The Collector Book One: Mana Leak (22 page)

She rolled her eyes and groaned as music blasted across the street. The Dean twins had obviously returned and taken up their usual residency in their garage. The music sounded louder than ever, some kind of heavy dance tune. All Eleanor listened to the
duff-duff-duff
of bass. Grateful her bedroom lay at the rear of the house, she imagined how awful it must be for Joe at the front.

Trying to ignore the music, her thoughts fell back to Hearnsworth. She needed to talk to him again and find out exactly who he was and what he had planned. She only knew he really, really liked tea.

If only I could read minds
, she thought.

Calling it a night, she returned some of the pillows to Arthur’s side of the bed, the right side that hadn’t been used for years. Lying back down, with only her head poking out the top of the duvet, she closed her eyes.

“…Ele…”

A whisper, one word spoken with little force behind it. And Ele. Only one person had called her that…

Her eyes shot back open, scanning the dark room for the source of the voice. She listened, lying perfectly still.

Duff-duff-duff
continued the Dean’s stereo on the other side of the street.

Damn them!

Several minutes passed with her lying in the dark, listening for the slightest sound.

“Arthur?” she asked the dark room. “Arthur? Are you here?”

Duff-duff-duff
replied the music.

“You’re going crazy, you senile old fool!” she cursed herself, rolling over away from the window. “Hearing things going bump in the night now.”

“…Ele…no…”

She quickly flipped back, reaching for the lamp on her bedside table. The room lit up as she pulled the short string cord. The shadows around the wardrobe and drawers shrank back.

Eleanor sat up and glanced around. She even leaned over the side to take a quick look under the bed.

A fresh terror surfaced. The sudden headache and now aural hallucination. Could they be warning symptoms? A sign she wasn’t right? Eleanor had seen many of her old friends lose the fight to senility, brains aged to mush.

Please don’t let it have caught up with me. Could Arthur’s ghost be me losing it?

“Hush up,” she told her thoughts before they spiralled to panic. “There’s no need to overreact. It could be many things.”

She clicked off the lamp and settled back down, finding the comfortable groove her body had carved in the mattress. Once again, she lay in the dark, her eyes no longer adjusted.

The mattress sank near her feet, and her breath caught in her throat. Someone had sat on the edge of the bed.

She froze. The intruder had sneaked into the room in silence. Eleanor strained to hear him breathing.

The lamp cord hung about twelve inches to the left of her face, and she considered whipping her hand free of the duvet and turning it on, catching her intruder by surprise. She remained too afraid to move.

The vision of Hearnsworth grinning down at her in the dark popped into her head; his red hair hanging in mad spikes from beneath his bowler, and his lips peeled back from pristine white teeth. Those eyes, those big blue orbs, would swallow her up.

Like a frightened child, she lay completely still, wishing her silent visitor away.

The seconds ticked by on the clock on the wall, still her mysterious visitor remained on the end of her bed.

“…Ele…”

The voice sounded like a sigh; she could barely hear it. She turned her head, and after a hard swallow, peered up.

The poor light through the curtain hinted at the side of a face. It seemed disembodied, hovering over the bed to stare down at her. As the figure became clearer, Eleanor saw a faint outline of the shoulders and arms, but looking at the figure directly, she glimpsed her chest of drawers right through it.

The bed springs creaked as the weight of the sitting figure eased, as though he’d suddenly become lighter.

The only part that appeared solid was the face. The light caught the large, squashed nose, the corner of the square jaw and the right eye, deep and dark.

“Arthur?”

The noise from the Dean’s garage stopped as she said his name. Her voice sounded alien and vulnerable in the sudden silence.

The vague form of Arthur smiled.

“I…I…” Eleanor stuttered. Her words caught in her throat and refused to emerge.

Seeing her struggles, Arthur reached out.

She pulled her arm out from beneath the bed sheets and tried to take his hand. She passed straight through it, feeling only a slight tingle instead of flesh and bone.

