Page 32 of We Live Here Now

31

Emily

I can’t sleep, my head a whirlpool of dread dragging me down. I stare up at the ceiling, trying to calm my thoughts, but I can’t. All I can see is that stack of books, a message from whatever—whoever—is haunting this house.

You will die here.

Is it a warning or a threat? Or just a random unfortunate collection of titles? There are no ghosts at Larkin Lodge. I repeat Fortuna’s words in my head even though I don’t believe them. There’s something wrong with this house. Alone in the middle of the silent night, it’s starting to suffocate me as I lie still under the covers, trying to ignore the pressing urgency of my bladder, until at last I can’t.

Out of bed, I’m alert for that awful creaking and clicking sound coming from the third floor, but there’s nothing but silence as I hobble to the bathroom. I left the hall light on when I went to bed, so I’m spared an awful moment of darkness when leaving the bedroom, and the landing is warm, lingering dregs of heat still escaping the radiators even though they’ve been off for hours.

The smell comes when I’m washing my hands. At first, it’s just the hint of something rotten in the air, but as soon as I step back into the landing it assails the back of my throat, making me almost gag. It’s only my clean, scented hands pressed onto my mouth that stops me. It’s a thick unpleasant dampness, sweetly wrong. I automatically glance up, fearful, but it’s not coming from the top floor.

It gets stronger as I head toward the bedroom, and I wonder if maybe there’s a dead rat in the drains. As I reach the place where I trod on the nail, it gets so bad I can’t move any farther forward without the real threat of vomiting. Could there be something dead under the floorboards?

I open the window— Yes, Freddie, this time I did open it —letting icy air in to get rid of the smell. I do the same in the bathroom and grab the can of air freshener, spraying liberally throughout the middle floor as I open every window and wedge open every door to get some air flow through.

When I’m done, I take a few deep breaths that cling icily to the wet flesh of my lungs and stare out at the endless night until my skin is cold as death and I’m shivering.

I go back to the hallway, hoping the wind tunnel of breeze I’ve created will clear out the stench quickly. Where has it come from? What is it? If a rat or something had died under the floorboards, it wouldn’t have rotted so fast, surely? Not in the middle of winter. The smell would have crept in slowly, gradually building up now that the house is warm again. But there’s nothing subtle about this stench. It’s got to be something bigger than a rat. A large dead thing under there somewhere.

The stink is still strong, a sludge coating me, creeping between each strand of my hair and clinging to every pore of my skin, and I’m starting to feel a little faint when suddenly there’s an almighty crash as all the windows slam shut at once.

I shriek and stumble backward, crouching on my haunches in the place the smell was strongest, protecting my head, my heart pounding. The breeze. It was a breeze. It’s only a breeze.

The doors around me slam shut in unison, the sound like the crack of thunder, and while I don’t cry out this time I curl in smaller, as if the ceiling might fall on me. After a moment, I straighten up in the silence. It was just the breeze , I try to tell myself again, but I don’t believe it. The windows closed first, so there was no breeze to close the doors. Certainly not enough to make the doorstops come away first.

It’s only after a moment, waiting for my racing heart to slow, that I realize the smell has gone. I lean down closer to the floorboards, but there’s nothing but the scent of old wood.

It’s then that I see it.

A bent nail is sticking up through the floorboard, with rust red decorating the end of the metal. It’s the nail I trod on, the one Freddie told me he’d pulled up. I stare at it in disbelief, the madness of the last few moments almost forgotten as my anger at Freddie overwhelms me. It’s a sudden visceral rage that takes me by surprise, and in my head I call him all the names and foul words I can think of.

He told me he’d pulled it out. He knows how much I worry about cuts and injuries now and with good reason. He knows I’m doing my best to get well. How could he do this? Be so casual about something that worries me?

It’s the same nail. I know it is, and I realize, knowing Freddie, what probably happened. Freddie probably couldn’t get it out and then got distracted and figured he’d try again later and then never got round to it. That’s Freddie all over. Thoughtless. Careless. Stupid. Always trying for an easy life. I used to like that about him when we met, his laissez-faire everything will be all right attitude. It was a great counterbalance to my need to have everything under control, but I realized a long time ago, after all that shit at uni that nearly finished us, that he just hopes everything will be all right because he’s lazy and has no self-control. Freddie’s it’ll be fine is shorthand for I can’t be bothered.

I stare at the nail for a long few minutes before I haul myself to my feet. Well, this time I’m not letting him get away with it.