Lockwood & Co.: The Screaming Staircase
: Part 4 – Chapter 21

The hinges didn’t squeak eerily or anything. To be honest, they didn’t need to.

As the door swung open, there was a sigh of dry, cool air, a smell of dust and absence. It was the same sensation you get in any disused room. Lockwood shone his torch into the darkness; its soft round glow picked out bare floorboards, running across the room. They were grey and dark and stained. In places ragged strips of some old rug were visible, fused to the boards by centuries of grime.

He moved the beam upwards until it hit the opposite wall. A glimpse of high white skirting, then dark-green wallpaper, almost black with dirt and age. In places it had been ripped away, revealing the bricks beneath. Still the beam rose: we saw a strip of heavy coving, then a ceiling of ornate plasterwork, covered with swirls and spirals. The light reached a single chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling. Fronds of soft grey webbing dangled from its scrolls and chains, swaying in currents stirred by the opening of the door.

Spiders . . . A sure sign.

Lockwood dropped the torch low. Down at our feet, the corridor carpet ended precisely at the line of the door. A thick strip of iron had been embedded here. Beyond were dust and floorboards and the utter desolation of the Red Room.

‘Anyone sense anything?’ Lockwood said. His voice sounded strange and hollow.

Neither of us did. Lockwood stepped over the iron band, and George and I followed him, bringing the heavy duffel bags. Cool air swirled around us. Our boots tapped softly on the boards.

I’d expected to be hit by strong phenomena right off, the moment we went in. But all was very quiet, though the pressure in my skull was worse than ever. The ghost-fog had not manifested in the room and I couldn’t hear the static or the whispering right now. We put down our bags, and with our torches surveyed our surroundings.

It was a large rectangular space, taking up the full depth of the wing. The wall opposite marked the end of the house, and corresponded to the tapestried wall in the Long Gallery directly below. This wall had no doors or windows, but in places the paper had been stripped away to reveal bricks or stones beneath.

The wall on the right had no windows; that on the left had originally had three, but two had been bricked up. The last one had a shutter, folded back against the sides of its recess.

Other than the chandelier there was no furniture at all.

‘Not very “red”, is it?’ George said. That had been my thought too.

‘First things first,’ Lockwood said briskly. ‘Lucy, help me make a circle. George, secure our retreat, please.’

Holding our torches in our teeth, Lockwood and I opened the duffel bags and pulled out the heavy-duty two-inch chains. We laid them on the floor and began to shape them into the necessary circle – our defence against whatever waited in the room.

George meanwhile bent to his rucksack. He unzipped a side-pocket and felt within. ‘I’ve a Visitor-proof DFD somewhere in here,’ he said. ‘Hold on a tick . . .’

‘DFD?’ I said.

‘Door-Fixing Device. Just a bit of the latest tech. Got it from Satchell’s. Pricey, yes, but worth it. Ah, here we go.’ He produced a rough-hewn triangle of wood.

I stared at it. ‘Isn’t that just a wedge?’

‘No. A DFD, my friend. A DFD. It’s got an iron core.’

‘It looks like you found it in a skip. How much did you pay for it?’

‘I can’t remember.’ George kicked it firmly into position, so that the door was held ajar. ‘Call it what you like. It’ll stop the door from closing, and that might keep us alive.’

He was right to that extent. In the case of the Shadwell Poltergeist the year before, two Grimble agents had been separated from their colleagues when the bathroom door blew shut on them. The door had then stuck fast; no one could get through, and the two agents had been battered to death by whirling ceramics. When the visitation ended, the door had opened freely.

‘Scatter salt across the doorway too,’ Lockwood said. ‘Just to be sure.’ We’d finished the chain circle now and were hauling the bags inside. ‘Right, we retreat in here if anyone gives the word. Temperature?’

‘Six degrees,’ George said.

‘So far, so good. At the moment this seems the quietest place in the house. Let’s make the most of it. We’ll hunt for hidden doors. It’s the end wall, isn’t it, George?’

