The Creeper, page 12
Sometimes, her whole body would stiffen and both eyes would grow wide as plates. She’d suck in her lungs and stare aghast at the wall. Ben had followed her eyes and never noted anything extraordinary. But then, her gift wasn’t for the likes of him. These feats and more had made Aunt Patricia a nuisance in the French household. And this was before that night.
It happened in October, with Halloween looming days away. Ben’s imagination was already on high alert. Patricia had landed in on top of them unannounced, as she was known to do, much to his mother’s chagrin. The windows were flung open. Not a care given to the cold. Together with his parents, they’d sat in the sitting room after dinner, sharing an awkward silence that Patricia seemed oblivious to. Eventually, Ben’s mother and father made some flimsy excuse to leave; be it neglected chores or something less convincing, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was left alone with his aunt. She’d spent the evening shuffling a deck of colossal tarot cards, all the while eyeing Ben as though he owed her money.
‘Come here to me,’ she whispered, gently placing her cards down on the floor.
Ben was sat by the fireplace, trying to keep as still as possible for fear that something like this might happen. When he didn’t react, Patricia instead came to him, floating as she always did.
‘Something’s wrong,’ she said, listening for a moment, possibly to make sure that his parents weren’t nearby. ‘Do you hear that?’ she asked nervously.
Ben shook his head. ‘Hear what?’
Hopefully it was his parents returning to rescue him.
Patricia drew a finger to her lips. ‘A voice,’ she whispered as she lowered onto her knees.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, shrinking back, but the woman had fallen into one of her trances.
‘Everyone, back,’ she said, her head twisting around the room as if she had heard someone else speaking. ‘He’s doing this alone.’
Ben was starting to worry where his parents had gotten to. He thought to call out to them. But Patricia seized him by the shoulders and drew him towards her, exorcising him of any free will. It became hard to breathe as his aunt’s mustiness was more potent up close.
‘On your knees, like this,’ she snapped as she set him in front of her.
Ben didn’t argue. He clenched his eyes shut as tight as he could and tried not to move.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he heard Patricia whisper, but he could tell from her voice that she was looking elsewhere. ‘Kill him?’ she asked. ‘Kill who? Who are you?’
Patricia’s hands clamped around Ben’s neck. His eyes opened. The tears erupted as though they were being wrung out of him like a sodden cloth. This was worse than that time with the sharks. He tried to scream but his voice couldn’t rise between her fingers. He was absolutely terrified, certain in that second that his aunt meant to strangle him. But she wasn’t even looking at Ben. Patricia was staring over his shoulder, her face frozen in an expression so terrorised as to rival his own. She was shaking her head, utterly revulsed by whatever vision her so-called gift had conjured behind him.
‘What have you done?’ she shrieked, louder than Ben had ever heard her speak. ‘Her face. Oh my God! What did you do to her, you devils?’
Ben hadn’t heard his father’s approach, so loud were his aunt’s screams. The man was suddenly between them, prying Patricia’s hands from his weeping son’s neck. That was the first and only time Ben had ever seen his father angry, and that was his last memory of his Aunt Patricia. His mother helped him up to his room, where he was put to bed. There were voices downstairs for a while. His father’s, mostly. And then the front door slammed and the smell of sage was banished from the house forever.
With Aunt Patricia gone, so too was anything remotely bordering on make-believe. Entertaining such things had invited only trouble thus far in Ben’s childhood and, going forward, his upbringing was to lead a more rational path. Movies weren’t real. His father would show him behind-the-scenes footage; actors not acting and monsters out of costume, not monstering. Vampires, werewolves, fairies – all of them fictitious. Santa Claus died around that time, too. Ben’s parents sold this mindset to him as something lofty, as if he were too clever to believe – never mind enjoy – anything that wasn’t real. And whatever it was that Aunt Patricia had seen that night was never spoken of. Eventually his parents probably hoped that he had forgotten it even happened. People always assume children to be forgetful. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Whenever Ben remembered his Aunt Patricia, he would instinctively touch his neck like a prisoner who’d felt the noose. It wasn’t the act of being choked that stuck with him. It was her face, so honest and terror-stricken. He would often wonder what it was that she had seen. What horrors had her mind projected onto the space behind him?
The rain eased off eventually, but it wasn’t the water above their heads that slowed Ben and Chloe’s pace to a crawl. Parcels of dry land were rare. Tír Mallacht was ringed with swampland, making every step a roll of the dice. And Ben’s luck was borderline cursed.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being followed. His suspicions, like himself, lacked solid ground to stand on. But the wasp had been so keen to see the back of them. He might have sent someone to make sure they did as they were told. Shadows shifted like stealthy bodies in the periphery of his vision. But it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. Ben knew that. He was tired and easy prey for those fears and doubts that roamed the land so freely.
What was it that Mary had said? Everyone is safe so long as we stay here, and that’s what matters. They could stay where they were. The world was better off without them.
Ben imagined sitting into the rental’s faux leather, the dull tap of rain on its roof, the click of the door and the milestone it signified. He wanted it more than anything – that modern sense of security. The comfort of the now, instead of the painful primitiveness they’d just escaped. From there, the journey would be a breeze. Nothing like the gale that had chased them since daybreak. All they had to do was reach the car, that flagpole on the mountaintop bending in the wind.
