Shaun Hutson - Heathen/Nemesis

They climbed slowly, step by step, their progress agonizingly slow. Donna was aware how hopelessly exposed they would be, should anyone either enter the hall or approach from the head of the stairs. She could see a large landing at the top with more rooms leading off it.

A step creaked protestingly beneath Donna and she froze. The sound seemed to echo around the hall.

She gripped the revolver tightly, looking quickly around her.

‘Come on,’ whispered Julie, her own heart beating faster. ‘Move it.’

Donna remained motionless. After what seemed like an eternity, she began to climb once more.

Julie followed gratefully.

‘Listen,’ said Donna.

Julie heard nothing at first then ...

Breathing.

It sounded as if there was someone close to them, breathing. A low, almost inaudible but laboured breathing.

‘Where the hell is that coming from?’ Julie said frantically, trying to keep her voice low.

Donna had no answer. All she could do was look around, trying to find the source of it.

Was someone watching them?

The breathing sounded close, as if someone were standing right next to them. Yet they were the only ones on the staircase.

Donna felt cold fingers of fear plucking at the hairs on the back of her neck. She moved further up the stairs until she reached the landing.

The breathing continued, a little more faint now, though. The two women looked round at the doors on the landing. They were all tightly closed. The breathing didn’t seem to be coming from any of them.

It still seemed as if it was from an invisible source right beside them.

Imagination?

Julie looked back and forth anxiously. Their assailant could be behind any one of the doors. Just waiting.

‘Donna . . .’

Her words trailed off as she heard a sound below.

One of the doors leading into the hall had opened.

The two women ducked down against the landing rail and watched as a smartly dressed man emerged from a room beyond the hall, his shoes beating out a tattoo on the polished floor. He vanished beneath them, then returned a moment later carrying a bottle of brandy. He disappeared back into the door through which he’d emerged.

For what seemed like an eternity Donna and Julie crouched where they were, watching the closed door. Then Donna raised herself up slowly, moving to the head of the stairs.

‘Come on,’ she said quietly. ‘We’ll see where he’s gone.’

They began to descend, Donna holding the pistol at the ready should the man or any like him appear again.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs Donna heard the low breathing again. She tried to ignore it but she couldn’t. Her heart thumped hard in her chest as she looked around.

‘I can still hear it,’ Julie said, as if to affirm what her older sister already knew.

Donna nodded slowly, and moved across the hall towards the door through which the smartly dressed man had disappeared only moments earlier.

The chandeliers above them pinned them in bright light; Julie could see their reflections in the fine crystal.

There was still no sound except for that infernal low breathing. The entire house seemed to be deserted, but after the appearance of the smartly dressed man, they knew that to be untrue. Could Julie be right? Could this be the wrong house? What if The Sons of Midnight didn’t frequent this building? What if they only gathered at certain times?

What if?

There was only one way to find out.

Donna grabbed the door handle, swallowed hard and pushed.

Eighty-Eight

The corridor beyond the door was less than six feet wide and it stretched about twenty feet ahead of them. The walls on either side were bare. Unlike the hallway, it was lit only by two wall lights, one at either end of the corridor. The far end boasted another closed door. The man they’d seen must have come and gone via the door ahead. There was nowhere else for him to go.

Donna wondered how big the place was. It didn’t seem this big from the outside.

Where the hell was everybody?

Apart from the smartly dressed man, they’d not seen nor heard a living soul.

Heard nothing apart from that low breathing.

Julie looked into the dark corridor with trepidation.

How much longer was this going to go on? She feared that the end would be signalled by their deaths.

Donna moved into the darkened corridor, stepping cautiously, as if she were walking on squeaking floorboards, not carpet-covered concrete.

The wall lights didn’t seem to be powered by anything more substantial than forty-watt bulbs. The glow they cast was a sickly yellow light that barely illuminated the narrow walkway from one door to the other.

The two women moved cautiously along, Donna keeping her eyes ahead, Julie occasionally glancing at the door behind.

Donna put out one hand as if to steady herself against the wall.

Something moved beneath her fingertips.

‘Jesus,’ she hissed, moving away from the wall and looking down.

‘What is it?’ Julie wanted to know, her eyes wide with fear.

Donna didn’t answer. Instead she carefully replaced her hand on the wall where it had been seconds earlier.

She felt it again. Once more the sensation caused her to pull her hand away, as if she’d received an electric shock.

Was she going insane?

She touched the wall again, but left her hand there until she was sure beyond any doubt.

The stonework, the very plaster, was throbbing gently, as if the bricks and mortar contained some kind of pulse.

Donna could see no movement but she could feel the slow, even thudding against her hand.

Dashwood’s words came flooding back to her:

Organic life can exist, can be made to exist, anywhere and within anything. Within the bricks and mortar of a house.’

Donna raised the barrel of the .357. Using the blade foresight as a tool, she drew the sharp fin across the wall.

‘Oh God,’ whispered Julie.

Blood oozed from the mark on the wall.

It welled thickly in the narrow mark Donna had made, then dribbled down the paintwork.

She repeated the action on the other wall.

The same thing happened.

She closed her eyes for long seconds, praying that when she opened them the blood would be gone.

It wasn’t. The thick crimson fluid ran down the wall in rivulets.

Donna swallowed hard and moved forward, towards the door at the end of the dimly lit corridor.

One of the lights flickered.

They froze momentarily as the bulbs went into a kind of stroboscopic dance before flaring full on for a few more seconds.

Then they went out completely.

The two women were plunged into total darkness.

Julie backed up and touched the wall, feeling the pulse in it, scarcely able to stifle her scream of terror. She bit her fist to muffle the sound.

Donna gripped the .357 tightly and moved towards the door at the far end of the corridor.

‘Let’s get out now,’ hissed Julie.

Donna’s answer was to shoot out a hand and grab her sister by the arm, pulling her along with her.

The end of the corridor couldn’t be more than about six or seven feet away, she reasoned.

The lights stayed off. Darkness wrapped itself round them like an impenetrable shroud.

They moved forward in the gloom, nearer and nearer to the door.

The light at the far end of the corridor flickered briefly and Donna saw they were a couple of feet away.

‘Come on,’ she whispered, trying to reassure herself as well as Julie. Her own breathing was heavy now.

She touched something cold and realized that it was the door handle. No light showed beneath. She could only guess at what lay beyond it. More darkness?