Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel (14 page)

Tully slumped against the dryer and stared at her hands. The skin had wrinkled. She held them up to her face and sniffed, grimacing.
Yuk. She needed a bath, but no way was she going to lie down in that tub ever again. A sigh and she tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Toby. She needed to talk to Toby, since there was no way she could tell her parents what was really going on. They wouldn’t believe her and Mary would really worry about a drinking problem then.

Toby. Back to just Toby and Tully. But thinking about Toby wasn’t comforting either. She hoped he was back to his normal self today. Hitching herself upright, she climbed the stairs to
the bathroom again and stuck her head in through the door. The floor was still wet, and the thought of stepping into the tub, even to shower in there, had her whimpering under her breath.

The downstairs door slammed, and Tully sighed in relief. Mary was off out, taking Hannah to some sort of baby gym class, which seemed
kinda a waste of time when all the kid could do was kick her legs about like a frog, but what did Tully know?

She knew she could use the
ensuite bathroom to have that shower. Good plan. If she didn’t get the stink of piss off her skin she was going to start screaming. Her Dad and Mary’s bathroom smelled of aftershave and perfume. Tully spun the shower faucet on to extra hot and breathed in the billowing steam. Perfect.

But when it came time to undress, she chewed on her lip, feeling the house around her, all those empty rooms that might not be empty. What if the spirit was still somewhere around, not content to just throw a bunch of towels in the tub. What if it was watching her?

Her skin prickled with goose bumps and she shucked off her pyjamas – which were wet from lugging the sheets downstairs – and jumped into the shower before she could freak out. She wished Lara was still around. Even if they were still in the cabin, that would be better, she decided. At least there they were all in it together. Until Lara and Matt bailed, that was. She tipped her head under the hot water and picked up the soap.

All during her shower, she hadn’t been able to get over the idea that she was being watched. The house didn’t feel empty – no way, it was harbouring something. The spirit that had chased them up in the Enchanted Forest.

No, not chased them.
Caught
them. Tully shuddered and drew her hair into a pony tail, not bothering to blow dry it. She wanted to get out of the house, even if it was hours until she was due to start work. She didn’t think she could spend one extra minute in the house.

Something shattered downstairs. The sound of something breaking. Tully froze, then edged towards her bedroom door and listened.

‘Who’s there?’ she called out. ‘Who is it?’

More sounds. From the kitchen. Cupboards opening and closing. The rattling of cutlery. Her breath eased in her chest. Toby.
Still in bare feet, she burst from her room and ran down the stairs.

‘Watch your feet,’ Toby said. ‘I broke a glass.’

‘Jeez,’ said Tully. ‘Sweep it up, then. Fuck, I got a fright when I heard it break.’

She expected he’d ask why, but he just took another bite of toast and scooped up a spoonful of cornflakes, his eyes not even on her. She stared at him a moment, the
n found the dustpan and brush and scooped up the broken glass. It went into the rubbish, reminding her strongly of the last time she’d had to do this.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ she said, putting the pan and brush away and going to the coffee machine.
She wanted a double shot latte. Sounded good to her. Lots of caffeine. And thanks to her hospitality training, she knew how to drive the fancy Italian espresso machine.

‘Toby? Did you hear me? I said we have a problem.’

Her brother grunted, and shovelled in another spoonful of cornflakes. Milk dribbled down his chin. She sat down across from him and gave him a dubious look.

‘When was the last time you shaved?’ she asked. ‘Boss man isn’t going to go for that, you know. Clean-shaven. You all have to be clean-shaven.’

He chewed on his corn flakes. Licked his lips. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

Something loosened inside Tully. A tiny part of her had been worried about her brother. Okay, more than a tiny part. She hadn’t been completely sure they were going to be able to have a proper conversation today. Not after how he’d been the night before.

‘The spirit,’ she said and paused, wanting his full attention. ‘It’s here.’

Toby’s spoon paused in
mid-air, the tower of corn flakes trembling on it.

