Enter the Dead: A Supernatural Thriller (25 page)

‘I’m not sure,’ he
said, rubbing his forehead and grimacing at the pain of his headache. ‘I
remember calling your name and trying to get your attention, and then…then…I
don’t know what happened, but you turned round to look at me, but it wasn’t
you…it was…it was someone else.’

‘Who?’

‘I…I don’t know,’ he
lied. He certainly wasn’t about to tell her that he’d mistaken her for her dead
husband. ‘All I know is that it wasn’t you.’

‘Of course it was me.’
She placed her hand on his brow. ‘You’re burning up,’ she said, taking him by
the arm. ‘Let’s get you inside where it’s warm. The way you acted…I thought you
were having a heart attack. Are you sure you’re alright? Maybe we should take
you to a doctor, just to be sure.’

‘I’ll be fine. I just
need to sit down for a while.’ He wasn’t fine, though, and he knew it. There
was something seriously wrong, something he seemed powerless to prevent.
Furthermore, it was getting worse. Ever since he’d found out about Sarah’s
affair, it was as if he was slowly but surely losing his mind. The dark figure
he’d seen in the cemetery where Lucy was buried, and then again when Stephen Gilchrist
assaulted him at York station; not to mention what he’d seen in the park that
morning. And now this!

 He reached into his jacket
pocket for his Diazepam, cursing as he remembered that they were in Sarah’s
handbag. With Jane to support him, he made his way unsteadily back towards the
church, desperate for the pounding in his head to go away. He only hoped that
someone had some painkillers with them.

As bad as the physical pain
was, however, he was more concerned about his mental state. There could be no
doubt anymore; this couldn’t be passed off as a series of random, unfortunate
events that would go away by themselves. He was going insane, and he knew it.
Whatever was happening to him was no coincidence, no terrible run of bad luck
that could easily be explained or laughed off. The hallucinations, the
headaches, the noises – they weren’t normal. They were the twisted delusions of
a man who was losing his grip on reality. Something had to change, and soon. He
needed help, he needed to speak to someone who would understand.

Because if he didn’t,
then God only knew what would happen next.

The
drive home from Stanfield was spent mostly in silence. Jane had tried her best
to describe to Sarah what had happened, but Sam was the only one who could
explain the whole story.

But he didn’t.

He wasn’t yet ready to
confide in her, he needed time to decide the most appropriate way of opening up
to her about the hallucinations and the voices inside his head. Instead, he
went along with the general consensus among the people in the church, who had
blamed his collapsing on a combination of ill-health and the stress of seeing
his friend being buried. He certainly had all the symptoms of someone suffering
from a severe cold - a relentless headache, upset stomach, sky-high temperature.
Besides, he was exhausted. He didn’t want to talk; he wanted to get out of his
soaking-wet clothes, climb into bed, and sleep.

‘I hope you haven’t
made all this up just so we could make our excuses and leave without going to
the buffet,’ Sarah joked, bringing the car to a halt outside their house.
Although trying to make light of the situation, she was desperately worried by
his appearance. He had the look of a man who was standing on death’s doorstep
waiting impatiently to be let in. Despite having swallowed double the
recommended dose of Ibuprofen, his brow was still burning and he’d spent the
journey home shivering uncontrollably.

‘Come on,’ she said,
opening the car door. ‘Let’s get you inside and upstairs.’

‘Can’t I just stay
here?’ he asked, gasping as the cold air from outside invaded the warmth of the
car. ‘Just keep the engine running and turn the heating up. I don’t want to
move.’

‘I know it’s not nice,
but you’ll feel a lot better in bed.’

‘You’re a heartless
bitch,’ he replied, struggling to maintain his composure as he almost fell out
of the car and began the arduous journey to the front door.

‘Stop whining on like a
spoilt kid,’ she said, opening the door and helping him inside. ‘Go upstairs
and take your clothes off. I’ll be up in a minute. I’ll make you a hot drink
and bring it up to you.’

‘Thanks,’ he said,
placing a hand on the bannister for support and beginning the long climb up to
the bedroom, pausing after every couple of steps in order to catch his breath.

