I Bought It, Now What?
Author: Amy Cross The Cross Legacy
Date: 2022-03-20 00:00:00+00:00
Description: In this book you will find answers to how to buy, clean and store the top 25 most requested fruits and vegetables. From avocados to potatoes, berries to cucumbers and many others in between, this book will help you extend the life of your produce by lasting longer. A post that has gone viral on The Cross Legacy, strawberries in a jar cleaning and storage tip has been featured in 22 world news outlets to include The Sun, Mirror, and The World News. Strawberries stayed edible for weeks instead of a few days. This tip created a windfall of questions about other fruit and vegetables. The average A

Copyright 2023 Blackwych Books

All Rights Reserved

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.

Kindle edition

First published in May 2023
by Blackwych Books, London

A woman tries to talk her way out of a cannibal chef's clutches, even as he meticulously prepares her body for the oven...

A madman tries to make up for something that happened to him as a child, but he soon discovers that his sister is hiding another dark secret...

A dying man makes an elaborate promise to his wife, but will he be able to keep that promise after he passes over to the other side?

Many years after they last met, former lovers Ashley and Amanda happen to bump into one another on the same night that a deadly virus escapes...

A man wakes up covered in sweat after a horrific nightmare, but can his wife offer him any comfort?

On a desolate train station platform late at night, two bored workers investigate the mystery on platform 2 and make a terrifying discovery...

From ghosts and serial killers to zombies and strange creatures, The Last Haunted House on Mars and Other Stories contains the short stories The Haunting of Thistle House, Eleanor, As We Know It, This is the Dream, The Nightmare on Platform 2 and The Last Haunted House on Mars. You'll never look at a vending machine, a rainy puddle or a clove of garlic in the same way again.

Contents

The Haunting of Thistle House

Eleanor

As We Know It

This is the Dream

The Nightmare on Platform 2

The Last Haunted House on Mars

The Last Haunted House on Mars
and Other Stories

The Haunting of Thistle House

I

2007...

“Margaret? I'm so sorry to intrude but... he's asking for you.”

“Yes, of course,” Margaret replied, quickly slipping the tissue into the sleeve of her cardigan before getting to her feet. She took a moment to sniff back tears, before turning to see Sally standing in the conservatory doorway. “I'm terribly sorry, I was just... daydreaming, I suppose. Thinking about...”

She hesitated, feeling distinctly uneasy, but she knew that the dreaded moment had arrived. No matter how hard she tried to pretend otherwise, time was marching on and there was really no point trying to delay things for even a second longer.

“Let me help you,” Sally said, stepping into the room and taking Margaret's arm. “How's your hip today?”

“Oh, my hip is very boring,” Margaret murmured, slightly irritated by the attention but keen to not show the fact. She knew that her niece was only being kind. She shuffled toward the doorway, frustrated by the fact that her aging body was once again letting her down. “Now the arthritis, on the other hand, is utterly fascinating. It can't make up its mind at all, it keeps switching from one hand to the other. At least...”

She winced a little as she felt a pain in her leg, but she managed to keep going until finally she had to stop and rest in the corridor. Looking toward the far end, she felt a shudder of dread in her chest as soon as she saw the open door to the study.

“At least that's how it feels,” she added, as she felt fresh tears welling behind her eyes.

“Do you want to sit down for a moment?” Sally asked.

“No,” Margaret replied, as she realized that the long-feared moment had truly arrived. “Is... is he having trouble breathing?”

“I think it's just...”

Sally hesitated. Usually chipper and optimistic, always telling everyone that things would get better soon, she seemed to have lost that edge now; she had the air of someone who knew that the ultimate brick wall was about to block everybody's path, and she had no reasonable way of trying to cheer the situation up.

“I think it's just time,” she continued softly, before reaching around and squeezing Margaret's hand. “Soon he won't be in pain.”

“I know,” Margaret replied, before clenching her teeth for a moment. “I've been married to that man for fifty-seven years, and I've never heard him admit to so much as a cold. He's always been so strong, I think he's barely been ill for more than a total of a week in all the time we've been together. That's why it's so hard to see him like this, you know. I always thought that if anyone could defy cancer, it'd be him. Still...”

Her voice trailed off.

“I was about to say that he's had a good innings,” she added, “but seventy-eight isn't so old these days, is it? Lots of people live longer than that.”

“He's lived a good life, though,” Sally pointed out. “That's because he's had you. The pair of you make a hell of a team. I wouldn't mind some advice about how to do it.”

“The key,” Margaret replied, setting off again, shuffling along the corridor, “is to love one another. It's really that simple. Of course, love takes hard work, and sometimes I think hard work is out of fashion with the young. But he's always been the most remarkable husband and I don't know how I shall...”

As they reached the doorway, she stopped and turned to Sally again. She knew that if she looked to her left, she'd see her dear husband Peter on his makeshift deathbed next to the desk, but she wanted to delay that moment for a few more seconds.

“How long?” she whispered, keeping her voice low. “You're a nurse, Sally. Tell me honestly... how long does he have?”

“I think you should try to enjoy the next few hours as best you can,” Sally told her, and now she too had tears in her eyes. “It's a beautiful day. Try to focus on the good memories.”

“Of course,” Margaret replied, before sniffing back some more tears. She glanced up at the old bell on the wall before turning to Sally again. “I shall. Thank you, you've been so wonderful during all of this.”

She took a deep breath, and then she forced herself to turn and look into the room. Sure enough, there was her darling husband Peter, flat on his back on the bed next to the desk, waiting for death, struggling to get any air into his lungs and dressed from head to toe in his own specially modified rubber suit complete with an old-fashioned round metal diving helmet.

***

“I can hear... bluebirds,” Peter whispered weakly, his voice barely escaping from the metal diving helmet as he continued to rest on his back. “Can you hear them too, Maggie? Out in the garden, I think...”

“Yes, dear, of course,” she replied, although in truth she could hear no such sound. Still, she supposed that the metal sphere around her husband's head might be distorting things a little. Unfortunately, he steadfastly refused to have it removed. “Such lovely birds.”

“I wish I could turn and see them,” he gasped, “but this helmet...”

He paused for a moment, before squeezing her hand again. He was wearing thick rubber gloves, connected by pins and zips to the arm of his suit.

“Are you comfortable?” Margaret asked. “Would you like some more painkillers?”

“No, I don't think so,” he said softly. “Of course, this contraption isn't too easy on the back, but I knew that when I had it adapted.” He paused again. “I'm ready, you know, Maggie. You might think that I'm afraid, but I'm not. Of death, I mean.”

“I'm sure.”

“All the preparations are complete,” he continued. “That's what gives me hope, you see. I know you probably think my ideas are rather strange, but I have full faith in them.” He reached up with his other – also gloved – hand and tapped the side of the metal helmet. “This thing is perfect. I consider myself to be a kind of astronaut, except instead of going into space I'm going into the world of death. But I'm perfectly prepared for the journey, I'm more prepared than any man in all of history. And really, the world of death is just another place to explore, like the world of space or the world of the deep ocean or... the jungle!”

“Yes, my darling.”

“I always wanted to visit another planet.”

“I know.”

“That turned out to be impossible, but I've found my adventures in other places.”

“I know.”

“And because I'm so well prepared,” he added, “I shall be uniquely equipped to retain my senses once I'm there in the world of the dead. You remember what I told you, don't you?”

“I do,” Margaret replied. She looked out into the corridor and saw the bell high up on the wall.

“Once I get to the land of the dead,” Peter explained, “I shall take a little while to get my bearings, and then I shall start exploring. But first, in order to really prove to you that my preparations have worked, I shall pop back and ring that bell over there. When you hear it ringing without any just cause, you shall know that it's me contacting you from the next world. It'll be my way of proving to you, beyond doubt, that there is another place and that I'm perfectly fine over there. And then you'll know that death really isn't the end.” He squeezed her hand again. “Deathnaut. That's what I call myself. I'm the world's first Deathnaut, and I'm no more nervous than a man would be if he'd been strapped to a space rocket.”

“Of course,” she replied, struggling to hold back more tears. Peter had always been somewhat eccentric, especially when it came to his inventions, and his final moments were proving to be no different.

“You don't believe me,” he said defiantly.

“I didn't say that.”

“I shall simply prove you, and any other doubting sods, wrong,” he continued, before letting out a faint cough. His voice echoed slightly from inside the diving helmet. “This suit might look silly, but I've put a lot of thought into it. It's perfectly designed to contain my soul after the moment of my death, to focus my energy so that I remain fully conscious of the entire process and...”

He hesitated, before letting out a very faint gasp.

“Are you okay?” Margaret asked, still holding his hand.

She waited, but she heard no reply. After a moment, wincing as she got to her feet, she peered down into the helmet and saw Peter's face. His eyes were barely open, but he smiled gently as soon as he saw her.

“I love you,” he whispered. “You know that, don't you?”

“And I love you too,” she replied, as a tear fell from her cheek and landing inside the helmet. “So very much. But are you sure I can't take this contraption off you?”

“Listen out for... the bell,” he whispered. “That'll be the proof of everything. When you... hear the bell ring with no assistance, you shall know that it's me... signaling from whatever comes next.” He gasped again, and now he sounded much more pained than before. “The bell,” he added, barely able to get any words out at all. “Listen for it, Maggie. The bell will be your proof that there's... something... else... a... grand adventure...”

Margaret waited, but after a moment she heard him let out one final breath, and then she saw that his eyes had somehow glazed over. She told herself that he was going to be fine, but a few seconds later she turned and looked toward the open doorway.

“Sally?” she called out, her voice filled with fear. “I think... Sally, can you come? Sally, I think it's happened!”

II

As Peter had predicted several times, the day of his funeral brought such heavy rain that everyone at the graveside was forced to stand beneath umbrellas.

“It was a beautiful service,” somebody said nearby, and Margaret felt a hand touch her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she murmured, but although she knew she should turn and speak to this person a little more, she found herself unable to tear her eyes away from the sight of the coffin. “You're most kind.”

To her great relief, the gentleman walked away. Margaret knew that she had to reconnect with the world at some point, but for now she could only stare at the – somewhat over-sized – coffin and think of her husband's body resting inside, still wearing the diving suit that he'd insisted on taking with him all the way to the grave. Part of her had considered going against his wishes and getting rid of the damn suit, since it seemed rather sacrilegious, but eventually she'd decided that there was no harm in humoring Peter one last time. After all, she'd humored him so many times during their long marriage, so why not keep going until the very end?

“Margaret?”

Turning, she found that Sally was still standing next to her. Looking up, she remembered that it was Sally who had been holding the umbrella above her.

“My poor girl,” she said, suddenly feeling rather embarrassed, “I'm so terribly sorry. Your arm must be aching so much!”

“Not at all, Auntie Margaret,” Sally replied. “I just wondered whether you were getting cold, that's all.”

“I suppose we should get back to the house for the wake,” Margaret conceded, “although first I must ask... did anyone comment upon the unusual size of the coffin?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“And you didn't...” She sighed. “I don't mean this to sound bad, but you didn't go out of your way to tell anyone about the...”

“About the diving helmet and all that get-up?” Sally asked, with a hint of a smile. “No, Auntie Margaret, I didn't. You asked me not to, and I'd never go against your wishes.”

“I just don't think that most people would understand.”

“I think most of his friends knew that Uncle Peter had a... strange sense of humor.”

“Yes, but this was about more than a sense of humor,” Margaret continued, before turning to look back at the coffin. “This was a rather serious matter, at least in his mind.”

“You never actually explained why he wanted to die and be buried in that thing,” Sally pointed out. “Not that I want to pry, of course, but I can't help wondering... I mean, even by Uncle Peter's standards, that thing is a little extreme.”

“I suppose it is,” Margaret said softly.

“It wasn't just a prank, was it?” Sally asked. “I know Uncle Peter liked to do things like that, but I got the impression that this was something more important.”

“Well, you see, he...”

Stopping suddenly, Margaret realized that she didn't know how to begin explaining the situation. Peter had talked incessantly about his plans to become a 'deathnaut', of course, and he'd shown her lots of schematics and diagrams and notebooks about what he believed was going to be his final great adventure. She'd tried her best to understand, although in truth – as often happened – she'd been unable to truly follow her husband's train of thought. And she certainly hadn't understand enough to be able to explain it to anyone else.

“Shall we get back to the house?” she asked finally, offering Sally as much of a smile as she could manage. “You're right, it's terribly cold and wet out here. I should think we'll all be much better off inside.”

***

A couple of hours later, Margaret sat in the study at the house and tried very hard to listen to the conversations around her. So many people had been so kind, and now many of them were regaling one another with tales – no doubt of a hilarious nature – about Peter and his various unusual quirks and schemes. Margaret very much wanted to listen to these stories, yet as she perched on the sofa with a cup of tea in her hand she found herself unable to stop looking out into the corridor.

The bell had not rung once since Peter's death.

In some ways, that was no surprise, for the bell was not actually connected to any kind of pulley or string. A remnant from the days when the house most likely had servants, this particular bell was something of an antique; it could be made to ring if one tapped it directly, but otherwise there was absolutely no way in which it could be encouraged to make a sound, and there was certainly no way of doing so remotely. Part of an old string ran into the wall, but only for a few inches; after that, it had long ago been cut through. That, Margaret supposed, must have been why Peter had decided to use the bell in his final scheme, since there would be no chance of anyone worrying that it might have been rung by somebody else.

Yet it had not rung.

“He was always hatching one scheme or another, wasn't he?” Gladys Surebolt said, sitting on the other end of the sofa. “I always admired his imagination greatly.”

“Do you remember that three-wheeled car he came up with?” Dougie Kent added, his voice filled with a sense of great amusement. “The one with a retractable wheel? The crazy thing is, Peter wasn't usually wrong, he was just ahead of his time. And of course he tended to not focus on the details. He was always more interested in the bigger picture.”

Margaret allowed herself a faint smile; Dougie and Gladys were absolutely correct in their observations, and she's always admired her husband's determination to get on and try new things. At the same time, she wondered how they might react if they were to learn of his final project, of the so-called 'deathnaut' suit – in reality just a souped-up old-fashioned diving costume – in which he'd been buried. Some of them might simply roll their eyes and chalk the whole thing up to Peter's usual enthusiasm, but she couldn't help thinking that even by his usual standards her husband had outdone himself this time.

And as the others continued to talk, she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the bell in the corridor.

Ten days had now passed since Peter's last breath. She wasn't entirely sure that she believed he could ring the bell from beyond the grave; in truth, she found such notions far too silly to really entertain with any seriousness. Nevertheless, she told herself that if anyone could do such a thing, it would most certainly be Peter, and she imagined him struggling in some strange other world, still wearing his diving helmet as he fought his way back to the house. Even though she felt that such a scenario was utterly beyond reasonable consideration, she still couldn't help but wonder how she might react if the bell might suddenly ring. Two words kept bouncing around in her thoughts.

What if?

Yet the bell remained still and unmoving, just as it had done ever since Peter's death.

“And how are you doing?” Edith Oppenheimer asked, reaching over and taking hold of Margaret's left hand, and giving it a good squeeze. “It must be awfully lonely for you in this big old house, now that you no longer have your Peter around.”

“Oh, I manage,” Margaret told her, employing the same careful phrasing that she'd used at least a hundred times over the previous week. “There's always so much to do, you know?”

“At least you have Sally.”

“She's been such a wonder,” Margaret beamed. “I feel awfully guilty, taking up so much of her time, but she absolutely insists on staying for a while. I think she feels sorry for me, since Peter and I never had any children of our own. She and her husband Joshua have put their entire lives on hold to keep an eye on me, and they insist on sticking around for another week or so.”

Edith replied, and some of the others chimed in with their views as well, but Margaret found her thoughts drifting away once more. She stared at the bell in the corridor, and although she knew that she should try to be more 'present' with those who'd been kind enough to show up for the wake, she still couldn't tear her gaze away. She told herself that of course poor Peter couldn't possibly ring a bell now, not when he was dead and buried, yet some frustrating flicker of hope remained in her chest, constantly telling her that at any moment he might prove her wrong. In a way, this hope was exhausting and almost unbearable, and she tried to remind herself that the bell couldn't possibly ring. She knew that, really, deep down. Truly she did. Without a shadow of doubt.

And yet...

III

And yet, one year later, Margaret sat in more or less the same spot and found herself once again looking at the very same bell.

“I'm sorry if the children are a little noisy,” Sally said, sounding increasingly stressed as she hurried into the room. “I'd really love to stay for a while longer, Aunt Margaret, but Josh has this new job and I'm afraid I've rather been left to ferry Elly and Kerrigan to and fro from school.”

“It's quite alright,” Margaret replied, with her eyes still fixed on the bell.

“But we'll be back over on Tuesday,” Sally continued, “and I'll see if Josh can take them for a few hours. I mean, you know I'm not one to complain, but I do think Josh could pull his weight a little more. I know the new restaurant is stressful, and I know he's the big earner so it's only natural that he has to put in the hours, but...”

Sighing, she turned away from the sideboard and looked at her aunt. After a moment she reached up and put a hand on her own forehead.

“I'm doing it again, Aunt Margaret,” she complained. “I'm getting myself worked up into a terrible state.”

“You'll be fine,” Margaret replied, still watching the bell. “You're young and you're busy, and that's how things should be. I'd be more worried if you were sitting around bored all the time. And I'm quite alright here, you know. I potter about and keep myself entertained.”

“Yes, but that isn't going to stop me worrying about you, you know. I'd feel so much better if you'd just agree to -”

Hearing the sound of breaking glass in the distance, Sally immediately let out a muttered curse.

“Now what?” she said, hurrying out of the room. “Kerrigan, is that you causing trouble in the kitchen again? This is your aunt's house, you can't just go around crashing into things!”

Smiling as she heard her niece trying to restore order, Margaret told herself that the world was working much as it should. She felt a little disconnected from that world, of course, but she wondered whether that was simply because she was getting older. Most of the time she was more than capable of keeping herself busy in the house and garden, even if she knew that her tasks were rarely of any great importance. Every so often, however, she found herself sitting in the study and just -

“Why are you staring at that bell?”

Startled, she turned to see that her great-niece Elly watching her from the doorway.

“Goodness,” Margaret said, “I didn't hear you coming at all.”

“Kerrigan's in trouble,” Elly explained, “so I'm keeping out of the way.” She paused. “Every time we come to see you, you just sit and stare at that bell on the wall.” She turned to look at the bell. “It's pretty, but I've never heard it ring. Does it still work?”

“Why don't you go and test it?”

“Can I?”

Margaret nodded.

Elly headed over and reached up; although she was young, she was quite tall for her age and she managed to tap the bottom of the bell, causing it to ring out.

“What's it for?” she asked, turning to Margaret again.

“Oh, I imagine it has had lots of uses over the years,” Margaret told her, as the bell's ring faded to silence again. “I believe it was installed back in the days when the house had servants. Now it's just a bit of a relic, it doesn't serve any purpose at all. Like me, perhaps.”

“Why do you stare at it so much, then?”

“I suppose it has sentimental value.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that it's not important to anyone other than myself,” she explained, before easing herself up from the sofa. Her old bones creaked and complained, and she almost had to sit back down and try again, but finally she was on her feet and she began to shuffle to the doorway. “You have an inquisitive mind,” she continued. “That's good, but there are far more interesting things in the world than some old bell.”

“You don't seem to think so,” Elly pointed out. “You even stare at it sometimes when Mummy's talking to you, almost as if you don't really hear what she's saying. Come on, there has to be some reason why you find it so interesting. Do you think that I'm too young to understand?”

“I'm just a silly old woman,” Margaret said, taking her by the hand and leading her toward the front of the house. “Believe me, when you reach my age, you'll be silly too. I'm afraid it comes with the territory.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means there are things you're too young to realize, and that I'm too old to explain.” Feeling more than a little weary, Margaret led her through to the hallway, but at the last second she glanced over her shoulder and looked yet again at the bell. “Or perhaps I'm too old to understand them myself,” she added. “It's funny, but when you get to my age, you often find yourself thinking of things that you've lost. And you wonder whether, in some strange way, you might be reminded of them once in a while.”

“Are there birds in the roof?” Elly asked.

Margaret turned to her.

“Why, yes,” she said with a smile, glad of the chance to change the subject, “there are. And in parts of the walls, too. Did you hear them? My word, you have such good ears, Elly! That's a real skill!”

***

Several minutes later, Margaret stood in the driveway and waved merrily as Sally's car disappeared around the corner. She continued to wave for a couple more seconds, just to be certain, before lowering her hand and turning to look back at the house.

For a moment, watching the windows, she caught herself wondering whether she might spot a face staring back at her. She looked at each window in turn, mostly seeing only the reflection of nearby treetops, and she told herself that of course there was no chance that Peter was at any of them. Nevertheless, ever since his death she'd felt her own sense of certainty starting to crumble, and for every moment of staunch pragmatism there was always an equal and opposite moment of doubt and fear.

“Are you here?” she whispered, even though she felt rather foolish. “If you are, can you give me a sign?”

Now she felt even more idiotic than before, since she knew exactly what sign Peter would choose to make. He'd drummed the plan into her head so many times, she could almost quote him word-for-word.

“I'll find my way back to you,” she heard his voice saying now, echoing through her thoughts. “It might not be easy, but I'm more prepared than anyone else in history. I know my suit might look foolish to you, but I'll get back to the house as soon as possible after my death and ring that bell.”

Tears glistened in her ears as she thought of the enthusiasm he'd displayed, but all she heard now was the rustle of nearby trees and the occasional twitter of a bird. Indeed, the more she stared at the house, the more she felt as if she was completely alone, and she knew deep down that by thinking of Peter's bizarre scheme she was only giving herself false hope. She still continued to watch the windows, still clinging to the hope that she might spot even the slightest hint of a presence, before clearing her throat and starting to make her way toward the front door.

Her footsteps crunched against the gravel. The sound was loud and comforting, and a great contrast to the silence that followed as soon as she stepped into the hallway. She felt the nagging need to search once more for Peter's ghostly presence, but this time she was able to squash such a foolish notion much more quickly. After heading toward the end of the corridor, she looked toward the bell at the far end and reminded herself that Peter was gone and that – while he might still exist in some other place – he most certainly wasn't going to be able to return and ring some silly old bell.

“Time for bed, then,” she said out loud, to no-one in particular, as she headed over to the foot of the staircase. She might not be able to talk to her dead husband, but she could still break the silence of the house occasionally. “My back's playing up so much. I'm really not sure how much longer I'll be able to manage these stairs at all.”

Once she'd gone upstairs, the ground floor of the house remained still and silent. At the end of one of the corridors, the old bell remained in its traditional place, but it showed no sign that it was about to ring. Meanwhile, outside, a sparrow briefly flapped against the window before flying away.

IV

“Peter? What did you say?”

Sitting up in bed, Margaret looked across the pitch-black room. She felt sure that her husband had been speaking, but now all she heard was silence. She turned and looked at his side of the bed; there was no sign of him, and when she reached over she found that the sheets were cold.

“Oh, Peter...”

Now she remembered the truth. He was gone, and she sighed as she realized that she must have heard him in a dream. She couldn't remember what he'd been saying, only that she had the sensation of being near him, of his presence. Finding herself a little breathless, she took a moment to pull herself together before checking the clock by the side of the bed and seeing that the time was only a little after midnight. She briefly considered settling back down and trying to sleep a little longer, but she knew her feathers were too ruffled and – besides – a trip to the bathroom was more than due.

Climbing out of bed, she winced and groaned as little pains tugged at her bones. Once she was on her feet, she picked up her dressing gown and slipped it over her nightdress, and then she shuffled across the room and out onto the landing. The bathroom was already in sight, but these days even a small journey could easily take more than ten minutes.

And then, as she reached the top of the stairs, she realized that she could hear a persistent scratching sound coming from somewhere down below.

She stopped, convinced that the sound would resolve itself. A branch swaying against a window? The sound continued, and the longer she listened, the more Margaret felt that it seemed to be coming from somewhere inside the house itself. Her first thought was that this must be poppycock, that the house was carefully locked up for the night, but the sound went on and on. Although she desperately disliked the idea of an unnecessary trip – her legs were already aching – she knew she couldn't simply ignore this strange development, so she placed a hand on the banister before starting to slowly make her way down.

By the time she reached the hallway, she could tell exactly where the sound was coming from.

With a slow sense of dread building in her chest, she limped toward the end of the corridor that led through to the kitchen and the study. Moonlight, streaming through the window at the far end, caught the old bell perfectly.

“The thing is,” Peter had told her once, shortly before his health had worsened, “there won't be any doubt. I won't waste my time with strange little signals that could be misinterpreted as something else.”

“Is that right?” she remembered replying, humoring him a little.

“I'll be bold and obvious,” he'd insisted. “No faint whispers in the night. No slamming doors or tapping on anything. I certainly won't move things around to drive you nuts. No, Maggie, it'll be the bell or nothing. It'll be a big old ringing of that damn thing, and there'll be absolutely no room for doubt.”

Now, as the scratching sound continued, those words from Peter gave her some comfort, for she knew that he'd always been a man of his word. The bell most certainly wasn't ringing, which meant that the scratching sound – which certainly seemed to be coming from that area – couldn't be caused by Peter's ghost. Not that Margaret really believed in ghosts, but still, she was willing to entertain the possibility. Nevertheless, she found herself wondering what could be causing such a strange noise inside the house, so after a few more seconds she began to make her way along the corridor, while grumbling under her breath about the cold stone floor and, more importantly, about the fact that she'd neglected to wear her slippers.

Finally she reached the bell and looked up. The scratching sound certainly seemed to be coming from somewhere nearby, although perhaps not from the bell itself. Peering up at the wall, she realized that the sound was changing every few seconds, sometimes seeming more frantic and sometimes a little less intense. That, she supposed, indicated that some kind of creature might be responsible, and her first thought was of the rats that many years ago had infiltrated the house. At the time, Peter had gone to great lengths to chase them out, and he'd eventually succeeded after something of a battle royale. He'd insisted that they were gone forever, that he'd sealed up every possible route back inside, although now Margaret found herself wondering whether they'd found a solution.

“They heard you were gone,” she imagined herself telling Peter, “so they've come straight back inside with their little suitcases packed.”

Suddenly she spotted movement nearby, and she turned to see a swallow hopping along the ledge just beyond the nearby window. The sight was rather strange, especially so late at night, but the swallow had some grass or other matter in its beak, and a moment later it hopped up and disappeared from sight. Seconds later the scratching sound in the wall began to quicken, and Margaret let out a sigh as she realized exactly what was happening.

“Birds,” she muttered. “It's not rats, not this time. It's birds. They're probably building a nest in there.”

She reached up and touched the wall. She couldn't feel anything untoward, of course, but she still found herself imagining a nest on the other side of the stone, perhaps with some eggs already laid. She knew that Peter would have been furious, that he would have been straight on the computer in the study – even in the middle of the night – to look up the details of someone who could deal with the problem. Margaret supposed that he'd be right to be concerned, but for her part she wondered whether there was really any harm in letting a family of sparrows nest in the wall. They weren't dirty like rats, and she quite liked the idea of some baby birds tweeting once they were hatched from their nests.

“Vermin,” she imagined Peter saying. “I'll get right on that. They'll be gone by tomorrow afternoon!”

***

“Hello, Mr. Sparrow.”

A few minutes later, having made the decision to venture outside – even if the dewy grass felt so very cold against her bare feet – Margaret stood on the lawn and watched as the sparrow returned to a small hole in the house's wall. The bird slipped inside, no doubt causing the scratching sound that could be heard on the other side of the wall, before emerging again after a few seconds and flying off toward the nearby trees.

“Nature at work,” Margaret said with a smile. “Life. The cycle of living and dying, always finding a way in the smallest little spot available.”

Feeling slightly weak, she stepped over to the old wrought iron bench and took a seat. She knew that – especially at her age – she risked catching a chill by being out in the middle of the night, but she couldn't help herself. Sure enough, a few seconds later the sparrow returned with some more twigs and scurried into the hole. Margaret wasn't sure that sparrows usually made nests in such an unusual space, but that thought only made her feel more impressed by the bird's ingenuity. He was preparing a place for his chicks to hatch and grow, and Margaret's smile grew as she realized that the sparrow and his family had no interest in the complicated world of mankind.

Looking at the window, she was just about able to see the bell, and at that moment a thought struck her. This was a thought that had perhaps been percolating for a while in the back of her mind, even if it only now came to the forefront and made itself clear.