‘It followed us here,’ she said. ‘I just spent the morning bailing out the bath. All Mary’s sheets were in there.’ Screwed up her face. ‘They were wet with freezing cold water – and urine. Piss.’

‘I know what urine is.’

‘Right. And now Mary thinks I have a drinking problem
that makes me wet the bed.’ She leaned forward and touched his arm. ‘Toby, we have to do something.’

A door slammed upstairs, and the sound of water running, blasting out of a tap. Tully leapt up from the table.

‘Shit! You hear that? Toby, it’s getting worse!’

Toby’s spoon dropped to the table, cornflakes and milk spilling everywhere. When she glanced at him, his eyes were wild, rolling around in their sockets.
His mouth worked, but no sounds came out. She grabbed for his hand.

‘What do we do?’ she asked.

He shook his head, backed up, bringing her with him, bumped up against the back door, then turned, wrenched it open and fled.

‘Toby! Wait!’ She ran after him. ‘Toby, where are you going?’

But that question was answered in a moment, and she sprinted after him, caught the garage door when he flung it open and was on his heels as he took the stairs two at a time. The door to his room was closed, and she crashed into him when he stopped to fumble with the lock.

‘Toby,’ she said, out of breath. ‘We can’t run and hide – we have to do something.’ Although actually, running and hiding was exactly what she wanted to do, and when he pushed the door open, she was right behind him.

He turned and slammed the door closed, thin fingers twisting the key in the old-fashioned lock.

‘We’ll be safe here,’ he said, swivelling his head around looking at the dangling lights in the corner. ‘Can’t come in here. Made sure of it.’

‘What? You’ve lost me.’

Toby hunched his shoulders up around his ears. ‘Doesn’t like the light,’ he said. ‘Can’t hide in here because there’
s nowhere to hide.’ He sat down on his unmade bed and pulled out his pouch of tobacco from under the mattress. ‘Almost out,’ he said and held it up. ‘You get me more when you go out?’ He sniffed and lowered it, fingers pulling out tissue and filter, rolling a cigarette.

‘You can get it yourself when we go to work,’ Tully replied, wondering what was going on in the house. She pressed herself against the wall and admitted the brightness of the room was better than lots of shadows, but it still hurt her eyes.

Her brother shook his head. ‘Can’t go to work.’

‘What? What do you mean?’

‘Quit.’

She gaped at him, then dropped to her knees and tried to look him in the eye.

‘You quit?’

He nodded. Lit his cigarette. His hands were shaking.

‘But why?’

‘Wasn’t safe.’

Tully lifted her hands and tugged at her hair. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she said. ‘I don’t believe any of this.’ She looked at her brother, so similar in appearance to the face she saw every morning in the mirror.

‘Toby. What’s going on with you?’ she asked.

He drew his knees up and dropped his head so she couldn’t see his face. He didn’t answer.

Standing up, Tully paced the small room, keeping her eyes down so the lights wouldn’t blind her.

‘It’s this spirit,’ she said at last. ‘It’s fucking with us. Fucking with you real bad.’ Toby had always been kind of quiet. Lived in his head a lot. Intense. She stopped wearing a groove in the floorboards and stared at her brother.

‘We
gotta get rid of it.’ She held up a hand and ticked off her fingers. ‘For starters, we won’t be able to hide it from Mary and Dad for much longer.’ Another finger. ‘And to finish, I’m scared shitless.’

‘It can’t come in here,’ Toby repeated, and finally lifted his gaze to his sister. His eyes were bloodshot. ‘No shadows for it to hide in.’

Tully risked a glance at the naked light bulbs hanging in the corners. ‘Is that what those are about?’

‘I saw it.’ Toby dropped his head and sucked on his cigarette. ‘At the other place. It hid under my bed.’ He patted the floor. ‘Can’t do that here.’

Well that explained why he’d shoved the bed base out. No wonder he was completely freaked. She sat down beside him and put an arm around his shoulders.

‘I’m scared,’ she said, and her voice belonged to a little girl.

‘I’m scared too,’ her brother said. ‘I’m scared a whole, whole lot.’ She saw him scrunch his eyes closed. ‘But we’re safe in here.’

