***
It was around four a.m. when Robyn woke up, still dressed and lying on top of the covers rather than under them. She was cold, hungry, thirsty, and she needed the toilet badly. Cursing the wine, she dragged herself into a standing position and disappeared into the bathroom for a few minutes. When she re-entered the room, she crossed over to the tea and coffee tray and made herself a drink. She devoured the three complimentary biscuits and drank her tea while she tried to think.
She hadn’t got very far with her thinking when she suddenly realised something. Standing up and looking in and around her suitcase, and then looking around the entire room, she realised she’d left her laptop in The Green Man pub.
She groaned to herself as she sat on the bed. How could she have been so stupid? Well, she knew the answer to that question, of course: she’d been more than a little tipsy, and she’d also been in a massive hurry to get out of the crowded pub and into the evening air.
She hoped that someone had noticed the laptop and told the barman, but she wouldn’t have bet any money on it. When inventing Crickley Bay, she’d tried to create a wide range of characters, but overall, they weren’t a very nice lot. If you wanted intrigue and mystery in a book, you couldn’t have everyone being open and honest and lovey-dovey all the time; you needed people with secrets, people who weren’t what they seemed, people who would stab each other in the back without a second thought.
No, her laptop was probably well and truly gone. She sighed, mentally kicking herself, but tried to get a little perspective. It could be worse: at least all of her work was backed up on her computer at home. And she could definitely afford a new laptop. It was no use crying over spilt milk.
She was just considering what to do next – maybe some late night channel surfing – when a loud crashing noise made her jump. She couldn’t tell where it had come from, and her first thought was that Aled and Katherine were having another one of their domestic disputes. She heard a distant sound of a dog barking – possibly Sookie the lurcher in an outside pen somewhere – and a shiver ran down her spine as she remembered the first part of her notes on the B&B:
‘The room on the top floor, while actually the biggest of the guest rooms, is only priced at £70 a night. Aled Church tells the guests this is because of its inconvenient location, at the top of an old staircase that is difficult to get up with lots of luggage etc. The real reason for its cheapness is because Aled believes it’s haunted, and guests are less likely to complain of strange noises and bumps in the night if they believe they’re getting a good deal on the room.’
OK, her characters coming to life as real people was one thing. But a ghost? They didn’t exist in the real world – according to Robyn’s beliefs, anyway – so they couldn’t possibly exist here, could they?
At that very moment, the kettle (which had been placed in the middle of the tray on top of the little side table), fell onto the floor. Robyn – who, again, had jumped at the sound – had been nowhere near it, and she could come up with no logical explanation for how it had happened.
While she was pondering the kettle, another sound reached Robyn’s ears, something which made her stop cold: someone had just turned the shower on in the en suite.
At first she tried to tell herself that it was obviously just someone in the next room having a night-time shower, but then reality (or whatever passed for her reality these days), came crashing down around her. She was the only one on this floor, and that sound sure as hell wasn’t coming from downstairs.
Not wanting to move but knowing she had to, Robyn scooted along the bed until she was sitting next to the bedside table. She took her mobile off the otherwise-empty surface and stared at the display. She had no battery. Perfect.
She glanced at the hotel phone on the table, but without being able to see the listings from her mobile address book, she didn’t know any of her friends’ numbers, so that was pretty useless, too.
Then again, who was she planning on calling? It was the middle of the night, and the only numbers she had were for people who were miles and miles away in England. What was she going to do – call Maggie and tell her that her shower had just came on of its own accord? What good would that do?
She was still staring at her phone display when the bathroom door swung violently open, bashing the door handle into the bedroom wall and making Robyn almost fall off the bed in shock.
She stared at the door in horror. From her position on the bed, she could only see a sliver of the bathroom, and she had no desire to see any more.
Robyn quickly dropped her phone into her handbag (she thanked God she hadn’t left that in the pub, too), and swung it over her shoulder. Having fallen asleep fully dressed – including her shoes – she could just leave the B&B now, get in her car, and drive home. She could charge her phone on the way, just in case she needed it on the journey.
