Page 94 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes
“Why?” She restlessly picks at the fabric of her long flowy skirt. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to pack a bag for you and then you’re coming home with me. You can stay with Danny and me until we fix this.”
“Really?” The one word comes out in such a small, vulnerable voice that my heart almost breaks.
“Absolutely. I have to warn you though. Our place is a little… uh… eclectic right now. We only moved in twenty-four hours ago, and we had to borrow some furniture when ours was ruined by a collapsing ceiling.”
“I don’t mind,” she says quickly, and it’s at that moment I realise how unsettled she really is.
“Okay, then you’re going to need some clothes and whatever personal items you want to bring.” I start to compile a list in my head of everything she may need. “If I come with you, do you feel safe enough going upstairs to pack a bag?” She nods. “We don’t have a bed in the spare room at the moment,” I muse. “But I’m sure we can figure something out.”
“There’s the cot I’ve been using.” She gestures to the small camping bed pushed against the wall in front of us. “Could we take that?”
“Is it comfortable enough to sleep on?”
She shrugs. “Been sleeping on it for the past week or so.”
I pull out my phone and shoot a quick text message to Danny.
Heading home shortly. If Sam’s still there, please ask him if he would come and pick me up, can’t carry everything. We’re going to have a house guest for a few days, will explain when I get home… please hide the enormous dick pic hanging on the living room wall.
I smile to myself, knowing Danny will put two and two together and figure out who I am bringing home to stay for a while. Just like I know he won’t mind when he learns the circumstances.
“Alright.” I turn my attention back to Viv. “Let’s go get your things from upstairs then.”
She stands obediently and heads for the beaded curtain, pausing at the last second to turn back to me.
“You’ll be right behind me though?”
“Of course I will,” I tell her softly. “I’ve got your back, Viv.”
She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to. It’s all right there on her face and I could kick myself for not seeing it earlier.
I follow her back out into the shop and past the counter to a door next to the storage room door that leads to Bruce and the portal. But when she opens the other door, I see a narrow, creepy looking staircase leading up into darkness.
Bloody hell, no wonder she wanted to sleep downstairs. She flips a really old-looking light switch but honestly, it doesn’t improve the aesthetic much. It’s still a claustrophobically narrow staircase flanked by bare walls, only now it’s dimly lit too.
“Okay.” I try to sound upbeat, but my voice comes out more like a squeak. I clear my throat and start again. “Do you want me to go first?”
To be honest, I don’t want to go up there at all. At this point, I’m prepared to buy her new clothes, but she starts up the creaky wooden stairs, giving me no choice but to follow. I promised I’d have her back, but now I’m more worried about an evil tentacly chaos monster creeping up behind me.
It feels like we’ve been climbing forever. These stairs are bloody steep. Stupid Victorians and their stupid narrow passageways and staircases.
“This used to be the servants’ staircase,” Viv says as we bypass the second floor and head up to the third. “The main family staircase was originally much wider and more open, but it was on the other side of the house, which became part of the building next door when they were separated into two properties.”
I can hear the nerves in her voice, like she’s talking to fill the oppressive and slightly ominous silence. Finally, we reach the third floor, which had been converted from what I assume were servants’ quarters to a modern-day flat. Well—I glance around, taking in the fixtures and decor as Viv flips the lights on—it would have been modern back in the seventies. This place needs some serious upgrading. I doubt any of the electrics would pass today’s safety standards.
She leads me to her bedroom, which is tidy enough with an old-fashioned white metal bed frame, a floral hand-stitched quilt over the top of it, and a pine wardrobe with matching chest of drawers next to the wall.
The room feels awful though. It’s exactly the same feeling I had when I walked into Dad’s room at Sunrise before Harrison had hocus-pocused the shit out of it. Viv hurries across the room and grabs an old, battered, leather suitcase from the top of the wardrobe, sneezing loudly when it brings a layer of dust down with it.
I notice that she avoids looking at the corner nearest the door, just like Dad had done in his room. Not wanting a repeat of coming face-to-face with shadowy tentacle vines, I round the bed and open drawers, pulling out clothes at random and shoving them into Viv’s suitcase now laid open on the bed. She grabs a few more things from the wardrobe, leaving coat hangers swinging wildly as she crams everything she can in the case, and I close it up for her, buckling the old-fashioned straps.
“My toothbrush,” she says.
I shake my head, my skin crawling and a sense of panic clawing at my insides. “Leave it.” We need to get out of this flat as soon as possible. “We’ll buy you a new one on the way home along with any other toiletries you need.”
She nods, not needing to be told twice. We hurry from the room, switching out the lights and closing the door to the flat behind us and then heading down the stairs. When we hit the second-floor landing, she pauses.