“Marty! I’m ready!” The hum in the room seemed to have risen as he entered. Now, as he withdrew, it lowered itself to a moan of disappointment. Don’t go, it seemed to sigh. Why go? She can wait. Let her wait. Stay awhile up here and see what’s to be seen.
“There’s no time,” Carys said.
Almost angered to have been summoned away, Marty closed the door on the voice, and went down.
“I don’t feel good,” she said, when he joined her on the lower landing.
“Is it him? Is he trying to get to you?”
“No. I’m just dizzy. I didn’t realize that I’d got so weak.”
“There’s a car outside,” he said, offering a supportive hand. She waved him off.
“There’s a parcel of my things,” she said. “In the room.”
He went back to get it, and was picking it up when she made a small noise of complaint, and stumbled on the stairs.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said. When he appeared on the stairs beside her, pillowcase parcel in hand, she gave him an ashen look. “The house wants me to stay,” she whispered.
“We’ll take it steady,” he said, and went ahead of her, for fear she stumble again. They reached the hallway without further incident.
“We can’t go by the front door,” she said. “It’s double-locked from the outside.”
As they made their way back through the hall, they heard the unmistakable sound of the back door opening.
“Shit,” Marty said, under his breath. He let go of Carys’ arm and slipped back through the gloom to the front door, and tried to open it. It was, as Carys had warned, double-locked. Panic was rising in him, but in its confusion a still voice, which he knew to be the voice of the room, said: No need to worry. Come up. Be safe in me. Hide in me. He thrust the temptation aside. Carys’ face was turned to his:
“It’s Breer,” she breathed. The dog-killer was in the kitchen. Marty could hear him, smell him. Carys tapped at Marty’s sleeve, and pointed to a bolted door under the well of the stairs. Cellar, he guessed. Whitefaced in the murk, she pointed down. He nodded.
Breer, about some business, was singing to himself. Strange, to think of him happy, this lumbering slaughterer; content enough with his lot to sing.
Carys had slid the bolt open on the cellar door. Steps, dimly illuminated by the thrown light from the kitchen, led down into the pit. A smell of disinfectant and wood shaving: healthy smells. They crept down the stairs; cringing at each scraped heel, each creaking step. But the Razor-Eater was too busy to hear, it seemed. There was no howl of pursuit. Marty closed the cellar door on them, desperately hoping freer would not notice that the bolts had been drawn, and listened.
In time, the sound of running water; then the clink of cups, a teapot perhaps: the monster was brewing camomile.
Breer’s senses were not as acute as they had been. The heat of the summer made him listless and weak. His skin smelled, his hair was falling out, his bowels would scarcely move these days. He needed a holiday, he’d decided. Once the European had found Whitehead, and dispatched him-and that was surely only a matter of days away-he’d go and see the aurora borealis. That would mean leaving his houseguest-he felt her proximity, mere feet away-but by that time she would have lost her appeal anyway. He was more fickle than he used to be, and beauty was transient. In two weeks, three in cool weather, all their charms dispersed.
He sat down at the table and poured a cup of the camomile. Its scent, once a great joy to him, was too subtle for his dogged sinuses, but he drank it for tradition’s sake. Later he’d go up to his room and watch the soap operas he loved so much; maybe he’d look in on Carys and watch her while she slept; oblige her, if she woke, to pass water in his presence. Lost in a reverie of toilet training, he sat and sipped his tea.
Marty had hoped the man would retire to his room with his brew, leaving them access to the back door, but Breer was clearly staying put for awhile.