The Boy Movie Brahms Heelshire x reader FanFic

Part 23 - Who Goes There!

You hire a car and drive back to the Heelshire Estate.   The house seems deathly quiet  without Brahms.    You wonder briefly if you should freshen up, grab a change of clothes then drive straight back to the hospital.   But you're dog tired.  It's been a long day, even if most of it was spent at Brahms's side.  You feel mentally drained, emotionally weary, and physically worn out. You suspect it's a mixture of worrying about Brahms and not having slept properly for two days.   Tomorrow morning the cleaners are due, and you have to be here to let them in.  So, you make a bite to eat, pour a glass of claret, then decide to ring  your sister.

"Hey, sis.  How are things?"

"Y/N?   It's been weeks since you rang?   What's going on?"

"I'm sorry.   Busy, busy, busy."

"I tried ringing yesterday but you didn't answer."

"I was at the hospital with Brahms.  He had a burst appendix."

"Hell!  How is he?"

"Good.  Comes out tomorrow.  I just nipped home to sort a few things out.  I'm off for an early night, I'm knackered."

Your sister chuckles down the phone.   "When do I get meet this man of yours?"

"When he's ready.   I can barely get him out the door never mind on a plane.  How's the kids?"

"Driving me nuts.   But all's well here.   I thought perhaps we might get you both over for Christmas?"

"We'll see."

"Well, how about we come over to you?   You got that big house now.  No point rattling around it at a time when you could have your family with you.  I'm dying to meet this guy."

"I know.   Heard any news on Joel?"

"Not a whisper.  He's disappeared off the face of the earth."

You swallow the last of the wine.   "Good."

There's a tense pause, so characteristic of your sister when she's hiding something from you.   You can almost taste her discomfiture down the phone line.

"Sis?   What is it?"

"Nothing.  Truly."

"What are you hiding from me?"

"Y/N?   You need to stop obsessing about Joel.   He's not been here.  He's gone."

It seems pointless raking up the past.  You know Joel is gone.  It's the darkest secret you've ever had to hold.  You make sure she hears the smile in your voice.   "I'm sorry.  Listen, I have to get to bed.  Early start tomorrow."

You say your goodbyes, then trudge upstairs.  

~

You wake slowly, unsure at first why you've come out of the deepest sleep you've had in days.  You lie in the dark; for a moment expecting to feel Brahms's warmth against you.  Then, you remember where he is and exhale softly.   You wonder how he is.  Whether he's lying there right now thinking of you as you think of him.  

On the staircase outside your door, a floorboard creaks.

You freeze.   The house is old.  It makes noises.  Your logic knows this but your heart begins to hammer anyway.

Hardly daring to breathe, you listen, eyes wide in the dark.   There it is again.   The stair groaning beneath the weight of what can only be a body.   Swiftly, acting purely on instinct, you throw back the covers and tiptoe across the room .   You stand, hardly daring to breath, one ear cocked to the tiny gap between the door and the architrave.

 There's a strip of carpet along the landing that doesn't quite come up to the  skirting board, leaving a foot of polished wood on either side.   Whatever, or whoever, walks outside your room is doing so slowly, stealthily.   You hear an almost imperceptible shush of feet against carpet pile, so take two steps away from the door as the noise draws level outside your room.  Now, your heart is pounding, and your solar plexus fizzes like a roman candle.  Intruders?  Burglars?  You locked all the doors and the windows are all painted shut so how...?  There's no alarm in the Heelshire house.   There was never any need with Brahms here.

For an insane moment you think of Joel.   You imagine an empty grave, clawed at clods of earth. His corpse standing outside your room, rank with grave dirt, rotted to bones, the empty eye sockets of his skull turned to your bedroom door...seeing...waiting...vengeful...

Stop! 

There's a scream building in  your throat, and you know if you start you won't stop, and you'll shriek and shriek until your throat's raw and you  lose your mind and whatever's out there will hear you and know you're there!

With a huge effort you control your fears.   The bedroom door is solid mahogany, the rim lock old but sturdy.   But if you push that lock home, whatever is out there will hear you.   You glance over your shoulder at the phone, trying to estimate how long it would take to dial 999 and whisper your location to the police.   Even with the lock on, it would only take minutes to kick the door open.   By the time the police came you might be...

You become aware of two things simultaneously;  the strip of  faint light beneath the bedroom door and the fact that the shuffling noise has stopped.  

The hallway and landing wall lights are always left on day and night, and the gap beneath the bedroom door is a good half inch. Kneeling down, you press your temple to the carpet and try to peer out onto the landing.  You can't make out more than an inch of the polished oak floorboards running either side of the carpeting, gleaming softly. 

For an age, you kneel there.  Then a shadow falls across your vision.  A shadow that's large; that gets larger as it moves forwards; as though whoever walks there knows you're kneeling with your face pressed to the gap beneath the door.

You don't dare move. With bated breath, you dig your nails into the carpet, too terrified to move a muscle.

I  have to hide, you think crazily. 

Your imagination, rampant at the best of times, gives no quarter. What if  there's more than one?   I'll be raped.  Murdered.   What if it is Joel?  He's staring at this door right now...through the wood with dead eyes because he can see me and knows what I'm thinking!  He won't leave me alone not even in death...

You leap to your feet and run to the closet.  Luckily, it's open, so you slip inside, through the hidden back panel with those silent oiled hinges.  You fly down the secret corridors like a wraith, to the only place you can think of that might be safe.  To the place where you can still feel Brahms.   Inside you lock yourself in, then crouch behind the door in the blackness, listening.