The Patchwork House Page 7

  “It makes sense though, right?” Chloe pushed on, putting a hand on Derek’s arm to try to get him to calm down. “Percy dies having lived in the house all his life. He leaves no heirs so the house has to be sold. And we’re the first ones to stay here overnight. Stands to reason. He wants us gone.”

  “You may be onto something there,” I told her. “But I still don’t think it wants us to leave.”

  “Maybe it… he just wants us to know he’s here, so that your dad won’t be able to sell the house at all.”

  “Or it could be Arthur,” Beth piped up. “He could have the house wired up with special effects. It could be a big ruse to get us to leave.”

  “How very Scooby Doo,” I said with a forced smile. “I’ll unmask him for a Scooby-snack.”

  Beth regarded me coldly and my smile vanished.

  “It’s actually the most logical explanation,” Derek said.

  “Well it might explain the thumps and the footsteps, but it doesn’t explain moving the bookcase, or the thing up on the ceiling either.” I pointed to the chandelier. Everyone else stared at it.

  “What thing on the ceiling?” Beth asked.

  “I saw it while you were all sleeping. It was a black mass, clinging to the chandelier. I pointed my phone’s light right at it and it came at me.”

  “Came at you?” Beth said.

  “Yeah, it just sort of… hurled itself at me. And I saw a face.”

  “It had a face?” Derek was leaning in now.

  “Yeah I’m sure of it. But it was only a fraction of a second and then it was gone. I swear it had a face but I couldn’t draw it for you or anything, or pick a guy out of a lineup. I couldn’t even tell you if its nose was big or its mouth was wide. It was in motion, fluid.”

  “And what happened when it came at you?”

  “Well I kind of… screamed and covered my head, and then it was gone.”

  Chloe swallowed. “I will never sleep again.”

  We sat in silence for a while. Beth yawned, but none of us felt willing to climb back into our sleeping bags.

  “So is it time to leave?” Beth asked.

  I checked my phone. It was 12.30am.

  “It’s the middle of the night, where are we going to go?”

  “We can take turns to drive back to London,” Chloe suggested. “You can stay at our flat. The kids are away so there’s lots of room.”

  “Thanks but it might be easier to drive to the nearest city and rent a room.”

  “What is the nearest city?” Beth asked.

  I shrugged. “Hereford, I suppose. Once we’re back in civilization I can check some websites and see if I can get us in somewhere.”

  “We’re not leaving!” Derek said.

  “Hon, I think we’re not wanted here,” Chloe said, putting a hand on his arm.

  “No way, I’m not leaving until we get this thing on film.”

  “Derek, I’m with the girls. I think it’s time to go.”

  “You can go if you like.”

  I shook my head. “We’re not leaving you here alone.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me,” he said. “You can come pick me up in the morning.”

  “You’re not serious, are you, hon?” Chloe’s tone was pleading. “I can’t leave you here, I won’t leave you.”

  “Stay with me then.”

  Chloe continued, “But this is crazy. Out of the four of us, you were the only one who didn’t want to come. Now you don’t want to leave.”

  “Now I know there’s a ghost, I want to stay. I want to find out who it is and what its motives are. And I want it on camera.”

  “We won’t leave you,” I said again. Regardless of his attitude, he was still my friend. He was still the only person in the village I grew up in who took the time to reach out to me, the new kid. It was a lonely life moving around so much, and to have a friend like Derek had been a lifesaver—and I mean that probably in a literal sense.

  “Then we’re all staying.”

  And that was that. Beth didn’t look happy about it. Or she might have been pissed at me still. Chloe was veering halfway between terror at the prospect of staying and anger that her husband didn’t want to leave.

  “I’m going to get the camera on the banister. Hopefully it got a good shot of whatever came down the stairs.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait until morning?” I said.

  “I want to check we got something now. If the camera’s at the wrong angle we could end up getting no good shots the whole night.”

