Hotel Midnight (3 page)

‘Where are you going?’ I asked her.

‘To take a closer look of course.’

‘Wait, you’ll see nothing in this. I’ll get the torch.’

When I returned she’d already vanished. It was as if something had reached down to pluck her from the face of the Earth.

A sense of unease seeped into me – some primeval hazard warning light started to flash red in the core of my brain.

‘Kathy … Kathy?’

The world was a considerably darker place now. Starlight touched the corn with spectral flashes. In the distance a dog started to howl, as if it had caught the scent of something alien on the night air.

‘Kathy?’

I flicked on the torchlight. The beam splashed against corn. Then, turning away from the field, I glanced round the garden. In the shadows the hood of the barbecue sat there blackly like a gigantic skull. Bushes crouched in monstrous silhouette; a breeze touched their leaves; they rustled with the restless sound of wings fluttering in a cave.

‘Kathy … where are you?’ I looked back to the house,
thinking
maybe she’d returned there when I’d gone for the torch.

Ours is the sole house in Meedholme Lane. Just then its dark shape masked a hundred or so stars as squarely as a gigantic
tombstone
. Jake’s bedroom light burned; the curtains were closed.

‘Kathy. Where—?’ Suddenly, rearing up from the shadows came a dark shape with glinting eyes.

‘John.’

‘Kathy. Hell’s teeth … do you want to give me heart failure?’

‘Sorry.’ Her teeth showed white as she grinned.

‘Where were you?’

‘I thought I’d have a quick look first.’

‘You don’t want to go running around out here at night.’

‘Frightened the old man with the claw will get me?’

I squeezed her arm, part gesture of affection, part reassurance that she was all right.

When she spoke it was with a note of wonder. ‘Wait until you see what I found.’

We waded through the wheat until we reached the largest of the depressions. Unlike the other three this sloped down toward the centre to form a funnel shape. Corn still grew straight and unruffled on the ever-increasing incline. It was what lay at the bottom that had caught Kathy’s eye.

‘Shine the torch in the middle,’ she told me. ‘See it?’

‘My God … a cave?’

‘More like an old coal-mine working. The place is riddled with them under here.’

‘I see you haven’t forgotten all those history lessons of old man Leeson’s. Hell, look at that. How deep does it go?’

There, in the light of the torch, was an oblong hole in the ground. Maybe ten feet long, it was black as ink. Raw, dark soil showed around the rim. Even as we watched a little broke away to disappear underground with a rattle that turned into phantom echoes.

‘Don’t get any closer,’ I warned, as Kathy edged her way down the incline, arms held out like airplane wings as she balanced.

She said, ‘If it’s one of the old coal shafts it’s going to go down a long way. Eighty years ago they were sinking them a thousand feet deep around here.’

‘Then for Godsakes get away from it.’ This time I spoke with real feeling: the mental image of Kathy sliding screaming down the funnel and into that gluttonous mouth of the pit was
shockingly
vivid. I held out my hand; she accepted the offer and I pulled her firmly back to level ground. ‘This’s got to be sealed off. All you need is a couple of inquisitive kids and they’ll disappear into that thing forever.’ With growing distaste I eyed the pit. It had all the ominous presence of an open grave.

‘John. Look!’ Without waiting for me to direct the torch the way she was pointing, she grabbed my wrist, then swung it to the right.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I thought I saw something moving through the corn.’

‘Something? Not someone?’

‘No … an animal – definitely animal.’

‘It might have been a rabbit.’

‘No. It was …’ She paused, puzzled as if her recollection of it didn’t match with anything she’d ever seen before. ‘Black. About the size of a large dog.’

I shrugged, grinning. ‘Then it probably was a dog.’

She shook her head. ‘No. It can’t have been. There wasn’t any fur. At least I don’t think there was.’

‘Well, it’s scarpered now. Come on, we should telephone
someone
about this.’ I directed the torch back at the pit. Doing so, I caught the smell of scorched air. Once more I pictured a vast furnace door that had swung open. An ear of corn nodded at the lip of the hole as if disturbed by some subterranean updraught.

Now the darkness of the pit was strangely compelling. It sat in the raw grave of an opening as if it were a liquid, or oil – like rich, dark oil that had seeped up from beneath the surface of the ground. Just for a moment I could imagine that viscous darkness oozing out over my feet, over the field, over my house, over the town to engulf the whole world.

