The sex and the wine had exhausted him, but not enough that he’d wanted to stay at Abby’s place until morning. He’d left a note on the bedside cabinet, a hastily scribbled message telling her that he’d call her in a few days. He figured that it was enough. If she didn’t want commitment, it should be plenty.
He sat down on the sofa and grabbed the remote control, switching on the television. Harry had only used the normal terrestrial channels: no cable, no satellite. There wasn’t much on at this late hour, just a re-run of some old black and white American sitcom, a documentary about insects, and news programmes. He left on the documentary, staring at images of mandibles and segmented exoskeletons. Before he knew it, he was dozing again, the world growing dark and empty.
He woke to the sound of movement. At least that’s what he thought. He couldn’t be sure, because he had been dreaming of movement, too: massive insects, crawling across the estate, scuttling through the darkness.
He sat up and felt the muscles in his neck tighten. He rubbed at the area, trying to ease the pain. “Fuck…”
The sound came again: this time he heard it properly, something shifting upstairs, like furniture being moved. The television was off but he couldn’t remember if he’d done it or not. Hadn’t he gone to sleep with it still on? The room was dark, with only a chink of streetlight leaking through gap in the blinds.
Marc was no longer alone. He could feel it, just as he could feel the sofa beneath him, the cushion pressing against his back. It was not some abstract emotional sensation, but a physical realisation that he was not the only one occupying the space between these walls. There was somebody else inside the house.
He thought about leaving but he would feel cowardly if he left without checking that his suspicion was true. His mobile was somewhere near by — perhaps even in his pocket — but he didn’t want to call the police. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but a burglary was not taking place. Whoever was in the house, they meant him no harm. He was afraid, but he felt in no danger. If they’d wanted to hurt him, they could have done so while he slept.
He remembered the man who’d threatened him, Erik Best. Abby’s ex. What if he’d been watching the house, and then had followed Marc back from her place?
No, if it was him, he’d have hurt Marc by now, probably battered him half to death as he dozed on the sofa. This was someone else, something different.
Calmly, he stood and walked to the living room doorway. None of the lights were on in the house. He considered reaching out to switch on the stair light but that would announce his presence in the stairwell and give whoever was up there fair warning that he was going up. So he left the light out, and slowly began to climb the stairs.
Halfway up, he paused. Fear had crept softly up the stairs alongside him, and now it had reached out to grab his hand. His palms were sweating. His knees felt soft, as if they might give way.
What if it
He got himself under control and finished climbing the stairs. At the top, he looked around at the door which led to the attic rooms. It was open. Faint light spilled down the attic stairs. There was somebody at the top of the house. He moved slowly along the landing, and when he reached the open door he peered around the frame. He couldn’t see anyone, but the door to the model room was open, and he saw shadows spill across the stair walls as someone or something moved and momentarily blocked out the lamplight. He could’ve sworn that he’d turned off the lamp and shut the door when he came down earlier that evening. Now the door was open, the lamp was on.
He climbed slowly, lifting his feet with great care and setting them down again as gently as possible. Boards creaked; the banister shuddered against the wall, the screws slightly loose. He couldn’t believe he was doing this, approaching potential danger — whenever he saw it in a film, he always mocked the character’s stupidity.
When he reached the top of the stairs he was unable to move. He was too afraid to do anything but stand there, poised for fight or flight, and stare at the door frame. He drew in a deep breath, clenched his fists and moved.
“Fuck!” He screamed the word at the top of his voice, planning to shock whoever might be in there into making an error. But the room was empty; there was nobody inside. He looked around the room, looking for signs of interference, but nothing had been moved. He walked over to the model table and stared at the miniature layout of the estate. It took him a while to see it — longer than he would have thought possible, when he thought about it later — but eventually his eyes picked up on the changes.
Someone had added certain details to the model.
Small trees had sprouted, breaking through the roads and pavements and thrusting upwards. Windows were broken, cars were overturned, and yet more trees had appeared inside some of the tiny houses. He could see their shapes through the intact windows; in other places, spindly leafless branches poked through the shattered panes.
Dotted throughout the model neighbourhood were small figures, half-bodied scarecrows dressed in rags and supported on thin wooden stakes. They lolled at angles, leant against walls, and a couple of them had fallen over and seemed to be frozen in the act of crawling along the street, dragging their supporting columns behind them like battered and exposed backbones.
The biggest change had been wrought upon the Needle. The base of the tower block was wrapped in thick, gnarled roots, as if it were in the process of transforming into a massive oak tree. Trunks and branches had penetrated the concrete walls, growing from the inside, and snaked around the building, forming a fibrous spiral along its length.
Marc’s mouth was dry. His hands were shaking. Was somebody playing tricks on him, having a laugh at his expense? It might even be Abby. She was certainly psychologically damaged enough to think that something like this would be amusing.
He reached out and touched the wide, serpentine trunk that had wound itself around a portion of the Needle. It was not made out of paper or card, or even rubber and plastic. What he felt beneath his fingers was real wood. Like some kind of freakish bonsai, the small tree had taken root, sprouted, and started to grow.
Then he noticed the figures. He was sure they hadn’t been there, in this position, when he’d first entered the model room. Tiny scarecrows, their upper bodies wrapped in raggedy clothing, their lower bodies consisting of nothing more than cocktail sticks pushed into the ground, anchoring the figures in place. They were standing on the Roundpath, the narrow road that circled the Needle, looking up at the central tower. Each of them was wearing a floppy hat; their arms were outstretched, in a Jesus Christ pose. Marc wasn’t sure if they were caught in an act of worship or surrender. He didn’t think it made much difference either way.
The lamplight began to flicker, creating a strobe effect. Between one second of light and the next, something appeared on the model table. It was a small notebook, like the ones he’d found in the attic library. A patch of darkness moved away from the table; a quick, snaking movement, like an arm being drawn back.
“Harry? Is it you, Harry?” He was too anxious to feel stupid, but somehow the very idea of talking to a ghost felt wrong, awkward. He didn’t believe in ghosts… Or did he? If that were true, then why was he researching the Northumberland Poltergeist? And now that he thought about it, wasn’t he holding back on that research, keeping it at arm’s length? It was as if he were attached to a heavy weight by an elastic belt. Whenever he moved forward, the elastic became taut and it held him back. He could feel his feet sliding across the floor, moving backwards.
He stepped over to the model table and picked up the book. The front cover was dusty. He opened it to the first page. There wasn’t much written down there, but it was enough.
He read the words and felt doors opening up inside him:
He closed his eyes and things twitched back there in the reddish darkness. Those doors stood ajar; they would not open fully, but it was enough for light to leak through the gap. Shadows twirled and danced; a ballet of darkness. Marc struggled to grab hold of whatever it was that capered there, inside him, but it was too slippery to get a grip on.
There was something there but he couldn’t make out what it was. Like a body under a sheet, he could discern only the outline. No details were visible.
He left the room, closing the door firmly behind him. In his hand, he gripped the notebook.
On the small landing, he stood with his back pressed up against the door, trying to convince himself that he could not hear the sounds of scrabbling from behind him, somewhere inside the room. On the table that held the