She’d have to leave her luggage, but that was fine; she could always buy more clothes. She’d been drinking, of course, but that was quite a few hours ago now and she was hoping most of the alcohol would have already left her system. Plus, there’d hardly be any people on the streets at this hour, and a DUI charge was a hell of a lot better than staying here and getting attacked by a ghost. A ghost she’d created!
She cast her mind back to her notes. By the time she’d left her house to come to Wales, she’d only vaguely planned the plot in her head, and she couldn’t remember much of that at the moment, anyway, but she did remember the ghost.
She’d created the ghost in the B&B as a way of mirroring the personalities and actions of the characters in Crickley Bay. She had an idea of the whole town coming up against the ‘evil’ ghost, only to realise that compared to the residents of Crickley Bay, the ghost was nowhere near as cruel, sordid, or sinful.
It was still a ghost, though, and that was enough to scare the wits out of Robyn. She had to get out of there.
The only problem was, in order to get out of there she had to cross the room, passing right in front of the bathroom before she got to the door.
There was also an extremely annoying mirror that had been placed next to the door: it was full-length, and it was positioned in such a way that it would reflect the bathroom if you were standing in the middle of the room, meaning that unless Robyn kept her eyes shut as she was running, she’d see into the bathroom on her way to the door.
Still, it was the only thing to do unless she fancied climbing out of the window, and – being on the top floor and all – Robyn didn’t think that’d be a great idea.
Taking a deep breath, and making sure her handbag strap was properly looped over her shoulder, she stood up and raced over to the door. She tried with all her might not to look in the mirror as she ran, but she still caught a dark shadow in the corner of her eye as she passed.
She tried to ignore it. Hyperventilating and throwing up could come later, when she was out of here and safely back home.
Robyn scrambled at the door for a good few seconds before she realised it wasn’t opening.
It was locked.
Panicking, she tried to remember coming in hours before. She didn’t remember locking it. She usually would have done before turning in for the night, of course, but she hadn’t been planning on collapsing on her bed and immediately falling asleep. No, she definitely hadn’t locked it.
So, either the ghost was having a bit of fun with her, or for some unfathomable reason, Mr Aled Church had locked her into her own room.
Robyn had just opened her bag to try and fish out her room key when she noticed a flourish of movement in the mirror next to the door, and before she’d had time to realise what it was, she felt freezing cold water explode against her back.
The temperature of the shower was a complete shock to the system, and Robyn had trouble breathing as she stood in front of the door, shivering and trying not to look in the mirror. She knew that if she did she’d see either one of two things: an invisible entity holding up the shower hose just behind
her, or perhaps even worse, a shadowy figure carrying out the same action. She had no desire to see either one of them.
The water was now cascading over her, soaking every inch of her clothes and skin. She remained immobile until the temperature of the water changed: one moment it was freezing cold, and the next it was boiling hot. Now physically in pain, Robyn told herself to kick her ass into gear. She quickly found her key in her bag, unlocked the door, ran onto the landing, closed her eyes while pulling the door to, and opened them again to lock the door.
Without waiting a beat, she then ran down the many flights of stairs, trailing water behind her the whole way down. Robyn didn’t pay any attention to the mess she was making. When she got to the bottom, she immediately started crossing the foyer. She only made it about halfway before she noticed the fire.
There was the bright glow of flames in the fireplace, making the foyer look all cosy and comfy even in the dead of night. Why was it lit at four in the morning?
Robyn found she didn’t care. She wanted to get out of that B&B more than anything in the world, but surely it wouldn’t hurt to sit down for one minute? Sit in the comfy chair and warm herself by the fire? Stop herself from shivering and her teeth from chattering?
If she went outside and got in her car now, it would take her forever to get warm (her car heater took an age to get going and, even then, it didn’t make that much difference to the temperature of the car). She just wanted to get a bit of feeling into her numb fingers; driving with hands you couldn’t really feel probably wasn’t a great idea, anyway.
Robyn hesitated for a few more seconds before walking over to one of the chairs, sitting down, and reaching out her hands towards the fire. The effect was instant and brilliant; she could almost see the warmth seeping into her shivering body. Taking a few deep breaths, Robyn relaxed in the chair.
