Dark Choir Page 2

  “Well, you don’t have to bother…”

  “I’ll prepare a hot water bottle for your bed. Spare room is it?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose. The attic one.”

  “No problem Mr. Hepworth. I’ll clear it out for you. I’ll see you soon then.”

  He put the phone away. Daniel would have to decide what to do with her. Keep her on or sack her. It would all depend on what his mother had decided and how much money there was. Lindsey needed full time care. Just thinking about it was giving him a headache. He looked over at the boys still necking the whiskey.

  “Hey mate,” said one of the lads. “If you’re going to Matlock, it’s bus replacements service from then on.”

  Dan was taken aback by the kid talking to him, then remembered people did actually speak to each other outside of London. Besides, these were just local lads, not gangsta kids from some South London estate.

  “Getting off before that, but thanks for the warning,” he replied. He eyed the whiskey and his body language must have made it obvious. Drunk and good-humored, the kid handed him the bottle.

  “Have a bit if you want. You look like you need it.”

  “Thanks.” Dan took the bottle and took a large gulp. He could have easily finished the bottle. Going home would have been easier after a drink.

  “Come far?” asked another one.

  “London,” he said, handing back the bottle. “But I’m stopping at Scarsdale.”

  “Scarsdale?” laughed one of the others. “It’s a shithole.”

  The lads got off at Belper, leaving him alone in the carriage. Darkness rolled by until the orange lights of Scarsdale pricked the darkness. The train stopped and with a heavy heart, he alighted.

  The platform glittered with frost and a sharp wind from the hills cut through him. He faced the red-brick station which was devoid of life. A heavy metallic creaking sounded as the train pulled away, the tail lights disappearing into the night up the track. This was it, he was all alone now. With the cold cutting through, he descended the steps. Unmanned ticket booths met him and a screen advertising the next departures glowed on a screen mounted above the entrance. Dan noticed a small poster for Scarsdale Cabs, so he rang for a taxi, half expecting there to be no signal but, thankfully, there was. The woman on the end of the line said it was on its way, so he left the station.

  Dan looked across the deserted car park and to an iron railing on the far side. Beyond that, the lights of houses on the hills opposite twinkled across the hillsides. Pulling his coat around himself, the lone traveler cursed each minute the cab didn’t arrive. It was past ten at night and Farm Road was around five miles away to the north, through the hills. If the cab didn’t arrive, he’d be stuffed. The idea of walking there was not a prospect he relished.

  Headlights caused the frost to sparkle across the tarmac as the cab pulled up the hill and into the car park.

  As he climbed into the back, the driver turned to look at his passenger. “Fuck me, it’s Danny Hepworth!”

  Everyone knows everyone else around here, thought Dan. It was no surprise the taxi driver knew him. Dan’s mood instantly brightened when he saw who it was.

  “Bloody hell, Billy Cockayne. How the hell are you then, mate?” Dan put his things in the back seat and joined him in the front.

  “Fuck, you talk all posh now. Not like us common shite. How’s London?”

  “It’s a bag of shite. All snobby bastards who work in advertising or IT.”

  “IT? I’m in IT.”

  “What, you?”

  “Yeah,” he grinned, “s.h.I.T. Down at Bucklands shoveling turkey shit. I just do this as a bit on the side. You know, cash in hand. Do you still work for that computer company?”

  “Yeah, executive, me. I run a sales department. How is…what’s her name…er…”

  “Jean. Well, I’ve got two kids now. Two kids, happily divorced.” Billy drove on. He didn’t need to ask for directions on how to get to Farm Road, he knew where Dan was going. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother. Heart failure, weren’t it?”

  “Yeah. Rushed into hospital. I only found out today.”

  “Back for the funeral, then?”

  “Yeah, got to sort out the will, all that stuff.”

  They drove through the town illuminated by dull streetlights but devoid of life. By midnight, the streets of Scarsdale were dead, even on a Friday night. Billy and Dan reminisced about people they knew, school friends, old girlfriends. It had been ten years since he’d left Scarsdale. It might as well have been a hundred. The lights of the town faded behind them and Billy turned off from the main road on to the lane. On to Farm Road.

