Rottenhouse (4 page)

‘
But that is your
middle name, Barbara.’ And as is to confirm that Mr Rowling went on
to say, ‘Barbara
Lucy
Rowling. Not Lucy.’

God this guy is a pedantic bastard.

And then something clicked in her. He
could see it – like you can see the egg timer working on a computer
as you wait for a programme or a web page to open – she was
computing what was happening. A small line of sweat appeared on her
forehead and when she blinked he could see his Lucy again, and
whatever had been there before was now gone.

‘
Sorry dad. I should
have told you when I arrived. This is just a misunderstanding. I
left that name here when I left. I wanted a fresh start, you
remember? So I stopped being Barbara and stuck with Lucy. I asked
Simon to try but I guess it’s just, just new I suppose.’

Mr Rowling ran his hands through his
hair. ‘Okay, Barbara, okay. Hard times back then, but fresh ones
ahead. But Simon, please, two things,’ Mr Rowling held two fingers
up, but he wasn’t flicking Simon the royal V, they were turned in
the universal signal for peace, ‘first; none of that language
please, not here. And second; it’s Barbara when you is in this
place, she aint Lucy, yaknow what I mean.’

And Simon did know what he meant but
didn’t have time to say anything as Mr Rowling took one final swig
from his mug and left the room walking back into the hallway and
through into another part of the house closing the door gently
behind him.

The two lovers looked at each other;
Simon was unsure of what he would see, looking into those pools of
wonder and was happy when he saw his Lucy taking off the apron and
throwing it onto the breakfast bar staring at it as it fell to the
floor. Another tree cracked outside in the distant forest and with
the sound came a small bead of sunlight and it shone through the
kitchen window and lit up Lucy’s face. She leaned over and the two
of them embraced, no words were uttered because they both didn’t
need to. They could sense each other’s shock, fear, regret and
amusement of today’s events. But as Simon closed in and held Lucy
tight he got one final look into her eyes and he didn’t like what
he saw. ‘What the hell is going on?’ He whispered, but Lucy didn’t
answer.

4

They had taken their bags upstairs in
relative silence. Their room, Lucy’s old bedroom, was directly
above the kitchen and had views of the stream and the valley walls
and the forest that lay beyond. There was a double bed, two side
cabinets and a separate door leading to a very small bathroom which
contained a shower and a sink. The view from the window was
beautiful and Simon, forgetting about the recent troubles, was
excited about getting out his camera and taking some shots for his
portfolio. He gazed out the window for some time, not really
thinking of anything, just taking in the view and enjoying the
silence.

‘
View hasn’t changed
since I was a little girl. Nothing has changed; it’s just the way
it was; even the curtains are the same. The smell too, it’s all the
same. I bet you can’t wait to get snapping again, especially in the
forest, you’ve been cramped up in that city for too
long.’

‘
Hmm.’ was all he
could muster. Of course nothing had changed; time didn’t seem to
exist here, like some great hand had pressed the pause button and
Mr Rowling’s house and the surrounding area were locked into place,
unable to move forward – unwilling perhaps. Simon could hear Lucy
unpack and put things away in the drawers. She was right about one
thing; he couldn’t wait to get out there, into the wilds and let
his eye wander and his camera click.

‘
You sure you’re okay,
honey?’ Lucy asked as she put the suitcases behind the bedroom
door.

Simon looked at the reflection of Lucy
in the window and said:

‘
Not really, no. Close
the door would you.’

Lucy closed the door.
The house was silent, whatever Mr Rowling was up to downstairs
wasn’t making any noise. Simon could hear the wind rustling through
the trees and the water cascading down the stream. The rain had
stopped and it wouldn’t be long before the sun started to set and
for night to fall across the valley. He turned away from the
window, removed his light weight jacket, and threw it onto the bed.
He had to be careful here, that old
String
needed to stay loose and he
knew that if he went too far it would snap, snap like a crocodile’s
mouth.

