Dark Choir Read online

  “The lobotomy choir? Is that what you’re calling your mates now?” She laughed, forgetting about the recording voiceover. “I looked up your man. Doctor…”

  The first fugue of atonal noise rose out from deep in the asylum. The grating tear of many voices ripped a hole in the night, and Karl felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. His instinct was to run. The sound of distress and lament contained within the blasts of song set his nerves on edge.

  “Bloody hell!” exclaimed Fiona. “It’s not been this clear. Just listen to that!”

  Karl was looking around nervously. He peered back into the trees. A sudden flash of movement caught his attention.

  “What the hell was that?”

  Fi turned, recording the darkness of the trees. “What?”

  “I saw someone. Something. Someone naked. They were running through the trees.”

  “Where.”

  “Fi, let’s get out of here.” He looked back into the trees, the singing carrying on. “It wasn’t normal. He…it…was running on all fours!”

  The singing stopped suddenly.

  “That’s it,” she said. “Show’s over. They never start again until…well…another night.”

  With the singing now absent, Karl suddenly felt less on edge. However, he still peered into the trees, shining his torch into the woods. He could see no movement now. Karl shrugged. “Maybe I imagined it. You know, when your nerves are on edge your imagination plays havoc.”

  Fiona played back the footage she’d just taken. They watched, Karl keeping one eye on the woods. They could hear themselves talking.

  “That’s St. Mary’s over in Scarsdale. It’s now eleven o’clock.”

  “Last orders at the bar.” A pause. “Did I tell you about the stuff I dug up about the lobotomy choir?”

  “The lobotomy choir? Is that what you’re calling your mates now?” She laughed. “I looked up your man. Doctor…”

  “Bloody hell! It’s not been this clear. Just listen to that!”

  Silence.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “What?”

  “I saw someone. Something. Someone naked. They were running through the trees.”

  “It didn’t pick up!” exclaimed Fiona. “You can hear us talking but…Karl, it didn’t pick up. It was loud enough. We both heard it, and it didn’t pick up the sound! That’s impossible.”

  “Lord Jesus, protect me…. Lord Jesus, protect me…Lord Jesus…”

  Melody sat in the office, the door closed, a chair jammed against the handle. The whispering had begun again, this time from Stephen’s room. The hissing voice of a man speaking unintelligible words. She could hear Stephen gurgling. Then the choir had started from the asylum. She looked to the clock. It was just going on eleven. Sometimes the singing started later. There was no fixed time. She prayed to God it would end.

  “Lord Jesus, protect me…. Lord Jesus, protect me…Lord Jesus…”

  The sound of a door opening and closing could be heard over the intercom and in the corridor outside. Oh God, they were coming.

  Suddenly the singing and the whispering stopped. Silence filled her ears. She got up, put her ear to the intercom. Melody was too scared to leave the office, too scared to check on her charges, but she listened to the intercom from Stephen’s room. She could hear nothing. No gurgling. She couldn’t even hear him breathing, which was unusual. From his room there was silence.

  David Gillits was having a restless night. He’d watched stupid chat shows on TV, flicked through the porn channels, not that he would achieve anything with a catheterized member.

  The TV mumbled on but he wasn’t taking much notice of it. A deep, unexplained fear robbed him of any peace. A feeling he was being watched, a realisation that…well…the boot could so easily be put on the other foot now. Now he was the cripple. He was the weak, pathetic specimen whose powerlessness might amuse some bastard more able than him.

  What he’d done…what he’d done to that Aperts dwarf wasn’t really that bad. He’d never actually touched him. Just showed him mirrors. He showed him himself, showed him the truth. That was the night the dwarf nearly hacked his own eyes out. But the fact remained that Dennis had never laid a finger on him. Others up at St. Brendan’s had done worse.

  He’d always been limited to what he could really do to them. Starving them, hitting them with wet towels was one thing. Burning and beating them, unlike some of his colleagues, he’d never gone that far. It had all gone wrong when that Prendergast woman began interfering.

