Hazel studied the property from the window of the Cayenne.
“It’s perfect, look at that view up the hill.”
“There’s decent access, too.” Damien leaned over, pointing to the driveway at the side of the property. “Jonty thinks they would be open to offers. There are a few sticking points though.” His wife turned to face him. “You’ve seen the paperwork,” Damien continued. “That monstrosity is supposed to be integrated into the scheme.” Damien nodded at the old house occupying the plot. “It’s supposed to be a dwelling of historical interest. Whatever the fuck that means. It’s hideous.”
“I know, but we can do something about that, can’t we? Appeal?” Hazel turned from her husband to the house, then back again. “Come on, all those plans we made, this could be our breakthrough moment! We can make this happen.”
Damien felt his wife’s energy, her eagerness.
“I have a confession to make, Haze… I already approached Jonty with an offer, this morning.”
Hazel’s face lit up.
“We might get a response before the end of the day,” he continued, then gave her one of his boyish grins, he couldn’t help himself. She leaned across and planted a kiss on his mouth, playfully biting his lower lip as she pulled away. He wanted her right there and then.
“Shame we don’t have the keys right now, we could go in and christen it.”
“Yuck! In there?” Hazel replied, “Why don’t we just drive around the back and we can do it in the car.”
Damien stared at his wife with interest, then started the Porsche. He didn’t need a second invitation.
* * *
Four months later, after vacillating solicitors got their shit together, the deal was done. It wasn’t plain sailing, which they had expected, but the next bit would be worse. Apart from the sticking point around the dwelling they were already aware of, they would need to jump through more hoops to get the use of the plot changed from domestic to business. They weren’t interested in building new executive homes on the site; their vision was swankier. Already a successful landlord with a string of properties, Damien wanted to shoehorn his arriviste persona, and that of his highly manicured wife, into the big leagues of the Cotswolds glitterati. This project would be the doorway into that world. They just needed to get the planning consent.
It took months. Winter came and went, and the house on the site looked progressively shabbier. Residents of the village, which the property bordered, found out about the proposal and were none too pleased. Not the true locals. The monied outsiders were all for it. Gentrification by stealth, some of the old timers called it. No one could afford to live here anymore, they complained. All the grumblings amounted to nothing eventually, lip service was as much as they received. To Damien and Hazel Weaver, it didn’t matter, it was purely a stepping stone at the base of their pyramid. One they weren’t necessarily building for locals. They were forced, through expediency, to amend their plans more than once. Some fiscal, some to allay concerns of scale. Damien used the developer trick of going in larger than he knew would be acceptable. Knowing full well that amended plans, smaller, more realistic ones, would be ultimately workable. A fake compromise. He’d played the game before with his other businesses. It was part of what made it interesting to him.
Finally, their plans for the wellness retreat and eco yurts were approved, in principle, by the local planning authority. But the thing they couldn’t get around, the carbuncle they were supposed to morph into the scheme, remained. What Hazel had come to name the ‘poxy pile’. The old house wasn’t listed, but it did have a Building Preservation Notice on it. The thought that it might get listed status horrified the couple. During the months leading up to the permission, both Damien and Hazel had done what research they could into the house. It was nearly three hundred years old and had been extended in the early 20th century. At one time a charnel house, an illicit distillery, the local smithy and a private dwelling, its history was shrouded in rumour and speculation. Damien had to admit it intrigued him, but he loathed it; it was ugly, and he really wasn’t interested in a history that didn’t lend itself to the spa-themed opulence he envisioned for it. Both Hazel and he wanted to crack on with the development.
The architect had been employed, builders contacted and estimates obtained. Then there was the visit to the site. Damien and Hazel had held off on visiting before the thing had proper legs; they didn’t want to jinx it. Despite the impending decision of the poxy pile being listed, the legs had grown. They finally went to visit the property in the spring of the year following their first inquiry. It was a grey, April day, made duller by the neglected house. It had kind of a face if you looked at it straight on. Not a pleasant one; as though it knew it was unwanted. Scowling. Damien opened the front door, which resisted, complaining loudly through its hinges. The smell of dampness and age permeated the hallway, invading the new owners’ nostrils.
“It fucking stinks!” Damien groaned.
“Oh jeez, what are we supposed to do with this hell hole?” Hazel looked around the cramped hallway, the pile of mail stacked up by the sweep of the door. There were endless dead insects scattered around; woodlice and cluster flies mostly. Hazel shivered, but she kept her squeal of disgust internalised.
“Come on, let’s take a look around.” Noting the look on her face, Damien took his wife’s hand and rubbed the back of it with his finger.
“Upstairs first?” Damien nodded towards the staircase and the omnipresent gloom shrouding its landing.
Hazel squeezed her husband’s hand and let him lead the way.
The rooms were empty, except for the soiled net curtains that hung at the windows. Ghostly grey and stained, like Miss Havisham’s tattered wedding dress. Mould spots flecked the walls in the corners. Cluster flies lay still and hollow on the window sills. So plentiful the bounty, it made web-spinning redundant for the fat spiders. It was all a million miles away from the vision they had for the place. Downstairs was much the same, but the smell differed in the lounge, where the dampness was joined by the ancient odour of the inglenook fireplace. A creosote smell, thick and dense, which over time had permeated the very fabric of the wood and plaster in the room. In the kitchen, they were greeted by the pockmarked surfaces and decay of the cupboards and worktop. A fitting backdrop for the corpses of woodlice that scattered the floor.
“God, this is grim,” said Damien, as he scanned the room, his eyes settling on a door next to the chimney breast. “Wonder where that goes?”
“Might be a pantry or something.”
“Could be. But most likely the basement.”
Damien walked over and pulled it open. He was met with darkness and a more intense pungency. A stairwell descended away from the door into a cellar. He looked back at his wife.
“Creepy,” he said.
Hazel shuddered, “You want to go down?”
“There might be treasure down there.”
“Or a serial killer’s torture chamber.”
Damien tried the switch at the top of the stairwell.
“Why would that work when all the power has been turned off?”
Damien shrugged, then switched his phone torch on. “Coming?”
