Authors: Spike Black
Before the real threat emerges.
2
C
heer up,
she told herself on that first night.
Everything will be better in the morning. At first light, after a good night’s sleep, it will all look so different.
But when Oona pulled back the curtains at dawn on day one, her heart sank as her worst fears were realized: she was vacationing in hell.
It had all sounded so idyllic when Silas called her at the gym and told her about it.
Cottage. Peaceful. Yorkshire dales.
“I’ll send you the brochure link,” he said. “Let you look through the photos.”
But at that moment she was holding the phone in one hand and a dumbbell in the other, and she was in the zone, and Gerald her personal trainer was shouting instructions, and what did she care, anyway? The holiday was for Silas. And she’d already told him they couldn’t afford the Caribbean. So if that was what he wanted, then fine.
Big mistake.
Alarm bells rang from the moment they arrived. Driving a mile down a dirt track before they even reached the cottage - a solitary stone structure that looked like something a family of inbreds would call home in a cheap horror flick - was not the best start.
Then there was the tacky stag’s head on the wall that made her jump as soon as she entered, and the awful, lingering smell of old, damp things, and the terrifying staircase that could kill you if you missed your step, and the fact that they were stuck in the middle of nowhere if anything went wrong…
Everything will be better in the morning. At first light, after a good night’s sleep…
Except that, of course, she had failed to get a good night’s sleep, thanks to a lethal combination of the world’s most uncomfortable bed (she’d spent the entire night with what felt like a rusty spring in her crotch) and the early hours hijinks of a feline intruder.
And now, to top it all, there wasn’t even any first light. When she pulled back the thin, ratty curtains, the bedroom remained as dark as it had been before she opened them. The view that greeted her was equally as miserable: the gray sky meeting the misty moors to create a tableau of depressing nothingness.
Suddenly Oona felt an icy hand on her shoulder, and she jumped.
“Sorry, hon,” her husband said. “Thought you might need warming up.”
He rubbed her shoulders through her nightgown. She chose not to tell him that his cold fingers were making things worse in the warmth department.
“How old is this place, Silas?”
“It was built about five-hundred years ago, according to the brochure.”
Five-hundred years?
Oona shuddered. She wondered how many people had died here in all that time. How many souls laid claim to these walls. How many of them had never left…
Silas caressed her neck, the friction warming his fingers. She purred, dropping her head onto his chest. His pectorals made for a better pillow than the one she’d tolerated through the night.
He gazed out of the window. “Nice view.”
“Oh, yeah.” She closed her eyes, partly so that she wouldn’t have to look out there again, but also because her eyelids insisted on it. Sleep was within grasp almost immediately.
Silas nuzzled into her, his prickles pressing against the underside of her chin. “Much better than Antigua, don’t you think?”
She broke from her slumber. “You’re telling me the view from the villa would be better than this?”
He chuckled and squeezed her tight, his strong arms providing a shelf for her breasts. He was warm now, and it felt good.
Silas grunted. “He’s a cheery fellow.”
Oona quickly opened her eyes, expecting to see a figure standing in the mist, staring back at them. “Who?”
“Him,” he pointed. “The guy on the wall. Looks like a real bundle of laughs.”
She followed his gaze and saw a framed, black-and-white photograph fixed to the wall beside the window. An old man, sitting bolt upright in a wooden chair, staring out at her.
Intrigued, she broke from Silas’s hold and moved toward the picture. The old timer had drapes of wispy white hair and a narrow, drawn face propped up by a pointy, gnome-like beard. A pair of the droopiest earlobes she’d ever seen hung almost to his jawline. There was a hard look in his eyes, as if he detested the person behind the camera. His long, thin fingers were hunched up at the ends of the armrests like giant white spiders.
She leaned in closer. The teardrop-shaped armrests looked awfully familiar.
“That chair…” She glanced over to the corner of the bedroom, where a wooden chair faced the bed. It had identical armrests. The same stubby, carved legs. “Isn’t it…?”
Silas squinted, looking back and forth between the chair and the photo. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s the same. You think he used to live here?”