“No…Arthur…”

He slowly shook his head.

Eleanor understood. Excitement and relief swept through her, edged with a sharp pang of loss. She’d waited years for this moment. If not for Joe, she’d willingly go back with Arthur, wherever that may be.

A crash rocked the street.

Arthur continued to gaze down at her, his eyes full of sorrow and pity. He appeared starved; his normally plump cheeks sagging, his lips thin, eyes sunken. His mouth shaped words, yet Eleanor heard nothing.

“Arthur,” she whispered. “I can’t hear you.”

She tried to hold him as he winced, like he felt some unseen blow. Her hands again passed through his body, experiencing the same static-like tickle on her skin.

He faded, slowly at first; in moments his face matched the transparency of his body. The bedsprings moaned again, the pressure on them receding.

Arthur looked in agony, his eyes squeezed shut tight, face contorted in pain. Decaying to nothing, he mouthed one word over and over again.

Despite his silence, Eleanor realised his warning.

Run.

A final solemn stare, and her dead husband disappeared.

She reached out again.

“Arthur!”

She sank back down onto her pillow. Her breaths squeezed out in rattling gasps, and her heart drummed out a chaotic rhythm.

“Arthur,” she whispered, tears cascading down her face. “Don’t leave me again! Please…”

The dark bedroom remained still, not even the curtains stirring.

Her gaze lingered on the spot where Arthur had gone, hoping for a flicker of movement, for anything…

Nothing. No sound except for the blood rushing in her ears.

She ran her tongue over her parched lips and gripped her sheets. His message, that one word: run. Why should she run? Was there somewhere she had to go?

Or is something coming for me?

Hearing a scratch, like an anxious dog pawing the wood in an attempt to get inside, her attention shot to the bedroom door.

Eleanor pulled the duvet up to her chin. Her heart stepped up a gear. Once again, she resisted the urge to turn on the bedside lamp. If Arthur had returned, she might not see him.

Another series of quick scratches, louder this time, more insistent.

She snatched a breath.

“Arthur,” she whispered. “Please don’t do this!”

Once again, she remembered his warning.
But if the wolf is at your door, where can you run?

More scrapes and scratches cut through the silence. The door creaked ajar.

Gripping her blanket tightly, Eleanor peered into the gap.

The door swung wide.

She held her breath, too afraid to look away should something step into view. She counted the seconds, each one slowing her racing heart a fraction. Ten seconds passed, then twenty…

Her fear ebbed into curiosity. Something had knocked the door open with some force, yet Joe hadn’t come running.

Is he okay?
she thought.
It isn’t like him to just stay in bed when-

She screamed as the monsters burst through the doorway and scuttled across the carpet.

2.

Joe sprinted across the bedroom, desperate for the toilet. He’d never been a bed wetter and didn’t aim to start at nearly thirty. He made a mental note to either stop drinking beer before bed or to guarantee a pit stop before turning in.

In the bathroom he relieved himself, eyes half open under the harsh glare of the overhead light. He scratched his behind through his boxer shorts and yawned. Careful not to let his aim waver and splash on the floor, he finished off, tucking himself away and flushing. He placed the toilet seat down; ever the courteous grandson.

He negotiated the dark landing and stopped to listen at his grandmother’s door. Silence. He assumed she was asleep or reading. Satisfied all was well, he returned to his bedroom.

Joe now checked both the house and his grandmother a lot since that morning. It amazed him the effect a few minor strange events had on your confidence. With the phantom smells, weirdoes in bowler hats and criminals locked in wardrobes, it felt only natural to be a little more wary.

He entered his room and quietly closed the door. It hadn’t changed since he had left at twenty one. The walls were still adorned with aging posters of outdated sports cars, bikini models who’d be married and sagging by now, and bands who had long since gone their separate ways. He’d neither the time nor the heart to redecorate, not on these fleeting visits.

