House of Malice

SIXTEEN

Claire Baker drove back to Stow on the Wold much faster than she normally would, with her hands tightly clutching the wheel and her brows knitted in deep thought. Reaching the boxy, detached modern house on the edge of Stow that she’d shared with her husband Dave before his death seven years earlier, she parked the car in the leaf-strewn drive, grabbed her coat and briefcase and hurried to the front door.

She was sweating, edgy with the same profound sense of unease that had come over her from the very first moment she’d walked inside the home of her new client. It had been a terrible struggle to contain herself, to maintain an outward appearance of professional composure as the awful fear had steadily grown throughout the interview — and with it the overwhelming urge to pack up her things and run, and keep running.

When the interview had ended and she’d faced the task of exploring the property alone to confirm what she already dreaded, the fear had become amplified to near-crippling terror. That solitary walk through the rooms and passageways of Summer Cottage had taken everything she’d got, and left her literally breathless from a sensation of pervading malevolence that seemed to ooze from every crack and crevice of that old house — and still clung to her now.

Claire had never regarded herself as anything more than a moderately receptive psychic. A few times in her life, before becoming a paranormal investigator and since, she’d picked up on atmospheres, auras, energies, whatever one wished to call these things her limited talent allowed her to perceive. Never before had she sensed anything as horrifyingly powerful as the ambiance at Summer Cottage, or even imagined she could. And she never wanted to feel anything like it again.

With the front door locked behind her, she dropped her coat and briefcase on the sitting room floor and headed straight for the kitchen to pour herself a large gin. Knocking it down in nervous gulps, she went through into the spare downstairs bedroom she used as an office. The digital sound recorder was still in her pocket. She set it on the desk, turned it back on and replayed the recording of the interview with her client Mandy Freeman. She paced the room and sipped her gin as she listened, concentrating hard on every word of Mandy’s account and her replies to the questions Claire had asked her.

Now came the bit Claire most dreaded. What she hadn’t informed her client of was that she’d intended to keep the sound recorder running during her solitary twenty-minute post-interview exploration of Summer Cottage.

Hearing it again relayed in high-quality digital playback made her blood chill. The sound of her hesitant footsteps. Every creak of an opening door. Every groan and crack of a loose floorboard. Now and then, she could hear the raspy flutter of her own breathing, the occasional groan as she fought to contain her terror.

And something else picked up by the sensitive microphone. It was just the tiniest of background sounds, but it plunged Claire straight back into the moment and made the glass of gin tremble in her fingers. It was what she’d hoped she’d only imagined. Now she knew it had been real.

A low, snickering cackle. Then a guttural voice, barely audible. The words it spoke, even the tongue in which they were uttered, weren’t clear. But its intentions were. Oh, so clear.

Reeling, she had to steady herself against the desk. ‘Oh, God,’ she moaned. She pressed her hand to her heart until the sharp twinge of pain had passed.

Now she knew what she had to do. There was something here that lay far beyond her own skills as a paranormal investigator. She wouldn’t be able to help her client.

But if anyone could, it was Tabitha Lake.

Claire soon found the number in the address book. Taking deep breaths to steady her voice, she dialled, waited. Then frowned as the answerphone kicked in and a recorded message informed her that the Director of the Lake Institute was currently out of the country on a lecture tour and wouldn’t be back for three more weeks.

Damn. Claire held on for the beep, then left her message.

‘Tabitha, it’s Claire Baker. You probably won’t remember me, but I took one of your courses a few years ago. You always told me that, if I ever had a problem, to phone you. Well, I do have a problem, one that I’m simply not qualified or able to deal with on my own.’

She paused, fighting to control the panic in her voice. ‘You see, I have a client whom I believe to be in terrible danger from an entity in her home, far more than even she realises. I feel I should warn her to stay away from there and never return, but I don’t know whether it’s ethical for me to recommend such extreme measures to a client. What I do know for certain is that I’m completely out of my depth dealing with something as powerful as this. I’m really frightened, Tabitha. Please, please get in touch as soon as you can.’

