The Patchwork House (12 page)

As we approached, I took out the key and pressed the unlock button. The lights flashed and the car blipped. The internal light came on, a guiding beacon of safety.

We reached it and threw open the doors. Derek climbed in the back, Beth in the passenger seat and me behind the wheel. We slammed our doors and I shoved the key in the ignition. Now I was paranoid that the lights had sapped the last of the battery and it wouldn’t start.

To my relief, the four-by-four roared into life, automatic headlights piercing the darkness ahead and illuminating the path to freedom. I put my foot on the clutch, shifted into first gear and reached for the handbrake.

“Wait!” Derek said.

“What? Fucking what?”

“We can’t leave!”

“Chloe,” said Beth. “We can’t leave her.”

I glanced nervously in the rearview mirror. I could see Derek’s concerned face staring at the house. I couldn’t see anything that might be approaching from behind the car. I was itching to be off. I turned on the high beams and instead of two laser-like columns slicing through the dark, the road ahead was now flooded with light. I still couldn’t see anything behind us.

“I can’t leave her in there,” Derek said.

“We’ll come back,” I promised him. “We’ll go get help and come back. We’ll get a search party.”

“They’ll never believe us.”

“We’ll tell them she sleepwalked into the grounds and we’ve lost her, and we’re terrified she might wander into the lake.”

“Then why are all of us leaving?”

He had a good point. If we wanted to convince anyone to come help us find Chloe in the middle of the night, we would need to explain why at least one of us had not stayed behind to keep looking for her.

“Derek, we’ll think of something. Let’s go!”

“You go get help. I have to stay.”

And with that, Derek got out of the car.

“No Derek!” Beth pleaded. “Please come back!”

And she got out of the car too.

What the hell? Was I the only one left with a shred of sanity?

I slammed my hands against the wheel in frustration. So close to escape. So close to driving away from this place and not having to spend another second in the dark. So close.

For a brief moment, I admit I considered leaving them there. If Beth had stayed in the car after Derek got out, I might well have done it. But I couldn’t do that to Beth. I just couldn’t, no matter how much my stomach churned, I couldn’t leave her.

She would never, ever forgive me.

So I got out too.

From outside the car, the area was now well lit. The driveway was illuminated with enough distance between us and the shadows that if anything emerged, we’d have time to get back in. Behind the vehicle, the rear lights cast everything in a red glow. It wasn’t as bright as at the front, but at least we could see some of the house and it didn’t feel like something was about to leap out at us. The engine ticked over smoothly, a constant reminder that we had an exit and we should take it right now.

“Beth,” I implored her. “Get in the car. We can go get help. If Derek wants to stay and keep looking, that’s his decision.” Derek didn’t answer that. He stood by the front door, waiting for Beth.

She turned to me, her expression revealing how torn she was, how tempted she was to run.

“But he’s right, Jim, we can’t leave Chloe. Oh God, if that was me trapped somewhere in there, I don’t know what I’d do except pray you’d all keep looking for me.”

“We need more people. We need supplies. More batteries, torches and lamps. We searched the whole damn place and we didn’t find her. We need help!”

Derek said, “I can’t leave until I know for sure she’s not still in the house.”

“Fuck!” I said, hopelessly frustrated. I took a step away from the car.

That step probably saved my life.

There was a crash above our heads. We all looked up, but the car lights didn’t extend upwards to the second floor so it was shrouded in darkness. Time seemed to slow down. I was aware of glass raining down around us—I could see it sparkling as it fell through the beams of light, like deadly snowflakes. I turned towards Beth, curiously calm, watching everything in slow motion.

And then the car exploded.

Not in a ball of flame, but still an explosion is the only way to describe it.

One moment the car was there, its reassuring headlights giving us much needed respite from the suffocating darkness, and the next there was a huge bang and the lights went out. The impact knocked us from our feet.