“Are you mental? You don’t know what’s down there.”
“It’s going to be a tiny, wet cellar with some old lumps of coal in it, probably.”
“It’s going to be filthy as well.”
“Good job you haven’t got your Manolos on then. Come on, don’t be such a chicken.”
Hazel acquiesced, not really wishing to be alone in the stinky kitchen. She activated her torch too and followed Damien. At the bottom of the stone steps, the couple stood next to each other, scanning the darkness with their phones. Damien’s assumptions were wrong; it wasn’t tiny, there was no evidence of coal, and it was divided in two by the stairs. The smell of damp and decay was palpable. Moving slowly, they scanned the flaky walls and stone floor. The smaller section under the kitchen extension was empty, so they turned and headed back. When they shone their lights on the opposite side of the staircase, a figure seemed to loom out of the darkness. Hazel shrieked, Damien caught fright and did the same, neither wishing to move. But the figure remained static; a dusty coat and an old hat left rotting on a hook. The couple looked at each other.
“Why are cellars so bloody creepy?” said Hazel.
“Because serial killers and horror films make them that way,” Damien said, putting on a brave face.
“Yeah, but you nearly wet yourself as well. Go on, you first.”
They moved past the hat and coat, into the other part of the cellar. This space, under the old house, was bigger, and used as storage at some time, given the evidence that remained. At the far end of the room, timber planks replaced a section of the stone floor. About the size of a small door; they looked too fragile to walk on.
“I wonder what’s under there?” he said, pointing to the planks.
“Why don’t you lift one up and find out?” Hazel was surprised at how calm she sounded.
Damien hunched down and prodded the end of one of the old boards with his finger.
“What are you doing?! I was joking, there’s probably dead baby skeletons under it.” Hazel’s voice pitched up an octave.
“I’d need something to lever it anyway.”
“You’re not serious, are you? Can we go now plea…”
Hazel was cut short by the slamming of the cellar door. She screeched, her body spasmed, and she almost dropped her phone. Damien was jolted forwards by Hazel’s movements, almost toppling over onto the boarding. Reaching out a hand to steady himself, the timber held out, and he came to a stop with his palm pressed against the gap between two planks. It was only there long enough to feel something brush against his skin. Something tangible, moving. Hazel had never seen him stand up so quickly, Damien nearly knocking her off balance. He turned to face her with wide eyes, his face ashen in the LED glow.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Damien didn’t wait for his wife, moving quickly towards the exit. Hazel followed, almost tripping over the hat on the floor at the foot of the stairs. The same hat that, a short time before, had been on the hook with the coat. She thought it must have fallen off when the door slammed. The couple raced up the stairs, both holding their breath, neither wishing to communicate their fear. Damien was reaching for the handle, inches away, when the door swung open, by itself, into the kitchen. The handle flew across the room as it slammed back against the chimney breast. This time the couple shrieked unashamedly like frightened children as they scarpered for the exit, running through a cloud of cluster flies in the hallway.
Outside, each breathing heavily, they turned and looked at the hall beyond the door. The cloud of flies stopped in their lazy flight, hovered in suspended animation for a second, and then fell to the floor simultaneously. Hazel and Damien glanced at each other, loathing etched on their faces, then looked back to witness the front door slam shut.
“Please, Damien, let’s get away from this place.”
Damien saw the fear in his wife’s eyes. He’d never seen her like that before. He thought he probably looked the same. He didn’t need asking twice.
The couple discussed the episode later that evening. They tried to convince themselves it was a shared hallucination, but that didn’t make it any less alarming.
* * *
“Are you sure you can make it look like an accident?” Damien said, standing next to his contractor.
The men were at the front of the plot staring at the house. Neither Damien nor Hazel had re-entered it since the day in the cellar.
“Accidents happen, Mr Weaver.”
“Damien is fine, please.”
“Accidents happen, Damien, even with the greatest care and attention. Human error always plays a hand. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a need for the health and safety executive.”
“You seem confident about it, Simon.”
“I can make it happen just as we discussed, don’t worry about that. And don’t forget; I have friends on the council.”
Damien studied the man next to him before putting his hand into his jacket pocket and retrieving a thickly packed envelope. Simon placed his fingers on it; Damien held it and looked the builder in the eyes. “This never happened,” he said, before letting go.
“Exactly. And I appreciate your directness, Damien.”
“And I appreciate your discretion, Simon.”
Damien turned his attention away from the builder to the house with the scowling features before him. The same one that had, quite literally, chased him and his wife out of it. His face bore a look of loathing that didn’t escape his companion.
“This whole thing is a shit show. Why anyone would want to save that fucking place, I don’t know.”
Simon was taken aback by Damien’s outburst; he hadn’t heard him swear before. But behind it lay something else, he suspected. Not just the fact it badly hampered his plans for the development, but something else. Something less prosaic than mere planning constraints. He knew about the rumours connected to the property, had heard the stories since his school days. Simon wasn’t strictly speaking a local boy but had been born and raised in the same district, and grim tales about haunted houses fed the rampant imaginations of schoolboys like him.
“You’ve been inside, of course. Had a look round?” he asked his benefactor.
Damien looked uncomfortable when he replied. “Yes, but I’d rather not talk about it.”
Simon knew when someone had been genuinely spooked, and Damien’s face confirmed it. Nonetheless, he was intrigued.
“Do you have the keys on you now? I’ve never been inside, and I’d like to check the best place to whack it.”
Damien fished in his Barbour gilet and pulled out a set of keys, releasing one from the ring.
“The services are off. I’ll leave you to it if you don’t mind, I need to be somewhere else soon.”
“Sure – you want this back?” Simon held up the key.
“No, it’s a spare, keep it.”
The men shook hands.
“I don’t want to know anything about it until after the event. Understood?”
“We never had this conversation.”