“I'm glad the bell hasn't rung,” she said out loud, even though there was no-one except the birds to hear her. “I rather fear that if I knew there was another world waiting, I'd come to value this world far less. I'd be filled with curiosity for what follows our life here, and I'd perhaps fail to appreciate what I have all around me.”

She watched as the bird emerged from the hole, and for a moment the little fellow stopped on a ledge and looked around.

“I'm not saying that I'm against the idea of something coming after,” Margaret continued. “I just don't want that 'something' to in any way devalue this beautiful world that I'm in right now. I suppose what I'm saying, Mr. Sparrow, is that I'd hate for this life to become unimportant once it's over. I want this life, this world, this existence to be filled with the same meaning that I feel at this exact moment. I'd almost...”

She paused, as a gentle gust of wind blew across the garden.

“I want this to be the existence that matters,” she explained, as the sparrow flew off once more. “I'm not interested in some fantasy afterlife where everything's perfect and I'm living in some kind of paradise. I want this world -”

She took a moment to scrunch her feet in the cold grass, before wincing as she un-scrunched them and felt a shimmer of pain.

“I want this world to be the only one that counts,” she added softly, “so I'm afraid, Peter – if you're listening – that I don't share your enthusiasm for something that comes after. I wouldn't want to know about it, even if it was real. Not if it would take even one scrap of beauty and meaning from what I'm feeling right now.”

A moment later the sparrow returned, with yet more twigs in his beak. He stood on the ledge for a moment, looking around, before hopping into the little gap in the wall.

V

Two years later, Sally used her hip to gently push the bedroom door open, and then she carried a breakfast tray into the house's master bedroom. Hearing a rustling sound coming from the bed, she smiled as she took the tray over and set it down.

“Aunt Margaret,” she said quietly, keeping her voice low. “How are you feeling this morning?”

Staring up at her niece with eyes that had whitened dramatically, Margaret seemed for a moment to not even know who she was seeing. Her hair was an unkempt mess of white now, and she'd lost so much weight that the doctor had become concerned; her skin was pale, but after a moment she managed a faint smile as she tried to sit up a little.

“Let me help you,” Sally said, moving around to the other side of the bed and taking Margaret by the arm, then gently easing her against the pillows. “There you go. Is that comfortable?”

“Quite,” Margaret gasped, already sounding more than a little out of breath. “Thank you. You don't have to...”

She hesitated, before shaking her head.

“You don't have to waste your time,” she continued. “You shouldn't be doing this.”

“Nonsense,” Sally replied, already heading back around to the other side. “Let's not have this conversation again, Aunt Margaret. I promised Uncle Peter that I'd always help out, and even if I hadn't made that promise, I'd still be here anyway. You know, after all the trouble I had with Mum and Dad when I was growing up, you became almost like...”

She hesitated, as if she was a little embarrassed by what she was about to say.

“Well, you know,” she added, forcing a smile. “I've come to stay with you, and I'm not leaving until you're up and about again.”

“I'm not sure that's going to happen,” Margaret told her.

“Of course it is,” Sally said firmly, “and -”

Before she could finish, they both heard a bumping sound coming from downstairs.

“What was that?” Margaret gasped.

“My clumsy excuse for a son,” Sally muttered, hurrying to the door and leaning out onto the landing. “Kerrigan, will you behave down there?”

“Sorry!” Kerrigan yelled from one of the downstairs rooms. “I didn't do anything wrong!”

“Oh, I'm sure you didn't,” Sally said sarcastically, as she headed back over to the bed.

“Who was it?” Margaret asked.

“Just Kerrigan. As he grows up he's becoming this... clumsy lump that just bangs into everything wherever he goes. Still, I shouldn't complain. He's fit and strong!”

“Who's Kerrigan?”

“Who -”

Sally hesitated, clearly concerned by the question.

“He's my son,” she explained, and now she had tears in her eyes. “You remember Kerrigan and Elly, don't you? They've been to visit you every summer since... Well, practically since they were born.”

Margaret stared up at her, before swallowing hard.

“Of course, I remember them well,” she said, a little unconvincingly, as she looked toward the door again. “I'm terribly sorry, it's just that for a moment I thought perhaps it was that bell ringing.”

“You always say that,” Sally pointed out, before taking a seat on the side of the bed. “Why is that, Aunt Margaret? I swear, over the past few years whenever you hear a noise that you weren't expecting, you worry whether it might be that bell ringing.” She paused, waiting for an answer. “I can ring it, if you want. Or I can get Josh to remove it entirely if it's bothering you.”

“No!” Margaret hissed.

“No to ringing it, or no to removing it?”

“Both!” Margaret said, staring at the open door again. “I need to know if it ever rings,” she continued. “You'll think I'm awfully foolish, but -”

“Is this about Uncle Peter?”

“Did I tell you about all of that?”

“The other day you told me that he promised to ring it if he could,” Sally reminded her. “Apparently he made some promise to let you know if he could come back from the dead. The whole scheme sounds so much like the sort of thing Uncle Peter would do, I can't even begin to pretend that I'm surprised.” She paused again, watching her aunt carefully and trying to work out whether she was fully aware of her surroundings. “You remember telling me about his plan, don't you? With the diving helmet and all that stuff? You told me on Sunday, I think it was, while we were having lunch. And to be honest I'd picked up on most of it when he died, because I really couldn't miss the fact that he was in that crazy outfit.”

“I remember,” Margaret said, nodding sagely. “So when you're downstairs, you don't ever hear the bell, do you?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“It's just that, sitting up here, I sometimes wonder whether it could ring and I'd miss it.”

“It doesn't ring, and there's nothing to miss.”

“That's good.”

“It is? Don't you want to hear from him?”

“I think that sort of knowledge is not meant for us,” Margaret replied firmly. “We have our lives here in this world, and that's what we should focus on.”

“There's some truth in that, to be sure,” Sally told her. “Onto more practical matters, are you aware that you have some birds living in the walls somewhere downstairs?”

“They've been there for a few years now,” Margaret said, unable to hide a smile. “I'm so glad to hear that they're still around. Undoubtedly Peter would have got rid of them.”

“You don't want me to ask Josh to fill the hole in?”

“Of course I don't,” Margaret said, scolding her gently. “Why would I ever want that? They're just birds, trying to get by in the world, doing what they can to survive. I'm sorry if the sound of them scratching about bothers you. I confess, I can't hear them from up here, but I so dearly like to know that they're still here. Ever since Peter died, I've become much more aware of the wonders of nature.” She looked toward the window and saw the tops of the trees swaying in a gentle breeze. “Poor Peter would say that I've gone soft in my old age, but I love to think that I might be able to help the creatures that...”

She hesitated, watching the trees, and after a moment she furrowed her brow a little.

“That will be here after I'm gone,” she added, with a hint of wonder in her voice. “Yes, they will, won't they? They'll be here long after I've been put in a box and buried in the ground, and they won't know who I was at all, but at least they'll have the benefit of the work I did in the garden.” She turned to Sally again. “People think I stopped mowing the lawn because I was too old, but in fact it was because I read that all the little insects prefer having long grass to crawl about in.”

“That's nice of you.”

“The world is utterly marvelous,” Margaret continued, “in every possible way, and I want to do my bit to help it stay that way, instead of... instead of fretting and fussing about what comes next, and coming up with all those schemes that Peter imagined. I don't think I'd want him to ring that bell, even if he could.”

“So you won't be ordering a diving helmet?”

“I will not,” Margaret said firmly, as she re-positioned herself a little in the bed and laid back deeper into the pillows. “I'm sorry, I don't think I'll be able to manage any breakfast today,” she continued. “I know you keep saying that I should eat, but I'm simply not hungry. Instead of letting that food go to waste, you should see if your son wants any. What's his name again?”

“Kerrigan,” Sally said cautiously, worried more than ever that her aunt was losing her memory.

“Yes, Kerrigan,” Margaret continued, looking up at the ceiling. “I think I just need to rest, that's all. Would you mind letting me do that?”

“Of course not,” Sally replied, getting to her feet and picking the tray up, before heading to the door. “I'll bring you some lunch later, though, and I really want you to try to eat some of it. You've got to keep your strength up, Aunt Margaret.”

“Oh, perhaps,” Margaret whispered, still watching the ceiling once Sally had left the room. After a moment she turned and looked out the window again, and in that instant she suddenly felt utterly at peace with the world as she spotted a bird – a sparrow, perhaps – flying past the house. “I think I shall just rest for a while,” she added, as her eyes slipped shut and she let out a long sigh. “Yes, that's right, just rest for... a little... while...”

VI

“Margaret was such a lovely woman,” Edith Oppenheimer said two weeks later, sitting on the sofa in the house's study with a cup of tea in her hands. “I for one shall miss her quick-witted comments and her ability to find the good in pretty much anyone.”

“It was only a few years ago that we were sitting here after Peter's funeral,” Gladys Surebolt pointed out, from her position on a chair next to the desk, “and now look at us, here for poor Margaret. I just hope that, wherever they are, they're together again.”

“Oh, I'm sure they are,” Edith replied. “There's no doubt in my mind about that. To be honest, I always thought that Margaret was never really the same after Peter passed away. I think she was ready to go in the end. They'd been married for so long that I'm sure she didn't actually know how to live without him.” She wiped a tear from the side of one eye. “That's so beautiful, if you think about it. I suppose it's one of the results of such a lengthy marriage.”

“I don't doubt for one second that you're right,” Gladys told her, before they both turned to look over at Margaret's niece Sally, who was sitting at the other end of the sofa. “Don't you agree?”

Although she vaguely heard the question, Sally hadn't really been listening to the conversation. In fact, since returning to the house after the funeral, she'd been in something of a trance, offering simple answer to direct questions but otherwise remaining very much in her own head. Now that she'd managed to find a few minutes to sit down, she realized that she couldn't stop staring at the bell out in the corridor, and deep down she knew that she was waiting to see whether it might ring.

“Sally?”

Finally managing to turn away from the bell, she looked to her left and saw that several of the guests were staring straight back at her. As much as she knew that she should be entertaining these people, she still felt her attention being drawn back toward the bell, and she had to really focus in an attempt to regather her thoughts. She was usually so good at playing the part of a hostess, but for once she felt as if her head was lost in the clouds.

“You remind me of your aunt in so many ways,” Edith said. “It's funny how traits are passed down in families, isn't it? Sometimes, Sally, you have this look about you that just screams Margaret at me. And if I might be so bold, I'd suggest that there seems to be more of her in you than there is of your own mother.”

“That's probably a good thing,” Gladys murmured.

“You're very kind,” Sally told Edith. “I always looked up to Margaret a great deal. As you all know, my home life wasn't great while I was growing up, so Margaret was...”

Her voice trailed off; she knew what she wanted to say, but she couldn't quite get the words out. After a moment, however, she realized that there was no point being embarrassed, and that Margaret's funeral might be the perfect place for a splash of honesty.

“She was like a mother to me,” she told them, “and Uncle Peter was like a father. They looked after me so well whenever I came to visit, and I really don't know where I'd be without them.” She smiled, and now more and more tears were gathering in her eyes. “I'm going to miss Margaret so much, just as I missed Uncle Peter after he died. But they lived long, happy lives, and I suppose that's the real lesson to take away from the whole thing. They were great people and I can only hope that my children and I live up to their legacy.”

***

“That's the car loaded up,” Josh said as he slammed the boot shut. “I think she'll just about manage to carry all this stuff home.”

Turning to Sally, he saw that she was standing in front of the house, staring at the front door. He opened his mouth to call out to her, but he knew that his wife was struggling with the thought that she might never see the place again. Sally had inherited the house from Margaret, but times were tough and Margaret had insisted that there should be no sentimentality; after some sleepless nights Sally had come around to the idea that the house needed to be sold, but that didn't mean that the decision had been easy, or that she wasn't prone to some pangs of regret.

Making his way over, Josh put an arm around her shoulder.

“This is what she would have wanted,” he told her. “Old Maggie was always one for looking ahead. Some new family will buy the place and fill it with life.”

“I know,” Sally replied, struggling to hold back tears. “Don't worry, I'm not going to change my mind.”

“We can't move out here to the middle of nowhere,” he continued. “It's not like we work from home, and as a butcher and chef I -”

“I said, I know!” she snapped, before catching herself. “I'm sorry, I'm just going to miss it, that's all. And I won't let it go to the first person who comes along, either. I'll only sell to someone with a family, to someone who's going to fill the house with all the noise and life it's used to.”

“That sounds like a great idea.”

He checked his watch.

“You know,” he added, “we probably should get going soon. I've got to be up early tomorrow, so I'd like to get home before midnight. You're okay doing the school run in the morning, right?”

“Get the kids,” she told him wearily. “I'll be over in a minute.”

Once Josh was gone, Sally stared at the house and said a silent goodbye. She had so many happy memories of the place, and she told herself that these memories were never going to go away; she had plenty of photos, too, and she consoled herself with the thought that such happy feelings could never die. She also knew that the house deserved a big, rambunctious family, and she loved the idea that the place might soon be able to breathe again; even Margaret, in her final days, had remarked upon the fact that the house had become rather still and quiet, and had insisted that it should be filled again with laughter and children.

In truth, this was a house that desperately needed to be lived in, and Sally hated the idea of it being left cold and empty for even one day. She knew the sales process wouldn't be quick or easy, but she'd been given the details of an estate agent in a nearby town and she figured that if all went well the house would have a new family by Christmas. And that, she figured, was the best possible outcome of all.

“Goodbye, Aunt Margaret,” she whispered now, even though she knew no-one could hear her. “Thank you for everything. I mean that. I'll never forget you, and I'll never stop being the woman you helped me to become.”

She hesitated for a moment longer, before turning and heading to the car. Josh had managed to corral Kerrigan and Elly into the back seats, where they were now bickering as usual. Climbing into the passenger seat, Sally knew that she had to put on a brave face for the children, and as Josh started the engine and began to ease the car along the driveway that led to the street, birds began to tweet in the trees all around. Although she knew that she shouldn't become too sentimental, Sally couldn't help but wonder whether those birds were in some way saying goodbye.

“So you're sure you don't want that bell?” Josh asked. “I told you, it'd be easy to take down. We could put it up at home as a memento.”

“No, it's fine,” she replied.

“Daddy,” Elly said in the back seat, “can you read to me when we get home?”

“I won't have time,” he told her.

“Okay,” she replied softly, her voice filled with a sense of disappointment.

“I actually had a little look at the bell earlier, while you were packing,” Josh explained as he stopped the car at the end of the driveway and waited for a gap in the traffic. “You were taking forever and... Well, the kids were outside and I was kind of kicking my heels downstairs for a while so I took a look at the bell that you and Margaret always seemed so interested in. I forget to tell you, but I found the weirdest thing.”

“Oh yes?” Sally replied. “What did you find?”

“Well, I don't know if you're aware, but there's a bird's nest in the wall, right behind the bell.”

“Yes, Aunt Margaret mentioned it.”

“There's also the remains of a string attached to the bell. It's not very long, but it runs right through the nest.”

“How lovely.”

“There are some baby birds in there now, as it happens.” He paused. “The funny part is, the way they move and the way the nest is set up, they keep pulling on that string.”

Sally turned to him.

The car's indicator was still flashing, but so far there was still no gap in the traffic. Josh was muttering away to himself, annoyed that none of the other cars seemed willing to stop and let him out.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“They've probably been doing it for a few years,” he told her. “The weird thing is, the way they pull on the string, they should have been ringing that bell fairly regularly.”

“The birds?”

He nodded.

“I'm not sure that I follow,” she told him.

“That bell should have rung several times since the nest was built. Maybe several times a night, even. But the more I looked at it, the more I just couldn't realize why that didn't happen.” He leaned forward to get a better view along the busy road. “I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but it's like there was some kind of invisible force holding the bell itself, holding it all the time day and night, making sure that it didn't ring. You know me, I'm very logical, but I couldn't work out what was stopping the bell from making a sound. There was no rust, no obvious damage, yet it was still silent. I just don't understand what force was keeping that bell silent.”

Looking in the rear-view mirror, Sally saw the house and found herself wondering exactly who or what had been responsible for the bell not ringing. Her uncle had promised to ring it, as a message for her aunt, yet had some other entity stopped that happening? Or, as she realized after a moment, had her uncle himself changed his mind after dying, preferring to hold the bell still for years and years so that the nesting birds didn't set it off and give Margaret any ideas? Had he heard her talking about her preference for this world and – as a result – decided to not spoil the end of her life by hinting at something else?

“The world is utterly marvelous,” she remembered her aunt saying once, “in every possible way, and I want to do my bit to help it stay that way, instead of... instead of fretting and fussing about what comes next, and coming up with all those schemes that Peter imagined. I don't think I'd want him to ring that bell, even if he could.”

A shiver passed through her chest. She still didn't entirely understand what had happened, but she felt as if all the pieces would fit together if she just thought about them for a little while longer.

“Last chance,” Josh said, as a gap appeared in the traffic. “Are you sure you don't want to take the bell with us?”

“No,” she replied, and the house disappeared from view as her husband eased the car onto the main road. “Definitely not. Let's just let it be.”

***

In the house, three sparrow chicks waited in the nest for their next meal. Constantly bumping against one another, they occasionally pushed against a length of string that ran past one end of the nest.

Out in the corridor, the bell shuddered slightly, but an invisible force continued to hold the metal as still as possible. After a few seconds, however, the force faded to nothing, and a moment later the chicks shifted again and the bell rang out, loud enough to be heard even as far away as the master bedroom upstairs.

Eleanor

I

2020...

“And these!” Chloe said excitedly, hurrying ahead along the path and then stopping to examine a bush growing over a nearby fence. “See these berries? You can eat these too!”

“I'm not eating random red berries from the side of the road,” Eleanor replied, sounding as if she was struggling to humor her friend as she slowly caught up. “Next you'll be telling me you've found some mushrooms I should try.”

“There are actually -”

“I get it,” Eleanor continued, cutting her off this time. She checked her watch and began to wonder whether she might head home a little early. “This has been a great afternoon, and I'm really grateful to you for giving me this impromptu guide to foraging in the suburbs, but I really don't remember anything you've told me.”

“I know my stuff,” Chloe told her, before taking one of the berries in her hand and popping it into her mouth. “See?”

“Is that a good idea?” Eleanor sighed.

“The supermarkets want you to believe that food isn't in plentiful supply all around us,” Chloe continued, as the pair of them set off again along the pavement, “but do you know the truth? Anyone can grow food just about anywhere, you just need to have a little imagination.”

“If you say so.”

“You don't believe me?”

“I believe you, but I'm tired.”

Stopping at the corner, Eleanor turned to her friend and tried to think of some way she could sympathetically say goodbye. Having spent all afternoon with Chloe, traipsing from one store to another with only short breaks at coffee shops inbetween, she was now starting to tire rapidly, and she worried she might lose her temper and say something unforgivably sarcastic. Chloe was a good friend, but her seemingly ever-ending excitement over every little thing could be more than a little wearying.

“I'm going to head home, Chloe,” she said finally. “Is that alright with you?”

“You don't want me to show you some bugs that are perfectly fine to eat?”

“No,” Eleanor said with a tired smile, while shaking her head, “I don't want you to show me some bugs that are perfectly find to eat. That's a disgusting idea.”

“Boring,” Chloe muttered, before stepping closer and holding up her right fist. “You know we're all worried about you, right? But I know you hate feeling suffocated, so I'm going to give you a load of space. Just... tell me you're okay, Eleanor. I mean, you can't be okay, not after what happened, but I really worry that you're trying to internalize all your feelings too much. Especially on your twenty-second birthday.”

“I'm more than okay,” she said firmly. “I've got it all sorted. Don't I seem like that?”

“The crazy thing is, you kind of do,” Chloe admitted. “Alright, whatever. You know where I am if you ever need to talk. See you later, you dumb bitch.”

“Right back at you,” Eleanor replied, raising her own right fist and briefly bumping it several times, just about complying with the rules of the secret greeting she and Chloe had devised years ago. “Sorry to be a drag today, but I'm just not quite feeling like myself.” She glanced around, watching the empty streets but spotting only one vehicle – a dark van – parked nearby. “You know I get like this sometimes,” she added, turning to Chloe again. “It's pretty much my only character flaw.”

“Whatever,” Chloe chuckled, taking a step back before turning and marching away, while raising a middle finger for her friend to see. “Don't leave it too long to call me, though!” she called back airily. “I'm a popular girl! I might make a billion new best friends by Monday!”

“Yeah, right,” Eleanor said under her breath, watching Chloe walk away before heading off in the other direction. “You'll be the one calling me first.”

After a few steps, she noticed the dark van again. There was nothing wrong with a dark van, of course, but the sight of the thing still made her feel a little nervous; she'd heard all the horror stories about women getting kidnapped on the street in broad daylight, and although she felt she was far away from any kind of danger zone, she still couldn't help but feel unnerved as she saw that the van's windows were tinted. Still, she hated the idea that she could be made to feel unsafe on the streets of her own hometown, so she forced herself to keep walking at her usual pace even as she reached the van and headed straight past.

As soon as she'd cleared the van, she breathed a sigh of relief and marveled at how easily she'd been spooked. Making a mental note to not read so many social media scare stories, she rounded the next corner and continued on her way home, only to feel after a few steps as if she was being watched.

Slowing her pace a little, she glanced at the beautiful, manicured homes on either side of the street. This was one of the town's fancier neighborhoods, certainly fancier than the part of the town where her parents had been able – just about – to afford a property. These houses were easily worth a million each, if not more, and Eleanor couldn't help but imagine some spoiled little frat boy glancing out the window and scrunching his nose up at the mere sight of an 'intruder'. She glanced at the various windows, fully expecting to see someone staring out at her, but so far there was no sign of anyone. And then, glancing over her shoulder, she was shocked to see that the dark van was now crawling along the street just a few meters behind.

“Damn it,” she muttered, quickening her pace a little while telling herself that there was still no need to panic. “What the hell?”

As she hurried along the street, she began to notice that this neighborhood was really quiet; sure, there were cars parked in most of the driveways, but otherwise there were very few signs of life. She could see – and hear – a sprinkler watering a nearby garden, yet that was really the only disturbance on a generally very calm day. She looked over her shoulder again and saw that the van was still a fair way behind, and then she looked ahead and realized that she needed to take the next turn. There'd be time to feel foolish later, but right now she just wanted to prove to herself that she wasn't being followed at all.

A moment later she headed left along another street, and then she stopped and looked back, just in time to see the dark van gliding past and ignoring the turn. To her relief, she watched as the van disappeared behind the next line of houses, and then she let out a sigh of relief.

“Moron,” she told herself, as she crossed the road and headed toward the next corner, reasoning that she just needed to get home now. “Get a grip.”

Unable to help herself, she looked over her shoulder yet again, but the van hadn't doubled back to continue its pursuit. With each step she felt more and more certain that she'd panicked for no reason, although she had to admit that the van had been slightly creepy. And then, as she rounded the next corner, she stopped in her tracks as soon as she saw the same van parked facing her, at the far end of the street.

“You've got to be kidding me,” she muttered, rolling her eyes.

For a moment, she considered just setting off again. After all, she'd walked past the van one time already and nothing bad had happened, so she technically had no reason to worry. At the same time, something about the van's tinted windows made her feel that she was being confronted, and that there was no way the driver didn't know exactly what he was doing. She imagined some overweight, sweaty guy sitting hyperventilating in the driver's seat, probably with one hand down the front of his pants as he watched her; she thought of the sweat running down his forehead and the panting sound of his breath, and she wondered whether she should just go over there and bang on the window, and tell the pervert to keep his disgusting fantasies to himself.

Next to her, some red berries glistened on a branch, waving slightly in the breeze.

“Screw you,” she said under her breath, watching the van as she resolved to simply find a different route home. “Why don't you go straight to -”

Suddenly a hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back, while a second hand slammed a wet flannel over her mouth and nose. Startled, Eleanor tried to pull away, but her nostrils were burning and she could already feel herself starting to weaken. She tried to scream but managed only a muffled cry, and now her eyes slipped shut and her knees buckled and she felt herself sliding down before someone managed to catch her. Even as she tried again to cry out, she realized that she was being picked up and carried. She tried with every last ounce of strength to fight back, to call for help, to do all the things she always screamed at kidnapped women to do in films, but after a few seconds she realized that she was already losing consciousness.

The last thing she heard – before she passed out entirely – was the sound of a van door sliding open.

II

The next thing she heard was classical music.

Stirred from what felt like a complete absence of being, Eleanor opened her eyes and blinked a few times. At first she thought she might be blind, but after a few seconds her vision cleared a little and she realized she could just about make out some dark tiles on what appeared to be a ceiling. This visual clue helped her to figure out the next part of the puzzle, which was that she was in fact flat on her back. There was something else, though, something she knew she was about to comprehend, and finally she noticed that cold, heavy metal was pressing against various parts of her body, which could only mean one thing.

She was chained down, held flat against some kind of table.

As soon as she tried to sit up, she felt the chains holding her in place. She instinctively struggled, before stopping as she realized that the chains were pressing not against the fabric of her clothes but against her naked body. She just about managed to look down – despite the chain around her neck – and saw her own bare breasts rising up from between two chains. She could feel her heart pounding now, but she managed to crane her neck just a little more, until she spotted a tuft of pubic hair and a pair of feet a little further off. When she tensed again against the chains, she realized that she could feel scores of them criss-crossing her entire body, holding her down tight against what felt increasingly like some kind of metal surface.

“Help!” she shouted, before she even had a chance to question whether this was a good idea. “Somebody help me!”

She waited, but all she heard in response was the continued sound of classical music in some far-off room. Her first thought was that this represented a sign of life, a possible way out, and that she merely needed to make sure that this person heard her cries; after a fraction of a second, however, she realized that the opposite was likely true: the music was being played by her kidnapper, by whoever had knocked her unconscious on the street and dragged her away. In that case, she immediately began to worry that by shouting she'd merely let him know that she was awake, and that this had perhaps been a mistake. After all, could she not have used that fact to her advantage and tried to get the jump on him?

A moment later the music switched off, and she immediately knew that he must have heard her voice.

Pulling on the chains again, she found that they seemed tighter than ever. She knew she could never hope to break free from solid metal chains, of course, but she still tried frantically in case she might be able to uncover some loose link somewhere, some little fault or mistake. She soon realized, however, that she was succeeding only in making the chains rattle against the metal table, in which case she knew she was merely once again advertising the fact that she was wide awake.

“Help!” she shouted again, unable to stop herself, convinced that perhaps someone else might hear her and rush to her aid. “Somebody help me! I'm in some kind of room and -”

In that instant, she heard the sound of a door clicking open, followed by the familiar creak of rusty hinges. A moment later a third noise followed, as the door handle bumped against a bare wooden wall.

Turning her head, Eleanor tried to spot whoever had arrived, but she found that – by accident or design – she was held down in such a way as to keep her from looking at the doorway. Somehow this realization filled her with an even greater sense of panic, and she knew now that someone was watching her as she continued to struggle. She hated giving him that satisfaction, but she also felt that she couldn't simply wait patiently like a good little kidnapping victim to see what this monster might do next.

“Hello?” she said after a moment. “Can you talk to me? Can you say something?”

No reply.

“If we talk, we can try to figure this all out,” she continued. “Doesn't that sound like a good idea? I'm sure there's just been some kind of misunderstanding, and it'll all be okay if we just talk about it like two normal people.”

She waited, and after a few more seconds she heard footsteps entering the room. She turned both ways in an attempt to see the figure, but she quickly realized that he seemed to be keeping to the very edge of the room, almost as if he knew exactly where to step in order to avoid being seen. Filled with fear, Eleanor pulled once again on the chains; her mind knew that she couldn't possibly hope to break free, yet her body seemed to be acting almost separately, as if it was filled with a primal need to use strength alone. Either that, or her body had given up and knew that there was no way she could talk herself out of such a terrible mess.

“Who are you?” she asked, and she was shocked to hear the sense of panic in her own trembling voice. “What do you want from me?”

As she listened for a reply, she heard a series of low bumping sounds, accompanied by a few brief scrapes. She couldn't be sure, of course, but she was starting to think that this person was slowly looking through some kind of box of tools. In her mind's eye, she was already imagining drills and hacksaws and all sorts of horrific implements designed to cut her body into pieces.

