Sker House (32 page)

“Try not to look down,” Dale said from behind her.

“Thanks for the advice,” Lucy replied. “That's only been in every film ever made where people are on top of something high. I thought you would come up with something better than that.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“And you know what?”

“What?”

“They always look down.” Lucy realised that it was easier to move when they talked. It took their minds off the perilous descent. She searched for something else to say. “So... Are you glad you came back to Wales or what?”

“It doesn't get any less weird,” Dale answered wryly.

“Hey, have you read 'You Can't Go Home Again' by Thomas Wolfe?”

“Can't say I have. Beyond Catcher in the Rye, I'm not really into the American classics. Why? Am I missing something?”

“It's a story about an author who writes a book exposing the dirty secrets in his home town. The book makes him famous but when the townsfolk find out about it they start sending him death threats and generally making his life a misery. The subtext is that once you leave home, everything is different. The actual place, the people, your home, might not change, but you will. So... you can never go home again.”

“Who says you can't go home?”

“Thomas W... Hey, are you quoting Bon Jovi at me?”

Dale didn't answer. Lucy, focused on maintaining her balance against the buffering wind and rain, continued forward, edging around a large boulder that lay in the middle of the path. “Dale?” she pressed, risking a glance behind. For one terrible second she thought she was alone on the path, that her friend had tumbled off the cliff into the thrashing sea. Then she began to make out the shape of his body, pressed flat and unmoving against the sleek dark rock. “Dale? What's up?”

“Look!” he shouted. He was staring down into the churning black water below. Lucy followed his gaze. There was something in the mist, trying to force its way through. She could distinguish right angles and a dark mass. The shape seemed to be solidifying before her very eyes as tendrils of sea mist wrapped themselves around it. The mist now appeared to concentrated just beyond what the locals called Sker Point. The deadly rocks.

“What's that?” Lucy said, raising her voice to be heard against the tumultuous waves and barrage of wind and rain.

As they both watched mesmerized, something broke through the ranks of sea mist, protruding rudely from its core, and pointing towards shore. The object looked familiar to Lucy, yet at the same time undeniably out of place. It rose and fell on the swell of a gigantic wave, and on the downturn more of its bulk was revealed.

It was an old-fashioned sailing ship, hopelessly out of control, and being dragged dangerously close to the vicious banks of rocks guarding Sker beach. Lucy glanced at Dale. His lips were moving. He seemed to be speaking. Lucy moved a few steps closer in an attempt to hear what he was saying. He was repeating the same sentence, over and over again. “I know that ship, I know that ship, I know that ship.”

“How? How do you know that ship?” Lucy almost shouted. “It's going to crash into the rocks!”

At the sound of her voice, Dale stopped talking and his head snapped toward her. His eyes were wide and his jaw hung open to aid his panicked breathing. Satisfied that her friend was in no immediate danger, Lucy fixed her attention back on the ship just in time to see more of its massive bulk lurch out of the mist. As she watched, it was jolted mercilessly as yet another huge wave struck it side on. Even above the roar of the wind and waves, the groaning sound of timber under duress was plainly audible. Despite the size of the ship, it was like watching a child's toy being tossed around in a bathtub.

“Look over there!” shouted Dale, prying his fingers off the sheet rock onto which he clung just long enough to point at Sker beach.

Lucy did, and saw lights littering the beach. “What's that?” she asked in wonderment.

“I think it's the Wreckers,” replied Dale. “Or... the ghosts of the Wreckers.”

Rain beat against Lucy's face as she watched the ship tilt sickeningly to one side. Disaster was imminent. Suddenly, the ship shimmered and lost a little of its solidity, wavering in and out of focus, as if being viewed through a lens that was being manipulated. “Dale, what's happening?”

“Looks as if it's... going.”

Lucy craned her neck to stare at the stretch of coastline which moments before had been illuminated with rows of disembodied lights. The lights were still visible, but were also losing their intensity. Most were now just dull specks of orange. Whatever strange phenomena they were witnessing seemed to be ebbing away. Lucy was dumbfounded. “What the heck did we just see?”

