The Secret of Crickley Hall (65 page)

Pyke was pushing Loren closer and closer to the edge of the well, while she did her best to resist, screaming and digging her bare heels into the floor, the struggle hopeless against the big man's superior strength.

In the blink of an eye, Gabe was on one knee, his body crouched forward, the heavy blade in his right hand, held in his fingers by one end. He skimmed it through the air and it spun like a boomerang. He had aimed high for fear of hitting Loren and his aim was true.

It seemed to take an impossibly long time but it struck Pyke squarely on the forehead, sending him toppling backwards, his grip on Loren released.

Unfortunately, she was leaning too far over the opening and she teetered on the brink, her arms flailing the air to prevent herself from falling.

But it was no use. She began to drop.

76: DESPERATION

Those brief but vital moments of trying to save herself were just enough for Gabe to spring forward like a runner off starting blocks and dive towards Loren.

With a heart-piercing scream she fell, her arms outstretched, the whirlpool below eager to receive her. Even as he landed on the low wall encircling the well, Gabe was reaching out to grasp her wrist as she went. Unfortunately, he had to use his left arm, the fingers of the right wrapping themselves over the top of the wall for support, and the agonizing wrench almost forced him to let go of his daughter. But he hung on, taking her weight with his numbed arm and injured shoulder, straddled face down on the wall, half his body hanging over the edge, only his right knee pressing into the outer stonework and his right hand clenched hard against the top of it keeping him there.

Loren dangled perilously, her bare legs kicking air. The small desperate cries she uttered were lost in the cacophony made by the rushing water. The deep centre of the whirlpool rose as if to meet her halfway, but fell back again when river currents below the surface shifted. Panic-stricken though she was, Loren tried to help her father by swinging round and reaching for the wrist of the hand that held her own. Her fingers tightened around it and Gabe grunted with approval: his hold on her was more secure.

Yet her weight was beginning to drag him off the wall.
'Try… to get… a foothold,'
he urged with gasping breaths.

She must have heard him, for she raised her legs and searched for a jutting stone or a shallow indent with her feet, but her toes kept slipping off the slimy, mossy stonework of the well's interior wall.

Gabe was strong, but the balance was all wrong; he couldn't get enough leverage to pull her up. Even so, at any other time, he would have scooped his daughter out of the well with ease—her weight would have meant nothing to him—but now his arm was numb from shoulder to fingertips and there was little power in it. It was all he could do to maintain the grip.

Time and again, he attempted to draw her up, but whenever he brought her closer to him, his strength failed and she was lowered again. A thousand red-hot needles seemed to prick his shoulder with each effort and the stone he sprawled upon pressed hard against his cheek and chest. Gritting his teeth, his body tensed, he tried to lift Loren once more, his numbed arm trembling with the exertion, more than half his body now drawn into the opening. When she reached up with her free hand and managed to clutch at his shoulder, the added pain there was almost unbearable. Her fingers slipped away and she hung over the void, her teeth biting into her lower lip so that she wouldn't scream. She looked up and saw the desperation in her father's eyes and she was even more afraid, if that were possible.

Her weight was gradually and inexorably dragging Gabe over the brink, no matter how hard he resisted with his other hand and knee pushing against the outside of the circular wall.

'Don't let me go, Daddy!'
she cried up at him, pleading with wide terrified eyes.

'Never,' he grunted in a strained low murmur, more to himself than his daughter. He would not let her go. Even if it meant falling in with her, he would not let go of Loren.

There was a sudden distraction. He became aware of movement in the cellar and he raised his head an inch or two, quivering with the effort. As he had feared, the dark shape of Pyke was rising over the opposite side of the well.

His back to Gabe, the big man bowed his head into his hands and rocked slightly. Then he straightened and slowly turned around.

There was a gash on his forehead where the blade had hit him—Gabe had been aiming for his throat—and Pyke raised a hand to it and examined the blood on his fingertips. He regarded Gabe with a cold, furious glare.

'You shouldn't have done that,' he said as if chiding a naughty child, his anger completely contained.