“I'll do anything you want!” she sobbed, as tears filled her eyes. “There has to be something, right? Just tell me what you want and I'll give it to you, you don't have to hurt me!”

A moment later she heard the telltale sound of two blades slicing together.

“I haven't done anything wrong!” she shouted, as she once again pulled on the chains. “What have I ever done to you? Who are you? Do you even know me? If you knew me, you'd know that I don't deserve any of this!”

She pulled again on the chains, but she was succeeding only in hurting herself.

“My parents died!” she continued. “Did you know that? They died recently, just last year, and I'm still getting over it! Please, I'm really not a bad person, there are so many other people you could be doing this to! And I have money! Not a lot, but I'll give you all of it if you just agree to let me go! And then I won't ever tell anyone what happened, I swear!”

She knew she sounded desperate, and she also knew that a psychotic murderer wasn't likely to take some kind of deal, but she figured that she had to try everything in her power.

“Please don't hurt me,” she whimpered, as she heard footsteps making their way toward her, ringing out in the air all around. “I don't want to die! Please, you have to believe me, I'm just an innocent girl and my parents died not long ago and I'm still mourning them and I really swear I've never done anything to deserve anything like this or -”

As soon as she saw a face leaning over her, she froze mid-sentence, staring up in shock at a middle-aged man whose eyes were cold like slate gray. He was a little overweight, but not too much, and any double chin was clearly exacerbated by the fact that she was looking up at him from such a low angle. She tilted her head, trying to get a better view of his features, and she shocked herself by noticing that he had kind eyes.

Kind eyes?

How, she asked herself, could someone doing something so awful have kind eyes?

“Please don't kill me,” she stammered again. “Do you have kids? Do you have a daughter? How would you feel if your own daughter was taken like this? Please, I'll do anything you want, but I don't want to die!”

She waited for an answer, but his countenance remained completely blank, almost as if he hadn't heard anything she'd said to him. She kept watching his eyes, hoping to figure out something that she could use to make him come around, but he seemed almost entirely emotionless. A moment later he raised his right hand and she saw to her horror that he was holding a large, rusty old hammer.

“No!” she sobbed, as he raised the hammer a little higher, ready to bring it crashing down against her body. “Please! You can't do this to me! You have to let me go! You have to -”

Before she could finish, he moved the hammer down against her bare left shoulder and she screamed.

III

“What the hell are you doing?” Eleanor snapped a few minutes later, tensing as she felt the hammer's head bumping gently against her chest. “Why are you doing this to me?”

She'd asked several times already, of course, but so far the man had said nothing. Instead, having shown her the hammer at the start, he'd taken to simply tapping her body all over, hitting her with just enough force for the sensation to feel uncomfortable. She'd expected him to rain blows down upon her, for him to start breaking her bones and tearing her skin, but instead he seemed entirely focused on the task of simply battering her body rather gently while slowly making his way around the table. So far, while the overall result had been a strange kind of soreness, Eleanor had to admit that the man hadn't truly hurt her.

Not yet.

“What are you doing?” she asked yet again, as the man moved the hammer onto her left breast and continued his slow progress. “Are you insane?”

She flinched as she felt the hammer's rippled head bumping multiple times against her nipple.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, raising her voice a little this time. “I don't get any of this! What are you doing to me?”

“Please,” he replied, finally breaking his silence, “there's really no need for you to shout. You're just wasting precious energy.”

“Are you kidding me?” she snarled, wriggling once more against the chains. “Who are you?”

“That's good,” he continued. “I was hoping you'd do that.”

“Do what?”

“Wriggle like that. You've done half my work for me, in fact. Those chains are really working to tenderize your body, although I'm starting to think that I should have added a few more. Really, all that's left for me right now is to work on a few of the spots that you've missed.”

“Spots I've missed?” she asked incredulously. “How about you come clean and tell me exactly what this is all about, huh? Why are you going around and tapping me lightly with a hammer?”

“It's not a hammer,” he replied, before stepping back past the end of the table until he was able to look back down into her eyes. A moment later he held the hammer up and turned it around, so that she could see the multiple rippled sections on the head. “Don't tell me that you haven't seen one of these before.”

“What is it?”

“You poor thing,” he sighed. “Aren't you aware that a proper cut of meat has to be prepared? If you were going to cook a steak, for example, would you not want to make sure that the meat is tender first? All those beautiful fibers won't soften themselves, will they?”

He tapped at her shoulder again.

“Stop that!” she shouted angrily.

“As I said, the process is almost complete.” He pulled for a moment on the chain that ran across her chest. “Truly, you've done most of the work yourself, tenderizing yourself as you try to break free.”

“Why do you keep talking like that?” she asked through gritted teeth. “Are you completely out of your mind?”

“Does it hurt?”

“That's not the point!”

“It must hurt a little bit, but I imagine pure adrenaline is keeping you from registering the fact. Not that the adrenaline will last forever, of course, but I hope that at least for now you're grateful.” He reached over and pulled on one one of the chains that ran over her upper leg and down between her thighs. “You don't think that I'd waste an opportunity like this, do you?” he continued. “I've been planning a day like this for so long, I've been reading up on all the proper techniques. I have to remain vigilant, of course, but I genuinely believe that I'm ready.”

He took a step back and made a point of looking all over her body.

“And I believe that you are, too,” he added with a vague hint of a smile. “This stage, at least, is complete. Even if I say so myself, you'd been tenderized to the point of absolute perfection. We can move to the second of our three stages.”

“Why don't you call someone?” she asked, trying to reason with him. “Just call anyone who might be able to talk you out of this before you do something you'll regret. There's still time to turn back, and I'll even tell them that you changed your mind at the very last second. You know you can do that, right?”

Instead of replying, he muttered something under his breath before turning and walking out of view. Eleanor craned her neck in an attempt to follow him, but the chains were too tight.

“Come back!” she shouted as she heard him rooting around again nearby. “Talk to me! Tell me what this is all about and why you're doing it!”

“One moment,” he replied calmly.

“I want to know what this is all about!” she yelled. “You're not making any sense!”

“Really?”

She heard a grinding sound, as if the man was dragging something closer, before finally he stopped and once again looked down into her eyes.

“On the contrary,” he continued, “I feel that I have been remarkably clear. In fact, I'm struggling to understand exactly where any confusion might have crept in.”

“What are you doing to me?” she asked as he turned and fiddled with something nearby. Straining, she was just about able to make out what appeared to be a large metal drum. “What -”

Before she could finish, she felt his cold hands against the bare skin of her belly, seemingly wiping some kind of thick, oily substance onto her skin. She waited, convinced that she had to be mistaken, but after a few more seconds a strangely familiar smell began to fill her nostrils; she recognized this particular smell from her younger days working as a porter in a local kitchen, but for a few more seconds she was completely unable to believe what seemed to be happening until finally two words slipped from her lips.

“Olive oil?”

“Extra virgin,” the man replied, as she felt his hands moving up to start rubbing oil across her breasts. “Only the best, of course. I've tested quite a few varieties.”

“Why are you rubbing olive oil all over me?” she stammered, although deep down she could feel a growing sense of terror. “Talk to me! Why are you doing this?”

“I need to get into every crevice,” he explained, taking great care to get oil under her breasts, then moving his hands up toward her collarbone while making sure to slip his fingers beneath the chains. “You know, I can feel that you're looser and more tender already. I didn't expect the difference to be so great, but it's actually rather remarkable. Can you feel it too?”

He pushed gently on the base of her neck.

“How about there?” he asked. “Do you feel any difference?”

“What are you going to do to me?” she replied, her voice rigid with fear as she realized that she already had a disturbing suspicion.

“There's no -”

“Tell me!” she snapped. “Why have you kidnapped me? What do you want from me?”

“I don't want anything from you, so to speak,” he replied, maintaining the same infuriating sense of calm that he'd demonstrated since the moment he'd first opened his mouth. He started rubbing more olive oil onto her skin, this time covering her arms before moving down and starting work on her waist. “There's really nothing that you need to contribute to this arrangement other than your presence and -”

Stopping suddenly, he seemed momentarily distracted.

“Silly me,” he murmured, “I seem to have made a small error in the order of these proceedings. I do hope that you'll forgive me.”

“What are you talking about?” she asked as she wriggled once more against the chains.

“It'll just take a few minutes to fix,” he continued, heading back over to some table that remained out of her field of vision. “Fortunately I realized my error just in time.”

“Why can't you just give me a straight answer?” she snapped.

“I think I've been very straight with you,” he replied as he made his way back over and held up some kind of electric trimmer. “I've answered all your questions. If you're dissatisfied with my responses, you might want to rethink your questions. Or you might want to think long and hard about whether you're simply denying the obvious.” He switched the trimmer on. “I think you know exactly what I'm going to do with you.”

Leaning down, he began to shave her head, moving the trimmer carefully but firmly.

“Stop it!” she screamed as her hair began to fall away, landing in big clumps on the side of the metal table. “What are you doing?”

“Don't be so silly,” he purred as he moved the trimmer up onto the top of her head. “I simply must shave you as part of your preparation for the oven.”

IV

“Help me!” she screamed, sobbing as she tilted her head back and squeezed her eyes tight shut. She told herself that wherever she was, there had to be someone nearby who'd be able to hear her. “Somebody help -”

Suddenly her scream became louder and more pained, and her whole body shuddered as she felt the man pulling the last wax strip from between her legs. She shook violently as she felt the pain darting through her body, and then – as fresh tears ran from her eyes – she heard footsteps moving back around the table.

Opening her eyes, she saw that he was working with the metal drum again.

“You can't do this,” she told him.

“I'm sorry?”

“You can't kill me,” she continued. “Please, just think for a moment about what you're doing. You're not a murderer.”

“I've thought about it a great deal,” he explained as he began to apply oil onto and up inside her crotch, working smoothly and not too hard. “Do you honestly believe that I haven't planned every aspect of this recipe for years and years?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I'm a chef. I've spent my entire life creating culinary masterpieces for some of the richest, highest-paying clients in the world.” He took a moment to push his fingers deeper inside her, before slipping them out so that he could apply more oil. “It's only natural that there should be some progression in my work, that I should refuse to stand still and let my skills decline. And if you ask me, for any chef in this position, there is really only one endpoint. One final dish. One glorious production.” He paused. “Even if this particular recipe,” he added, “is something of a taboo.”

Reaching back down, he pushed a hand between her buttocks and began to push oil as deep as possible. As he worked, he caused a squelching sound to emerge from the folds of her body, and now he seemed just a little rougher. With each thrust of his fingers, he caused her body to jolt as she sobbed.

“I don't want to be cooked,” she whimpered. “I don't want to be eaten.”

“All life is about creation and consumption,” he told her. “Everyone gets eaten eventually, even if it's by the worms that find their way into your grave.”

“You're lying,” she cried, barely able to see as olive oil mixed with the tears in her eyes, almost blinding her. The stench of oil was overwhelming; she could even taste some of it as it seeped into her mouth. “This is some kind of sick joke. You're not going to eat me. No-one's that disgusting.”

“Of course I'm not disgusting,” he said, and now he seemed to bristle slightly. “Who suggested such a thing? I'm not dirty, and I don't cut corners. You're going to be cooked to absolute perfection. Your meat will be succulent, the taste will be divine, and not even the tiniest scrap of your body will go to waste. Please, I understand that you might not be entirely happy with the situation right now, but I would ask you to at least refrain from making any frivolous and unfounded accusations.”

He wiped some more oil deeper into the gap between her buttocks, briefly dipping his fingertips inside her again. He was tough yet delicate, sliding his fingers deeper while taking great care to not miss a spot. Clearly he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Disgusting, indeed,” he continued, as if he still couldn't believe what she'd said. “Some people really need to think a little more carefully before they open their mouths.”

Still sobbing, she felt her waist shaking as the chef continued his work. He was moving down the inside of her thighs now, working quickly but making sure to reach behind the chains so that he could cover every inch of her body with oil. After just a few more seconds, he began to massage the oil into the gaps between her toes.

“Yes,” he purred, “I must get into every nook and cranny. Every crevice.”

“Somebody help me!” Eleanor cried, her voice filled now with absolute despair. “Anybody! He's trying to kill me!” She began to sob again, her body convulsing with great heaving shocks as she briefly lost any sense of hope. “Help!” she screamed yet again, just in case this time something might be different. “Get me out of here!”

“That's good,” the chef said, checking under her legs for any bare patches before stepping back around the table and looking down at her face. “You're keeping yourself supple. Thank you for being so cooperative.”

“Go to Hell!” she shouted, spitting at him and hitting him right in the eye.

“Thank you again,” he muttered, clearly annoyed as he took a towel from the side and wiped his eye clean. “Then again, I suppose your reaction isn't so surprising.” He leaned over her. “You're not -”

“Leave me alone!” she hissed, before spitting again.

This time he managed to move aside just in time, and he let out a sigh before stepping out of sight.

“Once was understandable,” he said, as she heard him rooting around again, “but twice is starting to make you seem like a rather disagreeable young lady. There's no need to completely lose your dignity.”

“Help me,” she whimpered, looking up at the ceiling now as she realized that there was only one thing left to try. “God, I know I've never really been to church much, and I haven't lived a perfect life or anything like that, but I swear I'll become a nun or whatever you want if you just get me out of here.”

“No god will help you,” the chef replied from nearby.

“You can't let something like this happen,” she continued as tears rolled from her eyes and ran down either side of her face. “It's not right. It's not fair. You can't let bad people do things like this to good people, can you? Why would you allow it?”

She waited, hoping for a miracle, but a moment later the chef stepped back into view. He held up a small knife for her to see, and the tip glinted briefly under the lights.

“Are you going to kill me now?” she stammered.

“Kill you?” He seemed momentarily puzzled by the question. “Oh, no, of course not. That would defeat the whole purpose of today's grand event. There's nothing quite like cooking meat while it's still alive. You'll be going into the oven much as you are right now, I just need to get on with -”

“You sick bastard!” she snarled, clenching her fists.

“You know, you could try to embrace the process.”

“What kind of pervert does something like this?” she asked. “What kind of freak would even come up with something so horrific? Don't you have any children of your own? What would they say if they could see you now?”

He opened his mouth to reply, but at the last second he hesitated, almost as if her words had somehow begun to get through to him.

“You have a daughter, don't you?” she continued, realizing that she might be on the right track. “Is she like me? I bet she's at least a little like me. How would she react if she saw you right now? Can you really look her in the eye after doing all this?”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he replied, but now his earlier confidence had faded slightly.

“She'd hate you,” she told him. “She will hate you, because it's all going to come out. You won't get away with this. Your only chance, to not have her hate you forever, is to stop before you go any further. And you can still do that, you know.” She waited, and for the first time she felt as if she was making progress. “Just let me go,” she cried, as fresh tears ran from her eyes. “You know it's the right thing to do.”

Again she waited, watching his face for some hint that she was winning him over.

“Seasoning,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“I need to get on with the seasoning.”

Still seeming a little flustered, he set the knife down before picking up a small pot, and then he began to rub something harsh and sharp all over her belly and chest.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I'm seasoning you,” he explained, although now his voice was trembling a little and he seemed unable to look her directly in the eye. “Salt and pepper. Come on, you must understand what seasoning is.”

“Your daughter -”

“My daughter will be just fine,” he replied, cutting her off. He was working faster now, as if he was in more of a hurry, as he rubbed seasoning beneath the folds of her breasts. After leaving too much, he had to wipe a little away, smearing the tiny salt crystal fragments in the oil. “You really don't have a clue what you're talking about, and that's more evident every time you open your mouth. Believe me, I could make this much worse for you if I wanted to, so you might consider being a little more tactful.”

“Your daughter won't -”

“Enough!” he roared, followed by the sound of glass smashing. He looked down, and then he shook his head before spreading the salt and pepper across her shoulder. “Now you've made me drop something,” he said, moving his hands down between her legs. “Fortunately it's not a disaster.”

“You're not -”

She flinched as she felt the tiny granules pressing into her body.

“You're not a good father if you do this,” she told him. “I can tell that you have a daughter out there somewhere. My father died recently, along with my mother. I miss him so much, but if he'd ever done anything like this to someone, I'd never have been able to forgive him. Not ever.”

“Then it's fortunate,” he replied tersely, “that you and my daughter are nothing alike, and that she'll never know what happened here today.”

“Why not? Because it's your dirty little secret? Where's the fun in that?”

“Where was I?” he murmured, before picking up the knife again. “Ah, right. Back on track. I like to keep my seasoning simple, but there's just one more little thing I want to do to you before your date with the oven.”

“You're disgusting,” she replied.

“This, I'm afraid, is going to hurt a little more.”

He leaned down and pressed the blade's tip against the side of her breast, and then he hesitated for a moment before making a small incision. Only about one inch long, the incision nevertheless immediately began to bleed.

“What are you doing?” Eleanor sobbed.

“I want you to be perfect when you roast,” he told her, before cutting her again, just a little further down from the first spot.

“Stop!” she screamed, flinching against the pain.

“This will take even longer if you resist,” he continued, as he searched for the next spot and then placed his blade against the side of her belly. “Please, try to cooperate. If you do, this part can all be over in a matter of minutes.”

He cut again, a little deeper this time, and Eleanor screamed louder than ever before.

V

Twenty minutes later, Eleanor lay flat on her back, staring silently up at the ceiling. The pain had become so strong, so overwhelming, that at some point she'd somehow began to block it from her mind. Technically she could still feel it, stinging wildly all over her body, but she told herself that she wouldn't have to scream if she could just stay focused on the crack in one of the ceiling tiles.

“There,” the chef said, with a hint of satisfaction in his voice as he took a step back. “Isn't that wonderful?”

From head to toe, Eleanor was now covered in about a hundred small cuts, and into each of those cuts the chef had pushed both a peeled garlic clove and a sprig of rosemary. The garlic cloves had pushed the cuts open, letting out blood that the chef had mostly wiped away, while the sprigs of rosemary – with their sharp little tips – stood out from each cut like a tiny branch. Eleanor's completely hairless body was shaking with the effort required to hold back another scream, causing each rosemary sprig to quiver slightly in the air.

“You're ready,” the chef continued softly. “I really do think that this is a masterpiece beyond any masterpiece that I've ever created before. I'd almost...”

He paused, before shaking his head.

“I'd almost like to show you off,” he added, “but obviously that's not really an option. I do feel that it's a shame to have such a work hidden away, but that's not my choice, is it? It's not like I can invite any of my colleagues to come and take a look at you, to watch as you're slid into the oven or to help carve you up when you're done. To taste you. To consume you.”

Another pause, before he stepped past the table and opened a nearby door. Still staring up at the crack, Eleanor was trying desperately to ignore reality, to pretend that she was somewhere else entirely in some completely safe place where none of the pain could get to her. She'd been trying to imagine a beautiful sandy beach, but that hadn't quite done the job so she'd switched to the family home from her childhood; this time she was almost able to slip away to some far-off world, but the stinging pain all over her body was anchoring her in reality with just enough force. She felt as if she was suspended between two very different realities.

“Please,” she whispered now, keeping her voice so low that she barely made a sound, “I just want it to end.”

She felt the table starting to move, and she was dimly aware now that it was on wheels, and that the chef was pulling her through to another room. The table bumped against the floor's rough tiles, but Eleanor tried once again to only think about happy things; she remembered visits to her grandfather's farm, and all the time she'd spent helping her father out with jobs on the land. She tried to focus on those perfect moments with her father, and on the times he used to gather up all the vegetables he needed from the garden and carry them into the kitchen.

“Do you want to help?” he often asked.

She always followed his instructions perfectly, and those days – long ago now, lost in the mists of time before the horrific car crash that had claimed both her parents – had been the happiest of her life. Even now, as the trolley's wheels shuddered on the uneven floor of the corridor that led into the kitchen, she found that she was able to lose herself in old memories. As the trolley was turned to go through a set of double doors, and as the garlic gloves studded all over her body mixed with her blood, she just about managed to think exclusively about the past. Finally, somehow, she was even able to remember the wonderful aromas that had filled her father's kitchen.

“Now,” he'd told her several times, “can you imagine how good this is going to taste?”

A fresh tear fell from her right eye, but this time the tear was one of happiness rather than horror. She was fully immersed in the days of her childhood, successfully losing herself in a simpler time before the kidnapping and before the police had knocked on the front door to tell her about the accident. She felt she could almost reach out and touch her father's hand, as if she was so very close to him, and after a few seconds a smile began to spread across her lips. Despite everything that had been done to her body, she found herself slipping away back into her childhood. Sure, her father had cared more for the meat on his counter than for his own children, but none of that pain and hurt mattered now.

Suddenly a loud metal clanging sound rang out as the chef opened the door of the industrial oven.

Feeling a blast of heat against the top of her head, Eleanor blinked and saw the kitchen's ceiling. She immediately tried to go back to her memories, but something was wrong this time and she felt a surge of panic rippling through her body.

“No,” she whispered, determined to stay in the past, “it was working. I don't want to be here.”

“The time has come,” the chef said, leaning over her to look into her eyes. “The oven is up to temperature and you're all prepared. There's no reason to delay any further.”

Craning her neck, she looked across the room and saw the flames of the oven. A tray had been pulled out, ready for the metal table to be loaded into place, and she understood that this tray would then be slid into the flames. In her mind's eye, she imagined herself roasting alive; she thought of her skin bubbling and charring, of her eyeballs perhaps melting in their sockets, of all her juices running down into the roasting tin. For a few seconds this image felt so very real, as if she could see a few seconds into the future. She told herself that the pain would be brief, but deep down she knew that this might not be true. She would be meat, roasting and spitting after expert preparation.

Closing her eyes, she tried to ignore the strange man and his oven, and to focus instead on the old days.

“Here we go, then,” the chef said, taking hold of the top of the table, turning it around and then starting to push it toward the oven. “Feet first, just as the recipe specifies.”

With her eyes still clamped tight shut, Eleanor felt the heat against her toes as the table clicked into place and began to slide onto the tray. Her feet instinctively clenched as she waited to feel the flames burning the oil on her body, but as she tilted her head to one side she realized she could once again smell the aromas of her father's kitchen, of the meat roasting in his oven, of the cuts being placed on plates. More and more tears were filling her eyes, and after a moment she opened them again and let out a gasp as she saw that kitchen again. Her father was standing at the sink, and although the scene seemed slightly blurred, Eleanor finally realized that in her last moments she was being transported back to that moment of absolute pure joy.

“Hey,” her father said, turning to her with a smile, “what do you want to help with?”

“Anything,” she whispered, and she was simply happy that he'd included her.

“Anything, huh?” he replied, clearly amused by her response. “Well, how about -”

“I can't do it!”

Suddenly Eleanor felt the table judder under her body. Blinking, she found herself back in the kitchen as the chef began to pull the tray away from the oven door. Looking down at her feet, she saw that although they felt a little burned, they weren't even slightly charred. A moment later the chef slammed the oven door shut and turned the dial to switch the flames off, and then he stepped back with a horrified expression on his face.

“I'm sorry,” he blurted out, before rushing toward the table and starting to pull the chains aside, “I tried but I just can't! I can't do it, there's no way! It's too horrible!”

He fumbled with the chains as he frantically pulled them off Eleanor's body, and then he stumbled back against the metal doors of the refrigerator before sliding down as he began to sob wildly.

“I can't do it!” he cried yet again, putting his hands over his face. “You can't make me! I'm so sorry, I thought I could, but I can't!”

Eleanor stared up at the ceiling for a few more seconds, spotting another crack, before slowly sitting up. The chains fell down from across her bare chest, and she sat completely still before slowly turning to look at the weeping chef.

“I can't!” he whimpered, slamming his fists against the floor. “I tried my best but I just can't!”

“You can't?” Eleanor stammered, staring at him for a moment before furrowing her brow. “You idiot! What do you mean, you can't?”

VI

After swinging her legs over the side of the trolley, Eleanor slid off and stood towering over the weeping chef. She stared at him, her expression filled with a growing sense of pure and absolute disgust.

“I asked you a question,” she sneered. “What do you mean, you can't do it?”

She waited for an answer, but the chef now seemed almost to be melting away as tears flowed freely from his eyes. He cut an abject figure now, with all the determination and certainty of earlier having faded to nothing.

“Are you serious?” Eleanor continued, tilting her head to one side, before tilting it to the other. “Look at me.”

“I'm sorry,” he cried, “I just -”

“Look at me!” she shouted, before kicking him hard in the leg. “Look me in the eyes, you cretin!”

Forcing himself to look up, the chef stared at her with tear-filled eyes. He opened his mouth as if he was about to try to defend himself, but somehow he simply couldn't get any words out at all, instead letting his jaw hang limply as he uttered a few basic groans from the back of his throat.

“Are you serious?” Eleanor asked, and now her voice was simmering with rage. “You've done all the hard work, and now you're backing out just when we're getting to the good part?”

“You can have your money back,” he told her. “You can have every penny. I've spent some of it on Jasmine's school fee deposit, but I'll get that back for you as well, I swear! I don't know how, you'll have to give me a little time, but I'll work double shifts and I'll sell a few things and somehow I'll get it all back for you!”

“Do I look like I'm worried about the fucking money?” she asked, with at least a hundred garlic cloves still studded in slits all over her body while sprigs of rosemary poked out. “Do I look like I give a damn about any of that? That's just my inheritance, it's everything I got after my parents died, and I gave it to you because I thought you could be trusted. We had an agreement, or did you forget about that? I played my part, now it's time for you to play yours!”

“You can't ask me to do this!” he protested. “It's monstrous!”

“It's what I want!” she yelled angrily. “Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to play the part of the poor, innocent kidnap victim? I had to shut all other thoughts out of my mind and really imagine what it must be like to be the damsel in distress. I didn't break character once, not even internally, and I saw you wavering once or twice but I really thought you had the guts and the balls to see this through!”

“You're asking me to murder you!”

“It's not murder if I'm paying you to do it, you moron!”

“I can't put you into that oven while you're alive!”

“That's all I want!” she screamed, pointing toward the oven, causing a couple of sprigs of rosemary to fall from her left arm. “It was working, as well! I was transported back to my happiest memory, just the way I knew I would be! I don't want to live anymore, not if it means being without Daddy! I just want to be reunited with him, and I want to do that by feeling what it would have been like to exist as one of his slabs of meat. To be loved by him the way he loved the meat.” She sighed. “Why am I even explaining all of this to you again? Wasn't the first time enough?”

She crouched down to look the chef in the eyes.

“He was a cold man,” she continued through clenched teeth. “The only time I ever saw him show any tenderness at all was when he was handling meat in his kitchen. That was real love! That's what I wanted to feel, and it was working until you snatched it away from me!”

“I can't,” he cried, shaking his head as more and more tears ran down his face.

“So you'd rather give me back my million and let your life be ruined?” she asked. “That money can save your restaurant, and it can put your pathetic daughter through whatever stinking posh school you want to send her to! All you have to do in return is give me what I asked for.” Reaching up to the counter, she pulled down a carving knife and waved it in his face. “Everything was planned out perfectly. You snatched me off the street, just how I wanted you to, and I pretended I was a poor innocent little thing. I didn't break character once, so why did you?”

“I'm not a murderer!” he shouted.

“Evidently,” she replied, her voice dripping with disappointment.

“I'm a chef!”

“Not a very good one, if your latest restaurant reviews are anything to go by. No wonder you were willing to listen to my little idea.”

“The critics are out to get me, that's all,” he sneered. “They don't understand what I'm trying to do, they're not even critics at all, they're just morons who wouldn't know a decent meal if someone slapped them round the head with it while they're stuffing a burger into their faces!”

“You could have proved your greatness today,” she told him.

“I'm not a murderer,” he said again. “I can't -”

Suddenly she stabbed the knife's tip straight through his left eye, twisting the handle so that the blade caught the edges of the eye socket, and then she forced it deeper still until there was no way it couldn't have broken through into his brain. Finally, with one last push, she forced the blade's tip out through the back of the man's skull until it scraped against the refrigerator's metal door.

“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes, “we've already established that you're a pitiful failure. Idiot.”

Letting go of the knife, she got to her feet and turned to look back at the oven. She knew that if the chef had kept his side of the bargain, she'd be dead by now, but simultaneously she'd also be reunited forever with her father in that one special moment in the old farmhouse kitchen. She thought of the chef's hands on her body – of the way he'd followed her instructions to tenderize and then season her – and she told herself that must have been exactly how the slabs of meat had felt on her father's counter. Her father had loved the meat more than he'd ever loved his own wife or children, but Eleanor had finally come so close to knowing how it must have felt to be the object of his total attention. To be loved by him the way she'd always needed to be loved.

