Page 9 of Not That Complicated

“They look like they’ve been lifted and lowered a fair few times, which is why I can do this.” He leaned his weight into his hands and bounced. The boards bowed, popping up a little at the ends. “Let’s get in and have a look.” He rocked forward onto his knees and efficiently clawed up the nails. He pulled out the first board and tossed it beside him with a clatter. “Huh.”

“Pipes?”

“No. It’s a deep cavity, though. Don’t usually have the floorboards this high up off the beams.”

I looked over his shoulder, then decided to kneel down beside him and have a proper look. It did seem pretty deep. “Modified for extra storage space?”

He shrugged. “Old house, innit? These days they’re all built the same, and there’s regulations and whatnot, but this house has gotta be about one, two hundred years old? They did what they liked back then. Maybe it was just built that way.”

He pulled up another couple of boards and sat back.

“Oh, look.” I leaned down and ducked my head in. “I think itisbeing used for storage. There’s one of those plastic tubs under here. A big one. It’s probably filled with Christmas decorations or something.”

Craig pulled up a few more boards, exposing more of the opaque storage tub. It was a very big one, long and deep. It looked old. We all stared down at it.

“You want to get it out?” Craig asked.

It was a tub full of someone else’s junk. I’d prefer to leave it where it was, to be honest. I had plenty of my own junk filling up my garage right now. I was about to tell Craig to nail the boards back in place when he leaned over and popped the lid.

Air puffed out.

We both recoiled, and then slowly turned and looked at each other.

“What is it?” Kevin said. He crouched beside me, reached out, and shoved the lid off.

It didn’t go far. It didn’t even fall all the way off.

It did open wide enough to show that there was a dead guy packed in there, surrounded by greyish-white granules that looked like cat litter.

“Eeeeeeee,” Kevin said.

“What the shitting hell is that?” I said, scrambling backward.

Craig didn’t say anything.

Unlesshorkcounts as a word. He barked that three times as he threw up. Right in the hole.

I was the last out of the room, but only because Kevin had been crouching so he had a head start, and once Craig and I had heaved up off our knees, Craig shoved me aside so he could make it to the door first.

We all thundered down the stairs and ran straight out of the house into the front garden.

Craig kept running. I’d never seen anyone move that fast in my life.

He bolted down the path, beeping his van open as he went, and threw himself in. The engine fired up. Kevin barrelled past me and leaped into the passenger seat. Craig reversed into the road without looking and squealed off into the distance.

It was like a Hollywood action movie. Craig didn’t even pause at the junction to check for oncoming traffic. He pulled out, and nearly got t-boned by a DPD van.

My chest was hollow, my heart rattling around in there. I felt my heartbeat reverberating through my body.

“Are you all right, Ray? Ray?Ray!” Someone shook me.

Mrs Hughes’ face swam into view.

Mrs Hughes lived over the road and two doors down from me with her West Highland terrier, Dougal, who was so old he had to wear arthritis boots whenever she took him for a walk.

They were red.

He looked very sassy in them.

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