The Puffin Book of Horror Stories

outlet. Isabel imagined the water thundering in. It would need to. The bath was very deep.

    But nobody used the bath that night. Jeremy had said he would be able to connect it up himself but in the end he had found it was beyond him. Nothing fitted. It would have to be soldered. Unfortunately he wouldn't be able to get a plumber until Monday and of course it would add another forty pounds to the bill and when he told Susan that led to another argument. They ate their dinner in front of the television that night, letting the shallow laughter of a sitcom cover the chill silence in the room.

    And then it was nine o'clock. 'You'd better go to bed early, darling. School tomorrow,' Susan said.

    'Yes, Mum.' Isabel was twelve but her mother - a short and rather severe woman - treated her sometimes as if she were much younger. Maybe it came from teaching in a primary school.

    Isabel undressed and washed quickly - hands, face, neck, teeth, in that order. The face that gazed out at her from the gilded mirror above the sink wasn't an unattractive one, she thought, except for the annoying pimple on her nose… a punishment for the Mars Bar ice-cream she'd eaten the day before. Long brown hair and blue eyes (her mother's), a thin face with narrow cheek-bones and chin (her father's). She had been fat until she was nine but now she was getting herself in shape. She'd never be a super-model. She was too fond of ice-cream for that. But no fatty either, not like Belinda Price, her best friend at school who was doomed to a life of hopeless diets and baggy clothes.

    The shape of the bath, over her shoulder, caught her eye and she realized suddenly that from the moment she had come into the bathroom she had been trying to avoid looking at it. Why? She put her toothbrush down, turned round and examined it. She didn't like it. Her first impression had been right. It was so big and ugly with its dull enamel and dribbling stain over the plug-hole. And it seemed - it was a stupid thought but now it was there she couldn't make it go away - it seemed to be waiting for her. She half-smiled at her own foolishness. And then she noticed something else.

    There was a small puddle of water in the bottom of the bath. As she moved her head, it caught the light and she saw it clearly. Isabel's first thought was to look up at the ceiling. There had to be a leak, somewhere upstairs, in the attic. How else could water have got into a bath whose taps were lying on their side next to the sink? But there was no leak. Isabel leant forward and ran her third finger along the bottom of the bath. The water was warm.

    'I must have splashed it in there myself,' she thought. 'As I was washing my face…'

    She flicked the light off and left the room, crossing the landing to her bedroom on the other side of her parents'. Somewhere in her mind she knew that it wasn't true, that she could never have splashed water from the sink into the bath. But it wasn't an important question. In fact it was ridiculous. She curled up in bed and closed her eyes.

    But an hour later her thumb was still rubbing circles against her third finger and it was a long time before she slept.

    'Bath night!' her father said when she got home from school the next day. He was in a good mood, smiling broadly as he shuffled together the ingredients for that night's dinner.

    'Where's Mum?' Isabel asked.

    'Shopping.' She had offended him. Isabel saw that in his one-word answer and the way he turned away from her, sliding some sliced onions into a pan of hot oil. He wanted her to share his enthusiasm, to talk about the bath. The onions sizzled angrily.

    'So you got it plumbed in then.'

    'Yes.' He turned back again. 'It cost fifty pounds -don't tell your mother. The plumber was here for two hours.' He smiled and blinked several times and Isabel was reminded of something she had once been told by the brother of a friend who went to Highgate. Her father was a very thin man with prematurely grey hair and a face that always seemed to be turned down. At school, his nickname was Grumpy. Why did boys have to be so cruel?

    She reached out and squeezed his arm. 'That's great, Dad,' she said. 'I'll have a bath after dinner. What are you making?'

    'Lasagne. Your mum's gone out to get some wine.'

