The World House (9 page)

  Where the hell was he?

  His limited vision offered what seemed an infinite run of half-carpeted steps. The wood was dark, the carpet thick and deep red. The wall to his right was mostly taken up with panelling, slats of the same dark wood as the steps jutting up into a sky of paint the thick cream of homemade custard. To his left, the solid balusters propped up a heavy handrail, their bulbous curves like pirouetting fat ladies.

  His foot began to hurt, twisted and taking all his weight. Pablo was a little relieved by that as he supposed it meant his spine was intact, though his ankle might not be if he hung there much longer. His duffel bag was still on his shoulder, the weight of the rope pulling the strap into his flesh.

  Slowly, feeling began to creep back into his face as it swelled with blood. His eyes began to lose focus, white stars pulsing in front of them. He grew lightheaded, even as his cheeks and jowls threatened to burst from the pressure. He imagined himself growing purple, then black… a grape turning to rot as it hung on the vine. For a while it seemed to him that he could feel the flesh of his face blossoming and curling as the rich juice seeped out. Perhaps the blood to his head was bringing on delirium?

  His fingers twitched, his right hand going into spasm as every nerve-ending in it tried to remember what it was for. His head continued to spin, his thoughts becoming more ill-defined with every moment. By rights he should be panicking, but his dreamy state of mind wouldn't let him. Perhaps if he just stayed here someone else would come along eventually and tell him what the hell had just happened.

 

• • •

 

"There must be other people here," Miles said as he and Penelope continued to walk along the interminable corridor.

  "What makes you say that?" asked Penelope. "I fail to follow your logic."

  "Well…" In truth, Miles was speaking from the perspective of hope rather than logic. "All the furniture and everything…"

  "But no sign of actual habitation," Penelope pointed out, "there's all the peripheral things – the decoration of a house – but no clothes, no untidiness, no half-empty glasses of water by the bedside, halfread books, crumpled sheets, dirty ashtrays. The whole place is lifeless."

  "I suppose you're right," Miles admitted, "but if we appeared here then surely others must have too? The two of us have no connection and yet we wake up in this…" he looked back at the absurdly infinite corridor behind him "…
impossible
house. The odds would suggest we're not alone."

  "I don't have a lot of faith in odds."

  Miles shrugged "I can't say I've had much success following them either. Shall we try another?" He pointed at a door off the corridor.

  "Do we have any choice?"

  "Not really."

  They stepped into another bedroom. The carpet seemed to sigh miserably at the sensation of feet on it.

  "See." Penelope waved her arm around the room. "Nobody's ever slept here. You can feel it – it's like a theatre set, all the right trimmings but none of the soul."

  Miles was cautious of the window after his last experience but walked over to it anyway. Like before it was pitch-black beyond the glass. Penelope yanked open the doors of the wardrobe, still hoping that she might chance upon something more becoming to wear than a curtain. With a yelp she fell back as a large brown shape burst from the wardrobe and whipped upwards. The shape flattened as it hit the ceiling, expanding across the sickly cream paint and reaching towards the corners of the room. The air was filled with a crackling noise, like frying fat. In the low light it took a few seconds for Miles and Penelope to appreciate what they were looking at.

  "Moths?" Penelope said, getting back to her feet.

  "
Lots
of moths," agreed Miles.

  They watched for a few seconds as the moths thrashed against the ceiling, circling around the room.

  "Weird," Miles whispered, unable to take his eyes off them.

  "Disgusting," Penelope replied. "Shall we leave?"

  "Yeah…" Miles tore his eyes away from the ceiling and walked towards the open door. The moths immediately arced down toward him, making him dart back to the window and stand with his back against the glass. The moths returned to the ceiling.

  "OK," Miles said, "now
that
freaks me out – the moths don't want me to move."

  "Don't be ridiculous," Penelope replied, moving towards the door herself. "They're moths, they can't…"

  Again, the moths cut down, a phalanx of them whipping at Penelope as she approached the door. She stepped back towards the wardrobe, watching in relief as they returned to a flat sea above their heads.