  Daniel stiffened when he caught his first glimpse of the solitary lights across the valley. Billy’s headlights cut through the lane until the drive of One Farm Road came into view. Light picked out two bent wooden gateposts where the gate had once been. Rough, broken tarmac led to the tall, square front door, guarded by two granite pillars on either side. The house dominated, rose up before them in shadow. A vast slab of stone, more like a sepulcher than a home. Lights blazed away in the downstairs rooms from the tall windows. He expected the nurse would be waiting when he got in. Dan paid Billy and gave him a tip.

  “How long are you around for?” he asked.

  “A couple of weeks, maybe.”

  “Well, we still drink down at The Lamb. Give us a ring and have a few pints.”

  Dan watched him drive away, feeling colder than ever. In the driveway, two vehicles stood. A battered old Morris Minor and a new people carrier. The people carrier looked out of place against the rambling old house.

  The thought of meeting the caregiver grated on Dan’s nerves. He really wasn’t in the mood to handle strangers right now, was too tired and mentally worn out. He took another look at the tomb-like edifice before him, a low hum of dread throbbing in his guts, then went inside.

  Three

  “Wow,” said Fiona, her voice echoing up the dark corridor. “This place in in such good condition.”

  Karl had been the first to enter the asylum, followed by Fiona. Fiona’s dyed black hair tried to escape from under her wooly hat. The meager light caught her pierced lip and eyebrow. Kieran, a thin guy in his twenties, followed, dressed in skinny jeans and a black coat. Kieran closed the side door behind them, and the trio spent a few seconds in the dark before Karl exploded light into the corridor with his flashlight.

  Karl was a bit older than these two but fitted their aesthetic with his round spectacles and his thinning long hair tied back into a ponytail. He smiled, thinking how it would look if they were caught. A kind of geek Scooby Doo gang.

  “Won’t the security guards see the light?” asked Fiona.

  “They don’t come here at night anymore,” Karl explained. “If they do, they certainly don’t come into the building.”

  “And how do you know this?” Kieran demanded to know.

  “I was in The Lamb last week and got talking to the bloke who runs the security firm.”

  “Why don’t they patrol at night then?” asked Fiona with less challenge in her voice.

  “He wouldn’t say.” Karl shrugged. “That’s why we’re here. To find out.”

  “Don’t be so over-dramatic,” Kieran snorted. “It’s a ghost hunt. We’ll probably see nothing.”

  They followed Karl up a narrow corridor and stopped at the first doorway they came to. Karl’s beam picked out overturned metal-framed beds and dusty looking mattresses spread across a floor of broken tiles.

  “Look at that,” Fiona said. “Beds mad people have slept in.”

  “You would think they would have cleared it out,” said Kieran. “I mean, they’re going to turn this into flats, aren’t they?”

  Karl didn’t reply but pushed on through the ward until he emerged in a high-ceilinged wide hallway. Karl shone his beam down the corridor to a set of heavy-looking closed doors.

  “That’s the main e
ntrance. The security guys drive past now and again.” He shone his beam up the corridor to a gaping open doorway and darkness beyond. “That’s the concert hall. Up above are more wards and that’s where we need to set up the equipment.”

  Fiona strode forwards and entered the dark hall. Karl and Kieran followed. Her beam shone upwards and reflected on dozens of small glass droplets hanging like diamonds from a vast chandelier. The ceiling was cracked and peeling black, discarded cobwebs spread across the wall, a scant covering for the many cracks in the plaster. She cast the beam wider and down where dozens of metal and canvas blue/grey chairs sat stacked against one wall. Other chairs lay scattered across the floor and from where they stood, they picked out the dusty, splintered stage ahead.

  “They’ll be nothing here,” said Karl. “We’ll get better results from the wards. That’s where the imprints will be.”

  “Imprints?” Kieran frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “This place will have imprints. Tragedy, misery. Negative emotions leave imprints. All the fear, all the abuse that went on here. It would have happened in the wards.”

  “We’re hunting for ghosts, mate. Not bloody memories.”

  “That’s what ghosts are. Echoes, impressions left in time.”