Damien nodded to the contractor and walked to his car. Simon watched him leave before turning back to the house. Why did you spook him so much? The building looked back at him, silent and sullen. He couldn’t remember a house that seemed less welcoming. Forsaken. The door complained on its hinges as he opened it. He was greeted by the carcasses of woodlice and cluster flies, and the smell of damp, stale, cold air he was familiar with. Old buildings kept their cold through the unheated stone. Without human traffic, insects were free to enjoy the space at will. As were other kinds of vermin. Simon wandered into the lounge and did a quick reccy, knowing the original house had been extended. It was likely done with the advent of modern facilities. Properties changed with the times. Since this one was built, central heating and electricity had been invented, for one thing. Bathrooms and fitted kitchens, another. This part was original, with its inglenook fireplace. The kitchen part and central staircase were added later.
Simon crossed the hall into the kitchen, and as he did so, he heard a door upstairs close. He stopped, tilting his head towards the stairwell. As the front door was open, he put it down to the breeze. If there had been any, he thought and decided to investigate. The top landing split left and right – a step down to the left and up to the right – a dead giveaway to the extension. Past the open bathroom at the end of the left-hand corridor, he could see a closed door. As he approached and moved his arm to the lever, he felt a breeze move past him and the door opened. Simon paused for a moment before entering the room. He checked the door latch to find it broken. On the other side of the room, one of the fanlights was ajar; an explanation for the door closing on its own. He shut the window and left the room, briefly investigating the other bedrooms before going back downstairs.
In the kitchen, festering in its neglect, he spied the open door to the cellar and noted the missing handle on the room side. Looking down into the darkness at the head of the stairs, he contemplated going down using his phone as a torch. Instead, he went out to his truck, grabbed his head torch and tactical flashlight, then returned to the kitchen. Simon picked up the doorknob from the kitchen floor and saw how the screws had been forcefully torn out. It didn’t deter him, he took a free newspaper from the pile in the hall and wedged it under the door. That should hold it. Just in case.
Simon descended into the basement like a special ops soldier who’d discovered a covert cell. All he needed was a pistol to complete the illusion. Like Damien and Hazel before, he found the smaller room dank and empty. As he ventured towards the other room, he too caught his breath at the hatted figure leaning against the wall. After realising his mistake, he moved past the coat, that had been reacquainted with its hat, his heartbeat noticeably quicker. There were some broken remnants of flooring panels scattered across the room. It was possible that the cellar floor had been covered over at some time, perhaps to protect it from the damp. He thought it would have had minimal impact, the kind of cold and damp in these cellars seeped through everything. He'd also heard the tale of the family who’d lived here in the early 19th century. And the stone floor looked now as it must have back then.
Simon made his way to the back wall, sucking air noisily through his teeth as he laid eyes on the rectangle of boards at the end. It was as though someone had set a small door into the floor. Barely visible on the wall above were some marks scratched onto the stone. He wondered what it was meant to be, but it was difficult to make out. He took a deep breath and squatted down to inspect the boards. It was tempting to go back to his truck and fetch his crowbar. As the thought settled in his mind, a fly crawled out from one of the gaps between the timber. At the same time, he heard a noise behind him. A whisper in the darkness. Simon swivelled up and around faster than he thought possible, pulling his torch in a sweeping arc towards the stairs. Nothing. Nothing but the hat, which had left its peg and now lay on the floor beneath the coat. How would that happen? Feeling creeped out enough, Simon headed back to the stairs. As he placed his foot on the bottom step, he heard a door bang shut somewhere above. What at first seems plausible, becomes clouded when doubt niggles away at you. When that doubt is fuelled by uncertainty and the knowledge that very bad things have taken place where you currently find yourself, then fear creeps into your veins. At the top of the stairs, Simon could see the door pushing against the wedge of newspaper, as though forced by a strong wind. Then another door banged shut upstairs. Then another, until a steady rhythm beat out as doors opened and closed, threatening to break the frames that held them. Simon didn’t hesitate any longer, he left his bravado in the kitchen and dashed to the front door.
He stood breathing heavily outside, hoping he’d imagined what had just happened, his mind racing, the blood working harder through his veins. Waiting a few moments to calm down and regain his composure, Simon stared at the front door and listened out for the banging. Mercifully, it had stopped; the only banging that remained was the blood against his temples. All around him was silence, devoid of birdsong and traffic noise, just the sound of his hard breathing. Then a scraping sound he recognised rasped violently against the quiet. He looked up, just as the stone tile breached the roofline of the building. Jumping sideways without hesitation, the stone roof tile crashed, splintering, on the ground. It could have killed him with a direct hit. The shock thickened his breathing again and he backed away from the house, eyes firmly front and focused on the building’s features. It stared back, stony and inanimate, then slammed the front door shut. Simon sensed something deeply disturbing had been awoken. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but he knew the stories about the place. He knew the story about Clara, her family and what happened to them.
* * *
Damien saw it was Simon calling and picked up.
“Hi, Damien. Listen, don’t think I’m winding you up, but did you go into the basement of the house?”
“We went all over it.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“See or hear anything unusual?”
“What do you mean?”
“Noises… weird stuff.”
Damien hesitated for a moment. “What are you saying, did you?”
The moment’s silence was returned. “You’ve never heard the story about Clara, the girl who used to live there, have you?”
“Look, to be honest, we did some basic research but nothing in depth. It’s not like we’re enamoured with the place or anything. We hate it; it’s just in the way of our plans.”
There was a moment during which Damien could swear he heard the mechanics of Simon’s mind engaging.
“Do you have five minutes to hear it?”
Damien didn’t want to. He exhaled heavily. “Not really, but go on then, I can sense you chomping at the bit to tell me.”
“Thanks, I feel I ought to. Well, as you may have discovered, it’s been inhabited by all sorts of people and used for different purposes. It’s been a home as well as a business. For a few years, in the early 19th century, it was rented to the local farm manager – when it was just the original part; the old bit on the left as you look at it.”
“The old bit?”
“Yes, the original part. The kitchen side extension was added in the early 20th century. I thought you realised.”
“Yes, sorry, of course, I just haven’t thought about it much.”
Simon sensed a tone in Damien’s voice that he meant he’d rather forget about it. Put the thing as far away from his mind as possible.