“Fine,” she whispered, limping slightly as she turned and walked out of the kitchen, heading out into the corridor.

With each step, she tried to pick some of the garlic cloves from her body. She managed to get one or two, but as she reached the office she realized that there was no real point. She headed to the desk and sat down, sliding slightly in the extra virgin olive oil that covered her bare buttocks, and then she unlocked the computer and brought up a web browser. Filled with fury and rage, and feeling as if she'd been betrayed by Chef Michel Fabriolet, she navigated to the same darknet site where she'd found the wretched man in the first place.

“Second time lucky, right?” she muttered under her breath, staring at the screen as it loaded, while garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs remained wedged in cuts all over her naked body. “There has to be a proper man out there somewhere who'll give me what I want. Or maybe I should just -”

Stopping suddenly, she realized that she might already be making a terrible mistake. The thought of going through the whole explanation part of the scheme again filled her with dread, and she couldn't help but worry that she might just end up with another pathetic idiot who'd bail at the last second. She stared at the screen for a moment and watched the cursor blinking impotently, and then she got to her feet and limped out of the office.

“Fine,” she whispered, still limping as a couple of garlic cloves fell from slits on her body, “you know what? That asshole did the hard part, I can figure out the rest all by myself.”

Reaching the kitchen, she stepped over the legs of the dead chef and approached the oven. Turning the dial, she watched as the flames roared back to life and then she pulled the door open, immediately feeling the warm and welcoming heat of the flames. Staring into the chamber, she took a couple of deep breaths as she tried to regather her composure, and then she allowed herself a faint smile as she realized that there was nothing to stop her now. That idiot Fabriolet had prepared her perfectly, but she told herself that she really didn't need anyone to help her with the last part.

“Daddy,” she said firmly, as the pain and fear left her voice, “I'm coming.”

As she watched the flames, she remembered the sight of her father's big, manly hands manhandling slabs of meat on the counter at home. She remembered the satisfying thud of the meat as it was turned over, and the sight of her father's fingers covered in oil and salt and pepper that he was pressing into the flesh. A shiver passed through her body as she thought of the way he used to expertly cut small holes in the meat, and of the way he'd slide garlic and herbs into the openings. He always worked so tenderly and so perfectly, and then she remembered the way he used to place the meat in the oven and shut the door, and how he'd then peer through the window and smile at the sight of his latest masterpiece cooking in the heat.

Those were the only moments when he'd ever shown true love to anything, alive or dead.

“I'm right here, Daddy,” she said now, as she began to climb into the oven, clambering into the flames and immediately feeling her flesh starting to burn. “I've finally become the thing that you loved the most.”

Ignoring the agony as she crawled across the metal tray, with flames already starting to sizzle the olive oil all over her body, she managed to turn around in the cramped space. On her hands and knees, she reached out and pulled the oven door shut, letting it slam into place with the same satisfying thud she remembered from her childhood, and then – with flames licking her body all over and burning her skin – she leaned down and looked out through the oven's glass door.

“Daddy,” she cooed softly, seeing a vision of her father smiling into her with love in his eyes, “I'm here now, don't you see?” The flames were already consuming her, burning the flesh from her bones as her eyes began to melt. She could see her father still, and finally she saw love in his eyes. “Oh Daddy,” she said in her final moments as she burned to death, still seeing his smiling face staring into the oven, “I love you too!”

As We Know It

I

2023...

“Thanks,” Ashley said as he climbed out of the taxi, with the hotel's footman having opened the car door for him. “Much appreciated.”

He pressed a five pound note into the man's hand, before making his way to the nearby revolving door and quickly disappearing into the hotel's brightly-lit interior.

In the distance, sirens were blaring out through the cold London night.

***

“Ashley Forbes,” he said a minute later as he slapped his passport down onto the reception desk. “I've got a booking for one night.”

Checking his phone, he scanned various new emails that had arrived during the drive from the airport. Ashley was accustomed to the formalities of hotel life; he lived out of a suitcase half the year, constantly rushing from country to country as he tried to keep on top of his company's activities. Even now, he'd not even glanced at the woman – he'd vaguely noticed that it was a woman – behind the desk, but he assumed that at any moment she'd slide a key card over to him and wish him a pleasant evening.

“Ash?”

Glancing up, surprised by her casual tone, he locked eyes with the receptionist and opened his mouth to ask her whether anything was wrong. And then, before he could get a word out, he realized that something about her seemed awfully familiar, although several more seconds passed before he was able to work out precisely where he'd seen her before.

“Wow,” she said with a smile, before shyly tucking a strand of hair behind one ear, “it's been...”

She hesitated, and now she seemed to be blushing slightly.

“A long time,” she added, still holding his passport open. “It must be fifteen years or...”

Again her voice trailed off, and for a few seconds they simply stared at one another as if neither of them could quite believe what was happening.

“Amanda?” he stammered finally, tilting his head slightly.

“Hey,” she replied, still smiling. “Long time, no see.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, before seeing her name-badge. “Do you work here?”

“Guilty as charged,” she told him. “I only started a few months ago, I do afternoon and evening shifts during the week mostly, although sometimes if they need someone to cover the nights and I can sort things out at home I -”

Stopping suddenly, she winced.

“I'm sorry,” she continued, “I'm rambling.”

“No, it's fine,” he said, his mind already racing as he thought back to their shared younger days, when they'd spent almost every minute of every day together. “I'm just... sorry, I think I just can't quite believe that it's you.”

“Is everything okay here?” one of the other receptionists asked.

“Everything's fine,” Amanda replied, quickly snapping back into work mode and tapping at the computer's keyboard. “I'm just finding the customer's room.” She watched from the corner of her eye as the other man headed into a back room, and then she glanced up at Ashley again. “Sorry, I just completely blanked there. It's so odd to see you again after all these years, I don't think we've even talked since... well, since we left school. I mean, I sent you a couple of messages but...”

“I've been really busy,” he replied cautiously, fully aware that no-one was too busy over the course of fifteen years to respond to two messages. “Business stuff, you know?”

“You're booked into one of the suites,” she said as she peered at the screen. “You're into luxury these days, huh?”

More sirens rang out as two police cars raced past the hotel.

“The company pays for it,” Ashley murmured, feeling slightly embarrassed. “My company.”

“Yeah, I heard you were a high-flier now,” she said as she swiped a key card for him. Her hands were trembling slightly; she dropped the card and had to try again. “I think Myles mentioned it last time I saw him. That's so cool. I always knew you were going to do great things. You always had that drive and ambition.”

“I got lucky,” he told her, and he was aware now that he was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable. As pleased as he was to see Amanda again, part of him simply wanted to get to his room and forget about the entire encounter. He was even starting to break out into a cold sweat.

“That's room 701, then,” she replied, as she slid the card into a cardboard wallet and passed it over to him. “Just take the lift and... I guess you know how it works. According to the system, you've stayed with us a load of times before. You're actually one of our most regular guests.”

“When I'm in London,” he said, taking the key card and then slipping his passport away. “Well, it was nice to see you. I should head upstairs and get on with a few things. Take care.”

He turned to walk away, relieved that he'd managed to extricate himself from a tricky situation.

“Wait!” she called after him.

His heart skipped a beat as he stopped and looked back at her.

“Do you know the pub over the road?” she continued nervously, as if she was terrified that he might turn her down. “Well, technically it's actually over the road and round the corner. Anyway, I finish my shift at six and... I don't suppose you've got time for a catch-up over a beer, have you?”

***

“This is a terrible idea,” Ashley told himself silently as he sat in the crowded pub a couple of hours later. “This is the worst choice you've ever made. Why didn't you come up with an excuse?”

“So Alice is three now,” Amanda explained, somewhat awkwardly, as she scrolled through some more photos on her phone. “She's a real handful, but I guess most kids are at that age, right? Not that I'd really know, she's our first, but it seems that way. Johnny's really good with her, he makes sure to fit his work around the times I need to be at the hotel, so...”

Her voice trailed off, and after a moment she lowered her phone and set it on the table.

“Sorry,” she continued, “you don't want me showing you endless photos of my daughter. The truth is, I've become one of those mothers who can barely talk about anything else these days. I just go on and on, boring people to death with stories about her.”

“Totally,” Ashley replied, before quickly realizing his mistake. “I mean, no! Not at all!”

She laughed.

Before he could reply, Ashley spotted a man staggering toward the bar, seemingly barely able to stay upright. The guy was clearly drunk out of his mind, and to his relief Ashley saw that the barman was refusing to serve him. Some of the other customers laughed, and a couple of them took the man by the arms and helped him stumble back toward the door. They had to almost push him over the threshold, and then they chuckled to one another as they headed over to retake their spots next to the bar.

“What about you?” Amanda asked. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“I don't have time for a relationship,” he told her, as he turned to her again. “I'm barely ever home. One day I might try to settle down, but the way things are, it'd be unfair to try to shoehorn someone else into my life.”

“Too busy traveling all over the world?”

“Something like that.”

“I used to want to travel more,” she explained, and now there was a hint of sadness in her voice. “Do you remember all the plans we used to talk about back in the day? Do you remember how we had this mad round the world trip worked out that we were going to take together after school?”

“That's right,” he replied with a faint smile. “We used to spend hours planning it all out.”

“Those were the days, huh?” she continued, keeping her eyes fixed on him as if she was searching his expression for some sign of his true reaction, as if she suspected that he was hiding behind a mask. “I suppose we were just kids back then, with no jobs and no responsibilities. And no kids of our own.” She hesitated, still watching him carefully. “Now things have changed. You've got your high-flying job, and I'm a married mum working in a hotel. It's funny where life leads you, isn't it? If you'd asked me back in the day how everything would work out for us, I'd have assumed that we...”

She paused, and now an uneasy silence fell between them as drunk customers laughed and talked nearby at the bar.

“This should be my last one,” Ashley said finally, holding up his beer. “I've got so much to do when I get back to my room. I'm still trying to build the company up to the next level, and we have interests all around the world so I'm getting emails and calls night and day.”

“Oh, totally,” she replied, taking a sip of her beer. “Yeah, me too. I mean, I should get going. Alice never settles properly until I've tucked her in for the night anyway.”

II

“It's weird when you hit the night air, isn't it?” Amanda said a short while later as they walked away from the pub, with the hotel's bright lights looming high above the street. “Sometimes it's really refreshing and then other times it makes you feel a little more drunk.”

“Is this your stop?”

“This is my stop,” she replied, as they reached the covered bus shelter and she turned to him. “It was really nice to see you again, Ash. Are you going to be staying in London for long?”

“One night, remember?”

“Right.” She paused. “That's cool, I probably wouldn't have time to meet up again, anyway. I'm actually off for a few days now, so I suppose I won't see you before you go.”

They stood in silence as traffic roared past. Neither of them knew quite what to say, yet they both seemed to think that there was something waiting to be acknowledged.

“My bus'll be here soon,” Amanda said after a few more unbearable seconds, just to break the impasse. “It's usually pretty reliable.”

“I should get inside,” he told her, relieved that she'd come up with an excuse. He took a step back. “It was nice to see you again. I'm glad things are working out for you. Maybe I'll see you again some time when I'm back in London.”

With that, he made a mental note to find a new hotel for his next trip, before turning to walk away.

“Hey!”

Reaching out, she grabbed his hand.

“We should keep in touch more,” she said, her eyes filled with fear as if she was anticipating a rejection. “It's sad that we lost touch. I don't know, I just...” She paused, still holding his hand. “You lose so many options, don't you?” she continued. “It's like, when you're young, like we were back then, you can do anything. And then slowly life narrows those options down, cutting them away one by one until it's almost like you're on rails. Then suddenly you've got responsibilities, and a job, and almost no spare time. All the other possibilities turn dark and you're left on this little island that you can't get off, and then you're stuck there forever and you can only hope that your kids will do better. It's weird how that works, isn't it?”

“It is,” he replied, very much aware of her hand still touching his.

She opened her mouth to say something else, and then she moved her hand away.

“Sometimes I wonder what life would have been like if we'd both made different choices,” she told him. “If we'd... recognized that maybe we could... I don't know, I'm thinking out loud, but sometimes I wonder about missed opportunities and other lives and where we could both be now. I'm happy with Johnny, and I love Alice with all my heart. Please don't think that I'm a bad person, because I'm not, but sometimes I daydream about other ways that my life could have worked out. If I'd been, maybe, braver about how I felt. About people.”

Ashley swallowed hard, not really knowing how to respond. He felt as if she was on the verge of admitting something, perhaps something that he'd felt too many years earlier, but he worried that the fallout might become very messy.

A moment later a bus pulled in at the stop, and Amanda turned to look at the board.

“This is me,” she said, suddenly seeming a little flustered. “Thanks, Ash. It was really good to see you again.”

She hesitated, as if she was thinking about kissing him on the cheek, and then she turned and stepped onto the bus. She made her way over to a free seat and sat down, and then – as the bus began to pull away – she turned and looked at Ash one last time.

He smiled, but she was quickly gone and he allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. He couldn't help but wonder what else might have been said – or done – if that bus had been even one minute later.

Left standing alone at the bus stop, he knew that he should go to his room and get on with some work, but at the same time he couldn't quite handle the thought of being alone. Not right now. He looked around, wondering exactly what to do with himself, and then finally he turned and made his way back inside the pub. All he knew was that he really needed to calm his racing mind down and try to think about something – anything – other than Amanda. Alcohol, he figured, would help to blunt the sense of unease that was already filling his body.

***

“I said, there are a lot of sirens about tonight,” Johnny continued as he brushed his teeth in the bathroom. “Even more than usual. Sometimes I wonder what really goes on in this city at night.”

“Totally,” Amanda replied, sitting on the sofa and flicking through all the different possibilities on the TV. She was exhausted, but her mind was spinning and she knew she wouldn't able to sleep just yet. At least Alice had been tucked in properly.

“Sometimes I even wonder whether it's a decent place to raise a child,” Johnny added, as his electric toothbrush continued to buzz. “There's just so much grime around, and crime too. And noise. It's like she's being assaulted from all directions and she's going to get some kind of sensory overload. I worry about that sort of thing.”

“Where do you want to move to?” she asked wearily, as she looked at a series of uninspiring movies. This wasn't a new conversation.

“I'm just thinking out loud, really,” he told her. “It's worth considering properly, though. She's still young enough to get over living in the city, but there's going to come a point when it all becomes too much. I mean, can you hear those sirens right now? And the helicopters? Sometimes I feel like it's even too much for me!”

“Totally,” she said again, before hearing her phone vibrating in her bag.

“Is someone calling you?” Johnny called out.

“Hang on,” she muttered, sorting through the bag until she pulled the phone out and saw her boss's name on the screen. “Damn it, what the hell does he want?”

She hesitated, briefly considering ignoring the call, but she remembered the stern lecture she'd received when she'd done that once before. Instead she took a deep breath, reminded herself that she simply had to stay calm, and then she tapped to answer.

“David,” she said, “what -”

“Is this a joke?” he snapped on the other end of the line. “Why are all the rotas for this week in such a mess?”

“I don't -”

“You were supposed to get all of these done today,” he continued. “I told you last week, it's part of your responsibility when you're working on the desk. Please don't tell me that you've gone home to put your trotters up while leaving half your duties unattended!”

“I -”

Stopping suddenly, she realized with some incredulity that he was yet again trying to blame her for one of his own oversights. The previous time this had happened, she'd ended up almost losing her job; the last thing she wanted to do was capitulate to his nonsense, but she also knew that she and Johnny desperately needed the money. She'd told herself over and over again that she was going to suck it up and take the pay, but her feet were aching and when she looked out the window she thought of the long journey back to the center of the city.

“I'm at least an hour away,” she said, “and -”

“Do you want your job or not?”

“Of course, but -”

“These rotas need doing by midnight,” he continued, “and no-one else here is going to do them for you. It's not my fault you live out there in zone four or wherever it is. Either you come in tonight and finish your work properly, or you might as well not bother coming in again at all.”

She opened her mouth to tell him to stuff his job, but at the last second she managed to stop herself. The idea of traipsing out of the flat and getting back on a bus, and heading all the way through to the hotel again, left her with a sense not only of dread but also of humiliation, but deep down she knew that she had no choice. She was in no position to argue with the boss. After all, they both knew that she had no other options in life.

“Is there any way I could pop in and do them first thing in the morning?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

“I've told you how it's going to work, Amanda,” he said firmly. “It's your choice.”

With that he slammed the phone down, and Amanda was left simmering with rage on the sofa. A moment later she heard footsteps approaching and she turned to see Johnny standing in the doorway. He was wearing his pajamas and he looked ready for bed, and she wanted nothing more than to crawl in next to him. Her feet were already aching after a long day at work.

“Well?” he said with a smile. “Who was that? Nothing's wrong, is it?”

III

“Thank you,” Ashley said as the footman held the door open for him. “Have a great night.”

“You too, Sir,” the footman replied.

As he stepped into the hotel's foyer, Ashley told himself that he didn't look too drunk. He'd had three more beers at the pub and he knew there was no chance of getting any work done that night; he also knew that he'd only stopped after the third beer because the pub was getting ready to shut, and a moment later he turned and looked past the lounge and found himself wondering whether the hotel's bar might still be open. He vaguely remembered that it usually closed at midnight – or perhaps even later – and he figured that in the circumstances he might as well finish the job he'd already started.

Setting off toward the lounge, he took care to walk in a nice straight line.

Suddenly a figure hurried around the corner, and Ashley was shocked as he almost slammed straight into Amanda in front of the lifts.

“Hey!” he gasped. “Are you okay?”

“You scared the life out of me,” she replied. “I'm sorry, I'm just really annoyed. I had to come all the way back in.”

Ashley looked her up and down and saw that she was out of her hotel uniform and wearing a large padded coat.

“I thought you were going home after our drink,” he told her. “You got on the bus.”

“That's before my asshole boss called,” she said with a sigh, peering past him and looking toward the reception desk. “That's him there, at the end. The guy's got a right stick up his ass.”

Turning, Ashley spotted a tall, pencil-thin man typing at one of the computers. He hadn't noticed the guy earlier, but he immediately felt annoyed at the thought that anyone would treat Amanda badly. In that moment he wanted to march over and give the guy a piece of his mind, but he reminded himself that the situation was really none of his business. A moment later another man stumbled through the revolving door, barely able to stay on his feet, and Ashley recognized him as the drunk guy from the pub.

“Still going, huh?” he muttered under his breath, slightly impressed that this guy was even more wasted than before.

“I'll be here until midnight,” Amanda said.

Ashley turned to her.

“Sorry,” she continued, “I didn't mean to bore you with the details. The worst thing is, David's right, I completely forgot I was supposed to submit the rotas.” She rolled her eyes. “I should be fast asleep by now, and instead I'm back here doing a load of boring paperwork.”

“I didn't distract you earlier, did I?” he asked.

Hearing raised voices, he turned to see that the footman was trying to persuade the drunk man to leave. The thin man from behind the desk was stepping over too, as if he wanted to involve himself in the situation, but the drunk man merely swayed where he stood and looked around as if he was completely lost. In that moment, seeing his face again, Ashley was struck by the man's pale complexion and by the fact that his dark, sunken eyes seemed barely able to focus at all.

“That guy's completely wrecked,” he murmured, before turning to Amanda. “I like a beer as much as the next guy,” he added, as he heard raised voices coming from over his shoulder, “but it's like he doesn't even know where he is.” He paused, waiting for a reply, but he could tell that she was deeply frustrated and after a moment – before he could stop himself – he reached out and put a hand on the side of her arm. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I just need to get into the back office and do the paperwork,” she told him with a sigh, “and -”

Before she could finish, they both heard a scream coming from somewhere toward the bar area. They turned just in time to see several customers rushing out into the lounge, followed by a couple of very flustered-looking members of staff.

“What was wrong with them?” one of the customers asked, almost in tears.

“I don't know,” one of the barmen replied, “but we've shut the door and -”

“There!” another barman called out, pointing toward the windows at the far end of the restaurant. “They're going round!”

Turning, Ashley saw several figures stumbling past the windows. The figures looked drunk, and he began to wonder whether some nearby lads' night out had run out of control.

“The city's being locked down,” a woman said nearby, staring at her phone. “What the hell? The government's announced some kind of immediate emergency, everyone's being told to stay where they are and to watch our for symptoms.”

“Symptoms of what?” another woman asked, leaning over to take a look at the phone.

“They're listed here,” the first woman exclaimed, her voice filled with shock. “Look, there's -”

Suddenly another scream rang out, this time from much closer. Ashley and Amanda both turned and saw – to their horror – that the drunk man in the reception area had attacked the hotel's night manager, grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him to the floor. Ashley immediately stepped in front of Amanda, but a moment later he saw to his horror that the drunk man was now biting the manager's neck and ripping a huge chunk of flesh from his body. Blood began to spray from the wound, and for a moment nobody seemed to know how to react as the attacker tore away more and more meat and muscle.

“What the hell?” Amanda stammered, stepping back against one of the lift doors. “Is he on drugs?”

“I don't know,” Ashley replied, “but -”

Before he could get another word out, he saw several more people stumbling into the hotel, and they too appeared to be wildly drunk. They had the same dark eyes as the first man, however, and Ashley watched as two of them lunged at the footman while the third shuffled over to the dying manager and knelt down to feed from his other side.

“They're eating him,” Ashley whispered, as more screams rang out.

“I don't know what's happening,” Amanda said, grabbing him by the arm.

“It's all over the city!” one of the women from the sofa said, getting to her feet while staring at her phone. “It's on the news. People are going crazy, they think it's some kind of virus. They're saying it's related to something that happened in a Thai restaurant last night in Kent!”

“That's impossible,” Amanda replied, before checking her own phone. “This can't be real,” she added as she took a look at some social media apps. “There's no way any of this can be happening.”

Hearing another scream, Ashley turned and saw that a couple more of the seemingly drunk people were making their way through from the bar; one of them quickly grabbed a woman and pulled her closer before biting down hard into her neck, and blood immediately sprayed up against the mirror and the wall.

“They're everywhere!” one of the barmen yelled frantically. “They're coming in through all the entrances! There are hundreds of them!”

“It says there's been some kind of toxic release,” Amanda said, still desperately checking her phone. “This is insane, the army's being sent in but the police have been completely overwhelmed. It started in Kent, they're calling them...” She hesitated, as if she really couldn't believe what she was reading, and then she looked up at Ashley again. “People online are calling them zombies. They're saying that they act like zombies, but that's impossible, right? Because zombies...”

Her voice trailed off.

As another scream filled the air, Ashley turned to see more and more of the strange people trying to force their way through the hotel's revolving door. He could hear people crying out in the distance, and for a moment he felt as if chaos was in the air all around; looking toward the window, he spotted even more of the attackers, and he watched as several of them grabbed a woman and forced her to the ground. To his horror, he realized after a couple of seconds that they were tearing her apart in their desperate attempt to eat her flesh.

“The internet's gone,” Amanda said, jabbing at her phone. “There's no phone signal, either. I can't call Johnny!”

“We can't just stand here,” he replied, as he saw one of the strange people turning to him with strange black threads in his eyes. “Amanda, we have to move!”

“I need to get home!” she sobbed.

“Move!” he yelled, shoving her aside and then pushing the stumbling figure hard, sending it crashing to the ground. “Get up the stairs! Now!”

He looked down at the figure on the floor, just as it turned to him and snarled. In that moment he saw that there was fresh blood caked all around its mouth, and his immediate reaction was to kick the damn thing hard in the face, knocking it straight back down.

“Upstairs,” he said breathlessly, turning to Amanda. “We can figure out what to do once we're away from these things, but first we have to run!”

IV

Several minutes later, as he slammed the door shut, Ashley took a deep breath and tried to figure out what to do next. He and Amanda had made their way up the hotel's grand central staircase until they'd reached the third floor, and he'd finally allowed himself to hope that they were far enough away to pause for a moment and come up with a better plan.

“So that was a joke, right?” Amanda said, her eyes filled with panicked tears. “It's a flash-mob, it has to be. It's a promo for some movie, or it's people playing a prank, or it's some kind of terrorist attack. It can't be what it looked like.”

“I have no idea,” he replied, taking his phone from his pocket but quickly finding that he too had no signal or connection. “The blood looked real, though, and -”

Suddenly the lights flickered off, leaving them standing in the darkened corridor with only the light from their phones to pick out their terrified faces.

“The hotel has a back-up generator,” Amanda stammered. “It'll come on, just give it a few seconds.”

They both waited, but there was no sign of any power being restored, and a moment later they heard several more screams coming from down below. They remained silent, neither of them daring to say a word, but the screams continued and were accompanied now by the occasional sound of breaking glass. Ashley tried his phone again, convinced that something had to work, and he muttered a few obscenities under his breath as he failed repeatedly.

A door nearby clicked open, and they turned to see a man and a woman stepping out from a room.

“What's going on?” the woman asked. “Is it a power cut?”

“Something really bad's happening,” Amanda told her, as her voice trembled with fear, “but we don't quite know what.”

“Is that... screaming?” the man said, furrowing his brow. “Is it some kind of shooter situation?”

“We don't know,” Ashley replied.

“I've got no service,” the woman muttered, trying her phone a few times. “What's that noise? Why -”

“We don't know!” Ashley shouted, trying to stay calm even as he realized that the screams sounded a little closer now. “Something's happening in the lobby, and there's some kind of lockdown across the city, and -”

“They looked like zombies,” Amanda said, interrupting him.

“What did you just say?” the woman asked, before turning nervously to the man. “Are these people high?”

“Our best bet is to just stay put and wait for help to arrive,” Ashley told them. “If we go down there, we'll just end up like all the others. By the time we escaped, they were outnumbered maybe ten-to-one by the crazies.”

“None of this is making any sense,” the woman replied. “Can you please stop bullshitting us and just tell us what's actually happening?”

“They looked like zombies,” Amanda said again.

“Do you think I'm a complete idiot?” the woman asked, putting her hands on her hips. “Roger, tell these morons that we're not idiots.”

“Yeah,” the man said firmly, “we're not idiots!”

“We just need to wait and see what's going on,” Ashley told them. “I'm sure we'll figure it out, and the police will be here shortly. We need to hold on and be patient, and I'm sure -”

“Help me!” a voice screamed suddenly from the other side of the door leading through to the staircase, accompanied by an immediate banging sound. “Can anyone hear me? Help, they're coming!”

“Who's that?” the woman in the other doorway said.

Stepping forward, Amanda reached for the handle, only for Ashley to pull her back at the last second.

“We don't know what's happening out there,” he pointed out.

“Help!” the voice cried out. “I can hear you! Please, let me through or they're going to kill me!”

“We can't leave her out there!” Amanda hissed.

“We don't know what -”

“I'm not doing it!” she said firmly, before slipping free from his grasp and turning the handle. As soon as she pulled the door open, a younger woman stumbled through, almost falling as she bumped against the wall.

“Are you okay?” Ashley asked, reaching out and helping her to stay on her feet.

“Shut the door!” she screamed, turning to Amanda. “Do it now! The whole lobby's full of them and now they're coming up the stairs!”

“Who are?” Amanda asked, before turning as she heard shuffling footsteps echoing in the stairwell. “What -”

Before she could finish, she saw two rotten, stumbling figures lurching into view. She opened her mouth to call out to them, but in that moment she realized that these figures were covered in blood and that their clothes were badly torn. One of the figures bumped against the wall, as if he wasn't even sure where he was, but the second figure turned straight to Amanda and let out an angry snarl. As two more figures appeared near the top of the stairs, the second figure half-ran toward the door, only for Ashley to step in at the last second and slam it shut. Something immediately slammed into it from the other side.

“What was that?” Amanda whispered, horrified by the sight she'd just seen.

“It looked like a zombie,” the woman in the doorway stammered.

“That's exactly what they are!” the younger woman hissed. “Don't you guys get it? Suddenly there are hundreds or thousands of these things out there in the street, and they're chasing anything that's not like them!” She turned first to Ashley, then to Amanda, and then to Ashley again. “They're swarming. Before I came up here, I saw some of them getting onto a bus that was parked outside the front of the hotel. They were ripping people apart. They have this strength and hunger that's unlike anything I've ever seen before. It's like they've come straight out of the movies!”