‘
What is it, Simon?
Come on, tell me. I know it’s weird, the whole Lucy, Barbara thing,
but if you think about it; it is perfectly reasonable.’

‘
Yeah I get that. But
come on; give me a break, would ya, I mean you threw that bad boy
on me when we were in spitting distance of this place. And then
there was that bloody petrol station with that guy.’

‘
What about the petrol
station?’

‘
Oh nothing much, just
that I was ripped off by some fat guy dressed in someone else’s
clothes – I am sure of it Lucy, sure of it, they were someone
else’s overalls and there was this stuff coming out of the garage,
it wasn’t oil, well it could have been oil but mixed with
something, I don’t know, I don’t know it was just odd, and he was
odd, this whole fucking place is odd.’

Lucy sat on the small chair next to her
vanity unit, she looked puzzled but there was something about that
expression that Simon recognised – oh yeah, he recognised it
good.

‘
I can see what you
are thinking, Lucy. That I must be imagining the whole thing; that
my mind is playing tricks on me and I am seeing weird stuff coz I
want to see weird stuff.’ Simon took a step forward, leaning over
the bed and pointed a finger at her and then down below them,
toward the kitchen, ‘Well what about what happened down there,
Lucy, all that shit about the club and you not being Lucy and how
he speaks to me and speaks to you, explain that Sherlock friggin
Holmes.’

‘
What doya mean,
Simon?’

‘
What do
I
mean? For Christ sake,
Lucy, you were different down there, you were…you were,’ and then
it hit him. Hit him like a truck carrying a trailer full of bricks.
‘You
were
Barbara.’

‘
Stop it,
Simon.’

‘
Stop calling me THAT!
For fucks sake, stop calling me THAT!’

Lucy flinched; her eyes became wide and
startled. ‘Stop calling you what, Simon.’

‘
Simon. Stop calling
me Simon. You never call me that. It’s either Si or Sausage or
honey or anyfuckingthing, just not that. Not since we first
met.’

‘
I don’t know what you
are talking about.’

‘
No, of course not.
Like downstairs when I called you Lucy and you freaked out and
sided with yer dad and made me think I was mental, that I had just
made it all up. You made me think for a minute that you
were
Barbara and I had
somehow slipped into some alternative universe. How can you answer
that then, hey?’

She shook her head and blinked in that
God damned condescending way he oh so hated. This was turning into
a crappy start to their holiday and he realised that they were
fighting and they never fought, never argued or raised their voices
to one another.

‘
Look, it’s been a
long day, Sausage, (that had been a struggle for her, like
downstairs when he could see the egg timer ticking away behind her
eyes it was the same now) we are both tired and need a nap or
something. Don’t forget that I haven’t been back here in a long
time. This is just as strange for me as it is for you, ya know what
I mean. Just give it time, please.’

Yeah right, whatever, sweet heart. You
haven’t had your dad talking utter nonsense or been invited to a
night out with a bunch of strangers.

Maybe he was being too hard on her? It
had been a long time since she left this place. Lucy and her dad
hadn’t talked for long time until two months ago when Simon
insisted they make good their fractured relationship before it’s
too late. The deal with her name is acceptable, when you cross the
T’s and dot the I’s it made sense. He would just have to except it,
especially when the old man was about. The rip off merchant –
Bobbie – may have been right, who knows, it may well have been
forty quid and it was Simon that had made a scene and believed it
was less than that. He moved his hand toward hers, a fleshy olive
branch outstretched, and she took hold of it; squeezing tight. They
had some troubles to work through, and he guessed as their time
here wore on there would be a few more, but it wasn’t all that bad.
So he had to call her Barbara for a couple of weeks, so he had to
put up with Mr Rowling and his odd – really odd – ways for a couple
of weeks, so what. This place was gorgeous, a hidden haven that he
knew he could easily fall in love with, especially if he found time
to get his camera out and start snapping. It could be a lot worse
he supposed as they both settled down on the bed, embraced and fell
asleep.

