DARK COUNTY Page 6

  Now it was gone. We stepped out of the car and surveyed the now empty plot. Everything was gone, the fence, the overgrown garden and the house itself. The crew that Rob had hired for the demolition had taken away all the debris and turned over the earth. All that remained was a large square of fresh brown dirt.

  I felt a sense of relief, surely now whatever curse we had brought upon ourselves was over.

  ‘So what are you planning to do with the land?’ I asked as we stood there looking at the empty space the house used to occupy. ‘Selling it on?’

  Rob shrugged.

  ‘At some point probably. Though I might build a new house there first. Make a much better profit.’

  ‘Is that a good idea?’ I said

  ‘It’s gone, Chris,’ Rob said. ‘It’s over, the house is gone. Time to start afresh. What better way than building a new house here?’

  I looked at him. I knew him well enough to know that when he had his mind set on something it was almost impossible to convince him otherwise, it was the personality trait that had made him the wealthy young man that stood before me now.

  ‘Promise me one thing,’ I said, looking back out across the fresh earth.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘You won’t live here, you won’t ever come back here,’ I said. ‘I think the only way that we can truly end this is if we all stay away.’

  ‘Sure thing,’ he said. ‘I have no intention of living here myself.’

  It was a lie. I later became sure that even that day as we looked at the place the house had stood, that Rob knew full well the house he was building was for him and his wife. It took months for me to find out. Rob avoided all contact with me, as far as I was aware he was still living in the city running his software company. Little did I know that once again we were living in the same postcode, that Rob had sold his company and retired at the grand old age of twenty-six.

  It was early December when I found out. It was late night shopping in Boston, the streets lit up with Christmas lights and the smell of roast chestnuts clinging to the air. I walked through the hustle and bustle of the crowds, minding my own business. My bipolar disorder had finally been diagnosed. After years of wondering what the hell was wrong with me, I finally had a name. This was actually a great relief, knowing that my mood swings and erratic behaviour were actually a symptom of a medical condition. I had new medication and for the first time in what felt like forever, I felt good about myself.

  I was just walking past Oldrids, the town’s very own department store, when I saw Lucy, Rob’s wife, coming towards me. She was laden down with so many shopping bags that I rushed to help her. She looked pleased to see me and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

  ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said as I lightened her load.

  ‘You, too,’ I said. I walked her to the multi storey car park behind Oldrids, carrying most of the bags.

  ‘How’s Rob?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s good,’ she said, but there was something in her tone of voice that concerned me. She must have picked up on it. ‘No, really, he’s fine. I think he’s just having some trouble adapting to all the free time now he’s sold the company.’

  This was the first I had heard of this. I was shocked, Rob and I were never in constant contact, but I was sure he would have told me some major news like that.

  ‘He what?’ I said.

  ‘He sold the company, about six months ago, didn’t he tell you?’ Now she looked concerned. I neither wanted to cause Lucy any undue distress, nor get my best friend in trouble with his wife.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I lied. ‘Of course he did. Sorry it’s these new meds they’ve given me, they’re playing havoc with my memory.’

  She smiled. Lucy had always been one of the most understanding people about my mood swings, more so than her husband if I was honest.

  ‘You poor thing,’ she said, putting a gentle hand on my arm. ‘Is that why you haven’t been round to see the house yet?’

  I knew instantly what house she meant. I knew why I had not heard from Rob in months, and I knew why he had not told me about selling the company. He had broken his promise to me; he had done the one thing he had told me he wouldn’t. He had built a new house by the marsh and he was living there.

  ‘You say he’s having trouble adjusting?’ I said. ‘In what way?’

  ‘Oh it’s nothing, really,’ she said. ‘He’s just drinking a little more than usual, and he’s moody some times, but I’m sure it will get better soon.’

  I nodded and we continued walking to the car park. There was a silence between us, one that was not uncomfortable, but it was there.

  When we reached the car, I loaded the bags into the boot for her. She thanked me.

  ‘We’re having a little Christmas party next week, it would be great if you could make it,’ she said. ‘It’s on Friday night.’

  ‘Damn I have to work,’ I lied. There was no way in hell I was going to set foot in that house. ‘Get Rob to call me, though, I’ve not heard from him in a while.’

  She told me that she would pass the message on, and then we parted.

  I never did hear from Rob and never would again. The following week at his and Lucy’s Christmas party, Rob went mad. He shot seven people, killing six of them including Lucy, before turning the gun on himself. The survivors told how Rob had not seemed himself all night, he was distant and quiet, not at all like the Rob I knew. They also explained that he looked disheveled, his clothes creased and his hair a mess, and needing a shave. Rob prided himself on his appearance, and since he had the money to get the best of everything, he always looked good. The friends of his who had survived that night explained that Lucy kept apologising for him whenever he left the room, saying he had been a little under the weather. They said that Lucy herself looked tired, as though she had not been sleeping well. When questioned, she had said that Rob hadn’t been sleeping well and been wandering the house at all hours and it had affected her sleeping.

