The man smiled. Carrie knew he was smiling even though she couldn’t see the baring of teeth. It was a feeling, a knowledge. It wasn’t visual. His face was a blur, non-existent. All she could see was his form, tall and strong. Stronger than her. Stronger than her sister.
Her sister.
Carrie lowered her gaze from the monster’s non-face. Her sister stood by him. Her feet wheeled in the leaves under her shoes as she tried to escape him. A surge of hope inside Carrie as she silently urged her sister on.
But the little girl didn’t come to Carrie. Carrie took a faltering step forward. Underneath her, the snow crunched. Carrie looked down. Snow? She blinked, confused; it was the height of summer. Her mother had made her wear sun cream.
A fresh snow shower fell; tiny icicles piercing at Carrie’s skin. It bolstered her and she planted her feet firmly on the glittering, white ground. She would have to go to her sister.
She took another step forward. The man smiled again, slow and lazy. For a split second his face was visible, and she concentrated hard on his features, knowing she would need to remember him in the future.
A jagged shard of lightning, accompanied by a crash of thunder. A scream from her, or her sister? A single laugh from the man.
Then he was gone. And her sister was gone too. All that remained on the clear, white landscape was a single drop of blood, which grew and multiplied and spread.
The howl woke Carrie and she sat bolt upright in bed. She crawled to a kneeling position, circling atop her bed, seeking the source of the terrible, animal noise. She collapsed face down, the only sound her panting, heavy breathing.
She was the one who had screamed.
Carrie kept her eyes closed for a long minute, before turning to peer at the clock. Four a.m. From bitter experience she knew sleep was over for the night.
Sighing, Carrie dragged on her tracksuit and retrieved her blanket from the floor. Pulling it around her shoulders she padded softly out of the bedroom. In the kitchen she started the coffee machine and while it brewed she walked to the balcony doors and stared out over the Salford canal.
Nobody was around, the water was silent, black, eerie. She moved outside, gripped the railing and thought back over the dream. At the time, inside the dream, it had been terrifying, but it would soon fade to be stored away in the dark corners of her mind.
Like the detective that she was, Carrie went over each stage of the nightmare while it was still fresh in her memory. That face. His face, or rather, the lack of it. Always the same, unidentifiable, unknown, impossible to see. The way it was in real life.
Just as it had been on that awful, life-shattering day twenty years ago. Just the way it always would be. No hope of identifying him; no capture, arrest or justice.
Carrie banged her fist on the metal railing, not even feeling the sting. She breathed deeply, exhaled, tried to let her anger drift out over the still waters below. But her rage was fierce tonight, more so than usual.
Spinning on her feet, Carrie stormed back inside and headed for the door. Abandoning her coffee, she grabbed her running shoes and stepped out into the silent, early dawn.
They were there, where they’d said they would be, in front of Café Rouge. Pinpricks in the distance, but it was them all right. They were unmissable.
Eleven-year-old Melanie Wilson slowed her pace, all eagerness at meeting them vanishing in a second, fear in its place. Because these girls were the big-shots of the school, and she couldn’t believe they’d let her, plain and nerdy Melanie Wilson, meet up with them.
She should be feeling great, but instead she felt bruised by the way her morning had started. She cringed inwardly, remembering the way she’d snapped at her dad when he’d commented on her heavy make-up. Retorting back to him that maybe he should show her how to put it on, seeing as he was the housewife of the home. Her face burned in shame and belated regret. She loved him more than anyone, more than even her mother and would never normally dream of talking back to him the way she had this morning. That look in his eyes. Like she’d physically hurt him. She’d made her dad sad, all because she was so nervous about this half-term meeting with the girls today.
Something like a sob hitched in her throat. She contemplated ditching Tanisha and Kelly before they saw her and returning home to her dad, getting him to take her into town for a hot chocolate like he used to.
She was twenty feet from them, unable to decide, when Tanisha looked up, clocked her and nudged Kelly. Chins up, they began to walk away. Melanie panicked, her father momentarily forgotten, and broke into a run. Why were they leaving?
‘Guys, wait for me!’ she called, closing the distance easily in her trainers; their heels were no match for her.
She studied their backs as she hurried towards them, Tanisha’s raven-black hair, Kelly ice-blonde. Both pulled back in slick, tight ponytails. Self-consciously, Melanie tugged at her own brown, shoulder-length hair. Around the girls in front of her who strode with confidence, hands on hips, a shadow nestled against their bodies. Tanisha: a brilliant, bold blue like the sky on a really hot summer day. Kelly shimmered silver and grey, like marble.
Melanie always saw the colours in people. She had made the mistake of telling her mother once. Alice had been worried, talked about brain tumours. Harry had told Alice it was just Melanie’s creative side coming out in her, the left half of her mind. Melanie preferred Harry’s theory, and she stopped mentioning the colours she saw after that.
