Chapter 3 (The Man from UNIT)
I made sure I stayed firmly in the doorway. The pair of them didn’t look threatening, but you can never be too careful. They could have been scammers or sneak thieves or anything.
“I’ve had no problems with my house,” I lied. I wasn’t about to tell them about the weird sounds last night.
“Really?” said the man, scratching his chin.
“Who are you?” I looked to both of them in turn. “Have you been spying on my house?”
“So you did hear tapping,” said the man, clicking his fingers and smiling at the young woman. It was a statement, not a question.
“I didn’t say that,” I replied, “I simply asked who you were and if you’ve been spying on us.”
“By us you mean you and your daughter, yes?” said the man.
My hand was already on the door ready to close it. “I suggest you get off my property now.”
“This house is rented, isn’t it? Meaning it’s the councils property.”
“Doctor,” said the young woman, “why do we always have to skirt around the issue. Why can’t we just come clean from the get go?”
“Because being direct doesn’t always get us believed, Holly,” he said.
“Be direct with me,” I replied.
“Interesting,” said the man she had called the Doctor.
“What’s interesting?” I asked, still getting ready to shut the door.
“I believe that something strange did happen in your house last night.”
“And what leads you to believe that?”
“Because if it hadn’t you’d have not asked us to be direct about things. You want clear and concise answers so you have to be a little bit curious as to what is going on upstairs.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. I’d only known him for two minutes but he had a way about him that seemed to suggest he could get into anyone’s thoughts and feelings.
“Please, Mrs Webster, can we come in?”
“For goodness sake, mum,” came Eve’s voice from back towards the kitchen, “just let them in. You’re letting in a draft.”
“First tell me who you.”
The man called the Doctor sighed. He went into his pocket and pulled out an I.D. card. It looked genuine enough. There was a picture of him on it and “UNIT – Scientific Advisor” written on it.
“My name is Doctor John Smith, but you can call me the Doctor. This young female is my friend, Holly Dangerfield. I’m a scientific advisor to a government organisation called UNIT – sometimes called UNIT:X – and Holly is a former librarian now travelling around with me.”
“And you, what, pay visits to creaking houses?”
The Doctor smiled. “We sort of investigate the unexplained. The strange. The wonderful and the weird.” He looked impatient. “Look, if you don’t believe me I can get a few friends to verify my credentials.”
“No, no,” I said. He seemed genuine enough. Odd, but genuine. “Look, you better come in.”
“So,” said Eve as she put her empty cornflake bowl in the sink, “are they government agents?”
“Not exactly, Eve,” I said, switching the kettle back on the re-boil the water. “But they are here to investigate the strange sound.”
“I knew there was something weird about it,” said Eve, her eyes lightning up.
“Just let me deal with this, okay?” I said. I didn’t want Eve getting involved. She was much too young.
“Okay, okay. I’ll just sit back and listen.”
“I’d prefer you to go to your room.”
“Urggh, no way,” said Eve, “we haven’t found Steven yet.”
I sighed. My daughter certainly took after me – headstrong and determined. “Okay, but you just keep quiet. I don’t quite trust the two of them yet.”
“Yeah, I wonder how they knew about the tapping.”
I poured three cups of tea – the Doctor had requested six sugars in his – whilst Eve opened a packet of chocolate biscuits and popped them on a plate.
After a few moments and sitting, quietly and politely supping on our tea, I put my mug down. “Okay, so what is going on here, and please, as your friend said, can you just be as direct as possible?”
“Okay,” said the Doctor, putting his mug down on the floor. He looked around him. I had put them in the living room rather than our best room. “It’s a very dark room, isn’t it?”
“It always has been. It’s a dark house.”
“Gloomy,” said the Doctor.
“And cold,” said Eve, rubbing her arms. “Mum, is the heating on?”
“It’s September,” I replied, “we can’t put it on yet.”
“But it’s always cold.”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, clicking his fingers and pointing at Eve. “It’s always cold. The first sign that something isn’t right.”
“Remember what we said about being direct, Doctor?” said Holly, looking at him.
“Yes,” said the Doctor, sitting back in the chair and nibbling on a chocolate biscuit. “I wish I had more answers to your problems, Mrs Webster, but the truth is I’m experiencing this at the same time as you.”
“But I haven’t got any problems other than the tapping.”
“Which I believe is the start of something,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “You see, Holly and I were on our way to visit some friends when we noticed something – a signal emanating from your house. It was only a faint blip, but it was enough to register on my equipment.”
“What sort of signal?”
“We don’t know,” said Holly. “It was gone before we even got a chance to analyse it.”
I took another sip of my drink. “So how do you know it’s a problem?”
“We arrived last night actually,” said Holly. “We could hear the tapping from outside.”
“You were creeping about outside?” said Eve.
“Not creeping. We were going to come and see you then but we realise what time it was so thought we’d come back this morning.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, holding my hand up, “back up a bit. How did you hear the taps from outside?”
The Doctor went into his jacket pocket and pulled out a metal, tubular device with a glowing end. “This amplifies sound waves. I simply aimed it at the house and listened.”
“So you did spy on us?” said Eve.
“Eve I asked you to be quiet.”
Eve sat back in the chair with a huff and folded her arms.
“All for your protection, we promise,” said Holly. “Believe it or not I don’t really want to be here. It’s stopping me from getting where I need to be.”
“Do you mind if I take a look upstairs?” asked the Doctor, getting to his feet.
“Well, no, but there’s nothing to see. Really it was just some odd tapping.”
“Rhythmic and continuous and very precise. Yes, I heard. May I?”
I had nothing to lose so led him upstairs whilst Holly stayed downstairs with Eve, who was becoming increasingly grumpy at being left out of the situation. When we reached the top of the stairs the Doctor immediately went to the back bedroom, but he didn’t go inside. Instead he just placed his hand on the wall and smiled.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Look,” said the Doctor, moving his hand away. “You wouldn’t have seen this in the dark last night. You wouldn’t have seen it this morning because you weren’t looking, but if you look hard you can see it now.”
“See what?” I asked, peering at the wall. And then I saw it. It was only very slight, but to my astonishment there was an indentation in the wall. A small, dint as if something had hit it with a force that was enough to cause the dint, but not enough for it to be a bigger one. “What is that?”
“Look,” said the Doctor, pointing down the landing wall, past Eve’s door and towards my bedroom door.
I followed his pointing and gasped. I moved in for a closer look. All along the wall, in a straight line, was a row of indentations.
“But...I don’t understand.”
Right next to my bedroom door was a bigger indentation. The one caused by the WHACK before it all ended.
“Still think it was just random house noises?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
“But...is it electrics going off or something within the wall maybe?”
“No, Emily,” said the Doctor, shaking his head at me. “Something has caused these dints from the outside. Something that was striking the wall over and over again. Last night, in the darkness, whilst you and your daughter tried to sleep, something walked up this landing hitting the wall over and over again until it reached your bedroom.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “It’s impossible.”
“Is it, Mrs Webster?” he said, taking me by surprise by using my surname. “You say this house is always cold. It’s always dark. It feels gloomy. It is gloomy.” He looked right into my eyes, his nose just centimetres away from mine. I could smell the peppermint toothpaste on his breath. “Mrs Webster, I very much think that you have the beginnings of a haunting here.”
To be continued...
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