Alec was sat, elbows on his desk, fingers raised in a steeple, regarding the list of names narrowed down to ten potential candidates. He had spent the month compiling it, beginning initially with twenty-odd students and graduates whom he thought fitting for the role. Two would be chosen, as per usual, contacted first by email and then met in person for the sake of signing contracts and inducing in them the necessary greed to see the project through. Alec had already prepared an updated series of maps, more for his own personal pleasure than the presentation’s benefit.
Five months had passed since Mr French and Ms Coogan returned to Tír Mallacht. Not surprisingly, they hadn’t been heard from again. Had Mr French succeeded, then Alec knew the man would have come to collect what was owed to him. His absence from the front gate could only mean that the creeper’s curse remained and that Alec’s strife prevailed.
The conditions were, however, improving as they always did this time of year. The days were harvesting more light and in a few short weeks the clocks would make their jump forward, leaving all those long, dark evenings behind them. Alec’s disposition had every reason to scuttle out of the shadows.
Different universities. Same academic disciplines. Alec was well versed in the process. Historians and archaeologists, it had been decided, were best equipped to gather the information he needed. Also, careers in these fields took years to flourish. This made Alec’s financial incentive more alluring when it came to buying their confidentiality.
He didn’t expect any complications during the recruitment process. It was only afterwards, upon the team’s return from Tír Mallacht, did Alec need to depart from his usual procedure. He would acquaint them with how the creeper’s curse came to be. Whilst it could also enhance their chances to bring to light a few theories yet to be refuted in the field. Should all go to plan, they would return to the village by their own volition and there seek out a means to save themselves and any undisclosed offspring that they were either too ashamed or too moneygrubbing to mention. Alec was of the belief that everyone was allowed to act a little selfishly when it came to their own survival. He was, of course, no exception to this rule.
Behind the curtains of his study, the shutters had rolled down before sunset. He was glad to have another project to occupy his mind. Alec resolved to approach it patiently, milking it for all the hours it was worth. He would return to his list with a fresh pair of eyes the following morning and whittle the prospective recruits down to five. That would make for an enjoyable distraction. The thought of having something to do always lifted his spirits.
The grandfather clock chimed eight times. Alec had stayed at his desk later than usual. Without Lara to tend his routine, time had admittedly gotten away from him. She had called that morning to inform him that her mother had fallen ill. The woman’s health, to his knowledge, was oft in doubt, and yet this was the first time Lara felt duty-bound to give her employer’s wellbeing a miss in lieu of her mother’s. She had, however, promised to visit Alec should her mother show signs of improvement. But of this there was no guarantee. As put out as he was by the inconvenience of it all, Alec bade her to pass his wishes on to the woman, though this kindness was spoken through gritted teeth.
Had Lara been on the premises, she would have visited him long before now. It was her habit to inform him of his evening meal by seven o’clock. He liked to pretend that she was only out of sight, in another room, otherwise occupied with her chores about his home.
He poured himself a short brandy and moved to the armchair. The fire had taken promptly to the timber and the man was quietly impressed with his efforts. Alec stretched his old legs out towards its warmth. He closed his eyes and listened, expecting to mark Lara’s entry at any moment, only to sigh at the thought of her caring for another. Alec considered calling on the off chance that her mother had since recovered. But he wasn’t confident that he could phrase the question without offending the girl’s privacy and coming across as pathetic.
Lara had never let him down like this in the past. He emptied his glass, swallowing down these selfish notions. The girl’s mother was poorly, and here was Alec condemning her for his empty stomach. He tried not to worry. Tomorrow, everything would return to normal. With this in mind, he vowed to visit the kitchen himself. Maybe Lara, ever organised, had left something out for him in the novel case of this happening. It wouldn’t be unlike the dear girl to anticipate his needs.
He rose to his feet, letting himself groan aloud, safe in the knowledge that nobody was around to hear. His legs ached as he padded his way across the study; there was certainly nothing unusual about that. Alec was surprised, however, to find that the door leading into the corridor was locked. He had no recollection of it being so before, even as a child. It must have been a fault within its mechanism. His was an old house after all.
Had Lara returned without him knowing? Surely not. The girl had a quiet step but even she couldn’t have passed behind his chair unnoticed.
He rapped on the door and waited. When no response came, he tried again with heavier knocks. The study was starting to feel uncomfortably warm. If Lara was in the corridor or the kitchen, then she must have heard him. Alec pulled the handle hard but it was of no use. Every door in his home was near indestructible by design. A locksmith would be required. In which case he was trapped in the study until daybreak and Lara was shut up, too. He would have to compensate her for the inconvenience of it all.
This problem, like any other, required some thought. And so, Alec replenished his glass and returned to his armchair.
It was highly unusual for a door to lock by its own accord without key or tampering. Lara was not a key-holder for any door bar the main entrance, nor had her mother ever been. Alec slept better knowing that his home’s security was in his safe hands alone. The doors throughout the house’s ground floor had keys, yes, but they were never locked. To the best of Alec’s knowledge, he had stored whatever keys he had in the top drawer of his desk. There was every chance that the one he now needed counted amongst them. Dinner could still be on the menu.
Alec slid open the drawer and went about rummaging through its various effects. There were envelopes tidied into its corner, a silver letter opener, diaries, and a miscellany of paper. He turned its contents over and over, frustrated by the sudden truancy of order in his life, but the keys were not there.
It was his housekeeper’s responsibility to lock the outside door. The key to the inner one always resided in its keyhole. Now, to further his mystification, Alec found that also to be missing. He tested its handle – locked. It would seem his movements were confined to the study, though no longer by choice.