Was it just her or did they seem reluctant as they came to a stop? No matter; she forced a smile as she greeted them. The smile faltered, though, when she looked at their faces. Bare skin that glowed without a scrap of make-up. Suddenly her cheeks felt taut and heavy with the powder that caked them.
Tanisha appraised her coolly. ‘Heading to a night club, sweetie?’ she asked, earning a snort of laughter from Kelly.
Melanie blushed underneath the foundation. ‘So, what are you up to?’ she asked brightly.
Kelly shrugged, looked Melanie up and down. ‘Why is your name so boring?’
Melanie looked down at her feet. She could talk, Kelly wasn’t exactly original. She’d never say that though. And at least her own name meant something. She was named – according to her father – after one of the greatest unsung heroines in a novel; Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind. She couldn’t tell Kelly that though; no way would either of these two have even watched the film, let alone read the book.
She didn’t like to think of her name anyway. Not since she’d overheard a conversation between her parents.
‘My Melanie, just like the character,’ Harry had said with pride. ‘Well bred, educated, the moral compass of the whole story.’
Alice had frowned. ‘Melanie Hamilton was downtrodden, used, cast aside. She was second best to Scarlett O’Hara, always.’
Melanie had crept away, troubled. If Scarlett was the best, why had they named her Melanie?
Melanie looked down and away over the water. Years ago, her mother had brought her here every day during the six-week holiday. A summer that seemed to stretch on forever, day after day of hot sunshine, the way it should be, her mother had said.
But they hadn’t been out here enjoying the school-free season. They’d had to escape from the house because her father had been ill.
They thought she’d forgotten about that time. They presumed she had been too young to remember. But she recalled everything. How her mum had seemed as taut as a rubber band, likely to snap at any second. The weight loss for both of her parents. Her mum drinking. And her dad, sitting on the sofa with the curtains drawn, blocking out the lovely sun, the television blaring at first, then muted, then off, until all that was on the screen was the reflection of his thin face, the lines deep set into his skin.
Melanie shuddered.
Her dad had got better in the end, and her mum had stopped drinking so much. Everything went back to normal.
But Melanie never forgot.
‘Are you coming, then?’ Kelly asked, chewing and snapping gum as she walked up to her, standing closer than Melanie would have liked.
‘Yes.’ Melanie fell into step beside the two girls. ‘What’re we doing today?’
Tanisha stopped and grabbed Melanie’s arm. Her fingers twisted in a painful grip through the brown leather of Melanie’s jacket. ‘You cannot tell anyone what we do today, right?’ Tanisha’s eyes, small and dark and mean, bored into Melanie’s.
Melanie gulped. ‘Okay,’ she said cautiously.
Kelly stepped up behind her. She felt Kelly’s breath on her neck, minty cool.
‘You can’t go squealing on us. Can we trust you, Melanie?’
Melanie nodded, her heart beating hard and fast inside her chest.
Kelly stepped away, Tanisha dropped Melanie’s arm. They began to walk.
Melanie glanced behind her, towards home, where her father would put on a film and make hot chocolate. Melanie faltered. Or would he be like he was last night, sitting there, seeing her, but staring right through her?
Melanie turned back to the girls. Breaking into a jog, she hurried to catch up.
Melanie shivered as she looked at the house. At first glance it was no different from the hundreds of other terraces in the area. But the windows, covered up with thick, black material made it look unfriendly and scary.
Melanie dragged her eyes away and looked around the quiet street. They were in Eccles, a place that she usually had no reason to visit. She thought of her nice home in the new development, close to Salford Quays. This house, this street, was very different.
Tanisha and Kelly stood off to one side, whispering as they shot quick, furtive looks in her direction. Melanie folded her arms, uncomfortable, but stubborn. She had come this far, she might as well find out what was about to happen.
Moments later, Tanisha and Kelly sidled back to her.
‘Do you know what they do inside there?’ Kelly asked, her voice rough as grain.
Melanie considered the question as she looked back to the house. Black material, not curtains, maybe blankets or sheets covered all of the windows. Was it a squat? A drug house? Her insides quivered but she tried not to let her fear show.
She didn’t want to know, but she asked anyway. ‘What do they do in there?’
‘Witchcraft.’
‘Black magic.’
The girls answered as one. Melanie switched her gaze between them.
Witchcraft and black magic. A warm relief ran through Melanie’s body. If that was what it was, there was nothing to worry about. Everyone knew things like that didn’t work, didn’t really exist. Science was what Harry had drummed into his daughter. Science and arts and literature, things that could be touched and seen and felt. Things that could be proven. The colours that Melanie saw crossed her mind and she frowned. That wasn’t science, nor art. It was… magic. She shivered again.
‘All right,’ she said, ‘okay.’
Tanisha blinked twice, rapidly. Kelly scowled.
