The air smelled like a mix between overcooked bacon and sulfur. It smelled like death. Outside the city limits in a three bedroom house the air smelled like death. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way…none of it. Bollocks. It’s not like I had any time to prepare for this. That’s the way it went for me. Behind Closed Doors by Josh Whitener The phone rang at five o’clock in the afternoon when all this started. John Constantine was just on his way out for a bite to eat and maybe a few drinks down at the Crawler before another half-pleasant moment was interrupted. With a sigh he looked to the bed stand where his phone still rang. “Five rings and still going – fuck this isn’t going to stop.” He mumbled. With a calm sigh he moved to the phone. -- Patty Gillman was trying desperately to stop everything. She was the only one that could. As soon as she got into this house there was something terribly wrong with it. Her thoughts were racing like dogs around her mind. All that and more, but they all stopped once she heard the receiver click and a muffled greeting met her ear. “John?” The voice repeated its greeting and Patty shook those thoughts away, trying to regain composure. “John. It’s me Patty…Patty Gillman. I…I was a friend of…well…” She could hardly speak, and there was a point where tears were coming to her eyes. She didn’t have any right calling him, nor did she want to, but there was just no other choice. No one else would believe her. “I was a friend of Anne-Maries. Do you remember?” There was a pause. She thought she heard the phone hanging up, but only moments later he spoke up again. There was slight recognition in his voice, and he at least thought to have known who he was talking to. The conversation dwindled as far as it needed to go and then she hung up and leaned back on her bed. Patty Gillman gave a blank stare towards the phone and then felt the salty tear fall from her eye and roll down the bottom of her chin. In a way she was relived, but she turned to the foot of her bed; looking up at something only she could see and that no one else would want to. Her voice trembled, like a scared child awaiting a beating from a father who never knew how to put the bottle down. “I did it like you told me. He said he was coming.” There wasn’t a response but the nervous frown she displayed before seemed to rest easy with a sign of some kind of acceptance. She was glad, and then she moved out of the room slowly like a hobbling old woman and into the cover of her bathroom. Even though she had moved into the shower, fully clothed, the door slowly shut behind her – seemingly on its own accord. -- Patty Gillman. He remembered her. Old bird, at least by physical attractions last time he saw her. She had gotten herself involved with Sister Anne-Marie years ago. Still lives in London it seems too. There was about five pounds in that this wasn’t going to be a good call. There were measures that needed to be taken down. One was that despite his best efforts he still knew that all of Frank, Benjamin, Judith, Anne-Marie, Ritchie, and hell even Gary Lester’s friends either dead or alive still blame him for what happened. John ran a hand through his messy hair, pealing it back behind his scalp as he got of the train and headed down the central station of the London Underground. Then his hand went for his pocket as he fumbled around for a Silk Cut. There was an ominous sign of rain tonight. From below the stairs, he could see the clouds already forming above the city, sending down small warning groans and shakes. That seemed to shake his thoughts for awhile, but not long enough for them to come back to his old friend. The Newcastle Crew, eh? It’s been 25 years since that night. I’ve managed to put the past where it belongs even if it took me years of pain and redemption seeking, but there’s no real acceptance for what happened to them. He headed up the road, still contemplating the tone of Patty’s voice over the phone. The rain started to fall in small drops around him. You could smell the acidy sent when it hits the pavement, moistening it with the salty pools. He didn’t care. There were times when the worst gets brought down on you, and all you need is a little gloominess in your life. So how did it run? Patty was about five years older than him. She had handled certain jobs for the church but never actually joined the convent like Anne-Marie. He could remember a time when he would make frequent calls to her; Patty was always catching the back ends of those stories, even if Anne-Marie was always leaving her out of it. As far as keeping the girl out of trouble she did a good job. I guess she felt it was her right to do it, maybe with her religious perseverance. It wasn’t any real surprise when people call you up after maybe months or even years of neglect. It certainly wasn’t a