“I think we just saw a ghost ship,” Dale said, voice wavering. “And some ghost lights. Wrecker's lights. What we saw was probably a snapshot of some earlier event.”

“But... why now?”

“Maybe it's a sign that the forces, or whatever they are, are getting stronger. More powerful. I've seen that ship before. In a dream.”

“What happened?”

“I was on it.”

“Come on, Dale. We should get back to the house. Poor Rolly will probably be worried sick about us by now.”

“Yeah, no shit,” replied Dale. He took a few tentative steps along the path toward Lucy, which was enough to get her own limbs moving again.

As she moved off, Lucy risked a last look down. Below them the waves still crashed against the jagged spikes of Sker Point and the sea mist still rolled in wispy clouds, but there was no sign of the ship. The lights had also completely vanished, leaving her free to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other and getting back to the relative safety of Sker House.

Chapter 35:

The Plan

Machen stood with Old Rolly and Champ in the bar, which had evidently been commandeered as Base Camp. They were hovering over a grand total of nine tins of assorted paint, all they could find, while Ruth and Izzy loitered on the fringes. Machen was pretty sure there were a lot more tins lying around. But as much as he tried, he couldn't remember exactly where and hunting around Sker House in the dark wouldn't be a good idea. Not tonight. Anyway, he thought they'd managed a pretty good haul under the circumstances. Ruth and Izzy were even able to source a handful of used brushes. Now all that remained was to get the supplies to their required destination.

“What d'they want all this stuff for?” he asked. He was pretty sure he'd asked Old Rolly that very same question before, maybe more than once, but though he couldn't remember the exact answer Old Rolly gave, he knew it hadn't made much sense and therefore didn't stick in his head.

“We're going to do a spot of decorating, Mach. Let's just leave it at that, shall we? It's for your own good. And the good of your precious business,” the sharpness in Old Rolly's voice belied a growing sense of urgency. Then his tone softened slightly. “Look, I think the quickest and easiest way of doing this would be for Ruth to go first with a couple of candles in case one decides to go out, then you and I will follow. Between us, a couple of sprightly young fellows like ourselves should be able to carry most of these tins in one go.”

Machen felt himself nod.

“Ruth and Izzy can carry any leftovers, the brushes, and some more light. When we get all the stuff over to the beer cellar, we'll pass them down the trapdoor into the sub-cellar one by one, and take it from there. Agreed?”

There was more a lack of obvious disagreement than any enthusiastic agreement. Nobody was sure of what to do, but knew they had to do something. Personally, Machen would love to pop up and win the day with a better idea. An idea so great it would put Rolly's recently-revealed master-plan to shame. But he wasn't thinking clearly just lately, and good ideas were at a premium. He was spurred into action when he realized Rolly had already started seeing how many tins of paint he could load into his skinny, tweed-clad arms. No way was he going to be shown up by that old fart.

He had just managed to ram the last remaining tin into the space between his arm and his side, when there was a sudden loud rap at the front door. There were several gasps, and the last tin of paint tumbled back to the floor as Machen's arm spasmed. Champ leapt to his feet and into a defensive stance, barking, growling and advancing toward the reception area with his paws splayed on the floor and his ears flattened to his head. “Steady, boy. It's probably just a new guest.”

“A new guest, at this time of night?” piped up Ruth, always interfering, that one. Always had to have her say.

Machen glared at her. “Sssh! We know it's not a bloody customer but Champ doesn't! Or he didn't before you opened your trap, like. What do you think he's gonna do now he knows the truth? He might go bloody mental and rip somebody's throat out.”

Champ stopped barking and tilted his head up at Machen as if to say
who, me?

“Get the door Iz, it's probably just your young guests returning,” said Old Rolly. Izzy picked up a candle and head for the front door.

“Guests? Returning?” was all Machen could manage. There were other things he should say, he should know what was going on, really. He was the landlord of this establishment so he should be the first to know... well, everything. But right then he couldn't decide what he wanted to know most. He had the feeling that one question would lead to another, and that would just confuse him. The kids were inside, they went outside for whatever reason, and now they want to come back
inside
. That was all he needed to know. Anything else would be superfudge.