“The farm manager, a man called Charles Hazel, wasn’t local but had secured employment through a cousin’s recommendation. He was no charmer, apparently, good at his job but not keen on becoming mister popular in the village, if you catch my drift.”
“Uh-huh. Charles Hazel, you said?”
“Yes – I realise the coincidence – your middle name and your wife’s first.”
“Weird.”
“It gets weirder, don’t worry. He had a wife, who kept herself to herself mostly, and a young daughter, Clara. The child was an odd bod by all accounts, a bit simple some said. Innocent. Took to wandering off on her own around the village. Would just turn up in the street in front of people’s houses and sit on doorsteps until shooed away. I suppose if they had taken the time to befriend her, then…”
“How old was the kid?”
“Seven or eight, I think. After a couple of years, they say the wife took a turn and wasn’t seen so much, even less than before. Her husband got more sullen and took to drinking at the local inn. Clara grew a little odder. So much so that the locals began calling her Crazy Clara. She started carrying a big jar around with her, collecting bugs. Then just flies. She’d stare at them through the glass for ages, just watching them buzz around. Some say she ate them. Sometimes she would let them suffocate, watching them tire and flop onto the bottom of the jar. People made up all kinds of stories about her, but she was harmless really.”
“Except if you were a fly.”
“Granted. But some people swore their children had all told them a similar story about Clara. The ones brave enough to play with her. That on occasion, Clara would show them the jar of dead flies, then tap on the glass as she looked inside, and they would start moving again.”
“Resurrected flies. Like some kind of witch or something.”
“That’s what they probably thought, something like that.”
“People believed all kinds of shit in those days.”
“Yep. Then the girl’s mother disappeared completely. Gone to see her sick sister, was the story her husband told. Locals were unconvinced; people like to gossip. By this time, Clara not only acted odd but looked odd. Ill would be polite, apparently she was very pale and on occasion, had bruises and strange marks on her. Her father wouldn’t offer any explanation. Stories abounded, as they do in small villages.”
“Simon?”
“What?”
“Two things. How do you know so much about it, and will it take much longer?”
Simon was aware of Damien’s impatience but got the distinct feeling he did want to know what happened. “Well, when I was at school, history was my favourite subject. And I like to read horror stories. This kind of stuff is like honey to bears.”
“What made you become a builder, then?”
“That’s another story, let’s say I got distracted. Let me finish this one, then I’ll let you get on.”
“Sure, go on.”
“As both their behaviours became more erratic, the gossip escalated. He was abusing her, beating her, she was a witch, he was a Satanist, a drunk. You get the idea.”
“Yeah. Did the wife ever come back?”
“No, so that bred more stories – murder being one of them. That she’d escaped in fear of her life, from him, or her, or whatever might be possessing the house, was another.”
“What do you mean, possessing the house?” Damien raised his voice.
“Yes. That was the essence of it, that the house was possessed. And then Clara disappeared. Charles lost his job as farm manager as suspicion arose.”
“What happened, had he killed them?”
“No one knows.”
“Didn’t they call the police?”
“There were no police before the 1820s, especially in the countryside. Besides, everyone was afraid of the stories about the house… and what was supposed to be in the cellar.”
“What are you talking about, what are you saying?”
“Well… that there is supposed to be a doorway into hell down there.”
“Fuck off! And they want to keep that bloody house standing!”
“You said that like you believe it,” said Simon, carefully.
Damien thought about what he and Hazel had experienced that afternoon in the house. He shivered, even though he didn’t believe in the supernatural one jot.
“No, that’s crazy. What happened to Charles?”
“Oh, when he hadn’t shown up at the pub for a few days, someone went over to check on him.”
“And?”
“They found him slumped at the kitchen table. His throat had been cut. On the surface in front of him was a kitchen knife, just shy of his fingertips. And a jar of flies. They were an inch thick in the bottom. All dead.”
* * *
Hazel stared at the plans, the elevations and the mocked interiors, her joy barely containable. She put her arm around Damien’s waist and squeezed him.
“God, I can’t wait for all this to materialise.”
“It’s going to take a while. Don’t hold your breath or you’ll turn blue.”
“How long then?”
“We’ll hit the snag with the old house first. Then the finance, there’s always the finance, even though it’s in place. Weather, unforeseen stuff, material shortages, labour; you name it. Realistically, eighteen to twenty-four months. That’s what Simon reckons. He won’t be able to focus all his concentration on this project.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s not how it works. He’ll probably be running at least one or two other sites.” Damien looked at his wife. “So you’re happy with all this then? We can change some of the internals but that’s about it.”
“Yes, I’m happy with it, more than happy. Don’t worry, I have plenty to get on with, I won’t be holding my breath.”
Hazel and Damien scanned the plans again together. The main building, housing the wellness spa, the pool, sauna and treatment rooms, the restaurant and the small retail outlet. Then the luxury yurts scattered around the landscaped grounds. The computerised rendition looked fantastic; they both secretly hoped the reality matched up to it. What it didn’t show, was how the old house was blended into the new structure. There was a version of it sitting in the planning office at the council. The ‘official’ version, but not the one that would be built, not if the sabotage went to plan. Much rode on Simon pulling off his side of the bargain. But he thought he could trust Simon and his connections. He had to.
* * *
Most of the site was screened off behind the painted hoarding. It showed the customary site safety signs but nothing else. No clue as to what was being constructed, although if you cared enough you could log on to the council website. On the morning the excavator arrived, Damien made sure he was many miles away. Simon went through the plans with his crew. He took the excavator operator to one side and gave him his own specific instructions.
By four o’clock that afternoon, seventy per cent of the old house and its two outbuildings lay in a twisted pile of ruined masonry and timber.
The next morning, Simon arrived to find his small crew standing waiting for him. Terry, the excavator operator, was not with them.
“Where’s Terry?”
The men looked grey.
“Haven’t you heard?” the one called Andy said.
“Heard what?”
“He was in a car accident last night. On his way home.”
“What, how do you know?”
“My missus got a message from his. They’re mates.”
“What happened, is he okay?”
