Rosie tried pushing the brick into the wall of the cellar again, but it wouldn’t budge.
‘Give her a hand,’ growled Frank, waggling the gun at Daniel.
But it was no use.
‘Harder or I’ll shoot the girl first.’
The two of them pushed with all their strength and the brick began to move. At first they heard the sound of something opening beneath the floor of the cellar and then water starting to rush away. The trapdoor popped open as the water continued to run.
Wet steps below. Bright and grey.
The water was still going down and all three of them watched the slick walls grow taller, Frank flashing his phone as he told Daniel to wave his too.
At first a black heel, like a fin. And then a trouser leg, bedraggled, pasted to the leg of Jiff, his humped back emerging like a tiny island until the rest of him began to appear. When Mason floated up against the bottom step, they heard the gentle thock of his bald head against the stone.
‘Go and get them,’ said Frank, as the last of the water gurgled away. ‘Now!’ he shouted and waggled the gun.
Rosie and Daniel struggled to drag Mason up the steps between them, treading carefully on the greasy stones, and laid him in the cellar. But Jiff had slid away from the steps and was lying in the middle of the floor and the two of them were wary of fetching him out until Rosie noticed that the floor was lower than it had been before, because a border of red brickwork was showing all around the wall.
They wondered why until Daniel worked it out. ‘I think it must have to be reset, otherwise whoever built this would have had the same trouble as us getting a body out.’
He stepped out on to the floor and walked towards Jiff, one foot in front of the other like a tightrope walker going carefully. Rosie followed him too. And they picked Jiff up and carried him across the floor and up the steps. As they emerged into the cellar, they heard cogs grinding in the walls and the floor began to rise, finally locking back into place, the red section of brickwork gone.
Frank motioned with the light from his phone at the steps out of the cellar. ‘Take them upstairs,’ he said.
The two wet bodies were laid in the living room across bars of sunshine on the floor. They steamed like they were gently cooking on a grill.
Frank took the flask from his pocket and threw it to Daniel.
‘Now do to them what you did to the other one.’
‘I don’t know how it wor—’
‘Yes you do. That man in the hole, that body. He was dead. I killed him first time around a couple of months ago and then he was suddenly getting up. So I know that something happened. What he was doing here, you’ll tell me later. But first things first.’ He waved the black revolver at Daniel. ‘Bring them back like you did the first one.’
Daniel knelt in front of Jiff and tried not to look at his face or his eyes as he unscrewed the cap on the flask and tipped it up over the man’s head and allowed a few drops to escape. And then he moved across to Mason and did the same, the droplets hitting his bald head with a smack before seeming to melt and disappear into the skin.
Nothing happened at first.
‘More,’ said Frank. ‘Pour on more.’
But, as Daniel started to unscrew the cap again, Jiff began to move, squirming like a big fish landed on the deck of a boat. He rolled over on to his side and threw up the water in his lungs, rinsing the dust from the floorboards around him.
And then Mason began moving too, his body convulsing like he was being shocked, and when he threw up the water it came out green and dirty and Daniel stepped back from it until he butted up against the wall.
Jiff stood up and blinked and then looked at Mason who was still sitting on the wet floor, staring at Daniel. When he pointed at the flask in the boy’s hands, Daniel just nodded and Mason began to laugh. He slapped his wet thighs so hard he sent up a spray of water.