  After everyone had eaten, except Rob who apparently just sat there moving the food around his plate, Rob got up and left the room. The stress was beginning to show on Lucy they said, who started crying. While most of the guests tried to comfort Lucy, her brother, Niles, went to see what the hell Rob was playing at.

  According to the survivors, Niles had only been gone a few minutes when they heard the first shot, a deafening bang that made them all jump. None of them thought it was a gunshot, though, why would they? Niles was the first to die, shot in the head at close range with 9 mm pistol. God knows where Rob had gotten the gun, but those things aren’t hard to find when you have the money. Rob then proceeded back to the dining room, where he began to fire off rounds in all directions. He shot his dear wife, Lucy, three times in the chest. When he ran out of ammo, he slipped in another magazine and continued firing on the guests who were all running around trying to escape him. When he was down to the last round, he turned the gun on himself. One survivor said that his last words were ‘You win.’

  None of the guests, nor the police, nor anyone else knew the meaning of those final words Rob uttered, no one except me that is. I knew all too well what he meant, the house had won, it had beaten him. The old house may have been destroyed, but whatever evil it was that lingered there was in the very earth itself.

  The house was sold to pay compensation to all of those who had been injured and those who had lost family in Rob’s killing spree. It was no surprise to me that it was soon boarded up, the place was now involved in so many hideous crimes and deaths that surely no one would want to live there again.

  I became ever more obsessed with the house by the marsh, at least twice a week I would drive down there, just to make sure that it was still all boarded up and secure. Having been one myself, I knew full well what the kids round here were like. A boarded up house is tempting for teenagers, they liked to try and get in, either looking for ghosts or just to trash the place. Not that I cared if they wrecked the place, I just didn’t wan
t anyone going in there for their own safety. There was something about having direct contact with the place that infected you with its darkness. It had happened to both Danny and Rob, and I felt it myself, every time I went down there. It was a pulling sensation in the pit of my stomach, a desire in my head to just take a quick look inside, but I fought it, knowing that if I entered the house once it would gradually draw me in, corrupting me as it had my friends.

  On my thirtieth birthday, I had a surprise phone call from Wayne, asking me if I wanted to go out for a celebratory drink. I had only spoken to Wayne twice since Danny’s funeral, and one of those times was at Rob’s. I agreed to go and meet him, though. I had been feeling a little low and thought that a drink with one of my oldest friends might pick me up.

  It started as a pleasant afternoon. We went into town to the gastro pub by the river and sat there catching up. Wayne said that he only had a few more months left in the army and that he and his family would be moving back to the area. He showed me pictures of the girls, who were now eight years old and absolutely beautiful. I told him how much I envied him, his wife, his kids, his place in life. I had drifted along from one relationship to another, most of them toxic from the start. It seemed that no one knew how to deal with my condition, and expecting them to do so was unfair on my part. Career wise I had drifted from one thing to another, never lasting more than a year, usually a lot less. I started every job with great enthusiasm, but then a low period would hit, and I would lose all interest in everything. The jobs I didn’t get fired from, I quit.

  We talked about the old days and, of course, about Danny and Rob, not the murderers they became in adulthood, but the kids we had known. These were happy memories, which had us both crying with laughter.

  ‘I just can’t understand how they turned out the way they did,’ Wayne said, souring the mood. ‘Especially not Rob, he was always so together.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said.

  I didn’t know whether to tell him my theory, that something dark and twisted had got inside us when we all looked into that house. Would he understand? He had seen the house, and been as afraid of it as we had, but would he believe such a wild story, especially from a man who had spent the last four years on antipsychotic drugs?

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if it was that old house by the marsh,’ Wayne said, as though reading my thoughts. I looked at him open mouthed, shocked that he had made that connection as well.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ I asked, not wanting to give away too much too soon.

  ‘Sometimes I dream about that house. I know it’s long gone now, Rob saw to that, but in my dreams it’s still there.’

  ‘In a way I think it is,’ I said. ‘It just looks different now.’

  ‘You remember that night we first found the place?’ Wayne asked.

  ‘Like it was yesterday,’ I said.

  ‘I think something got hold of Danny when he looked through that crack in the door. Something that made him do those things to those girls.’

  I couldn’t believe that Wayne, who had been away for so long, had the exact same theory as me.

  ‘Then Rob looked in there, that night after Danny’s funeral,’ Wayne continued.

  ‘How did you know about that?’ I asked, shocked. I had only learned that from Rob after the house was destroyed.

  ‘I was with him,’ Wayne said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He rang me up, half cut, saying you had gone home cos you couldn’t handle your booze, and that he was too drunk to drive, so he needed a lift,’ he explained. ‘At first I thought he just meant a lift home, but he soon told me where he wanted to go.’

  I put my head in my hands, then looked up at Wayne.

  ‘Did you look through the crack in door, too?’ I asked.

  Wayne nodded.

  ‘What did you see?’ I asked him, hoping just once to get a straight, honest answer to that question.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. I couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. ‘Something freaked Rob out, though, he wouldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘So we’ve all looked into that house,’ I said. ‘It keeps on pulling us back, one at a time and making us do evil things.’