  He’d flicked back to the non-pornographic channels and watched a documentary on World War Two bombers and began preparations for bed. Not that he’d get much sleep. Every sound kept him awake. He checked the locks and windows. A quick look beyond the curtains revealed the people across the street were still up. The husband worked out of town all week, so they probably stayed up all night fucking. Beyond the house, the field stretched away into the darkness, the lights from the motorway colouring the low clouds orange. He let the curtain fall back. On the wall next to the window, the word could still be seen, stained into the paintwork permanently. Gillits swallowed hard.

  Dennis took his wheelchair over to the bed and struggled and cursed, using his transfer board to get across to his bed. He touched the light and it went off.

  He heard the clock strike eleven over in Scarsdale and then silence fell.

  He lay in the dark. Exhausted from nights of sleeplessness and his own fear, he drifted into oblivion. He dreamed he heard the singing again, awful wailing drifting from the asylum, but then his mind settled at last into sleep.

  He woke, unable to breathe, aware of someone standing over him. Acrid liquid filled his throat, choking him. He spat the liquid out of his mouth. In his panic, Gillits was dimly aware that the liquid smelled of ammonia.

  A large hulking figure towered beside the bed. Huge head, eyes wide on his head, but he was standing upright. He was at least six feet tall, but his face… It was him. It was him!

  In that instant, Gillits realized what had been done to him. The visitor, the attacker, had taken the tube from his penile catheter while Gillits slept and had then inserted it into the tracheotomy, the hole in his throat. The attacker had turned the tiny tap on and squeezed the bag that now lay on his chest. His nocturnal issue was now filling his throat.

  He wrenched the tube and bag away from his throat and it hit the floor, urine spitting from the tube. Gillits choked and spat. He looked to the side. His attacker had gone.

  Terror seized him and he screamed. The wheelchair was halfway across the room and laying on its side. Gillits fell out of bed and crawled across the floor.

  He needed to call the police. He needed to call Widdowson.

  Panicked quickened his progress and he saw that, in the bathroom to the left, the mirror had been smashed. Reflective particles lay scattered across the floor. They symbolism wasn’t lost on him and only served to fuel his terror.

  “Oh God. Oh no.” He crawled further along. “Help! Help me!”

  No one could hear. No one would come. He got to the living room and could see the phone laying on the carpet covered in glass. The mirror above the mantelpiece had also been smashed as had the decorative mirror in the hall.

  He stood in the corner, this huge grotesque figure, squeezing shards of broken mirror in his giant malformed hands, eyeing the crippled man with acute contempt.

  Twenty-Eight

  “Personally, I think you showed enormous restraint. I don’t know how I would have stopped myself from punching him,” said Alison.

  As an apology for losing it with Widdowson, Dan had taken Alison and Lindsey to the mill café he and Beverly had gone to. He’d shown Alison the huge house which could just about be seen from the road through the trees. She’d not seemed that interested, unlike Beverly who’d verbally fantasized about moving there.

  The café had been quiet so Alison had given Lindsey her multi-fib
re PEG feed so she’d not felt left out while Dan and her drank tea.

  Two old ladies looked over with that pitying look Lindsey seemed to get quite a lot from people when she was out.

  “I never knew,” said Dan, sipping his coffee.

  “How could you? You were a kid. When did they stop, these exorcism sessions?”

  “Lindsey had to go to the hospital. General hospital. I think she had pneumonia. Well, hardly a surprise after being near-drowned by that bastard every week. After that she went to St. Brendan’s for a bit because Diane couldn’t cope. This was in the eighties and she stayed there for quite a while. She came back when I was about twelve. That would have been 1992. Diane looked after her, but she never went back to the chapel.”

  “I’d just started my nurse training then,” said Alison. “I was twenty-two.”

  “No way. So you’re ten years older than me?”

  “How old did you think I was?”

  “I dunno. My age.”

