Sam: A Novel Of Suspense (13 page)

Don’t
be ridiculous, Angela.  You’re losing your mind.  Whatever’s going on here,
there’s no reason to think that there’s something – or someone – inside of
Sammie.

Angela
turned off the shower and let the water drain from her skin.  There was steam
coming off of her flesh and for a moment she felt light-headed from the heat,
but stepping out onto the cold tiles of the bathroom was soothing and brought
back her senses.  She was careful not to slip as she padded across the room. 
Her plan was to go to bed and reassess things in the morning.  She was too
tired to figure anything out right now and at the moment, she felt like she
could sleep forever.

As
she crept across the tiles, something stopped her dead.

Angela
turned to the mirror above the sink and saw that it had steamed up in the heat
from the shower.  Written into the steam by unseen fingertips were two simple
words.

SAVE
ME.

***

Angela
dared not look at her watch for fear that it would show a time closer to dawn
than to midnight.  Sleep deprivation was one of her biggest dislikes and it
felt like she had lain awake in bed for hours.  If she checked her watch and
saw that it was nearly time to get up it would depress her unbelievably.

Angela
could be a bad sleeper at the best of times, but tonight there were several
causes for her insomnia.  Her head was filled with questions.  The main one
being: Who had been in her bathroom while she showered and wrote a message the
mirror?  If it was a joke, she didn’t find it very funny.  Tomorrow she would
get to the bottom of it, but right now there was something else demanding her
attention; the main reason she could not sleep.

Sammie’s
voice was an endless babble of noise, muffled by the floors between them, but
still loud.  Angela found it hard to believe that the boy’s voice could travel so
far.  The words he spoke were indecipherable at such a distance, but Angela
knew what Sammie was babbling about.  Frank had already told her that Sammie liked
to quote the Bible during the small hours. That was no doubt what the boy was
doing now. 

Angela
was tucked in beneath Egyptian sheets, listening to the ramblings of a mentally
disturbed ten-year old, whilst his billionaire mother lay upstairs recovering
from a suicide attempt. 
Surreal
didn’t even begin to describe it.

As
she tossed and turned, struggling to get to sleep, something occurred to Angela. 
When Frank had first told her about Sammie’s nightly activities, she had asked
him to record the verses the boy was quoting.  Whether Frank had done so and
forgotten, or just not done so at all, was unclear, but so far he had not even
mentioned her request.  It was something she needed to remember to ask him
about tomorrow.  The Bible verses could point to subconscious messages that
Sammie was unable to communicate in other ways.  They could provide vital clues
on how to help the boy.

Angela
finally gave in and checked her watch.  It was a little past 3AM – not as bad
as she thought.  She actually started to feel a little hopeful about getting at
least a modicum of sleep.

That
was, until the power went off again and the rain began falling even harder.  The
only reason Angela cared about power going off was because she had been trying
to sleep with the light on.  Being surrounded by the pitch-black darkness of an
unfamiliar room sent shivers along her skin.  The rain had gotten so hard against
the windowpane that it almost drowned out the sound of Sammie’s chanting voice.

Almost.

Angela
shook her head and cursed in the darkness.  “I really hate this house.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tim
awoke, well rested, in his van at 10AM.  Frank had offered him a room inside
the house when he’d arrived, but to Tim, the van was home. He didn’t see any
reason to obligate himself to anybody else.  Sleeping in his vehicle also gave
him the option of a midnight getaway if things got too intense.  Running away
was one of the ways Tim survived.

Although
he fully intended to see this job through, with the way things were going, Tim
was prepared to leave at the first sign of danger.

Rain
still fell from the ashen sky and the grounds were now waterlogged and
glistening.  Fat crows stalked the gardens, looking for worms.

Tim
rummaged around in the cloths hamper he kept in the bay of his van and pulled
on a pair of jeans and a bright orange ATARI t-shirt that went well with his
hair.  Tim knew that he looked like a massive nerd, but that was just his
protection – his camouflage.  It was difficult to look in the mirror and face
the man he was.  Growing his bright ginger hair out into a shaggy mess, not
shaving, and wearing teenager’s clothes was a penance of sorts.  Tim deserved
nobody’s respect so he ensured that he received none.  Without anybody
respecting him, there was no reason for him ever to confront his past, or for
anybody to expect anything from him in the future.

Tim
hopped out of the van, his trainers crunching in the wet gravel of the
driveway.  The large Mercedes was parked nearby, but neither Mike nor Graham was
inside.  Tim remembered it was because they were on suicide watch.

Poor
Jessica.  She must have been through hell to reach such desperation.

When
Tim reached the front door of the house, he discovered he was locked out.  Thankfully,
when he pressed the buzzer, it didn’t take long for Frank to arrive and let him
in out the rain.

The
Chief of House looked exhausted.  His sunken eyes were as grey as his hair and new
wrinkles had appeared all over his face.  If Tim knew any better, he would say
that Frank hadn’t slept in days.

“Everything
okay, Frank?”

Frank
tilted his head as if he was too tired to hold it up.  “As well as can be
expected,” he said.  “Sammie is in his room and Ms Raymeady is sleeping.  I
trust that there will be no disruptions today?”

Tim
shrugged.  “No intentional disruptions, but they seem to be a regular
occurrence around here regardless.”

Frank
didn’t say anything. Perhaps he agreed.

“Is
Angela awake yet?” Tim asked.

“I
believe not.  I am yet to see her this morning.  Perhaps you should call on
her.”

“Yeah,
I’ll do that.”