  “You can’t say that. They might be spirits of the dead. My born-again Christian brother thinks they’re demons.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit.”

  “Guys!” Fiona cut them dead before an argument began. “Shall we get this equipment set up?”

  Karl put down a small black rucksack he’d been carrying on his back. He opened the contents. “Right. I’ve got camcorders. We put one in the corridor upstairs, one in that ward we passed, and maybe one in the basement. Where the morgue was. Here,” he handed out three bottles, “is talcum powder.”

  “What, do you think we’re sore down below or something?” laughed Kieran.

  “Very funny. Sprinkle it on thresholds of doorways. Finally, these are electromagnetic field meters.” He handed two to Fiona. This was an oblong device with what looked like a probe on a wire and a needle meter which went from black to red. “Apparently, apparitions create strong electromagnetic fields. I’ve got digital sound recorders as well. I’ll put one upstairs. Fiona, you set up in the downstairs ward. Kieran, you set up in the basement.”

  “The morgue. Thanks.”

  “Finally. Walkie-talkies. If you see anything when we’re setting up, call one of us. We’ll meet back here.”

  Fiona hesitated before leaving while Kieran strode off down to the basement showing as much bravado as he could. Karl left the concert hall and took the staircase immediately to his right to the upper wards.

  The stairs were dirty and covered in grit. Some of the plaster had fallen away from the wall where water had leaked in.

  At the top of the stairs, he gingerly shone his beam into the darkness. A discarded wheelchair sat at a right angle to the wall. To his left, he faced a door to another ward. Karl swallowed hard. Here, he felt vulnerable and alone. He’d never seen an imprint before. Karl was an atheist and believed that souls didn’t exist. Ghosts were just echoes, but how he’d psychologically handle it if he ever did see one was something he wouldn’t know until it happened. How vivid would it be? Would it pass through him like a projected image?

  He could already sense the echoes of dread and fear in this place. He shone his beam across the metal-framed beds and the dusty, abandoned drug trolley near the end of the ward. Beyond that he saw a doorway leading to darkness.

  He was afraid to enter the ward, despite telling himself that his fear was just an irrational auto-response to an unfamiliar environment, a hangover from childhood fears about places like these. Fuck it, he’d set up the camera in the corridor. He stepped past the wheelchair and noticed a door to his right. It led down to another corridor feeding away from the main one. If he set the camera up at the intersection of these two corridors, it might give a view of the doorway to the ward. He knelt down and began fiddling with the camera. A sharp noise made him jump. The walkie-talkie.

  “Karl!”

  “What it is, Kieran?”

  “I’ve set the camera up down here. I’ve got a great view of the mortuary slabs. Three of them in a row. You should see it down here. It’s fucking sick.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you back in the concert hall.”

  The walkie-talkie went off. He clipped it back onto his belt, tested the camera, and set it on the floor. The angle from there would be shit. It was too close to the ground. If he put it onto something, then the angle of view would be better. He looked around for something to raise its height, cursing his amateurish lack of preparation, then remembered the wheelchair behind him up the corridor.

  Still on his knees, he turned. At first, he’d thought the wheelchair was gone but then realised it had changed position. When he’d walked past the wheelchair earlier, the thing had been open and at a right angle to the wall. Now it was flush to the wall and shut, the two large wheels close together, the footplates folded up against each other.

  Oh shit. It was happening. Maybe Kieran had done this as a joke, but Karl knew his colleague was down in the mortuary. He’d just spoken to him on the walkie- talkie, so he couldn’t have come up here and done this. Fiona? No, she took this seriously. She wouldn’t play a joke like that.

  That only left one explanation.

  As he tried to rationalise the movement of the wheelchair, he noticed the small figure standing just before the doorway to the ward, the roughly human shape caught in the meagre light coming from outside. It had its back to him but was turning around to face his way.

  He backed into the darkness of his own doorway when the small pale creature began to stride down the corridor towards him. He killed the flashlight.

  Karl hid, unable to move. He could hear footsteps echoing through the corridor. The barely perceptible slap, slap of small bare feet on tiles moving at rapid speed. The footsteps were nearing. Karl gritted his teeth, kept his nerve. The figure was just an imprint, he told himself. It couldn’t harm him. An echo couldn’t harm him. Any moment, the imprint would pass him.