‘Yes. We’re looking for any signs of a concealed entrance. Buttons, levers, that sort of thing. Try knocking for hollow areas too.’

‘OK. Lucy and I will do the first search. George, stay here and watch our backs.’

Lockwood and I went to opposite ends of the wall, our boots echoing in emptiness, torch-beams focused small to minimize the disruption to our inner senses. I chose the left-hand corner, not far from the single unblocked window. Through the dirty glass I could just make out lights from a distant village, and a couple of winter stars.

I turned off the torch and ran my hands along the wall. It seemed smooth enough, the paper level and unbroken. I shuffled sideways, feeling high and low. Every now and then I stopped and listened, but all remained still.

‘Anyone smell that?’ Lockwood said suddenly. His profile hung at the edge of his patch of torchlight. He was frowning, wrinkling his nose.

‘Smell what?’

‘Something sweet but sour . . . I can’t think what it is. It’s familiar, but strange.’

‘Sounds a lot like Lucy,’ George remarked. He was behind us, in the centre of the room.

The minutes passed. Lockwood’s hand met mine in the darkness; we’d reached the middle of the wall. After a moment we each started going back the way we’d come, this time rapping the surface with our knuckles.

‘A few wisps of plasm building,’ George called.

‘You want us to stop?’

‘Keep going for now.’

At last, near the end of the wall, at the corner by the window, I detected a slight variation in the quality of sound. The ring of my knock seemed higher and more resonant, as if echoing from a space within.

‘I may have something here,’ I said. ‘There’s a place that sounds hollow. If you—’

‘What was that?’ George said. We’d all heard it: somewhere in the dark, a soft, decisive tap. Lockwood and I turned round.

‘Come back to the circle,’ George said. ‘And keep your torches off. We’ll use mine.’

His beam cut slowly, carefully past us as we hurried back to join him, strafing the ceiling, walls and floor. All seemed exactly as before.

Or did it? Discreetly, insidiously, something in the atmosphere had changed.

We stood back to back in the centre of the circle, shoulders pressing tight together.

‘I’m going to turn off the torch,’ George said.

He did so. We gazed out into the blackness of the empty room.

‘Lucy,’ Lockwood’s voice said, ‘what do you hear?’

‘The whispering’s kicked off,’ I said. All at once it was very loud. ‘It’s like before. A host of wicked voices.’

‘Can you tell where?’

‘Not yet. Seems all around.’

‘OK. George: what do you see?’

‘Wisps and whorls of light. Bright, but brief. No one location.’

There was a pause. ‘And you, Lockwood?’ I said.

He spoke heavily. ‘I can see the death-glows now.’

‘More than one?’

‘Lucy, there are dozens. I don’t know how I didn’t see them before. The whole room’s a death chamber . . .’ He took a breath. ‘Everyone draw your rapiers now.’

Three sets of shoulders bumped and shifted. There was the collective rasp of iron.

‘It sensed that,’ George said. ‘The wisps went into a frenzy. They’ve calmed again.’

‘Lucy?’

‘The whispering got louder, angrier, then it died back. What do we do?’

‘That smell!’ Lockwood said. ‘It’s there again. So strong! Surely you can—’ He gave a little cry of frustration. ‘Don’t either of you smell it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Lockwood – concentrate. What do we do? Do we leave?’

‘I think we’ve got to. Something big’s coming. Ahh . . . these glows are bright!’ I could hear him fumbling with his sunglasses, hurrying to put them on.

‘But didn’t Lucy say she’d found a door?’ George said. ‘Shouldn’t we—’

‘Not a door,’ I said. ‘I got a hollow thump, like the wall was thin, somehow.’

‘It doesn’t matter either way,’ Lockwood said. ‘We’re leaving the room now.’

A tap sounded in the darkness, soft but heavy, the same as the first. Another followed. And then another.

‘That’s between us and the door,’ George said.

