Out on the concrete runway that had launched B17 aircraft on bombing missions over Germany two men talked. Both were incongruous. In the moonlight, with mist drifting in from the marsh, Fisher stood with the white electric guitar slung over his back by its leather strap; while the man called Blaxton, clad in cream-coloured sweatshirt and pants blew into his cold hands.
The man’s words spoken seconds ago resonated in Fisher’s head: ‘Fifteen years ago I stayed for a week. I was there with friends, too. I was the only one to come out alive.’
Blaxton gazed at the house a if he was looking into the face of an oozing corpse. ‘There won’t be enough time to tell you everything. Huh, I don’t suppose you’ll believe me for a moment.’ He shrugged. ‘I can’t help that.’
‘You said you were the only one to come out alive?’
‘That’s right. The only one.’ Blaxton’s face was grim as he turned to Fisher. ‘Has it started on you yet? Have any of your friends been hurt? Anyone wished they’d never been born?’ His voice grew increasingly bitter.
‘Tell me what happened, then.’
‘You’re an impatient one, Mr Fisher, aren’t you? Or is it an instinct for self-preservation? Good God, let’s hope it’s the latter.’ He rubbed his arms as the cold sliced through the thin fabric of his sweatshirt. ‘Your guitar?’
Fisher shook his head. ‘A friend’s.’
To ask why Fisher had chosen to lug a guitar round the countryside would have been a natural question, but the man was in no mood to digress. ‘We arrived here fifteen years ago. It was early spring. I remember there was still snow on the ground. There were five of us. All under thirty. The house hadn’t been used in months. Before that it had been a conference centre which had gone bust. I’d formed a production company with people I’d worked with at the BBC. We didn’t have much money but pooled what we had. So we rolled up here in an old van with a camera, tape stock and more ambition than was healthy. We’d decided to make a programme that would generate the most publicity, which would then lead to a series commission. All clear cut. Well planned. Research done. Everything.’ He looked at me. ‘We were on a ghost hunt.’ He blew into his hands. Tendrils of white vapour bled out between his fingers. ‘And we’d got The Tower to ourselves. A huge haunted house. We had automatic cameras, tape machines to leave running in empty rooms …’
I left the video camera in the ballroom. I saw what happened to me … Already Fisher had decided to invite Blaxton to see what he’d recorded a couple of hours ago.
Blaxton talked faster. He sensed the clock ticking away the seconds. A countdown … but a countdown to what? ‘We set up the camera. I filmed talking head shots of our presenter. “Tonight ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves in a mansion in a remote corner of Yorkshire. The Tower. The most haunted house in Britain …” You know the sort of thing, Mr Fisher. You’ll have seen plenty like it. Only this was turning out to be different from what we expected. Have you taken a look round inside the place?’
Fisher nodded.
Blaxton continued, ‘You’ve seen the walkway called The Promenade?’
‘And The Good Heart.’
‘Yeah, The Good Heart. An innocuous name for the most diabolical … evil … bit of stonework on this planet.’ He suddenly appeared uncomfortable at speaking the name. He glanced back as if he expected to see an eavesdropper. The mist had thickened again now. All Fisher could make out were a few square yards of concrete, flanked by pools of stagnant water. Again a frog croaked in the darkness.
