Switchback Ch19 pt1

A trail of blood on the beige-carpeted stairway was what Alex first noticed when she opened the door, not a continuous line, just continuous drops, which  now were more brown than red. The handrail that ran up the left side of the stairs had an unbroken smudge from top to bottom of a similar colour, some parts transparent where the rail’s white paint showed through.

          The space at the top of the stairs was in darkness; Alex flicked a switch close to her right shoulder and climbed, her hands touching neither wall nor rail. At the top of the stairs the trail of blood continued along the landing, she followed it. All the upstairs doors were ajar and their handles and the area around them had been dusted black, like someone had thrown a handful of soot at each of them. Except, that was, for the last door on her right, which had blood smeared over the area where the others had been dusted, like someone had pulled it open from inside the room with bloody hands. Plastic lettering on the door said, ELIZABETHS ROOM PLEASE KNOCK.

         She nudged the door with her left elbow and stepped inside to see the aftermath of what had taken place the night before. It looked like a scene from a gore movie, made worse by the polished wood floor which had allowed none of the blood to soak in. Again she flicked a switch by her right shoulder, but this time no change occurred. A child’s bed, its sheets blood-stained and crumpled, lay off to her right, and a set of drawers, the top one pulled open and dusted, stood against the wall beside the window.

          The two reasons she’d come to Leyton Falls in the first place were hung on the walls to her left and to her right. Though hung wasn’t entirely accurate. She stepped up to the mirror closest to the bed to see it completely flush with the wall, nor could she see where it started or finished, it seemed to pass right through both the floor and ceiling.

          She looked over the surface of the mirror but found no marks on it, small spots of blood had managed to reach the wall around it, but the mirror itself was stain-free, it looked solid, and at the same time, liquid-like. She raised a hand and rested her palm on the surface for two seconds then took it away. The imprint left behind faded to nothing before her hand had chance reach her side. She checked but found no smears or residue of where she’d touched it, its surface back to immaculate.

          Still facing the mirror, Alex stood as central as she could between the two of them and looked beyond her image. She’d done this as a child in the Mirror Maze they have at Richmond’s “Ride Palace Fairground” where her continuous reflection would shoot off to the left or to the right, or maybe up or even down. But what Alex saw now was an perfectly straight, mile-long corridor, with only one reflection of herself.

          She’d found them, and in a strange way, felt she was in the presence of something majestic, something regal. But at the same time felt fear, fear of what she knew they were capable of, but more fearful of what waited beyond their flat, flawless finish, if what she had in mind should go wrong.

          She pulled her cell phone from her jean’s pocket ready to snap a picture of her own reflection when she heard a car pull up outside. She looked from the reddened window to see a bald man in uniform climb from a black Cherokee and place his hat on his head and settle it before he pulled down the front.

          ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Shit, shit.’

          Alex ran from the room and along the landing. She hit the top of the stairs and didn’t stop as she wheeled left and down. At the bottom she heard footsteps on the porch, heard the yellow tape being ripped away, saw the door start to swing open. If she went right he’d see her, she went left and back on herself to a door again blackened with a handful of soot, led her under the stairs and down a set of wooden steps into a darkened basement. The air here felt cold and smelled of damp earth.

          She stilled at the bottom and listened to the movements above. The footfalls didn’t climb the stairs as she had expected, they’d gone in the opposite direction she just had. It sounded like the man was rummaging, opening drawers, searching them. His footsteps crossed into the room behind the stairs where more drawers were opened as cutlery rattled and rattled again as he slammed them shut. He crossed into the other front room and continued his search; more drawers were opened and slammed shut. Something fell over, smashed, maybe a lamp, maybe a vase.

          He moved again, this time only three strides before the door above opened and dim-light fell over her face. She shot under the steps just as the man in uniform made the top. She heard the flick of a switch, click-click, click-click, and even though the basement remained in darkness, the man descend the steps anyway.

          Alex held her breath as boots clumped their way downward and past her face. At the bottom the man stopped, looked around. She noticed a large envelope in his right hand, seems he’d found what he was searching for. He took a step forward and kicked over what sounded like an empty tin can. She closed her eyes, was thankful she hadn’t gone into the shadows in that direction.

          In a sudden flash the room brightened to the sound of a match striking against a wall and Alex caught the smell of sulphur as she crouched out of sight, but in doing so both knees clicked. The man swivelled, held the match higher.

          ‘Someone there? Hello?’

          Alex tucked her head into her knees, was motionless, curled-up tight.

          ‘Christ, Abe, you’ll be seein’ ghosts next.’

          She still had her head down and didn’t see the light from the match go out, but hurried footsteps heading to the house above told her the man was leaving the basement. She heard a car door, heard the engine kick-in, and heard the Cherokee turn round and drive away. Then what he’d said just before he left reminded Alex just where she was. This had been the place where Evans had kept the girls captive and had raped and mutilated them. Foley had told her what he’d found down there after Evans had attacked him. She came from beneath the steps and pulled her cell from her pocket, then opened an app called “HighLight”.

          The wooden steps split the basement in two. Alex walked to her left to where she now knew the kitchen would be above her. Before her now were more steps but only half as many as those leading up to the house. At the top of these were the angled doors to the garden where Foley had said he’d been set upon and bungled into the basement from the rear garden. She climbed the steps and pushed but the doors had been locked from the outside.

          Around the other side of the basement she found the small room in which Foley had said he’d discovered Evans’ victims. It was a narrow space of around five-feet wide and maybe ten-feet in length. She illuminated the centre of the floor because Foley had said there was a three-foot jagged length of metal pipe there wide enough to swallow a baseball that the girls had be tossed onto, one on top of the other, stacked like pancakes. They’re bodies then left to rot in the cold dark basement. But the pipe was no longer there, it had been sawn an inch from the bottom and probably taken away to be used as evidence.

          Her cell beeped three times and the light went out; her battery was low, almost as low as her spirits felt right now. She left the basement, left the house, and left Woodsman Drive.