Royle stopped himself from responding immediately. This didn’t make sense.
“The kid?” His voice echoed. “Let me get this straight. There’s a child up there with you, Best?”
“Yeah, a fucking kid… or so it wants us to believe. Come up now or they’re both dead. I’m not fucking around. The time for all that’s gone. This is serious. This is where it all ends, Royle.”
Royle did not wait for confirmation from his superior officer, nor did he look at anyone as he stalked across the street and pushed open the gate. He walked up to the door, waited, and listened. He heard someone coming down the stairs, heavy-footed, and moving along the hallway. He couldn’t make out details through the stippled glass panel in the door, but it didn’t look like Erik Best.
There was the rattle of a bolt in its slot. The door opened an inch; the security chain tautened, made a faintly musical noise. A woman’s battered face peered through the gap.
“Miss Hansen?”
She nodded.
“Miss Hansen… Abby, are you okay?”
The more he saw of her face the more worried he became. She was cut and bruised, with what looked to be a broken nose and a shattered cheekbone. Both of her eyes were swollen almost shut.
“He hurt me… he’s got a gun.” Her voice was dull; she struggled to make the words clear through her beaten face. “He’s halfway up the stairs… if I try to run, he said he’ll shoot me in the back.”
Royle nodded. The decision was made.
“Let me in.”
She shut the door. He heard her pawing at the security chain, trying to release it from its catch. Then the door opened again, wider this time; just enough for him to step inside. She moved to the side, and once he was through the doorway, she slammed the door and replaced the chain, slid the bolt back into place. She was shaking. The unfocused look in her eyes made it seem like she’d just woken up from a long sleep and was still only half awake, still caught up in the wild webbing of dreams.
“This way,” said a voice from further along the hall. “Come here, where I can see you. And keep your hands away from your body.”
“I’m unarmed,” said Royle, moving slowly forward. “I’m not a firearms officer, anyway. I would probably shoot myself in the foot if I started waving a gun around. How about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I know how to use this thing.”
Royle could not see the bottom few stairs of the main flight. As he drew closer, he saw a pair of feet, then legs, and finally a torso.
“Keep coming,” said Erik Best. He held the gun out, away from his body. The tip of the barrel was angled slightly downwards, but it was pointed vaguely in Royle’s direction. “No quick moves.”
Royle was aware of Abby Hansen standing with her back to the wall. She slid along the hallway cautiously, focusing all of her attention on the man who was standing halfway up the stairs.
“Okay, start climbing. We can talk up here, on the first floor, so we’re well out of the way of your mates out there.”
Royle nodded. “That’s fine, Erik. I’m here for you… all for you. We can talk about whatever you want.” He kept his hands held out, away from his body, the palms turned towards the man with the gun. “I want to find a peaceful conclusion to this. I don’t want to see anyone get hurt — and that means you, too. Let’s see if we can get everyone here out alive, yeah?”
Best shook his head slowly, a grim smile on his face. “We’re all already dead, marra. Don’t you see? This is a hell, and we’re all trapped here, in this hell. Like demons or ghosts… we can’t ever leave again. We’re haunting this place… haunting it…”
“It’s okay,” he whispered, keeping his gaze fixed dead ahead and hoping that only she could hear him. “Stay calm.”
“Shut the fuck up and get your copper arse up here.” The gun barrel twitched, pointing directly at him. “She doesn’t need to hear you. She doesn’t need to hear anything.”
“Okay, okay… hold your horses. I’m coming. Like I said, I’m here for you. We can sit and talk, you and I, and see what we can organise.”
Slowly, Best moved backwards up the stairs, taking one riser at a time. He placed his feet carefully as he went, so there was no danger of him stumbling and falling no matter how hard Royle wished for it to happen. The man might, indeed, have lost his mind, but he was aware of his surroundings and seemed intent on having his way.
When he reached the top of the stairs, Royle followed Best along the landing to an open door. Best stood to the side, flicking the gun as if he were chasing off flies. “Get in there.”
Royle nodded. “No problem.” He entered the room. At first it wasn’t clear what he was looking at, and then he realised that there was a pile of what looked like a child’s belongings in the middle of the room, as if they’d been arranged into a heap and then spread out messily. There were clothes and toys, pages from magazines, and even photographs in the pile. He realised then that these things had once belonged to Erik and Abby’s daughter. These were her things; they’d been placed here deliberately.
Then he saw the thing that was standing in the corner.
He stopped, feeling the urge to turn around and run, to just get the hell out of there and not look back, not once, not ever. Just keep on running until he was out of sight and far away from the Crawl.
The figure was small — child-sized. It was dressed in a floppy-brimmed black hat, a long black cloak, and had some kind of weird bird mask covering its face. Placed over the mask where the eyes should have been, incongruous and lending a further surreal touch to the already eerie figure, was a strange-looking pair of black goggles. The figure did not move. It just stood there, with its back to the wall, staring into the room.
Royle had overcome the urge to flee. “Hello,” he said, disappointed at the fear in his voice.
“Shut the fuck up,” said Best, entering behind him. “It doesn’t talk.”
Royle didn’t want to turn around and take his eyes off the figure. If he stopped looking, it might move; and if it moved, he was fucked. He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but it felt right. The last thing that needed to happen here was for that thing to start moving. Or crawling.
Abby Hansen walked past him on the right, moving towards the small figure. She stood near it, but not too close. She didn’t seem to know what to do — should she go to it, or stay out of reach? Her fingers flexed at her sides, her lips trembled, and she swayed on her heels for a moment, as if she were about to fall. Then, after a second or two where things looked fragile, she recovered and straightened her spine, lifting her chin in defiance.
Royle smiled at her, but Abby stared right through him. She was probably in shock. Or maybe she’d simply retreated inside herself, where it was safer.
Finally, Royle managed to look away from the figure in black. “Okay, Erik,” he said, turning reluctantly to face the gunman. “So I’m here. Now, what shall we talk about?”
Best used the gun to point at the bed. “Sit down. I don’t trust you on your feet. I don’t trust any of you fuckers.”
Royle stayed where he was. “So why did you ask me in here, Erik? I mean, if you don’t trust me, why am I here?” He gestured with his hands, shrugging slightly.
“Don’t get fucking clever. You’re only here because you tried to help when our Tessa went missing. You were the only fucker who cared. Nobody else did. They just turned their backs and walked away, probably thinking I had something to do with it.” He licked his lips. His gaze wouldn’t settle on one thing; his eyes moved around the room, looking at everything, doubting everything. “Now, sit down on the fucking bed before I put a hole in you.” Finally his gaze settled on Royle, and there was a blank spot behind those eyes that Royle wished he’d not had turned upon him.
Royle did as he was told and sat down on the small single bed. The soft mattress bowed beneath him, making him feel like a giant, or a man sitting on a toy bed. “Okay… just be cool, Erik. Tell me the problem.”