I had no idea what had happened. We were plunged into darkness again. I fumbled in my pocket for my torch and flicked it on, struggling to my feet. I searched for Beth until my torch beam settled on her.

“Beth, are you okay?”

“Yes, yes I’m all right.”

Derek shone his own torch at the car. After I reassured myself that Beth was still in one piece, I directed mine the same way.

The back of the vehicle was unscathed. The front half was flattened. The front wheels splayed in unnatural directions. Steam poured from the crushed radiator. The windscreen was buckled and cracked. The remains of the engine hung out from the car’s twisted metal shell. It was mangled beyond repair.

Sat atop the ruined vehicle was the bookcase from the library.

CHAPTER 7

We stood and stared,
dumbfounded. The bookcase from the library, the one that had inexplicably moved across the room, had just crushed our car. It had
fallen
on our car.

Something had picked it up and thrown it out the window.

We all looked up. My torch beam met with Derek’s to light up the shattered window of the library above our heads.

If we’d been any closer to the car… If we’d been
in
the car…

“Shit,” whispered Derek.

I couldn’t say anything. The despair of losing our escape and the realization that we were dealing with something with immeasurable power—it was more than I could bear.

“It’s trying to kill us!” Beth said, barely audible.

I moved closer to the car. I don’t know why. Maybe there was something salvageable. The bookcase had so utterly destroyed the engine and the battery that not even the car alarm could function. It was dead, its chassis broken and its wheels bent. It was a useless hunk of twisted metal.

I was out of ideas. Soon our last two torches would lose power and fade away. It was still hours till dawn and there was no other source of light available to us, save the book of matches in my pocket. They would most likely burn, one after the other, for about ten minutes tops. By my reckoning, we’d be without any light in under an hour. And even if we did find Chloe, what then? Where would we go? It was too cold out here to just go sit in the garden until morning. We probably wouldn’t die from exposure but we might get hypothermia. Who knew what state Chloe was in? She might be injured or bleeding. If we went back in the house to find her, what if the
thing
in there decided to throw another bookcase at us?

“We still have to find Chloe,” Derek said. “I’m going back inside.”

“No,” I said. “No, Derek. We’re not going back in that house. Your torch is fading already and mine can’t be far behind. We need more light and something to protect ourselves with.”

“Where are we going to find that?”

Beth spoke up. “How about the lodge?”

I nodded. “Right, that’s what I was thinking. Maybe there are candles in there. Maybe even torches with fresh batteries. Maybe there’s some warmer clothing. Perhaps the phone works or we could get a signal on our mobiles.

“That’s a lot of maybes,” Derek said, unconvinced.

“We can’t find Chloe in the dark.”

“He’s right, Derek. I’m sorry.” Beth hung her head.

Derek paused for a moment longer and then nodded.

As we set off down the driveway, he kept looking back towards the house and shining his torch in that direction. It didn’t reveal very much, in fact the light was looking so yellow and dim that Derek finally decided to turn it off and conserve what little battery he had left.

My torch was now the only light source. I swung it back and forth to show the edges of the path, and then aimed it forward into the darkness. Now even this was growing dimmer. The light was so weak, it showed us nothing but our immediate vicinity. It was starting to look very yellow.

“Oh shit,” I said. “We need to hurry.”

We started running, the light bouncing over the path and our feet crunching on the gravel.

Then the torch went out.

We all stopped. Without the sound of our footsteps, it was eerily quiet.

And of course, completely dark.

I held a hand in front of my face and couldn’t see it. I looked up to the sky, but the moon and the stars were nowhere to be seen. Too much cloud cover. I couldn’t even see the tops of the tall conifers where they should have contrasted with the sky. There was a flurry of squeaking and fluttering from above our heads but of course we couldn’t see what was causing it. Bats, most likely.

I suddenly had no idea which way I was facing. Surely it was still towards the lodge and the gate. I hadn’t turned around at any point, had I?

“You two still there?” I asked tentatively. I half expected to be completely alone.