They crowded her, pushing each side of her as they hustled up the alleyway that ran along the side of the house until they stood outside the back door.
‘Go on, then,’ whispered Kelly.
Melanie frowned, worried now. You couldn’t go into other people’s homes, not unless you’d rung the bell or knocked on the door and the person who lived there opened it and invited you in. Melanie didn’t even know who lived in this run-down house.
‘Who lives here?’ she asked, softly, not taking her eyes off the missing pane of glass in the lower part of the door. It was February, and last night’s frost made the black-tiled floor glitter.
‘Who cares?’ Tanisha snapped back. ‘Nobody’s home, are they?’
Kelly moved in close to Melanie. Yanking on her arm she pulled them both low into a crouch. Melanie felt her breath coming faster as she stared through the broken door into a kitchen.
‘There’s nobody in there, and if there is…’
Melanie snapped her eyes back to focus on Kelly. If there is… what?
Melanie waited. Kelly reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulled out something concealed in a closed fist. Slowly she spread her fingers. Melanie looked at the silver piece of metal that sat on Kelly’s palm. Kelly moved her thumb, slid it with precision along the shaft. With a single touch came a snap. Melanie lurched backwards as a blade shot out of its hiding place.
Melanie raised her eyes to Kelly’s face. Kelly’s eyes were wide, the pupils so large they almost hid the glacial-blue irises. In that moment Melanie had no doubt that Kelly would find it so easy to push the knife into some part of Melanie’s body. And still her frozen expression would remain the same; knowing, fearless, unapologetic. Behind her, blocking the alleyway exit towards home and safety, Melanie heard Tanisha’s heavy footfall. She couldn’t go forward either, not with Kelly and her blade standing sentry. No way out. Only in.
Melanie dropped low, scurried on her hands and knees through the gap in the door. Low laughter behind her, rustling as Kelly and Tanisha followed her into the house.
Inside the house was dark, grey, shadowy. Like wintertime, thought Melanie grimly as they passed through the empty rooms. Although it was never this dark in her own home no matter what time of year it was. No matter what time of night it was, come to think of it.
Who lived here? Who lived in a house where the walls consisted of cracked and splintered wooden panels with peeling paint on the ceiling and bare patches where carpet had been pulled up and discarded in dusty, dirty corners? A drug house, thought Melanie. A squat. There will be needles everywhere, spatters of infected blood from missed veins.
The remnants of a hospital drama she’d watched with Harry last year came back to her. The devastation caused by using and injecting and snorting.
Alice had shouted at Harry for letting Melanie watch such a graphic programme that had been on after the watershed. Harry had patiently told Alice that it was a lesson Melanie needed to learn: better she see the consequences on the television than in real life. That was where Alice and Harry differed in their parental opinions. Alice wanted to shield, Harry wanted to educate.
She stared down at the tops of her boots, glad she’d worn them today, relieved that if she should accidentally stand on a discarded needle there was minimal chance of it getting through the leather and piercing her flesh. Of catching Hepatitis B and the AIDS virus. Harry’s authoritative tone echoed in Melanie’s head.
She took comfort from the thought that her dad was walking alongside her.
She wished more than anything she’d stayed at home with him today.
And what would Harry say? Look around, think before you react, things aren’t usually what they seem.
Melanie closed her eyes to the sound of his reassuring voice. Opening them slowly, she looked at Tanisha and Kelly. Did they really believe this was a house where black magic was practised? Who had told them that rumour, she wondered. Or had they simply made it up to try and scare her? Did it not occur to them that it could be something far more sinister?
Tanisha’s normally tanned skin was red; blotches stood out in an angry pattern on her elegant, swan-like neck. She saw Melanie looking and pulled her coat tight around her.
‘What now?’ Melanie’s voice echoed like a gunshot around the room that was empty of furniture.
Kelly leapt across to her, clapped a hand over Melanie’s mouth. ‘Shut up,’ she hissed as she pulled Melanie’s hair.
Melanie struggled free. ‘Nobody’s here,’ she snapped back before she could stop herself, instantly contrite; nobody spoke with an attitude to Kelly.
But even before she had finished the words a sound came from above their heads.
As if pushed apart by an invisible force the girls flew backwards to stand in three corners of the room. They looked up, the ceiling giving away nothing as to what might be up there.
A scraping, something – someone? – dragging along the floorboards. Another noise now from the room they were in; Tanisha, squeaking, gasping, pressing further and further back against the wall behind her. Melanie glanced through the open doorway; the square of daylight in the broken door that they had crawled through beckoned to her. She considered how long it would take to dash to it, pictured her body hurtling through it and then running, running faster and harder than she ever had before.
‘Hey!’ Kelly’s voice, a stage whisper, resonated. Melanie looked over to her.
Kelly smiled. It sent shivers down Melanie’s spine. And then Kelly moved.