  From his position just inside the doorway, he saw it come into view.

  The figure stopped dead.

  Karl took in the apparition. Pale flesh, a thin frame from which hung a dirty, grey smock. Something an inmate would wear.

  The imprint turned its head sharply, looking directly at him with hollow, black eye sockets. He stumbled backwards, fixed in its gaze. Sparse grey hair sprouted from its head, but across the forehead, he saw thick, rich scars. A child. A female child.

  She stared at him for thirty seconds then carried on up the corridor. He followed her path until she came to the far wall where she simply passed through it.

  Karl wanted to scream. He wanted to run out of this building but mastered his fear.

  He clutched was walkie-talkie. “Keir. Fiona.”

  “Karl? I’m here with Kieran. Someone’s closed the door to the concert hall. Did you do it?”

  “Did you close that?” Kieran demanded. “It won’t open, and neither does that one down there. The one to the entrance.”

  “I’ve seen one,” he said. “I was wrong, Kieran. About ghosts being imprints. Wrong. I’ve just seen one, and it looked right at me.”

  Four

  Instinctively, Dan hung his coat up in the vestibule, as his mother had called it. The vestibule was, in fact, a large space leading into the main hallway. The door to the living room stood half open to the left.

  Daniel felt his guts drop a notch as the familiar cold of this place hit him. The large stone house had central heating but old windows and ancient cracks in the walls which allowed the chill to permanently permeate.

  He’d not been to this place for ten years, but it hadn’t changed at all. Dark wood paneling cast a gloom down the corridor even when the light was on. Every detail from the cracked coving on the ceiling down
to the worn stone flags on the floor assaulted his consciousness with echoes of bad memories. He swallowed hard and forced the memories back down, telling himself he didn’t have to be here long.

  From the end of the corridor, he could hear movement which he assumed to be the nurse, Alison. He called out a hello to alert the nurse that he was here. A loud giggle sounded through the hallway. He smiled on hearing it, surprised to find himself smiling in this awful house.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” called out the same voice he’d spoken to on the phone. “I’m with Lindsey. If you’d like take a seat, Mr. Hepworth, I’ll be out soon.”

  Turing left, he entered the cavernous, cold living room. The stern picture of his father still hung over the stone fireplace. The ancient antique furniture, the faded high-back sofa chairs and black-wooden Welsh dresser in the corner, repelled him with memories of winter nights huddled before the fire in the dark as another power cut plunged the house into shadow. A claw foot sofa rested against one corner covered by a magnolia antimacassar. He was never allowed to sit on this. A large wooden table settled under a window, the bay window closed off by faded heavy beige curtains. Dan couldn’t wait to tear this lot down and sell it. Or burn it. This was all his now, and he could do what he liked with it. A thought that cheered him on this grim winter’s night.

  Lindsey’s room was through the second door to the living room and across the hall. He opened the door and looked into the hallway. The door to his sister’s room was open. The nurse must have finished with her and gone into the kitchen. Dan should have waited for the nurse to come back, but he heard his sister call out a greeting in her own inimitable way. Three sharp sounds, “ah, ah, ah,” and he smiled to hear her. Dan crossed the hallway, entered her room, and saw his sister.

  She hadn’t aged much. She had a few more wrinkles around her eyes but her hair was still dark. Lindsey was in a new wheelchair. The model had been updated since her last wheelchair. Dan remembered her sitting awkwardly in an uncomfortable red standard-issue contraption which she’d slid herself out of on a daily basis. This wheelchair was modern and custom-made for Lindsey. The bucket seat was comfortable and shaped so she wouldn’t slip out. Lateral supports also ensured that she didn’t lean too far over to the left or right as she sometimes did when she was tired due to having, as a Physiotherapist had once explained, “poor core muscles; the muscle groups that give you balance when sitting”. The chair also tilted back within its frame, so she wouldn’t slip forwards. Instead of the old grey clunky footplates of her former wheelchair, this one had a single footboard which her heavy-booted feet rested comfortably on.