“Well, I don’t think so, it was a bad crash. He’s critical but stable. It’s what they usually say when the grim reaper’s knocking at the door, isn’t it.”
“Oh, God… do you know where he is?”
“Cheltenham, but you can’t visit if you’re not family, even if you’re his boss.”
“Shit. I hope he recovers. Do you know what happened?”
“Not really. All I know is that apparently there were no other vehicles involved.”
Simon shot a look at the demolished house then back at Andy. “You’ll let me know what happens, yes? As soon as you get any word. Can I have his wife’s number, just in case there’s anything I can do?”
“Sure.”
A dark pall hung over the day as the men went about their work. Simon was deeply conflicted; torn threefold between concern for Terry, relief that the ‘culprit’ was in no position to explain the demolition – there was a sliver of distance between himself and that episode, albeit coated heavily in guilt – and the house. The house he was beginning to think should have been left alone. Simon chided himself for thinking of it as an entity instead of a collection of wood and stone. Even though he considered himself rational, he knew there was something manifestly wrong with it. He’d witnessed it, and he knew Damien and Hazel had too.
There was uproar, of course, from some members of the council, but Simon’s contacts at the planning office made sure the repercussions from the house’s demolition were minimal. It wasn’t listed, after all, and the process investigating why it should be hadn’t been formally proposed yet, such was the snail’s pace at which these matters progressed. The project promised local jobs and income from commercial rates. Factors that leveraged Damien’s position. There were muted rumblings from the old families who still lived in the village. Those whose families shared the stories about the house at the end of the lane. The house where odd goings on were enmeshed in the local folklore.
* * *
Some weeks later, before he died from his injuries, Terry would mutter incoherently in his induced coma, thrashing uncontrollably in his hospital bed. Little sense could be made of his ramblings, but what was clear was the way they twisted his face in terror. ‘Girl… Girl… Drove right through.’
* * *
The build did not go well. There were more than the usual issues that plagued a construction site. The area suffered the worst winter for five years. The machinery kept breaking down. Things went missing. Tradesmen got ill. Hazel and Damien fretted about the delays; expected and unexpected. Tensions waxed and waned between Simon and the couple over each seemingly insurmountable obstacle. Simon had seen them all before, but never on one build. Not so many. It took twenty months, and the extra costs very nearly bankrupted the Weavers.
The cellars of the old house had been roughly backfilled with spoil from the site and bridged over with a concrete raft. They remained as partially filled tombs beneath the main structure of the wellness spa. A memory of what once was, buried and forgotten with the ghosts of the past.
The last trades to leave the site were the landscapers. Hazel, Damien and Simon were there on the final day. Simon held the snagging list Hazel had produced for him, and the three of them went through, checking off the items. There was an air of expectation now the project had finally come to fruition. The Weavers could envisage what the grounds would look like when they matured. Even now, in their infancy, they looked good. Simon had come through and delivered exactly what they wanted. Despite all the setbacks, they were happy with the result. Some of the locals had even commented on how good it looked.
Marketing on the project had been carefully managed. A selection of luxury lifestyle magazine adverts, personalised invitations and friendly influencers known to Hazel had been used. The right clique had been primed about the enterprise as it progressed. Invitations to the opening soirée had been sent to those seen as most desirable to be present at its launch. Hazel, and her friend, Lucy, who would jointly run the retreat, had conducted interviews during the latter stages of the build, and the staff roster would be complete when paying guests arrived after the official launch. The event was eagerly anticipated by the team, even by Simon, who had been made an honorary member. His stake was the anticipated kudos from the development, and the leads that may come from the wealthy guests on the night. He’d grown quite close to the Weavers. He’d made a lot of money out of them.
* * *
The evening exceeded all expectations, warm and balmy, an early summer gift for the attendees. Populated by Cotswold royalty – exactly the people Hazel and Simon wanted to be associated with. An international footballer and his silicone-infused wife, a television host, a celebrity chef, writers, social media icons, trendy influencers, and a sprinkling of independently wealthy and successful entrepreneurs made up a glitzy, glittering evening. A famous DJ did a set, and the evening’s menu was created by the attending chef. It was everything the Weavers hoped for. They had arrived, and with that, the memories of that day they first set eyes on the land, and the ugly house that occupied it, faded from memory. The brief time they spent in the cellar, the stories of Clara and her weird family, the long slow grind of the construction, and the death of Terry. It had all been replaced with their shining beacon of gilded opulence.
* * *
Opening day was set for a week after the event. Five days before, they did a dry run with all the staff; friends and family taking the place of paying guests. It was a special treat for some, who would baulk at the prices had they wished to stay for real. Bookings were solid; the lead-up to it having been so carefully managed. All the pieces were falling into place exactly as Hazel had hoped. It was her baby really, she had pushed Damien into the risk. But, from the projected figures, they both saw that it was a risk worth taking. A move that would guarantee the kind of image they craved. Their eventual, legitimate inclusion into the big league.
* * *
Hazelwood Spa opened its doors to the public on a Friday in late June. It was fully booked with weekend guests and day visitors. Every treatment and class sold out. A subtle, bustling urgency throbbed underneath the surface calm, the management and staff polished to dazzling perfection. The only minor issue was a few flies. But this was early summer, and the countryside. Insects were expected; they just needed to be managed. Out in the landscaped grounds, carefully positioned so they offered their occupants complete privacy, were the luxury yurts. Each was equipped with a private wood-fired hot tub and the ultimate, latest tech. Discretely situated at the back of the grounds was a bank of solar panels, the Weavers’ nod to the site’s eco credentials. They had done as much as was possible to mitigate the huge power consumption the spa needed, but it was impossible to run without being hooked up to the standard utilities. You still needed pipes and cables.
Friday went by in a frenzied blur for Hazel and Lucy. They were exhausted – offering prompts and reassurance, and the occasional gentle reprimand when required. Beneath the calm, professional exterior of the staff, they all felt the very real pressure of keeping it together. The last thing the chef said when he went home late that night was, ‘Better get a bigger fly zapper for the kitchen.’ It was duly noted by Lucy, who didn’t leave the premises until one o’clock in the morning.