‘Ugly place isn’t it, Fisher? You know, it’s all sinking into the mire. Best place for it. Yeah, well … we set up a tape recorder in The Good Heart and left it running. Research told us that The Good Heart was a medieval farmhouse built in the thirteenth century. Originally it was called The God Heart, but later owners changed it, maybe they thought The God Heart was blasphemous. Of course, who ever built the ugly pile wouldn’t have been referring to the Christian God, anyway. It would have been the temple site of one of the pagan honchos. A historian we interviewed even speculated that this was the burial site of the heart of the pagan god. You’ve seen the carving over the door? That’s a carving from the original temple that stood here. It’ll have been incorporated into the newer stonework to act as a kind of talisman. Maybe owners of the farmhouse that would become known as The Good Heart hoped it would bring good luck.’ His eyes strayed back to The Tower. ‘It brought anything but good luck. Parish records show that when the county was hit by the plague lots of people from the area retreated to the house where they thought they’d be safe. A year later when the king sent his army back into these areas that had been decimated by disease they found all that was left in the house were dozens of skeletons. Vermin had picked them clean. So, you’ll be asking yourself why wasn’t The Good Heart ripped down when The Tower was built on the same site? People can be superstitious. In Britain nearly every church is built on the site of a pagan temple. Some even recycled stone carvings from the temples into the fabric of Christian churches. When the new priests had their churches built they believed that the old magic hadn’t vanished. That it was still humming away there in the ground – all primed and ready to go. And they could draw on the old supernatural powers. Maybe it was with the best of intentions. You know, that it would bring them luck, keep away the Devil, fill the churches with the faithful every Sunday. Same goes for the guy who built The Tower. Maybe he walked into the ruined old farmhouse before he brought the wreckers in and he thought, Whoa. Just feel this vibe. I want some of that. So, not only did he leave the façade standing, he enveloped it with his own house. He wanted to capture lightning in a bottle. What did he do when The Tower was finished? I don’t know. Maybe he sat naked on a huge throne in The Good Heart and crafted schemes of world conquest.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘That’s it for the history. We’re almost out of time.’
Blaxton’s voice adopted an air of finality. The kind of tones a prisoner might use when the guard on death row told him it was almost time for that last walk. Even though Fisher only stood ten paces from the man a mist drifted between them. It blurred his face until it resembled a skull hovering there above the ground. A frog called. A splash sounded from the swamp. A sense of foreboding knotted Fisher’s stomach. Time is on collision course with the inevitable. That understanding didn’t come in words but in painful clenches inside his body. Nerve endings flared in alarm. The man’s face now appeared as a melting skull in the mist. Surely, it was an effect of moonlight conspiring with drifting droplets of water vapour. Only …
Only Fisher recalled the video he’d watched of himself. And those nightmares … Kym and Josanne had them, too.
Fisher spoke. ‘Blaxton, how long was it before your friends started having the bad dreams.’
‘Bad dreams?’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Don’t you wish they were only bad dreams?’ Once more Blaxton checked his watch. This time he grunted as if he experienced a stab of pain. ‘Mr Fisher, I’m sorry. There isn’t time to tell you what you need to know.’
‘Why?’
‘Don’t ask why. Don’t interrupt. I’ll keep speaking for as long as I can. What you do with the information is up to you. OK. You and your friends have been having bad dreams. My friends did, too. And here it is without sugar coating. They experienced visions of their own death. Within hours or days of that vision they died. Sorry to be brutal with the truth, but there it is, my friend. Ssh, no questions: there isn’t time. The first to die dreamt he fell from The Tower. When he woke up he told me about it. His hands were shaking with fear. In the nightmare he’d been walking on the roof. He heard the chimes … oh, yes, you’ve heard the chimes, I know you have … he heard the chimes from that clock in The Good Heart. Anyway … the roof is flat. It’s designed for walking on. Only as he heard the chimes in his dream it tipped up. He dreamt he slid off of it like meat from a chopping board. Bang. Fell down on the driveway. My friend had tears in his eyes as he told me he felt his bones break. That he knew he was dead. Yeah, right. Just a nightmare. We took the piss. We laughed at him.’
‘Then it happened.’
‘Hell, yes. Then it happened, Mr Fisher.’ Blaxton spoke with renewed urgency. ‘The guy went up on the roof with the camera. He planned to set up for a shot of the grounds. I guess the nightmare still scared the crap out of him but we’d taunted him so mercilessly he didn’t want to be seen as a coward.’ Blaxton shrugged. ‘My friend screamed. I saw him fall all the way to the ground. Just like he told me.’ Now he looked too cold to shiver. ‘The next day it was the same. Carol-Anne told me that she’d dreamt her car burst into flames. She said as she burned she could still hear the chimes of the clock. Those blasted chimes, eh, Mr Fisher?’