  “Oh Derek, stop it,” Chloe said. “None of us wants to go upstairs now. Let’s just stay in here.”

  “I didn’t say you had to come with me.”

  “We made a rule, remember,” I said.

  “Bollocks to your rule. If anyone wants to come up with me then be my guest. If not, I’ll go alone. I’m just going to grab the camera from the top of the stairs and come back again. I’m not going to hang out and drink piña coladas with Percy’s granddad in the library.”

  Beth, Chloe and I glanced awkwardly at each other, each hoping someone else would volunteer first.

  Derek laughed. “For God’s sake, it’s either a ghost or a hoax, and the sooner we find out the sooner we can get some sleep.”

  Somehow I didn’t think Derek really cared that much about sleeping. He was on a mission now. Perhaps this was the most exciting thing to happen to him in years. Or perhaps he longed for fame, and believed this was his chance to grab it.

  I had to admit, while part of my mind recoiled in terror at the thought of seeing that dark mass again, another part dearly wanted to get it on film. Not because I wanted to become famous and get on TV, necessarily, but because it would be pretty cool to have actual evidence of a real life haunting.

  Derek clicked on his torch and went to the door.

  “I’ll come with you then,” I said. I would never forgive myself if I let him go alone and something happened to him.

  Beth didn’t look too happy about that. “We’ll be fine,” I whispered to her. I picked up the spare lamp, turned on the gas and followed Derek into the hall.

  He was already at the foot of the stairs, using his torch to illuminate as much of the upper floor as its beam would reveal. I stood back so as not to blind him with my lamp. After a moment he seemed satisfied that there was nothing up there and he started climbing. I followed him, keeping back a few steps. Our eyes never wavered from the landing. When Derek reached the base of the guard rail, his head at floor level, he shone the torch up and down the corridor and craned his neck to see. The camera was attached to one of the wooden beams about two feet above Derek’s head. He reached up and switched off the automatic setting—the camera had likely already taken a few snaps of Derek’s torchlight dancing over the walls. He placed the torch between his teeth, climbed another couple of steps and reached out to the camera again. This time he started taking off the drafting tape holding it in place. It was very loud, the noise echoing in the long corridor running the length of the whole house. I raised the lamp to help Derek see what he was doing. It seemed to take forever but eventually the camera came free.

  Derek pulled it through the bars and then took the torch out of his mouth. “Should have brought a knife,” Derek said drolly as we headed back down the stairs.

  We made it to the drawing room without anything weird happening and closed the door behind us. Chloe and Beth looked relieved.

  “Nothing happened,” I told Beth. Derek ignored us and sat down with the camera. Quickly he began flicking through photographs.

  “What time did you hear the footsteps?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know, maybe around quarter past twelve.”

  “Okay, well your camera is screwed up, because the photos have the wrong date on them. The timestamp says they were taken around three in the morning.”

  “That is weird. I double checked the date and time when I set it up.”

  “And something else that’s weird. It took a
picture of us going into the library, and coming back out again after we set up the video camera. But later on there are more pictures of just me.”

  Derek handed over the camera and I looked through some of the pictures. They were of Derek coming out of the library and going back in, but I wasn’t in them.

  “You didn’t go in the library alone, so where am I?”

  “Scroll back to just before those photos and you’ll see both of us,” Derek said. “I don’t remember going back in after we were done in the library though.”

  “I think our friend is playing with the electronics,” Beth said.

  “And that’s not the only thing,” I said. Have you seen how much battery is left? With the extended battery this should have been good at least until dawn.”

  “How much is left?” Beth asked.

  I shook the camera, like that would make the slightest difference, and checked it again. “A few minutes,” I said. “I’ll have to charge it again before we put it back upstairs.”

  “So lots of weirdness, but nothing concrete,” said Derek.

  “Is there anything else you’ve found?” I asked him, handing him back the camera.