Just then Kathy said unexpectedly, ‘I might have left the back door open.’

‘The door?’ I wondered what had prompted her to mention it.

‘Don’t worry. Jake’s at home.’

‘I know. But that animal …’ Suddenly she sounded uneasy. ‘I mean … I wonder where it went.’

We turned and breasted our way back through the corn as if we walked through a swimming pool. All the time I was conscious of the pit behind me. A raw wound in the surface of the earth. I pictured seeping darkness that had the velvet touch of a tomb.

Ahead was the silhouette of the house. Jake’s light burned in his room. We’d no sooner reached the back garden than we heard the scream. Kathy’s glance at me said far more than words ever could. The scream sounded again. Only this time it had taken on a strange muffled quality.

‘Jake.’ Kathy’s voice was sharp with worry. ‘It’s Jake!’

I looked up at the bedroom window, willing the curtain to be pulled aside, then for Jake to look out. Next came a sound. I can’t describe it as a scream. It wasn’t. Not entirely. But it was a sound I’d remember until my dying day.

‘Jake!’ I yelled his name. Still no Jake appeared at the window.

The back door lay open; we raced at it, Kathy hitting the door first. The first thing we saw was Jake in the hallway.

‘Who’s that shouting?’ His face white with fright. ‘It sounded like someone’s hurt.’

‘I’ll check the road,’ I panted at them. ‘Stay here until I get back.’

Testing the weight of the torch in my hand as if it were a club, I went back outside. Tension had a handful of my intestine in its grip by this time. That scream… It had put a river of ice through me.

Outside, it was silent. The stars still burnt their immeasurable course above my head. Bushes and trees were dark, phantom shapes. The scream must have come from Meedholme Lane that runs at the front of the house. At its busiest it’s dead quiet, and generally traffic free. At this time it wouldn’t see so much as a pedestrian for half an hour at a time. With only one streetlight I had to rely on the torch to see anything at all. The road appeared to be deserted.

‘Hello.’ My voice, as you’d imagine, sounded pretty tentative. ‘Hello. Anyone there?’

A rustling noise. This, joined by a wet sound, almost like a dog lapping water, came faintly on the night air. I judged the sounds to come from some way along the lane. I listened for footfalls but heard none. No voices, either.

Just that faint lapping. A liquid sound. Cautiously I walked toward it, shining the torch. The beam only carried so far,
lighting
a few square yards of road tar and the luminous white lines that spat out toward a dark horizon. A foil chewing-gum wrapper glinted with the cold light of the evil eye against asphalt.

‘Hello.’ I said loudly this time. ‘Anyone there?’

No reply. With tension quickening my pace, I homed in on the lapping sound. Five seconds later I did see shapes there in the extremity of the torchlight. The light thrown at that distance was nothing more than a thin, silvery wash. But I could see something. And that
something
was dark and humped. I took another dozen paces forward, my heartbeat quickening in my chest.

There lay a man.

Aged about fifty-ish, he lay on his back, one arm stretched out as if pointing at the kerb; a knee raised into the air. I could see that much. Then the knee dropped in a way to suggest someone relaxing or falling asleep.
But they’re in the middle of the road for Godsakes.
Quickly, I took another ten paces. I raised the torch higher. I saw more now. But what I did see made little sense. Sod that! It made no sense.

Because sitting there on the man’s chest was a dog. It licked his face in long, rhythmic laps; pretty much as a dog would lick a bone.
So here’s the scenario: man collapses while walking dog. Faithful hound tries to wake man by licking his face.
That’s what the rational quarter of my mind was proposing. But I knew the truth was far darker, far grimmer.

As I lurched into a run I shouted, ‘Hey!’

The black dog noticed me now. In the shaky light of the torch I fancied I saw it glare back in my direction; I fancied I saw a pair of eyes that were large and owlish, and the sickest yellow you’ve ever seen.

‘Hey, leave him!’

My shout seemed to do the trick. As I ran up, the black
dog-shape
slunk away into the darkness. I swung the torch, trying to catch a glimpse of it before it vanished into the field at the side of the lane. It had already gone. But even as I anticipated the sound of it dashing away into the corn I heard a swishing noise;
something
like a bamboo cane being whipped through the air. Instead of coming from the field, the sound swished above my head. I tried to follow it with the torch beam. I caught the flash of a black wing. Maybe the dog had disturbed a bird – something big – a crow? A raven?