‘No it isn’t.’

‘Quiet,’ Lockwood said. ‘Just listen.’

Tap, tap, tap . . . Slow and regular: I timed five fast heartbeats between each sound. It wasn’t easy to tell where the noise was coming from, or what it might be, but it seemed familiar. I’d heard the like before. For some reason the bathroom back in Portland Row came to mind – the lower one, where I sometimes took a shower, and where George’s discarded underclothes lay in wait for unwary feet. At first I thought it might be the shared sense of danger and foreboding that made me make the connection; then I realized it was something else. The showerhead in that bathroom was faulty. It dripped.

Tap, tap, tap . . .

‘Switch on your torch, Lockwood,’ I whispered. ‘Direct it in front of you.’

He obeyed without question. Perhaps he’d realized too.

The beam fell on the floorboards like a delicate ring of gold. Something black and irregular lay in its centre. It looked rather like a large misshapen spider with innumerable legs. Tap. A new leg grew, splayed out to the side. Tap. Another leg: longer, thinner, stretched far across the wood . . . With each tap there came a flash of movement in the middle of the shape. The black thing glistened. There was a hint of red.

Lockwood raised the torchlight slowly, in time to catch the next drip as it fell, mid-air. He lifted the torch to the plaster ceiling, where a wider, darker stain was spreading along the spiral moulding. At its centre, stuff as thick and dark as treacle sagged, grew heavy, broke loose in drops – to splash down upon the floor below.

‘Now I know what the smell was,’ Lockwood muttered.

‘Blood . . .’ I said.

‘Well, technically, of course, it’s plasm,’ George said. ‘The Visitor’s just chosen a highly unusual, non-anatomical guise, which—’

‘I don’t care about technically, George!’ I cried. ‘It looks like blood, it smells like it. It’ll do as blood for me.’

Even as we watched, the weight of substance pooling in the ceiling became too great to be released by a single steady outflow. Drips broke loose in a second place, slightly closer to us, and the rate of fall was faster. I flicked on my torch too, saw the floor stain spattering out. Broken fingers of blood reached in the direction of our chains.

‘Don’t let it near you,’ George said. ‘It’ll ghost-touch same as any other kind of plasm.’

‘We’re going,’ Lockwood said crisply. ‘Gather the bags. No, forget the chains; we’re carrying spares. Ready? Quick, then. Follow me.’

We stepped over the barrier of iron and looped out across the room, keeping well clear of the spreading mass. Malevolence radiated off it in waves. The room was icy cold.

‘Goodbye and good riddance to you,’ George said, as we approached the door.

But when we got there it was closed.

For a moment none of us moved. I felt a coil of panic slide slick and tight around my belly. Lockwood stepped forward. He covered the ground in three quick strides, and tried the handle. He rattled at it urgently. ‘Shut,’ he said. ‘I can’t open it.’

‘What the hell happened to the wedge?’ I said.

George’s voice was faint. ‘The DFD.’

I gave a wild curse. ‘I don’t care what it was called, George! It didn’t work! You didn’t secure it properly.’

‘I secured it fine.’

‘No, you just nudged it in with your BFF! That’s Big Fat Foot, by the way.’

‘Shut up, Lucy!’

‘Will you both shut up,’ Lockwood snarled, ‘and help me with this door?’

We grasped the handle together and tugged as hard as we could. The door didn’t budge.

‘Where’s the key?’ I said. ‘Lockwood – the key. What did you do with it?’

He hesitated. ‘I left it in the door.’

‘Oh, that’s great,’ I said. ‘Between you and George we might as well have put up a sign for the Visitor saying Be Our Guest.’

‘I tell you, I secured it fine,’ George shouted. ‘And I put the salt down too.’ He kicked out viciously at the grains beneath our boots. ‘See? It shouldn’t have been able to go near the door.’