Sarah stood at the foot
of the stairs until he reached the top. Satisfied that he wasn’t going to keel
over and tumble back down, she took off her coat and hung it up on a hook
beside the front door, before making her way along the hallway to the kitchen.
As she passed by the telephone, she noticed the red message light flashing.
Without giving any thought as to who it might be, she pressed the play button
and set the phone to loudspeaker mode. It was Gracie, and as soon as she spoke,
Sarah knew that something was wrong. The Gracie she knew was always so calm and
cheerful, not serious and flustered as she sounded now. Not wishing to disturb
Sam, Sarah picked up the receiver and listened.

‘Hello Sarah, hello
Sam. I’m sorry to leave you this message, but I’m afraid it’s urgent. I called
round to see you this morning, Sam, but you weren’t at home. I don’t know who
will pick this message up first: if it’s you, Sarah, then it’s likely you won’t
have the faintest clue what I’m talking about. Please don’t delete it –
instead, you will need to fetch Sam immediately and play it to him. If it’s
you, Sam, then you need to listen very closely to what I have to say. I know
you don’t believe in the gift that I have, but I swear on Max’s life that what
I’m about to tell you is the truth.

‘The man who has been
coming to see me – the spirit we talked about – well, I now know for certain
who he is, and I’m afraid it’s who I feared it might be. He’s been here again –
twice, in fact – and I’ve spoken to him. He said to me…he said…damn, I hate
these bloody machines! Look, I can’t tell you over the phone. You need to come
and see me immediately. You’re in grave danger, Sam…and so is your family. I must
speak to you, Sam…before it’s too late. There may be a way out of this, but
only if we act now. Call me…please…as soon as you receive this message. Sarah,
if you hear this first, then I’m so sorry for frightening you, but Sam will
know what I mean. Sam will know. He’s in grave danger, and so are-’

BEEP. The timer ended
the message prematurely, but Sarah paid it no attention. She immediately
pressed the play button again and listened once more to the message. When it
finished, she placed the receiver in its cradle and sat down on a nearby stool,
bewildered by what she’d just heard. She’d known Gracie for many years, and in
all that time she had never once heard her raise her voice or say anything out
of the ordinary. She knew about Gracie’s so-called gift, and admittedly in the
early days it had slightly concerned her given the fact she looked after Max,
but over time it had ceased to carry any significance. Sarah had met many of
Gracie’s clients: normal, everyday people who came to her house seeking advice;
people who shared in Gracie’s beliefs about life after death and the existence
of some kind of spirit world. However, Gracie had never mixed that side of her
life with her primary responsibility as Max’s child-minder. Max knew what she
did, but having grown up with it, it didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was
far more interested in her baking skills than her clairvoyant abilities.

So to hear her now, harping
on irrationally about imminent danger and finding a way out of it…well…it just
didn’t add up. And what had Sam been up to? Why was he involved? He had never
believed in any of that, in fact he’d always insisted it was total nonsense.
And if he did have something to do with it, then why on earth hadn’t he
mentioned anything? Sarah’s thoughts drifted to a brief conversation she’d had
with him on the eve of Max’s skiing trip; something about no longer wanting
Gracie to care for Max after school. He’d claimed that she was getting too old,
but was that merely to hide the truth? Did this message have anything to do
with that? What the hell was going on? There was only one way to find out.
Rising to her feet, she walked back down the hallway and went upstairs to
confront Sam. Ill or not, he had some explaining to do.

Entering their bedroom,
she was surprised to find him already fast asleep under the covers,
open-mouthed and snoring loudly. She walked across to the bed and sat down next
to him, placing her hand on his brow. ‘You’re burning up,’ she said, noticing
the empty Diazepam wrapper on his bedside table. ‘Can you hear me, Sam?’ she
said, knowing the answer to her question before asking it. Given his condition,
not to mention the cocktail of medication he was on, it was hardly surprising
to see him lying there dead to the world. She wasn’t sure if she would be able
to wake him even if she wanted to, besides, what good would it do? As much as
she wanted to question him, she knew that it would be better to let him get
some proper rest first. The inquisition would have to wait. She thought about
Gracie’s message, the sense of urgency and panic in her voice. Like her, Gracie
would have to stand in line and be patient. Whatever Gracie wanted to say to
Sam would need to wait until he was awake and feeling better. The first
priority was her husband’s health…nothing else mattered.

Gracie had waited this
long. What harm would another few hours do?

‘What’s
the matter, Scooch? Have you been filling your belly with poor little mice
again?’