She started feeling sleepy.
Just a few more minutes, a few more minutes…
“Mrs Reddick?”
Robyn cringed as she registered Aled’s voice. She knew she should have avoided the fire and gone straight to the car…
Sighing to herself, she turned round in the chair and gasped.
She’d been expecting to turn and see Aled on his own. Perhaps Katherine, too, if she’d woken both of them up. Instead, there were a whole group of people filling the foyer. She hadn’t heard them at all, and she vaguely wondered if she’d actually dozed off in front of the fire while they crept up behind her, or if – being fictional – they simply hadn’t made any noise.
Robyn forced herself to speak. “Mr Church. What’s going on?”
Aled’s mouth curled up in a half-smile. In the flickering light from the fire, it looked like a sneer. “We couldn’t help but hear the racket you made running down the stairs.” His eyes took in her wet hair and wet clothes. “Is everything alright?”
Robyn laughed. While she was trying to play it cool, it sounded unnatural and hysterical. “Why wouldn’t I be alright? What’s everyone doing here?” She pulled her gaze away from Aled as she said this, taking in the other people in the foyer. Katherine, Ben Compton – the barman from The Green Man – Farmer Humphries and Estelle, Joe the hobo, a few others that she hadn’t been formerly introduced to but whose identities she was quite sure she could guess.
Ben Compton stepped forwards. “I called them here, for an emergency meeting.”
“Emergency?” Robyn didn’t like where this was going, not one bit.
“I found your laptop in the pub. I wanted to find out who the woman was who sat drinking red wine all afternoon while staring at her computer as if it were possessed, so I had a bit of a nose.”
Oh no.
Robyn thought back to her conversation with Maggie a few months ago. Maggie had just had her laptop stolen, and she was telling Robyn how she absolutely should add all these security features to her own machine. She’d been aghast when she’d found out that Robyn didn’t even have the password function set up on her laptop: anyone could just take it and get into all of her secret files, she said.
Robyn had to admit, Maggie had had a point.
“You had no right to go through my computer.”
The barman sneered, much like Aled. “Shouldn’t have left it in my pub then, should you? I can tell you, I had a good look at all your documents, and imagine my surprise when I found lots of files detailing Crickley Bay and all the inhabitants!”
Robyn tried to answer. “It’s not like that…”
“Then please tell us what it is like, because it seems to me – to all of us – that you’ve been spying on us for some considerable time. And we don’t like no nosey parkers around here, let me tell you.”
Robyn was standing now, holding her hands up in a kind of self-defence pose and trying to talk her way out of this ludicrous situation. “I haven’t been spying; this is the first time I’ve ever been here.”
Farmer Humphries stepped forwards, her laptop in his hands. “Explain this, then.”
Robyn took in a deep breath, trying to think. “I… I can’t. I just can’t.”
Katherine Church stepped forwards then. She was brandishing her kitchen knife.
Robyn stared at the shiny steel for a good few seconds. “You been cooking again?”
Katherine shook her head, holding out the knife in front of her and admiring it in the flickering light of the fire. “Nope.”
Robyn took a step backwards, but there really wasn’t anywhere for her to go; she was standing right in front of the fire and everyone else had surrounded her. She was literally backed into a corner.
So, she decided to just come out with it. “Look, I’m not spying on you, I promise. I’m a writer, and I’ve been planning a book called ‘The Crickley Bay Chronicles’. I had no idea this town was called that until I saw the sign yesterday. All those files on the computer, they’re my notes. My plans for the book. The places, the… the characters, I made it all up. You’ll see if you read them again… just notice how they’re written. They’re just notes made about a fictional place filled with fictional people.”
Aled was laughing by this point. “Fictional? I think there’s something wrong with your brain, missy. Is there something wrong with your eyes, too? Look at us!” He gestured to the group. “We’re not fictional, we’re real!”
Robyn took another step back and banged into the mantelpiece above the fireplace. The cold stone dug into her back but she barely noticed.