By this time I’d reached the man. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll …’
get you to hospital.
To finish the sentence would have been a waste of breath.

I held the torchlight on him for no more than a second. I had an impression of loose flaps of skin. Of tearing. But the
overwhelming
impression was of a human face that had simply gone.

‘John, did you find—’

‘Get back in the house.’ The emotion that drove the words from my lips was enough to get Kathy inside without asking
questions
.

In ten seconds we were all in the kitchen with the doors locked. By this time Kathy’s face was as white as Jake’s.

‘John? Was anyone there?’

Tight-lipped, I nodded.

‘Is he hurt? John, what’s wrong? You look as if you’ve seen—’

‘Don’t worry,’ I told her. ‘Jake, keep in here with your mother.’

‘But is—’

‘I’ll tell you everything in a minute. I need to phone the police.’

‘The police?’

‘Don’t worry,’ I repeated. Then the thought struck me:
Don’t worry.
If I repeated the words a third time it would become a gypsy curse.

I went to the kitchen phone. For some reason that spidery crack in the wall had assumed a new significance. Not so much a crack: an omen. A harbinger of doom. Picking up the handset I punched the buttons. I pressed the button on the cradle; tried again.

‘Damn….’

‘You can’t get a line, can you?’ Kathy’s eyes were round; her voice tight sounding.

I hissed, ‘Tonight of all nights this thing has to go on the blink.’

But that didn’t add up. That was coincidence tossed too far. And I knew it. I knew it as if it had been written in fire across that damn wall with its telltale crack.

‘Just a minute,’ I said, and went through into the living-room, switching on the light as I did so.

Something thin and snake-like hung down outside the window.

‘The telephone cable’s broken.’ The statement sounded lame. But perhaps it was better than the truth, namely:
It’s been cut.

Coincidence be damned. A chain of events had started here: the earth tremor; the yawning pit in the field; the man lying half eaten out there in the street; the broken telephone cable….

‘Kathy, we’ve got to get the police here.’

‘What’s happening, John? Was there anyone out in the street?’

‘Yes.’ I spoke in a low voice so Jake wouldn’t hear. ‘He’s dead.’

‘Dead?’

I held up a finger to my lips. ‘Don’t let Jake know. Is your mobile phone still in the bedroom?’

‘No, I always give it to Paula when she goes … Oh, Jesus. What time is it?’

‘Half past ten.’ I’d no sooner replied than the implications sank in. Paula would be on her way home now. The bus stopped at 10.30 by the crossroads. Then came just a three-minute walk up Meedholme Lane to the house. It was one of those moments of absolute mental clarity. A man lay slaughtered in the street. Slaughtered by something dog-like, but not by any breed of dog I recognized. Its appearance was connected to the coming of that evil-looking pit in the field. Now my seventeen-year-old daughter would be alighting from the bus. She’d walk home alone.

There were no options; no debates; no prevarication; I had to reach Paula before she got off that bus. Normally it arrived at the crossroads just a shade after 10.30. My watch said 10.29. With luck I’d be there to meet her.

With Kathy and Jake safely locked inside the house, I walked to the driveway gates. Behind me, lights blazed from the windows. The black cable hung slackly down the house wall. Severed from the telegraph pole. In retrospect it may have been wiser to take the car. But at that moment I believed I’d be faster covering the short distance to the crossroads on foot.

I gripped the torch hard. The urge to switch it on and rake the whole area around me with its honest-to-goodness light itched upon my skin like a rash. But I wanted to give my night-vision a chance to kick in. There was starlight; there was the light of the single street-lamp. If anything I might see more, certainly further, without the torch. That would be for emergencies only, I told myself, as I slipped through the gate.

A hundred yards to my left the body still lay on the street. Of whatever chewed its face there was no sign. Once more the
rational
self, so primly bolted there by a modern society that is still haunted by a terror of the unknown, rifled my head for rational explanations. The creature might be an escaped big cat of some sort. A black panther would fit the bill. Fast. Sleek. Deadly. That’s it, John, I told myself. You’re dealing with some wild escapee here. A big cat from a zoo or circus.