Rottenhouse (20 page)

‘
Christ, you alright?
You look terrible.’ Her tone matched her look and there was a hint
of accent.

‘
Not really. Look can
we go? Do you mind? I need to go lay down or something.’

‘
You sure? What about
just sitting down outside for ten minutes and having a glass of
water. That might help.’

Of course I am sure. Have you not heard
what happened?

‘
You know what
happened right? You saw it, or heard it? I need to get out of here
before that band starts playing and my head explodes. Please, can
we just go?’

The ladies continued on with their
conversations as if Simon wasn’t there. This close to them, to
their faces and their scent, made him suddenly aware of the fact
that Lucy was so overwhelming more attractive than the other women
it was like looking at a bright red rose against a field of freshly
laid cow shit. They all looked alike. Not as sisters may have the
same traits or mother and daughter may share the same features, it
was more when you know that a group of people are all family. Maybe
not all blood related but they shared the same look as it were.
They had the same deep set eyes, though the colours may be
different. Their faces were round and fatty with amazing jowls on
which small narrow bitty lips hung like washed out old copies of
originals long lost to the sands of time.

‘
Why don’t you go and
I’ll stay and get a lift back with dad? Fresh air might do yasome
good.’ Lucy said with a concerned look. But it wasn’t concern for
him. It was for her. With a bleak realisation Simon knew the
concern wasn’t for him it was for the rest of her evening and what
these folks would chat about if they were to leave before the night
had even started. A rage built up in him and he clenched his hands
into fists and buried them deep into his jean pockets. Lucy must
have seen this and she slid back ever so slightly in her chair. And
then her eyes mirrored that look her dad was so fond of giving and
he knew he was on his own. There was another thing he was made
aware of too, in that brief passage of time; his beautiful fiancé
looked like a not so bright red rose in a field of freshly laid cow
shit. She looked plain, not unattractive, but certainly not sexy.
That was it, Simon thought, not sexy is the right way to put it.
She wasn’t Lucy anymore.

‘
So that’s that then?
You’re staying here?’ Simon said a little louder than he had
anticipated.

‘
Well yeah.’ And then
in her father’s condescending voice, ‘You’ve had hard day, Simon.
Go get some sleep and I shall see you when I get home.’

Disgruntled but not wanting to argue
(Simon didn’t really know how to argue with Lucy, they didn’t
argue, they had crossed words but it was never what you would call
an argument) he took his hands out of his pockets and held one
out.

‘
Camera bag, please.’
Lucy handed him his brown satchel.

And that was that. No kiss goodbye, no
fond farewell, nothing. He just turned and left and she turned and
carried on talking as if what had just happened never really
happened at all. Simon skirted the Beating Zone, kept his head down
and left the club. He was drawn to the painting that was hung just
above the basement stairs that led down to the eternal darkness
from his dreams but he resisted it. He didn’t need that in his life
right now. What he wanted was to be out of here and into the fresh
night air. It seemed to Simon as he walked down the stairs and into
the car park that all he had been doing over the last couple of
days was trying to get away from somewhere and the weight of all
that had gone on, especially what had just happened to Lewis,
pulled him down physically and mentally till his arse felt as if it
were scrapping the floor.

2

The air was warm and sweet and Simon
gulped it down in harsh deep breaths. The sky wasn’t clear tonight
which made the air humid and thick. Stars were obscured by fat
clouds that were being lit up by far off flashes of lightning. If
there was rain in the air Simon hoped that the valley walls would
keep it at bay. Grumbles of thunder echoed but they were toothless
threats.

His head had cleared but the humidity
hadn’t done much for his knotted stomach and it still hurt. He was
pleased to be out of that place and he looked back at the old
building disgusted at what atrocities he had seen in there. From
this angle and with the lightening casting harsh shadows across its
bricked front, the club looked like it had a demonic face. Simon
stopped and took out his camera. The windows that were lit on the
third floor were its eyes and between them the rough brickwork,
aglow from the streetlights, looked like a crooked nose. Of course
the main door was the mouth and the stairs that led down were its
tongue, all hanging out, licking its brick lips so as to taste
whatever was walking up or down it. As Simon breathed heavily, so
too did the building, and Simon could feel himself being pulled
back in and he took a step back even though there was nothing to
those thoughts.

He adjusted his camera settings,
stopping the flash and extending the exposure time and with the aid
of a wall so that the shot wasn’t blurred, framed the building and
clicked a handful of times adjusting settings here and there as he
did. He prayed that he had captured what he could see though he
knew through experience that wasn’t always the case. A photo
doesn’t capture what the mind sees, only what the camera sees.
Emotion comes from the image not from the taker. Simple words but
ones that Simon knew were true and one of the finest lessons he had
learnt. He also learnt not to look at the pictures straight after
taking them; you were always disappointed, and so he put the lens
cap back on and walked across the car park.

Though he never looked
back to see, he knew that the building behind was still breathing,
still looking at him; watching him with that open mouth and long
tongue poking out and those all seeing eyes that could see through
walls and metal watching him and maybe winking as if to say
see ya later, alligator. See you soon, stinky
baboon! Cut you up, buttercup!

It sent a shiver running down Simon’s
back and he walked a little faster.

3

A soft wind brushed the hair away from
Simon’s brow and it cooled his skin. On the other side of the car
park stood the burnt out shell of the old Johnson place. It
wouldn’t be long, he guessed, that what remains of that house would
be knocked down and replaced. But then again, there was something
about Rottenhouse and the people that lived here that no matter
what happened, be that death or fire, that all endured and that
nothing was ever truly gone.