Towards the hallway.
Towards the noise upstairs.
Alone now. It seemed like hours since Kelly had disappeared. The house was even darker and silent, the walls pushing in against Melanie as she forced her feet to move down the hall. This part of the house was barren: decades’ worth of layers of peeling wallpaper, cracked walls and chipped, filthy skirting boards.
Don’t be a hero.
Her daddy’s voice, in her head, as it so often was. But he had also taught her to help people. Tanisha was in no state to help anyone and Kelly had vanished.
Melanie had pulled and pushed Tanisha out of her corner and positioned her in a crouch by the back door through which they’d entered the house.
‘If you hear anything, anything that frightens you, just run.’ Melanie had pointed towards the broken panel. ‘Run and get help, okay?’
‘Where are you going?’ Tanisha’s voice wobbled and shook.
Melanie glanced at the ceiling. ‘To get Kelly,’ she replied grimly.
They could have both run, thought Melanie as she tiptoed through the bleak rooms. They could have got an adult and brought them back to the house to get Kelly out. But what if it had been too late? What if whatever or whoever was upstairs had hurt Kelly while they were wasting time getting help?
Or, a new thought struck Melanie, what if there was nothing and nobody upstairs after all? Melanie would have brought an adult back to a house they’d broken into. The police would be called, they would get into trouble.
She crept down the hallway in the direction that Kelly had gone, moving as silently as possible, wondering what was wrong with Kelly that she had walked willingly into a potential danger and pushed her friends in with her. And this house…Here, in the bowels of the place, Melanie could see barely anything, even her hand in front of her eyes.
Up the stairs, the wooden floorboards creaking horribly under her feet. Melanie cringed with each step, with each noise that announced her presence. She stopped halfway, one hand on the banister. It was rough to the touch and she peered at it to distract her from the fear that was welling up inside her. The handrail was splintered, sticky, dirty. Melanie removed her hand and rubbed it on her jeans. It left a brown stain on the denim.
Melanie glanced up. The landing seemed impossibly close, too close. Frozen halfway up the stairs she cocked her head, listened. A wheezing breath, a shadow up there.
Someone is up there! Her brain screamed at her, clipped words that spoke inside her mind faster than she could ever say them.
Kelly?
And then there she was, her ice-blonde hair swinging in her face as she appeared at the top of the stairs on her hands and knees, crawling.
Why is she crawling?
Kelly threw her head back, her hair streamed behind her, tight and taut as something, someone grabbed her and held on.
Kelly screamed.
Melanie screamed.
Downstairs, hearing but not seeing, not knowing what was happening, Tanisha screamed.
Their voices faded, leaving a few seconds of eerie silence. Kelly remained motionless. Melanie watched, darkly fascinated as Kelly’s nostrils flared. Her eyes glowed iridescent in the gloom. Melanie gripped the banister again.
Who or what had hold of Kelly?
A movement up there. A leg in view now, a confusion on Melanie’s senses, that the leg was uncovered, naked, all the way up to a T-shirt, black or grey or brown that fell to mid-thigh length. Melanie raised her eyes as the rest of the person revealed themselves. An arm, a hand, a face.
Melanie choked on a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. Not a face; a monster, or someone terribly deformed.
The colours of this monster, dark red, edged with black. Colour combinations she’d never seen on a person before.
She didn’t know she was going to move then, couldn’t believe her legs as they pushed up the stairs. She reached out, someone screamed again – it might have been her – and she pummelled blindly against the bare leg while reaching out for Kelly with her left hand. Her fingers closed around material and skin. Kelly’s cheap perfume filled her senses as she pulled at the girl. Something gave way, as through half-closed eyes Melanie watched with something near to joy as Kelly’s hair slid like silk through the fingers that had trapped her.
Kelly fell forward, grazing her knees on the wooden stairs as she tumbled towards Melanie. Melanie stopped throwing out flurries of slaps towards the beast. She wrapped her arms around Kelly, hustling her past her and pushing her in the direction of the kitchen.
‘Run,’ she hissed as she shoved Kelly in the small of her back.
They plummeted together, a tangle of arms and legs and hair to land in a heap in the hallway.
Melanie pushed herself to her feet, one hand on Kelly, dragging her along the hall, not daring to look back, sure that the man, the monster, the thing was right behind them, would reach out and touch them, any second now…
Melanie shrieked as they burst into the kitchen, her left arm outstretched, ready to collect Tanisha and push her out of––
Her arm fell to hang loosely at her side. The kitchen was empty.
‘Tanisha!’ cried Melanie. ‘TANISHA!’
From outside came an answering yell that rose into a scream. ‘I’m out here, come on, come on!’
Melanie pushed Kelly outside first before barrelling straight after her. She saw Tanisha, at the bottom of the front garden, already scurrying away from the house.
. . .
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