He tried to visualise exactly how he had left it. His worries seized the brush, painting a car submerged up to its windscreen in Tír Mallacht’s signature brand of ooze. Between the excitement and hauling their equipment out of the boot, Ben hadn’t paid due attention to his parking. He wouldn’t have put all four tyres on the ditch, would he? Surely some silent alarm would have stopped him. If they were stuck, he’d call for help. That is to assume that one of their phones still held any charge. How would he even begin to describe where they were?
‘Please,’ Ben muttered to himself, ‘don’t tell me I fucked this up.’
Chloe reached the gate first. She had kept her lead the entire way, stalling her stride here and there so as not to lose him, like a lover teasing his advances. Her arms lifted in tired celebration before she clambered onto the other side, winning another gold medal for the mantelpiece. Ben wasn’t rejoicing just yet.
‘Let’s never do that again,’ she said to him, breathless, watching him throw a leg over the gate, its steel cold and slick in his hands.
He cast a discreet eye in the direction of the ditch and let out a sigh of relief that Chloe probably mistook for one of exhaustion. The wheels hadn’t sunk.
‘Hey, stop,’ Chloe shouted, ‘look at this!’
She was looking down at the earth beyond the gate, shirking back as though the cold wind had touched her for the first time. There they were, embedded fresh with no effort made to lighten their dent – footprints. There was no reason to travel this way unless hikers or those living close by had a mind to ramble. But Ben knew from their journey that there were no houses for miles. They were far removed from the world, its people and their comforts. The steps grouped around the car but stretched no further. Whoever was responsible hadn’t followed the same narrow lane that Ben had driven the day prior. They must have come from the field, and from the direction of Tír Mallacht.
‘Holy shit,’ Chloe said, ‘look at the car.’
Ben pried his eyes from the ground and saw the scratches across its side. From the front door, reaching far as the back wheel, were symbols, like those in Chloe’s sketchbook. They lacked the contours and curves that flow naturally from the wrist. These were carved into the paint job with great force, defacing the car whose rental company still held their deposit.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Ben gasped, hands on his head. ‘Those motherfuckers!’
He knelt down and ran his fingers along one of the gashes. They were so deep and so many. A dent could be talked around or even hidden. But this was going to cost someone a small fortune and Ben was damned if he was going to bear the brunt of it. Sparling told them to park the car here, so the good doctor could pay the fine.
‘Why would they do this?’ Chloe asked him, hugging her shoulders as she stepped back towards the gate.
‘It’s just mind games. Look, that lad in the field told us as much when we arrived. We were never welcome here. This is their way of telling us not to come back.’
‘The car’s ruined,’ she said, approaching it cautiously, as though the villagers had boobytrapped it with more bells.
‘Let Sparling worry about that,’ Ben said as he threw his rucksack into the back seat. ‘We got what we came for.’
11
‘I’ve been thinking about last night,’ Ben said.
Chloe’s eyes were closed, her face at rest. She had reclined the seat and jerked it back like a lounger. The air was warm and dusty from the fan, and the wipers’ hypnotic meter was steadily putting her under.
‘What were you thinking about last night?’ she replied lazily, succumbing to the lullaby of a homeward-bound car.
Don’t scare her – that was his priority. Wherever Chloe’s thoughts and fears had landed, Ben wanted to guide them to brighter territories.
‘I was thinking about that bastard from the village who was spying on us,’ he said. ‘He must be dying of a cold after standing out there for as long as he did.’
‘But you saw him, didn’t you?’ she asked, opening her eyes.
‘It was so dark. I’m not sure what I saw.’
‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘If I saw him, then you saw him. He didn’t look right.’
‘He was too far away to look like anything.’
‘And you remember what the kid said to us. Three times you see him. The first night he’s far, far away.’
‘Chloe,’ he said firmly, ‘don’t tell me you believe all that? I’ve heard these stories a hundred times and that’s all they are. The Tír Mallachts sent him out into the field to fuck with us.’
‘Maybe,’ she replied, sinking lower into her seat like a sulking child, ‘maybe not.’
‘They’re just stories, trust me.’
‘I trust you, Benny Boy,’ she said through a yawn. ‘I trust you to wake me when we’re home, okay?’
*
The rain cleared eventually, leaving the flat surfaces dark and damp with a dove-grey sky that hinted at a second round. The warmth from the heater had returned some colour to Chloe’s cheeks. But she still looked like a porcelain doll thrown on the passenger seat.
Ben hoped she had taken more from Tír Mallacht than he had. The church’s desecration and the symbols should have been enough to keep the doctor entertained, even if his dreams of a lost civilisation had yet to be realised. No doubt there was more, too, that she hadn’t shared with him. Ben felt like a weak link, undeserving of his share.
Her face had turned towards him in her sleep; lips were slightly parted, revealing the tiniest white of her teeth. Ben set his tape recorder on the dashboard, arranging it so that it wouldn’t slide off at the next roundabout. His interviews wouldn’t make for the most riveting of listens but it was time to make a start, and he’d keep the volume low so as to not disturb Chloe.