Saturday would be different.
* * *
Maggie, and her lifelong friend, Rosalyn, were celebrating the divorce of one and the successful launch of the other’s online zero-carbon shoe business. They’d booked two days of relentless pampering, feasting and leisure at the new wellness retreat. Maggie was enjoying a Holistic Signature Treatment that promised to ‘realign her inner well-being by opening up microscopic, healing, neural pathways.’ Whatever the masseuse was doing made Maggie feel as though she was melting into the table. She opened her eyes for a moment to notice an insect wander across the floor beneath her. It stopped right in the middle of her field of vision, rubbing its forelegs in front of its mouth. Maggie felt a pang of disgust as it took off, heading straight for her face. The involuntary sound and motion of her client caught the masseuse by surprise, breaking the tranquillity of the trance-inducing, seashore soundtrack.
“Is everything okay, was it too much pressure?”
Maggie was groggy under the influence of the massage. “No, fly, it was a fly.”
“Oh dear, are you okay?”
“It’s gone now, I’m fine. Sorry to interrupt your beautiful hands. Carry on, please.”
* * *
“Remember to shower before you come out,” Justin said, tying the belt on his gown and donning his complimentary slippers. “We don’t want any jizz floating in that hot tub.”
Beneath the humour of its delivery, the words were meant. Justin was apt to remind his recent, much younger boyfriend just who was top dog in the relationship. At the wood-fired, eco hot tub on their private, screened-off deck, Justin removed his robe and slipped into the bubbling water. This weekend would be spent in debauched opulence; every whim catered for. He was a man used to the luxury that his considerable wealth brought. The success of his latest venture, the lifestyle emporium whose branded, jute tote bags conveyed prestige to anyone carrying them, only added to it. Toby, twenty years his junior, was all too happy to satisfy his demands. He was well looked after.
Toby was lathering his hair when it happened; there was no warning as the bathroom mirror shattered. The sound of the glass hitting the basin and floor made him cry out in shock.
Justin was brought out of his self-indulgent trance in a whipcrack when he heard Toby shout.
* * *
Anil, and his girlfriend, Chanda, celebrating a year together and his recent company acquisition, were enjoying a pre-lunch visit to the indoor pool. A constant flow of water cascaded gently into it down a sculpted, tiled waterfall. To the side of it, a Jacuzzi waited for its next occupants, the auto sensors regulating everything from their arrival to the optimum length of time needed in the swirling waters. The couple sat at the edge of the pool, feet dangling into the water.
“This place is cool, huh?”
“Thank you for bringing me here, Anil, it’s wonderful.”
“You deserve it, for putting up with me.” Anil grinned at his girlfriend, put his arm around her waist and leaned in to kiss her. At least that’s what Chanda thought he was going to do; instead, she found herself heaved into the pool. Anil’s laughter was cut out by the splash of him entering the water. He swam to the far end and waited for her. As the couple were about to embrace, Chanda noticed something floating on the water between them, like three victims from the insect Titanic – except they weren’t all dead. One of the flies’ wings vibrated in exhaustion as it tried to escape the raging ocean. The couple looked on in disgust.
* * *
In Freyr, known as Yurt 4 during the build, Donagh and Sandy Campbell were preparing for lunch after their morning yoga and sauna, the wellness break more than deserved after the month they’d had. A raft of treatments had been booked over the weekend – they needed to realign, detoxify, and release the cumbersome mass of negativity their jobs inflicted on them. Donagh, ready first as usual, sat on the sofa with the remote in his hand. As much as he tried, he couldn’t get any channel to stay connected for more than a few seconds. Eventually, the thing gave up, and a screen advising him to contact reception flickered staccato until he turned it off.
Sandy came out of the bathroom with a sour look on her face.
“Was your shower okay?”
“Yeah, fine, why?”
“Well, mine was, and then it kind of ran out of juice. Just as well I’d nearly finished – it was like standing under a watering can.”
“Maybe a blockage in the head or something. This place is bound to have teething issues; the TV isn’t working either.”
“Have you called reception?”
“We can talk to them when we go and eat.” Donagh eyed his wife in her complimentary fluffy robe, the one she’d left untied.
She knew the look. “No,” she said, before turning and letting it fall to the ground.
“You won’t be too long, will you? I’m starving.” Donagh contented himself with scrolling through his mobile.
* * *
Erik had been busy since late morning, a fraught reception constantly on his case. Hazelwood’s maintenance man assumed the guests maybe hadn’t bothered complaining too much on the first day. Today it was constant, from the irritatingly minor odd fly to the episode with the bathroom mirror. The couple involved swore blind it happened on its own, and the younger one, in the shower at the time, said it was a bit traumatising. Nothing a free holistic therapy couldn’t resolve. Erik couldn’t figure out some of the wi-fi and TV problems; a tech guy would need to be called for that. The issues weren’t isolated to the guests either; Chef was going spare in the kitchen, what with the flies and the walk-in fridge door that kept opening itself. Fucking big brat, Erik thought, as he began loosening the rainfall shower head in Yurt 4. He always referred to them by their original numbers, never being able to pronounce the Norse. There was nothing in the pipe, but when he unscrewed the front he was appalled to see half a dozen worms trapped in the head. How the fuck did they get in there? Erik flushed them down the toilet.
* * *
Hazel and Lucy were doing their best to keep a lid on the situation. Managing the growing list of guest issues, without making each one aware of the others, was an immense juggling act. Their professionalism was evidenced by the confident and reassuring manner they exuded. Beneath the veneer, however, the duck feet were paddling like crazy.
* * *
Daylight shrunk and dusk bloomed, the fairy lights dotted around the grounds twinkled as darkness began its descent on the spa. Treatments had finished, and guests were enjoying the restaurant, the bar or their yurts. It was in this fading light that a child was first seen in the grounds, through the bifold doors of Kyrre, Yurt 3. Standing at the edge of the deck, staring in through the glass, was a girl who couldn’t have been older than ten or eleven, barefoot, wearing a simple, long, white dress. It looked like she was holding something in her hands. Maggie was waiting for Rosalyn to finish getting ready for dinner. She looked back at the girl in disbelief. It was an adults-only retreat; what was a child doing here? Deciding to investigate, Maggie went to the door. She only took her eyes off the girl the moment she touched the handle. When she looked outside again, the child had vanished.