  "Tell them that," said Miles.

 

Eventually, Pablo was able to move, turning his throbbing ankle to dislodge it from where it was wedged. The sole of his boot held fast against the wood of the balusters and he had to yank it free, the momentum sending him rolling backwards down the stairs. He stuck his arm out to stop himself from rolling too far and his hand slammed against the stairs and jarred his shoulder. Sore and nauseous from being upside down so long, he turned over so that he sat against the wall. He stayed still for a few minutes, just to let the blood settle from his head. He rolled his arm in its shoulder-socket and straightened his bag on his back. Ahead of him the stairs stretched on and on with no end in sight. He turned to look behind him but the view was no more hopeful, the steps reaching up into darkness with no sign of a destination. Slowly the dizziness and sickness faded and, deciding that walking down stairs was less work – and surely they must lead somewhere in the end? – he got to his feet and began to descend.

 

• • •

 

"This is ridiculous," said Penelope, "they're only moths, it's not as if they can harm us, is it?"

  "I suppose not," Miles replied. "Shall we just make a run for it?"

  "On three, we charge the door and just push our way through."

  "OK… who's going to count?"

  Penelope smiled. "Silly man, like it really matters."

  "I'll do it then."

  "If it makes you happier."

  "OK… one… two…"

  "Don't move!" A man stepped into the open doorway. "Or they'll cut you down where you stand!"

 

Pablo didn't own a watch, though he was sure that if he did it would tell him he had been descending these stairs for far too long. His thigh muscles were beginning to cramp and he decided to sit down and stretch them for a while before they gave out entirely. It didn't help that his bag was so damned heavy – though, even in his current bizarre circumstances, he feared his father enough never to consider leaving the equipment behind. Then it occurred to him what that equipment was: he was carrying fifty metres or so of rope. He got back to his feet and looked over the bannister. There was nothing to be seen. Still, his current plan was getting him nowhere; a change in direction was worth a try. He began to yank the rope out of his bag.

 

• • •

 

The man in the doorway was dressed in oldfashioned explorer's clothes: pale khaki jacket littered with pockets, long shorts, desert boots and a pith helmet. "My dears," he said, in a cultured voice richer than a port-soaked stilton, "if you value your lives as you surely must, I beg you heed me. The wildlife here is unpredictable and predominantly deadly. You dismiss it at your peril." At this he gave a jolly smile, his long bushy moustache rising like theatre drapes to reveal his shining teeth.

  The moths, perhaps sensing they were being discussed, swirled even more dramatically around the ceiling, the noise of their wings building in volume.

  "Am I still the only one here that realises we're dealing with moths?" Penelope asked. "Possibly the most inoffensive creature imaginable."

  "My dear lady," the stranger replied, "maybe you would feel somewhat different toward our lepidopteran friends were you an old sheet. Any creature, when found in sufficient number, might be defined as threatening; in this terrible domicile you can be sure of it. Nothing in this building is to be taken lightly, my dear, nothing at all."

  "You have a suggestion then?" asked Miles.

  "Indeed I do," the man replied, reaching to one side of the door and pulling a long-barrelled rifle into view.

  "Oh, dear lord," Penelope sighed, "the fool intends to shoot our way out."

  "The 'fool' in question, my dear lady – if one can really refer to a young woman wrapped in nothing but soft furnishings as a 'lady' – is none other than Roger Carruthers, world-famous explorer, big-game hunter and expert in matters zoological." With the rifle slung on his shoulder he reached down again, this time picking up a storm lantern. "I can assure you there is very little in this world that I have not tracked, catalogued and shot. If I wished to pick these chaps off one by one I would most certainly have the aim – if not the munitions or time – to do so. The moths, however, are not my target." He lit the lantern and turned the wick up high so that the flame blazed beyond the glass. He looked at Miles. "Might I suggest, sir, that you have the good sense to duck?" With that, he stepped inside the room, pushing the door closed behind him. He levelled the rifle at Miles and emptied both barrels.

