Abbie Frost - The Guesthouse

She crept out into the empty corridor and stared at the keypad beside the mysterious door. Think, think. What was the code? But when she slapped the door in frustration, she felt the latch open and the door give way. She pushed harder and fell inside, the door shutting behind her.

The room was gloomy, just the sort of place where someone could hide. If this door had been on the latch last night, it would have been easy to wait in here and slip into her room.

She could make out a desk and on it a small lamp. When she hit the switch, the bulb cast just enough light to illuminate dusty surfaces and spider webs. She was in some kind of office, one that hadn’t been used in a very long time. A few rotten floorboards had fallen through, leaving splintered holes. There was no way Henry Laughton did his paperwork in here.

The desk was clear of everything but dust. Hannah brushed off the chair, sat down cautiously in case it gave way, and opened one of the drawers. A pile of small hardback books in various dark colours: red, blue, black. Picking one up she read the first few pages and then did the same to the next one. She counted ten diaries altogether, ranging from twenty to ten years ago. These must belong to the previous owners: the Fallons. She remembered Mo talking animatedly about them over dinner, about stuff he’d seen on Preserve the Past website. The family had died out some years ago, their house falling into disrepair, then the Trust had taken over.

It seemed wrong to look, but she carried on flicking through the pages. There were no scandalous confessions, just occasional initials and times on various pages, for what were obviously appointments. O.H. 3pm, Doc L. 9am , etc. There wasn’t even a name in the front or any phone numbers and addresses. On one page she spotted a star beside a word in capitals: MADDIE . Checking the other books, she saw it appeared in them all. Someone’s birthday perhaps.

The second drawer contained only a notepad and a couple of pens. As she piled the diaries back in, a piece of torn paper fluttered to the ground, with a sentence scrawled on one side.

She’s been fed so DO NOT give her any more. Just some water. J.

Must be about a pet. She slipped the paper into the notepad and moved towards the window. When she pulled back the threadbare curtains she got a faceful of dust. Coughing and waving her hand around, she looked out through the dirty glass into the mist. It was beginning to clear and she could see partway up the hill at the back of the house. Her heart skipped a beat and she tightened her grip on the windowsill.

There was something else down there now, something moving. It was too big to be an animal. She watched as a figure emerged from the fog – a man walking slowly along the rise at the back of the house. She couldn’t make out his features, but it didn’t look like Liam, Mo, or Sandeep. Shrouded in dark, heavy clothes, it reminded her of the figure from her dream. Her heart thudded in her chest.

The man stopped for a moment. He was totally still, but he would see her if he turned towards the house. Hannah’s hand shook as she stretched out for the lamp and switched it off, shrouding herself in darkness. But she couldn’t step away, couldn’t stop staring at the shape of his shoulders. The horribly familiar way that he moved. He was strolling along the ridge again, so smoothly he seemed to slide, just as the figure in her dream had done.

Her eyes followed him on up the hill until the mist swallowed him and he was gone. As if he’d never been there.

She pulled the curtains shut and collapsed onto the chair. Was she finally losing it? Was it all in her head? It must be. But it was nothing to worry about. She needed a drink, that was all. This was the first day without one in a long time. The man was probably just a hiker. But whoever he was, she had to go out and find him, to talk to him, because she needed to know for sure.

Needed to know that he was real.

Walking back to the door, avoiding the broken floorboards, she realized something else had been bothering her all this time. And now she knew what it was: that smell from her dream last night, it was in here too.

The room spun and suddenly all she could smell was that cloying stink. She needed to get out, needed fresh air.

She waited, listening for anyone outside in the corridor, because she didn’t want them to find her here.

When she turned the handle, it wobbled but the door didn’t move. She tried again, this time putting her weight behind it.

The latch. The fucking latch. Why had she let it close behind her?

She wrenched at the door handle, twisted and turned it, pushed and pulled. Come on, come on. Rattled and shook it. Move.

At last the handle began to shift and she pushed down harder, shifted her weight backwards. And the handle came off in her hand.

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