The Stain
written by: Jacqueline Erasin
Detective Sergeant Lewis lay down his pen, waiting for the young woman sitting opposite, to continue. He watched her pull at the neck of her grey T-shirt, before biting at her thumbnail.
“For months, I’ve been telling the council there was something wrong, but they wouldn’t listen. They never do.” Marion looked him in the eye as if daring him to disagree.
“What was it?” DS Lewis asked. “Trouble with her neighbours?”
“It’s that place. Prospect House,” she spat out the name. “They should’ve knocked it down years ago. They were meant to, you know, what with all the complaints.”
Lewis nodded. Prospect House was an ugly, concrete block of flats. As a kid, passing it on his way to school, he would lower his head to avoid looking at the grey, intimidating exterior; its blank windows resembling empty eye sockets.
Proudly opened in the sixties by the local mayor, with the promise of a better standard of living for the people forced from their Victorian terraces, Prospect House had gradually deteriorated. Poor insulation, mould, faulty lifts, and drug use in the stairwells were only a few of the problems.
Over a year ago, the council had voted to demolish it, however, they struggled to rehouse all its residents, so about fifty still remained.
“It must’ve been hard for your gran, at her age, living alone on the fifth floor.”
“She loved her flat – all her memories were there. They had offered her someplace else, but she didn’t want to go. It was only in the past few months that…”
“I can imagine. What with squatters, drugs—”
“I told you; it wasn’t that,” Marion snapped. “Why don’t you listen? No one ever listens. It’s the building. It’s evil.”
DS Lewis studied his notebook to hide his smirk.
“Gran was a wonderful person. Always the life and soul. And she’d help anyone who needed it.” Marion’s voice cracked slightly. “But a few months ago she began to change.”
DS Lewis looked up. “Did she tell you what was bothering her?”
“At first, I thought she wasn’t eating properly, she was getting that thin. She’d always been on the plump side, you know. So I started cooking her meals for her and taking them over. And that’s not easy: I need to take two buses to get there.”
She picked up the plastic beaker of water DS Lewis had earlier brought her, then set it back down untasted. “But there was nothing wrong with her appetite. In fact, I don’t know where she put it all. Her GP said I shouldn’t worry. Even had the bloody cheek to tell me it was good for her to lose some weight.”
“But you thought there was more to it.”
“To me, it was like she was shrinking inwards. And the smell!”
“The smell?”
“I noticed it in the corridors at first. I thought it must be rats. But then it appeared in Gran’s sitting room. Faint at first, then getting worse. I tried everything to get rid of it. Even installed those plug-in air fresheners. Nothing worked; it was like something was rotting. It got so bad, I couldn’t bear to stay overnight with her anymore.”
She chewed at the corner of her thumbnail, trying to break off a flap of loose skin.
“How was your gran, last time you saw her?”
“Thing is, Gran didn’t notice it: the smell,” Marion continued. “She couldn’t understand what I was complaining about. I know she was scared, though. Especially that last night. She didn’t want me to leave her; said it was coming for her too.”
DS Lewis frowned. “What was coming for her?”
Marion moistened her lips. “She told me it moved into Prospect House when the other residents began to leave. It had free rein then to move about, unnoticed.” She leaned forward. “But I think it was always there. Inside the walls. Waiting.”
DS Lewis gave a slight shake of his head. “Look, Marion, if you want me to help you, I need the facts.”
Her face hardened. “I’m giving you the facts. If you don’t listen to me, it’ll happen again.”
He spread his palms. “Alright, Marion, I’m listening.”
“I didn’t believe Gran at first.” She smiled, slightly. “You know how old people sometimes go on. I just thought they must’ve moved out. But…” She twisted the neck of her T-shirt.
“But…?”
“Gran said it’d taken them.”
“Them?”
“Mr Hills, Bessie Robinson, Mrs Jones… They all disappeared. And now my gran.”
“Marion,” DS Lewis said, patiently. “There was no sign of forced entry; no sign of a struggle… Are you sure she hasn’t just gone away for a few days. Perhaps staying with a friend?”
Marion snorted in irritation. “What friend? She only has me. Anyway, she’s housebound, I told you that.”
DS Lewis flushed slightly and checked his notes.
“It’s in the walls, you see. These past few months, I had the feeling like something was watching me whenever I visited her.” She picked up her beaker and this time took a long drink. “And then one time I felt it. I was in the corridor, waiting for the lift to come, and it was taking forever. I was tired, so I leaned against the wall. And then I felt it… shift. Like there was something beneath the plaster.”
DS Lewis stopped writing. “Marion…”
She sniffed at the sleeve of her green hoodie. “I can’t seem to get rid of the smell.”
Her eyes widened, and she gasped. “Do you think it made the smell to stop me going there? To stop me helping her?” A loud sob escaped her. “I left her all alone. Oh, Gran, I’m sorry.”
“You mustn’t blame yourself,” he soothed.
“I knew there was something wrong as soon as I opened her front door this morning. The silence. It was overpowering. It was only then I realised there’d always been an underlying noise. A kind of low humming. And the smell wasn’t as strong.”
“Why d’you think that was?” Despite himself, he was becoming drawn in by her story.
“It’ll have moved on to the next one now.”
“The next one?”
“At first, I thought she must be still in bed, but it hadn’t been slept in. I was scared then, so I checked in the bathroom. It was when I returned to the sitting room I knew.”
DS Lewis felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. “Knew what?”
“On the wall, behind her armchair, was a large, brown stain. It was warm and sticky.”
She rubbed and rubbed at her palm with the thumb of her other hand.
“I didn’t recognise it at first.”
“Recognise what?”
Her reply was so soft, Lewis had to lean forward to catch what she said.
“The stain. It was shaped like Gran.”
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