 

Pablo tugged at the knot around the handrail. Accepting that it was strong enough, he tied a loop in the loose end – so he would have a foot-hold – and tossed the coil of rope over the banister, watching it drop away into the darkness. His hope was not that it might reach the ground (if it were only fifty metres away he would be able see it) but rather that he might gain a new perspective on things once off the stairs. Perhaps there was something beneath them, a wall or even balcony, that he might be able to reach. If the worst came to the worst he would just climb back up and carry on his journey; at least he would have tried. Wrapping the rope loosely around his arms and legs, he climbed over the banister rail and began to descend.

 

As Miles hit the floor he heard the glass of the window explode outwards. Covering his eyes slightly he peered towards the doorway, at a loss as to what the madman was planning. Carruthers shifted his aim and fired three more times, shooting the gas lamps in the wall.

  "Oh, brilliant!" Penelope shouted, "now the lunatic wants to blows us all up!"

  "Not with this calibre, my dear," Carruthers replied, holding up the storm lantern, now the only light in the room. "Just encouraging a modicum of darkness." He threw the lantern across the room. As its flame threw a flickering light across the undulating moths, Miles saw the insects surge after it, following the light through the broken window and into the darkness beyond. "And now," Carruthers continued, "I suggest you take the opportunity to join me back out here in the hallway where I will be only too happy to answer your many questions."

 

Pablo dropped lower and lower, feeding the rope cautiously through his fingers, not wanting to move too quickly. Eventually he came to the end, poked his foot through the loop and hung there. He had hoped that he would see something of use from below the stairs but there was nothing. He stayed still for a moment, in case his eyes needed to adjust to the darkness, gently swinging on the rope, turning in the air to check every direction. Above him he could see the side of the stairs, the dark wood banister. Underneath was as dark and featureless as everywhere else, as if the stairs only existed when viewed from above or to the side.

  He was in no rush to climb back up the rope but didn't see that he had much choice; he could hardly hang here for ever. With a sigh he reached up and took hold of the rope, preparing to yank himself upwards. As he tensed his muscles a feeling suddenly struck him and he held himself utterly still. He couldn't say what it was that had changed but he knew that he was no longer alone. Something was in this darkness with him, and it was coming closer.

 

"Allow me to take this opportunity to introduce myself under more convivial circumstances," said Carruthers once they were safely back in the corridor. "Roger Carruthers, author, adventurer, after-dinner speaker and Chairman of the West Highbury Gourmands – 'If it walks, flies, swims or slithers we'll eat it!' I have no doubt I may be familiar to you from my many public appearances and articles?"

  "Never heard of you." Penelope held out her hand. "Penelope Simons, American, débutante – well, more of an old hand if I'm honest – and most certainly a lady, however fashionably indisposed. I take it this is your house?"

  "Nothing could be further from the truth, madam." Carruthers was clearly put out not to be recognised but covered it with grace, kissing the back of her hand and nodding courteously. "I am merely an explorer in these wild corridors and chambers. In fact I am of the opinion that nobody could be said to own the place; like the African wilds and those more inhospitable corners of your own nation it is a place that simply
is
. An environment to be endured, a place where one has no greater fight than that for survival. It is a fight I can thus far lay claim to winning. And your name, sir?" He turned to Miles.

  "Miles Caulfield, antique dealer, failed gambler and possessor of what I begin to suspect is the most ludicrous mental breakdown imaginable."

  "Aha!" Carruthers clapped his hands together. "You are not long upon our shores, I surmise?"

  "We haven't been here that long if that's what you mean."

  "I suspected not. I too believed this place a delusion on first arrival." He patted Miles on the shoulder. "It's quite real, old chap, and we must consider ourselves lucky for each new day we manage to avoid death. You are both welcome to return to my camp. Let us hope you are the measure of the journey, eh?"