The door shuts with a final awful bump signifying reality, Flora’s vigil, the reason she’s been here for what four boring days now, listening to that guy Wayne drone on and on mansplaining everything, like he knows more than everyone else, even though with his big fat balding head he looks like an overgrown baby. Insecurity, so obvious, always the same with those who spout nonsense all the time. And yet for all his strutting and boasting how this house doesn’t scare him, when it came to his turn on the Jack’s room rota, he fell ill with a migraine and then everyone had to choose straws to take his place and who should lose than yours truly, all because the big fatso bottled it.
Still, Flora would prefer to be down there now with them in the living room, even with Wayne, and not in this room, Satan’s room with all its devil stuff on the walls, all on her own now, with minicams filming from three different angles – which on its own feels intimidating – no doubt the others watching the monitors down below just like she did when Louise was in here. The cameras are pointless though, because the monitors will no doubt black out just like they did with Louise as soon as the music box starts playing.
Flora tries the bedroom door, but it won’t budge. She pulls hard, like really hard. Nothing, not good, in fact it’s scarily freaky. Tears well. Stupid baby, stop it now, you’re a grown thirty-year-old woman. She stares at the stupid shut door that might just as well be a steel prison door with endless locks.
A tug on her hair makes her start and turn around fast. Something. She caught it fleetingly, the long lank hair and eyes larger than is acceptable. Don’t get her wrong large eyes are good, like on a woman it gives a youthful look, and Flora particularly welcomes compliments on her large eyes, and large eyes on babies is just adorable, but there’s a certain size above which large eyes just becomes, well, freaky. The eyes she just glimpsed gave her a kick to her gut and took her breath.
She tries the door again, but it’s stuck tight. Should she cry out? Shout out that perhaps this vigil wasn’t such a good idea, that she’s not as brave as she made out and this is all just one big fat stupid mistake. It’s Gabe’s fault. If he hadn’t been there that night at the pub when Louise challenged them to Doc’s research, Flora wouldn’t have been getting all drunk and acting stupid and trying to fit in agreeing to stay in a scary haunted house when she hates haunted houses. Why does she always get herself into these stupid situations? Why? It’s not like she wants to do half the stupid things she does. She just somehow finds herself doing them and wondering why she’s doing them when she could be at home all snug on the sofa in her bunny rabbit onesie with her mum and brother watching TV.
Flora jumps as something flies past her face. Could have taken out an eye. And anyway, what’s that on the walls? Flora touches the moisture on the walls leeching out from all the weird devil stuff. She feels it between her fingers, slimy, kind of oozing out the walls like egg white. She puts it to her nose and recoils at the weird swimming pool smell like what comes out of men’s bad parts. Bad memories, bad, bad, bad memories. Memories of her being nice, wanting men to like her, maybe love her, and acting like a stupid baby girl listening to the men say nice things always followed by the icky stuff flying around after which the compliments always cease. Sex is such a slimy affair. Oh, why is she here when she’d rather be at home in comfort surrounded by nice things, innocent things, things like TV, fairy tales and chocolates.
She picks up a rag doll lying on the floor, the object that flew past her face. She thumbs its frayed edges, touches its sorrowful face, and sits down on the bed looks around herself and tests the sheets with her fingers only to find cool dampness.
A strange animal noise comes from under the bed, puncturing the silence, which makes Flora jump like someone’s just plugged her into a socket. Crying, like a baby but more of a malformed baby-shriek, high pitched… in pain.
Ever since her procedure the sound of a baby crying makes Flora nauseous, but she swallows back the saliva pooling in her mouth, staves off vomiting, and peers down at the gap underneath the bed – nothing.
“Hello,” Flora calls out softly.
She bends down further for a closer look but still nothing, just dusty carpeted floor.
When she stands up the strange crying from under the bed starts again.
