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Martin caromed into the doorframe, bounced free and veered across the foyer into the library, cursing the puny light from his torch that wavered around in front of him. He tripped on a stack of books and went crashing down, landing awkwardly on the floor, his teeth clacking together with the impact, and blood flooding his mouth from a bitten tongue.
‘Arrgh!’ He levered himself onto knees and elbows, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, spitting out some of the blood. Something scratched against the windows and he jerked over onto his side, aiming the light at the glass. No one had bothered to pull the drapes, and he had a clear view.
So did the birds. They clustered on the windowsill, staring in with black, fathomless eyes, and he could hear others beating their wings against the glass as they tried to find space to perch.
Then it wasn’t just their wings beating against the glass. The thud of warm, feathered bodies pounded against the window and Martin shrank back, unable to take his eyes off them, the torchlight picking out the madness as more and more of the sparrows threw themselves against the glass. They were trying to get in.
The glass splintered and Martin watched a web of cracks widen from a blood-smeared central point, and still the birds threw themselves against it. Shaking, he got to his feet and spun around as the door to the foyer swung closed, no hand touching it. The light from the torch swung wildly about the room before he brought it under control and aimed it at the bookcase.
There was only one place to go now, unless he wanted to stand in the centre of a maelstrom of sparrows, the way he’d seen them do to Marcia. He knew there would be no point trying the library door. It had snicked shut, and he knew deep in his marrow that it wouldn’t open to his touch. Shuddering, Martin shied away from the window, and the continuing thuds of small feathered bodies, and squeezed himself into the secret room.
‘Stacy!’ he called. ‘Jeremy! Where are you?’ Cocking his head to listen, the only sound was glass breaking, falling in a shattering mess onto the hardwood floor. And then the beating of wings. Martin backed further into the small room, choking down panic. He clawed at the open door, but it stayed stubbornly ajar, and the first sparrow found him, aiming itself like a missile through the open doorway, and straight at him. It hit him on the cheek, and dragged ragged claws down his skin, drawing blood so that his face stung. He swatted it away, but there were more coming at him. Three, four, ten...a swirling mass of birds. One hit against his lips and he could taste it, the dusty warm featheriness of it. He stumbled back against the far wall, dropping torch and camera to beat the birds back.
They kept coming. He had to get away from them. Only one more place to go now. No getting out the door back into the library, the doorway was swarming with bodies. He shifted, and stepped on a small body, feeling it give, then the crunch of its tiny bones. He closed his eyes, and turned, groping for the door to the passageway. If he could get in there, close the door behind him, he could find the others, find Stacy and Jeremy, and they’d know what to do, or at least, safety in numbers. He saw Darryl’s body in his mind, and wondered if the sparrows had gotten to him too. Had they pushed him down the stairs?
It didn’t matter. Darryl was dead, and there was the opening into the passageway. Martin fell forward into it, feeling the rough wood under the skin of his hands as he turned and groped the door shut behind him. It clicked into place and he leaned back in relief, hearing the soft thud of bodies on the other side of the wall. By the time he found his way out of here, there’d be no more sparrows anyway. They’d all be dead from throwing themselves at the wall.
Finally he opened his eyes, breathing more or less under control, and discovered he was still in darkness. Where was the torch? Down on his knees, he searched for it, but it was no use. He knew even before he finished looking. It was on the other side of the door, lying on the floor of the secret room – along with the camera. He was alone in the dark.
‘Jeremy!’ he screamed, straightening, hands on the wall. ‘Stacy, where are you!’ He thought he heard a slight scuffling in answer, but when he turned towards it and felt around in the darkness with his hands, they landed only on air. ‘This isn’t funny,’ he said under his breath. There was no one there. The sound must have been the birds on the other side of the wall.
Except they’d stopped their mad suicidal rush at the door, and it was silent in there. It crossed his mind that he needed to open the door again and retrieve the torch. He couldn’t stay here in the dark. Swallowing, he leaned close to the wall and listened. Nothing. They had to still be in there, though, didn’t they? He could imagine them perching on the shelves, amidst the old bottles of opium, little black eyes fixed on the door he’d disappeared through, just waiting for it to crack open and him to poke his head through, and then they’d be on him, and they’d aim for his eyes, he knew they would, and then he’d be reeling back, hands going to his eyes, but unable to stop the flow of blood, and he’d be blind, and then this darkness wouldn’t be temporary, it would be all he would ever see, except for the after-image of birds, dozens of sparrows flying at him, beaks ready, claws outstretched.
He couldn’t open the door and get the torch. They were waiting for him, and he knew it. Instead, he pressed himself against the wall again, feeling a joist digging into his back, and tried to calm his breathing. Because once he was breathing steadily again, he could figure out what was going on.
It was because of the Sparrow Girl. He’d meant her just to be some fairly ordinary ghost. Harmless, but good for a scare. Darryl had insisted their ghost be scary, and when Martin had seen the bird cage, the idea seemed perfect.
But something had happened. Maybe because of the house. Stacy was right – they should have done their experiment somewhere neutral. This place was just a powder keg waiting for someone to strike a match. And the match was the Sparrow Girl. Maybe the house had even influenced him, he didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. It was done now, and they had to find a way to undo it. The birds going nuts outside the door told him it had to be undone.
Thought manifestations were just that – thoughts taken shape. They could be undone. Martin started moving, picking the direction Stacy and Jeremy had gone in and shuffling along in the darkness after them. It took a while, by all accounts, but thought manifestations could be re-absorbed. You just had to focus on doing that.
It would still be a good story. Even if they stopped right now, they still had enough for it all to be a good story. Darryl’s death would actually add to it. Martin had enough to launch his career from. Even now. Even if they undid everything, and he was pretty sure now that they needed to undo everything. Although, if he ever got out of this black passageway, and morning came, he might be able to see things clearer, and he could decide what to do then. Most likely they’d have to pack up, though. Darryl was dead, and The Ghost Crew was his show. At least Martin had access to all the footage so far. He could do a lot with that.
It was strangely silent inside the walls of the house. Where were the others? The passage turned a corner, and already Martin was lost. He couldn’t tell where he was anymore, just following along in the dark, trying not to think about how he was squeezed inside the actual walls, unable to see where he was. He could have walked past half a dozen exits now, and not known it.
‘Stacy!’ he yelled again, and stopped to listen for an answer. Where the fuck were they? Just where in this goddamned house were they?