After giving her number, Claire hung up and let out a sigh of bitter disappointment. What if Tabitha Lake didn’t call back for three weeks? She couldn’t wait that long.
Pouring herself another stiff gin, she debated the issue and became more convinced than ever that she’d done the wrong thing by hiding her intuitions from Mandy Freeman. Surely she had to be warned never to set foot in that awful house ever again, even if it meant coming away with nothing but the clothes she wore? The idea of telling that poor young woman to leave her own home was unthinkable. But better that than…
Claire closed her eyes, shuddering.
Mandy had said she wouldn’t return to Summer Cottage that night. That meant that she was safe, at least for the moment.
‘I’ll call her in the morning,’ Claire said out loud. ‘That’s all I can do.’
Suddenly exhausted, she switched off the downstairs lights and dragged herself up the thickly carpeted stairs. A relaxing bath might soothe the tension in her muscles before going to bed, she thought. Reaching the galleried landing, she walked into her bathroom and went over to run the bath. She closed the bathroom door to keep the heat in, went to the bedroom to fetch a fresh towel from the cupboard—
And thought, ‘No, bloody hell. Tomorrow morning’s not good enough. I’ve got to call Mandy right now. Tell her to stay away from that place, no matter what.’
She turned to head back downstairs. She was halfway down when she heard the sound, and froze.
The loud banging at the front door seemed to echo around the whole house. Startled at first, Claire suddenly remembered what season it was. Halloween seemed to come around sooner every year these days and with it the intrusive Trick or Treat antics of the local kids.
But as she stood there looking down, the banging resumed so violently that it seemed it might knock the door in. This wasn’t kids playing about. Possibilities flew through her mind as she cringed on the stairs. A burglar? The police? She’d heard of drug raids accidentally getting the wrong address.
Something deep in her mind told her it was neither. And the terror of that realisation made her knees wobble under her.
There was a juddering crash as the front door flew off its hinges with such force that it ripped down the inner door leading through to the sitting room. Smashed fragments of splintered wood and door-frame and plasterwork exploded into the house, together with a storm of autumn leaves that billowed and swirled as if caught in the vortex of a gale. A roaring filled Claire’s ears as the storm ripped at her hair and clothes. She screamed and ran panic-stricken up the stairs to escape, reached the landing and staggered towards her open bedroom door.
The door swung shut in her face, pushed by an unseen force. She screamed again. The bathroom door was just to her right. Her flailing hand clutched the handle and she burst in, slipping on the shiny floor tiles and almost falling headlong. She kicked the door shut behind her and threw herself against it, groping for the bolt and feeling it slide home. Her breath was coming in heaving gasps and her heart was pounding dangerously as she backed away from the locked door, staring at it, fully expecting it to come crashing in, blown off its hinges by what was out there.
All was silent for a few instants, no sound but the rasp of her lungs and the rush of water from the bath taps. Steam was billowing up and turning the mirror tiles around the bath opaque with condensation.
She sensed a movement. Something was behind her. She whirled around, but she never saw the thing that seized hold of her and dashed her with inhuman force to the floor, face first. She felt the teeth break in her mouth, tasted the blood that welled down her throat. Half stunned, she felt something grip her ankle, felt herself being dragged across the bathroom. Towards the bath itself. She shrieked as brutally strong fingers twisted themselves into her hair, jerked her up as if she weighed nothing and thrust her face towards the billowing steam rising from the bathwater.
The last thing she saw before her head was plunged under was that the water was boiling. Literally boiling, its surface bubbling like a cauldron over a fire. Her mouth opened to scream: NOOOOO! Then her cry became a tortured burbling as the thing forced her head and shoulders into the boiling water and held her there. Scalding liquid filled her eyes, her ears, her nose, the agony almost stopping her heart.
Almost, but not quite. She was still alive as the thing jerked her head back out of the blood-clouded water. She caught a glimpse of her steamy reflection in the mirror tiles, her face blistered and cooked crimson by the heat.
The entity drove her face into the tiles with a crunch of flesh and bone against splintering glass. Now Claire Baker couldn’t see a thing any longer.
By the time her brains had been beaten out against the edge of the bath, she was already dead.
SEVENTEEN
Unable to sleep for the terrors in her head, Mandy went on driving through the night. If she had an aim, it was just to get away, to put as many miles between herself and Summer Cottage as she could. She wanted never to return.
The mist had become a thick fog, forcing her to slow down to a crawl in places and lean forward in the driver’s seat, squinting in concentration through the windscreen. Several times she almost drove right into the verge or hit a tree. She’d completely lost her bearings, unsure even what road she was on. How long had she been driving, she wondered in bewilderment. Surely she’d have to come to a village or town sooner or later? Somewhere she could stop and rest, buy a cup of coffee, maybe even find a room. She yearned so badly for a safe haven that she could have wept.
‘It won’t be long, now, Buster, I promise.’ He’d hardly stopped whining in agitation the whole time they’d been driving, which only served to increase her own rising tension.
As the Kia advanced slowly down yet another narrow country lane, Mandy thought she could see houses up ahead. Thank God!
No, it was just one house, she thought, peering through the thick mist. Her eyes were getting strained and hard to focus. Taking a hand off the steering wheel she rubbed one eye, then the other, and looked again.
She stamped on the brake and the car slithered to a halt on the wet road.
‘Oh, no, no! It can’t be!’
But it was. She was back at Summer Cottage.
Mandy revved the engine hard and threw the car around to go speeding off blindly through the fog in the direction she’d come. ‘Buster, quiet!’ she yelled. He seemed to have gone out of his mind with fear, barking and growling at nothing. As if visibility weren’t already bad enough, he was getting the windows all steamed up with his frantic panting. Mandy rubbed a hole in the condensation on her windscreen and sped onwards, just managing to keep the swerving car on the road.
She came to a turning. Which way: left or right? Did it matter, as long as she was getting further from that place? She turned left, accelerating quickly off. The road snaked onwards for two, three miles, then another junction appeared ahead and this time she took the right turning. On, and on; and in all this time she still hadn’t seen another vehicle, or come to a major road, let alone a town. ‘This can’t be possible!’ she yelled, slapping the wheel.
As if in reply, the fog ahead seemed to roll in even more thickly, so that the glare of the Kia’s headlamps just reflected back at her, dazzling her and forcing her to slow down even more.
Then out of the mist, the familiar shape loomed up yet again.
No matter which way she turned, no matter how far she went, she couldn’t escape from it.
Summer Cottage.
In her shock, Mandy slammed her foot down on the wrong pedal and the car accelerated with a jolt, engine speeding. Before she could get the vehicle under control, a green wall of foliage came racing towards her windscreen. The car’s suspension juddered as the wheels hit the verge; then the Kia ploughed into the bushes. Mandy felt herself thrown forward against the pressure of the seatbelt. There was a loud crunch and the windscreen suddenly burst inwards.