Urban Occult Read online

  Jon reached the door and stopped. It was open perhaps two or three inches and the widening triangle between the kick board and the threshold was coated with dust and debris. More handprints were on the panels of the door, concentrated around the handle, but all over it. Some, greasier than others, looked fresh, shining even though the grime.

  “Are you sure about this?” asked Andrew.

  Jon didn’t turn around. “Are you going to chicken out?”

  “No.”

  “Then shut up and follow me.”

  Timmy stepped to the left so that he could see in the gap between the door and the jamb. It was gloomy, only getting slightly brighter as Jon pushed the door. It creaked, loudly, for a couple of seconds and then opened more easily. Jon looked at him, raised his eyebrows and pushed the door fully open.

  The back door opened onto a small kitchen. Most of the cupboard doors were hanging on by one hinge; some of them had fallen off completely, making crazy paving on the floor. All of the cupboards were empty. There was a space where perhaps a cooker had once sat, whilst next to it was a huge fridge-freezer, both doors tightly closed. The room smelled of something that reminded Timmy of walking by a butcher’s shop at the end of a hot day.

  Sticking close together, the boys walked through the kitchen, the tiles gritty underfoot. Through a doorway that held no door, they were in a long narrow room, with one window at the far end. It was so covered with dust and prints that the light coming through it was grey. The room was rectangular, one door on the right at the far end, with nothing on the walls but dark shapes where perhaps pictures had once hung. A ratty old sofa, most of its springs exposed and a nest of something poking out of one of the cushions, was positioned by the window. On each wall was marked, in red paint, a large circle with an ‘A’ in the middle of it.

  “What’s that?” asked Andrew.

  “Anarchy,” said Jon, “it’s from the Sex Pistols.”

  Timmy, who recognised the symbol but couldn’t have said what it was called in a million years, looked down at the floor. There was another big circle, in which Jon and Andrew were standing in the middle of. Painted inside it, again in red, was a five-pointed star. A crude face had been drawn inside it, with cat-like eyes, stern brows and three fangs instead of a mouth. Again, Timmy couldn’t explain what it was, but he knew it wasn’t right.

  The air inside the room was still and smelled funny, a chemical scent that was almost like the cleaner his gran used for her toilet. Leaves and bits of dirt had found their way in, gathering in the corners; collections of sticks stood up in the debris like crude figures of men.

  Jon stepped to his right and touched the wall. The dirt stuck to his fingers when he pulled them back, leaving four oval shapes in the dust.

  “This is grim,” he said.

  “And quiet,” said Timmy, “you can’t hear anything.”

  They all stopped, waiting and listening. There were no sounds, from outside or in, other than their breathing. Timmy realised he could feel his heartbeat, which seemed to be too fast.

  “Okay,” said Jon, too loudly, “that door must lead upstairs.”

  Staying close together, they walked to the door. Timmy took an extra step, wanting to look out of the window. Jon followed him. Andrew stayed by the door. As Timmy drew level with the ruined sofa, it squeaked. He jumped and Jon laughed, the sound out of place in that room.

  Timmy held his hand to his chest—if he’d thought his heartbeat was fast before, it was nothing compared to now. He took a few deep breaths, then looked at the cushion. The material seemed to bulge and shift.

  “Rats,” said Jon as if that was the final word on the subject.

  “They’re dangerous aren’t they?”

  “These ones are wild,” said Jon, “they’ll probably bite you and give you rabies.”

  “No they won’t, there’s no rabies in this country.”

  “Well, Mister Know-It-All, why not pick one up then?”

  “I’m not picking one up; they’re probably covered in fleas.”

  The door banged shut, making both boys shout out. Timmy turned around slowly, half expecting to see someone standing behind Andrew, but there wasn’t anybody else in the room. Andrew wasn’t there either, just a couple of scuff marks in the dirty floor where he’d been standing.

  “Andrew?” Jon called. There was something in his voice, a slight crack, that made Timmy think he was halfway between crying and laughing. “Andrew, you little spaz! You’re not funny, you turd, get back in here now.”