  Wayne and I went our separate ways not long after that conversation. I was troubled, the thought that none of us were safe played heavily on my mind. I began to check the house everyday. Some nights I even slept in my car outside it, just to make sure that no one, especially Wayne, went anywhere near it.

  A few months later, I was woken by the sound of a car pulling up behind mine outside the house. My neck was stiff from sleeping in the car and I felt groggy. What sleep I had managed was uncomfortable and filled with dark dreams. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a familiar face getting out of the car behind. It was Lance Jones, another old school friend. He was one of the most successful local estate agents.

  I got out of the car and stretched my aching legs. It was nine in the morning and the sun was shining, casting a golden haze over the fields and hedgerows around me. I looked at the house and saw that still it looked dark, shadows clung to it as though they were painted on. I turned and waved at Lance, he looked confused.

  ‘Alright, Chris?’ he said. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  I walked over and shook his hand.

  ‘I just went for a drive last night, and felt tired so I pulled over, must have slept all night,’ I lied.

  ‘Christ, I bet you’re a bit stiff this morning then?’ he said, walking over to the boot of his car.

  ‘A little,’ I replied. ‘What brings you out here?’

  He didn’t need to answer when I saw him pull the new sign out of the boot. It clearly said SOLD, in big bold letters. I felt for a second like I was going to faint, all of the energy left me, my legs buckled and I had to lean against the car to stop from falling. Lance didn’t notice, he was too busy getting the sign out of the boot.

  ‘I’ve finally managed to sell the place,’ he said with a beaming grin. ‘Not for anywhere near what it’s worth, but still it’s a commission, and it means the place is finally off my hands.’

  I wanted to punch him in his stupid, smug, beaming face. I wanted to break his nose and scream at him, ask him if he had any idea what he had done. I controlled myself, not allowing myself to give in to the darkness inside me; that was exactly what the house wanted. I could feel it watching me, I could almost hear its voice whispering in my ear, telling me to hit him, beat him, kill him. I pushed the thought away.

  ‘How did you manage it?’ I said. ‘I mean aren’t you supposed to tell people about things like what happened here?’

  Lance beamed again.

  ‘I didn’t have to,’ he said. ‘He knew all about it.’

  A mix of realisation and dread hit me hard. I didn’t have to ask him, I knew now who had bought the house, I just wanted to hear it from his lips.

  ‘Who bought it?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not really supposed to give out that information,’ he said. ‘But he’ll tell you himself, I’m sure. It now belongs to Wayne Cooper.’

  I went home and called Wayne. I asked him if he was back in town. He said that he was staying at his mum’s with the girls while his wife finalised the sale of her house in Yorkshire. I didn’t ask him about the house by the marsh, nor did he tell me his news about buying it. I asked him if he was free later for a drink. He said that he could fit me in for a few hours.

  We met up at the same pub we had gone to when we had spoken last. As I approached the bar, I was shocked at his appearance. He was stood there waiting for me, his hair was longer than I’d seen it since we left school, and more unkempt than I’d ever seen it. His face was covered in a growth of hair that was beyond stubble, but too patchy to be considered an actual beard. He was dressed in sweat pants and a baggy jumper. He looked pale, and there were dark circles around his eyes.

  We exchanged a few perfunctory pleasantries before taking our drink outside to the beer garden on the riverside. There
was no one else out there, which was a good thing as I knew that this was going to end in an argument.

  ‘Why?’ I asked as we sat looking out at the brown water of the river.

  ‘You know then?’ he said, taking another sip of his drink. ‘I guessed you did when you called.’

  ‘Why on Earth would you want to buy that place?’ I said.

  ‘My family needs a new house, here, and it was a great price.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Because of all the fucking murders that have happened there, or did you forget about that?’ I said, feeling the muscles in my face contracting in anger.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t forget that house. I dream about it almost every night, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I knew if I bought it, and lived there, I could prove to myself it’s just a house.’

  I thumped the table.

  ‘That’s just what it wants you to think,’ I said. ‘It draws us in, and makes us do terrible things, Wayne. For God’s sake, think about your girls.’

  He leant over and grabbed me by the collar.

  ‘I am thinking about my girls,’ he said, spitting in my face. ‘Look at the state of me. Do you think having a father who looks and acts like this all the time is good for them? I can’t sleep, I have no energy, I’m short-tempered all the time. Do you think that’s a pleasant life for my daughters?’

  He let me go, and I took a sip of my drink.

  ‘It already has a hold on you,’ I said. ‘Can’t you see it? You know what comes next.’

  ‘It’s just a fucking house,’ he screamed at me. ‘Bricks and mortar, nothing else. No ghoulies, no ghosties, and no fucking curses.’

  ‘Then how do you explain everything that’s happened?’ I screamed back at him.

  ‘Coincidence,’ he said. ‘Nothing more than that.’

  ‘You really believe that?’ I said.

  ‘I have to,’ he said. ‘You know, you’re the one who’s obsessed with that place.’