“Ouch!” Flora knocks her elbow on a chest of drawers as she spins around in the direction of the crying, but still nothing visible. Also, when she turned in like mega-fright, she started to pee but managed to cut the flow before it caught hold but immediately, she eyes the disposable wee-pans Amber pilfered from the hospital she works, which although Amber is just one big fat flirt, that decision was a stroke of genius. Flora disappears into the corner of the room and pees turned away from the cameras
She pulls a small hand gel from her handbag and sanitises her hands because it feels right to do some form of sanitising after a wee considering the circumstances. While fishing around in her handbag she also finds a toffee quality street, a non-chocolate one, not exactly her favourite but in the circumstances beggars and all that. Sugar and caramel on her tongue makes her think of TV. Now what would be on now…
She checks under the bed again. Nothing but shadows, that’s all, nothing but shadows and dust. She lies back on the bed. Maybe sleep would be the best way to pass the night? At least that way the vigil would go much quicker – fall asleep and then ta-dah! it’s morning and nothing scary had happened and she’d be telling them about how stupid they all are, behaving like big fat babies, especially that Wayne. But does all the weird stuff happen when you sleep?
Flora’s eyelids start to close, the sand man on his way to take baby girl off to dreamland all snug as a bug in a rug and maybe if she just lies back and rests for a bit she won’t fall asleep, but just like take the strain off a little while not sleeping just resting her eyes, maybe one at a time, because resting both eyes turns to sleep, just one at a time, just …
When she awakes, the tinkling of the music box hits her ears and when she raises herself onto her elbows, she sees the creepy music box clown doing his swaying thing. And then that weird poem on the wall catches her eye as if the letters were dancing, waving for her attention. She gets up off the bed and walks over to the poem, reads it aloud, and while she’s trying to work out the nonsensical poem, the crying starts up again from under the bed. She looks again, but this time the sight of a bloodied foetus under the bed making noises like foxes at night, makes saliva flood her mouth and the moment its eyes turn to her, sealed shut at first but then which open with a quiet tear of eyelids to reveal small blue eyes, sharp and focussed unlike a new-born’s confused eyes, eyes that look kind of pissed off, she jumps away and delivers the contents of Lily’s chicken tikka masala splattering in the corner of the bedroom, while the red raw foetus under the bed fox-shrieks.
She stands up, wipes vomit from her mouth, takes a deep breath, exhales, and steadies herself. Across the bedroom the door opens. Flora beams. Sanctity, thank God! She dashes for the door shouting, “thank you, thank you, thank you,” as she makes it out onto the landing, running into the banister like a clumsy uncoordinated baby, and then running down the stairs shouting, “thank God,” while she veers into the solid wall beside the staircase as if the wall is in the wrong place and then runs for the living room bashing into the doorframe as she passes through, as if everything is not where it should be. She looks around, and calls, “where is everyone? Gabe! Doc!”
A newspaper rustles from across the living room and a middle-aged woman, with beady eyes and a down-turned mouth gets up from an armchair and snarls, “who are you?”
“I’m, I’m here with Doc’s team…” Flora says.
“Who? Doc? Is this your idea of a cruel joke? And where have you been?” The woman sidles up close to Flora with those mean piercing eyes, “have you been upstairs molesting my son?”
“I, I… I’m confused,” Flora says, “where is everyone… Gabe! Doc!”
“Bill, Bill! come quick – we have another intruder!” the angry lady shouts. She grabs Flora by her arm so hard her fingernails dig into her flesh.
“Ow, let go,” Flora cries out.
“Who have we here then?” this guy says appearing from the kitchen, a grin spreading across his face that’s framed by bushy sideburns. “And who have we here then?” he says. Flora catches a scent like sour milk from his breath as he closes in on her. His nostrils flare as he leans in to sniff her hair.
Angry lady stands there glaring at Flora. “Don’t be getting any ideas missy about seducing Bill. I realise he’s such a catch, but he’s mine, understand young lady, mine!”
Flora takes in Bill for the first time and can’t help jumping aback when he grins brown stained teeth at her.
On the TV – a TV that looks like something someone would bring to Antiques Road Show – a programme comes on flashing the word Nationwide amongst title shots to naff music showing people in the programme who look like something from a 70s spoof.
“Where’s Doc?” Flora asks.
Bill goes behind Flora, bends down and sniffs around her. “She’s fertile as a north American poppy. We need to get her in a breeding pen immediately,” he says his eyes glittering as he grins stained teeth.
Angry lady shoots a narrow-eyed glare of disdain at Bill. “Don’t get too attached,” she says.
“No! Gabe! Gabe! Where are you! Help! Please help!” Flora shouts trying to break free.
“Maybe it would be easier if I impregnated her here in the living room, my darling?” Bill suggests.
“No, Bill,” witch lady says, struggling to keep a hold of Flora, “can’t you tell she’s too much of a handful… now grab her other arm.”