“Look, you’re right: there’s something wrong with my brain. That’s why I was leaving, I was going to drive myself to the hospital. So, if you’ll excuse me, that’s where I’ll be going now. I’ll be out of your lives. I won’t come back, I swear.”
Aled was shaking his head and tutting. “I’m afraid we can’t let you do that.”
Robyn’s heart sank, and she just about managed to whisper a quiet, “Why?”
Aled’s eyes flickered over to the laptop and then back to her. “You know too much.”
Robyn hesitated before responding. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve looked at a lot of the files on that computer. Now, I can understand how you could get people’s names, addresses, dates of birth, their field of work, that kind of thing. What I don’t understand is how you know everyone’s deepest, darkest secrets. There’s stuff in there that could break up marriages, tear apart life-long friendships, ruin businesses, ruin people’s lives!”
Robyn, unsurprisingly, was having trouble thinking clearly. “What?”
Aled rolled his eyes. “You know about our top room and the reason we rent it cheaply, you know about…” he glanced quickly at his wife, who looked down at her hands, down at the knife, “about our little dispute a few years ago. You know about people’s illnesses, their affairs, the money they’ve been embezzling, the crimes they’ve committed, you know everything about everyone in this town! Now, these people here,” he gestured again to the small crowd in the foyer, “these are good people. I trust these people. I don’t trust any
one else in Crickley Bay, and I trust them even less now that I know everything. We can’t have all this getting out. And we can’t let an outsider – one who knows all of this – live. We just can’t have it.”
He said the last five words almost apologetically, but Robyn wasn’t exactly paying much attention to his intonation. She tried to step backwards again, but was stopped by the mantelpiece for a second time. Apart from her back – which felt like it, too, was on fire – Robyn was still cold and wet from the shower attack, not to mention exhausted and still semi hung over from the wine. Looking at the motley crew that had assembled in the foyer, she started crying.
This got a response from Estelle, whose weasel-like features scrunched up in sympathy, and Robyn had a vague thought pass through her mind that she was happy she gave at least one of her Crickley Bay residents a heart.
Sadly, one wasn’t enough. Robyn watched as Estelle backed off from the group and sat down on the first step of the staircase, out of view. With Estelle gone from the front of the small crowd, Joe the hobo could be seen properly.
He, too, was looking slightly uncomfortable with the situation (Robyn guessed this was probably because she’d given him money earlier), but he stood his ground, determined to be a part of the group. Part of the mob.
Robyn opened her mouth to try and defend herself again, but nothing would come out. Sensing her defeat, Aled stepped forwards, motioning for the others to do the same. Katherine’s mouth opened in a wide grin as she followed her husband’s footsteps, raising the knife in triumph.
“Now, now, Kath. I don’t think the knife’s going to do it this time.”
Robyn felt a rush of hope as Katherine pouted and lowered the knife.
The hope didn’t last long.
“No, I think it would be much more fitting if we used this, don’t you think?”
Robyn watched in horror as Aled took the laptop – which was quite an old and hefty model – off the barman and started raising it above his head. He took another step forwards, and without waiting for a single second, brought it crashing down on the top of Robyn’s skull.
Her garbled scream rang out across the foyer as she fell to her knees, holding onto the stone fireplace in an attempt to keep at least some balance.
“Please, don’t!” she shouted. “I made you! I created you all! If it weren’t for me…”
Bang.
The laptop came down again, and this time, when it was raised back up by Aled, the underside was covered in a deep, shiny red. It dripped slowly from the edge of the computer and landed on the Persian rug in front of the fireplace, creating a dappled pattern on the soft fabric.
Robyn was crying even more now, her head pounding, her heart racing, her stomach threatening to empty its contents back up her throat and out of her mouth.
She reached out a hand for Joe, willing him to stop this, willing him to see her for what she was. A scared, bewildered, mild-mannered writer.
That’s all she was, all she’d ever been; she didn’t mean to create all these people, she wasn’t trying to act like God. It had all just… happened.
Aled slapped at her arm, making her tumble back onto the floor, where she landed highly inelegantly with a loud thump.
Robyn’s hands clawed at the rug, trying to get back up, trying to fight.