  Derek took it from me and said, “I’ll let you know. I’ve not got to the photos taken when you heard the footsteps yet, and with the timestamps messed up it’s really hard to tell where they are. I wish I could plug this into the laptop.”

  “No no no,” Chloe said. “You’re not going back upstairs!”

  “I have to anyway. The video camera battery is likely nearly dead as well, so we need to recharge it.

  “Uh oh,” said Beth. She was holding out her smartphone. The battery level was critically low.

  I checked mine too and saw the same. Yet we’d charged ours off the recharger station when we arrived.

  While Chloe and Derek checked their own phones, I went over the recharger. Thankfully it was still showing a decent amount of battery left.

  “Maybe power is only draining upstairs,” I said as I plugged my phone and Beth’s into two of the sockets. I had two bays left, and Derek reluctantly handed over his phone (nearly dead) and the camera and I plugged them both in.

  “Now I really want that laptop,” Derek said again. “Who’s coming with me to get it?”

  None of us moved.

  “We need to conserve our light,” I said.

  “We need to leave,” Chloe snapped. “Who’s to say the car battery isn’t dead too? Maybe we should get it running before it goes flat.”

  “That’s a really good point, Jim,” said Beth.

  “The car hasn’t been upstairs,” Derek protested.

  “The point is we don’t know what’s causing the drain or if it’s limited to anywhere,” I said.

  Derek shrugged. “Okay, well why don’t you go out and see if the car starts?”

  “I’d rather be all ready to go in case it only has enough juice to start the once.”

  “Oh Jesus, fine. Let me get the laptop and then we can all go together. Deal?”

  “Okay then,” I agreed, picking up the spare lamp again. “Let’s go.”

  “You don’t need to come with me. Really, it’s fine. Just start packing stuff we’ll need. Bring food too, I’m getting hungry.”

  I thought Chloe would protest Derek going upstairs alone, but I think she was just relieved we were finally leaving. A weight seemed to have lifted from her. She gave Derek a kiss and a smile before he switched on his torch and left the room, the door staying open behind him. We listened as his footsteps ascended the stairs.

  “Right,” I said, making the others jump. “Chloe, pack as much food as you can. Beth, bring the charger with the phones still plugged in. I’ll bring the two supply bags—they shouldn’t be too heavy without the tripod and stuff.

  The scream, when it came, made us all freeze in place. We stared at each other in shock.

  “Derek,” Chloe screeched.

  The three of us barrelled out into the hallway. I barely remembered to grab the lamp as we went. Beth clicked on her torch but Chloe had nothing. She was already running for the stairs despite the darkness. Beth hurried after her, doing her best to keep the steps lit so that Chloe wouldn’t trip.

  The scream came again, but it wasn’t from above. I paused with my foot on the first step.

  “Guys,” I called.

  “Chloe wait up,” I heard Beth call upstairs on the landing. “Jim’s trying to tell us something. Chloe!”

  Clearly she couldn’t make Chloe stop. I tried calling up again.

  “Hey Chloe,” I yelled, loud as I could. “Derek’s down here.”

  Another scream, definitely from the kitchen. It wasn’t loud this time, but it was clearly in pain. It was also clearly coming from Derek.

  I couldn’t wait any longer.

  “Beth, if you can hear me, I’m in the kitchen!”

  But there was no response. I had to help Derek. I ran the length of the hall, my swinging lamp causing shadows to lurch at me as I passed by. I stepped down into the kitchen and looked about me. The room was empty but for the detritus we had left from our abandoned meal. There were no more screams, the room was utterly silent.

  “Derek?” I called, not as loudly as I’d intended. “Derek, are you there?”

  No response. Maybe he really was upstairs. Maybe there were pipes or ducts that relayed sound from other parts of the house. Perhaps all I’d heard was an echo of Derek calling from upstairs.

  If I went upstairs now, I could be abandoning him. Maybe he was in the conservatory, or even in the ballroom. Perhaps he was in the upstairs apartment and the sound had carried into the kitchen via the narrow stairway. I shone the light in that direction. The door was closed but perhaps some sound filtered through. But how would Derek gain access to the apartment? There was no way in from upstairs.