Bill grabs her bicep and the pair march her through the kitchen yanking hard every time Flora resists and pulls away. They drag the kicking and screaming Flora down the stairs into the basement where Bill grabs a bunch of keys hanging from his belt and opens a barred door leading to the pens. Angry lady pushes Flora through, but Flora grabs hold of the doorframe, not letting go, angry Lady shouting, “for God’s sake Bill, help me,” so he pulls the door shut on Flora’s fingers, her screaming and letting go but only after solid steel has crushed her fingers.
“We’ve brought you a new friend,” angry lady says into the first pen in a voice attempting to be kind.
No response comes from there.
Bill unlocks the door to the second pen and shoves Flora in, while she blows on her fingers, followed by the metallic clunk of steel on steel and key turning in lock. Inside the pen a grubby mattress covers a part of the floor and her new des res also comes complete with a chamber pot, and a metal bucket. She turns back to the pen’s door only to see Bill leering at her.
“Hey sweety,” angry lady calls into the next pen, “how’s baby coming on?”
In there, another woman sits on a mattress in semi-darkness with an expectant bump around her middle. Ever since Flora’s procedure, pregnant women have followed her everywhere. Pregnant women make her nauseous.
“We’ll just leave you two to get acquainted and come back later to give you your tea and fresh water,” angry lady says with fairy tale kindness, and then she glares at Bill who’s holding on to the bars to Flora’s cell while he stares at her. “Not yet Bill,” she mutters and prises him away and drags him back upstairs to the main house.
Flora squeezes the metal bars of the pen – solid steel. She feels the floor – cold concrete. She looks in the bucket for cold water to sooth her throbbing fingers, but the stupid thing is empty.
Blowing some more on her fingers, Flora turns to the woman in the next cage. “Where’s Doc, where’s everyone?”
“No one else here but your new evil stepparents,” the woman says looking upwards.
“Why are you here?” Flora asks.
The woman laughs shortly. “To au pair for their demonic child. Why else would I be here?”
That explains the foreign accent. “But … why are you down here?”
“The advert said, ‘Au pair required for professional family, Blackheath, London—only educated girls need apply’. So, I thought sounds safe what could go wrong,” the woman says her voice soaked in sarcasm.
Flora looks to the woman’s tummy. “When’s it due?”
The woman slowly shakes her head, “never … hopefully.”
“I’m sorry?” Flora asks.
“Would you want to give birth to a demon?” the woman replies.
Flora already has. When she had her procedure, it was like giving birth to Satan. The premature baby from upstairs comes to mind. “I’m sure it will be lovely,” Flora says to pacify the woman.
“When the demons come,” the woman says, “it gets cold … really cold.”
Flora’s skin goose bumps at the suggestion.
“And they come in here and feel my bump,” the woman says, “it’s horrible. I don’t want it – the baby – I don’t want it.”
Flora soaks up the irony – an expectant mother who doesn’t want her baby, because you see Flora felt very different just before her procedure. Oh, the ingratitude of the woman. Flora’s heckles rise. “I’m sure it will be lovely,” she says again.
The woman replies with a slow shake of her head.
Flora tries the barred door to her pen, but there’s no way out unless she had the key. What she needs is a distraction, some real hullaballoo to occupy the two psycho crazies who just locked her up down here.
“Is the baby his?” Flora asks pointing upwards.
“Sort of,” the woman says.
“Sort of?” Flora asks, “either he did, or he didn’t.”
“He did,” the woman says, “but it wasn’t him. He was like… possessed.”
A door opens from above, the unsettling voices of Bill and angry lady descending the stairs. When they enter the basement Bill displays himself, palms out, head angled up to the ceiling and exclaims to the women, “all showered and freshly brylcreemed.” He flashes his brown teeth at them.
When Gabe gets here, he’ll pummel Bill’s brylcreemed head to a pulp. Although Gabe scares Flora he has his uses, and she could do with him being here right now.
“Look what Grace has for you,” Bill announces as she appears from the stairway, “cake baked by my very own fair hands,” he says, “don’t say we don’t treat you well.” He takes the tray and holds it at the first cage where the pregnant woman, reaches through the bars and takes a piece, tastes it, and struggles hard not to make a face.
“It’s full of protein,” Bill says, “good for the babies.”