Reception had a call from a guest who was walking from the gym to the sauna. Through the glazed walls of the corridor, she spied the girl at the edge of the shrubbery opposite. Just standing there, with something in her hands. The child’s head turned to follow her movements and it creeped her out. In the second the guest checked her step before opening the sauna room doors, and looked back through the glass, she had disappeared.
On his way back from yet another fruitless investigation, this time into a set of deck lights that refused to work, Erik saw the girl sitting on one of the benches in the grounds. He thought a local delinquent had decided to visit. From his viewpoint at fifteen metres, he saw an object on the seat next to her. When he rounded the bend in the path that preceded the bench, she was gone. He looked around, thinking he should still be able to see her running off. She’d simply vanished.
* * *
Clara Hazel waited until the opportune time, when the sun had completely dipped behind the earth’s curve, and darkness held the majority in the sky. In the busy restaurant, shielded from the manicured outside by a wall of glass, the guests and staff of Hazelwood Spa turned, one after another, to see the girl standing on the patio outside. They chewed their mouthfuls silently, placing their cutlery down, faces confronting the odd child beyond the glass. The child placed the jar she coveted so closely on the ground in front of her, removing the cork stopper as she did. Then she stood upright, tilted her head back as though watching the stars and stretched her arms out wide. The guests became unsettled, calling for the staff to intervene. The lights flickered; murmurings, discontent and unease spread rapidly through the restaurant. One of the waiters went to the bifold doors that were set into the glass wall. He tried the handle in vain; it wouldn’t budge. In the kitchen corridor, the swing door began a relentless pendulum game with the staff trying to use it. Other doors in the building began their own relentless Taiko drum beats. As the lights flickered and dimmed, and the endless slamming of the doors increased, so Hazel and Lucy went into overdrive, trying to manage the unmanageable. The moment Lucy appeared in the restaurant, the unimaginable happened.
From the opening in the top of the jar, like black lava dots unleashed from the hellish maw of a volcano, an endless stream of flies erupted. As though Beelzebub himself had let loose a cataclysm of his favourite spawn. Looking on dumbfounded, Lucy watched the flies swarm and gather on the glass. Like silent black rain, they dropped and multiplied, massing in ever-increasing numbers. As the restaurant-goers edged away from the spectacle in disgust, almost falling over each other, Hazel joined her business partner, slack-jawed in shock. Clara looked from the stars to the windows, at the thickening mass of flies that congregated there and opened her mouth. The scream could be heard all over Hazelwood. With the shrill, sonic wave, the glass wall imploded, one panel after the other, sending ball-bearing-sized shards hurtling through the room. Those lucky enough to duck under the tables in time escaped the full impact of the jagged projectiles, but no one escaped the tidal wave of cluster flies that invaded the building. The unease turned into panic. As the flies swarmed in, the lights gave up their flickering and went out. The panic turned into fear. As the guests tumbled, screaming over each other as they attempted to escape, the flies just kept coming, spewing forth from the jar, covering every surface, every person, in a buzzing, living blanket. It didn’t take long before the first victim fell, choking on the infested air. Unable to see where she was going, tripping, falling, suffocating as the flies found their way into her lungs. One by one, the others met the same fate. Attempting to cover their faces, breathing through the slits between their finger or the napkin covering their mouths, the flies relentlessly found their way in.
Deep in the sealed-off cellar, in the tomb of the old house, the floorboards that covered the rectangle of earth beneath had trembled as Clara undid her jar. Through the cracks in the boards, the flies emerged in thin strands until the sonic wave of her scream shattered the planks into ancient dust and splinters. Then they erupted freely from the ground, in their unstoppable, countless millions, seeking their escape. Into every void and crack in the cellar, then up through the underbelly of the new buildings above. Seconds later, they found their way into the ducts and pipework of the services that fed every corner of Hazelwood – the underground network that connected each and every structure in the grounds. Through the air vents, the plug sockets, the waste pipes, they poured in a biblical deluge, swarming and suffocating as they turned the air into a living mass of choking death. As each section of the retreat succumbed to the flies, so the guests, trapped in the darkness by the unmoving doors and windows, succumbed to their demise. Crawling blind in their terror around the pristine maple floors, clutching in vain at whatever they could to shield themselves from the onslaught. None of it was any good. There was no escape.
* * *
The fire started in the kitchen. Panic and flailing arms, hot fat and naked flame combined in perfect, horrific unison. At first, it was the sous chef who carried the flame, his clothing igniting as he lurched blindly onto the stove top in his suffocating trauma. Engulfed in his shroud of burning death he passed the flame to the flies that crawled over his body. Who, in turn, like incendiary messengers, carried the flame throughout the building in a cataclysmic wave, the fire rushing unstoppable on the backs of the tortured insects.
Word quickly got out. Some, quick enough to see what was happening, managed frantic, final posts on social media. Damien had been updated through the afternoon by Hazel, about the smaller, irritating issues. But when he saw the last post Hazel made before she went dark, a wave of nausea and revulsion overcame him and he dropped everything. Damien notified Simon. Both were en route. Simon hadn’t seen any posts – and didn’t have personal friends staying at the spa – but he understood Damien’s concern and could hear the terror in his voice. At the back of his mind, creeping forward like tar seeping from sandy ground, was something he’d rather not think about. Something akin to the ending of one of his favourite author’s novels. He made the journey grim-faced in the expectation that it might. He hoped he was wrong.
Fifteen minutes before the explosion, concerned villagers had already alerted the emergency services. The smell of smoke had found its way to some nearby homes. Not like the smell of log fires, which they knew; this was different. The smoke and the surreal glow in the sky above the spa sent them urgently to their windows, then their phones. When the propane gas tank went, they felt the tremor. Heard the glass rattling in their windows.