Gabe barely heard his words over the commotion of the underground river, so mildly were they spoken.

'Now you will be included,' Pyke added. 'And your wife, and your other brat.'

'You're crazy!' Gabe spat out. His body shifted a fraction of an inch across the wall and he fought desperately against Loren's pull.

'Naturally that will be my plea,' Pyke replied tartly, pleased with himself. 'Put away for a few years, playing the game with psychiatrists and various busybodies, then, when they realize I've miraculously recovered my sanity, they will have to let me go. Care in the community is the worst I can expect.'

'They'll never let you out You'll rot inside an asylum for ever, Pyke!'

'We'll see,' he said brusquely, the matter closed as far as he was concerned.

Gabe laid his cheek back on the wall, relieving the strain to his neck for a moment.
Help me, God,
he prayed silently and guiltily, and without hope because the only time he'd ever asked God for help was when Cam went missing.
Just give me one chance now.

He looked down at Loren, desperate for an idea, anything to cancel the maniac and get her out of the well. She stared up at him, quietened now, just hanging there. Beneath her, the water swirled and spumed, hungry to take her. Hungry to take them both.

Raising his head once more, he saw that Pyke was bending over, reaching for something. Metal clanked against the concrete floor and Gabe knew that the big man was picking up the blade he had thrown at him. With his walking stick broken, Pyke needed another weapon.

Pyke straightened and he was smiling. A cruel smile. A satisfied smile. He tapped the metal bar against the palm of his hand and his smile corrupted to a sneer. A little unsteady because of the wound to his forehead, he took a step towards the well where the engineer lay defenceless.

But Pyke suddenly halted. He turned his head to one side, as if listening.

Gabe had heard nothing over the sound of the subterranean river.

Now Pyke was turning all the way round as though something had caught his attention.

Gabe turned his head a little more to see what was engaging Pyke's interest.

It was barely visible, but something stood in the black entrance to the boiler room.

It was watching them.

77: FROM THE DARK

It was strangely compelling, its mere presence in the doorway enough to render Pyke immobile. Yet it was in shadow, an unknowable and unclear adumbration. It might have been a figure.

Gabe shivered, a reaction so strong that it shook his whole body in spite of the weight he bore and the awkwardness of his position.

Pyke dropped the heavy blade and stood transfixed. He gave out a small moan.

They both stared at the dark, undefined shape in the opening of the boiler room.

It seemed like minutes, but it could only have been seconds before the thing moved. With great deliberation, as if each footstep were considered, it came forward unsteadily from the doorway, and although emerging into the dismal light, it seemed to carry the shadows with it so that it was still difficult to determine. But as it drew nearer—nearer to Pyke—it appeared to take on a definite form.

Still determinedly keeping hold of Loren, Gabe realized it was the slight figure of a woman or girl, for it wore a faded skirt that ended just above the ankles. Sodden leather shoes whose metal buckles were brown with rust and corrosion were on her feet. Her gait was awkward and slow, for the right foot dragged behind so that it scuffed and scraped the stone floor. Each dull
thud
of a footstep was followed by the dragging of the damaged leg, the sound muted yet somehow clear over the amalgam of other sounds.

Water dripped from its—her—bedraggled clothes.

Her head and narrow drooped shoulders remained in shadow, outside the dim circle of light cast by the overhead lightbulb, but the ends of tangled and matted hair could be seen hanging stiffly against her chest. Over a soaked tattered blouse, she wore a colour-drained shawl that hung over her shoulders to wrap loosely round her elbows. One hand was grey, almost white, and it was bloated, as if it had been a long time in water. The other hand was different: it was clutched tight against her chest and it was inverted, the fingers turned inwards, like twisted claws, and so thin they looked skeletal; the wrist was also misshapen, the flesh withered and creased, disappearing beneath a ragged sleeve, suggesting the deformity included the rest of the forearm.