‘What about the rest?’
‘What do you think? I don’t have to spell it out, do I?’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Not that there’s time anyway. But they all dreamt their own death. They all heard chimes. They all died. If you’ve had similar nightmares then it’s time to get the hell out – and fast. You follow?’
Fisher nodded. A grim coldness spread through his veins.
Blaxton fastened his stare on his watch yet again. ‘I make it nine. But I know this watch is a few seconds fast.’
‘Why? What’s so important about the time?’
‘Nine o’clock? If you’re crazy enough to stay here you’d best find some answers. When I left I didn’t stop to pick up my stuff. But I’d already stored some audio tapes in the cellar. I tied them in a plastic sack – a big red one – if its still there you can’t miss it. They might be useful.’
‘After fifteen years?’
‘The tapes are probably exactly where I left them. Believe me, not many people visit the cellar. They’re the original medieval vaults of The Good Heart. The epicentre.’
‘I’ll find them.’
‘Good. But even better if you drive away from here tonight.’
‘We’re looking for our friend. She hasn’t been seen all day.’
‘Then God help her.’ Blaxton became agitated. His eyes darted from Fisher’s face to The Tower. He took a step backward. The mist crept over his face again, blurring the edges. His features became distorted. The eyes were suddenly not eyes, but circular voids in his head.
‘Blaxton?’
‘You should think about saving yourself, Mr Fisher.’
‘Blaxton? When you saw me for the first time, you knew I’d be carrying a guitar, didn’t you?’
‘Yes! Yes, I did!’ Fear ran through Blaxton’s voice.
‘And the guitar would have a white body. How did you know that?’
‘You idiot. Don’t you get it?’
‘Get what?’
‘You haven’t understood what I’ve told you. That’s not my fault. God help me, I tried!’
‘Blaxton? How did you know I’d be carrying a white guitar?’
Suddenly he lunged forward out of the fog. His eyes blazed. ‘Because fifteen years ago I lay in bed in that house and I dreamt exactly this. I dreamt I’d stand here on this concrete again while a man walked out of the fog with a white guitar! This is my nightmare – my death dream! Do you understand now? In the dream I saw myself standing here at night. Then you approached me. We talked. I told you what I know about that damned house. Then the house killed me.’ His eyes grew wild as terror gripped him. ‘Do you understand I died, Fisher! I DIED!’
Chimes drifted through the air. Fisher had heard them here before so knew they could reach the runway. The chimes were possessed by a metallic coldness that sent shivers down his spine.
Blaxton whirled round. Panic gripped him. Cries spurted from the back of his throat.
‘Blaxton. If you knew what the house could do, why did you come back here?’
‘I didn’t!’ He still backed away as if fearing attack. ‘I was at home. I opened my eyes – and that’s when I found myself here. Did you hear that, Fisher! The house brought me back!’
The chimes continued. To Fisher’s ears they were faint as they counted the hours from one to nine. Yet to Blaxton they seemed to peal at him with such volume that he flinched with every strike. Grimacing, he pressed his palms to the side of his head.
‘Blaxton. Wait here. I’ll bring a car down. I’ll drive you away to—’
Fisher’s plan exploded to nothing as Blaxton ran into the fog. For a second Fisher saw the man racing across the expanse of concrete. Then he vanished as the mist swallowed him.
‘Blaxton. Come back!’
Then came splashes; they faded away as the man ran through shallow water. Then came the screams.
‘God help me … please … Fisher … Fisher! I can’t climb out! I’m going under … I’m going—’
Then the screams vanished. Silence rushed in like air rushing to fill a vacuum. Fisher ran to where he thought he heard the screams came from. He shone the flashlight into the mist. Only it grew thicker. Visibility dwindled to no more than twenty yards. What was there to see? He could make out nothing but pools of still water … they didn’t look as if they’d been disturbed in five years … ten years … fifteen years …