She looked over at the chair and could almost see the old man sitting in it, upright and stern-faced. “Ugh, I don’t know, but that is seriously creepy.”
Silas laughed. “Don’t be silly.”
Oona glanced back at the photo. His
eyes
. So dark. She couldn’t look anymore.
It was precisely this kind of thing that caused her imagination to work overtime. It was why she gave up watching scary movies years ago, despite Silas’s protestations. He could call her silly all he wanted, but she just knew that when it came time for bed tonight she would picture the old man sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, watching them as they slept.
Her stomach knotted so tight that she winced.
If she thought she had any choice at all then she would have left, right there and then. But Silas needed his holiday, and God knows they needed some time away together. Things had not been easy of late, with Silas stressed out of his mind at work. Besides, she’d said no to Antigua for this. He’d never forgive her if she made him leave.
Silas studied the photograph and turned to her, mimicking the old man’s sour face in an exaggerated and ridiculous way, and she couldn’t stop herself from laughing.
She so envied how her husband saw the world in such a matter-of-fact way. How he failed to register that there was anything in any way creepy about the photograph. It was astonishing to her.
That kind of creepy stuff had simply never bothered him.
3
T
hey ventured out shortly after noon, wrapped up well against the merciless snap of a moorland winter. A looping blanket of fog rolled off the dales, enveloping them as they navigated the dirt track toward civilization.
Silas growled his disapproval through chattering teeth and Oona met his glare. “You know, I believe it’s hurricane season in the Caribbean, anyway.”
He grunted. “Could we not at least have taken the car?”
“Silas, you can’t holiday on the Yorkshire moors and then drive everywhere. That’s not the point.”
He looked around him at the rough ground that had been swallowed by close fog in every direction. “No, much better to go by foot and admire the view.”
Any holiday where he had to wear a scarf and gloves when he went outside was no holiday at all, in his opinion. He warmed himself up with thoughts of hot pub food and a few pints of Yorkshire ale. Maybe Oona was right - there was a reason not to drive, after all.
After about a mile (although Silas’s feet seemed to think it much farther), they came upon the farmhouse where they’d collected their keys on arrival. Perusing the online brochure before the trip, Silas had envisioned the cottage and the farmhouse alongside each other. He’d imagined being able to pop next door if ever they needed anything. It was quite a shock to discover how wrong he had been.
The farmhouse was a Grade II listed property with vines of ivy crawling up the red brick to underline the casement windows and slab roof. The building’s picture perfect prettiness gave it an otherworldly feel amidst its desolate surroundings.
A woman waved from the kitchen window as they passed. It was Aggie, their landlady, a portly, gray-haired woman with a beaming smile and several chins. Silas and Oona waved back.
Following the track down the hill for another quarter of a mile brought them to the main road through the village. The center of Oxthorpe consisted of rows of quaint, stone built cottages, a village green, a red phone box and a pub. Silas felt like he had traveled back in time fifty years, and he imagined the place looked very inviting in the summer months.
At that moment, however, it was cold and creepy, the only visible inhabitants a murder of crows on the ornamental village sign. It pained him to know that if he had just put his foot down, they’d be sunning themselves beside an infinity pool four-thousand miles away.
They arrived at the pub, announced in a crescent of gold letters above the entrance as
The Waymarker Inn
, and Silas saw what had to be his two favorite words in the English language scribbled on a chalk board:
Hot Food
. He could almost smell the grilled grub in the air as he wrapped his gloved fingers around the door handle. “Things are looking up.”
He pulled on the door. It was locked.
“Or not,” Oona sighed.
Silas tried the door again. “It is lunchtime, isn’t it?”
“They’re northerners. Maybe they all go to bed in the afternoon, like the Spanish.”
“I froze my balls off for this?” He rattled the door against the frame. “They can’t write ‘hot food’ and not deliver. That’s tantamount to human cruelty—”
He tapered off as Oona held a finger up to her lips. “Listen.”
Footsteps in the distance, heavy and uneven. Silas whirled, following the sound.
