I believe, Fisher told himself without any sense of surprise. I believe what Blaxton told me. That the house shows you a vision of your own death. So why the chimes? Is that the source of its power, or merely the device that gives voice to its own version of mocking laughter? Kym saw herself being stabbed to death. Belle had the same vision. Josanne dreamt she was drowning. But other than drowning in a bath, how do you drown inside a house? ‘So, House, how long have you been doing this to people? You know what I’m talking about. You shove that dream into their heads of them dying before you murder them. That’s when you play them a little of your death music too.’
The house goes way, way back. Did the farmers who lived here in the medieval house dream that they were rotting with leprosy? Then, later, they noticed the patch of dead white skin on their hands? Maybe the leper bell they rang to warn people they were infected was the ancestor of the morbid chiming that haunted The Tower. Later they’d walk through the house ringing their hand bell as their flesh fell away by the fistful.
What of the airmen stationed here in World War II? Fisher closed his eyes while his mind’s eye played the scene in vivid detail.
The crew walks out in the early morning mist to the waiting B17 on the runway. The propellers are whirling. The four motors housed in the wing nacelles throb. The aircraft are loaded with bombs ready for the attack on Nazi munitions factories. The tail gunner tells the ball turret gunner, ‘Heck, Joe, I had a hell of a dream last night. We were all playing cards in my room back at the house when a Focke Wulf flew through the window and fried our asses to a crisp.’
‘Yeah, and I dreamt I lived on a desert island with Joan Crawford. They’ve both the same chance of coming true as us sprouting big feathered wings and shifting incendiary all over Hitler’s head.’
But Joe doesn’t mention that as he lay in bed in The Tower last night he had the same dream. Only there’s another detail. Just seconds before the nose of the fighter slammed through the window he heard chimes. Dozens of fucking chimes. That got louder and louder …
Fast forward sixteen hours. The aircrew return safely. They’ve gathered in the tail-gunner’s room to blow off steam. They’re sitting on his bed as they slap down the playing cards. Oh, and they’re hitting whisky hard enough to send a buzz through to their nerve endings; Glenn Miller’s on a wind-up gramophone. The mood’s upbeat. Another mission done. They’re closer to going home. Joe’s found letters from the tail-gunner’s girl. He’s laughing as he reads aloud ‘Dear Hank, I’m writing this as I lie here in bed so I can think about you. I’m totally, totally naked … apart from those pink socks my grandma knitted for my birthday. As I write this, darling Hank, I slip my hand down so I can touch my—’
‘Hey, it doesn’t say that. And give it back, you dirty fink.’
‘A dirty what? Fink.’
The rest of the buddies laugh at the sight of Hank’s blushes. The pilot shuffles the deck of cards and flicks out the Ace of Spades. The navigator cranks the wind-up gramophone as trombones rundown into a slurring dirge. A gunner pours them all another splash of Scotch.
‘What the hell’s wrong with that clock?’ asks Joe. ‘It’s ten o’clock so why’s the damn thing chiming twelve?’
And the chimes don’t stop there. The chimes grow louder. They quicken. They become a pulse of sound. An ominous string of notes that mutate into a ringing cacophony that chews into their skulls, so that they grimace, shake their heads, cover their ears. Hank recalls the dream of them gathering here in his room to play cards. Joe remembers the part of the dream where the chimes started. How they grew louder. How they became a metallic thunder that battered his eardrums. As they remember, they suddenly lock eyes with each other.
From the night sky the single engine Focke Wulf dives at the airfield with all the predatory menace of a hawk. The pilot sees the bunker in the moonlight. He strafes it with cannon fire. The shells explode against the concrete wall in balls of yellow flame. From the ground anti-aircraft gunners fire white-hot tracer at the plane. One shell tears away the wing. The plane spins in a screaming roll directly into the front of the house.
In Hank’s room the chimes reach a frenzied pitch. Men curse. They clamp their hands over their ears. That’s when the steel nose of the plane smashes through the window. Remnants of the whirling propeller hack Joe into bloody chunks. But even as the gore strikes the walls the aviation fuel spewing into the room from ruptured tanks ignites. In the killing furnace the room has become, Hank’s last thought is: That dream … it came true …
A knock sounded.