Gracie’s bedraggled
tabby cat took one more inquisitive sniff of its food and looked up at her as
if to say
why do you insist on serving me the same old shit day after day?

Gracie smiled at her
furry companion and shrugged. ‘I’m afraid it’s that or nothing,’ she said.
‘Beggars can’t be choosers.’ Scooch stared back at her, seemingly disgusted by
the ultimatum. He turned his back on her and skulked away to his fireside bed
with an aloofness of which only spoilt cats are capable.

‘Suit yourself, Mr
Grumpy,’ Gracie said, placing a bundle of freshly-ironed clothes into a wicker
basket and carrying it out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her bedroom.
Entering the room, she placed the basket on the bed and took a seat next to it,
her chest rising up and down as she caught her breath. For an eighty year old
woman she wasn’t faring too badly, but she knew it was getting more and more
difficult to manage her everyday chores. She’d considered selling up and downsizing
to what the glossy brochures referred to as a
luxury retirement village
,
which in essence was little more than a collection of overpriced apartments
where lonely people came to while away their twilight years in the company of
like-minded souls and round-the-clock warden patrols, but she wasn’t ready to
throw in the towel just yet. For a start, she still had Max, and if anyone kept
her feeling young and needed it was him. There were also her clients, of
course, although she guessed that most of them would be willing to travel that
little bit further to visit her if necessary. Actually, there was no guessing
about it; she knew full well they would. They were a loyal bunch, her clients.
Some of them had been coming to see her for twenty, thirty years or more. Maybe
when Max no longer needed her, maybe then we she would finally bite the bullet
and sell up. Until that sad day came, however, she was staying put.

Then again, it was fair
to say that of late her house hadn’t been the happiest of places to live. The
figure in the tattered grey suit and brown fedora who’d first appeared around a
week or so ago was now following her around like a shadow. His face, which had
initially been shaded and hidden from view, was now clear for her to see, and
it was not a pretty sight. He had the kind of face that belonged in another
era: worn, lined and sharp; like that of a mistreated and malnourished prisoner
of war, or an escaped convict on the run from the law. He had the look of a man
on whom the world had long since given up; desperate, raw, and wild.

 Gracie knew that the
figure was Sam’s father. Before he’d revealed himself fully to her, she
couldn’t have known for sure, but any doubts were cast aside following his visit
to her the previous evening. She had been lying in bed, on the verge of falling
asleep, when she’d felt the presence of someone at the foot of the bed. When
she’d looked up, she’d seen him standing there with a cold smile on his face,
his mouth wide - unnaturally so - grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire
cat from
Alice in Wonderland
. ‘What do you want,’ she’d asked him,
trying desperately hard not to show how terrified she was. He’d dropped his
smile, and it was then that she’d known for sure who he was. The eyes, the
mouth; the likeness was unmistakeable. ‘You’re Sam’s father, aren’t you?’ she’d
asked. ‘What do you want with him? Why are you here?’ He’d just looked at her
and shook his head, before turning away and walking towards the bedroom door.
‘Stay away from him,’ he’d told her. Then, seconds before disappearing from
view, he’d said something that had chilled her to the bone: ‘The boy’s mine, do
you hear? He’s mine. Keep your meddling snout out of my business, old woman.
Interfere again, and I swear I’ll come for you next.’ And then he’d vanished.

She had no intention of
keeping her meddling snout of
his
business, because she knew that
his
business involved hurting Sam. Not only Sam, but his family too. And as scared
as she’d been, as threatened as she’d felt, she had decided to go against her
better judgement and call Sam to warn him. Only he hadn’t answered, leaving her
with no other option than to leave a jumbled message on the answer-machine that
she regretted leaving from the very second she put down the phone. For someone
who was used to playing the middleman, it was fair to say that it hadn’t been
her finest performance.

She checked the clock
on the wall: 5pm. Five hours had elapsed since leaving the message, and neither
Sam nor Sarah had called her back or knocked on her door to ask what the hell
was going on. She only hoped it wasn’t too late, although she suspected that it
was…at least for herself. Satisfied that her breathing had returned to normal,
she stood up and walked to the small dressing table by the window, whereby she
sat down and retrieved a small notebook and elegant fountain pen from a draw
and began to write.