Superfluous.

The gatecrashers were indeed Dave and Betty. Was that their names? Old Rolly went to meet them, and Machen's heart sank a notch when he realized that even Champ was invited to the little town meeting they had going on over there. He sat on the floor looking up at whoever was talking, head flicking from speaker to speaker. That was loyalty for you. The girl was gibbering on and on about something.

What's she saying?

Machen could only make out the occasional word or part of a sentence, but she seemed to be talking about tunnels, ships and lights. Now Rolly was telling them about his plan. Who put him in charge, anyway? How did that happen? If anyone should be calling the shots around here it should be him, he was the bloody landlord!

Wait, he was supposed to be thinking about something else. Something more important. Concentrate. What...

That's right! They were painting stuff! Now he remembered. But what were they painting, and why? Damn it, he used to know that, but now he wasn't sure. The spaces in his brain that used to be occupied by answers now contained only holes.

He was about to go and break up the meeting when all the attendees suddenly dispersed. There was a sense of purpose in their collective stride as the group passed him and busied themselves going about their delegated tasks. Unsure of what else to do, he joined in.

Chapter 36:

The Darkness Fights Back

Getting all the tins of paint and other materials to the beer cellar proved to be the easy part, because the next stage was to lower the supplies through the trapdoor and manoeuvre them through the tunnel to the hidden room. As Dale prepared to go down the ladder into the waiting blackness for the second time, it occurred to him that he or Lucy should have brought a rucksack. That would have made things easier. Hindsight was a wonderful thing. Instead he gritted his teeth and, holding the oil-lamp in one hand, carefully made the descent.

When he reached the bottom of the ladder, he placed the lamp carefully on the floor, and held his hands up to the hole in the ceiling. Lucy and Rolly knew what to do. The first tin of paint, medium sized and half-empty judging by its weight, dropped out of the sky into his hands. He caught it, set it down next to the lamp, and held up his hands for more. Soon, there was a miniature mound of paint tins shaped like a supermarket display. Before Dale even had time to admire his artistic skills there were sounds of movement above, and one of Lucy's feet appeared on top of the ladder. “Ready or not, here I come!”

Minutes later they were joined by Rolly, and a special guest in the form of Machen, who presumably came along to make sure nobody stole anything. An anguished whine came from above. Champ also wanted in, but had been compromised by those cursed canine legs of his that wouldn't allow him to use a ladder. He would have to hold the fort with Ruth and Izzy. Dale wondered if Machen had ever set foot inside this part of the house before, and seriously doubted it judging by the way the landlord kept looking around. He watched for a tell-tale glance in the direction of the tunnel in the far wall, but there was none.

“Let's get a move on,” Rolly said. The light from the oil lamp illuminated an arc as the four of them formed a human chain and passed the tins and brushes down the line hand-to-hand. Dale was at the head of the line, and re-stacked all the paint just outside the tunnel opening for the sake of convenience. So far so good. When the final tin arrived he didn't bother stacking it, but kept it in his hand and asked for the oil lamp.

Machen was nearest. He held the out the lamp, but at the last second jerked back as if reconsidering his decision. It was enough to throw Dale off, and he missed his grab. As if in slow-motion, the lamp tottered and fell to the floor where it's glass casing smashed. The light momentarily went out, the stench of paraffin filled the air, and darkness swarmed over them. There was a growing sense of panic as everyone rushed to find candles and cigarette lighters, but they needn't have worried. The first flames that sprung up around their feet hungrily devouring the spilled accelerant was enough to make the shadows retreat. However, this was a planned withdrawal, and the shadows conceded ground only to await another chance to advance.

Lucy shrieked as Dale quickly moved to stamp out the flames. A fire this deep in the building would surely mean the end of Sker House.
Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing
, he thought, and he imagined he wasn't the only one. They should all get out while they still could, and let nature take it's course.