The woman nods slowly, then as if remembering something she’s supposed to do (or else), she smiles in a way Flora has seen many a woman smile on pornos after they’ve just taken the money shot, scenes that Gabe often rewinds for multiple replays.
Bill offers the tray to the barred door of Flora’s cage and looks away, his free hand over his face, eyes looking through the finger gaps, saying, “if you take two, I won’t notice.”
If Flora had a razor, she’d shave his silly sideburns off before slitting his throat. She only takes one piece at which Bill says, “oh,” his face turning dark, to which Flora takes another piece, takes a bite, swallows it, and pulls a porno smile too.
To add to the torture, Grace pours liquid from a medicine bottle onto a spoon and offers it to the pregnant woman who swallows it, grimacing, as if knowing she has no choice but to take what nutrition she can get.
Grace joins Bill at Flora’s barred door.
“Two spoonfuls for you my dear,” Grace says, holding the spoon through the bars of her cage. Flora refuses. The pregnant woman whispers, “take it, just take it.’
Flora still refuses.
Grace turns to Bill. “Looks like we have a rebel amongst us,” she says, “well we have a way with treating rebels. Prepare yourself Bill.” And with that Grace opens the cage while Bill joins Grace in the pen forcing Flora’s mouth open while Grace tips the medicine into her mouth, saying “ungrateful cow, cod liver oil does you good, makes you strong, swallow it down. It’s good for you and the babies, for God’s sake stop being so selfish.” Oil spills out Flora’s mouth and she tears herself away into the corner of the pen gagging.
The clanking of key in lock makes her turn only to see Bill and Grace locking the main barred door then retreating upstairs followed by the kitchen side door shutting above them and the distant sound of a sliding bolt.
In the middle of the pen on the floor sits a bucket full of water no doubt left by Grace and the bottle of cod liver oil that Grace mistakenly left behind. Flora tests the water – it’s freezing so she slips her bloodied fingers in there and sighs. It numbs the pain, slightly. As she crouches there with her fingers in the freezing water she eyes the cod liver oil, hides it in shadow at the rear of her pen and sits down on the cold concrete floor leaning back against the pen’s brick wall and checks out the semi-dark surroundings outside the pens. Within her vision there’s the usual basement fare – old tins of various liquids, dusty furniture, tools discarded on the floor (a hammer, a hand drill, pliers), timber off-cuts, a grubby rolled-up length of carpet, boxes of items hidden from view. How long before the side burned grinning creep comes back with his trousers around his ankles, possessed, to impregnate her with a devil?
A cold breeze blows through the pens.
“Oh no they’re back again,” comes from the next pen, “get off …”
All around the pens the shadows move as living entities and then a rush of coldness engulfs Flora, taking her breath, seeping into her pores like alcohol rub, ice cold as she breathes it in through her nose and mouth, but giving a sense of euphoria, like when she tried Gabe’s morphine, or as if undergoing mild anaesthesia, or how it feels when Gabe slowly kisses her from her mouth, to her neck, to her breasts, to her tummy, to her thighs, to her…
Meanwhile in the next pen, the pregnant woman shouts, jumps up and swipes at invisible entities attacking her, shouting at them to “back off,” to “leave me alone,” and then she fades while Flora kicks back lost in her euphoria, as multiple entities penetrate her in icy coldness, lost, lost in bliss.
The sobbing of the pregnant woman brings Flora back to consciousness, which turns into full-on crying which although it should inspire sympathy, is just purely riling.
“Quit it!” Flora yells.
The woman’s cries cease then she says to Flora, “well you’re a heartless bitch aren’t you.”
Maybe? Perhaps that’s why she gravitated to Gabe—two disturbed souls destined to meet.
Flora picks up the cod liver oil bottle and pours its contents over the floor right in front of the door to her pen. She then removes the belt to her jeans like when she plays games with Gabe.
“I’m sorry I was mean,” Flora says to the pregnant woman. “Do you forgive me?”
The woman frowns then after a pause nods slowly.
“You must ache so much with all the time you’ve been down here,” Flora says, “would you like me to massage your neck? And then maybe you could do mine afterwards?”