surprise to John, but he still couldn’t put a finger on why Patty called him. She gave him the rundown. She had bought a small bed and breakfast near the arsehole part of town with not much than her bare minimums to keep her supported. The hubby ran out shortly after she couldn’t bare any of his kids. Wanker. From what I understood it that was exactly what broke the camels fucking back. Barely able to keep business she was forced to sell half of what she had and only allowed to keep on of the rooms for herself. The place never got much business anyway. It was always empty. About three years ago they shut it down and haven’t yet sold the property. That was the last time he heard anything about it. There didn’t seem to be a buyer on the market even to demolish the house itself. Patty told him to meet her there. It sounded as if she was in a bit of a bender from the constant slurring and pauses. The rain continued to drizzle and John could feel it getting heavy as me moved more east. Outside he could practically smell the city, burning his mind like a stroke every time he felt the inner workings. Oh what clever webs we weave, eh? -- Gillman B&B. The name itself never reached the populations taste. There wasn’t enough history behind it. That’s the kind of thing that draws attention. You never come to remember things unless you know a great deal about their history. Three stairs and four bedrooms, with a room unlike any other was what built its history. The stage was set and the show demanded to go on. From inside the bathroom you could hear the sounds of water showering to the floor of the tile floor. From inside the water rolled in a pool through the crack under the door, soaking the carpet as if flowed. It mixed, rolling around and gathering small bits of the floor with it, but none had the apparent tint of red that seemed to bond from somewhere inside the bathroom. -- He made it to the house at about quarter past six with half his pack already gone. The outside looked shot and needed more refurnishing that it would have admitted. Whoever owned this shit hole really let the place go these last couple of months. Half the windows were boarded up, all but one on the top floor. It almost had a full sheet of glass to it except for the bottom right panel which was probably knocked out by some snot-nosed kid who wanted to show off to the lad how he could break glass. Not even starting into selling the place and it already looks like it should be bulldozed. John stood outside, mostly because he thought that was where she would be. He didn’t really want to go inside. He had the thought of snagging a rusty trying to find the poor girl who was probably sobbing in the back over loosing the place and then have to spend the next few weeks trying to chase an infection. That was his first thought at least. There was an ominous sigh of frustration as looked over the house again. The sun was starting to set. The wind was carrying small dirt waves over his shoes, powdering them up before he moved towards the porch. It really could have been a great place. A lot of history on these parts, too. Most of it was good from what he heard – all but the business end of things. Poor girl, she probably couldn’t help it when he ran out of her and never able to have children and all. It’s not like she could have helped that. The Lord works in mysterious ways, he thought, but that doesn’t excuse them from being fucked up. The door was cracked a bit, which meant somebody was in there at least. Surprisingly it didn’t make a sound when he pushed it back. The inside smelled like bleach, like someone was trying to have an over abundance of cleaning done in a short time. The smell was nauseating. He continued on though, lighting a cigarette to help the air for him, but in all it just made it worse. “Patty?” he announced finally. “Patty its John.” There was no answer. “Fuck me; I don’t have time for this.” He hadn’t noticed it at first because of the smell. There was a rush to his head which blended nicely with the bleach fumes to create a numbing headache as he remained in the front hallway of the house. Intoxicating and deadly at the same time, it seemed to get worse as he stood. He didn’t even feel like moving for that moment because he might take a dive into the coffee table if he tried. It was like the spin after a bender. The room didn’t move, only his mind allowed it to seem like that. It was magic. Bad stuff too, he didn’t brush this one off easily. He tried to move, making an effort to go back to the door and grab the knob but he didn’t even make it that far. Left hand slide down like it was covered in oil. He couldn’t keep his bearings. Right went to the cracking panel and he managed to get a quick step that left him hunched over gagging. His cigarette dropped from his mouth, along with vomit. He coughed for maybe a