The walls … With a grunt Fisher searched for the switch by the bed. The moment light banished the darkness, his eyes were searching the walls for the first sign of them bulging in at him. The knock sounded again. With a sigh of relief he realized someone was at the door.
He opened it to find Marko standing there fully dressed. His friend wore a worried expression. ‘Fisher? Can you hear running water?’
CHAPTER 31
At the same moment Marko uttered the words, ‘Fisher? Can you hear running water?’ Josanne was fighting for her life. She had to battle to keep upright as the water swirled around her. Now it had reached the top of her thighs. The stuff was like liquid ice. And still it thundered into the cellar.
Josanne struggled across the vault to where it exited into the main part of the cellar. The force of the flood compressed the air in the confined space so it hurt her ears. At the end of their mouldy flexes light bulbs swung wildly; shadows became living things that dashed crazily across the cellar walls. And constantly the chimes hammered away at her skull. It could have been the tolling of a cathedral bell. The sound was huge, Overwhelming. Nothing less than a sonic assault on her ears.
I’ve got to get out … If I don’t I’m going to die within the next ten minutes. She forced herself against the black tide. The water stank. When it splashed on her lips she thought she’d vomit. Her pyjamas were drenched. Objects carried underwater by the vortex thumped against her shins – an old chair, maybe, or one of the jars from the shelves. Even old airmen’s uniforms floated on the surface, the fabric limbs moving in some weird dance.
The water rose with breathtaking speed. Moments ago it crept up her thighs. Now it crossed her hips with a painfully cold surge that made her shout a stuttering, ‘Oh, God!’ When she didn’t think it could get any worse, it did. The turbulent waters formed waves of bursting spray. Not only did the evil-smelling liquid splash into her eyes, it hit the exposed light bulbs. For a moment her eyes alighted on one as droplets struck the hot glass. They sizzled off in steaming spits of white. Then a larger splash soaked the bulb. It popped. Instantly it was gloomier. Yet the shadows from the remaining bulbs were no less frenzied. A monstered version of her cavorted across the walls. When she raised her arms at either side of her head to balance herself. The shadow version of herself thrashed the air with its upper limbs.
‘Come on, damn you,’ she hissed to herself. ‘Get out of here. Get out …’
Spray burst as the mounds of water clashed. Droplets hit another bulb. It shattered with the sound of a gunshot. The third – and last – light bulb in this section of the cellar simply faded out with a sizzling sound. Now the only light came from the bulbs in the main part of the cellar. There, light was forced through the narrow archway in the brickwork in front of her. Apart from a strip of water five feet wide she could see nothing of this vault. For all she knew figures might be lifting their heads up from the surface to gloat over her misfortune.
As the current bore Josanne toward the next flooded section of cellar the lights there died in a blue flash as water invaded the light switch. Now she was plunged into total darkness. For a moment she froze there not daring to move. Objects carried on the tidal wave hit her in bruising impacts. A bone-aching cold tortured her from head to toe. Mushroom odours of fungus now forged a foul-smelling alliance with the stink of pond slime. The chimes continued. A vicious pulsing sound. The metallic noise disorientated her. Its
ever mutating harmonics hurt her head.
Please … I want to see. Don’t let me drown here in the dark.
The darkness was absolute. When at last she lost her footing the water level had reached her shoulders.
Engine oil. Lubricants. Greased metal. The smell told her where she was before she opened her eyes. I’m in a garage, Belle told herself. But how did I come to lie in a garage? I’m in the house. I must be in bed with Adam. That’s it, I’m dreaming. I’m in The Tower …
The hum of an electric motor buzzing into life told her that’s where she wasn’t.
At last Belle managed to open her eyes. Her head ached like fury. When she blinked, her vision snapped into focus. She saw she lay on her back in a repair shop, an old one at that with whitewashed brick walls. The roof was unusually low. Then she saw why. The dark mass above her slowly descended. A glance to her side revealed everything. She lay beneath the heavy duty wheel runners of a car hoist. The electric motor lowered it toward her. The dark mass was the underside of a car. The chassis, with the rusty exhaust pipe running from fore to aft, filled her area of vision. Another five seconds and it would come down on her.
