Half a bar of signal. It might be enough, but then again, she might get a few words out before she lost the connection, and then what? She quickly texted Ben: Fiddler’s Folly. Red Wolf found. He has Nikki. Help.
She didn’t wait to see if it had gone through or try to call him. The monster inside this place would get a good early warning that she was here, and that could doom Nikki. Better to go in quiet now, Heather told herself. Better to take the chance.
The door was unlocked. Heather stepped into a small, filthy kitchen, thick with shadows. A square window let in enough moonlight for her to see a sink filled with dirty plates, an old wooden table riddled with burn marks and scratches, a packet of breakfast cereal open on the counter. There was an old-fashioned radio sitting on a cupboard shelf, and the wallpaper was peeling away in long, moldy strips. The place was old and badly maintained, but also clearly still inhabited.
She moved out into the hallway beyond, which led at the far end to a staircase that turned back on itself. There was a door to either side—one, which was standing open, revealed a room used as both a living space and bedroom. She could see a vast lumpy sofa covered with sheets, a coffee table littered with cups, and as she moved into the room itself, piles of dirty clothes just thrown all over the floor. Her heart in her mouth, she checked in every corner, but the place was empty.
Perhaps he’s gone, she thought suddenly. Saw me coming and left. He could have left through the door I couldn’t see when I was walking across the beach.
Or, suggested a darker part of her mind, perhaps this is a perfectly innocent house. Perhaps you have broken into the home of some poor, lonely soul, and you’re about to frighten the living shit out of them because you’ve lost touch with reality.
Heather backed out of the room and went to the closed door. Her hand on the door knob, she paused as a painting on the wall next to it caught her eye. It was difficult to see in the gloom, but something about it made her fish out the phone from her pocket again, letting the screen light up the canvas briefly. It depicted a strange, red landscape, a flat and arid place with soft hills clouding the horizon. In the foreground, there was a single stunted tree, so twisted and black it almost looked like a crack in the arid ground, its sharp branches reaching like fingers. Heather swallowed and looked away. The painting frightened her.
As quietly as she could, she opened the door. Beyond it was a sheet of utter darkness, so she illuminated her phone again and cast the light ahead of her. There was a set of concrete steps leading down into a basement, and a strong smell of salt and bleach. Her stomach cramped.
Heather made her way down the steps, tipping her makeshift torch into the room ahead. The floor was bare and stained, and a long sturdy table stood on one side, much newer and better cared for than the one in the kitchen. There was a large plastic storage box in one corner, filled with big industrial bottles of cleaning fluids and other things she didn’t recognize, and next to the table there was a metal trolley, littered with tools.
Still think this is the wrong place? Part of her asked mockingly.
The light dawdled over the trolley, winking off of scalpels, knives, and small saws with tiny jagged teeth. There were other things there, too— razor blades, ice picks, a long length of nylon rope, dark brown glass bottles with white paper labels. On the corner of the thing something dark and gelatinous clung; it had hair coming out of it, long strands of slightly curly red hair. Heather backed up rapidly, her heels striking the front of the last step and making her jump.
“Fuck. Fuck.”
All of her previous certainty seemed to flee her. Grinding her teeth together to keep from crying out, Heather ran back up the steps and into the hallway, the light from her phone jumping and flashing. For a few seconds she stood at the kitchen entrance, quite ready to run back outside and across the beach, when she heard someone moving upstairs.
It was the briefest sound—half a footstep, the shifting of a shoe against carpet—but it was enough to stop her dead.
Nikki, she told herself. Nikki could be up there.
She went to the stairs and climbed them, wincing at every creak of the floorboards. At the top was a wide landing, the carpet stripped up and rolled against the walls. There were three doors that she could see, one standing open to reveal a tiny, dismal looking bathroom. She opened the door closest to her, the knife held high. The blinds in this room were drawn tight, and she could barely see anything save for a vague impression of some bulky furniture; a bed, a wardrobe perhaps?
“Nikki?” No response.
She lifted the phone light again and had a brief glimpse of a big mirror on the other side of the room. She saw her own face, pale and gaunt, her dark hair strewn haphazardly across her forehead—and then watched in shock as the face blinked and held up both hands to shield its eyes.
“What—?”
The figure lunged at her, throwing her down and to the floor with a crash. Heather cried out, the knife flying from her hand, and then the figure had both hands around her throat. It was a man, she belatedly realized; a man who had her face, her stature, her hair. He crashed her head against the floorboards, and her vision filled with static.
“I am the wolf,” the man shouted. “I am the wolf!”
With some difficultly, Heather bucked him off, causing