But her fight was leaving her, and there was no chance of flight now. This was the end.
Her masterpiece, her passion project, her whole life’s work, had come to this.
She was being killed by her creations.
She supposed it was fitting in a way: she’d spent years exploiting characters, making them do terrible things so she could sell thousands of books and make more money than one person really needed.
But these were just the crazed thoughts of a person who knew her time had come.
She’d never get to write her epic saga, but that was OK. Because, somehow, without even writing it, she’d brought the place and the characters vibrantly and vividly to life.
After all, that’s what being a writer was all about, wasn’t it?
She had created something.
And now it was going to destroy her.
Robyn took one last look at the people in front of her – her characters – and managed a small smile. She hadn’t known how she was going to end ‘The Crickley Bay Chronicles’, and now here it was, the last scene, the climax, being written for her, right in front of her eyes.
Taking a deep breath, she waited for the final blow.
At least, on some level, the story was finished.
It was complete.
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Acknowledgements
I’d like to say a big thank you to anyone who helped me (directly or indirectly) with this story. A special thanks goes to Valdas Miskinis for the book cover.
About The Author
Jessica Grace Coleman was born in Stafford, England and raised in the nearby village of Little Haywood, a quaint English location that would later be remodelled into Beth Powers’ home village in the Little Forest novels.
She studied Film Studies and American Studies at the University of Sussex in Brighton, and attended the University of Colorado at Boulder for a year as part of her course. A big fan of travelling, she has road tripped around North America and backpacked across China, South East Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
Jessica has so far self-published five books in the Little Forest series: The Former World, Memento Mori, The Exalted, Carnival Masquerade and The Gloaming. She has also released her first short story collection, Grown By The Wicked Moon, featuring 14 weird and wonderful tales, as well as her non-fiction titles, Creative Ways To Start Creative Writing, Volumes 1, 2 & 3.
You can find out more about Jessica, her available books, and her works in progress at her website: www.jessicagracecoleman.com and you can contact her at
[email protected]. You can also sign up for her mailing list - where you’ll be first to hear about her new releases and reader competitions - at www.jessicagracecoleman.com.
This is a Darker Times book - www.darkertimes.co.uk
Also Available from Jessica Grace Coleman
The Former World
A Little Forest Novel
Twenty-one year old Beth Powers is fed up with living in the tiny, gossip-fuelled village of Little Forest and resolves to escape to London with best friend, Veronica Summers. That is, until the body of Beth’s colleague Emma Harris is found in the nearby woods, setting off the small community’s well-oiled rumour mill.
Beth soon finds herself in the middle of a bizarre village conspiracy: was Emma’s death really accidental? Why are Beth’s nearest and dearest cutting her out of their lives? And what does it all have to do with the conveniently-timed arrival of handsome new resident, Connor Maguire?
With the help of new ally Will Wolseley, Beth delves into the village’s sinister secrets and uncovers a terrifying truth about herself that could change her life forever.
Will Beth decide to leave her childhood home for good? And, more importantly, will Little Forest let her go?
The Former World (Little Forest Book One) is now available from Amazon and other online bookstores.
For more details, check out my site at www.jessicagracecoleman.com
Also Available from Jessica Grace Coleman
Memento Mori
A Little Forest Novel
Beth Powers is twenty-one, single, and lives in the traditional English village of Little Forest. She has a sister, a great group of friends, and a steady, if slightly boring, job. Oh, and she can see dead people.
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Beth’s home village isn’t exactly normal, either, and a Memento Mori art exhibition showcasing Victorian photos of the dead is the catalyst for a whole new set of problems for the Little Forest Investigations team. Who was the dead woman who saved Beth’s life last Hallowe’en? Why do spectres keep getting drawn to Beth’s house? And what does it all have to do with the imprisoned murderer, Norman Carter?
Join Beth and the LFI gang in this Little Forest novel as they delve deeper into the Former World, seeking out spectres as they try and unlock the dark secrets surrounding their village, their lives, and their deaths.
Memento Mori (Little Forest Book Two) is now available from online bookstores.
For more details, check out my site at www.jessicagracecoleman.com