few seconds before his eyes turned to his immediate right. Those were the stares, but he didn’t expect to see what was at the top of them. A little girl, dressed in a blue jumper and a small white bow in her hair was watching Constantine hack up a lung from above. He eyes were like a porcelain dolls. Dead. Her arms were behind her back but to John it didn’t even look like she had any. She didn’t move – just watched. Her face was pale, but other than that there were no other signs of disturbance as far as he could tell. From downstairs all he could do was look at her, both in surprise and concern. This was not what he expected. This girl kept looking at him accusing, and the aura around him getting heavy. His breath slowed, and he seemed to catch it at some point because he swallowed and straightened up. His hand went for the door knob again and made it this time. He gave it a turn, still watching the girl as pulled it open a crack. The girl’s eyes widened. Wrong move, John. “Bugger” That was all that came out before it happened. A piercing scream deafened everything else around him. His hands went from the door to his ears as he fell to the floor. The girl mouth was closed; not even a peak of it open, but the sound was a striking match. “Aaaww…fu-“ For a moment he couldn’t hear anything, not even his last yell which was surprising. He couldn’t even think. The madness around him was consuming, forcing him with every move. When he fell to his knees, his backside hit the door and it shut, but he didn’t hear it. He could feel his only escape gone. He didn’t have control here, not entirely. He screamed, and then he felt something wet start to pool in his palm… …then it all went quiet. “Come on.” Blank. When you wake up from a bad dream there’s this one point where everything is like a blank screen. Then you remember where you are, and what you’re doing. The voice from up the stairs came to him like an alarm. He was on the ground, right by the door where he remembered. The sound was gone, in fact there was nothing but the smell of bleach and the feeling of a hangover imbedded into his temples that made his head throb. The pain made him check his ears which only a second ago felt like they were going to explode. All fine. He checked the stairs. The little girl was gone, if it was even there to begin with. No, he shook his head. He’d defiantly seen something even if his senses were telling otherwise. If he didn’t then he wouldn’t have made the next move. Getting to his feet he looked at the ground. A half of a cigarette had sizzled itself out of existence in a pool of vomit beside him, which some of it had gathered onto his pant leg. The stairs looked narrow and small when he started to climb them. The feeling of mayhem and despair reeked all over the place, clinging to the walls as he passed lifeless pictures of Patty Gillman’s relatives. The feeling was like watching an accident with your own eyes. Something was going to happen, but you didn’t know how or when but it was going to happen. It was too surreal to even imagine now, but after the three more steps he was already at the top, and already neck deep into what he was about to find out. He’d seen things like this before, no expert on it but it was a sure bet that whatever hunch he was on it was more than likely a similar conclusion. The feeling in the air, the sickness of the house itself, it all hit like a bullet to the gut. All in that instant there can be realization, if you’ve got the stomach for it. Illusions, blackouts and panic like the first steps to self destruction. There’s more than one thing wrong here, and he was stupid enough to come out of his sheltered day for it. But by now there was no choice. It wasn’t so much choice than it was intuition when he picked the door to his left. Whatever spirit was forcing a little girl to appear didn’t move slowly enough for him to see where it went. It was like a maze, searching the upper portion for some kind of sign, but like they say the shit attracts the flies and this room defiantly stunk. He turned the knob and let the door swing itself open. From the hallway there was nothing particularly surprising. He half-expected to be met with a river of blood flowing from an elevator. At least that would have cut some tension. Carrying on he stepped inside and slowly moved towards his coat for another cigarette. The pack seemed light so he tilted his head. Two fingers flipped the top on the Silk Cut pack open. Only two left. “Christ sake.” He muttered and quickly pulled on out, immediately striking up a match. The flame rolled around the stick of wood for a second before he pressed it to the tip of the ciggy. He didn’t notice the little girl who now sat at the corner of the bed. When he inhaled a deep cloud of smoke formed around his head and danced to the ceiling before a voice broke off