Squeezing Toby’s thin shoulders,
Tully’s fears grew. She was worried for him too. He was losing it. She swallowed. ‘I’m going to fix it, okay, Toby? I’m going to fix this.’

He looked at her, eyes bleak. She thought he was going to ask how, but he didn’t even do that. Just looked back at the floor and took another drag on his cigarette. Tully got up and went to the door, put her hand on the key.

‘I’m going back inside the house. Make sure everything’s all right, and then I’m going to find a way to fix this. Okay Toby?’

Toby nodded, squatting on the mattress looking like a little boy. He didn’t look at he
r, and he didn’t say anything. Tully chewed on her lip. ‘Did you really call the restaurant and quit?’

No reply except for another nod. Tully sucked in a deep breath. ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll be back soon, all right?’

Not even a nod this time, and after a moment, Tully opened the door and went outside. She heard the door lock behind her, and wondered if Toby was ever going to let her back in.

She had to get rid of the spi
rit. If for no other reason than Toby was falling apart. Her legs were wobbly as she walked down the short path to the house. Panic flitted around inside her like a firefly and she pressed a hand to her stomach to settle it. She couldn’t afford to fall apart as well. Someone had to do something, and the only someone available was her.

The trouble was, she had no idea what to do.

She could have kissed her. Instead, she burst into tears.

‘Hey, Tully, it’s okay. Shit, don’t cry.’ Lara hustled her into the restaurant pantry and out of sight. ‘Wow, things must be really bad, you’re crying a river.’

Tully sniffed and wiped the tears away. More took their place. ‘It’s been a really bad day,’ she said. ‘And I thought…’

‘I didn’t give a shit,’ Lara finished for her, then strung an arm over her shoulders and squeezed. ‘Well you were wrong. I do, I…I just couldn’t face it so well.’ She sniffed too. ‘But I’ve had time to think about it, and leaving you to deal with everything was really sucky. A real sucky thing to do.’ She jumped up and pounced on a packet of paper napkins, pulled one out and handed it to Tully. ‘So I want to make it up to you.’ She wiped her own eyes. ‘I’m going to see this through with you, I promise.’

‘Toby’s sick,’ Tully blurted. ‘I mean, he’s losing it. I’ve never seen him so scared.’ She stared up at her best friend. ‘He looks like a little lost boy.
Lara, I’m frightened for him, I think he’s seen the spirit and it’s really messed with him.’

Lara
came back and patted her. ‘We’ll give these guys a call, and they can figure out what to do. They’ll get rid of the spirit, I guarantee it, and then everything can go back to normal. We’ll get a flat, go back to uni. You can become the world’s greatest accountant, Toby can engineer whatever it is that engineers engineer.’ She giggled. ‘And I’ll act my way to stardom, just like we always planned, and one day we’ll look back and say
remember when that ghost followed us home from the insane asylum? Boy, that was some scary shit.’

Tully sniffed into her napkin and nodded, still clutching her phone.
Lara had dug her phone right out of her apron when she’d turned up for work, opening it up and typing a number into Tully’s contact list. She’d thrust it back into Tully’s hand with a triumphant look on her face.

‘When shall I call them?’ she asked.

Lara grinned. ‘Why not now?’

‘I’ve been crying.’

‘So? You’re talking on the phone, not video. Though they might want to Skype with you later, he did say so.’

‘So they won’t just come straight down and investigate it?’

Lara did a little pirouette. ‘I’m sure they will, as soon as you’ve explained how serious it is.’ Her grin stretched wider. ‘They might even want to film stuff for another show.’

‘Oh god, I hope not.’ Tully wiped her face again and stood up straighter, staring at the number in her phone. ‘It has to be done in secret. Dad and Mary can’t know what’s been going on – they’d never understand. Not in a million years.’ She cleared her throat in preparation for the phone call. ‘That’s why I have to do something now. I can’t hide the phenomena from them for much longer. Mary thinks I’m an
alcoholic who wets the bed as it is.’