Graceful Abaddon

Loveable Creatures (7)

Chapter Six: The House on the Island 

(Part 2) 

Nobody was there. The corridor appeared much longer where she now stood.

"Mr Hockock?" Abbey spoke out loud.

The hallway did not answer.

"Mr Leathe?"

Nothing. All a deathly silence, but for the constant wind outside.

For a second, Abbey felt a cold chill seep through her arms, from her shoulders right down into her hands and fingertips. No, what the hell was that? She wasn't hearing things. No way. She knew she had heard footsteps coming towards her.

Ghosts aren't real, she reminded herself without forethought. Just F.Y.I.

Well, God knows then. Maybe it was the just the wind outside. She sighed inwardly, thinking: Great, that'll take some getting used to. Yet another thing to put her off the place.

She left the bedroom door open, forgetting her interrupted search for the light-switch for a moment. She started down the corridor again. She needed to check the rooms before Mr Leathe and Mr Hockock came up. God, to be in this house with two strange men, stuck on an island surrounded by reefs. She couldn't help it; she couldn't keep herself from swearing now.

"Fucking hell," she whispered, voice quivering. "Why the fuck did I come here?"

She had actually thought this would somehow be a good idea. That she would be staying in a cute little holiday bungalow or something. As for the "island", she had pictured soft white sand, bright blue sea – an overly touched-up postcard picture. She had thought, without explicitly, consciously questioning her assumption, there would be a bridge, or a ferry, to the island. She had indeed looked at it on Google Earth, and Google Maps. None of it, for reasons that now escaped her, appeared the way it all turned out to be. Somehow she hadn't known, or she had failed to remember, that the island was a good deal off the mainland. That there were no roads or buildings – no goddamned Internet or reception! – no easy links to the safety of other people. She was stuck out here, with one strange man she instinctively didn't trust already, and one apparent young boy who may not have existed. And even if he did, he was a problem child, wasn't he? He was expelled from the school in 1840.

She moved quickly, back towards the intersecting corridor. Ears preened for the door on the house's far side to open. The next door was on her left. She turned the knob. Locked.

She tried the following door, this time on the right, just by the corner passage. It opened. She pushed the door wide, feeling for the light-switch. Still nothing. Which really sucked, because she couldn't see a thing apart from the faint suggestion of a window at the end. Also the room stank like old books – not that nice, vintage kind of smell though; it was more like the pages were hardened with age, their corners been nibbled at by mice and rats. An attic kind of smell.

Still having no light, she decided to just use her phone – even though the battery was nearly out – just so she could actually see into the rooms a bit more. She grabbed it from her pocket; turned the light on. Pointing it back into the room, she saw stacks of boxes, all spilling clothes or other random items, some covered in tea-towels, bubble-wrap or newspaper. Disappointed, she closed the door and crossed the hallway where the other corridor branched back to the front of the house .

Three more doors, all locked, on the other side. Her panic mounting, she checked the one on the left. It opened to another bedroom, this one larger but an absolute wreck. Clothes lay all over the place, piled on the bed, the floor, across the wooden dresser. There was a larger bed in this room; it was obviously Mr Hockocks. This one also smelt strange, but not in quite the same way. God, did they ever open windows in this place? Abbey thought disgustedly. She heard more flies buzzing and decided not to enter further. Just as she was closing the door, she heard footsteps, voices. They were already at the start if the connecting corridor.