Page 17 of Only a Monster

FIVE

The Gilt Room’s thick carpet muted Joan’s racing footsteps enough that when she crossed into the Yellow Drawing Room, she startled at the slap-slap-slap of her own feet hitting the parquet floor. It was too loud. She wrenched her shoes off.

The room was surreally untouched by the events of the evening. The Yellow Drawing Room was one of those rooms you passed through on the way to somewhere else. Everything was a novelty of yellow: the walls, the chairs, even the thick-piled divan in the corner.

A jumble of memories clamoured for Joan’s attention. The sword in Nick’s hand. Monsters killed my whole family. His mouth against hers. She shook her head, trying to clear it. No, no. Not right now. She couldn’t think about any of that now. She had to warn her family that he was coming.

There was a glint under the divan. Joan bent. Someone had dropped their phone in their rush to flee.

It opened on the lock screen. Joan found the emergency options and dialled. She held the phone to her ear and waited. She could hear the wind sighing through the room. Her stillness had given stage to the subtle sounds of the house. A clock ticked on the mantelpiece. Floorboards popped. Some distant device hummed. There was no sound from the phone.

Joan looked at the screen properly. No signal. Was something blocking it? She squeezed the edges hard enough to hurt.

Muffled thuds sounded suddenly from downstairs. Someone was running. Two someones. Joan went to the mantelpiece and grabbed a candlestick—one of the heavy bronze ones that took an hour each to polish. She eased the door open.

The slice of light showed the passage between the library and the old servants’ staircase. Downstairs, someone screamed and then suddenly stopped. There were more running footsteps. Joan couldn’t tell whether they were near or far.

Joan held her breath and padded down the spiral staircase, soft in her socks. The old wood creaked, making her throat close up.

There was another distant scream and Joan’s knees started to shake. How was she going to get out of the house? Nick knew it as well as she did—there’d be people watching the doors. He even knew about the old servants’ passages.

She gripped the candlestick hard. But as she reached the bottom of the staircase, there was still no one in sight. She crept farther in. The door to the Linen Room was cracked open, showing the room all set up for tourists, one cupboard artfully open with shelves of folded tablecloths and sheets.

Joan held her breath and listened. Nothing. Where was everyone? Was this some kind of nightmare? If not for the pain in her wrist and the warm blood oozing down her side, she might have believed that none of this was really happening.

Something nearby creaked, making Joan’s breath catch. She ducked quickly into the Linen Room. It was empty. Then the Valet Room. Empty. Then into Sabine’s Room: the big bedroom suite beyond. Empty.

No. Not empty.

To Joan’s horror, Ruth was at the back of the room, near the sofa set. Outside, the moon was shrouded by clouds, but there was enough light to see that Ruth’s face was very pale.

‘No,’ Joan breathed. No. Ruth. ‘What are you doing here? You can’t be here.’ She stumbled toward her.

‘You messaged for help,’ Ruth said. She hadn’t moved from where she was standing.

Joan remembered typing desperately on her phone before it had been torn from her grip. She’d been reaching for the send button; she must have hit it. Her breath hitched. She’d yelled at Ruth this afternoon. She’d told Ruth she was evil, that she never wanted to see her again. But when Joan had needed help, Ruth had come.

‘And I called everyone else,’ Ruth said.

‘Everyone else?’ Joan said. ‘Who—’ The words caught in her throat. Her eyes had adjusted enough to see that there were dark stains on the carpet by the sofa. Joan stumbled closer.

‘Joan, don’t,’ Ruth said. ‘Don’t come back here. Just stay where you are.’

Joan shook her head. She heard herself make a strange, deep sound as she rounded the corner of the sofa.

Gran was slumped on the sofa seat, legs splayed at an awkward angle, her shirt collar soaked with blood. One of her shoes had fallen off. It lay upturned by her stockinged foot.

‘No. No, no, no.’ Joan had been on her way to warn her family about Nick. They couldn’t be here. This couldn’t be happening.

There was a folded blanket on Gran’s chest. Joan had registered Ruth’s stance as odd—slightly stooped. And now she saw why. Ruth was pressing down on the blanket with both hands.

‘Everyone’s dead.’ Ruth sounded like she was trying to break it gently, but her voice sounded strange and stilted, like when she did robot impressions. Ruth had the best robot voice. ‘Uncle Augustus. Bertie. Aunt Ada. Everyone’s dead.’

‘No.’ Joan shook her head. ‘No.’ She couldn’t seem to focus her eyes properly. Everything around her seemed blurry and unreal. She’d been on her way to warn them. They couldn’t be dead. There was blood soaking through the blanket. Blood all over Ruth’s hands.

‘Joan.’ Ruth’s voice jolted her. ‘I think Gran’s dying,’ Ruth said, still with that strange, stilted tone. Her eyes were glazed. ‘She’s lost so much blood.’

‘We just—’ Joan could hear how weird her voice sounded too. ‘Okay, we have to call an ambulance. We need to call lots of ambulances. And then. Okay, this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to call an ambulance.’

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