  “Thanks for the compliment.”

  “Whatever you’re using, it’s working. You look fantastic.”

  “Thanks. So you find me attractive, then? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Well…er…you are…I mean.”

  She was laughing good-humoredly, enjoying his embarrassment. Dan reddened then changed the subject.

  “So, did the social worker say when Lindsey could move to Willow House permanently?”

  “Funding’s been agreed. I spoke to Lynne, the manager, and we plan on taking her next Tuesday, and she’ll stay there.”

  “I was going back to London tomorrow,” Dan said. “Will you be okay in the house on your own? That guy hasn’t been caught yet, and there’s possibly a woman as well now.”

  “You have to go back to work?”

  “I’ll tell them the doctor’s signed me off sick. I’ll go Wednesday.”

  “I’ll be glad of the company. If there is still someone hanging around, I’d rather you were there.”

  “That’s a deal, then.” He put his cup down and leaned forward. “Listen, Alison. I’d like to do something to say thanks for all you’ve done. Not just looking after Lindsey but watching my back with Widdowson, helping me through the funeral, and putting up with all my mental shit. I want to take you out dinner.”

  “That would be lovely, Dan.”

  “What do you like? Indian. Chinese? KFC?”

  “There’s a Thai place in Belper.”

  “Okay. Be nice to get out of Scarsdale at least.”

  “It’s a date, then.” Alison laughed and her blue eyes flashed. Dan could feel his face reddening again.

  “No.”

  Gould sat opposite Widdowson in the church office. The Saturday worship practice had finished and the two men were alone in the church.

  “Phillip, Hepworth attacked me. He physically assaulted me. He needs to be warned.”

  “I’m not going anywhere near Hepworth. The sooner he gets out of Scarsdale the better.”

  “You’ve never backed away from this kind of work before. What’s so special about Hepworth?”

  “Everyone I’ve visited for you, Brendan, has had something on them. Something I can use for leverage. Theft, fraud, something nasty on their hard drive. Some nasty little secret. Hepworth doesn’t. Not that I know of.”

  “So fit him up with something.” Widdowson sat back arrogantly, twisting a pen in his fingers. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  Gould grimaced. “Not a good idea, Pastor. As you know, Hepworth has something on me. It’s not like the old days. Time doesn’t cover past sins. If he went to the police and said I’d…you know…touched him when he was a kid, there would be consequences for me. They take that kind of thing seriously ever since Saville. Let the beast sleep.”

  “He can’t be allowed to get away with this.”

  “And we can’t afford to stir up a hornet’s nest. He’ll be gone in a few days. You’ll have the house and a load of Diane’s money. You’ve won, Brendan. Leave it.”

  “Can’t you threaten to do something to his sister?”

  “No. I bloody well cannot. Drop it, Brendan. Let’s concentrate on this choir business.”

  Widdowson sighed, not even bothering to hide his disappointment.

  To try and place him, Gould suggested something else. “I’ve heard Karl Prentice has been looking into this. You know, that long-haired bastard who runs the museum. We can have a word with him, if you like. Been meaning to give him a going over for a while, the bloody hippy.”

  “Might be good to just let him know we’re watching. He’s been visiting former staff from the asylum, interviewing them. If he, or either of them, talk to Prendergast, well, it could get uncomfortably close. Yes, visit Prentice. Give him the usual going over.” Brendan stood, indicating their business was over. “Get back to me as soon as you can. Whoever attacked me, I want to put the fear of God into them.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Jason glanced up from the shapes he was cutting out of the window. This night was going to be a stinker. The line of trees at the bottom of the playing field were smudged with dirty twilight mist. Darkness was closing in fast. Once he’d cut out fifteen of these hexagonal shapes for tomorrow’s lesson, he was going straight home. He wasn’t hanging around. Not tonight.