“Zombies aren't real,” Ashley pointed out. “There's no -”

“Those things out there are real!” the woman yelled, pointing at the door as it shuddered again. “What exactly do you think is on the other side right now?”

Ashley looked at the door, but he already knew that he had absolutely no answers. He was still holding the handle, but the door's other side was being subjected to some kind of heavy bombardment, and after a moment he heard a faint splitting sound coming from somewhere near the hinges. He swallowed hard, but he already knew that there was no guarantee he could keep the door sealed forever. And while he wasn't ready to admit just yet that zombies might be real, he knew without a shadow of doubt that something out on the stairwell was dangerous.

“Has anyone got any reception?” the younger woman asked, checking her phone. “Damn it, why's everything down?”

“This is completely insane,” Amanda said, still holding her own phone up to provide some light in the darkened corridor. “Listen, I don't know what's happening, but I have to get home and make sure that Johnny and Alice are okay. If something weird's happening here, it might also be happening out in the suburbs.”

“We have to sit tight,” Ashley told her.

“I can't sit tight!” she snapped angrily. “My daughter's out there somewhere!”

“And I'm sure your husband will look after her,” he replied, “but right now I don't think anyone's safe if they -”

Before he could finish, a heavier thud hit the door, and now the wood was starting to split open.

“I don't think we're safe right here, either,” the man in the doorway said, before pulling his wife back into their room. “We're going to shut this and hunker down. I'm sorry, I don't know what's going on but we don't want any part of it. I'm really sorry, but you're going to have to fend for yourselves.”

With that, he slammed the door shut, and a moment later a chain could be heard sliding into place.

“He's got a point,” Ashley said, turning first to Amanda and then to the younger woman. “We can't just stand here, they're going to get through this door. What's your name?”

“Veronica,” the woman stammered.

“You work in this place, right?” Ashley continued. “Is there some other way out of the building from up here? We're on the third floor, but is there some kind of fire escape we could use to get out?”

“There's one on the south corner,” Amanda said. “It comes out just past the Italian restaurant at the back of the hotel and -”

Stopping suddenly, she stared at Veronica, who was examining a bloodied wound on her own arm. After a few seconds Veronica looked up, and the fear in her eyes was impossible to miss.

“One of them got me as I was getting out of the lobby,” she said, her voice trembling with panic. “He grabbed me and bit me. I mean, he didn't bite hard, but obviously he drew blood. It's not like an actual zombie movie, though, is it? I mean, sure, they look like zombies but that doesn't mean they are, and even if they were, it's just a scratch wound.” Tears were filling her eyes now and she seemed to be backtracking from her earlier claims. “Please, don't look at me like that,” she continued, stumbling back and bumping against the wall. “I wouldn't have shown you if I was worried, would I? It's just a small cut, I don't think anything got into it.”

“Of course not,” Ashley replied, before turning and hurrying along the corridor as the door behind them continued to shudder under a continued onslaught. “Come on, we'll worry about that later, but right now I want to try to get out of here. Once we're on the street we should be able to get help.”

“The fire escape's this way,” Amanda said, rushing past him and making her way quickly along the corridor, still using her phone to light the path. “It's just up here and then we can be down and out in a minute or two.”

After hurrying around the next corner, she pushed a door open and stepped into a narrow, bare stairwell. After just a couple of steps, however, she came to a halt and held a hand up, and as the others stopped behind her they all heard footsteps moving closer from somewhere below. Ashley leaned over to take a look, and to his horror he immediately spotted several more of the rotten figures making their way up.

“Going down isn't going to work,” he replied, before turning to Amanda and then Veronica. In the distance, a cracking sound indicated that the other door had been smashed. “We have to go up.”

“I don't feel so good,” Veronica replied, leaning against the wall as she scratched the cut on her arm. “I feel really warm, and kind of nauseous.”

Amanda opened her mouth to reply, before turning to Ashley, who was watching Veronica with a growing sense of dread.

“But I'm going to be okay, right?” Veronica continued, looking down at her arm for a moment before turning to them. Her face was decidedly pale now and her eyes were becoming bloodshot. “Why are you looking at me like that?” she gasped, as a few flecks of blood sprayed from her lips. “What's happening? What am I supposed to do? Please, you have to help me.”

“Amanda,” Ashley said cautiously, grabbing her arm and then backing away toward the stairs that led higher into the hotel. “We have to keep going up. We have to move right now.”

V

“That should hold it,” Ashley muttered a short while later, once he'd finished running the chain through the metal handle on the final door. “I don't care how strong those things are, there's no way any of them should be able to break through now.”

Stepping back, he stared for a moment at his handiwork. He'd secured the chain to a nearby post on the hotel's roof, and then he'd wrapped it around several times. As far as he could tell, there were no obvious weak spots; anyone trying to smash their way up from the stairwell would have to be able to literally break welded metal apart, and he told himself that there had to be a limit to the ability of whatever those creatures were further down in the hotel. Still, he couldn't ignore a flicker of doubt in the back of his mind, and he continued to stare at the door before turning to look across the roof.

Now that they were on the top of the hotel, under the pitch-black night sky and surrounded by vents from the building's air-conditioning system, he could hear sirens ringing out all across the city. The cacophonous sound seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once, and as he stepped past one of the larger vents he realized that he could see fires burning on the horizon. He looked all around, convinced that somewhere he was bound to spot some sign of order, yet somehow the entire city of London – with its eight or nine million inhabitants – seemed to be caught in a moment of sheer disordered panic. Something else was wrong, too, something that he couldn't quite put his finger on for a few more seconds, until a patch of buildings to the south suddenly fell dark. That was when he realized.

“The power's going off,” Amanda whispered, standing over by the edge of the roof. “It's happening in stages, but... it's spreading all across the city.”

“What the hell could be causing this?” Ashley asked as he made his way over to join her.

“Look down there,” she replied, peering over the side of the building and looking at the street a couple of hundred feet below. “What...”

Her voice trailed off as he too looked down, and they watched as a few people raced through the night with only their phones as lights. Every so often one of those people screamed as they were attacked by other figures that emerged from the darkness, and already all the traffic had ground to a halt.

“It's like they're rioting,” Amanda said, “or looting. Where are the police? Where's the army? I don't understand why they're letting this happen.”

Ashley checked his phone again, but he was still unable to get any signal.

“It's like no-one's trying to stop it,” Amanda continued, as an agonized scream rang out from a nearby street. “Where is everyone? There should be someone out there dealing with all of this.”

“The whole city seems to be affected,” Ashley pointed out. “I imagine the authorities have got their work cut out for them. And that's if it's just London that's having trouble. What if it's other parts of the country as well?” He hesitated for a moment as he began to consider all the monstrous implications. “What if it's even bigger than that?”

“How could it be bigger?” she asked, turning to him.

“What if it's the whole world?”

“Be serious,” she replied, with tears in her eyes. “Something like this can't be happening everywhere. It's localized, it has to be.” She hesitated, but as she waited for Ashley to reply she saw more patches of the city falling into darkness behind him, including the area to the east where she and her family lived. “It's just some brief thing that's going to be over soon.”

“You saw that Veronica girl,” he said darkly. “Right before we left her down there, she was... changing.”

“She was just being melodramatic!” she snapped.

“I'm not sure about that,” he continued, turning to once again look all around. “It's like the whole city's switching off. One by one, all the different areas are having the same thing happen to them. I have no idea what could have caused something like this, especially when it seems to be spreading so fast, but didn't that woman in the foyer say something about symptoms? She was checking the news, right before it all got cut off. She talked about some kind of sickness that was spreading fast.”

“I have to get home,” she whispered, watching the darkness of the city to the east. “Johnny and Alice need me.” She turned to Ashley. “I've got to get away from here,” she continued, raising her voice. “I don't know how, but I've got to find a way past those things.”

“There's no -”

Before he could finish, she pushed him aside and hurried toward the door, where she immediately started trying to pull the chains away.

“Stop!” he called out, before rushing after her. “Are you crazy? You can't let them get up here!”

“I'm leaving and you can't stop me!” she hissed, struggling a little to move the chains. “Help me, show me how to do this. I can't figure it out.”

“Amanda -”

“I'm going to find my daughter!” she screamed, turning to him as tears filled her eyes. “I never should have come up here with you in the first place! I don't know what I was thinking, but I have to find some way to get to them!”

“We need to wait things out up here,” he told her. “Have you forgotten what just happened to us on the way up? We had to break through a ceiling at one point! Carl and Stephen sacrificed their lives so that we could keep going! We just spent the past two or three hours basically living through a zombie action movie, and now we're finally safe for the moment you're already talking about going back down! Seriously?”

“Alice needs me!” she sobbed.

“You have to trust that your husband will look after her.”

“No, she needs me!” she replied, turning and reaching for the chain again. “I'm not -”

Suddenly she let out a startled cry as something slammed into the door from the other side. Pulling back, she stared helplessly as the door shuddered, but so far the chains were more than doing their job. Still, whatever was in the stairwell seemed to be extremely strong, battering the door with ferocious anger, and both Ashley and Amanda stood in shocked silence as they waited to make sure that the chains would hold. The door itself was also made of metal, and while the bombardment continued there was at least no sign that anything might be about to break through.

“Is it one of those creatures?” Amanda asked after a few seconds.

“It'll smash itself apart before that door breaks,” Ashley replied, while hoping against hope that he was right. “It has to. Don't worry, we're perfectly safe up here for now, and I'm sure your husband has managed to get your daughter to safety as well. We're right in the middle of the city, it's only natural that things are at their worst here.”

He turned to her as the door continued to shudder loudly.

“I know it's not easy, but right now we just have to stay put and hope that the authorities figure things out fast. Which they will, I promise. I know things seem insane right now, but that's just because we're right in the middle of it.” He glanced across the roof as a couple of pigeons landed on one of the vents, and then he turned to Amanda again. “Things are going to go back to normal, I swear. But right now, if we go down there, we're going to get ourselves killed. And I'm not willing to let that happen. Do you understand?”

He waited, and for the first time he began to believe that he just might be getting through to her.

“I have to get to Alice as quickly as possible,” she said finally, as fresh tears filled her eyes. “I just have to.”

“And you will,” he told her. “I'll make sure of it myself.” He put a hand on the side of her arm. “Even if it's the last thing I ever do – not to sound too melodramatic, but you get the point – I promise with my hand on my heart that I'll get you home just as soon as it's possible, and not a minute later. Do you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” she replied, sniffing back tears. “I just don't want them to think that I've abandoned them.”

“They won't,” he said firmly.

“How long do you think it'll take?”

“I have no idea,” he told her, and then – as the banging sound continued to hammer the door – they both turned and looked out across the city.

London had fallen completely dark now, allowing the stars to be seen more fully in the sky. Amanda was still holding her phone, which provided some light, but otherwise the city seemed almost to have disappeared into an all-encompassing shroud of darkness. As she and Ashley slowly turned to look all around, they both realized that the sound of sirens was becoming much weaker, until after a couple more minutes almost no sirens could be heard at all. Instead, the only sound came from occasional cries and screams, rising up from those unfortunate enough to have been left down on the city streets.

“It's all going to be okay,” Ashley said, as he reached out and put an arm around Amanda's shoulder. “I promise. We'll get down from here just as soon as we can.”

VI

Thirty years later, Ashley looked down at the remains of the pigeon he'd just finished eating. Having felt nauseous for several days now, he'd barely been able to manage more than a few scraps of meat, but he knew he should at least have something. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the same strange weakness that had been coming and going for a while now, and then he leaned back against one of the vents and took a deep breath.

Somewhere in the left side of his chest, a sharp pain dug deep.

“How are you feeling?” his son Thomas asked, making his way over. “Hey, you got it down.”

Ashley smiled, mainly in an attempt to hide the pain.

“I'm getting a little tired of pigeon after all this time,” he admitted.

“You've said that before,” Thomas replied, dropping to his knees and peering at the bones. “I can't imagine what it's like to eat anything else. I can't imagine what anything else could possibly taste like.”

“That's because you were born up here,” Ashley said wearily, “and you've never -”

Stopping for a moment, he felt the pain wriggling up through his chest. That was a new sensation, and he couldn't help but worry that something was seriously wrong.

“You've never had anything pass your lips except pigeon meat and rainwater,” he continued. “And milk from your mother, when you were first born.”

“I don't remember that,” Thomas pointed out, before hesitating for a moment. “So what do other things taste like?”

“You'll find out one day.”

“When?”

“When it's safe to go back down off the roof.”

“We haven't seen anything bad for months now,” Thomas told him. “The last zombie was at least a year ago.”

“That doesn't mean they're gone.”

“But what if -”

“It's too soon!” Ashley snapped angrily, sitting up a little before stopping as the pain returned. “You just have to trust me on this. Just because we haven't seen or heard one for ages, that doesn't mean something won't start banging on that door again.” He turned and looked at the door; the chains were rusty now, but still strong. “After everything we've been through, including everything your mother and I went through after we first got stuck up here, I'm not going to risk it all now just because you're impatient. If she and I could live through the end of the world as we know it, then you can damn well wait until it's safe to go back down.”

He hesitated as he spotted the makeshift burial mound over on the other side of the roof. He and Thomas had designated that as a no-go area; he knew that Amanda's body had probably rotted away entirely now under the sheets of corrugated metal, but he absolutely refused to ever go over and take a look. He was never even willing to acknowledge the fact that pigeons and other pests had most likely found their way into the crude tomb he'd had to construct for her a few years earlier. Still, occasionally he caught a glimpse of the mound, and he hated the sense of desolate sorrow that always followed.

“What's it really like out there?” Thomas asked after a moment. “In the world, I mean. I look out at it from up here, and it looks so built-up but also so still and empty. What's it like out there beyond the part I can see?”

“You'll find out one day.”

“Do you promise?”

“Just not yet,” Ashley told him. “You know, it's funny. One moment you can feel as if the whole world is open and waiting for you. That's what things were like all those years ago, until the night I came to this hotel and met your mother again. I had endless possibilities, and I fought to keep as many of those possibilities open as possible. But life always has a way of cutting your choices down until you barely have any at all.” He paused as he remembered Amanda having said something similar once. “Then you find yourself marooned on a kind of island, and you can't get off it ever again. Life catches up with everyone in the end, even if they try to outrun it. Parents become trapped, then their children get free, then the whole cycle repeats forever. That's what this roof has been like, in a way. An island, but... at least I had your mother for most of the time.”

“I want to see the world one day,” Thomas told him.

“And you will,” Ashley replied, before leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “Just not yet, that's all. But now I need to rest. We can talk more later, but I need to just close my eyes for a few minutes and...”

His voice trailed off. He murmured a few more words, but he was quickly asleep and Thomas – who knew better than to disturb his father – waited for a few seconds before getting to his feet and walking over to the edge of the roof. Wearing one of the work outfits that had been found in the cabin on the roof's western side, he stood and looked across the London skyline, but as usual he saw no sign of movement anywhere.

“One day,” he whispered under his breath. “I'll see it all one day.”

***

Several months later, Thomas stood at the edge again, but this time his thoughts were very different. He was still watching the distant skyline, but after a few more seconds he turned and looked over at the two makeshift tombs at the far end of the roof.

He felt a sliver of sorrow as he remembered how he'd tried to replicate his mother's funeral arrangements for his father. Now they were together, resting beneath sections of corrugated metal. He'd briefly – very briefly – spotted his mother's bones hidden away, but he'd been careful to not look too closely.

Figuring that he was in danger of wasting time, Thomas walked over to the door and began to pull the rusty chains away. He'd long dreamed of this moment, but now he found that the chains were difficult to move. He had to really pull on some of them but finally they fell to the ground. The door itself had remained silent for more than a year now, with no hint of anyone or anything attacking from the other side, although Thomas knew that this was no guarantee that there were no dangers lurking. Still, he had to know for sure, so after a few more seconds he turned the handle and pulled the door open.

Several corpses lay on the other side, and although they'd mostly decomposed by now, Thomas could just about tell that his father had been right. The creatures had attacked the door until they'd literally smashed themselves to pieces, and now they lay lining the steep staircase that led down into the hotel's dark interior.

Leaning forward, Thomas was immediately struck by the overpoweringly fusty smell.

“Nice,” he whispered under his breath, before turning to once again look at the cobbled-together tombs. “I'll come back one day and get you out of here,” he told his dead parents. “I'll bury you properly, like the way you told me people used to be buried in the old days. But first I just need to go down there and see whether things are still as bad as you described them. You never know, there might be some sign of recovery.”

Once he'd made his way down the stairwell, he found himself carefully picking his way over countless sets of skeletal remains. He had no way of lighting his path, so for several hours he had to fumble along while running his hands along the wall. He knew there was a danger that he might get lost forever, but his father had described the layout of the hotel a few times and he figured that eventually he was guaranteed to find the main set of stairs. The hunt took much longer than he'd expected, and he began to worry, but finally he pushed through a set of double doors and heard the sound of his own footsteps changing and opening out in the air.

Stepping forward carefully, he let out a gasp as he realized that he'd finally located the fabled main stairwell of the hotel.

He briefly considered turning back. Fear was growing in his chest and he told himself that he could always return to the roof and live out his life there. Sure, pigeons weren't the most exciting meal, but at least they'd provided a plentiful source of food over the years. He quickly told himself, however, that he had to keep pushing on, so he began to make his way down the stairs while occasionally climbing over the bones of people who'd clearly died many decades earlier. His parents had told him the story of their escape to the roof many times, and he couldn't help imagining them bravely battling the evil creatures during their journey.

A short while later, stepping through another set of double doors, he found himself in a large, open space with midday light streaming through large doors and windows. More bodies were strewn around, but as he stepped forward Thomas realized that this must be the foyer or reception that his parents had mentioned so many times. This was where their account of the end of the world had begun, and as he stepped across the open floor Thomas saw signs of destruction all around; windows had been broken, tables had been tipped over, and dark stains on the walls hinted at blood long since spilled.

Reaching the revolving door, about which he'd heard so much, Thomas gave it a push but quickly found that it had rusted shut. He tried a side door instead, and fortunately this opened. Stepping outside, he walked out onto the street that he'd only ever seen from above, and he looked around at the remains of human bodies that had been left near abandoned vehicles. He tried to imagine what the city had been like when it was thriving and busy, but despite his parents' descriptions he really couldn't even begin to comprehend how so many people could have lived in such a confined space. His father in particular had talked about the roar of London, but even that made no sense to Thomas at all.

“South,” he murmured, as he looked along the street and tried to remember the directions his father had given him a few times. He vaguely understood that the best option was to try to find some kind of river. “Okay, let's give it a try.”

A few hours later he emerged from another street and saw more water than he'd ever seen before in his life, running like a separate street through the heart of the city. He glanced around, to make sure that he was alone, and then he crossed over and headed to a railing that overlooked the river. Having never seen anything so strange in all his life, he quickly told himself that this likely wasn't even the strangest thing he was going to see as he explored the world for the first time.

Turning to look the other way, he froze as he suddenly spotted a figure standing on a nearby bridge. His first thought was to run, but instead he simply stared as the figure remained silhouetted against the sky. After a few more seconds, the figure raised one hand and waved at him.

“Hey!” a woman's voice shouted. “Who are you? Where are you going?”

Thomas hesitated for a moment, before quickly remembering that his father had told him to be cautious but brave if he ever ran into another person again. He knew that one day he'd have to make bigger decisions, that he'd have to pick somewhere to start a new life, but for now he figured that he had to keep as many options open as possible, before life found a way to – as his father described it – 'trap him on an island somewhere'.

“Hey!” he called out, while raising a hand and waving back to the woman. “I don't know! I think... I think anywhere!”

This is the Dream

2026...

He sat up suddenly in bed, jolted awake as sweat glistened all over his body.

“Teddy?” his wife murmured, stirring nearby. “Are you okay?”

“I had that dream again,” he replied, staring into the darkness of the room as Rebecca sat up next to him. “The same nightmare. The one where the human race has been almost entirely wiped out by some kind of sickness. People are turning into these zombie-like creatures, they're rotting even as they chase after the living. The whole world is just filled with screams, night and day, as these creatures consume and infect everyone they come across. And they didn't spare anyone. They even got you and the kids this time. You and Janey and Toby were dragging me down, screaming as you dug your rotten fingers into my flesh and bit at my face and neck. There was blood and bone everywhere.”

A shiver ran through his body.

“It felt so real,” he continued as Rebecca put an arm around his waist and cold sweat glistened on his face. “I don't know why I keep having such similar dreams. I've never had one quite like this before, though. I was trying to fight the three of you off, but you were overpowering me. It was the most horrific thing I've ever seen. I kicked Janey until the front of her face caved in, I couldn't help it, I was just desperate to escape. But all around me there was nothing but all this blood, and I was screaming as you and Toby ate me. And the whole world was the same. I know I've had them before, but the latest dream was the worst of all.”

“Oh, my sweetheart,” Rebecca replied, pulling him closer and wrapping her arms around him. “This is the dream.”

The Nightmare on Platform 2

I

2023...

“The 23:39 train to Dover Priory and Ramsgate has been canceled. Travelers are advised to find alternative means of transport.”

Looking up at the speaker above the cafe's door, Holly let out a heavy sigh. She'd heard that same automated message every few minutes for a while now, and she couldn't help but wonder why anyone was bothering; after all, there were no passengers at the station, the platforms were entirely empty, and there wasn't even anyone left in the ticket office. As usual, after eleven at night she was the only person working at the station, and she would have been the only person present at all had it not been for...

Hearing a muttered complaint, she turned to see Kerrigan still tapping furiously at the fruit machine in the corner.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Hmm? What?”

“The last train's canceled. That means no more trains tonight.”

“So can you close the cafe?”

“Nope,” she replied. “Company policy. I have to keep the place open until midnight.”

“Isn't that kind of dumb?”

“It's extremely dumb,” she told him, “but I don't make the rules. And Jeanette says some guy was fired last year for shutting up fifteen minutes early, and I can't afford to lose this job so...”

She checked her watch.

“Only fifty-one minutes to go,” she added with no discernible enthusiasm whatsoever. “Somehow I don't think I'm going to be serving any more weird-tasting tea or cardboardy raspberry bakes tonight.”

“So shut up early anyway. Who'll know?”

“I told you, I can't afford to screw up.” She watched as he slipped some more coins into the machine. “At least I have an excuse. Don't take this the wrong way, Kerrigan, but don't you have anywhere else to be? Like, anywhere else in the whole world? 'Cause this train station on a wet Monday night seems like a weird place to hang out, especially when you live nearby and you weren't even planning to go anywhere.”

“I told you, I'm keeping you company.” He glanced back at her. “Is that a crime?”

“Whatever,” she murmured as she wandered over to the far end of the counter and tried to find some kind of job that might keep her busy. “I suppose I could clean the hot water spout,” she suggested unenthusiastically, “although Jeanette said it hasn't been done for years.” She stared down at the metal tap and felt a shudder pass through her body. “I really don't think I'm ready to witness the horrors inside this machine. I hate to think what might come out.”

“The water here tastes like ass,” Kerrigan pointed out.

“Oh, I know that,” she said airily, tilting her head a little as she continued to look at the tap. “I'm surprised no-one's ever complained or got sick. Then again -”

Before she could finish, she spotted movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking out toward the ticket hall, she was surprised to spot a scruffy-looking guy shuffling toward the ticket barrier, with a large backpack slung over his shoulder.

“Hey!” she called out.

Clearly startled, the guy spun around as if he'd been caught in the act.

“No trains,” Holly told him.

“What?” the guy stammered.

“No trains,” she said again. “If you wait long enough, you'll -”

“The 23:39 train to Dover Priory and Ramsgate has been canceled,” the speaker announced suddenly. “Travelers are advised to find alternative means of transport.”

“What that dude said,” Holly continued. “I mean, I don't care if you want to climb over the barriers and get to the platform, but it's kinda pointless. There are literally no trains now until about five in the morning.”

She waited, but the guy seemed somewhat stunned, as if he didn't really know how to react. He glanced around, clearly worried about getting spotted, and then he made his way to the cafe's open door and stopped again.

“I... wasn't actually looking for a train,” he said cautiously.

“Then why are you at a train station?” she asked.

“Yeah, why are you at a train station?” Kerrigan asked, although he conspicuously failed to look away from the frantically-flashing fruit machine.

“I just want to go on the platform for a few minutes,” the guy continued.

“Why?” Holly asked.

“No reason.”

“Are you a pervert?” she replied.

“I'm sorry?”

“If you want to flash someone or something,” she said with a sigh, “just do it and get out of here. We get all sorts at this station, you know. I'm not saying you look like a pervert.”

Kerrigan muttered something under his breath.

“What I'm saying,” Holly continued, “is that it's way too late and I'm way too tired to deal with anyone's shit, so if you've got some weird plan cooking, would you mind just getting it over with? Cut to the chase.”

“I... don't know what you mean,” the guy replied.

“Whip it out.”

“What?”

“If you're some kind of pervy flasher and you've come here to expose yourself to strangers, just whip it out and then leave. That way, we can all get on with our nights.”

“I'm not a flasher,” the guy said, before looking down at the front of his own shirt. “Is that what I look like? Some kind of weirdo?”

“I'm too polite to answer that,” she told him.

“I just want to get onto the platforms,” he explained, sounding a little desperate now. “Platform 2, to be specific. And I know there are no more trains tonight, I've been specifically waiting for a night like this when the last train gets canceled.” He hesitated. “I just thought there'd be no-one left here after eleven. Wasn't there all that fuss a while back about the station being unmanned for the last hour? I'm sure I remember people getting angry about something.”

“People are always angry,” Holly pointed out. “It's true that the station staff leave at eleven on the dot, but by a quirk of fate I'm employed by the cafe's franchise owner, and my boss insists that I have to stay until midnight.”

“Oh,” the guy replied.

“Yeah,” she said, clearly unimpressed. “Oh.”

“So...”

He paused again.

“Do I need a ticket?” he asked. “I was thinking I wouldn't. I actually thought that the barriers would be open.”

“They would be, but after the cancellation they were remotely closed.” She watched him for a moment, as she heard Kerrigan uttering his frustrations over by the fruit machine. “So if you're not here to perform some kind of sexually perverse act – and the jury's still out on that, by the way – why are you here? You can't be a trainspotter, because there aren't any trains tonight, so what gives? Why do you want to get onto the platforms?”

“Not the platforms plural,” he replied. “Platform 2.”

“Big difference. What gives?”

He hesitated, before turning and hurrying past Kerrigan, heading toward the dirty window that overlooked the first platform. He reached up and wiped some grime away, and then he gestured for Holly to follow. Having seemed sullen and nervous since his arrival, suddenly something seemed to have stirred in his soul, and he cupped his hands around his eyes as he leaned closer to the glass and looked out across the rest of the station.

Rolling her eyes, Holly walked out from behind the counter and made her way over to join him.

“I swear,” she murmured, “if you touch me or show me any part of your anatomy that should be covered up, I'll hurt you a lot.”

“There!” he said triumphantly, jabbing at the window with one finger. “That's why I'm here.”

Peering outside, Holly saw nothing but the station's three platforms. A covered walkway joined the entire station together, while each platform was kitted out with the standard benches and advertising hoardings and vending machines and various other little huts and boxes that served no obvious purpose. Holly looked both ways along the platform, half expecting to spot something that might explain the guy's presence, but after a few seconds she realized there was nothing.

“Okay, let me see,” Kerrigan said, stopping next to her and joining the pair of them in watching the platforms. “I don't see anything.”

“You said platform 2, right?” Holly continued, looking at the strange guy. “I see platform 2 out there, but it's no more exciting than it is on any other night.”

“You're just showing your ignorance,” the guy said.

“Excuse me?”

“Platform 2 at this particular station is the star of one of the world's most intriguing urban legends,” the guy explained, as the sense of excitement and expectation rose and rose in his voice. “I can't believe you guys haven't heard about it before, it's been all over the internet for years! Do you really know nothing about the mystery of the platform 2 vending machine?”

II

As soon as she pressed the piece of paper against the scanner, the ticket barrier loudly shuddered open and she stepped through onto platform 1.

“I didn't know you had a pass for the platforms,” Kerrigan said as he followed her. “Why would you have one of those?”

“Just because I'm a lowly cafe worker?” she replied, turning to him with a faint smile. “I photocopied it one day when I was in the office and no-one else was looking. I figured one day it might come in handy if something interesting happened.” She paused. “I'm still waiting.”