  I listened for another few seconds and then I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to check on Beth. I retreated from the kitchen, back into the hallway, and hurried to the foot of the stairs. As I came around the bottom bannister and started my ascent, I was aware of someone coming down from above.

  I jumped, my heart in my mouth, and raised the lamp.

  It was Derek, torch in hand.

  “What the fuck, man?” he said, confused at the look on my face. “Something wrong?”

  “Derek, where were you?”

  “I was in the library. I’ve got the laptop, see?” He shined his torch at the computer tucked under his other arm.

  My head was starting to spin. What the hell was going on?

  “Where’s Beth and Chloe?”

  Derek just stared at me. “With you in the drawing room, no?”

  “Oh God, oh God no.”

  I charged past Derek, taking the steps two at a time. When I reached the landing, the upstairs was quiet.

  Derek came running up behind me. He was no longer carrying the laptop so he must have left it at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Where are they, Jim? Where did Chloe go?”

  “She came up here, looking for you. We heard you screaming, so she just ran up here. Beth followed her with a torch.”

  “I wasn’t screaming. I was just disconnecting the laptop. I didn’t see or hear anything. Wait a minute, if Beth followed Chloe with a torch, are you telling me that Chloe didn’t have one?” Derek sounded mad as hell.

  “Yeah she just ran out without thinking. We heard you scream and she was off. I tried to stop her…”

  “I didn’t hear a fucking thing!”

  We’d reached the library now. It was so quiet up here, apart from us arguing.

  “Beth?” I called. “Chloe? Where are you?”

  Icy tendrils clutched at my chest. I couldn’t have lost both of them, it just wasn’t possible. It was a big house, but it wasn’t that big.

  “We need to check every room. Maybe they stumbled in the dark and hit their heads.”

  “Both of them?” Derek sounded incredulous. “Chloe!” he called. “Answer me, damn
you.”

  Inside the library everything was as it had been. The camera still stood on the tripod in the corner, and opposite was the bookshelf that had moved earlier that evening. The dustcovers were still on the centre table and the chairs around it.

  We left the library.

  “Split up,” Derek commanded. “I’ll go search the bedrooms and the games room. You go back past the stairs and check those rooms.

  “I don’t want to lose you too.”

  “You won’t, we’ll keep calling out, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “One thing I want to know before we part, Jim.”

  “What?”

  “Why did I meet you coming up the stairs? Why didn’t you follow the girls immediately?”

  “I heard you screaming too, but it was coming from the kitchen. I tried to call them back down but they couldn’t hear me. I had to go see if you were all right.”

  “And was I in the kitchen, Jim?”

  I hung my head, feeling like a chastised eight-year-old. “No.”

  “When we’ve found them, Jim, you and I are going to have words.”

  It was almost a relief when we parted ways.

  I checked each room in turn in the section of the upstairs above the hall, the living room and the drawing room. I called the girls’ names as I searched, and I could hear Derek doing the same thing. I was so mad at the fucker I could barely think straight. If he hadn’t gone upstairs alone to get the laptop, we would all still be together. And if I hadn’t wasted time trying to help him, I might have seen where they went. Now Beth was missing, presumably still somewhere in the house but unable to hear me. More to the point, it was likely that Derek was going to get lost too. And then what was I going to do? I couldn’t just drive away and leave them here. I didn’t think my nerves could take searching the house on my own, even though that’s pretty much what I was doing.

  “Derek?” I called out along the corridor.

  “I’m here. Found anything?”

  “No, nothing,” I replied in the direction of his torchlight.

  “Keep looking.”

  Well obviously.

  By now I’d run out of rooms to check. The corridor this side of the stairs was much shorter than the other side. But if neither girl was answering then it was pretty clear to me then that we weren’t about to find them.