  The only movement in the room came from the sofa, the cushion still bulging. “Andrew, I’m going to fucking kill you.”

  Andrew didn’t come back into the room, the door stayed closed and the rats in the sofa continued to move.

  “He must have gone upstairs,” said Timmy. It didn’t make any sense; his friend was frightened of a lot of things and one of those would have been walking upstairs in the Witch House. But if he hadn’t, where was he?

  “When I catch him, he’ll wish he’d waited for us,” said Jon, his face twisted into an ugly grimace. He grabbed the door handle and pulled it open quickly. Dust eddies drifted up, catching whatever light got through the dirty windows, dancing like pale fairies.

  Without another word, Jon stomped through the doorway and Timmy hurried to keep up with him. The hallway was narrow and dark. The front door was to the left, the tree outside blocking any light that might have come in through the small window at the top of it. To the right, uncarpeted stairs led up. The floor was as dusty as the room had been and there were no fresh footprints in it. There was a small puddle of red paint just by the first riser. Directly across from the dark walls hung a chalked drawing. Timmy leaned closer and could see that it was an eye, with the edge of a nose and a few strands of hair.

  “What’s that?” he said.

  “An eye, a face, I don’t know, who cares? Andrew! Andrew, where the hell are you?”

  The house stayed silent. A drip of paint hit the puddle and Timmy looked up. The ceiling was high, at least twice his height, but someone had painted another of the five-pointed stars there and the red paint was dripping from the centre. He looked at the floor again but couldn’t see any disturbance in the dust that would be made by the legs of a ladder.

  “Andrew! If you’re hiding, you’re in deep shit.”

  Timmy stepped into hall and looked up the stairs. They were narrow, enclosed on either side, with no banister. There was a room at the top of the stairs and grey light came in through the window. Another drip of paint fell from the ceiling.

  “Andrew you little bastard!” yelled Jon. He shoved Timmy out of the way and started up the stairs. His footsteps sounded too loud in the enclosed space, like someone setting off bangers one after the next. Timmy glanced at the front door, then back into the room. Whatever was in the sofa had settled down again. He looked back up the stairs. Jon was about halfway up now, his hands on either way. It appeared, in the poor light, as if the smear he’d made on the plaster was red.

  Timmy didn’t know what to do. He wanted to find Andrew and he didn’t think, from the dust on the floor or the noise Jon was making, that he’d gone up the stairs—but he didn’t have time to get back into the kitchen either. And why would he hide anyway; that wasn’t like his friend. But he didn’t want to follow Jon, he didn’t want to go upstairs, he had no interest at all in touching some stupid window that would prove his bravery. What he did want to do—and would have done, if Andrew was here—was walk out of this old wreck of a place and keep going until he was in Tresham Street.

  “Andrew!”

  Timmy looked up the stairs. Jon was standing at the top, hands on hips, looking into the room with the window. Timmy started up the stairs, trying to tread as softly as he could on the risers. Jon turned and looked at him, then glanced to his right and said, “And…” and stopped.

  “Jon? What’s the matter?”

  “It’s—” said Jon and then he was gone.

  “Jo
n?” He’d moved so fast that Timmy couldn’t work out whether he’d jumped or started to run, but whatever he’d done, he was very quiet now. The only sound Timmy would hear was his breathing and the faint creak of the wood beneath his feet as his body weight shifted slightly.

  “Jon?” he said, much quieter than before. He wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but he didn’t dare say the name any louder because he was scared someone might hear it. Someone who wasn’t Jon.

  The door to the living room slammed shut and Timmy let out a yell of surprise. He turned on the step. There was another face on the door, the paint running down from it like bony fingers reaching for the floor. He didn’t remember it being there when they came through it.

  He was frozen and wanted to cry. Tears welled in his eyes and he blinked them away. He was more frightened than he could ever remember being: a terror that started somewhere deep in his chest and spread through his veins, growing ever colder, until it reached his fingertips and toes. His heart felt as if it was running faster than a hamster on a wheel and he was frightened to put his hand on his chest, just in case he could feel it through his skin. He couldn’t move, couldn’t get his legs to do anything, and his hands were firm at his side. His breathing got harder, harsher, burning in his throat and lungs.