“Yeah,” Beth said.

“Me too,” said Derek.

“Okay hold out your hands.”

The first hand I connected with was soft and had a couple of rings on it. I hugged Beth tight, really hoping this was her and Derek didn’t just have unusually feminine hands. Someone else placed his hands on our arms.

“There you are,” Derek said. “Thought you might have left me.”

All his bravado in the house, his go-off-on-his-own-and-find-Chloe spirit, had dissipated. He seemed deeply disturbed, at least from what I could tell from his voice and the way he clutched hold of my sleeve.

“Which way is the lodge?” he asked shakily.

It was amazing how fast we had completely lost our sense of direction without the light.

“Oh, my cell!” Beth cried, surprising us.

Seconds later, a glow appeared in front of my face. Her smart phone was on.

“I turned it off earlier to save battery. Hmm, there’s not much left. Still, better than nothing.”

The glow was barely perceptible when she shined the light on the path, but it gave our eyes something to get used to and we could just about see each other.

“I have a flashlight app,” Beth said.

“Leave it off for now. That thing drains the battery too fast.”

“Okay.”

We stumbled on, holding onto each other, using the dim glow of Beth’s phone to guide us. The crunch of gravel beneath our feet reassured us that we were still on the path. We kept on going, desperately hoping there was nothing following us that we couldn’t see. It was a long driveway but I was sure it was taking too much time to reach the end. Then, finally, the dim light revealed the gate.

“Okay the lodge is over here,” I said. I led the others towards the wooden front door of the little cottage. We stumbled down a couple of steps and felt our way along the deep porch before congregating at the door.

I pulled the ring of keys from my pocket while Beth found her flashlight app and turned it on.

The light was so bright I couldn’t see anything for a moment. But after blinking a few times I was able to choose a suitable key and find the lock.

Moments later, we were inside and with the door closed. Beth had switched off the flashlight on her phone, so we were back to the dull glow again.

I noticed an aroma that pervaded the lodge.

Lavender.

“I’m not the only one smelling that, right?” Derek asked.

“What the hell?” Beth said. “Are the ghosts camping out down here instead of the house?”

“Maybe they’re scared,” I ventured. It seemed ridiculous.

“We need to find lights,” Derek said.

“Okay, let’s start in here.” From the soft glow of Beth’s phone, we could make out a cozy living room with a fireplace and well used seats gathered around it. There was a dining table and chairs by the windows and a desk on the far wall. We moved over to that. I opened the desk and rifled through the contents. There was nothing in the top part, but in one of the drawers was a torch.

I clicked it on. It worked! We could see much better by the torchlight, and we soon located the door that led to the rest of the lodge. I lifted the latch and swung the door open. The torch revealed a narrow corridor with a red-tiled floor. There were two doors on either side with another one at the end, opening into a bathroom. The first two on either side were bedrooms, as was the furthest on the left. The second door on the right had a step up into the kitchen.

We filed in, the torch revealing worn counters and ancient looking appliances. A kettle sat on the stove and cabinets lined the walls. There wasn’t much the others could do without the torch, so they left it to me to go through the draws and cupboards. I found a packet of biscuits that were unopened and hadn’t passed their sell-by date.

“Anyone hungry?” I asked.

We tore into the packet. It had been hours since we had eaten our takeaway and now we were ravenous. I found glasses and poured us all some water. With the terror and adrenaline now fading from my system, I felt like I could just stumble into one of the bedrooms and fall asleep in seconds. Instead I kept looking and found a candle with a holder. I took the matches from my pocket and lit the candle. Now the kitchen was bright enough for the others to join in the search. We found a packet of cream crackers, again within its sell-by date, not that soft crackers would have put us off. Derek found another candle and also a bunch of batteries. Beth sat at the little kitchen table and took apart her torch, replaced the batteries and screwed it back together again. To our relief, the torch was working fine. Derek did the same with his torch and we were back in action again.