    It was a more pleasant evening. Isabel had got a part in her school play - Lady Montague in Romeo and Juliet. Susan had found a ten-pound note in the pocket of a jacket she hadn't worn for years. Jeremy had been asked to take a party of boys to Paris at the end of term. Good news oiled the machinery of the family and for once everything turned smoothly. After dinner, Isabel did half an hour's homework, kissed her parents goodnight and went upstairs. To the bathroom.

    The bath was ready now. Installed. Permanent. The taps with the black H and C protruded over the rim with the curve of a vulture's neck. A silver plug on a heavy chain slanted into the plug-hole. Her father had polished the brasswork, giving it a new gleam. He had put the towels back on the rail and a green bath-mat on the floor. Everything back to normal. And yet the room, the towels, the bath-mat seemed to have shrunk. The bath was too big. And it was waiting for her. She still couldn't get the thought out of her mind.

    'Isabel. Stop being silly…!'

    What's the first sign of madness? Talking to yourself. And the second sign? Answering back. Isabel let out a great sigh of breath and went over to the bath. She leant in and pushed the plug into the hole. Downstairs, she could hear the television: World in Action, one of her father's favourite programmes. She reached out and turned on the hot tap, the metal squeaking slightly under her hand. Without pausing, she gave the cold tap a quarter turn. Now let's see if that plumber was worth his fifty quid.

    For a moment, nothing happened. Then, deep down underneath the floor, something rumbled. There was a rattling in the pipe that grew louder and louder as it rose up but there was still no water. Then the tap coughed, the cough of an old man, of a heavy smoker. A bubble appeared, to be broken a moment later by a spurt of liquid. Isabel looked down in dismay.

    Whatever had been spat into the bath was not water. It was an ugly red, the colour of rust. The taps spluttered again and coughed out more of the thick, treacly stuff. It bounced off the bottom of the bath and splattered against the sides. Isabel was beginning to feel sick and before the taps could deliver a third load of - whatever it was - into the bath, she seized hold of them and locked them both shut. She could feel the pipes rattling beneath her hands but then it was done. The shuddering stopped. The rest of the liquid was swallowed back into the network of pipes.

    But still it wasn't over. The bottom of the bath was coated with the liquid that now slid unwillingly towards the plug-hole which swallowed it greedily. Isabel looked more closely. Was she going mad or was there something inside the plug-hole? Isabel was sure she had put the plug in but now it was half-in and half-out of the hole and she could see below.

    There was something. It was like a white ball, turning slowly, collapsing in on itself, glistening wet and alive. And it was rising, making for the surface…

    Isabel cried out. At the same time she leant over and jammed the plug back into the hole. Her hand touched the red liquid and she recoiled, feeling it, warm and clinging, against her skin.

    And that was enough. She reeled back, yanked a towel off the rail and rubbed it against her hand so hard that it hurt. Then she threw open the bathroom door and ran downstairs.

    Her parents were still watching television.

    'What's the matter with you?' Jeremy asked. Isabel had explained what had happened, the words tumbling over each other in their hurry to get out, but it was as if her father hadn't listened. 'There's always a bit of rust with a new bath,' he went on. 'It's in the pipes. Run the water for a few minutes and it'll go.'

    'It wasn't rust,' Isabel said.

    'Maybe the boiler's playing up again,' Susan muttered.

    'It's not the boiler.' Jeremy frowned. He had bought it second-hand and it had always been a sore point - particularly when it broke down.

    'It was horrible,' Isabel insisted. 'It was like…' What had it been like? Of course, she had known all along. 'Well, it was like blood. It was just like blood. And there was something else. Inside the plug.'

    'Oh for heaven's sake!' Jeremy was irritated now, missing his programme.

    'Come on! I'll come up with you…' Susan pushed a pile of Sunday newspapers off the sofa - she was still reading them even though this was Monday evening - and got to her feet.

    'Where's the TV control?' Jeremy found it in the corner of his armchair and turned the volume up.

    Isabel and her mother went upstairs, back into the bathroom. Isabel looked at the towel lying crumpled