‘Calm down,’ Lockwood said. He had shone the torch back to the ceiling, where a new spur of blood had begun to well downwards ominously close to where we stood. ‘It’s responding to our panic. Let’s get back to the circle.’

We managed this OK, though we had to loop noticeably further out across the room than before. Several of the drips had now intensified into unbroken streams, like taps left gently running. The noise they made was no longer a series of sharp clicks, but a continual liquid thrum. There was a considerable puddle of blood spreading on the floor.

‘We’re going to be surrounded,’ I said. ‘How much plasm has it got in there?’

‘This is huge,’ George muttered. ‘It’s not an ordinary Type Two. A Poltergeist would have the advanced telekinetic powers – shutting the door, keeping it closed, turning the key – but that doesn’t fit with the manifestation. The blood makes it a Changer, surely. But Changers don’t turn keys . . .’

‘I’ve been stupid,’ Lockwood said. ‘Really stupid. I underestimated everything . . . Lucy, we’re going to have to replace the secret exit. You’ve got to show us where you felt the difference in the wall.’

An arm of blood extended swiftly from the central pool upon the floor. Its tip drew close to the iron chains and retreated, fizzing, spitting. The air was thick with the smell of blood; it was difficult to breathe.

‘Or we stay here . . .’ I said. ‘At least it can’t get in.’

George gave a yell; I felt him jump to the side. He stumbled over the duffel bags and nearly fell beyond the iron.

Lockwood cursed. ‘What the hell are you—?’ He shone the torch. George crouched on the bags, clutching at his jacket. A ribbon of smoke curled from his shoulder.

‘Up above,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Quick.’

The beam snapped upwards. There – the chandelier, choked with dust and webs. A single rivulet of red had trickled from the ceiling, down the central column, and out along a curving crystal arm. At its lowest point a new pendant of blood was slowly building.

‘It – it can’t do that,’ I stammered. ‘We’re inside the iron.’

‘Move out the way!’ Lockwood pushed me back just as the drop fell, spattering on the floor in the centre of the circle. We were all standing almost atop the iron chains. ‘We’ve made it too big,’ he said. ‘The power of the iron doesn’t extend into the very centre. It’s weak there, and this Visitor’s strong enough to overcome it.’

‘Adjust the chains inwards—’ George began.

‘If we make the circle smaller,’ Lockwood said, ‘we’ll be squeezed into a tiny space. It’s scarcely midnight; we’ve seven hours till dawn and this thing’s just got started. No, we’ve got to break out – and that means Lucy’s corner. Come on.’

Keeping our torches trained up above us, we stepped out of the circle on the opposite side to the spreading pools, and began to move round towards the left corner of the end wall. But no sooner did we do so than thick dark trails extended on the ceiling, flowing fast in our direction. The panic in my belly twisted tighter; I fought down the urge to scream.

‘Wait,’ I said. ‘It’s sensing where we are. If we all go there, it’ll quickly hem us in.’

Lockwood nodded. ‘You’re right. Well done. Come on, George. We’ll try to distract it. Lucy: get over there and keep on looking.’

‘OK . . .’ I hurried on. ‘But why me?’

‘You’re a girl,’ Lockwood called. ‘Aren’t you meant to be more sensitive?’

‘To emotions, yes. To nuances of human behaviour. Not necessarily to secret passages in a wall.’

‘Oh, it’s much the same thing. Besides, flailing about with rapiers is basically all George and I are good at.’ He danced off across the room, swirling his torch, waving his sword high towards the ceiling. George did likewise, making for another corner.

Whether the Visitor was suitably distracted, I didn’t have time to see. I put my rapier away, set my torch to its weakest setting, held it tight between my teeth so I could see roughly where I was. To my left was the window recess. Beyond the glass was the fresh cool air of night-time, and a thirty-foot bone-snapping drop down to the gravel driveway. Who knows, perhaps we’d have to jump for it before we were done. Perhaps that would be the better way to die.