The shadowy figure steadily advanced on Pyke, whose stillness continued; he seemed stricken by the sight of her. But as she drew near he took a faltering step backwards. For some reason, he glanced at Gabe, perhaps to reassure himself that the other man was seeing the same as he. Pyke suddenly looked every day of his seventy-five years.

The world around Gabe seemed to recede, and with it the cacophony of noises—the constant churning of the swollen river below, the muffled rumble of the storm above, the heavy pounding of feet descending the cellar steps—all these diminished to a background susurration as he stared at the hideous walking corpse that came towards Pyke.

Who took another uncertain step backwards.

But the thing that had once been a living being moved closer, closer until there was only a short space between it and the tall man.

And her face and shoulders came into the light.

Pyke screamed—an unnaturally high sound for a man of his size—as he looked into the grey, bloated face before him.

The swollen flesh was corrupted in parts, the lips gone as if eaten away by tiny parasites, so that long, gumless teeth were exposed in a frightening rictus grin. The temple and cheekbone on one side looked as if they had been crushed by something heavy and hard, and the top of her head was grotesquely dented as if the skull beneath her hair had caved in. The eyes were lidless as if the thin layers of shielding skin had also been nibbled away, and they peered hugely from the skull and what was left of the puffy and ruptured flesh of the face. They gaped lifelessly at Pyke, who again stepped backwards in shock.

He was too near the edge of the well and his calves bumped against the circular wall. He stumbled, he tried to save himself, but it was no use. Pyke fell and his scream echoed round the solid walls of the well.

Gabe could not help but watch as the big man plunged into the whirlpool below, Pyke's hopeless cry suddenly cut off as he was swallowed up by the spinning water.

His head and shoulders appeared again as he was spun by the fierce current and Gabe winced at the horror in Pyke's insane eyes. Big hands scrabbled at the stone wall but, as Loren had already found, its surface was too slippery to hold on to and the drowning man screeched one last time as he was drawn inescapably into the vortex.

The last thing seen of Pyke was a hand reaching out from the maelstrom as if grabbing for life itself. Then he was gone.

All sound around Gabe suddenly returned and, over the liquid roar of the river, he heard his daughter calling to him.

'Daddy! Please! Oh please!'

He pulled with every ounce of strength he had left. But the effort almost sent him over the edge. Just when he thought he'd lost the battle and was going to fall with his daughter into the well, another arm reached past his shoulder and took hold of Loren's free hand.

Suddenly her weight was as nothing and together the two men lifted Loren out of the well with one strong heave.

Father and daughter rolled off the low wall and dropped exhaustedly onto the cellar floor. But Gabe soon pushed himself up on an elbow and searched behind him. And saw that the creature that had intimidated Pyke to his death was no longer there.

'Did you see her, Mr Caleigh?' Percy asked earnestly as he knelt beside the engineer. There was an elated shine to his faded eyes. 'Did you see her, my beautiful Nancy?'

78: THE LIGHTS

The engineer made no comment. If Percy's ghost was different to his, then so be it. Who knew how the supernatural presented itself to different people? The old gardener saw what he wanted to see, memory ruling his vision. None of that mattered though, Pyke was dead, drowned, and Loren was safe. Hell, they were
all
safe from the lunatic.

Gabe had to wonder at himself. He had accepted that he, the sceptic, the unbeliever, had just seen a ghost, a ghost that had sent Pyke to his certain death, an apparition that had vanished when the deed was done. It was incredible to Gabe, but he had undeniably witnessed everything with his own eyes. Now there was no doubt that Crickley Hall really was haunted.

He helped Loren to her feet and hugged her tight. She had run out of sobs, but she was still shaking.

'Percy,' he said, looking round at the gardener, 'thanks. I'd have lost her if it wasn't for you. I owe you again.'

Percy stood there catching his breath, a glow still in his moist eyes. He gazed round the cellar as if he might catch sight of his lost love once more; or at least, sight of her ghost.

Gabe interrupted his search. 'We oughta get back upstairs to Eve. She didn't look so good.'

The old man nodded once, the noise from the well drowning the deep sigh he gave.