Pre-edit - I found this in one of my notebooks and decided it should have a place on Hive, so here we go. I'll decide if I can do more with it later...
Part 1
Gate House at Newstead Hall Nottinghamshire
Neil stepped into the cellar. Soft earth underfoot surprised him, he’d expected concrete or tile. He pointed Robbie’s bike light to where he expected his friends to be. They weren’t there and his heart lurched in his chest. The light from the moon penetrated into the cellar past the bottom of the steps and the room wasn’t as dark as Neil had imagined it would be. He saw Lee’s light turn on across to the side and pointed the light there. The two bigger boys stood at the end of the room, looking at a short flight of old wooden steps. Neil went to catch up.
“No, there’s no way into the house that way. I think it used to be a doorway but it’s bricked up now. Maybe there’s another way in?” Lee said.
The cellar door banged closed, shutting off the illumination from the moon and the room would have been in pitch blackness if not for the bike lights. Lee and Neil screamed and then Robbie laughed at them both. “Pair of chickens!” he said.
Lee trained his light toward the entrance and took a couple of steps in the direction of the door. “How did that happen? There’s no wind to make the door slam.”
“It would have to be a hurricane to make that door slam, it’s old and heavy,” Neil said. He trained the light on Robbie to see if the more experienced boy had an idea.
Neil screamed again when he caught sight of Robbie’s face in the beam of light as it passed over the boy. Lee caught only a glimpse of the change in his friend’s face, and the perverse curiosity that moved his hand to guide the light back to see if he’d imagined it made his hands shake and his stomach clench.
In the meagre light, the boy no longer looked like his friend. Robbie’s eyes were sunken and milky, surrounded by loose, old flesh, wrinkled and puffy, and framed by two overgrown eyebrows like malignant, hairy, white caterpillars.
“Robbie?” Neil said in a tremulous voice.
The old man’s face leered at Neil. His gums revealed black stumps amid gaps and a couple of loose, yellowed teeth. The tongue, also yellow, moved sluggishly in the maw, strings of spit and drool stretching from the tongue to the roof of the mouth, glistening in the glow from his bike light.
“What’s wrong now, you big baby?” Lee asked from the entrance.
Robbie lunged forward with an agility that shocked and surprised Neil. The frightened boy screeched and stepped back, tripping over his own feet, sprawling onto his back. He dropped the light and it bounced across the floor, casting shadows as it went.
Lee turned his light toward the commotion and saw an old man wearing his friend’s clothes reaching for his other friend. Lee stood transfixed as the old man lifted Neil by the front of his jacket and lifted his face to his own in a grotesque kiss. Neil flapped his hands at the old man, trying to stop the assault, but before the end of the kiss, Neil’s hands stopped flailing and fell to his sides. The old man set Neil on his feet and then his face melted away like vapour to leave Robbie as he had been, albeit with sunken, expressionless eyes, much the same as Neil’s.
Neil and Robbie moved forward, toward Lee and it took a moment for Lee to realise he was in danger. He turned to the door and pushed it hard, using his momentum and terror to force the door open so he could escape. Lee broke from the cellar like a steeplechase runner and broke left to go back the way they had come. He leaped over piles of junk and slipped on the smooth cobbles.
Robbie emerged from the cellar and ran right, around the other side of the building to cut off Lee’s escape. Neil followed Lee back the way they’d come at the start of their adventure, in a pincer-movement.
Lee’s mind started working again and he realised even if he made it back to his bike, Robbie’s build was stockier and stronger than his tall, lanky frame and he wouldn’t be able to escape. He looked around, trying to keep his eye on Neil. The door to the building on his left stood part-open, whereas before, it had been closed, and he darted into the out-building.
Neil waited by the door until Robbie made a full circuit of the house. They entered the dark out-building together and Robbie closed the door, drawing an ancient and rusted bolt to lock it.
Lee watched from his hiding place close to the door.
Tears pricked at his eyes and he struggled to keep his breathing steady, it hitched in his chest a couple of times and he screwed his eyes closed, hoping the terror would all go away.
He heard sounds of movement from across the room, further than the boys could have got in their search for him. When he opened his eyes, his two friends must have heard the noises too, they’d made their way across the floor of the building and were further away from the door than Lee was, by a long way. He watched their progress and tried to judge when they’d come to the end of their search and start making their way back toward his hiding place.
Steeling himself to make his move, Lee took a step toward the door, leaving himself exposed and out in full view if the other two were to turn around.
Another sound close to the other end of the building ensured Robbie and Neil would be distracted.
Lee made it to the door and even had a go at unbolting it. When he realised the bolt was stuck, he slid to the ground and pushed his way under the door. He heard muffled sounds of the boys running across the floor to get to him but he was out and free – almost.
A hand grabbed his ankle. It took hold and jerked him backwards, under the door, scraping the backs of his legs as he went. Lee scrabbled on the ground trying to gain purchase to pull himself out of the strong grip.
He caught hold of a cobblestone on the ground and his fingers held on for dear life.
The hand pulling him backwards squeezed hard and Lee’s ankle snapped under the terrible pressure. He screamed and the cobblestone slipped from his grasp.
His back scraped across the old, crumbling wood, t-shirt crumpling up to his shoulders, leaving his bare skin exposed to the rotten door. His brain didn’t know what to focus on, the broken ankle or the grated skin along his back. Another hand grabbed his other leg and fingernails dug deep into the flesh of his calf, drawing fresh screams from the boy.
When he was clear of the door, the hands jerked his legs to turn him onto his ruined back. Slivers of rotten wood and debris from the floor raked his flesh as the hands dragged him into the room.
Lee looked into the faces of his friends. Their eyes stared back, blank and expressionless. A silhouette limped from the shadows. From the light filtering in through broken slates, Lee saw the old man, bent almost double, jowls like a bloodhound’s, hands gnarled and twisted with rheumatism.
“Robbie?” Lee said. “Neil? Come on guys, help me up, I think my ankle’s broken.”
Other silhouettes emerged from the shadows and came toward the boys, muttering unintelligibly. The old man didn’t notice at first, but when he did, he straightened up a little and his demeanour became angry, spiteful.
“You know your place,” he said. “Get back. Leave me alone. You’ll have some new friends soon enough.”
Images from Pixabay
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