Chapter 12 - Nesting

It’s been over an hour since Ida left, yet Andrew is still pacing the room with his hands on his head.

“You know she’ll be safer there? Away from all… this?” Irene questions, the look on her face suggesting it isn’t the first time. “She knows what to look out for, and there are plenty of places to hide in the Estate should the worst come about.”

“We’ve been over this Irene, it doesn’t matter how much you labour the facts, she’s exposed and now I won’t know if she is alright until this is all over. I hate it.”

“I know, but this won’t be over any faster unless you sit down and help me plan. Do you think she would approve of you wasting time like this?”

This strikes home, Andrew turning with a sour look on his face, his hands gripping the back of the closest chair. 

“What are we doing then?”

“Much better. Maybe take a seat?”

With a disgruntled pout, he sits down and lets out a sigh.

“It’s my little sister, Irene.”

“I know.” Her voice is calm, her hand gesturing to the sheets of paper laid out meticulously. 

“So, according to the map, the quarantined areas are here and the centre of that is here.” Andrew recites, playing ball.

“Right, smack bang on the Thackery home, where William last went. The main issue we face is getting there.”

 “It’s a lot of ground to cover in quarantined streets. But, consider Charles’ house.” He points only a couple streets over. “When left undisturbed for any decent period of time, the people seemed to go dormant.”

“So, provided we can stay quiet, we will run into a minimal number of them. We should also stay out of buildings where possible.”

A few more people race by outside, their muffled footfalls quickly fading into the distance. Irene shuffles in her chair, reaching over to snub out the remainder of her cigarette in the ashtray as her arm catches a sheet of paper, sending it off the table. It glides a short distance, catching a breeze, before finally settling in front of the gap in the front door. Irene’s breath catches in her throat as she follows this with her eyes, widening at the open door.

“Andrew?” She stutters, his gaze moves from the map on the table to her before he turns with a jolt to look at the door. The street outside is still bathed in overcast daylight, but even that is blocked by the figure standing there. Broad, well-built, wearing a police uniform stained by rainwater and facing into the street, unmoving.

Andrew, shock clear as day across his face, very slowly leans over the back of his chair, pushing the door shut with a click. Irene follows up by crawling on her hands and knees, turning the key in the door until it doesn’t turn any more, her hands shaking furiously.

“I thought you locked the door!”

“I did! Get away from it.” Irene hisses back, scrambling away behind the counter. Andrew matches her, crawling behind the table and pulling a chair in front of him.

“Why was it just waiting there? It could have stepped in at any time.” Andrew visibly shudders, peeking over the table at the door. “Should we go upstairs? We can look out onto the street.”

“Good idea. Help me move the table in front of the door quick.”

Quietly, the two of them move to stand on either side of the table, lifting it from underneath and gently placing it back down in front of the door. As Andrew steps back, toward the stairs, something starts tapping on the front window. 

“Don’t look.” Irene grabs Andrew’s sleeve, turning him to the stairs up.

“I know.”

Leaving the tapping behind, they move single-file up to the bedroom. It’s empty, the bed made, Ida’s bloodied clothes discarded in a small pile in the corner and the window illuminating the room with overcast daylight. Just as Andrew steps forward to look out, the tapping from below ends. A new noise begins only a moment later on the window in front, only this time not tapping, but a scraping sound. Like someone is grinding a nail against the window as hard as they can, twinging the ears and creating a discordant wail throughout the room.

“Good god, what is that?” Andrews hands flying up to cover his ears, stepping back in disgust.  Irene looks as if she’s going to scream, her eyes watering and fists clenching and unclenching. She fumbles for a moment, before she pulls out her cigarette case and throws it, letting out a grunt of exertion as it impacts the window. The shattering of the glass rings out, the horrible noise silencing but its absence reveals another, coarse scratching. Irene moves to the now open window, leaning her head out to see the street. It’s just the officer, the rest of the street thankfully empty, but now he is attempting to crawl up the wall to the window. The scratching sound is his fingernails snapping and grating away as the backward hands fail to grip the brick. Irene retches at the sight, her eyes closing as she staggers back into the room, her hands on her knees. 

“Look at me, Irene.” Andrew calls out, desperation in his voice. “Look at me.”

Her eyes begin to open-

“At me.”

She repositions her head, opening her eyes directly at Andrew. He is quivering, gesturing for her to come to him. She maintains eye contact, stepping toward him hesitantly.

“Andrew?”

“The broken pieces, I could’ve sworn I saw something wrong move in them when you stepped back into the room, I wanted to make sure you didn’t look. Just in case.” He takes her hand and pulls her toward him.

“Right. Thank you. The officer, he…”

“I can guess.” Andrew blanches at the thought. “No sense being quiet anymore. Are there any more of them?”

