I could go up there, with a torch, and check it out myself. After a few nanoseconds I guessed this last thought seemed the most sensible.
So, taking a breath to soothe my now quickening heart, I fetched the flashlight from under the sink and summoned enough courage to go into the hall where the loft hatch was.
It was a wooden rectangle about three feet by four. I had never painted it white like the rest of the ceiling, and for a moment its decades-old wood appeared horribly sinister. Nevertheless I reached up with the pole-hook carefully, unlatched the attic door and lowered it down, fighting back a wave of nausea as the awful smell doubled in potency and wafted downwards.
It was fetid, musky, with whiffs of excrement and waste.
On the topside of the door an aluminium stepladder was fixed. I reached up and unfolded it noting the sound up above was becoming more frenzied. I looked back at the kitchen door, away from the attic, took a deep breath, gathered my resolve, placed the torch in my mouth and with both hands on the ladder, started to climb.
At the top I stopped, removed the flashlight from my mouth, took another steadying breath, and switched it on. The smell was so severe I had to try hard not to gag.
A shuffling in the corner prompted me to shine the torch in that direction.
The amber light danced along the rafters then settled in the corner of the loft.
I stopped dead.
Something large and dark was moving.
This was not a rat.
This was far far bigger.
And hunched over.
Almost human in form.
As my light shone over it, I saw it quiver and heard it make a noise. A low, rumbling sort of sound that made my blood curdle. No way was I tackling this on my own. I edged back gradually trying not to make a sudden move but to my horror, the thing turned towards me. A mess of brown rags came into view – a torso contained within dark filthy cloth. Now petrified, barely able to move, I forced the beam upwards till it hit on something I shall never forget; there, in the small circle of light, a manic pair of devilish eyes blinked and stared back.
For a moment we were both still, locked into a ghastly mutual gaze. Then all at once the thing sprang at me, a wild looping movement that caught me off guard.
I shrieked, ducked under the hatch, and slipped two steps down the ladder. My foot came to rest abruptly on one of the higher rungs. I lost my grip and reached out to grab on to something. My hand closed on nothingness and I fell backwards through the air, landing heavily on my back.
All the air went out of me. I struggled to get up, but could barely gasp: I had been so violently winded. And then the thing came into view through the square gash of the hatch. A frightful, creeping black creature, covered in wild hair, eyes raging and crimson. Brown claw-like hands gripped on to the ledge of the opening, then, it snorted and launched itself down.
I screamed at the top of my lungs as it landed beside me. ‘No, no, no! Get away.’
It flailed its hands in front of me then clamped one entirely over my mouth. I tried to scream again but it had cut off my air.
I was panicking; trying to wriggle out of its grasp so I didn’t register the noise at first. Then something cut through my internal pandemonium: ‘Sadie!’
Someone was calling my name: ‘Sadie, no, no. Stop it, now. Settle.’
The familiarity of the phrase penetrated my terror. My fists unclenched.
I knew that voice.
Barely able to look at it, I slumped and stopped moving. Then, with a gargantuan measure of courage I brought my eyes up to the thing’s face.
‘Sadie. Danger, Sadie.’
I caught its hand and pulled it away from my mouth.
‘What on earth … ?’ I said as I took in its grim haggard features. For beyond the wildness I recognised my mum’s boyfriend, Dan.
Chapter Twenty-Three
He was a wild tumbling thing, whirling about the hall, slightly deranged. No, not slightly. Massively. Hugely.
It took a long time to calm Dan down. And for me to get over the shock, for that matter. But, after God knows how long? – fifteen, thirty minutes? – I managed to get him into the lounge and sat down at the table while I made him a cup of tea.