He walked across the car park eyes
fixed on the house, curious as to what had gone on in there. As
much as the basement in the club had wanted to lure Simon down into
its dark clutches, the burnt out home that Mr Rowling had parked
opposite grabbed hold of Simon and hauled him in as forked
lightening gashed white lines in the sky overhead.

4

You’re told not to press big red
buttons, not to touch hot ovens, not to play with fire, not be a
dirty liar, not to play in traffic and most definitely not to touch
Aunt Fanny (the old rhyme he had been told by his mother, though he
hated the last part because it didn’t rhyme and as a child he
didn’t have an Aunt Fanny but now in his later years he knew what
its true meanings were). Simon was never told not to play in old
burnt out houses, he wasn’t a war baby and so houses that were in
such a state didn’t exist when he was a boy, but common sense says
stay away, for in such wrecks death awaits you with open arms. This
didn’t stop Simon walking aimlessly into the ruined house that was
once owned, and lived in until a few weeks ago, by the Johnson
family, and its blackened core engulfed Simon like a black hole in
the centre of a galaxy.

From the outside Simon believed that
all he would find inside would be a ruination; an empty shell with
nothing to denote shape, layout or that a family had once lived
here, loved here, died here. Nothing would have survived such was
the seemingly high intensity of the fire that overtook this house.
He was wrong.

Inside was burnt out, there was no
denying that, but the house had remained solid so much so that
Simon could walk through the front door and into the hallway as if
he were visiting when the house was new. The street light lit the
hallway, Simons shadow stretched out before him until it melted
into the nothingness that was the back of the house. It smelt bad;
stale water, charred plastic and rotted meat. Old paintings hung
from the charcoaled walls in odd angles. Floorboards moaned in
sharp squeals as Simon walked softly across them. Doors were open,
inviting you in, and Simon peered through and the windows were
blackened with soot and so he could see nothing except his own
shadow which like the paintings that hung on the walls arched
across the floor in odd shapes.

‘
Hang on a minute.’
Simon said and he reached down into his back pocket and pulled out
his phone.

He thumbed at the screen, the light
from the phone barely covering his face and leaving no shadow,
until he came across what until now had been the most useless app
he had ever bought. As he pressed the big red button, don’t press
big red buttons, don’t touch hot ovens, and a torch like light
shone from the back of the phone engulfing the bare wooden floor in
white, he sniggered as the useless app suddenly became useful.

Maybe it was the humid air mixed with
the sourness of the house that made Simon feel like he wasn’t alone
in there, that there was a presence, heavy and wet, surrounding
him, following him, wanting him, or maybe it was just the heebie
jeebies that quite rightly would take over any right minded
individual as they walked through a burnt out home which was pitch
black and only lit by occasional lightning. Simon didn’t believe in
ghosts. Though that’s not to say that he still wouldn’t if he ever
saw one. He panned the phone around the hallway not sure what he
was looking for but knowing that he was looking for something. The
darkness became thicker the further Simon journeyed inside and even
though the phones torch light was impressive; it only lit up an
area a meter in diameter until it met the wall of darkness.
Wallpaper, or what was left of it, hung in strands like dead leaves
and Simons coat brushed against them causing some to fall to the
broken floor.

He ignored the front room, the back
room too, something told him that what he wanted to find wasn’t in
there and the floor boards continued to creak as he made his way
into the kitchen. Something scurried in the dark corners and Simon
jumped back against the doorframe. Light from his phone pointed to
where the sound came from but found nothing but the remains of a
family kitchen. That same something, or maybe another something
scurried with what sounded like knives for claws across the floor
and Simon aimed the phones light in that direction. Beyond the
table and chairs and fallen ceiling and loose cupboards and
blackened pots and pans was nothing but dead shadows hiding things,
scary things, and Simon started to second guess his choices and
ponder getting the mother truck out of there.

‘
Rats. It’s just rats
you schmuck.’ And as if it heard him the scurrying beasty squeaked
back, Simon was sure that he glimpsed two little beady eyes hiding
behind an overturned frying pan.

‘
What’s here? What am
I looking for?’ He said as he shone the torch light across the
room. Everything was black, though smears of a strange brownish
liquid leaked from corners or cupboards and from the shattered
electrical fittings. He took a few steps, for some reason he held
onto the door frame, and shone the light on the back wall of the
kitchen. Written in large white paint that had gone grey and
streaky was one single word: NONCE. The O was replaced with skull
and crossbones. Drips of paint had run down the walls and the light
followed them down and down. A chair was overturned next to the
wall, something had been smashed and what looked like a large
carving knife was dug into the floorboards; the light from the
phone glinting from the still strangely shiny steel. Next to the
knife was a hand print, but it hadn’t been made with white paint,
it was dark and brown, like the brownish goo that seeped from all
over the kitchen. With a shaking hand, so much so that he had to
remove the other from the doorframe and double clutch the phone, he
followed the hand prints along the floor and back out of the
kitchen.

Simon shook his head
in disbelief, ‘What a surprise.’ As the hand prints moved from the
floor up to the bannister and headed off, up the stairs, and into
another gloomy place where Simon really didn’t want to go. Behind
him, the rat – he hoped it was a rat – squeaked a couple of times
and he was sure it was saying
go on,
Simon, man up. Go see what’s up there. Go on
.

‘
Shut up you little
furry bastard. Let me think.’ But what was there to think about? He
had come in here for a reason he couldn’t quite remember, let alone
justify, and now was looking at what was quite possibly another
scene of yet another murder in this tiny little village. From where
he stood he could see the front door, the orange street light and
Mr Rowling’s car. They were only a handful of steps away, so
leaving this place wasn’t an issue. What was an issue was that he
wanted to know what had happened here and seeing those hand prints
going up the stairs meant that whatever had happened here went on
up there.