“There it is,” the guy said, stepping past them and stopping to look across the tracks. After a moment he raised his right arm and pointed. “That's why I'm here!”

“The vending machine?” Holly replied, as she furrowed her brow. “Wait, when you said that a few minutes ago, I assumed you were joking. Were you being serious?”

“My friends, that is not just any old vending machine. That vending machine has been the subject of great interest for many years. People have come here from miles and miles away, purely to buy drinks from it. To document it. To understand it. You must have noticed!”

He turned to them.

Holly shrugged.

“Are you serious?” the guy asked. “Do you actually not know?”

“We actually don't know,” Holly replied. “Do we, Kerrigan?”

“We don't know,” Kerrigan said. “Hey, I was on a roll back there on the slots, do you think I could go and -”

“That vending machine is a miracle!” the guy said, pointing dramatically across the tracks toward the brightly-lit vending machine on the opposite platform. “That vending machine shouldn't even exist! Have you ever seen anyone turn up to stock it?”

“No,” Holly admitted.

“Doesn't that strike you as odd?”

“No,” she said dismissively. “I get bored, but not that bored. Someone could make love to the stupid machine and I probably wouldn't notice. Hey, is that what you're here to do? Because I definitely don't want to see something so awful. Well, I might have to take a look, but only to horrify myself.” She flinched. “Why did I say that?” she added. “I'm so stupid! And for the record, while I might not have any responsibilities regarding the platform side of things, I think I'd be duty-bound to stop you if you try to sexually harass that vending machine.”

“Do you think,” Kerrigan mused, “anyone has ever said that last sentence before in the history of the human race? Was that not most likely the first time ever?”

“I'm not a sex pervert,” the guy said with a sigh. “Can you please stop suggesting that? You're kind of making me feel self-conscious. I mean, do I really look like someone who might be into weird stuff?”

“Don't ask questions if you don't want an honest answer,” Holly replied firmly.

“I don't mean to bother you guys,” he replied before stepping forward and holding out a hand. “My name's Gary and I have a rather unusual hobby. I collect weird and rare cans of drink. Mainly cola, soda, that sort of thing. I actually run one of the world's largest websites on the subject, it's got photos and detailed descriptions of more than one thousand different cans!”

“Is that right?” Holly asked.

“Is it wrong of me to find that slightly impressive?” Kerrigan asked.

Holly turned and glared at him.

“It's deeply wrong,” he added.

“Believe it or not,” Gary continued, “that particular vending machine over there on platform 2 is known to periodically dispense soda cans that shouldn't exist.”

“Come again?” Holly replied.

“You're obviously not well-versed in the details of this particular world.”

“Obviously,” Holly and Kerrigan said at the same time.

Kerrigan was immediately unable to contain a smile.

“There are multiple reports online from people who claim that this vending machine has occasionally given them soda cans that have never been seen or mentioned anywhere else in the world,” Gary said excitedly. “Most of the time it gives out all the usual stuff, but every so often it starts spitting out these really unusual cans that no-one has been able to properly identify. Now, that's all well and good, but until tonight no-one has been able to predict exactly when the machine will start giving out the good stuff.” He checked his watch. “I've cracked the code, however. It's linked to star signs. And I'm confident that between now and midnight, that machine is going to spit out some more rare cans.”

For a moment, silence fell between the three of them.

“Oh,” Holly said finally. “Oh, okay. I get it. Sorry, I was a little confused but I understand now.” She turned to Kerrigan. “This guy is completely out of his mind.”

“You think?” Kerrigan replied.

“I don't think it's about what I think,” she pointed out, “I think it's about what's really obvious.”

“You don't believe me,” Gary chuckled. “That's fine, I'm used to being considered a little unusual. Great thinkers often are.”

“I think I'd have preferred it if you were a sex pervert,” she told him. “That would at least have been interesting.”

“Come on, then,” he said, turning and heading toward the footbridge. “There's one really obvious way to clear this up. We're well past the point at which the machine should have started doing its thing. I'll show you!”

“Are we going to go with him?” Kerrigan asked.

“I really wish we weren't,” Holly replied, “but let's be honest, we have nothing better to do.” She started following Gary. “Let's go and laugh at the mentally ill guy and his crazy conspiracy theory about soda cans!”

***

The vending machine stood just around the corner from the bottom of the steps on platform 2, wedged between two huge advertising boards. A large illuminated panel on the front appeared to have once carried some kind of logo, although this had evidently faded away over the years; the machine certainly looked pretty old, as if it was perhaps from the 1970s or even earlier, and plenty of cuts and scratches suggested that it had been in place for a very long time.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?” Gary said as he stared at the machine, with his face bathed in the light of its glow.

“No,” Holly replied.

“I'm going to make a selection,” Gary continued, as if he hadn't heard her at all. Taking some coins from his pocket, he stepped forward. “Statistically-speaking, C3 is the option most likely to return one of the impossible cans. That's based on my own research, by the way.”

“We're so impressed,” Holly told him, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Gary slipped some coins into the slot, before pushing the C3 button firmly. The machine immediately began to whir and shudder, as if its internal mechanisms weren't quite working with absolute oiled precision; for several seconds the machine seemed almost on the verge of giving up, as if it might be about to simply keep the money and shut up shop. Finally, however, a tell-tale thud indicated that some kind of can had indeed fallen into the pick-up box at the bottom.

“Get ready to have your minds blown,” Gary said, crouching down and reaching into the drawer. “I bet you've never seen -”

As soon as he pulled the can out, he fell silent. In his hand, he was holding a can of generic and very well-known sparkling orange juice. He stared for a moment, as if he could scarcely believe what he was seeing, and then he reached back into the drawer in an attempt to make sure that there wasn't another – more interesting – can hidden somewhere.

“I don't get it,” he muttered. “It should have worked.”

“I for one am shocked,” Holly said, before nudging Kerrigan in the arm. “Aren't you, Kerrigan?”

“I guess... urban legends aren't always true,” Kerrigan suggested.

“No, this is just a one-off mistake,” Gary replied, getting to his feet and hurriedly putting some more coins into the slot. “You'll see, just give me one more shot and I'll show you what I mean.”

He pressed C3 again, and again the machine began to emit a low, thunderous grinding sound. This time the internal mechanism seemed to have to think a little harder, before another can was heard dropping with a heavy thud into the drawer.

“This has to be better,” Gary said, crouching down and reaching into the machine. “It just has to be.”

He pulled out another can of the sparkling orange juice, and now the sense of disappointment on his face was palpable. Opening his mouth, he seemed to be on the verge of saying something before holding back for a moment.

“I think we've wasted enough time here,” Holly told Kerrigan, before turning and heading back toward the steps. “I'll be in the cafe. I can't believe I actually came all the way over for this.”

“Sorry,” Kerrigan said, as Gary stared in shocked disappointment at the two cans of orange juice. “Better luck next time, right?”

III

“He's still over there,” Holly said a short while later, as she glanced out through the cafe's window and saw Gary working at the vending machine. “This is beyond pathetic.”

She glanced at her watch.

“Only half an hour to go until I can close up and head home,” she added. “Then he's officially no longer my problem.”

“Give the guy a break,” Kerrigan replied as he continued to hit buttons on the fruit machine. “Everyone needs a hobby.”

“And is that thing your hobby?” she asked. “Why do you come here every night and waste your time playing on some stupid old fruit machine that's probably rigged not to pay out anyway?”

“Don't you like the company?”

“I find the company a little suspicious. I mean, someone who hangs out at a train station every night but has no interest in trains is...”

Her voice trailed off, and as she watched him expertly jab at the machine's controls she found herself wondering what Kerrigan really wanted. She only knew him because he'd gone to college with her brother, and she could tell that he had certain issues. From overheard gossip, she understood that something pretty crazy had happened to his sister a few years earlier, something about her going crazy and dying in an oven, although she knew that the precise details had been hastily covered up. That last part about the oven had to be fake. Evidently Kerrigan had inherited a fair amount of money from his parents a while back, which meant he could afford to lose a few quid each night on the station's one working fruit machine, but she still couldn't quite work out what he found so appealing about the cafe.

She'd asked her boss about him, but apparently he never came in when Holly had a night off.

“So what do you do when you're not here?” she asked, trying to sound casual even though she was actually very interested in his answer. “Please tell me you've got a life beyond train station fruit machines.”

“No, this is it, actually,” he replied, before glancing at her with a knowing smile that made very clear he was joking. “What about you? Like, what would you want to do if someone took you out one night?”

“Like on a date?”

“I was just wondering.”

Suddenly feeling as if she was going to blush like crazy, she turned to the coffee machine and began to wipe the already-wiped nozzle.

“Oh, I don't know,” she stammered, and now she absolutely hated the nervousness she could hear in her own voice. A moment later she fumbled clumsily as she tried to remove the nozzle, and she quickly focused instead on wiping the side of the machine. “I've never really been on a date.”

“You haven't?”

She turned to him and saw that he'd stopped playing on the machine. For a few seconds, silence hung between them.

“Well,” he said cautiously, “if -”

“Hey!”

Suddenly they both turned to see Gary stumbling into the cafe. He tripped almost as soon as he was in the room, nearly knocking one of the chairs over, but he somehow managed to stay on his feet as he hurried to the counter and triumphantly set down a can of soda.

“There!” he gasped breathlessly. “I told you! You doubted me but I told you and I was right!”

After snapping his fingers, he slammed both his fists onto the counter and then stepped back, as if he believed that this solitary can of soda was going to prove some huge point. He looked first at Holly, then at Kerrigan, then at Holly again, and by now it was clear that he expected them to grovel for forgiveness and beg him to tell them more. As the seconds ticked past, however, nobody said a thing until finally Holly stepped forward and picked the can up with obvious disdain.

“This?” she asked cautiously.

“Have you ever seen anything like it before?”

“No, but -”

“That's because it's not from this world!”

“The soda can isn't from this world?”

“It's not.”

“Okay,” she replied as Kerrigan made his way over to join her in taking a closer look, “then... where's it from? Is it an alien soda can?”

She and Kerrigan smiled at each other.

“That's the big question,” Gary told them, and he was still struggling to get his breath back. “There are lots of theories, some people think it's alien in origin while others think it could be from the Hellform world.”

“The what and the where?” Holly asked.

“That doesn't matter right now,” he continued. “What matters is that I've got a specimen of my own. If you don't believe me, look at the text on the can. You can run it through any kind of translation system you want, but you won't find a damn thing because that text is in a language that doesn't exist on this planet. Or in this reality!”

“It's green,” Holly said, holding the can up. “So... is it lime-flavored?”

“I have no idea,” Gary replied.

“Okay.”

She paused, before taking hold of the ring-pull.

“No!” Gary spluttered, stepping forward, but he was too late.

“It smells weird,” Holly said as she sniffed the open can. “Like it's off, maybe.”

“You're not supposed to open it!” Gary snapped, grabbing the can from her. “Are you completely insane? The liquid inside this can might very well be from another world. There's no telling what would happen to you if you drank some of it!”

“This all sounds a little weird,” Kerrigan suggested.

“A little weird?” Holly replied, turning to him. “Come again?”

“You're making some bold claims,” Kerrigan told Gary, “and while I'll admit that the can looks pretty strange, I'm not sure I'm ready to believe some kind of... can of drink is piercing a barrier between different realities and entering our world via the drawer at the bottom of a vending machine.” He paused, thinking about the words that had just left his mouth. “Here. At this train station. In the arse-end of Kent. Right now.”

“I'm going to need some unopened samples,” Gary muttered, before setting the can down on a table and turning to hurry back out of the cafe. “I won't be long, guys. I need several cans so that I can run a few tests.” He climbed over the ticket barrier this time, somewhat awkwardly, before hurrying onto the platform as he headed back toward the footbridge.

Holly turned and watched as he disappeared up the stairs, and then she looked back at Kerrigan.

“So on a scale of one to ten,” she said after a moment, “do you think he's dangerous or just insane?”

“He's right about this can,” he replied, picking the can up and examining the text more closely. “It's really weird. I've definitely never seen anything like it.”

“In all your years of studying can designs from around the world?”

“You know what I mean,” he said, holding the can up and slowly turning it around. “My first thought was that it might be something crazy from somewhere like China or Japan or Russia, but I'm not getting that vibe at all.” He paused, before putting the can to his lips and almost taking a swig. At the last second he wrinkled his nose. “That smells disgusting,” he muttered, before setting the can back down. “That's just about the rankest thing I've ever come across in my entire life.”

“Are you sure you don't want to try some?”

“Not for me. What about you?”

She looked at the can, before picking it up and taking a sniff, and finally she scrunched too her nose up.

“I think I'll pass,” she told him as she set the can back down. “Call me crazy, but you haven't exactly sold the experience to me so I think I'll just take your word for it that the stuff's horrible.” She paused for a moment, staring down at the can, before turning to head over to the sink. “It's kind of a pretty design, though. I'll admit that. Although I still don't see why that idiot's running around desperately chasing after these things.”

Glancing out the window, she saw Gary on platform 2. He was crouching down and reaching into the drawer at the bottom of the machine.

“Then again,” she added as she briefly washed her hands, “everyone needs a hobby.”

She glanced out the window again and saw that, although only a couple of seconds had passed, Gary was now nowhere to be seen. With a sense of dread in her stomach, she realized that he was most likely racing back across the footbridge so that he could proudly show off another of his strange cans.

“We get some real weirdos at this station,” she continued as she dried her hands on a towel and then glanced at her watch. “I'm not too worried about this guy, though. As weirdos go, he seems pretty harmless. And once the clock hits midnight, he's officially no longer my problem.”

IV

“And that's me out of here,” Holly said a short while later, as she pulled the shutter down to seal the cafe off from the station's ticket hall. She took a moment to attach the padlock. “I've got two nights off now, and you have no idea how much I need them.”

Sighing, she turned to Kerrigan and immediately noticed the puzzled expression on his face as he looked past the ticket barriers.

“What?” she asked.

“Where is he?”

“What do you mean?”

“That Gary guy hasn't come back through.”

“Huh?”

Stepping over to join him, she looked out toward the tracks. Platform 2 was visible, with the mysterious vending machine standing near the foot of the steps, but there was absolutely no sign of life and Holly realized she hadn't seen Gary since she'd last looked out through the cafe's window.

“He must have left,” she suggested.

“He didn't.”

“You weren't watching every second of every -”

“He didn't leave,” he said firmly. “I was keeping my eye out. What about the gate on the other side, could he have gone out that way?”

“No, that's locked,” she told him, “and no-one's climbing over the barbed fence.” She paused, before pulling her phone out and fishing around for the copied pass. “I swear, I had a bad feeling from the moment this guy showed up.”

Once she'd opened the barriers, she led Kerrigan through and out onto platform 1, from where they could look across the tracks toward the next platform. They stood in silence for a moment, waiting for some sign of Gary, but the platform remained stubbornly empty. Even when she looked up at the walkway, Holly was able to see through the frosted windows that there was no-one up there, and now she was really starting to wonder exactly where Gary might have gone.

“There's no way he'd...”

Kerrigan hesitated.

Holly turned to him, and then – following his gaze – she looked toward the large tunnel at one end of the station. Turning the other way, she saw the tunnel at the other end.

“No way,” she said firmly. “No-one's that stupid. We still get night freight through here occasionally, remember? Besides, with the electric rail down there, it'd be bordering on suicidal, and that's one vibe I definitely didn't get from the dude.”

She paused, before stepping over to the edge of the platform and cupping her hands around her mouth.

“Hello?” she called out at the top of her voice. “Dude, you have to get out of here! The station's shut for the night!”

She waited, but she heard no reply and she was already starting to feel a growing sense of frustration. She was accustomed to idiots wasting her time, of course; several years spent working at a cafe in a train station meant that she'd encountered all sorts of people, some of whom had tried her patience almost beyond breaking point. She'd developed a strange ability to maintain a smile while dealing with such matters, but there was – as she realized now – one particular delight that was entirely new to her. Never before had someone actually threatened to delay her going home, and with the clock having ticked past midnight she was technically no longer being paid for her time.

This did not sit well with her.

“I should be home playing Zelda by now,” she murmured under her breath.

“Do you think he's hiding?” Kerrigan asked. “Hey, is it your problem? You work in the cafe, not the station.”

“I'll still get the blame somehow,” she replied, before turning and making her way toward the steps. “That's just how things go in a place like this. I'm the lowest in the pecking order, remember? Everyone above me will look for someone to shit on.”

“But earlier you said -”

“Forget what I said earlier. Life's not fair.”

“Maybe I was wrong,” Kerrigan said, hurrying to catch up to her. “I suppose he might have slipped out when I wasn't looking.”

“Why do you care, anyway?” she asked as they made their way up the steps and onto the bridge.

“I just want to make sure you're okay.”

“Why?”

“I don't want you to get blamed for something that's not your fault.”

“Why?”

“I think that'd be really sad.”

“Why?”

“It'd just seem wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because... the world isn't supposed to work that way?”

“Why?”

“Well,” he said as they began to make their way down the steps onto platform 2, “I suppose I just think that things shouldn't be like that.”

“Why?”

“I just like hanging out with you!”

“Why?”

Stopping at the bottom, she turned to him so abruptly that he almost slammed straight into her. Having to grab the railing to avoid that fate, he looked into her eyes and realized – a little too late – that his mouth was hanging open and making him look like a fool. He desperately wanted to come up with a witty response, yet there was something about Holly's brittle demeanor that made him worry he could easily piss her off.

“Why do you like hanging out with me in this grungy, dirty train station?” she asked.

“It's got nothing to do with the train station,” he countered.

She raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“It could be anywhere,” he continued, struggling to pick his words with care. “A street. A house. A... bar.”

“You want to hang out with me in a bar?”

“Or a pub. Or...”

He paused, and then he swallowed hard.

“A restaurant,” he added, although his voice betrayed him now by cracking a little.

“Are you asking me on a date?” she replied.

“I could be,” he said, before feeling a sudden and somewhat unexpected rush of courage. “What if I am? Would that be so wrong? You know, I might even turn up with a rose or -”

“A shoe,” she said, cutting him off.

“What?”

Stepping past him, she headed toward the strange vending machine, before stopping and looking down. Kerrigan followed her, and they both saw that a solitary – rather scuffed and very old – trainer had been left on the ground.

“That's his shoe,” Holly said.

“You mean Gary?”

“I always notice a guy's shoes,” she continued, as she reached down and picked it up. “Always. You can tell a huge amount about a guy's dateability by looking at the shoes he chooses to wear.”

“You can?”

Kerrigan looked down at his own slightly boring black shoes.

“Why would he leave his shoe behind?” Holly asked out loud, turning it around but seeing nothing that could possibly constitute a clue. “He'd need it. I mean, can you imagine any situation in which that dude might suddenly decide he only needs one shoe for the rest of the night?”

“No,” Kerrigan replied. “So... what do you think of his shoe? What kind of shoe do you like a guy to wear, exactly?”

“What's up with this machine?” she said, ignoring – or perhaps not even hearing – his question as she stepped over to the vending machine and looked at its faded front and dirty, filth-encrusted buttons. “I admit, I've never paid it too much attention up until now, but the more I stare at the damn thing, the more I feel as if it's got this strange vibe about it.”

She peered closer at the buttons, while still holding Gary's shoe.

“It's not like any of the others here,” she continued. “It's not like any of the others anywhere on the network, at least not as far as I've ever seen. And now I think about it, I don't think this machine is even on the fire plans. It's like it's not supposed to be here, but wouldn't someone have had it taken away by now?” She paused, before crouching down to look at the dispensing drawer. “Or would they? What if everyone just assumes that it's supposed to be here, because the alternative is too freaky to consider?”

She set the shoe down, before starting to reach into the drawer.

“Be careful!” Kerrigan said hurriedly.

“Or what?” she asked.

“I don't know,” he replied, feeling a little foolish now.

She hesitated, before pushing the flap open and reaching into the drawer. She fumbled about, but she found no more cans of drink.

“It's quite warm,” she observed, before twisting her arm a little in an attempt to reach up inside the machine. “You're going to think this is nuts, but I swear there's like this warm air coming from somewhere deep in the thing.” She winced as she reached a little further. “Obviously it's switched on, so there's going to be some heat, but...”

She fell silent as she tried again to twist her arm, and then she muttered something before trying to pull it back out. Struggling a little, she let out a faint gasp, and then – just as Kerrigan stepped closer to help her – she managed to extract her arm. As she pulled her hand out, however, they both stared in shock as they saw a non-insignificant amount of blood smeared on one side of her wrist.

“Did you cut yourself?” Kerrigan asked, immediately pulling a cotton handkerchief from his pocket and kneeling next to her. “Where is it?”

“It's not mine.”

“Where are you hurt?”

“It's not my blood!” she hissed, pushing his hand away. “There's some inside the machine, smeared really high up inside the gubbings. Like... really high up.”

“How can there be blood in there?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” she told him, before furrowing her brow. “Is that an actual handkerchief? I've never seen one that's not made out of paper before.”

“None of this makes a whole lot of sense,” Kerrigan said as he helped her up and she began to dry the blood using his handkerchief. “So what exactly are we thinking here? Did Gary somehow end up trying to reach into the machine, and then he cut his hand? There's no blood anywhere else, so it can't have been a massive cut, but did he just run off into the night?”

“I suppose there might be a way out that I don't know about,” she muttered, still cleaning herself up. “I'd be surprised, but it's possible and it beats any other explanation.”

“So you don't think he just flew away?”

They both looked up at the night sky for a moment, before turning to each other.

“Whatever,” Holly said, handing the handkerchief back to him. “Sorry if I stained that, by the way. I guess you'll have to wash it. Is that what you do with them? Do you wash them?”

He nodded.

“I'm done here,” she added, turning and leading him back toward the steps. “It's well past midnight and I'm not in the mood to get all Nancy Drew and start investigating some kind of mystery. If some weirdo can collector disappeared, it's no skin off my nose. And if anyone really cares about him, which I doubt, then they can always see if any of the ancient security cameras on the platforms caught what happened.”

“He'll probably be back,” Kerrigan said as they headed across the bridge. “Either that, or he's busy updating some blog about weird soda cans.”

“Sounds very niche,” she replied.

They walked in silence for a couple of minutes as they headed down the stairs and through into the ticket office. Holly scanned them both out through the barriers, and then they wandered out of the light and into the cold night air, heading across the car park at the front of the station and past the shuttered old pub on the corner.

“So what kind of restaurant would you take me to?” she asked as the pair of them disappeared into the distance. “Hypothetically-speaking, of course, but if you asked and if I said yes... what kind of restaurant were you thinking?”

Their voices and footsteps faded into the distance, leaving the station empty and deserted. The waiting areas were empty, and not a single thing moved anywhere in sight as the vending machine on platform 2 continued to gently hum.

V

“Holly, can you work late again tonight?” Jeanette asked with a heavy sigh a few weeks later, as she leaned against the counter and scribbled on some papers in a folder. “I've got no-one to cover me.”

“I can't tonight, sorry,” Holly replied, having already begun to pack stuff into her backpack. Glancing at her watch, she saw that 6pm was still a few minutes away, but she figured that there was no harm in being prepared. “I'm busy.”

“So am I,” Jeanette said. “I've got to get home and feed the kids. I need you to stay on until midnight.”

“I would if I could,” Holly said, stepping around the counter. “Believe me, I need the money, but tonight's... kind of special.”

“Special?” Jeanette replied, scrunching her nose up.

“It's me and Kerrigan's second date,” she explained, “and the first one went really well, so I'm thinking I might go a little further this time.”

“You mean sex?”

“I mean kissing him!” Holly replied. “Jeanette, you have a filthy mind! What kind of girl do you take me for?”

“You can't leave them waiting too long,” Jeanette told her, “or they'll go sniffing after someone who'll give them what they want sooner.”

“Not all guys are like that,” Holly protested.

“Since when did you become all prim and proper?” Jeanette asked, looking her up and down. “I thought kids today were all nihilistic and out of control?”

“Some of us just like to project that idea,” Holly told her, before hesitating for a moment. “Kerrigan's the first guy I've dated properly, and I want to do it right.” She seemed a little embarrassed now. “I don't think he'd like it if I was willing to throw everything out immediately. We're trying to do things the right way, and I think that if something's really good, then it's worth waiting for.”

“You sicken me,” Jeanette replied. “Who are you, anyway, and what have you done with the real Holly?”

“I'll see you tomorrow,” Holly said with a smile, slipping her backpack over her shoulders before heading out into the ticket hall.

“If you stay tonight, you can have all the hot drinks you want!” Jeanette called after her. “No charge! Does that change anything?”

Not even deigning to answer that question, Holly made her way toward the exit. At the last second, however, she happened to glance over toward the platforms, and she stopped as soon as she saw a man standing in front of the vending machine on platform 2. She told herself that the guy was probably just after a drink, but she quickly noticed that he had some pallets with him; he was wearing a gray uniform, and although he had his back turned to her Holly couldn't help but feel that this man wasn't just another customer.

She checked her watch and realized that she still had a few minutes to spare before she had to get home.

“Kerrigan, you're going to wish you were here for this,” she whispered under her breath as she looked back out at the man. “Looks like we've got ourselves a real live vending machine refill dude. He's bound to know what's really going on.”

***

A few minutes later, having made her way across to the platform, Holly stopped and watched as the man worked on the machine. He had the front section open and was leaning deep inside, while pallets of soda cans stood on the ground nearby.

Holly glanced around, but the platform was entirely empty, which seemed strange for the early evening. A few people were loitering on other platforms, yet no-one seemed interested in going anywhere near the strange vending machine or anywhere near the man who – even now – was slowly and methodically working on the mechanisms with his head obscured by part of the open door section.

After taking a moment to clear her throat, Holly stepped forward.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound friendly. “How are you doing?”

The man stopped working for a moment, but after a few seconds he started up again.

“Nice evening, huh?” Holly continued. “I'm sorry, I hope you don't mind that I came over, it's just that a friend and I were talking about this machine a while ago, and to be honest I'd love to ask you a few questions or -”

Before she could finish, she realized she could hear the man muttering away to himself. He sounded a little annoyed, and occasional clunking sounds from inside the machine suggested that he was having more than a little difficulty. Holly really didn't want to disturb him, and she knew she needed to get home and prepare for her date with Kerrigan, but she also knew that this might be her only chance to find out a little about the machine. Besides, she also figured that Kerrigan would absolutely approve of her excuse if she turned up ten minutes late to the restaurant.

“Some people have been asking about this machine,” she explained. “I don't really get it myself, but apparently there are these people who are really into this sort of thing and they have all these weird theories about the machine and about the cans it dispenses and...”

Her voice trailed off as she looked at the pallets. Some of the cans were regular soft drinks that could be purchased in any shop, but some seemed far more unusual and unfamiliar.

“The next train on platform number one,” the announcer said over the speakers, “will be the 18.25 service to Canterbury East, calling at...”

As the voice went on to list a number of station, Holly stepped closer to the side of the machine. She felt a little unsettled, almost nauseous, but she told herself that she was simply overreacting to the strangeness of the entire situation. Still, she looked around to see once again whether anyone else was nearby, and she couldn't help but notice that her mouth now seemed very dry. And then, hearing a bumping sound, she turned back to the machine just as the man pulled something out and let it drop onto the ground.

Holly opened her mouth to ask whether something was wrong, but at the last second she realized that the item removed from the machine – an item that had apparently been wedged inside and had caused trouble – was a shoe. In fact, it was quite clearly the same brand as the shoe that Gary had lost at the station a few weeks earlier.

Still not reacting to Holly's presence in any way, the man reached down and used a knife to score open one of the pallets, and then he started loading cans into the machine. Holly checked her watch again, and then she carefully stepped around the man until she was on the other side of the machine, and then she let out a gasp as she saw him sliding the cans into place. She still couldn't see the man's face, since he was looking away from her, but she was shocked by the machine's dirty, stained interior.

“Is that...”

Her voice trailed off again.

Blood?

Was the machine filled with old, dried blood? She knew the idea was preposterous, of course, yet she couldn't deny that the inside of the machine was absolutely filthy. A rag was hanging from the man's pocket, covered in more blood, suggesting that he'd been trying to wipe the machine down, and Holly couldn't help but notice after a moment that most of the blood inside the mechanism seemed to have been smeared upward and toward the right, as if something had been pulled into the machine and then up to a large vent near the top. The man had clearly wiped away a large amount of the blood, although perhaps only enough to make sure that the mechanisms worked again; plenty of blood remained smeared up the inside of the casing, for example, and around the edges of the sections where the cans were being placed.