  “Jon?” he said, the word a mere squeak. He didn’t want to go upstairs, though he knew he should go and check for his friends. He didn’t want to turn around either, to open that door that was freshly painted on; to be confronted by whoever was standing there waiting for him. He had to go up, that was the only answer—Jon was up there; he didn’t know who had slammed the door.

  Gingerly, he took another step. Then another, trying to move as carefully and quietly as he possibly could. Some of the stairs groaned under his weight and each time one did, he felt his heart race faster.

  As he got closer to the top, he could see that it was a bathroom at the top of the stairs. Black mould flowered in patches above the window, the walls a dull yellow. The toilet seat was up, but the bowl was smashed, the porcelain looking like a row of jagged teeth. The edge of the sink was visible, green mould plastered to it. The lino floor was cracked and peeling.

  “Jon?”

  Another step and his head cleared the wall. A landing was to his right, protected by spindly balusters that had circular shapes at the top and bottom of them. Eyes had been carved into the circles and painted over. The carpet was green, coated with dust.

  Timmy heard a sound, a sibilant blur that seemed to come from behind him, towards the front of the house. He glanced around but saw only the blank wall above the stairs and a doorway at the end of the landing. The door was closed. It was covered in symbols: ‘Anarchy’, the eye, the five-pointed star, representations of people, lines and curves.

  Holding his breath, Timmy took another cautious step. A creak behind him. He half-turned, expecting to see someone on the landing, hoping against hope that it was Jon. There was no one there. The door was still closed.

  Nearer the top, he could see another door at the end of the landing, just across from the bathroom. That door was partly open. There was a shape in the carpet, a round space as if someone had done a breakdance spin in front of the door and disturbed the dust there.

  “Jon? Come on, this isn’t funny.”

  Another sibilant hiss. Timmy glanced slowly behind him. The door at the end of the house, for the front bedroom that had the window to be touched, was now half open. Timmy breathed out, suddenly relieved. That was it, it was Jon, he’d gone in and touched the window and now they could get back downstairs and find Andrew.

  Timmy took another step, three away from the top now, and heard movement on the landing. It was light, almost a tapping sound, which didn’t make sense with the carpet. He turned, expecting to see Jon with a big grin on his face. But it wasn’t Jon. He didn’t know what it was, this large black shape, coming towards him quickly.

  Timmy covered his eyes, his breath seemingly sucked from his body. He felt something on his face and in his hair, like cobweb strands, but more tangible, and then he was being pulled backwards, up the stairs, his heels catching on the last risers.

  The End

  Probatio Diabolica

  Nerine Dorman

  I didn’t believe in the tokoloshe, fairies or poltergeists, which made me the perfect journo to follow up on this particular lead, according to my boss. To be honest, I’d only written that article about Satanism last year to debunk some of the hysteria from the happy-clappy crowd. I hadn’t intended to get my ass fired from the Big Media House I Shall Not Name. Hence I was reluctant to stick my neck out again after getting my ass burnt the first time.

  Popular media would have most believe the garden-variety devil worshipper would paint his house black and at least have a gargoyle or two guarding his front gate. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

  Thane Westridge lived in a chic, semi-detached Victorian in Gardens, in a narrow unnamed road off Wandel Street. If he hadn’t given me precise directions, I’d never have found the place.

  While warm yellow light blazed from the windows of the other properties in the row, Number Four was shrouded in gloom. Was the guy home? Devil worshipper or not, he wouldn’t be the first to stand me up.

  I shivered in the thin wind that sliced through my coat. It grew dark early in Cape Town’s City Bowl in midwinter and I did not relish having to interview someone after hours, not when the rest of humanity was no doubt having dinner, with the prospect of a hot bath ahead. But no, my dear dastardly editor wanted me to do the write-up for Friday’s paper.

  And I didn’t really want to go through with this. After all, who the hell wanted to spend part of her evening with some weirdo who believed in the literal existence of the Prince of Darkness? Me. Ha-ha. Not. I’d done my research, all right.