his moment of clarity. “You can feel it too, can’t you?” the voice of a young girl of maybe eight years old spoke. John turned with a sudden jump and looked at the image of the same girl sitting comfortably on the edge of the bed. “Jesus!” “Shh! Watch your mouth, sir. It’s not polite.” This time the voice came from behind him. Again he turned, positioning himself in front of not just one, but two girls, almost identical in appearance. This one was a blonde, the other was a brunette, she wore no ribbon but the face was eerily similar. She moved slowly, gliding like an ice skater towards the other and stood beside her. John watched and said nothing for a minute, but when they continued to remain silent he thought it best to communicate then. “What are you doing here?” They giggled, looking at each other in a way that made him want to ease right out the door, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t without knowing all this. “Alright, then, where’s Patty.” Immediately the two looked at each other. Their smiles stopped after that question. “She’s the bad woman…all messy on the inside….we told her that she couldn’t do it. Someone else had to.” The one of the left spoke up – the blonde. John inhaled deeply, clinging to the cigarette as he continued to watch the two forms of girls speak. “Where is she?” There was a moment of silence again, but the two girls seem to understand and look at one another again before turning to the door of the bathroom just into the other room. Both of their little hands pointed to the door, and then John’s eyes immediately followed. With a quick glance to the door, then to the girls, he moved their quickly. It wasn’t before he rounded the corner into the next bedroom before he already knew. It smelled awful inside, like defecation. The door was shut, but not locked unfortunately. John felt the squeaking sound of water beneath his shoes that absorbed into a large portion of the closet. He already knew before he did it. John opened it and winced as he sniffed, covering his nose at the same time. He’d had enough of smells today. Inside Patty was lying in the tub, the light hue of red water overflowing and spilling onto the floor. Her face was staring blankly to the ceiling and the open slit below her jaw stained her neck all the way down. John backed away slowly from the bathroom and ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t make it too far back before he collapsed to sit at the side of the bed staring back at the two girls who where now both standing idly in the doorway of the previous room. He looked up, seeing their eyes looking back at him and with a grunt he kicked the door closed, blocking their view. He put up two hands on his forehead, leaning down and looking at the floor with a sigh. “What the fuck is going on here?” he said mostly to himself. His cigarette was still burning near the end of the filter as he rested in between two fingers near the right side of his head. There was the voice the two girls that rose back to shatter what ever thoughts he could have made. “She didn’t know how to help us. She didn’t know how to help herself.” They both said. “What the fuck are you talking about!? She fucking killed ‘erself because of you, this house. What the fucking ‘ell went on here?!” he was practically tearing up the room in anger. Another one of the line associated with him and she fell in like clockwork. The two girls looked at each other with a small frown, on the verge of tears. The brunette turned to her familiar and started sobbing. The blonde little girl looked down to John and spoke up. “She knew the bad man.; the one that did those awful things.” John looked up, removing his hands to see their faces. “What things?” his tone had changed somewhat, more concerning this time. “He used to come in at night, when it was dark and he knew we would be asleep. She was the one that used to share a room with him, like my sister and I did, but we didn’t yell and make noise like they did. She used to cry a lot and he used to come to our rooms. My mommy and daddy were sleeping, but we weren’t.” John blinked, furrowing his brow as he started to stand up, dropping his cigarette onto the carpet and hammering it down with the soul of his shoe. “He killed you, didn’t he? Her husband murdered you??” he asked, his brow quirked in curiosity. By now he was standing up straight. His eyes turning out of habit towards the bathroom again, he could only see Patty’s right arm dangling from the white bathtub. Her skin white and glistening, almost like the faces of those two little girls. The two of the girls looked at each other, the brown haired girl had stopped crying and now they were both just looking at him. John tried to speak for them, maybe because he was trying to understand it all. “She…she wouldn’t have let this happen. Patty couldn’t have