5

Simon was alone on the garage
forecourt. The roof was gone and the rain was floating down like
wet dandelion seeds soaking him to the bone. He looked around for a
sign of life – for Bobbie/Lewis – but there wasn’t anybody around.
The lights were off in the shop but the courtyard was lit with an
afterglow of some unseen distant sun.

His head was thick, groggy; much like
it was the morning after a few heavy drinks. Maybe the shop had
some water, he wanted some water; he was so thirsty all of a sudden
that he felt sand in his throat. He took a step but realised that
by taking one step he had taken four and then as he took another
step he felt as if he were floating, as if in space, but he wasn’t
floating toward the shop where he so desperately wanted to go to
get a drink; he was heading toward the padlocked garage. Heading
toward the building where some foul looking red gore flowed from
beneath its rusted blue door. The garage’s metal roof flapped in a
wind that wasn’t there. The door looked like a massive metallic
mouth which had been shut for hundreds of years and was preparing
to open. Simon was sure he could see the building heave in and out
as it breathed. He didn’t want to go there for he was sure that
behind that door there lived monsters; monsters that had made Lewis
into Bobbie.

Simon swung his arms to try and change
direction, but it did nothing and he floated closer. Simon kicked
but that did nothing and now he was within 20 feet of the red oil
stuff. He was thirsty and the effort was drying his throat further.
He went to swallow and found that he couldn’t, all the while
getting closer to the where the gore had settled into little pools
of filth. He tried to swallow again and reached up and grabbed his
throat. But it wasn’t there. He couldn’t feel it. No soft pink wet
flesh. Instead his throat felt solid and sharp like tips of a
hundred nails which pointed out like some ancient defence on some
ancient castle. He moaned in fear, but nothing came now that his
throat was full of iron teeth and all the while he is getting
closer, 10 feet to go, 10 feet to that red oil gore.

’
Just an old
Zephyr.

‘
They leak. They
bleed. They don’t stop once they started.’

That was Bobbie/Lewis but Simon
couldn’t see him/them when he looked about.

And then something caught his eye; it
was movement in the red gore oozing from underneath the garage
door. Just ahead, the gore started to form a dome. But not a smooth
dome. It was fragmented, like bedraggled hair that hung straight
down hiding whatever face lay beneath.

‘
They leak. They
bleed. They don’t stop once they started.’

And then the gore covered shape that
was rising slowly from the red ooze began to moan; it was a low
moan, feminine, he was sure of that. The moan – its Bobbie, BOBBIE
- was as if it were the last cries before the end and they went on
and on until it became a scream and that scream went on and on and
Simon got closer and closer and the scream got louder and louder
until it became a yell and that yell grew fierce and guttural and
in the distance there was a flash of lightning and a huge rumble of
thunder…

6

In the valley another tree fell to the
lumberjacks axe and it hit the forest floor heavily.

Simon awoke with a start; grabbing hold
of his throat and then the side of the bed sure that he was
floating toward some red coloured filth that was all that was left
of someone – a girl, a girl called Bobbie and his breathing was
fast and shallow and he was hot, sweaty and thirsty.

He got up, unsteady at first, and
walked around to the end of the bed and into the small bathroom
holding onto whatever he could as he went. He flicked the light
switch on and leant on the sink as he tried to control himself.
Looking into the mirror he saw that he was pale, his eyes sunken
with deep dark rings beneath them. Licking his lips he turned on
the cold tap, waited a second or two and then cupped his hands
allowing the water to collect. When the cold liquid was brimming he
bent over and drank what he could, before refilling and drinking
again and again and again. On the final fill, instead of drinking
he splashed the water over his face and kept his hands there whilst
he straightened up.

He felt better now. Relaxed. Whatever
that dream had been about was drifting away like a leaf caught in a
rivers current.

Simon took his hands away and opened
his eyes.

Behind him was a woman and her skin was
flayed, her eyes were gone and their black sockets reflected
nothing and her mouth was wide as if she wanted to scream but
without a throat no sound could come out.