  “This is a perfect follow-up,” my editor had told me. “Especially in the light of that court case up in Jozi.” Just great. There’s a world of difference between some misguided teen teaming up with her cat-killing boyfriend to take out her mom with a frying pan before slitting her throat with a bread knife, and some urbane cultist who’d been practicing his particular brand of cray-cray on the side in suburbia for a decade.

  I figured my editor just wanted to ruffle some feathers.

  “You promise me I’m not going to deal with the fall-out?” I’d asked Bodhan more than once. I envisioned thousands of angry emails and phone calls, like the last time. Yes, South Africa was still firmly in the grip of 1980s-style Satanic Panic more than thirty years down the road.

  My editor just gave me that shit-eating grin and shooed me out of his office. Then again, considering that we’d recently run a story about a spirit medium in Brackenfell who talked to such notables as Verwoerd, Shaka Zulu and Paul Kruger, I really didn’t have anything to worry about. Or so I reassured myself.

  I knocked on Thane’s door. I’d give him two minutes to open and then I’d be outta here. I’d console myself with a pizza from that nifty little Italian place down the road and wash it down with a glass of red. There was a half-bottle of Thelema in the fridge with my name on it.

  A particularly nippy gust had me draw my coat closer. Another two minutes then I’d be back in my car, snug with the heater turned on. Devil worshippers be damned. Bodhan could shove that story.

  As luck would have it, a car turned into the street just as I decided to call it a night. But oh my, nice car. The man drove a sleek Mercedes SLK, gleaming black, and waved at me as he pulled up. My interview, then.

  I shook my head, adjusted my bag and waited for Thane to reveal himself. And tried to stop my scowl from showing. My ears were already aching from the cold.

  Thane Westridge appeared to be in his early thirties, tall and lithe; and moved with the grace of a dancer. Large eyes were set in a narrow, expressive face. His goatee was neatly trimmed, and gave him an almost saturnine air complemented by the long, dark blond hair neatly pulled back from his face. But he wore
a tailored charcoal suit, and leather laptop bag was slung over one shoulder. Westridge hardly looked the part I’d pegged for him. I’d expected everything from a tranced-out hippie to a hipster complete with Vespa, if not some middle-aged, balding man who lived alone with too many cats.

  The car beeped once and he nodded in greeting as he shut the gate behind him. “Miss Muller, I presume?” His smile displayed a small, even teeth. What had I been expecting? Fangs? “I’m sorry I was delayed at the office. We had a presentation that ran over the allotted time.” His accent suggested he was a British ex-pat. Oh so proper, dah-ling.

  “Not a problem. You can call me Lucinda.” I smiled despite my urge to say something snarky, held out my hand and felt horribly Afrikaans and uncultured compared to him.

  “Nice name.” He winked and I cringed inwardly. Of course. Lucinda, Lucifer. Thane’s skin was cool, his grip firm. He made eye contact and squeezed briefly before he fished keys out of his pocket and opened the door.

  I was glad he turned from me because the way he’d appraised me made my face warm. I don’t know when last a guy had really looked at me, dyke that I supposedly was according to my colleagues. Hell, this boy was hot—an unexpected treat—but damn, it was a pity he was into the kind of stuff that made me roll my eyes. Thane entered first and deactivated the alarm, while I shivered in the doorway and peered after him.

  The interiors were, frankly put, gorgeous. Oak floors gleamed with the warm sheen of polish. We stood in a hallway that led toward narrow stairs, but to my left was a lounge—a small room but filled with a veritable fortune in antiques. Dogon masks, similar to ones I recognised from an African curios dealer I’d interviewed, had been turned into light fittings. A warm glow spilled from the eye slits the moment Thane flipped a switch, and made them seem somehow alive, watching. Cool, but kinda creepy at the same time.

  He motioned for me to take a seat on one of the large oxblood leather couches. “I have a bottle of Thelema I’d like to try. The two thousand and seven Rabelais. It’s a new release. Care for a glass?”