So why am I lying here?
Then she saw something else to freeze her nervous system. She gagged. A timber cross member lashed so it ran from one wheel runner to the other lay directly above her chest. Extending downward from it was a steep spike. The point had been filed to a silvery sharpness. The shaft, however, had been smeared with some sticky brown substance. In a second she identified it. Blood. She could see it clearly. God damn, she could even smell it. This time instinct kicked in fast. She realized she was lying on a wooden table. By now the steel point was no more than two feet above her chest. Another three seconds and it would nail her by the ribs to the table top. She rolled sideways.
‘No!’ The guy lunged from the shadows. In a split second she took in the wild mane of hair, the dishevelled clothes, the moon-shaped scar on his forehead. Same guy who knocked me cold in the corridor. The same guy who murdered me in my nightmare. He flung himself on her. Belle smelt his musty body odour. More animal than man – this creature lived in a lair rather than a home.
As he used his own body weight to force her against the table he squealed, ‘No! You’ve got to lie flat. It won’t work if you don’t lie flat!’
Belle glanced at the descending spike. ‘OK! But you’re staying here with me!’ She threw her own arms around him in a desperate hug that held his upper body over her own. Grunting, he looked back over his shoulder. The first solid object that steel point would hit was right between his own shoulder blades. He tore himself free of her. At the same time Belle rolled off in the other direction. She should have been quicker. The guy grabbed her wrist then began to drag her back on to the table from his side.
Come on, she raged at herself. You have five brothers. They only started to respect you when you were big enough to dish out the black eyes. Now isn’t the time to be dainty.
He gripped her wrist in his two hands as he brutally hauled her so she’d be under the descending spike. But she still had one arm free. Hauling in every atom of strength she balled her fist then punched as hard as she could. Her fist smacked into the centre of the mottled face. With utter satisfaction she felt the pug nose flatten under her knuckles. He grunted, flinched, but didn’t quit holding her. By the time she withdrew her fist from his face he was having to duck down to avoid the steel work descending from above him. Blood trickled from one of his nostrils to mat the stubble on his upper lip. Although his grip remained firm his eyes had dulled. He was no longer thinking straight, or even thinking it was high time to get clear of the descending hoist. Stupidly he hung on.
OK, grip me nice and tight, Belle thought, as the steel point homed in on the crook of her elbow as her arm stretched out across the table top. At the last second she dragged backward so hard her vertebrae made popping sounds. A pain speared through the muscles in her armpit. She didn’t stop pulling. It caught the guy by surprise. She shifted the position of his arm before he knew what she’d done.
The metal point, driven by the vehicle’s weight from above, found its fulcrum in the back of his hand. Both Belle and her attacker watched the steel point with horrorstruck fascination as it bore down, depressing the flesh, wrinkling the surrounding skin then – pop! The steel shaft slipped effortlessly through the man’s hand to pin it to the table top. At last, the hoist’s motor began to make a whine of protest when it couldn’t lower the spike any further.
Belle backed away. The steel wheel runners of the hoist had stopped three feet above the table top. The spike didn’t bend. But it had the guy nailed down good and hard by the hand. Cries of pain and disbelief began to spurt from his throat.
A grin reached Belle’s face. A wild, exultant grin. ‘I dreamt all this,’ she told the guy as blood poured from his hand to drench the tabletop. ‘I dreamt you killed me. But I’ve busted the hex, because I haven’t heard the chimes. And I’ve spiked you! Boy, I can’t wait until I tell the others.’ She stabbed her finger at him to the rhythm of what she said next. ‘You … are … in … big … trouble.’
Then she found the exit. A moment later she was running back through the darkness toward The Tower.
Josanne heard chimes. She heard the inrush of water too. A violent roaring that punched her ears. But she saw nothing. All she could do was tread water there in the darkness. A couple of times she tried to find the floor so she could stand. But it had gone. There was only the swirl of ice-cold liquid beneath her bare feet now.