A figure emerged from the fog: a middle-aged woman with clouds of crazy black hair, rocking from side to side and dragging one leg behind her as she walked. She was dressed in a dirty sweater and jeans. No outer layers of clothing, despite the cold.
“Oh look,” Silas said. “It’s Yorkshire’s Next Top Model.”
Oona turned to him. “Shall we ask…?”
He tried to communicate
absolutely bloody not
with hard eyes and a stiff shake of the head.
But Oona went running after her anyway. “Excuse me…”
Silas reluctantly followed.
“The pub’s closed. Do you know if there’s anywhere else to eat in the village?”
The woman stopped in her tracks and stared, as if she, too was surprised to see other people.
Oona persevered. “A restaurant, or…”
A cackle burst from the woman’s weather-beaten lips. “By ‘eck, no.”
“Of course not,” Silas said. “That would be ridiculous.”
Oona shot him a look.
“You could buy summat at t’ shop,” the woman suggested.
Silas nodded. He noticed she had a few coarse hairs on her chin.
Oona brightened. “There’s a shop?”
“Aye, dear. Did you think we all lived in t’ Dark Ages?”
Silas glanced at Oona for permission to speak, but she shut him down with a glower.
“No, we just didn’t see it.”
The woman pointed. “Down’t road. In’t alleyway before church.”
“Great. Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”
The woman waved. “Sithee.” She shuffled off, then turned back. “You staying at Cairn Cottage?”
“That’s right, yes. How did you know?”
“Only time we get strangers round here’s when Aggie rents out t’ cottage.”
Oona nodded. “I see.”
“How long you staying?”
“A week.”
She raised her bushy eyebrows. “A week?”
“Yes,” Silas said. “You know, seven days.”
“Hah!” The woman’s eyes fixed on Oona. “Good luck with that.”
She held the look a little too long, then turned and went on her way. Within moments she was consumed by the fog.
Silas and Oona looked at each other in total bewilderment.
***
They made their way back across the dirt track, each carrying a bag of groceries. Not a bad haul, as it turned out, and there was easily enough food to last the week. Aggie waved from the kitchen window again as they passed the farmhouse.
“I’m not sure that woman does anything,” Silas said, maintaining his smile as he waved back, “except stand there waiting for passers-by.”
Oona laughed. “If that’s true, she must wait an awfully long time.”
Silas distracted himself from the cold by keeping his footsteps in line with the mohawk of weeds that ran through the center of the track.
Oona absent-mindedly kicked stones, and Silas kicked them back. He could tell she was mulling something over, and he had a pretty good idea what it was.
“Silas?”
“Hmm?”
“What do you think she meant?”
“Who?”
“The woman. When she said ‘good luck with that’.”
He laughed. “Who knows? I mean, she was clearly out of her tree.”
“Really though, why would she say that?”
Because it’s haunted
, he thought, but he knew he could never say that to Oona. She’d want to go home straight away. “Maybe she knows how cold it is inside that place.”
“Right. Yeah, that makes sense.”
As they crested the hill, the fog had retreated enough that Silas could see Cairn Cottage ahead of them. From such a distance the two upper windows and front door were nothing but black squares embedded in blank gray stone. They gave the building the appearance of a face - despairing eyes and a permanently gaping mouth.
A frozen expression of alarm
, Silas noted.
“Ah, there it is. Home, sweet home.”
He remembered how the exterior of the cottage had looked in the online brochure - quaint, appealing,
inviting
even. Granted, the shots had been taken in summer and no doubt touched up a little, and maybe they’d used an award-winning photographer who knew all the right angles, but
still
. They really had done an incredible job of selling the place.
Winter trees dotted the horizon, their bare branches pointing skyward and rocking gently in the breeze. Were they waving to him, he wondered, or drowning in the fog? Either way, it was an eerie sight and quite hypnotic. When he next looked back at the cottage, it was considerably closer.
He saw something that stopped him in his tracks.
Oona turned to him. “Silas?”
A shape. At the bedroom window.