‘Let’s find out how bad these really are,’ he whispered, reaching forward to press play.
Testing, testing, interview one.
Ben recalled all those hopeful expectations yet to be disappointed. Ideally, he would have stopped the tape between each interview. That off-the-record moment was a great opportunity to sneak in some last questions. But because he had to keep the recorder hidden, it had been allowed to run, listening in when no one was around. He would have to fast-forward through the interludes, hopefully without crashing the car.
Mary’s feet scrunched over the bark. The wooden board was set in place. Ben heard a short rustle as he adjusted the recorder’s hiding place, poking it further under his jacket’s collar.
Now, Mary. Thanks for volunteering to go first. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you.
‘Yeah, thanks a lot, Mary,’ he mumbled.
Ben always enjoyed listening to past interviews – the anticipation of that perfect question and the subtle press, encouraging the speaker to elaborate, guiding them into divulging their secrets. But he was dreading these.
As the tape played, however, and the interviewees came and left, he started to suspect that he had done everything he could. If one line of questioning reached a conversational cul-de-sac, he had segued into another. His questions were well timed. His demeanour was friendly and receptive. He had played his part and the evidence was on the reel.
Now then, John, make yourself comfortable and we can get started.
The man’s age was baffling, as from a distance he could have been mistaken for a child. It was as though he hadn’t grown but he had aged, and not particularly well.
No matter the question, John would wheel the conversation back to the land, speaking erratically about the crops and the soil, his legs twitching as though he was about to break into a sprint. None of his stories stretched back further than last season’s harvest.
When it became apparent that the man was an empty source, Ben asked him directly about the creeper. He had nothing to lose.
Who told you that name?
The man’s years manifested in that second, and there was nothing childlike about him.
It’s a common enough superstition, John. You’ll find it in most parts of the country, if you ask around for it.
It wasn’t as though the Tír Mallachts would know any different. But John rejected the lie.
You made a big mistake coming here.
Luckily, Chloe was still passed out and hadn’t heard that closing line.
Ben listened to his own steps crunch towards the door. John had already shifted the board aside with his little marsupial hands and stormed out. A long sigh of frustration was heard and Ben pictured himself alone in that grimy stable. He would never forget that feeling.
‘Hang in there, Benny Boy,’ he said, looking at the recorder on the dashboard.
It had shifted out of reach and become wedged under the windscreen. He would have to wait out the silence until his past self recruited another villager for interrogation. Ben’s footsteps faded into the distance. If only he had had the good mind to pause the tape after John left. It’s not as though anyone would have seen him.
He pushed his shoulders back into his seat to ease the aching, glancing enviously over at Chloe, out cold. Lucky for some. Ben thrummed his fingers on the wheel, listening out for his return to the stable.
And then he heard it, something that nearly made him swerve into the other lane.
‘What is that?’ he whispered, now staring at his recorder instead of the road ahead, trying to visualise what the hell he was hearing.
Someone was breathing over his jacket. It was a slow, heavy snarl. So loud that whoever it was must have had their face right down by the recorder. But Ben had hidden it so well.
He listened to every hoarse breath, imagining the empty stable, where there was nowhere for anyone to hide. It was a dog. It had to be. Ben counted himself lucky that it hadn’t chewed his recorder to bits. But then the breathing grew fainter, as the one responsible stood to their feet and slowly walked away.
Ben heard his own voice approaching.
If you would like to take a seat over there, Nora, I’ll just close the door behind us.
There was only the sound of the woman padding across the bark and Ben putting the board back in place. He took his seat beside her and the interview began. There had been no one else in the room. There couldn’t have been. His skin ran cold as if its every inch were wrapped in frozen lace.
Chloe was stirring beside him. Ben’s hands were tensed around the wheel. What had he just heard? If there had been someone or something in the stable, he would have seen them.
Should he have told Chloe? Maybe together they could have purged the facts of falsity. But what if it meddled with their report? Ben needed Sparling’s money more than he needed answers.
It was nothing, just a fault in the reel. His recorder was long past its best. And besides, it had happened before; a day’s worth of interviews garbled and lost because he hadn’t loaded the cassette properly. There was no logical reason to fear it. The sound was merely an excuse for those who wanted to believe, as a door moving in a draught is proof of a presence.
It was some mutt or one of those androgynous kids from the village. When they weren’t admiring each other’s dresses, they were probably out for mischief. The logical explanations far outweighed the absurd.
‘Where are we?’ Chloe asked, wiping her eyes.
‘And there was me thinking my co-pilot was going to sleep the entire way,’ he replied, fronting a smile as best he could. ‘We’ve a long way to go yet.’
‘You did volunteer to be my driver, you know.’
‘Did you just say your driver?’ he asked.
‘I don’t see anybody else in the car, do you?’
*
The creeper must have derived from another folk tale. That’s how it worked. Stories changed from place to place, between villages and counties, like a criminal seeking a new identity. Details were omitted. New ideas were added in. Landmarks and local names were attached, and in time the provenance was forgotten. Ben had said as much in his thesis.