“No
need.”  Angela was coming down the staircase.  She looked exhausted too, but at
least she had a clean set of clothes on: a thin blue sweater and black
trousers.  She was holding a satchel.

“How’d
you sleep?” Tim asked her.

“I
didn’t.”

“That
sucks.  You going to be okay?”

Angela
nodded.  “Don’t worry about me.  Frank, did you record the things that Sammie
has been saying during the night?  You said that you would.”

Frank
shook his head dismissively, but it was clear by the brief flicker in his
expression that he had forgotten.  “I’m afraid I haven’t gotten around to it.”

Angela
shook her head and seemed angry.  “Frank, you brought us here to help.  How can
we do that if you’re not helping us?”

Frank
seemed insulted by her chastisement and stiffened up defiantly.  “I don’t see
what knowledge it would provide you anyway.  Seems like a fool’s errand to me.”

“That’s
your opinion.  Now I have to wait another night to find out what Sammie’s been
saying during the night.”

“No
you don’t,” Tim said.  “When the power came back on, so did the video feeds I
set up.  I’ll have audio recordings of anything Sammie said last night.”

Angela
smiled, but then it quickly turned to a frown.  “But the power went off again
during the night.”

Tim
shrugged.  Having slept outside, he had not been aware of the power cut, but as
he looked around he saw that the electricity was still yet to come back on. 
“Well, I’ll have recordings up until that point at least.  May still be
helpful.”

“You’re
right,” said Angela, patting him on the back like a buddy.  “Good work.”

“My
laptop is still in the piano lounge.  Shall we go and have a look now?”

Angela
was in favour of the suggestion, so they got going.  Before they left the
foyer, however, Frank had one last thing to say to them.  “Let me know if you
intend on seeing Sammie.  No one sees him without informing me first.”

“Sure
thing,” said Tim, actually preferring Frank to be there when they went to see
Sammie again.

In
the lounge, Tim’s laptop was still on the table where he’d left it.  The lid
was closed so he pushed it open and took a seat.  The screen was black for a
few seconds while the computer came out of sleep mode.  Then several images
popped up on screen.

The
video and audio feeds were no longer live. An error log reported that they had
been interrupted by a hardware failure, which must have been when the power
went out.  He checked the video cache and was pleased to see that there were still
several hours of recordings.  With any luck, there would be plenty of footage that
Angela could work with.

He
clicked on the backup file.

A
video popped up on screen. Tim moved the laptop so that Angela could see it.

“What
time is this from?” she asked him.

“It’s
from…half-past-twelve.”

“Can
you fast forward it?  To about 2AM?”

“Yeah,
sure.  Did something happen then?”

Angela
nodded.  “I was awake.  Sammie was rambling at that time.”

Tim
clicked on the video’s timeline, finding the approximate time.  “Okay, let’s
see what we’ve got.”

The
video stuttered briefly and then begun playing smoothly.  Sammie was pacing his
room like a caged lion, sticking close to the walls on all sides, never
encroaching on the centre of the room. It was the behaviour of a trapped
animal.  The boy was shouting.

“Behold,
I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according
to what he has done.”

“What
does that mean?” asked Tim as he listened to the boy’s guttural expulsions.

“It’s
from Revelations,” Angela explained.  “It’s about being judged for our sins
when the end comes.”

“The
end?”

“Yeah,
you know.  The whole Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse shebang.”

Tim
smiled grimly.  “That’s comforting.”

“Be
not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. 
A
brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a
Devil. Be ever engaged, so that whenever the Devil calls he may find you
occupied.”

“What’s
he quoting now?”

Angela
shook her head.  “Various chapters, but they all seem to be about the Devil or
having evil tempt us.”

“Isn’t
that all a bit cliché?  I mean, we’re here to maybe perform an exorcism and
Sammie’s quoting verses about the Devil.  Next he’ll be puking mushy peas at
us.”

Angela
shrugged.  “Could be mental illness.  Religious mania tends to take a focus on
the Devil.  It’s an excuse for the afflicted to explain their actions – to pass
the burden of responsibility onto some intangible force.”

“Are
we still thinking the kid is just a regular flavour whacko then?”

“I
don’t know,” Angela admitted.  “If it were not for the past two days then I
wouldn’t hesitate in saying that, but with all the strangeness that has been
going on, I think I’m ready to take this to the next step.”

Tim
thought about his experience at the duck pond and knew what she was talking
about when she spoke about strangeness.  “So what
is
the next step?” he
enquired.

Angela
looked at him and sighed.  “I’m going to conduct an exorcism.  I’m going to do
what Jessica brought me here to do.”

Despite
his years in the “ghost business” Tim had never actually been involved in an
exorcism.  To be honest, the thought made him a little anxious.  “Can I be of
any help?” he asked, not wanting his cowardice to show through completely.

Angela
nodded.  “I’m sure you can.  For moral support if nothing else.”

The
laptop’s video feed went black.

“Must
have been when the power went off,” said Tim.  “Hmm, that’s interesting.  It
went off at 3AM exactly.”

“Yeah,”
Angela said.  “I checked my watch.  It was about that time.”

“The
witching hour,” Tim said.  “Jesus was crucified at 3PM, but 3AM is said to
belong to the Devil.  Between midnight and 3AM is when the veil between our
world and the next is at its thinnest.”

“Are
you shitting me?” Angela said while laughing.

Tim
giggled.  “I’m being serious.  Not saying I believe it, but it’s yet another cliché
to add to the list.  We’re well ensconced in horror movie territory now.”

“Well,
maybe they only became clichés because they’re true.  Who knows?  Are you
trying to say that you still think this is a set up?”