He flicked on the small television and walked to the window. He thought he’d heard some strange noises from the street. Parting the curtain, he stared down onto Penny Crescent.

The street was empty. Even the windows of the Dean house were dark.

About to drop the curtain back and return to bed, Joe stopped and looked again.

The tarmac of the road, in the middle among the dividing white lines, rippled like a calm surface of a lake disturbed by a breeze.

He blinked.

The road returned to solidity, and Joe found himself gazing up the street towards the approaching whine of an engine. Seconds later, he spotted a single headlight turn onto Penny Crescent and speed towards the house.

Bloody Deans!

The motorbike sped over the strange patch of road. Joe believed his tired eyes may have been fooling him. The road appeared firm enough.

Without slowing, the twin in the tracksuit brought the bike round to their own driveway and down the side of the house. It stopped before driving straight through the front of the garage.

He watched them wheel the bike into the garage and close the door, disappearing inside.

Checking to ensure his car was untouched, Joe closed the curtains and flopped onto his bed.

What really bothered him was the Dean brother still wore his design all over that damned tracksuit, like he knew what the design meant to Joe and how much it tore him up inside to see those three simple, interwoven lines. The current
in thing
. Joe hoped that next year, he might not have to look at the bloody thing again.

Thinking about his
New World Design
brought back his memories of that day back in October. It had been his big deadline, the day Carter Sportswear had set for their new logo. He saw them now, the expectant faces sat around the boardroom, and the stern look of the production manager. He remembered opening his briefcase and removing his presentation, the work of the last few months, his best work…

Joe groaned, snapping out of his memories as music blared out from across the street.

Duff-duff-duff

Typical
, he thought.

He grabbed the television remote from between the crumpled folds of his bed sheets and switched on the subtitles. The music had almost drowned out the small television set, and he avoided disturbing his grandmother by keeping the volume turned down.

A low-grade horror film played on, showing a man tied to a dining room table alongside a corpse, while several naked diners mocked their victim and poked him with knives. Joe was sure he had seen the film before or at least read the book.

He pulled the bed sheets over his body and turned on the sleep timer of the television with the remote, setting it to turn itself off in an hour. Folding his pillow in half for more support, he curled up on his side.

Duff-duff-duff.

With a click, the television switched off, plunging the room into darkness.

Joe laid still. Could he have fallen asleep, and an hour passed in an instant? He pressed the button on the side of his watch, illuminating the dial.

No, didn’t fall asleep…

A power cut
, his drowsy mind concluded,
it had to be.

He pulled aside his sheets and sat up, swinging his legs off the bed. Holding his arms out in front to stop himself walking into the wall, he headed for the door.

He flicked the switch and the room flooded with light, instantly dismissing his power cut theory. He scratched his head and yawned, gazing at the blank screen of the television.

It stood on a desk in the corner, plugged into a socket underneath. A wooden chair was tucked in. The television definitely had no power; the standby light was dark.

Joe considered returning to bed, but curiosity bettered him. He considered a blown fuse. With the throb of music outside, he knew he’d need the company of the television to lull him back to sleep.

The chair, neatly placed underneath the desk, wobbled and slowly slid out a couple of inches.

Joe tensed.

There’s something under there
, he realised.

He approached the desk in a wide arc, conscious of his vulnerable bare feet.

Chair and shadow concealed the space underneath, a domestic cave made of pine where anything could lurk. From his position, Joe saw nothing, but he didn’t dare creep any closer.

What could be under there? A mouse wouldn’t have the strength to move the chair…but a rat might. A big one could.

He nearly jumped onto the bed at the thought, like the woman in the old Tom and Jerry cartoons; anything to get off the floor, out of the rodent’s domain.

He imagined the fat thing squatting under the desk in the dark, pink tail wrapped around its furry hide as it chewed through the television cable.

“You should’ve fried, you little shit,” he whispered, risking a couple of steps towards the desk.

The thing bolted from its hiding place, shooting across the carpet and vanishing under the bed in a second.