kids. She wouldn’t by fucking right let him kill you two. She…” He saw the look on the girls faces, specifically in their eye; those pairs of swirling blue orbs that locked onto his. They told him everything. It’s funny, realization, because it can come to you at any moment of the day even when you don’t expect it. He wasn’t looking at two girls eyes when it came. They were hollower, like an angry dog's. Where they were placed smelled like whiskey and cigarettes, the stench of desperation. They moved closer to him, a grinning smile and then it spoke, but all he could see were his eyes. He found out through the words that it was a man. Ron Gillman’s voice. “That’s right, luv. Candy and dolls, I’ll give you them all.” His voice was a sad song that made John’s throat wet and sour. That’s when he leaned in. “Give us a kiss, g’night.” “No.” The girls were there now, underneath the covers. John could vaguely see them shaking. The tall, pudgy form of Ron was hovering over them. The door shut no whimpers or cries. His hand was inching under the covers. “NO! Bastard!” John dove to grab him, but all he got was a handful of the sheets. Ron was gone, vanished in a blur. The two spirits of the girls remained standing behind him. Turning quickly he looked at them, fumbling for his last cigarette and lit it. “You’re not dead. You can’t claim this house, and you’d have already moved on by now. Why are you here?” He asked “We’re the others. This house is full of awful things. We were the last ones before the bad man left. We had to make her remember, and find someone who could make us forget.” The blonde said. “Poltergeist. Bloody terrific.” He looked around, giving that muffled fragment. The entire house was crawling with rage, enough to know when he first came inside. Patty must have been the vessel. She was so full of this place, and what had happened here that she wouldn’t leave – or couldn’t. Patty knew about magic but not enough to see what all this was. Hell, even John was miffed. “This house is what’s keeping your presence alive, isn’t it?” The girls nodded. “You have to make them go away.” “Them?” he questioned. “The bad dreams.” They both said quietly. John inhaled deeply from his cigarette and said nothing. There was nothing more than needed to be said. He started out of the room. The little girls were no longer there either. -- Downstairs gasoline added to another one of the smells that tainted the house, but it was a pleasant one to him. The old-fashioned boiler was a started. A rusty piece of shit that probably was on its way to creating hellfire at one bad moment. John had ended his cigarette about two minutes ago, but he still had his matches. Some how he didn’t think he’d need to make this look like an accident. Too many things about here already did. He moved around the basement, soaking the walls once over where ever he could before stepping up the stairs to the cellar door which was still old and broken, but no lock on it which did him some good. It led straight up out of the house and right in front of the main road just behind the property. He lit the match and waited a second before adding it to the rest in a small fireball of sulfur and wood. When he tossed it in the fire hit his face, sending the warmth and brining some color back to it. After that he didn’t care what caught. Watching it all was never really his kind of game. -- It took about ten minutes for him to cut back onto the main road. A taxi cab was parked near an overpass on the old road. He could hear the engine running when he came out through a rough patch of trees. John approached the cab and got into the back seat before it started back south soon after. Chas looked into the rear view mirror. “So how was she, mate?” John blinked then straightened up. “What?” he asked. “Patty, mate. I haven’t seen her in a dog’s age. How was she? Heard that place’s got less than a month before it goes down.” “I’ll bet you a little less than that, Chas old son.” He sighed. He remembered what it smelled like inside. The flames had traveled up the house quickly before he had a chance to get out and see it. It was like they were being feed all around. He remembered the look of the two girls as the fire spread to the only room you could see to from the outside. They were gone after that, and so were a lot of things after that. “John?” Chas’s voice brought him back to reality. “Eh?” turning from the car window to his friend. “Are you daft? I just said that Patty’s ex-husband was killed last Tuesday by a mugger up near Camden. Did she know about that?” John paused, and gave a small frown. “No, but she probably would have liked to. She’ll know about it soon enough.” There was a small sign of humor in his tone. “Yea well from what I hea...” Chas began to say, but John but him off with a small sigh. “Ya got a fag, mate?” <<< Back to Index