“Is everything okay here?” she asked cautiously, as the man put the last cans into the machine.

Again she waited, and again the man failed to even acknowledge her existence. She looked at his ear but saw no sign of headphones; she began to wonder whether he might be deaf, although she also wondered whether he was simply oblivious to the world around him. And then, as he closed the vending machine and turned a key to make sure that the door was locked, he managed a faint grunt. Holly opened her mouth to speak to him, but after a few seconds he turned to look at her, and she was immediately struck by his large, bulging eyes that appeared to be leaking blood around the edges.

“I'm sorry,” she stammered, filled with a sudden sense of panic, “I should go...”

She turned to hurry past him, but at the last second her foot bumped against one of the empty pallets. She managed to stay upright, but in the process she bumped the man and knocked the machine's key from his hands. Filled with a sense of panic, she stepped back and saw that the man was now staring directly at her, as if frozen in place by her touch. She hesitated, wondering whether she should say anything, and then she crouched down and picked the key up. As she did so, however, she found that the key was extremely dirty, covered in some kind of dark grime and dust that was caked into its edges.

“I'm sorry,” she said again, momentarily mesmerized by the key, “I just -”

Suddenly the man said something, although his voice sounded extremely distorted as if it was coming through water. Holly looked up just as he reached for her, and as he pulled the key from her hand she felt a burst of pain. Dropping back, she looked at the palm of her hand and saw that the key had cut her flesh, and that some of the black grime from its surface was now in the wound. She instinctively wiped her hand against the side of her shirt, leaving a smeared mark of blood and dirt.

“I'm sorry,” she said for a third time, before looking up at the man. “I didn't mean to...”

Her words fell away.

“I'm sorry,” she murmured yet again. “Really, I swear, I...”

She hesitated, and after a moment – while keeping his bloodied eyes fixed on her – the man slipped the key into his pocket and then picked up the empty pallets. He seemed cautious and suspicious, but slowly he turned and began to walk away, eventually disappearing around the corner and leaving a somewhat relieved Holly still crouching on the ground next to the machine.

“I'm sorry,” she said for the fourth – or was it fifth? - time, and then she looked once more at the cut on her hand. “I really didn't mean to get in the way.”

Next to her, the machine was still humming. A moment later two passengers made their way down the bridge, followed by a couple more. Now the platform was filling up again, just as it would normally, as if whatever had kept people away was now gone. And after a few more seconds Holly got to her feet and checked her watch, as she realized that she really couldn't afford to hang around much longer.

“Sorry,” she said, slipping between a few more passengers as she hurried toward the steps. “I'm really sorry. Coming through.”

VI

“It's not too fancy, is it?” Kerrigan said a couple of hours later, as they sat at their table in a small Thai restaurant on the other side of town. “I sometimes find it hard to judge these things.”

“No, it's lovely,” Holly replied, but she knew she couldn't stick to the small-talk for long. “So, going back to the vending machine -”

“You can't stop thinking about it, huh?”

“His eyes were bleeding!” she hissed, before looking around to make sure that no-one at any of the other tables had noticed their conversation. “I can't explain it,” she continued, “but there was something about that guy, something that really didn't seem to belong in this world. You know those fish that can't handle the lack of pressure at the surface and they explode? It was like his eyes were on the verge of doing that! And then -”

Reaching into her bag, she brought out the shoe that had been pulled from the machine. She placed it on the table, and then she waited for his reaction.

“A shoe on the table,” Kerrigan said cautiously. “That's cool. And it looks a little... worn.”

“We found one of Gary's shoes on the ground that night,” she reminded him, “and the other shoe was wedged in the machine. And it must have been wedged deep, because I reached my arm in to check, don't you remember? And I didn't feel it!”

“I -”

“So how did that happen?” she asked. “And what about the blood in there?”

“What's your hypothesis?” he queried. “That Gary was somehow sucked into the vending machine?”

“I know it sounds crazy.”

“And all that was left of him was that shoe?”

“It sounds crazy because it is crazy,” she replied, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes for a moment. “I did some research. I looked up everything that I remembered Gary mentioning, and I got a few hits on that Hellform crap he went on about. There have been little hints of them over the years, things like strange things happening in blocks of flats or weird people turning up in places. There was even something about a printer that someone claimed had been brought through from their world. It all seems so jumbled, but at the same time I can't shake the feeling that there's some logic to it.”

She began to scratch the palm of her left hand.

“I feel like I'll understand it all if I just think a little harder,” she added, before opening her eyes. She saw the slightly disappointed expression in Kerrigan's eyes, and then she sighed. “I also feel like I'm totally ruining this romantic date night.”

“No, I -”

“Let's talk about you,” she continued. “How are you doing?”

“I'm fine,” he replied. “Still dealing with some stuff from my sister's estate. It turns out that when you murder a well-known chef and then throw yourself into an oven, there are some... complications for your only surviving family member to deal with later.”

“I'm so sorry about all of that,” she told him, as she began to scratch her palm a little more furiously. “I heard a little bit about it. That was two years ago, right?”

“Three,” he corrected her. “Not that it really matters. My sister was pretty nuts by the end. I knew that, of course, although I never in a million years guessed that she'd go so far. She was kind of obsessed with our father, she'd always wanted to be closer to him. He was so focused on his work as a butcher, and then on his restaurant, that neither of us really got much time with him, and then Eleanor really struggled after their crash a few years back.”

“Is that when your parents died?” she asked, and now she was conscious that her itching was becoming worse and worse. She put her hands under the table, hoping to hide the problem. “Sorry, was that an insensitive thing to ask?”

“Not at all,” he told her. “I suppose you could say that it's really just a series of weird coincidences. Technically I now own this house out there, the same one we were visiting all those years ago, but it's been trapped in some kind of legal loop for a few years now. I'm not sure it'll ever get sold, it might be doomed to just sit there slowly rotting. The only people who ever go there are local kids who cause trouble with ghost hunts and -”

Stopping himself just in time, he shook his head.

“And now I'm going on and on about myself and my own stupid problems,” he continued. “Holly, how about we just try to focus on tonight, huh? I'm really happy that you wanted to come out with me again. I was worried that I might have blown things last time. Obviously I used to hang out at the station and try to build up the courage to ask -”

“I'm sorry!” she blurted out, getting to her feet so suddenly that she bumped the table. “I have to go to the bathroom! I'll be right back!”

***

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she hissed as soon as she saw her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Are you determined to ruin any chance you might get at happiness?”

She stared at herself in the mirror for a moment before looking down at the palm of her hand. The itching sensation had been getting steadily worse and worse all evening, to the extent that she'd scratched some of the flesh away. A trickle of blood ran from the wound, but she was more focused on the dark lines deeper in the cut. Peering closer, she saw that the black gunk from the vending machine key had somehow changed shape, forming what appeared to be a kind of lattice shape that ran deeper into her hand.

“What the...”

She closed her hand, briefly forming a fist, before opening it again. Something about the hand felt strangely heavy, although after a moment she realized that this sensation extended to most of the rest of her body as well. She took a few deep breaths, each of which felt a little harder than the last, and she tried to convince herself that there was nothing really wrong, that her hand wasn't infected or anything like that. Still, as she continued to examine the wound, she realized that she could feel a strange sense of hunger starting to fill her belly and rise up into her chest.

“Blood,” she whispered, puzzled by the fact that she really wanted to taste some blood. “Okay, now you're officially losing the plot. There's no way anything bad could have come out of that machine and infected you. You're just being over-dramatic.”

She swallowed hard, but now she felt strangely hot and cold at the same time. Finally, realizing that she'd already spent way too long in the bathroom, she turned the tap on and washed her hands. The itching sensation was still there, but she figured that she was just going to have to be a big girl and stay strong. After all, there was no point letting a little cut get out of hand.

“You can do this,” she whispered. “You're on a date with a hot guy you actually like, and you're going to get back there and try to be charming.”

She took another deep breath, and in that moment she began to feel that she actually might be able to pull herself together. In truth, she liked Kerrigan way more than she'd even been willing to admit to herself, and she was terrified that she might be about to screw everything up. He was a smart, funny, interesting guy who – as a bonus – wasn't constantly broke all the time, and she desperately wanted to try to impress him.

“You're going to do this,” she said as she turned the tap off and looked into the mirror. “You're perfectly -”

Suddenly she froze as she saw her own reflection. The same black lattice-like structure was now running up one side of her face, as if it was extending just beneath her skin, but the most alarming aspect of her face was her eyes, which had begun to turn yellow as blood seeped from the corners. She stared at this horrific sight for a few seconds, wondering whether she might yet be able to fix it all and make herself presentable, but at that moment she realized that her lust for blood was getting stronger and stronger, and finally she did the only thing that really made any sense at all.

She screamed.

The Last Haunted House on Mars

I

2023...

“Saoirse, wait up! Hey, Saoirse, why are you going so fast?”

“I'm not!” she yelled from up ahead, even as she darted along the path that ran deep into the forest. “You're just being slow!”

“I'm not!” Henry hissed, huffing and puffing as he began to slow his pace. “Saoirse, wait! If you don't wait, I'll tell Mummy that you've been mean to me!”

“Suck it up!” she shouted, already sounding as if she was much further ahead. “You need to get in shape, Henry! You'll thank me one day!”

“Wait for me!” he screamed, red-faced and teary-eyed now as his temper grew. Aged only eleven, he was still more than capable of exploding with rage any time his older sister taunted him. “I'm ordering you to wait for me! Saoirse! You have to wait!”

***

Fifty years later...

Huge IV-type engines roared into life, burning through the terraformed atmosphere, incinerating drifting clouds as they slowed the descent of the main ship. Every few seconds the engines cycled through a new stage, constantly auto-adjusting for changes in the micro-gravity as the rocky ground below came closer and closer. The entire process was automated, based on a complex system developed at the Rennie facility back on Earth.

Three miles away, Henry Rennie stood on the observation platform and watched the ship's continued progress. There had been a time when he'd watched every arrival, but these days he tended to focus on his new ideas in the lab, leaving the job of overseeing simple transport landings to his subordinates. On this occasion, however, he'd been unable to keep away, and he simply stood in awe-inspired silence as the ship moved closer and closer to the planet's surface. Any moment now, the landing dock would shudder under the weight of a vessel that had flown approximately 150 million miles since leaving the launchpad on the outskirts of London.

A moment later the ship touched down, and the comm-link on Henry's left wrist beeped with a confirmation message.

“Sir?” Laurel said, having waited silently and obediently behind him for several minutes. “The shuttle's waiting if you're ready to go and take a look.”

“Huh?”

Turning to her, he saw the studied seriousness on her face, and he couldn't help but smile.

“If you want,” she added nervously. “But if you'd rather stay here, that's okay as well. I mean, obviously it's okay, I wasn't trying to imply that it might not be. I mean... you're the boss, it's not like anyone could tell you not to go, it's more the case that I was informing you that based on the protocols – the ones that you drew up – this would be the optimal time to go to the shuttle and...”

Her voice trailed off, and after a moment she looked down at her clipboard and started mumbling.

“It was just a suggestion,” she said, no longer daring to look him in the eye.

“Evidently,” he replied, still smiling as he watched her squirm. “I'll tell you how we'll do this, you're going to stay here and just keep on eye on things, and I'm going to go and find someone to take me to the shuttle. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” she replied.

“Good.”

Stepping past her, he made his way across the empty observation platform and approached the doors of the elevator. As the doors slid open, he stepped inside and turned around just in time to see the blank expression on Laurel's face

“Sir,” she said cautiously, “when you said that I should stay here and... keep an eye on things...”

She looked around, and the observation platform was conspicuously devoid of anything that might need to be monitored.

“I just don't quite know,” she continued, “what specifically you mean.”

“You'll figure it out,” he replied as the doors slid shut, and a moment later he felt the elevator stating to move down the shaft.

Tapping the comm-link on his wrist, he brought up Jonathan's channel.

“The shuttle's ready for you, Sir,” his deputy said immediately, his voice sounding a little crackly over the link. Then again, the elevator shafts were a notoriously bad place for signal. “As soon as you get here, we can set off.”

“Has my sister arrived yet?” Henry asked.

“Uh, no,” Jonathan replied. “No, I haven't seen her.”

“That's irritating,” he said firmly. “I told her to be ready. Has anyone seen her yet this morning?”

“I don't think so,” Jonathan replied. “I mean... I don't know. I mean, I can send someone to her quarters to see whether or not she's going to accompany you today.”

“Oh, she's going to accompany me today,” Henry said firmly, through gritted teeth. “I made sure that she understands that all too well. She's just messing around and trying to prove some petty little point.” He sighed. “Fine, I'll play along if it makes her feel better. Send someone to my sister's apartment and tell them to beg and plead or whatever the hell else she wants. Puff the dumb bitch up a little, do whatever it takes, but just make sure she comes to the shuttle in the next half hour. The last thing I need if for her peacocking to disrupt a well-oiled plan.”

“Absolutely, Sir.”

“She knows how much this means to me,” he continued, as the elevator continued to descend. “I know we've had our differences over the years, but you'd think she might understand that this is something entirely different. This is a huge moment in my life, and it could be equally massive for her too. Then again, she always likes holding something over me and I guess she's worried that I might finally be proved right about...”

His voice trailed off yet again.

“About what, Sir?”

“About something that happened when we were kids. It doesn't matter, Jonathan. It's between me and her. Just make sure that you get her to the shuttle.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“And how are we getting on with the new elevator relay system? The signal in here is really choppy.”

“I'll chase that up, Sir.”

“And you know that girl we hired a while ago? Laurel?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“She annoyed me today,” Henry continued. “She's too subservient and whiny. Have her reassigned to the mining facilities on the other side of the planet. I don't want to ever have to see her wet puppy dog eyes ever again.” He took a moment to clear his throat. “The stupid bitch gives me the creeps.”

***

2023...

“Saoirse, you're being mean!” Henry gasped, barely able to get any words out at all as he pushed through the bushes. “I'm going to tell Mummy that you gave me stitch and -”

Stopping suddenly, he saw his sister standing ahead, with her back to him as she looked out across a large clearing. At the far end of that clearing, an old and very dilapidated house stood silhouetted against the treeline.

“Wait...”

His voice trailed off as he realized that he recognized this particular house; he'd seen it in a few old photos, and anyway – Saoirse had described it to him so many times that even without the photos, he'd have already been able to form a pretty perfect image of the place in his mind. Now it was real, it was actually in front of him, and he felt an instinctive urge to turn around and run away as fast as possible, yet somehow he managed to stand still even as a creeping sense of fear spread through his body.

“Is that...”

“I told you it was here,” she replied, turning to him with a knowing grin, “and that I'd bring you to see it next time we came to the area. Did you think I was lying?”

“No, but...”

“You always talk the talk, Henry,” she continued, “but I think at heart you're a little wimp. Mummy's money means you've been kept hidden from the real world. Every single thing I've ever told you about this house is true, down to the tiniest, scariest detail. It's not for the faint-hearted, so the question is, are you actually willing to do what you said you'd do?”

She waited, but she was enjoying every second of the fear and terror that was etching itself across her little brother's face. After a moment she stepped closer and reached out, taking him by the hand and pulling slightly; he refused to budge, instead keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the house as if he was aware of nobody and nothing else in the whole world.

“Well, Henry?” she asked, barely able to suppress the beginning of a chuckle. “Are you going to stand there like a coward, or are you going to come inside and see an actual ghost that actually haunts this house?”

She paused, waiting for an answer, before squeezing his hand gently.

“Come on, Henry,” she purred. “Are you finally going to grow up and be a man?”

II

The wooden decking of the porch at the front of the house creaked slightly as first Saoirse and then Henry stepped up and approached the damaged, skew-whiff-hanging front door. The creaking sound caused Henry to tense a little, but he managed not to run away, which felt – to him – like quite a major victory.

“It's got an atmosphere, hasn't it?” Saoirse said, and now she'd lowered her voice to a hush, as if she didn't want to disturb whatever was inside the house. “You can feel something in the air. Go on, admit it.”

“I don't know,” Henry said awkwardly, eyeing the door with a growing sense of fear.

“You don't know?” she asked, before letting out a theatrical sigh. “Oh well, maybe you're just not attuned to this sort of thing and -”

“No, I can feel it!” he said hurriedly, cutting her off. “Totally. Only an idiot wouldn't be able to feel it.”

“You're still holding my hand.”

“No, I'm not!”

Realizing that she was right, he pulled his hand away.

“See?” he added with a kind of mock-triumphal tone. “You think I'm some wimpy little boy who gets scared easily just because of some stupid stuff that comes out of your mouth, but I'm not! I'm as brave as you are! I'm braver!”

“You are, huh?”

She paused, before stepping toward the door and pulling it aside. With the hinges broken, the door resisted for a few seconds, but she finally managed to shuffle it out of the way, revealing the house's gloomy interior.

“Okay, then,” she continued, and now she sounded far more serious than before. “Prove it. In we go.”

***

Fifty years later...

“Where's my sister?” Henry asked, his voice dripping with deadpan annoyance as he stood at the shuttle's side door.

“Sir, she -”

“Let me guess,” he continued, folding his arms across his chest, “she's been unavoidably detained.”

“Your sister sends her apologies,” Jonathan explained as he reached the shuttle, “but she's going to be a little late. She suggested that you should go on ahead and that she'll catch up.”

“I knew it,” Henry muttered, turning and taking several paces toward the front of the shuttle, before spinning around and doing the same in the opposite direction. “She's such a drama queen. She has to make everything revolve around her. This is supposed to be my moment, and she's trying to drag the spotlight over to herself! How is that fair?”

“I... don't know, Sir,” Jonathan said cautiously, fully aware that the wrong answer at any moment could result in him being fired or – worse – reassigned.

“Well, I'm not waiting for her, that's for sure,” Henry continued, before taking a deep breath and climbing into the shuttle. “That's just what she wants.”

“Actually, she -”

“Let's move!” he bellowed, banging a fist against the inside of the shuttle's door. “I'm not sitting around here like a lemon! I'm the busiest man on Mars, I've got a tight schedule and I have no intention of moving things around just because my self-absorbed lump of a sister can't get ready on time.” He turned to Jonathan. “Are you coming?”

“Am I?”

Henry nodded.

“Of course I am,” Jonathan said, clambering into the shuttle and taking a seat opposite Henry, then buckling his safety belt as the door slid shut.

“You don't need that,” Henry said, nodding at the belt.

“I don't?”

“Of course you don't,” Henry sighed, as if he was deeply annoyed. “Those things are just for show. They're an insurance sham, that's all, you don't actually need them.”

“So I shouldn't use it?”

“Do you see me wearing my belt?”

“Yes,” Jonathan replied.

“That's because I'm the president of the planet,” Henry pointed out, “and if anything happened to me, it'd be a catastrophe. I have to take extreme care with these things. But you're totally fine. Don't put it on.”

“O... kay,” Jonathan said, hesitating for a moment before moving the belt aside. “If you say so.”

“Put the belt on,” Henry said firmly, before shaking his head. “Would you jump off a cliff if I told you to? Come on, man, think for yourself occasionally. Use your head. If you don't use your head, what's the point of having it?”

“Absolutely,” Jonathan said, and he felt a rush of relief as he clicked the belt into place.

“Great,” Henry said as the shuttle's engine's roared and the vehicle began to move forward. “I've been looking forward to this for months. It's time to go and take a look at my latest, most spectacular delivery yet from the old home planet.” He grinned at Jonathan. “This time,” he added, “I've really outdone myself.”

***

2023..

“What do you think?” Saoirse asked as she stood to one side and watched Henry stepping into the house's dark, bare hallway. “Are you picking up on any kind of presence yet?”

Too scared to really hear his sister's words properly, Henry instead looked around before stopping and staring at the top of the staircase. He could barely see the landing up above, but somehow he felt sure that there must be some spooky presence watching him. More than anything in the whole world, he wanted to turn and run, but he knew that his sister would never let him live that down and that – even worse – she'd tell everyone she knew that he'd chickened out. For once in his life, Henry Rennie knew that he had to push through his fears and make a stand, even if he could feel himself almost starting to shiver with fear.

“Well?”

“I don't know,” he said softly, afraid to speak any louder in case he disturbed more ghosts. “It's cold in here.”

“No-one's lived in this house for years,” she told him. “I'm not sure how long, exactly, but it's been over a decade at least. Which is a shame, because I bet this would have been a really nice home back in the day. I bet some happy families lived here before...”

Her voice trailed off.

Henry turned to her.

“Well, something must have gone wrong,” she pointed out. “Houses don't usually end up abandoned like this, do they?”

“No,” he admitted, somewhat begrudgingly.

“So what do you think it was?” she continued. “Do you think the father went mad with a knife and killed his entire family?”

“Is that what happened?” Henry asked, his shocked eyes opening as wide as dinner plates.

“I'm just guessing,” she told him with a wry smile. “Or did some kind of escaped madman break into the house and butcher them all while they were sleeping?” She walked over to the foot of the stairs and looked up toward the landing. “Did they all get sick at the same time, and then they wasted away with no-one coming to help them? Or what if they just vanished one day, into thin air, and no-one ever found out what happened to them?” She continued to watch the top of the stairs for a few seconds, before slowly turning to her brother. “What if,” she added, “some of them are buried here? In the garden, perhaps, or even under the floor in the basement?”

“You don't know that!” he shot back at her.

“You're right, I don't,” she said, “I'm spit-balling here, but you've got to admit it's a pretty weird situation.” She pushed the bottom of the banister, causing it to let out a loud creaking sound. “No-one's paid any real attention to this house for a very long time, Henry. It's almost like people know what happened here and they don't want to come near the place.”

“Maybe we should go,” he said softly.

“Before we look upstairs?” She stepped aside and gestured for him to lead the way. “That's no fun, Henry. Anyone can step into a house, give it a bit of a sniff, and then run out. It takes someone with real guts to actually explore the place. Have you got real guts, Henry? Or are you, as I've suspected since the moment you were born, just a little wimp?”

“I'm not a wimp!” he snapped, hurrying toward her and starting to make his way up the stairs, before stopping once he was halfway and turning to her again. “Are you coming too?”

“Sure,” she replied, “but -”

She hesitated, as if she'd spotted something up on the landing. Henry turned to look too, but he saw no sign of movement; when he turned back to his sister, however, he couldn't help but notice the hint of fear in her eyes.

“What?” he asked.

He waited, but she seemed almost too scared to reply.

“Saoirse, what is it?” he asked, on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. “Did you see something?”

“No,” she replied, although she sounded somewhat unconvincing as she began to make her way up after him. “Of course not. Don't be so stupid. Now let's take a look around this place before we head home, okay?”

III

“It smells weird,” Henry pointed out as he reached the top of the stairs and looked all around. “It smells like...”

“Like someone died here?”

He turned to her.

“Relax, there are no dead bodies,” she told him. “I've been here before, remember? I came here with Kerry and we properly looked around the place. I mean, sure, there could be a corpse that's been really well hidden, but I don't think so.” She paused, once again watching him carefully as if she was taking great joy from the situation. “It's really not the physical dead that you need to worry about in a place like this. It's the spirits.”

“Did you actually see a ghost?” he asked.

“Such a childish question.”

“Why's it childish?”

“Because you don't just see a ghost like it's a piece of furniture,” she replied, as she stepped over to one of the open doorways and looked into a bedroom. “It's not as simple as that. You feel them. You sense them. Maybe you see something, maybe you don't, but it's more about the way they make your body feel when they're around. It's a kind of tingle. It's cold. It's a different way of being touched.” She peered into the room for a moment longer before turning to him. “But yeah, actually, on that occasion I literally did see one. It was in this room over here.”

“You're lying.”

“I'm not. Come and see for yourself.”

“Is it there now?” he asked, instinctively backing away toward the top of the stairs.

“Is it...”

She sighed, before walking over and grabbing him by the hand, then dragging him to the doorway and forcing him to look into the room.

“What do you think, you little dummy?” she asked, placing one hand on either side of his face so that he couldn't look away. “Do you see a ghost in there right now?”

Henry looked into the bare room and saw only the skeletal remains of a metal bed that had been left pushed against the far wall. The windows were dirty and, in places, a little cracked, while a broken bulb remained in place high above. The rest of the room was fairly decent, with paint still on the walls and no obvious signs of foulness. Most importantly for Henry, however, there was absolutely positively definitely not even the slightest vaguest hint of a ghost.

“No,” he said finally.

“Are you sure?”

He thought about that question for a few seconds.

“Yes,” he added cautiously.

“Great.” She suddenly shoved him hard in the back, sending him stumbling forward until he tripped and fell, landing hard on his knees against the bare wooden boards. “Then take a good look around.”

Before Henry could get up, he heard the door slamming shut. Turning, he saw to his horror that his sister had trapped him in the room; filled with panic, he shot to his feet and raced over to her, but when he tried to turn the handle he found that she was holding it firmly in place.

“Let me out!” he yelled.

“Are you scared?” she asked from the other side of the door.

“Let me out of here right now!” he shouted, banging his fists on the old wooden panels with such force that he soon heard a faint cracking sound. “You can't do this!”

He could hear Saoirse laughing now, and he knew he shouldn't rise to the bait, but deep down all he could think was that he had to get out of the room.

“This is where I saw the ghost,” she told him. “Probably about right behind where you're standing right at this exact moment. In fact, Henry, if you turn around right now you might see it too. It's a horrible youngish woman with straggly hair, wearing an old nightdress, and she's a dead witch with a big boil on her nose and she'll cackle at you because she wants to enjoy killing you.”

“You're lying!” he screamed. “Somebody help me!”

“You know I'm telling the truth,” Saorise said firmly. “If you didn't think that, you'd have turned and looked at her by now, wouldn't you?”

“Mummy!” he shouted. “Daddy!”

“You're so pathetic,” she continued. “Here's the deal, Henry. All you have to do is stop panicking, turn and look across the room, and wait sixty seconds. Then I'll let you out. Do you understand?”

“Help me!”

“Tell me you understand, Henry,” she replied. “It's the only way you're getting out of there. Prove to me that you can be a big brave boy, and sixty seconds later you'll -”

“Help me!” he screamed again, almost bursting his lungs as he desperately hoped that someone far away might hear his cries. “Somebody get me out of here! Help!”

***

Fifty years later...

Stepping away from the shuttle, Henry watched as the landing vessel began to retract its shields. This part of the process had been thoroughly tested and planned right from the start, and now the various components were doing their work perfectly. Only a few more minutes remained.

“Your sister still hasn't reached the pad,” Jonathan exclaimed as he hurried to catch up. After tapping at the screen on his hand, he scrolled through various options, although none of them offered the miracle he so desperately needed. He knew from experience – mainly by watching the fate of others – that Henry Rennie was not a man who took bad news well. “I'm just trying to work out exactly where she is.”

“She's missing out, that's where she is.”

“Yes, but -”

“You're a stressy little man, Jonathan, aren't you?”

“Am I?”

Henry watched for a moment as the Scullion Type-IX heat protectors began to slide out of way. He could hear the sound of the machinery whirring, even through the newly-augmented Martian atmosphere, and the clunking of gears and whizzing of panels were sweeter to his ears than any music. Having personally pored over the plans obsessively for months, Henry knew the intimate details of every part of the ship, even down to the tiniest cogs, and he took great pride in the fact that he was on top of almost all aspects of the company's business. Ever since moving to the new headquarters at the Martian facility, he'd been surviving – no, thriving – on approximately three hours of sleep per night.

“You are,” he murmured, smiling slightly as he realized that this comment would like only make Jonathan's panicked desperation even worse. “Try to cut it out a little, yeah? It can be rather... grating.”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Look at the magnificent ballet of my ship,” Henry continued, and now he was feeling in the mood to get a little poetic. He'd often thought about trying his hand at poetry some day. “Each part of the machine is a dancer, and each dancer knows his part to perfection. I'm the director of the whole ballet, of course. Only I can see the grand picture, and only I am able to understand the purpose of the dance. In return, the dancers put their trust in me and allow me to express myself through them. And this is only one ballet inside another much larger dance, you understand. For all the universe moves in this way.”

He waited for a moment, just for effect, before turning to see the confused expression on Jonathan's face.

“You don't have much of a soul, Jonathan, do you?” he added.

“I try my best.”

“Do you think that was poetic?”

“Do I think what was poetic, Sir?”