When she’d finished,
she clipped the lid onto the pen and tore the page from the pad, folding it in
half and sliding it into an envelope. Rising to her feet, she moved back across
to the bed and placed the envelope on top of her pillow, where it would be
clearly visible to anybody entering the room. She straightened up and took a
step backwards, staring intently at the envelope as if it contained the secret
of everlasting life.
I hope I don’t need you
, she thought, unable to
take her eyes off it.

She felt his presence
behind her almost immediately. It wasn’t just the temperature in the room,
which suddenly plummeted to the point where she could see her own breath; it was
the atmosphere, too; the shift in ambience that mediums and clairvoyants say
occurs as a result of a new manifestation or spiritual intervention. Ordinarily
this would have been of no concern to Gracie – dealing with the dead was her
stock-in-trade, so to speak – except that this time she knew who was standing
behind her, and more importantly, she knew why he was there.

‘Hello, Mr Railton,’ she
said, deciding not to turn around.

‘Hello, old woman,’
came the reply. ‘I didn’t disturb you, did I?’

‘I’m used to it,’ she
said, taking a deep breath and trying hard to maintain her composure. ‘As it
happens, I’ve grown quite accustomed to having you around.’

‘How nice of you to
say.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘However,’ he said, the
joviality in his voice slipping slightly, ‘I’m afraid this is the last time
we’ll be seeing one another. But you know that, don’t you?’

Summoning every ounce
of strength inside her frail body, she took another deep breath and turned to
face him. ‘I want you to leave,’ she said, her eyes widening in horror as she
saw his twisted, sinister face staring back at her. ‘I want you to leave and
never come back,’ she continued, only this time her voice was shaky and uneven,
‘and I want you to leave your family alone. They’ve done nothing to hurt you.’

‘Nothing to hurt me!
Nothing to hurt me! You have no idea, old woman. They have done
everything
to hurt me.’

‘You’re wrong. Sam told
me about what happened when he was a boy. He told me about you. About the kind
of man you were.’

‘Really? And what
exactly did he tell you?’

‘He told me that you
were a violent drunk and an abusive bully. He said that you were cruel to your
wife and even worse to your children. He told me about Lucy, too.’

Billy Railton’s eyes
lit up at the mention of his daughter’s name. He clenched his fists and took a
step closer to Gracie. ‘You know nothing about her.’

‘Oh, I’m afraid you’re
wrong about that, Mr Railton. I know more about your daughter than you think.
Sam told me that you chased the poor girl to her death; that you were entirely
responsible for her falling down those stairs.’

‘How dare you?’ he
screamed, his face burning with fury. ‘How dare you accuse me, you fuckin’
bitch!’ He took another step towards her, unclenching his fists and holding his
arms out as if he were intent on strangling her. ‘I’ll show you. I’ll teach you
for interfering where you’re not wanted. I told you not to warn Sam about me,
didn’t I? I told you what I’d do if you disobeyed me.’

‘Get away from me!’
Gracie shouted. She tried to back away, but her progress was impeded by the bed
behind her. In all her years dealing with spirits, she had never encountered
any kind of physical contact; nobody had touched her or even tried to. In her
experience, most spirits preferred to keep their distance, relaying whatever
messages they had from afar. She didn’t know if bodily contact was even
possible, although from the way Billy Railton was coming for her,
he
evidently believed it was. Either way, she couldn’t hang around to find out.
With an uncharacteristic turn of pace for an eighty year old woman, she stepped
to her left and rushed out of the bedroom and into the hallway. She knew that
the only chance she had of escaping him was to get out of the house. Perhaps by
drawing attention to herself she would be able to shake him off.

She could hear him
cackling and rasping as he followed her. ‘There’s no point in running away,’ he
said, his foul breath hot on her neck as he neared her. ‘You can’t escape the
dead. You can only join them.’

As she reached the top
of the stairs, she felt an ice-cold hand clamp down on her shoulder. ‘Please!’
she cried, frantically trying to shrug him away. She turned to look at him, to
beg him to leave her alone, but as she did so, her ankle twisted and bent under
her, causing her to lose her balance and stumble into the wall by the top step.
She groaned as her head struck the wall with a dull thud. Disorientated, she
lashed out for the handrail for support, but with her blurred vision she was
unable to locate it.

As she tumbled down the
stairs, she heard Billy Railton holler behind her the words:
I warned you to
stay away
from my boy!
See you i-’

She was dead before he
had time to finish the sentence.