Alec resettled into his chair. The fire needed stoking. But instead of taking due action he simply stared into its flames, too disturbed by the evening’s odd turn to notice the needs of another.
Could Lara be responsible? She was the only other with access to his home. No, she was dependable, as her sick mother had been. Neither of them had ever flouted his daily rituals or acted out so strangely as to go about his home, locking doors and stashing away their keys. There had to be a reasonable explanation. It would come to him. Alec just had to think awhile. The firelight had retreated from his chair. But there was peace in the crackling of its wood, and an understanding that all would be fine once he and Lara had spoken.
Then, Alec heard it – a sound he knew so well and yet one entirely unexpected in that moment. The grind of the shutters. They were lifting. Every single panel that guarded the study’s windows was furling upwards, leaving only the curtains between Alec and the night, where he knew the creeper had stood since the day he was born.
His fingers scratched into the chair’s leather as he stared at the curtains, fearing them to fall from their hooks at any second. He listened to the shutters’ slow, metallic roll. And then there was silence. Alec imagined that face described to him by all those now deceased. Did it loom inches from the pane, yearning to be seen?
He jumped to his feet and glanced fearfully around the room, feeling suddenly cold and vulnerable; trapped in a prison of his own making. The windows were many and occupied much of the wall space. The creeper could have been at any one of them. Alec cupped his hands over his mouth, thinking, trying to understand why so many irregularities had assailed him on a single evening. His thoughts raced through a labyrinth of possibilities and no matter which turn they took the conclusion was always the same – this was no malfunction. Somebody had orchestrated this.
Alec returned to the locked door. He hammered on it, alternating between fists, calling for Lara, his voice becoming faster and louder with every passing second of no response. The control panel for the security system was in the corridor, mere feet from where Alec stood, driving his frail shoulder into a door that ten men would fail to budge.
If only Lara would activate the shutters, then all would be forgiven. He would double her salary. She could choose her own reward.
Alec froze at the sound of smashed glass. The curtain was seen to move; its languor disturbed by whatever had broken through the pane and landed with a thud where particles now tinkled on the floor. He watched in horror as the curtain waved gently inward from the night’s breeze.
‘Who’s there?’ he cried out.
Another window was heard to shatter, and then another. Every pane of glass in Alec’s study – his sanctum from the world – was being deliberately and systematically destroyed. He turned his back on them and clenched his eyes shut.
‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘I have money. I can give you more than you’ll ever need. Just, please, leave me be.’
Feet crunched on broken glass; a succession of slow, measured steps. Someone had entered through the empty frame. A curtain swished open. Alec couldn’t contain his shriek when he heard it being wrenched down to the floor. The cold was fast to enter. He felt it like a hand caressing his neck, primed to strangle. The next curtain was torn from the wall. One by one, every broken window was exposed, and Alec stood trembling, visualising the horror behind him – the night in all its moonlit glory, unseen for so many years.
‘Please,’ Alec repeated. ‘I’ll give you whatever you want.’
Their step was quieter now. They had passed into the room, treading across its rug, making Alec’s home their own. His fortress had been breached, and with such ease. He listened to the scrape of steel as the fire poker was drawn from its holder, like a brass blade unsheathed. Whoever it was, they were scratching at the grate, stirring its embers back to life. A log was heard to tumble onto the floor before the poker was dropped with a padded clamour. Still, Alec refused to turn, to even loosen his eyelids. Something was burning. The fire that he had abandoned had found a means to survive. The Persian rug touched everything that was Alec’s; his chair and desk, the tables and fittings, all those treasured things that would burn so easily.
‘What do you want?’ he called out.
Alec could hear the fragile crick and crack of bone, as though the intruder crossed a frozen lake thawing to fracture. It had to be a man. He was breathing heavily through his mouth, drawing ominously closer; ubiquitous in the blind darkness that Alec clung to.
He couldn’t risk opening his eyes. He could have caught a glimpse of the creeper in a framed reflection or in the polished belly of a silver bowl. His father had warned him of the eye. It wants to see. Even the strongest mind cannot quell its curiosity.
The man came to stand in front of Alec. An arm’s reach away. Even over the rising smoke his breath was noxious. Few knew of Alec’s existence. Even fewer knew where he lived. Was he the victim of an indiscriminate misdeed or was this some vengeful ghost from his past?
‘Is that you, Barry?’ he asked, unable to steady his voice.
No reply came, only that deep, drawn-out panting and the growl of the hot flames now chewing through his father’s rug.
‘Mr French,’ he whispered, ‘is it you? Please, tell me who you are.’
He could feel the fire’s warmth feeding greedily on the floor, climbing the legs of his chair, and cooking the contents of each drawer in his desk like an oven. The curtains had caught fire. Alec could smell their ancient mustiness. All those odours hoarded over the years were finally released as one. He imagined the windows barricaded by a wall of the blackest smoke.
It couldn’t have been the creeper. Alec hadn’t seen him three times. It was by these rules that the man had survived. Then why was the creeper’s face all that he could envisage in the timeless horror of that moment? Every description he had ever known was forced into his mind, ever-changing and yet smiling throughout each terrible guise.
‘You can’t do this,’ he said, every fibre of his being aquiver. ‘I haven’t seen you!’
His throat was suddenly seized by the coldest fingers, so long that they choked him like a collar. Alec grabbed the man’s wrists. They were as bone; fleshless, but extraordinarily strong. He couldn’t pry himself free. And this futile fight for air relinquished the rules of a lifetime.
Alec opened his eyes.
It was nothing like he had imagined, not in his most haunting of nightmares. The creeper was more terrifying than he could have ever thought possible.
Flames brushed the grandfather clock as it rang in the ninth hour; fated to burn like everything else in Alec’s home – his prison and his tomb.