Damien raced back to Hazelwood, the speedo reluctant to fall anywhere near the legal limit. He approached the village from the south and saw the amber glow lighting up the darkness. He checked his phone again, taking his eyes off the road for a split second. When he looked back up through the windscreen, the child was standing in the middle of the road, just standing there, staring straight at him. There was no time to avoid the collision; he ploughed straight through her. Through her. And at the point they intersected, he felt a searing jolt in his chest, a powerful fist squeezing his heart. Damien Weaver lost control of his Porsche Cayenne at over sixty on the narrow country lane. He ploughed through the hedge, straight over the narrow stream, and hit the low stone wall on the other side. The impact flipped his car, sending it somersaulting like an Olympian doing floor exercises. It came to rest upside down in a pond. Damien never saw what remained of his wife, or spa.
Simon arrived in the village to a police roadblock, some half an hour after Damien should have. He was clueless as to the fate of his client; the phone never getting further than voicemail. His heart sank when he saw the fire engines, the paramedics and the ambulances, all stacked up in the lane that passed the spa. There was no way to get close, so he parked up on a verge, as near as he could get, and sought out a police officer.
“Sorry, sir, you can’t come any closer.” The police officer raised his hand.
“Jesus Christ, what happened?”
“Do you have any connection to the place, sir?”
“I built the thing, I know people inside it.”
The police officer’s face greyed and Simon knew what the look meant. The kind of professional, neutral face police officers employ when there’s little hope of any good news coming out of a situation.
“We won’t know anything concrete until the fires are under control and it’s safe enough for rescue to get inside. It’s going to be a long night.”
Simon stared at the glow above Hazelwood, and for the first time noticed the aroma permeating the village. It was unlike any other house fire he’d smelled before. A thick, sickly smell of charred flesh pervaded the air; like a giant barbecue had been extinguished. He scanned his phone again. The horror show had hit social media.
“Fuck.” Simon walked back to his car.
* * *
He gave it another day before he went back. Two constables stood just behind the tape that cordoned off the spa. Beyond them, a short distance into the grounds, stood a fire chief and a senior police officer. He knew the fire chief; he made it his business to know anyone who had influence in regulations that affected his trade. Bypassing the constables by sneaking in at a hidden spot, Simon made his way to the two men, taking in the appalling devastation before him. The propane tank had demolished half the main complex, the rest had been gutted in the blaze. It looked as though nothing had escaped. Even the yurt visible from his viewpoint had been incinerated. It was with dread that he advanced towards the officers.
“Bob.” Simon lifted his arm at the fireman.
“Simon.” Bob saw the look on the builder’s face. “You must be devastated. The amount of work it took you to build this place.”
“I can’t believe it, all that time and effort.”
“This is Chief Superintendent Holdsworth.”
“You really shouldn’t be here,” the police officer said.
“Possibly, but I am now.”
The two men shook hands.
“Did people get out okay, were many injured?” Simon enquired.
The two officers glanced at each other before turning back to Simon. The look on their faces told him enough, but Bob confirmed the scale of the tragedy.
“We didn’t pull any survivors out. It was horrific, frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m still trying to figure out how the fire spread so quickly. And everywhere. There’s not a single building unaffected.”
“Oh my God, poor bastards. Have all the bodies been removed?”
“They finished this morning. It’s been a hellishly long thirty-six hours for the crews – they are all utterly exhausted. Did you know anyone in there?” asked Bob.
“Yes, a few – the owners, some of the staff.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Holdsworth, “as Bob said, it must be devastating for you.”
“It’s unbelievable, I can’t get my head around it. Do you mind if I take a quick look around?”
“You’re not supposed to…” Holdsworth glanced from Simon to Bob, who nodded, “but don’t touch anything, and don’t attempt to enter any of the buildings. What’s left of them.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. And thank you, I won’t be long.”
“And Simon,” Holdsworth continued, “we will need to speak to you. Just in case you can shed any light on what may have happened here. Help with our enquiries.”
Simon nodded. “Sure, anything I can do to help.”
He walked off, thinking it may not be that easy.
Simon wasn’t sure what he hoped to get from witnessing the devastation. Of seeing, firsthand, how all that hard work had resulted in a scene reminiscent of a war zone. The sheer horror of it… all those poor people caught up in it. He didn’t know what he was looking for, nor why he had to be here. None of it made sense. Or, none of it made sense if it was a plausible explanation you sought. However hard he tried, he couldn’t shake off the feeling that something had summoned him here. A thing that had crept into his mind like seeping tar. The thing above all else that he would rather deny. He walked around the grounds first, looking at the burned-out yurts, the decks reduced to charred skeletal timbers, his mind a maelstrom of emotions, thinking of the pitiful end to the people who had perished across the spa.
He spied the object as he walked the path between the yurts and the rear of the main building. His mind almost febrile as he came upon it, sitting on the ground, in a circular paved area between two curved stone benches. When he was right in front of it, a sickly nausea chewed at his gut. Simon steadied himself before bending down to take a closer look. It seemed unaffected by the recent events, as though it had been placed there, just for him, at this very moment. Trembling, he picked up the jar with the cork stopper and dared a peek inside. At the bottom, in a layer about an inch deep, were the dusty carcasses of cluster flies. He stood up, clutching the thing he’d hoped not to find but secretly, perversely, thought he might. He didn’t want to believe it, but the object in his hand was no facsimile, no hologram – it was solid. He studied the lifeless insects for a moment before his field of vision shifted, and now he was looking straight through the jar, to the edge of the patio that flanked the restaurant. His breath caught in his throat and he almost dropped it. Standing there, in plain sight, was the girl. It could be no one else. Clara Hazel was staring at him with tar-black eyes, a look of twisted satisfaction warping her face.
“No… it can’t be,” croaked Simon.
Clara jerked her head. The nod was more than physical. Simon felt a wave of energy assault the air between them. It was all he could do to keep himself upright and the jar in his hands. When he glanced down at it, he nearly let go again. The flies were moving around, as though they’d never been dead. And at the edge of the patio, when he glanced back up, was only empty space.