After giving her number, Claire hung up and let out a sigh of bitter disappointment. What if Tabitha Lake didn’t call back for three weeks? She couldn’t wait that long.

Pouring herself another stiff gin, she debated the issue and became more convinced than ever that she’d done the wrong thing by hiding her intuitions from Mandy Freeman. Surely she had to be warned never to set foot in that awful house ever again, even if it meant coming away with nothing but the clothes she wore? The idea of telling that poor young woman to leave her own home was unthinkable. But better that than…

Claire closed her eyes, shuddering.

Mandy had said she wouldn’t return to Summer Cottage that night. That meant that she was safe, at least for the moment.

‘I’ll call her in the morning,’ Claire said out loud. ‘That’s all I can do.’

Suddenly exhausted, she switched off the downstairs lights and dragged herself up the thickly carpeted stairs. A relaxing bath might soothe the tension in her muscles before going to bed, she thought. Reaching the galleried landing, she walked into her bathroom and went over to run the bath. She closed the bathroom door to keep the heat in, went to the bedroom to fetch a fresh towel from the cupboard—

And thought, ‘No, bloody hell. Tomorrow morning’s not good enough. I’ve got to call Mandy right now. Tell her to stay away from that place, no matter what.’

She turned to head back downstairs. She was halfway down when she heard the sound, and froze.

The loud banging at the front door seemed to echo around the whole house. Startled at first, Claire suddenly remembered what season it was. Halloween seemed to come around sooner every year these days and with it the intrusive Trick or Treat antics of the local kids.

But as she stood there looking down, the banging resumed so violently that it seemed it might knock the door in. This wasn’t kids playing about. Possibilities flew through her mind as she cringed on the stairs. A burglar? The police? She’d heard of drug raids accidentally getting the wrong address.

Something deep in her mind told her it was neither. And the terror of that realisation made her knees wobble under her.

There was a juddering crash as the front door flew off its hinges with such force that it ripped down the inner door leading through to the sitting room. Smashed fragments of splintered wood and door-frame and plasterwork exploded into the house, together with a storm of autumn leaves that billowed and swirled as if caught in the vortex of a gale. A roaring filled Claire’s ears as the storm ripped at her hair and clothes. She screamed and ran panic-stricken up the stairs to escape, reached the landing and staggered towards her open bedroom door.

The door swung shut in her face, pushed by an unseen force. She screamed again. The bathroom door was just to her right. Her flailing hand clutched the handle and she burst in, slipping on the shiny floor tiles and almost falling headlong. She kicked the door shut behind her and threw herself against it, groping for the bolt and feeling it slide home. Her breath was coming in heaving gasps and her heart was pounding dangerously as she backed away from the locked door, staring at it, fully expecting it to come crashing in, blown off its hinges by what was out there.

All was silent for a few instants, no sound but the rasp of her lungs and the rush of water from the bath taps. Steam was billowing up and turning the mirror tiles around the bath opaque with condensation.

She sensed a movement. Something was behind her. She whirled around, but she never saw the thing that seized hold of her and dashed her with inhuman force to the floor, face first. She felt the teeth break in her mouth, tasted the blood that welled down her throat. Half stunned, she felt something grip her ankle, felt herself being dragged across the bathroom. Towards the bath itself. She shrieked as brutally strong fingers twisted themselves into her hair, jerked her up as if she weighed nothing and thrust her face towards the billowing steam rising from the bathwater.

The last thing she saw before her head was plunged under was that the water was boiling. Literally boiling, its surface bubbling like a cauldron over a fire. Her mouth opened to scream: NOOOOO! Then her cry became a tortured burbling as the thing forced her head and shoulders into the boiling water and held her there. Scalding liquid filled her eyes, her ears, her nose, the agony almost stopping her heart.

Almost, but not quite. She was still alive as the thing jerked her head back out of the blood-clouded water. She caught a glimpse of her steamy reflection in the mirror tiles, her face blistered and cooked crimson by the heat.

The entity drove her face into the tiles with a crunch of flesh and bone against splintering glass. Now Claire Baker couldn’t see a thing any longer.

By the time her brains had been beaten out against the edge of the bath, she was already dead.