“Just him. How and why he’s here I don’t know, it’s the same one that nailed the notice to our door.”

“We need to get out of here. We just need to wait til dark.”

-

Charlotte is breathing softly, her head still resting on the pillow, eyes flitting in her sleep. Ida is laid with her back against the desk, the journal open in her hands, occasionally flinching at the sound of something breaking loudly somewhere in a neighbouring room. She’s stopped at a page that is detailing the events that occurred when William managed to safely observe an affected person. 

He had managed to witness the “possession” by coincidence, stumbling across someone who was engaged in conversation before they got distracted by their own reflection in a window. He described this moment like something from a nightmare, they turned away for barely a moment before going feral, limbs splaying backward. He had taken the other person to safety, after prying them from the clawing hands of their friend.

By the time he had returned, the woman was barely recognisable, covered in bruises and cuts. He observed her behaviour from a safe distance, how her movement must be the cause of the bruising and how she seemed to be collecting reflective items from around the area and hoarding them, the reasons why unclear.

His other accounts of investigating this neighbourhood describes a couple that had engaged in similar behaviour, how he had almost been caught by them and had to lock them in their own basement. Furthermore, for some reason they did not seem to eat or sleep, some of them suffering from such severe malnutrition that they were naught but skin and bone. 

William goes into some detail regarding previous iconography he had found, the ones upon which his previous theories were based, and how he is now seeing them from a new perspective. Some examples include ramblings scribbled onto old books, warning that the Burning Shards will “help it find you.”. He had understood this as a reference to a people that referred to themselves as the Burning Shards, but what if it was something else entirely? 

When he had taken his new findings to the Estate they had insisted that such unnatural incursions are uncommonly rare, only a very small handful of the many they have investigated having supernatural origins. They had rejected him when he requested further resources, demanding more sufficient evidence.

Ida stands, searching for something she had seen earlier, a specific sheet that stood out. She finds it, a report written in the same handwriting as the book and clearly stamped with a ‘Rejected’ across the top. 

“Damned fools, if they’d listened to him it would never have gotten this bad.”

The next few pages dive into other studies of similar ‘incursions’ that the Estate has handled, some of which were proven to be the works of madmen or cults, but those that were real always had one thing in common. A tether. An object, symbol or person that binds the malevolent force to our reality.

The last page details William’s resolution to find the root cause or, in his failure, provoke the Estate to do something more drastic.

“I have to tell them.” Ida sets her jaw, determined. “I have to get us out of here and get to him, it could make the difference.”

The crashing resounds again, closer this time, causing Charlotte to roll over with a grumble.

“They are nesting…” Grim realisation dawns on Ida’s face. “Andrew described it briefly like a carpet of broken glass, how on earth am I supposed to get across that quietly?”

She glances down at Charlotte again, and more importantly, her bare feet.

“Sh-”

-

“It is time to go.” Irene is just finishing packing her bag, stuffing the small leather first-aid kit in. “Can you check to see if he is still out there?”

Andrew disappears up the narrow flight of stairs, returning only a moment later. “He’s gone.”

“Jolly good, are you ready?” 

“No, not even slightly, but I suppose I have to be.” Andrew lets out a long breath, making a fist around the small crimson gem.

Irene, with her bag now tightly strapped over her shoulder, moves parallel to Andrew next to the door. They’ve changed, Irene now wearing black slacks, a sensible pair of shin-high boots and a loose white blouse tucked into her trousers. Her light blonde hair is scraped tightly against her head and tied in place in a high pony. Andrew has donned dark-green tweed trousers, a well-fitted white shirt covered by a matching tweed waistcoat, his glasses tucked away into a pocket. His sleeves are rolled up the midpoint of his forearms, his hair unkempt as per the usual.

Andrew begins reaching for the handle, before pausing in place.

“Irene, you’re sure you locked it correct?” 

She nods in response. His face twists up in confusion, lowering to one knee to inspect the lock.

“Andrew, we don’t truly know what these things are capable of, it could well have opened it using some unknown means.”

“Mhm.” He continues to investigate it, wiggling the key in the lock, checking the handle before leaning back. “This doesn’t sit right with me, it feels like an outlier. If they can unlock doors, why were Charles’ parents locked in the basement?”

“Well they don’t seem to have object permanence, perhaps they simply didn’t have a reason to leave?”

“That may be. I suppose we should not rely on locked doors in that case?”

“Worth remembering.”

Irene steps in front of Andrew, opening the door a few inches at a time, taking careful stock of the dark street. She turns, nodding at Andrew and the two of them step out, locking it behind them and leaving the carved wooden plaque clattering against the inside of the door. The air is cool, a soft breeze nipping at their cheeks as they walk, their conversation muffled by a distant rumbling of thunder.