“I’m going to check the bedrooms and the living room again. See if we missed anything,” said Derek. He stepped down into the corridor and walked away.

“Christ I need to pee,” Beth said. I went with her. Not that we were scared of anything, the atmosphere in the lodge was so much lighter than that of the house, it was much easier to breathe and we could almost relax. The smell of lavender was actually quite pleasant, if a little musty. But I still wasn’t willing to let her go anywhere without me. If I lost her, I’d never forgive myself.

We reconvened in the living room and checked our haul. Some more matches, two candles and a holder, three working torches, some extra batteries and a very small toolkit.

I didn’t want to leave. I knew we had to, but for the first time in hours I felt safe.

“Guys, I’ve got a signal!”

We hurried to Beth’s side. She was holding her phone in the air. The time read two-thirty in the morning, which wasn’t as late as I was hoping. Dawn was still a good four hours away and it would remain pitch black outside until then.

I pulled out Arthur’s card, handed it to her and she dialed the number. She tried it again but it wouldn’t connect. “I guess the signal’s not strong enough.”

“Try texting him.”

Beth typed a message and pressed send. We watched the little progress bar as the phone tried to send the message. It stalled and didn’t resume. Then the signal disappeared completely and the message popped up, asking if she wanted to try again.

“Any other suggestions?” Beth asked. “Hey wait a minute, that’s not right.”

“What?” I asked.

“Well, the phone was connected long enough to update the time.”

“Update the time?” Derek said. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, the phone synched with local time.”

I laughed without any trace of humour. “But we didn’t cross a date line. Why would it…?”

Beth sounded distraught now. “No, that can’t be right.”

I leaned over her shoulder and checked the display. The date showing was yesterday’s date, the day we arrived here. The time was ten-thirty-two pm.

“It must be a glitch. How can it only be ten-thirty?” I asked.

“It’s not a glitch,” Derek said. “The phone got a signal long enough to resynch the time and updated itself. It would be tough to get that wrong.”

I shook my head. “The last time I checked my phone it was past midnight!”

Beth sat down on one of the comfy old chairs around the fireplace. “Oh God, Jim, the kitchen counter, the drawing room, remember?”

“What was it you said? Like we’d never been there.”

“Or like we’d not been there
yet
.”

“What are you talking about?” Derek asked.

I explained, “Remember when you came down from the apartment and you thought we’d cleaned up the kitchen?”

“Yeah, I remember. So?”

“While we were upstairs it’s like time must have moved backwards,” Beth said. “The time moved to earlier in the night, maybe to a time before we set up all our stuff in the drawing room or ate anything in the kitchen.”

“Then why wasn’t our stuff still in the car?” Derek asked.

“Whoah!” I held up my hands. “How is this even possible? Nobody can just wind back time.”

“Maybe the ghost can.”

“Do we have to call it a ghost?”

Derek scoffed. “What would you like to call it? We’ve all seen it now. I think we can say that this is a fucking ghost we’re dealing with. No parlour trick could explain what we saw in the cellar.”

I circled the room, trying to wrap my head around what Beth and Derek were telling me.

“Why is this so hard for you to accept?” Beth asked.

“Oh so now you’re ganging up on me?”

“No, Jim, I just think it’s time to abandon any preconceived notions of what’s possible and just deal with the fact that there’s something in that house that wants to hurt us.”

“It’s a fucking ghost,” Derek insisted.

“What I want to know is,” Beth said, “why is the lavender lady haunting the lodge? Why didn’t we smell any hint of lavender in the house?”

“Maybe this is her holiday home,” I suggested weakly.

Derek let out a string of expletives. “This is a waste of time. My wife is still in there, all alone and probably scared out of her mind. And I abandoned her. We’ve got what we came for. It’s time to go back.” Derek switched on his torch and aimed it at the fireplace. “Ah ha,” he said. He walked over and picked up an iron poker.