Haunted (Chapter 2)
There was still the topmost floor to explore, which was reached by a small staircase at the far end of a long passage. It was narrow and presented a steeper climb than the one offered by the main staircase, and there was a cramped turn to the right after the first few steps. The stairs were carpeted in the same burgundy that adorned the landing, but the material was thinner here, frayed and threadbare in places, and the age of the floorboards was given away with much creaking and groaning.
There were only two rooms to be found at the top, their doors facing each other across a slim, plain, unappealing corridor. Each of them was empty and gave every indication of having been that way for some time. The air was damp; the bare floors were uneven, loose and mottled; the walls were grey, with ancient paint flaking and peeling away, little pieces flecking the dusty floor and hanging in cobwebs. Such light as there was entered through grimy, uncurtained windows. There were electric light fittings in the sloping ceiling, but none held a bulb. The rooms were intended to be dark places.
Each seemed identical in its gloomy appearance, the only points of any note occurring in the west-facing room where one of the walls was found to have been scored here and there with long deep lines, as though a fork had been scratched along the surface. And yet it would have had to be a large fork – perhaps a gardening implement of some kind – for the lines were too far apart for them to be the marks of anything smaller. There was also a dark stain on the floor, in the middle of the room, perhaps brown in colour though it was hard to tell what it might originally have been, much less explain its cause.
These ugly, unsettling features made this room even less promising than its bleak neighbour, and Alvin was glad that he had no need of the extra space. He closed the door behind him but it did not remain shut; the catch was too old and worn to be effective now, and the locking chamber had been removed entirely. The same was true of the opposite door. Alvin pulled at each of them in turn, and each in turn insisted on remaining open, creaking its way to a standstill, beckoning one to enter.
Alvin, made unnaturally disconsolate by the surroundings, returned to the ground floor rooms where the neatly appointed and comfortable features cheered him immediately. He was pleased with the room where he was to work, and he looked forward to making a start. Before that he only had to arrange a few things to settle in. He located the nearest shops and found everything he needed to stock the kitchen; and cooking himself a meal at once made the place more of a home. He ate well and felt the exertions of the day beginning to have their effect, and decided on an early night so that he might make a prompt beginning to his work the next day. Going upstairs, he chose the largest of the four bedrooms, cleared the spaces of the apparently unwanted clothes, and replaced them with his own belongings. Being accustomed to travel he was not upset by unfamiliar places, and he felt the satisfying lull of sleep even as he wound his watch. The strange business with the abandoned property did not concern him for too long, and the peculiar features of the attic rooms intruded upon his thoughts only a very little. Sleep came upon him almost at once.
It was in the early hours of the morning that he awoke, when the sky was still dark and the streets were empty, and all was silent. At first he did not know what had caused him to stir, but he came to realise that it must have been the odd sensation of the dream that had disturbed him. In his dream he had become aware that someone was in the next room. This person was pacing the room and seemingly searching for something, for Alvin could hear the repeated noises of drawers being opened and closed, and doors swinging on hinges. The activity must have been agitated as the noises were quite audible. It was this that had caused him to wake, and now he sat upright in his bed, staring into the dark and listening for the same noises. A flicker of good sense reminded him that it had just been a dream and that silence was all he could expect; but as he sat there, his eyes becoming accustomed to the dark and allowing him to discern the features of the opposing wall, he became convinced that the silence was not of emptiness but of inaction. It was the silence that occurs when one becomes aware of an unwanted presence, and actions are stilled so that one’s own presence is unnoticed, as when one is hiding and does not wish to be detected. Whatever was in the next room – and he now had the unshakable conviction that something was in the next room – it had ceased its movements so as to remain hidden. The intruder had stopped because it knew Advin was awake and was listening. It knew Alvin was there. The unease was great enough to keep him awake, and though he told himself that it had only been a dream, he was awkward and stiff in the way he lay down, and he chose not to turn his back on the door. There was only the silence, but this did not instil sleep until the morning light seeped through the curtains and began to creep across the floor.
Kushalini 