  None of the kids had owned up to the choir incident. He didn’t expect any of them would because whoever had sent him this message wanted much more than to play a prank on him. This was a warning. Widdowson had been worse than useless at finding the culprits. Jason had donated nearly fifty thousand pounds to his church over the years and he was still treated like a dog. He at least deserved a modicum of protection from the pastor.

  That said, no one had come forward with an ultimatum yet. He’d have expected the blackmailers to have made their demands by now.

  A slam of a closing door out in the corridor made him look up with a start. Before this started, he would have ignored the sound, just assumed it was Bartoz, the cleaning guy. Urged on in his new state of paranoia, he got up from the desk and looked out into the corridor. There was no one there.

  Sounds were amplified in this place. Sometimes the wind blew doors closed which made a hell of a racket in the corridor.

  Jason re-entered the classroom and his gaze locked onto a shape beyond the window. He peered, trying to make it out, moving right up to the window to look out.

  There was someone standing in the middle of the playing field. They didn’t move and appeared to be staring at the school. At first, he assumed it was one of the kids pissing about, then he saw what it wore.

  Jason couldn’t be sure but it appeared to be wearing a dress or a robe. The garment covered the lower body. The face was just a blur in the distance.

  His breathing quickened and his heart rate increased. Why would someone be standing in this field on a freezing night in November wearing a robe? All the kids had gone home. It could be a Halloween prank.

  The door in the corridor opened and slammed shut with a bang. So there was someone here. He left the window and went back to the corridor hoping the door had been opened and closed by the Polish cleaner after all. He suddenly didn’t want to be here alone. Chastising himself for his over imaginative fear, Jason looked down the corridor.

  “What the hell?”

  He watched the door open on its own and slam shut again. That was impossible! It must have been someone, the blackmailers, messing about, trying to scare him, using a length of invisible wire. They’d rue the day. He’d use a karate move on them. He’d break their fucking ribs

  “That’s enough,” he snapped. “You think this is funny? Let’s see who’s laughing when you’re on the deck pissing blood.”

  There came no reply. It might be one of the kids after all. He could get into trouble for actually threatening them.

  “Gavin Marshall, if that’s you trying to be funny you can cut it out. You’ve had one letter home to y
our parents this week. Now show yourself.”

  Silence. Gavin Marshall was the school prankster but always admitted it when he’d been rumbled. If Marshall were doing this then he’d have appeared by now. Also, Jason was sure he’d seen Gavin Marshall board one of the school busses at half three for home.

  He stared at the darkening corridor and a truly disquieting thought entered his mind. What if this wasn’t the work of kids but something else? Something unnatural.

  The door opened by itself again, and he could see no one in the corridor beyond. It stayed open on its hinges before being slammed by invisible hands.

  “Shit.” He ran back into the classroom. That had been no trick with string. The door had closed by itself. Screw the cutting out, Jason was not staying here any longer. He was alone in the school and a door had just slammed shut by itself. He couldn’t explain it and didn’t want to. Jason just wanted to get out of here.

  The weird figure in the playing field could no longer be seen. Beyond the glass darkness had arrived, muddying the scene, but in the last of the dusk light the figure was definitely missing.

  As he gathered his cut-out hexagons, he realised he was no longer alone. At the back of the class stood the figure from the field, the same figure from last time. This time he faced the teacher, his face covered with a skull mask. The figure did wear a robe. The kind found in the shops at Halloween.

  “No. This isn’t happening. This is not…happening.”

  The figure didn’t reply, but he could sense eyes staring at him from beneath the mask. At waist level he saw movement under the material. Thin, white fingers emerged from the folds of the clothing, reached for the mask and removed it.

  “Fuuuuck! No. No way!”

  It was his face. He was here, staring back at him, dark eyes without emotion. He was taller and his movements were smoother, but it was definitely him.

  Jason screamed and ran out of the classroom. Behind him, the pursuer walked slowly out into the corridor. Jason turned left, away from the self-opening door and to the dining hall. In the dim light from the adjacent corridor stood another figure. Same dark clothes. Same mask.