At the same moment Belle ran from the garage to the house with triumph blazing inside her a blind panic surged through Josanne. The cold numbed her limbs. She could hardly breathe. The water must be over six feet deep now. It surged through the cellar in a turbulent mass. Already Josanne could feel the strength running out of her. She twisted in the water trying to catch a glimmer of light. Oh, God, I can’t even be sure in which direction the stairs out of here are. I can’t see a thing.
A second later, the top of Josanne’s head buffeted against something hard. As she kept herself afloat she reached up. Just level with the top of her head her fingertips encountered the vaulted ceiling. She was trapped in an air pocket formed by one of the arches.
‘You’re going to drown …’ she gasped. ‘if you don’t do something to save yourself. Come on, do it. Do it!’
Josanne forced herself to concentrate on the direction of the water’s current. If the water surged out from the shattered pipes then it must flow in the direction of the stairs that led up to ground level. What I must do is move with its flow. Only to do that meant swimming underwater. The cold liquid touched her lips. No prevarication, do it! She lifted her face up until her nose pressed against the ceiling. The air gap had shrunk to no more than two inches. With a desperate gasp she emptied her lungs as forcefully as she could to expel as much carbon dioxide as possible then inhaled deeply to fill them with air. As soon as she closed her mouth with the air locked inside her chest she kicked herself down through the water. Even though she was completely submerged she could hear the muted rumble of the flood blasting through the ruptured pipes. The chimes were as metallic as ever. A piercing sharpness; golden bells tied round the necks of sacrificial victims when they’re hurled into the maw of the volcano.
Icy currents tugged her through the subterranean chamber. She was a foetus in a womb of ice … no … a doomed astronaut cut adrift to tumble forever through the lightless void between the stars. Josanne’s mind became disconnected from her body. She could imagine herself as a feather floating on the night air, not a pallid pyjama-clad figure clawing her way beneath six feet of water, where the flying suits of dead aircrew swirled beside her. She imagined Kym’s white face ghosting through the water toward her. Dull eyes stared from their sockets. Josanne, come join me. Death is such a lonely place. Stop swimming, Josanne. Let out the air. It’ll be quick. It won’t hurt. I promise …
Josanne’s chest did hurt. Her
lungs had become two molten sacs inside her ribs. God, she needed to breathe. The pressure grew inside of her. Air spurted from her lips. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. I’ve got to breathe. I need to breathe. I must have air … The chimes grew louder. The rhythm became faster. In The Good Heart the metal chime vibrated with triumph. It created a sustain of pure sound that rose in pitch and in volume. The note ascended into a sustained scream. A cry of exultation that her oxygenstarved brain could visualize as well as hear. She saw the sound as a beam of light that seared through the water, venting blue sparks that were so bright she couldn’t bear to look at them.
Meanwhile, the ghost of Kym reached out deathly pale arms toward her. It’s all right, Josanne. You’re nearly through it now. Just open your mouth …
The arms darted through the water. Hands seized her. Soon she wouldn’t be able to bear the agony any more. Then with her head still underwater she’d open her mouth to receive this filthy, stagnant jism of the house.
‘Josanne? Josanne.’ A hand gripped her jaw to hold her head up. ‘Josanne, are you all right?’
The world of light resolved itself into steps that led up to an open doorway. Water swirled behind her but it wasn’t as fierce now. The chimes had stopped, thank God. Another hand brushed the matted hair from her eyes. With a gratitude that melted her inside she inhaled. Cool air soothed her burning throat.
‘Marko? Fisher?’
Marko stood behind Fisher as he angled a flashlight to illuminate the few steps that hadn’t been engulfed by floodwater.
With her brain still swimmy due to oxygen deprivation, she murmured, ‘Fisher. You’re pulling me out of the water. How … how, very, very apt.’
Neither Marko nor Fisher commented on what to her seemed such witty words. Their concerned expressions said it all. What words they used were terse, such as ‘Get her clear of the water.’ ‘She’s cold as ice. She’ll be suffering from exposure.’ ‘Watch her head as I lift her clear.’ ‘Now, go back before the water gets any higher.’