Sweat poured down my face, despite the cold. My hands shook as I set them to the wall. As before, I ran my hands all over the area where I’d got the hollow sound.

No luck. Nothing but smoothness.

I reached the corner, felt up and down along the join. On sudden impulse I tried the adjoining wall. Maybe a switch or door was there. I stood on tiptoe, stretched as high as I could. I bent down low. I pressed and pushed. I shoved. I did all this until I reached the window recess. Still I had no joy.

Looking back, I discovered our tactics had worked up to a point. George and Lockwood were banging about in the far regions of the room, channelling their panic into whoops and whistles, and rude insults shouted at the Visitor. In response the central ceiling pool had thrown out new branches: long angry streams of blood diverged around the chandelier, came lancing out towards them.

But I hadn’t been forgotten either. To my shock a stream of blood now stretched almost to my feet along the floor. Up above, an arm of the central stain extended perilously close, and from this a dark, thin stream was falling. Black spatters laced the boards beside my boots. One fell against my heel. There was a hiss; a thin white coil of smoke curled upwards as I jumped away, up onto the deep sill below the window.

This was no good. Now I risked being completely trapped. I turned, crouched, prepared to leap down – and as I did so, my fingers touched the wooden shutter that was folded back against the side of the recess. I looked at it. And in that desperate moment, inspiration came.

I shone my torch full upon the shutter. It was a single solid panel, as high as the recess and almost as wide. At the back, near the window, great black hinges fused it to the stone. If you pulled it, it would swing out to cover the glass.

And – possibly – reveal something else.

I grasped the wood, tried to pull it to me. I wanted to see beneath it – just in case. Somewhere, something gave. I felt the shutter move. I flashed a quick look with my torch – and saw a crack had opened, a gap just wide enough to get my fingers in. Perhaps there was nothing but stone beneath; perhaps it really was a shutter. Or perhaps . . .

‘George! Lockwood!’ I shouted out to them over my shoulder, past a column of gushing blood. ‘I may have found it! Quick – I need your help!’

Without waiting, I pulled at the wood. I heaved, I tugged. It didn’t shift at all.

Something shoved me to the side. It was Lockwood, throwing himself into the recess. The blood was nearing the edges of the room. He’d had to flatten himself against the wall as he ran towards the ledge. George careered after him, holding his rapier at an angle above his head. Falling blood splashed against the sword-tip, fizzing and sparking as it touched the iron. He jumped up next to us. No one spoke. George handed me the rapier. He and Lockwood grappled the wood, braced themselves, and pulled.

I turned and held the blade above us all as an ineffective shield.

The bloodstain on the ceiling had now spread almost wall to wall; in our corner, a single triangle of clean space remained. Elsewhere torrents of blood fell in curtains, roaring, driving, gusting like rain waves in a thunderstorm. The floor was awash. It pooled between the floorboards and lashed up against the skirting. The chandelier dripped with it: the crystals shone red. Now I knew why the chamber was without furniture of any kind, why it had been deserted for so many years. Now I knew why it had the name it did.

George gasped; Lockwood gave a cry. They fell back, knocked against me, dragging the shutter open. Behind it, matted cords of cobwebs trailed like corpse-hair. My torch showed darkness too – a narrow arch inside the wall.

Blood spattered on the corner of the shutter and on the tilted blade above my head. I felt it fizz against my gloves and arms.

‘In! In!’ I gestured to the others; they tumbled through. I followed, moving backwards, stepping from sill to ancient stone. Blood poured down the inside of the shutter; it ran down the sides of the recess, flooding towards my feet.

On the inside of the shutter door we saw an ancient rope, fixed there by an iron ring. George and Lockwood seized it, heaved. The door swung slowly inwards. Blood cascaded through the closing crack, splashed thickly on George’s arm. He cursed, fell back; I lost my balance too. Lockwood gave a final tug. The door closed shut – and we were left in darkness, listening to the crashing and drumming of the blood as the unnamed Thing wrought its fury on the far side of the wall.