“My little speech just now.” Henry waited, before rolling his eyes. “Forget it, you're totally the wrong person to ask. I don't even know why I bother with you, Jonathan. Sometimes I think I need an assistant who has a little more passion in his heart.” He looked Jonathan up and down for a moment, making no attempt to hide his absolute disgust. “Do you know what this is? It's a sad situation, is what it is. A really sad old state of affairs.”

“Why, Sir?”

“Because...”

Henry hesitated, before hearing the tell-tale sound of the primary hood disengaging from the front of the newly-arrived transport ship. That meant the job was almost complete, so his little attempt to pass some time and amuse himself could come to an end.

“Smarten up, Jonathan,” he added. “Seriously, just... smarten up some day, okay? For everyone's sake. Especially your own.”

“Do you mean you want me to smarten up my appearance?” Jonathan replied. “Is something wrong with my appearance?”

As Jonathan smoothed down the front of his suit, Henry turned and looked at the ship. His timing was impeccable, and he watched as the primary hood lifted up and the sides of the ship retreated. The cooling process was over, the atmospheric adjustments had been completed, and the ship was now ready – after such a long journey from Earth – to release its precious cargo. Finally the machinery shifted itself out of the way, and the cargo was left standing all alone on the barren, rocky Martian surface.

“What...”

Jonathan hesitated for a moment.

“What is that?” he asked, his voice filled with a sense of wonder. “You've been so mysterious about this delivery, Sir, but is it... is that a house from Earth?”

“Not just any house,” Henry replied through gritted teeth, as he realized that he was finally on the verge of proving the most important point of all. “It's the house. It's the haunted house my sister took me to all those years ago. And now I can set right the gravest wrong of my entire life.”

IV

2023...

“Henry?”

Another gentle knock on the door, followed by another brief silence.

“Hey, Henry, are you okay in there?”

Silence.

“Henry, knock it off,” Saoirse continued, and she sounded more than a little worried now. “I'm being serious, Henry, can you just say something? I'm not going to open this door until you do. Just say anything, okay?”

Standing out on the landing, still holding the door's handle, she waited. Henry had been screaming and screaming until about a minute earlier. Although part of her wanted to just open the door, even if the little asshole was playing a prank, another part of her felt that she had to stick to her guns and make him do things properly. She'd set him a pretty serious set of rules, and she hadn't exactly done that for the good of her own health; she wanted to make him jump through the various hoops she'd established and – besides – she knew that he couldn't actually be hurt in the room. That idea was just completely impossible.

“Henry, I'm not kidding,” she continued, trying to sound as serious and authoritative as possible. “You're going to say something right now, or I'll...”

She immediately knew that she had no real way of following through with any kind of threat.

“Or I'll tell everyone that you chickened out,” she added, fully aware that she had to at least try to still sound tough. “Do you hear me, Henry? I know you don't actually have any friends, but you'll never be able to get one if everyone knows that you're a little wimp!”

Again she waited, but her frustration was getting stronger and stronger. Looking down at the handle, she told herself that she absolutely had to stay strong, otherwise Henry would end up with the upper hand.

“You're such a loser,” she told him. “You know that, right? You're the biggest loser in the history of the world, and instead of trying to become less of a loser, you just seem determined to turn into an even bigger one all the time. Where do you think that's going to get you, huh? What are you going to be like when you grow up? Are you just going to be the biggest loser on the whole planet?”

Usually an insult like that would have elicited a response, but this time Saoirse heard no reply. She clenched her teeth for a few seconds, feeling an undeniable sense of rage starting to fill her body, and she couldn't help but worry that her stupid little brother had finally learned to fight back. She wanted to charge into the room and kick him, but at the last second she realized that she had to be even smarter.

“Fine,” she said, trying to sound as if she didn't care at all, “I'm off, then. Have fun being all alone in this haunted house.”

With that, she turned and stomped – loudly and deliberately – to the top of the stairs and all the way down, and out into the clearing at the front of the house, and then she stopped and waited. Turning, she looked back into the doorway and saw the staircase. She'd been so sure that this would be enough to lure Henry out, that he'd be absolutely terrified of getting left behind, yet still there was no sign of him. And the longer she stared through the doorway, the more Saoirse began to wonder whether something genuinely awful had happened to Henry.

***

Fifty years later...

“The front door is open,” Henry said, standing on the rocky Martian surface and looking into the house. He could see the staircase. “That's a nice touch. It's like it's ready for me again, after all these years.”

“Let me get this clear,” Jonathan said, stepping over to join him but remembering to stay – as per company directives – at least a few inches behind his boss at all times. “You had an actual house picked up from Earth and flown all the way here to Mars?”

“Isn't she beautiful?”

“It's a little... rundown.”

“It's borderline derelict,” Henry corrected him. “Believe me, I had to make sure the crews were very careful when they extracted it from the English soil. Even the slightest mistake could have seen the place crumble. Then there were the physical stresses involved in the flight itself, which could have easily crushed the structure. I didn't want to fortify the old wooden beams, because that might change too much about the house. Fortunately I single-handedly developed a stabilizing micro-environment that was generated around the house for the duration of its journey, and that micro-environment has been fine-tuned now that touchdown has occurred.”

“But... why?” Jonathan asked. “I'm sorry, I know you hate stupid questions, but Sir... you usually like buildings made of glass and metal and new materials. This house...”

His voice trailed off.

“This house is rotten,” Henry conceded, while nodding sagely. “It's falling apart. Purely from an objective standpoint, it's worth pretty much diddly-squat. It's a wreck that ordinarily should have been knocked down years ago, but somehow it survived. That's a story for another day. But as soon as I made my first million from the company, do you know what I did? I tracked down the house's owners and I bought it from them, so I could be sure to preserve the place. You see, my sister and I used to go on holidays every summer to a camp near this house and...”

He paused, before turning to Jonathan.

“This house was a formative part of my childhood,” he added with a faint smile. “I'd even go so far as to say that without this house, I wouldn't be the man I am now. I might never have developed the drive and energy to launch the company, and if I hadn't done that the human race might still be stuck on Earth. We were fighting a losing battle against those Hellform zombies for years until I saved the day.” He rolled his eyes. “You know I'm not given to exaggeration, Jonathan,” he added, “but I think we both know that I saved all of humanity. Nobody else could have developed a colony on Mars, and a way to travel here, in such a ridiculously unbelievable short amount of time. I'm a genius.”

“You are, Sir,” Jonathan said, nodding sagely. “Everyone acknowledges that.”

“And every genius has to start somewhere,” Henry continued, turning to look at the house again. “Every genius needs a spark. And for me, that spark came on a dull afternoon in the English countryside when my sister locked me in a room in this house. She even -”

Hearing a humming sound, he turned and looked over his shoulder. He and Jonathan watched as a second shuttle arrived, parking just a little behind the first, and a smile spread over Henry's face.

“Well,” he chuckled with a growing sense of anticipation, “here's dear Saoirse now. Let's see what she has to say when she sees this house again after so many years!”

***

2023...

“Henry?” Saoirse said, stepping back into the house and looking up the stairs. She sounded so much less certain now, almost scared. “Henry, are you okay up there? Henry, please... answer me.”

She waited as long as she possibly could – a matter of mere seconds – before racing up the stairs, taking them two at a time in her desperate attempt to reach her brother. As soon as she got to the door, she turned the handle and pushed it open before spilling through into the bedroom and stopping to look around. For a moment she saw no sign of Henry at all, but a moment later she heard a very faint sobbing sound and she turned to pull the door aside so that she could look behind and finally she saw him.

“Henry!”

Dropping to her knees, she reached over and touched her brother's shoulder. He was curled into the tightest ball possible, as if he'd tried to make himself very small, and he was shaking as he sobbed. A puddle on the floor showed that he'd soiled himself, and a smell in the air indicated that his terror had been complete and absolute. Although she tried to pull him closer, Saoirse quickly found that he was almost entirely rigid with fear, and he seemed not to have even noticed her arrival at all.

“Oh, Henry,” she continued, as tears filled her eyes as well, “what happened? I'm so sorry I left you in here, I swear it was just a joke, that's all! I never meant for you to get this scared! Henry, please, calm down and tell me what happened!”

She looked around the room for a moment, just in case there might be something else nearby, but all she saw was the empty space and the bare metal bed frame against the far wall. She spotted absolutely nothing that might explain her brother's terrible state, but when she looked back down at him she realized that nobody could ever fake such soul-chilling fear and panic. Evidently something terrible had happened to Henry while he'd been trapped in the room.

“Henry,” she said, as a tear ran down her cheek. Reaching out, she touched his shoulder again, hoping to finally get through to him and make him talk to her. “Henry, please say something!”

V

Fifty years later...

Having waited on the landing for a few minutes now, staring into the room where he'd experienced his greatest moment of terror all those years ago, Henry finally heard the loose boards creaking in the hallways downstairs.

A smile spread across his face, but he refused to turn and look down, he refused to acknowledge her arrival at all. Instead he continued to look into the room, where the old metal bed remained in the exact spot in which it had stood for so many years. Really, the only difference between this moment and that day fifty years earlier was the view from the window; whereas previously the house had looked out onto a smallish clearing and then the start of the forest, now Henry saw the red-tinted slopes of the Martian landscape. Something about the surreality of that view tickled him absolutely pink.

He furrowed his brow.

Was 'surreality' actually a word, or had he just made it up?

“Henry?”

Now he heard her footsteps coming up the stairs. His smile grew even wider, and he felt a positively ecstatic knot of anticipation getting tighter and tighter in his chest. He even reached out and supported himself against the top of the banister, worried that in this great moment – a moment that had been half a century in the making – he might spectacularly pass out due to sheer feverish joy.

A moment later he felt someone brush against his elbow, and he knew that the moment had arrived. He took a deep breath, checked his smile a little, and turned to see Saorise wearing her usual dark dress and black veil... and her usual inscrutable expression.

“Henry,” she said cautiously, “what the f-”

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Do you recognize it?”

“It's that house,” she replied, moving the veil aside.

“You really don't need to wear a veil,” he reminded her. “I've told you a million times, the atmosphere here is -”

“It's that bloody house,” she said, interrupting him. He hated when she did that, but he also hated that she knew he hated it. And he hated showing it. “Isn't it? It's that bloody house!”

“When I was thirteen -”

“Oh, shut up!” she snapped, hitting him on the side of the head with her handbag. “No-one gives a shit what happened when you were thirteen, you moron! Are you seriously still going on about that?”

“You're not as nice as you used to be,” he replied, trying not to show that the bag had hurt his cheek. “Ever since the evacuation from Earth -”

“Did you actually have a team go back there and literally scoop this place up out of the ground?” she asked incredulously. “How much did that cost? How many people died on this ridiculous mission?”

“Only a few,” he said cautiously, “but that's not the point. The point is, when I was thirteen -”

“I can't believe this,” she continued, shaking her head.

“Saoirse,” he replied, trying to get back to his pre-prepared speech, “when I was thirteen -”

“If you say that one more time,” she sneered, “I shan't be responsible for my actions.”

“I really don't think you should talk to me like that,” he told her. “I'm a genius. I saved the human race, or at least what was left of it after the whole Hellform zombie apocalypse disaster.”

“Oh really?” she replied, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “And you didn't take credit for the work of all those employees you left behind to die on Earth?”

“Fake news,” he said firmly.

“I can't believe actually done something like this,” she told him. “Well, actually, I can believe it. You've always been so very petty, Henry, haven't you? Despite all your success – some of which, I'm willing to admit, is deserved – you're still just an angry little boy with self-esteem issues.”

“You just can't take a joke,” he replied. “You know what this house represents, Saoirse. When I was thirteen -”

Before he could get another word out, she whacked him again with her bag, this time even harder than before.

“Henry Rennie!” she screamed, no longer able to contain her rage for even a moment longer. “Are you completely insane? Are you seriously still banging on about all this stuff? You don't have to tell me what happened in this house, Henry! I was with you, remember? And unlike you, I actually knew the truth all along!”

***

2023...

Sniffing back tears, Saoirse struggled a little as she carried her little brother out of the house and down the steps that led from the porch to the clearing. She almost tripped and fell, but somehow she managed to keep going for a few more paces before dropping to her knees and setting Henry down gently onto the ground.

“Hey,” she said, gently tapping the side of his face, “we're out now. It's okay, we're out of the house and you never have to go inside ever again.”

Opening his eyes, he turned and looked up at her. For a moment he seemed lost, as if he didn't quite know where he was or what had happened, but after a few more seconds he turned and looked back up at the house.

“It's over,” Saoirse continued, keeping her voice low in an attempt to avoid upsetting him further. “You can relax now.”

“What...”

His voice trailed off for a moment.

“The ghost!” he gasped suddenly, sitting up so abruptly that he almost headbutted his sister. “I saw the ghost!”

“No, you didn't,” she replied, putting her hands on his shoulders to keep him down. “Henry -”

“I did!” he hissed. “It must have been the same ghost that you and Kerry saw!”

“Henry, I think -”

“She was so scary!” he shouted, before looking down at the front of his trousers. “I think I... did I pass out? Did I faint?”

“This is all my fault,” Saoirse told him. “I never should have built this up in your mind, Henry, and I'm so sorry. I'm older than you and I should know better, and I want you to know that I'll never play a prank on you like this ever again.”

“What prank?” He stared at the house again, watching the upstairs windows. “I saw her. She looked so mean and evil, like she really wanted to hurt me.”

Sighing, Saoirse shook her head.

“I tried to be brave,” he continued. “I tried to be as brave as possible but...”

He looked down at his trousers again.

“I made a mess of myself,” he whimpered, as fresh tears filled his eyes. “As soon as I saw the ghost, I made a mess like a stupid little boy.” He clenched a fist and then slammed it against the dirt. “I wanted to be brave,” he sobbed, “and instead I chickened out like an idiot! You were right all along, I'm just a coward!”

“No, you're not,” she told him. “Henry, please don't think like that.”

“But it's true! Look at me! I'm pathetic!”

“You're not pathetic,” she replied, struggling to find a way to make everything right again. She hesitated, and at that moment an idea popped into her head. She only had time to think it through for a couple of seconds before realizing that she had no better options. “You faced the ghost down and you won,” she continued, forcing a smile. “Do you realize that? Anyone else would have dropped dead out of fear. In fact, anyone else would never have even gone into that room in the first place. I certainly didn't think you'd be brave enough, but you sure proved me wrong, huh?”

“I did?” he said cautiously.

“Absolutely,” she told him. “Man, there's sure some egg on my face right now. You went into the ghost's room, and you were trapped there and... do you remember what happened next?”

“No,” he said, sniffing back more tears. “I saw her, at least I think I did, and then...”

“You must have fought her off.”

“Do you think so?”

She nodded.

“I wish I remembered.”

“That's just how it goes sometimes,” she explained. “The proof's clear, though. If you hadn't fought her off, well... I don't think you'd be here right now. I'm seriously impressed, Henry.” Getting to her feet, she held out a hand; he took her hand and stood up beside her, and they both turned and looked back at the house. “Henry,” she continued, “you did what I think no-one else has ever done in history. You faced the ghost of Thistle House, and you came out alive. I mean, sure, you're a bit of a mess, but that's only to be expected.”

“It is?”

“Completely. Anyone else would have been in a much worse state. Hell, Kerry and I never even dared to go properly into the room.”

“You didn't?”

“I might have exaggerated what we did a little bit,” she told him. “But you actually went through with it, when I never thought that you would in a million years.” She reached over and tousled the hair on top of his head for a moment. “I think this is the moment you became a man, Henry Rennie,” she continued. “You sure showed me, that's for certain.”

“I did?”

He thought for a moment, before nodding sagely.

“I did,” he said again, with much more force this time. “So... what now?”

“I think you've shown that ghost a thing or two,” she replied, still holding his hand as she led him away from the house, heading back along the path that would lead – eventually – to the family's holiday cabin. “Hopefully I can sneak you back in and we can clean you up before Mum and Dad see anything. I think that's for the best, don't you?”

“But what about the ghost?” he asked, looking over his shoulder and watching as the house disappeared behind the trees.

“You've faced it down, so it's been defeated,” she replied. “It might leave now. Or it'll just hang around, still haunting the house but feeling much less powerful than before. I don't know the exact logic behind how it works, but the important thing is that you'll always know that you managed to win.”

“I did, didn't I?” he said cautiously, as the house vanished from view and he turned to look up at his sister. They walked along the path in silence for a moment. “I told you I'm brave,” he continued, feeling a fresh surge of confidence. Do you have any idea how annoying it is when people don't believe you about stuff like that?”

“Like I said, I'm really sorry,” she replied, squeezing his hand gently. “But let's just focus on getting you home and cleaned up, okay?”

“I'm gonna tell everyone what I did,” he said with a growing smile. “Yeah, they're all gonna be so impressed when they find out that I faced a real ghost and won. I might even take some of them back to the house next year and show them.”

“Oh, I don't think that's a very good idea,” she told him. “Let's just keep this between the two of us, okay? You've proved your point, Henry, and now there's really no need to ever go back to that house ever again. Let's just keep what happened between the two of us.”

VI

Fifty years later...

“When I was thirteen -”

“I swear to whatever god might exist on this wretched planet,” Saorise snarled, “that if you say those words even one more time, I will end your existence.”

“The reason I brought the house here,” he replied, trying to take the moral high ground, “is that I feel it's important to prove a point. Fifty years ago, I faced the ghost here, but in the process I rather embarrassed myself. And while I've achieved so much in the intervening years, I have to confess that some aspects of that day have constantly played on my mind. Fortunately, I have the wherewithal to put right certain past mistakes that occurred when I was...”

He hesitated, trying to pick the right word and keen to avoid another beating.

“Younger.”

“You poor, sad, deluded fool,” she replied, shaking her head.

“Just listen to me,” he replied. “Today I'm going to face the same ghost again, and this time my trousers -”

“There's no ghost!” she snapped angrily.

“Ah, but that's where you're wrong,” he said, stepping into the bedroom and walking over to the bed, then turning to his sister again and holding up one finger so that he could try to get her full attention. “I specifically made sure that the internal atmosphere of the house was preserved for the entire duration of the journey here. Do you understand why that's important? It's important because it means the ghost will still be part of the house. I worried she might get left behind on Earth, but I've gone to great lengths to ensure that she's still here now.” He looked around the room, his eyes gleaming with a sense of anticipation. “On Mars.”

“There's no ghost, you utter moron,” Saoirse said with a deflated sigh. “There never was.”

He turned to her.

“Come again?”

“There's no ghost!” she shouted. “I made it all up! I was lying when I took you to the house, and I was lying when I led you away. I was just trying to scare you, and I think it's safe to say that my little plan worked very well!”

“Bullshit,” he replied. “I saw the ghost, remember? She was exactly how you described her.”

“And I made it all up,” she said wearily. “Don't you get it, Henry? You were a little kid, and after I locked you in that room you worked yourself up into such a tizzy that you freaked out, panicked, soiled yourself and fainted. I have absolutely no doubt that in the middle of all that, you convinced yourself that you'd seen the exact same figure that I'd described to you, but the fact she looked the same only proves that it was all in your head!”

He opened his mouth to reply, before hesitating for a moment.

“After you came around,” she continued, “you seemed so upset, so of course I played along. I might have been a little mean now and again, but I wasn't a complete bitch. I pretended that the ghost was real and that you'd faced her down, and I bigged you up so that you wouldn't feel bad about the fact that you'd completely lost your mind. Obviously I never thought that it'd become such a big issue for you, I thought you'd forget about it within a day or two. But the whole thing was just nonsense, Henry.”

She sighed again, before looking around at the old, partially rotten landing.

“It was just a stupid story that was designed to scare you, and then I rejigged it to make you feel better, but there's no ghost here and there never was.” She held her arms out for a moment, before letting them fall flatly back against her sides as she turned to him again. “I knew you still thought about it from time to time, but never in a million years did I think you'd actually do something as crazy as transporting the house millions of miles from Earth to Mars just to prove a point!”

Silence fell between them for a few seconds.

“When I was thirteen,” Henry said cautiously, with a hint of doubt in his voice for the first time, “I... I mean, I... I swear I saw...”

He paused.

“Didn't I?” he added plaintively.

“No,” Saoirse said, shaking her head, “you didn't. It was all in your head. Frankly, I should have just told you that straight up instead of helping you to foster that ridiculous delusion.” She checked the screen on her left hand. “Is there anything else you want today, Henry? I'm exhausted and I just want to go back to my pod and zone out for a while. I know you keep saying that the recycled air here is good for us, but I swear it's been making my throat feel dry and itchy.”

She turned and headed toward the stairs.

“Are you being serious this time?” he asked.

She stopped and looked back at him.

“Hand on heart,” he continued, “pinky promise, swear on Mum and Dad's lives...”

“Mum and Dad are already dead,” she pointed out.

“You know what I mean. Are you telling me the absolute truth now? Was there really never a ghost in this house? Did I spend two billion dollars and get twenty-seven men killed on a mission that, in the end, was completely pointless?”

“Sorry,” she replied softly.

“Huh.”

She turned again, before pausing.

“Twenty-seven?” she added. “I thought you said only a few died.”

“Whatever,” he murmured, as he once again looked around the room. “I feel like nothing really matters anymore. Would you mind leaving me alone for a few minutes?”

“I was going anyway,” she pointed out, before making her way down the stairs and disappearing from view. “Thanks for wasting my time again, Henry!” she called back to him. “It's been real nice seeing you again!”

Left all alone in the bedroom, with only the metal-framed bed for company, Henry Rennie tried to think of some way to salvage the situation. He still remembered the horrific sight of the ghost, although he had to admit now that something about its appearance had been a little comically over the top, almost as if it had been ripped straight from the pages of one of his favorite comics. He wanted to find some way to storm after Saorise and win the argument, although right now he felt more than a little deflated. And as he heard the sound of her shuttle hastily beating a retreat back to the city, he worried that part of his own identity had been punctured and deflated.

“Damn it,” he said with a groan, before stepping across the room and storming out, kicking the door hard as he left. “Damn it all to Hell!”

***

2023...

As Henry and Saoirse emerged from the forest and began to make their way down the steps that led to the beach, they both remained lost in thought. Neither of them had said a word since leaving the house far behind, and Henry in particular – with the stains still on the front and back of his trousers – was having real trouble coming to terms with the morning's events.

“Saoirse,” he said cautiously, “I know what people think of me, but I think I proved today that I can be brave if I really want to. So... what do you think I'll be when I grow up?”

“You?” she replied with a faint smile. “I don't know, Henry, but I wouldn't put anything past you. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you end up doing something really fantastic.”

“Really?” Henry replied, with a hint of optimism in his voice. “You know, I think I'd really like that. I want to do something that really makes people think I'm cool!”

***

Fifty years later...

As she sat on the steps outside the front of the house, Laurel watched Henry Rennie's personal rocket blasting off into the Martian sky, leaving behind a huge cloud of dust.

“Well, I got fired,” Jonathan said, making his way over to join her. He sat on the next step down and watched the rocket. “Where's he going?”

“Apparently he got into another of his manic phases,” she replied, “and insisted on making a trip to the new habitation biomes the company's been building on Io. Everyone there is totally panicking now, but I guess it's good news for us. He'll be gone for at least a month.”

“I hope they keep him this time,” he said with a chuckle.

“I got fired too,” she muttered as the rocket's hyperdrive flashed, sending the rocket hurtling out of sight into the stars. “Well, actually technically I got reassigned, but it feels like being fired.” She looked over her shoulder. “Apparently I have to find a crew to dismantle this thing and find a use for the wood. Henry said that he never wants to see it again, so it has to be completely gone by the time he returns.”

“Ditto,” Jonathan said. “I mean, he did fire me, but then he told me to come and do this instead. And it's not like I've got any choice. Where else am I going to go?”

“Wanna get started?” she asked, hauling herself up. “Despite its rundown appearance, I don't think this house is going to dismantle itself. Not quite.”

“We'll need a few more people,” he pointed out. “Let's get back to the city and round up some unwilling volunteers.”

“Henry took the last shuttle,” she pointed out. “We've got a three hour walk ahead of us.”

“Fine by me,” he said, and together they began to head away from the house toward the distant lights of the largest city on Mars. “I could do with some time to reassess my life. I'm even thinking of volunteering for one of the teams that get sent back to do clean-up on Earth.”

“Isn't that basically a suicide mission?”

“They say it's getting a little safer each time. Apparently there aren't as many of those Hellform zombies now. And I don't know, maybe I just fancy some excitement. It's not like ripping some random old house apart sounds like much fun.”

“I don't know,” she replied as they traipsed across the dusty surface, “we might see a few ghosts.”

“You reckon?”

“I've already seen two.”

“Oh yeah?”

He turned to her, and then they both stopped and looked back at the house. Decrepit and almost toppling over, the building looked utterly ridiculous standing all alone in the middle of the bare Martian landscape.

“I saw two ghosts just before you showed up, actually,” Laurel explained. “I didn't freak out because... well, I've seen enough shit over the years to have a pretty strong constitution. But I swear -” She made the sign of the cross against her chest. “I swear I saw a man and a woman, all ghostly and shimmering, stepping out of that house and out onto the rocky ground, and then they just sort of danced for a while.”

“Weird,” Jonathan said, although he made no attempt to really question her claim.

“One of them looked like an old lady,” she continued, “but it was the man who really caught my attention. I know you're going to think that I'm completely out of my mind, and you might be right, but I swear on anything you care to name that the man...” She paused as a faint smile crossed her lips. “Well, the man was wearing what I can only describe as an old-fashioned diving helmet.”

Coming soon

1689

THE HAUNTING OF HADLOW HOUSE BOOK 1

All Richard Hadlow wants is a happy family and a peaceful home. Having built the perfect house deep in the Kent countryside, now all he needs is a wife. He's about to discover, however, that even the most perfectly-laid plans can go horribly and tragically wrong.

The year is 1689 and England is in the grip of turmoil. A pretender is trying to take the throne, but Richard has no interest in the affairs of his country. He only cares about finding the perfect wife and giving her a perfect life. But someone – or something – at his newly-built house has other ideas. Is Richard's new life about to be destroyed forever?

Hadlow House is brand new, but already there are strange whispers in the corridors and unexplained noises at night. Has Richard just been unlucky, is his new wife Rebecca simply imagining things, or is a dark secret from the past about to rise up and deliver Richard's worst nightmare? Who wins when the past and the present collide?

1689 is the first book in the Haunting of Hadlow House series, which tells the story of one haunted house over the centuries from its construction to the present day. All the lives, all the souls, all the tragedies... and all the ghosts.

Also available

THE GHOST IN ROOM 119

Something dangerous is lurking in room 119 of a Barcelona hotel. Something vicious. Something evil. Something that wants revenge.

Arriving in the city for a short break, Penny and Steve are looking forward to a week of sun, sea and sand. Those plans are ruined, however, when Steve thinks he recognizes a woman at the hotel bar. Ten years ago, he dated a girl named Annabelle, but the relationship ended badly. The woman at the bar looks a little like Annabelle, not enough for him to be certain that it's her, but enough for him to worry.

Soon, Steve finds himself drawn into a nightmare. He's starting to see the strange woman everywhere, and now he's worried that he's being followed. Has Annabelle returned to his life? If so, has she turned up in Barcelona by accident or by design? And how is her apparent appearance connected to the strange noises and flickering lights that can be heard every night, coming from room 119?

Also available

THE GHOSTS OF MARSH HOUSE

Marsh House stands abandoned in the heart of an English seaside town. A local ghost tour guide regularly stops in front of the house to tell its grim tale, but no-one has actually set foot in the building for more than forty years. Until now.

Desperate to get away from his troubles in London, Andrew heads to Marsh House and sets about trying to fix it up. Between rotten floorboards and bug infestations, he's got his work cut out for him. And that's before he even notices the strange noises in the night, and the fact that a strange presence is watching his every move.

When he invites a new friend to move in with him, everything changes. Andrew might not have paid attention to the darker side of Marsh House, but his new guest quickly realizes that something's very wrong. Does the ghost of a long-dead woman still haunt the house, cursing anyone who dares to fall in love? And is this malevolent entity somehow also responsible for the death of a local woman whose body was found on the beach?

And by the time he uncovers the shocking truth, will it be too late for Andrew to ever return to his old life?

The Ghosts of Marsh House is a horror story about a man who's trying to run from his own mistakes, and about a woman who'll stop at nothing to make others pay for her misery.