The woman nods slowly again, gets up and turns her back to the adjoining bars. Flora slides her good hand through the bars and slides it under the woman’s hair and takes her neck. The fingers on her other hand still throb, but the blood has congealed, and her thumb missed the onslaught of the steel door frame. This thumb joins her other one both rotating on the muscles on the back of the pregnant woman’s neck, the woman making a quiet “mmm” saying “that feels good,” Flora saying, “perhaps sit down on the floor” so the woman does, Flora lowering too and continues the soft massaging of the woman’s neck, Flora whispering, “just let go,” and the woman mmming some more while Flora picks up her belt and slowly threads it through the bars, around the woman’s neck and back through the bars to her side, pulling the belt ends across each other tightening the belt against the woman’s neck as Flora whispers, “now I’m going to kill you,” the woman managing a garbled, “what the fuck,” Flora replying, “like I said I’m going to kill you.”
Gabe would be most proud of her, and jealous. The only thing missing is a scream. She pulls tighter as the woman’s fingers claw at the belt around her neck, gurgling noises coming from her mouth. It’s no use, as Flora pulls the ends of the belt across each other, she has far more leverage at her disposal than the woman.
“If you scream, they’ll hear you,” Flora whispers, “and they’ll come to your rescue.”
Right on cue the woman screams, Flora loosening the belt to aid the scream’s volume.
“Louder,” Flora whispers, the woman screaming louder. “And again,” Flora whispers regulating the tension on the belt to aid the woman’s screams while keeping her anchored to the bars.
The bolt on the door above from the kitchen slides open and Bill and Grace come charging down the stairs shouting, “keep the noise down, someone may hear!”
Bill fumbles with his keys at the first barred door and when he sees Flora strangling the pregnant woman, he snarls, “hey you fucking bitch, what the hell…”
He fumbles at the lock to Flora’s pen, opens the door and charges in but immediately his feet go flying followed by a slow-motion moment when his whole body is airborne, followed by his skull cracking down onto the solid floor the crack echoing off the basement walls, and him making a weird swallowing sound with what sounds like he’s snoring in a deep sleep.
“Bill, Bill, Bill!” Grace screams running to his rescue.
While Grace tends to Bill, Flora eyes the tools lying on the floor outside the pens. Could she? What choice does she have? She sneaks past the fussing Grace hovering over Bill, picks the hammer up then slinks back over to Grace without a sound, apart from a slight slip on the oil.
The first blow glances off the side of Grace’s head, stunning enough to topple Grace from her squatting position over Bill but those fierce eyes of hers are still full of life when they dart up to Flora. Time being of the essence and she who procrastinates and all, Flora wastes no time in delivering the second blow, making a solid connection bang central to Grace’s forehead which this time makes those dark mean eyes go a little glassy as dark red blood oozes from a split in her forehead. And then blow after blow rains down on Grace’s head spattering Flora’s face with warm blood, while Flora screams and cries, “I want my baby back, I want my baby back, I want my baby back …” She only stops when exhaustion and an aching shoulder sets in.
Vented, peace washes through her bringing on a calm sleepiness, and while she gets her breath back, she notices the stirring of another woman inside the doorless room at the basement’s rear and with her a small child. The child looks over at Flora, cute but strange, a little girl but with dark thick hair and a pale complexion, feral looking. The little girl seems so familiar, but from where? There’s no disputing who the father is, but anyhow the mother pulls the child close to her in a warm maternal gesture that defies all abominations.
“We’re chained in here,” the mother says.
Flora grabs the keys from Bill’s belt and opens the door to the pregnant woman’s pen where the woman still leaning against the bars and rubbing her neck looks at Flora with suspicious eyes but doesn’t move, just eyes the open pen door like she’ll make a move for it as soon as psycho lady is out of the picture.
Flora shrugs, turns her eyes to the woman at the rear then turns back to the pregnant woman and throws the keys at her feet, the keys landing with the jarring clash of metal on concrete. And with that Flora turns and leaves the basement walking up the stairs, through the kitchen, through the hall, up the stairs to the top floor, into Jack’s Room and shuts the door –she doesn’t hang around a minute longer, she needs to get back to the house as it should be with Gabe and the others. Tired, she lies back on the bed and shuts her eyes, the sand man on his way again to fly baby girl off to dreamland. Except baby girl feels different now – something in her has changed.
Next, the bedroom door is opening, early morning light streaming through the curtains and Doc’s head peers through the gap between frame and door. “Are you decent,” he asks.
“Not anymore,” Flora whispers. Not anymore.