make it to our destination in time,” Boag-Munroe grinned.
“In time for what?”
“In time to stop us from freezing to death. We won’t make it back to the pub in time, whether it’s the highest pub in the country or not.”
“Did you dream that as well?”
“Do you really want me to tell you?”
They carried on upward, the snow was relentless, but so was Boag-Munroe. He cut through the elements like a knife through butter. Nigel did his best to stagger on, with even Toby beginning to falter a little.
Nigel stumbled. “We going to bloody die out here I know it,” he looked up at Boag-Munroe as best he could. Boag-Munroe was partially hidden behind the swirling ice debris.
“We all have to die sometime,” Boag-Munroe’s answer was as sharp as the frost. He thrust his hand out to Nigel, half helping him up, half dragging him to his feet. “But not today, not us. It’s the 9th of March, my birthday, be happy.”
“Thirty seven today aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think you’re going to see thirty eight? Why couldn’t you just have a cake like anyone else?”
“Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
“Work? And I thought this was just a little jaunt in the country.”
The wind and snow attacked the lone figures even more. They climbed higher.
For the first time Boag-Munroe fell in the snow. He scrambled back up searching for Nigel. Nigel however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Nigel,” there was no panic in Boag-Munroe’s voice or his actions. He stood upright. The snow was now totally blinding. A muffled cry came into earshot from the left. The cry was enough for Boag-Munroe to home in on. For the umpteenth time he plucked Nigel up and out of an icy grave. Toby licked Nigel’s ear.
“This is no time to lie down Nigel. We haven’t finished our sight seeing tour.”
Nigel gasped at the vision of a large brick house in front of them. Only it wasn’t just a vision, it was real.
“That’s….,”Nigel’s words trailed off into disbelief.
“Yes,” Boag-Munroe nodded.
“But it’s impossible.”
Toby growled. His lips snarled and the hackles on his back became visible even in the raging snow.
“Nothing is impossible, as you’re soon to find out,” Boag-Munroe climbed down from the icy crown of the hill they were perched on. Nigel scrambled over following almost blindly, stumbling as he did so.
They stopped, Nigel catching his breath before the magnificent house, Boag Munroe catching thoughts.
“Is that really what I think it is?” Nigel’s breath was still uneven.
“Yes,” Boag-Munroe looked focussed. His gaze was as cool and icy as the weather. “It’s Borely Rectory,” he turned to Nigel. “Now you didn’t expect to see that in the icy wilds of Buxton did you?”
“Borley Rectory,” Nigel’s mouth gaped open at an unappetising angle.
“The most haunted house in England. Maybe even in the world,” Boag-Munroe added without fuss or fanfare.
“But it was destroyed by fire in March of 1938, reduced to rubble. How can it be here, here and now and in Buxton of all places?”
Boag-Munroe smiled. “Why don’t we go inside and find out?”
*
“This can’t be right. This is a dream. Are we dead, did we die in the snow?” Nigel asked as he moved stealthily, behind Boag-Munroe, not daring to touch anything, as if doing so might wake him up from his dream, and plunge him into the nightmare to end all nightmares.
Toby stayed by his master’s side, although he too, looked uncomfortable.
“It’ll be dark soon,” Boag-Munroe sniffed, “we’d better get a fire going or we could be in real trouble.”
“We are stood in the most haunted house in history, a house that no longer exists. I’d say that if we’re not in trouble now, we are at the very least,” Nigel stopped, words failing him. “Well at the least,” he finally started up again, “we’re in a very strange situation,” he coughed, realising how wet he had just sounded.
“That’s what I’d call it as well,” Boag-Munroe, not sharing Nigel’s fears, outstretched a gloved hand and touched the walls, the fixtures and the furniture, “a strange situation indeed. One of the strangest. Why is this place here?”
“Shouldn’t you be asking how?”
“How can be explained easier than you think,” Boag-Munroe quickly replied. He stood in the middle of the room. “It’s a reconstruction. A room by room, brick by brick, lovingly constructed project. But why and for what purpose, and who is behind it?”
“You mean there’s something you don’t know,” Nigel said sarcastically.
“I wouldn’t be here if I did know, what would be the point. The question is do they know we’re here?”
Nigel looked spooked. “These people, I take it you’re talking about people? What if they’re still here now?”
“In answer to question number one, I don’t know if it is people, not how you might envisage them, and number two, if they are still here, it’ll make our job easier.”
“And what is our job?”
Boag-Munroe smiled, “As if you don’t know.”
Nigel looked perplexed. “No, I don’t know.”
Boag-Munroe put his hands behind his back. “It’s good that you ask so many questions, questions are good, you can never have enough of them, questions make life interesting, don’t you think?”
Nigel looked even more perplexed.
“Good, that’s that settled then. Let’s explore.”
“But,” Nigel protested.
But Boag-Munroe wasn’t listening. He was watching his faithful dog, who was in turn standing transfixed, looking above with a menacing growl embedded in his throat.
The sound of furniture being moved across floorboards emitted from the ceiling above them.
“I think we have guests,” smiled Boag-Munroe, “now here’s one of those interesting questions again. Are they human guests, or are they something else?”
Boag-Munroe made his way to the darkened stairway. Toby cautiously followed, his body moving in a slow pouncing position. He was expecting and ready for trouble.
“Where are you going?” Nigel asked in a pitch a little higher than a whisper, as he found himself rooted to the spot.
“To pursue the only thing I find more interesting than questions,” Boag-Munroe replied, “answers.”
*
The darkened passage at the top of the staircase was empty. Nigel would have breathed a sigh of relief if it were not for the fact he could see the passage trailing off, into pitch darkness. He knew it was a trail he would have to follow, unless he was to be parted from Boag-Munroe, which was never a good idea at times like these.
The magnitude of Nigel’s situation began to take hold. Borley Rectory had been a real nightmare house. The amount of hauntings that had been investigated there by such renowned investigators as Harry Price, had ranged from spectral headless horse’s dragging an equally spectral carriage behind it, a phantom nun that used to stare at people eye to eye from the kitchen window, to violent poltergeist attacks. Nigel had investigated his fair share of haunted houses in the past, but reconstruction or not, Borley Rectory was dangerous, and somehow it had been brought back into life at a new location, in the twenty first century.
“The blue room,” Boag-Munroe commented, stopping outside a closed door. “This was one of the epicentres of activity,” his hand waved over the door handle.
“This was where the poltergeist activity was at its height,” Nigel gulped a dry gulp of fear, “its violent height.” In some kind of blind futile gesture, he had been hoping the words would deter Boag-Munroe from opening the door.
The sound of something heavy being dragged across the floor screeched from underneath the closed door.
Toby spat a frenzied bark in the unnatural sounds direction.
“There’s something in there,” panic was not only resounding in Nigel’s voice, it was plastered all over his face.
