Under a Watchful Eye(14)

Becky now slept soundlessly beside him, unmoving, her face turned away.

How?

He realized he’d just dreamed Becky being awake. But his shock at having passed from a dream into the actual room, without noticing the seam, was worsened by the lingering silhouette of the figure.

Seb couldn’t see a face, but was certain the form belonged to the man they’d been discussing for most of the evening. Ewan Alexander was inside the house.

Seb didn’t speak or move. Bewildered and cold with shock, he waited expectantly until he noticed that the ill-defined head of Ewan did not appear to be looking down at him, but was angled away. The head was turned to the window, the one that had been open just before. It was now closed and covered by the unmoving blind.

From inside his own mind, or perhaps these sounds originated from within the room, Seb heard several muted voices that ran over each other.

He was reminded of when Ewan used to talk to himself, when he was drunk and he produced streams of nonsense in odd voices, spoken quickly and horribly. When they were students, Seb had often overheard him doing that in his room. Back then it had been much louder as if there were other people inside his room. It was something Seb had always put down to drugs, that ability of Ewan’s to speak in tongues. He’d also imagined that he was overhearing a cartoon filled with devils.

When the stench hit him, Seb stuffed bedclothes against his mouth.

He’d never smelled anything as foul since the time he’d entered an empty tube carriage, years before in London, and then quickly realized why the carriage was deserted. A pile of clothes had lain discarded on a seat. The foetid odour arising from them had made the unventilated space unbearable. The refuse’s odour had attained a specific pitch, when the smell of an unwashed human body became akin to the stench of regurgitation. He’d been more aghast at the circumstances that had forced another citizen to reach that state, and to undress on public transport.

Seb felt fully awake now . . . but realized he was lying in the bed beside Becky again. She was asleep and lying in a new position, facing him.

Two dreams. One into another. Am I even awake now?

Seb sat up.

The figure was gone from the end of the bed and so was the smell. Or so he thought, though he may have detected a residue of oily sweat in the air. Maybe the second dream had been so vivid that his nose was deceiving him.

He left the room and lit up the hall, then the other three empty bedrooms. He checked the two ensuite bathrooms and a little dressing room nervously, checking for legs and feet under the suit bags on their hangars.

Turning the lights on and clearing his throat as if to provoke an intruder, he went upstairs and searched the living room and dining room, the kitchen, his office, the small utility room. All were neat and empty, the windows closed and locked.

Seb moved to the ground floor. There was a short hallway down there, a spare toilet and the door that opened into the garage, the latter occupying most of that level. He found nothing unusual. All was secure, pristine and as empty of life as it had been when he’d gone to bed. Only he and Becky were inside the house.

It wasn’t yet four a.m., and he’d not turned in until one in the morning, but he had no desire to return to his bed.

Hours later, dawn had already come and gone when the phone’s trilling jerked Seb awake on the sofa. It was his agent, Giles White.

‘You might have seen them, Seb. Another hundred went up yesterday. I’ll be doing all I can to get them removed with the help of your publisher, first thing Monday morning. So don’t worry about a thing.’

Seb’s head wasn’t the only thing that remained thick with sleep. His voice was as much a gargle as it was a word. ‘Sorry?’

‘The reviews. I’m afraid that sock-puppeteer has been at it again.’

Stupid paper-thin story, poorly developed characters, clichés.

Piss poor. Keep it in the toilet and wipe your arse on it!!!

Avoid at all costs!!! Don’t waste your time, even if it’s a free download or you find it in a bargain bin in a charity shop.

A chore to get through. Have no idea what all these people think is frightening about this tosh. The ‘author’, and I use this word lightly, knows nothing about the wonder and terror of the supernatural.

Total tripe. Author’s friends are giving him five stars. He’s a total fake.

Lazy . . . completely unsatisfying . . . worst book ever . . . no stars . . . free books are better than this . . . worst book I’ve ever read . . . how did this rubbish ever get published . . . couldn’t have been more wrong, bored me to tears . . . worst book I’ve ever read . . . ‘convaulted’ (but must have meant convoluted) . . . gave up halfway, gave it to a charity shop . . . one of the worst books I’ve ever read . . . rubbish . . . waste of time . . .

The reviews had piled up on Goodreads and Amazon, all penned by his old enemy who went by names that were now so tediously familiar: goddess50, hindererfolk, phakerevealer, crookidityidity62, sixthsenser, keirosmaster, parasoma_guru, arosoma+mage, vastjetblacknessboy, praiserofnothingness, extremelyrelaxedsleeper, perceptualmaestro, weightlessness&freedom, nonexistanttravellar, terminationofliars, hazzardouscognition, vitalvehicle, summerlandman.

Seb had mostly stopped caring about bad reviews years before, and mainly because he’d stopped reading them. He found they taught him little about his books other than that they confounded many expectations, or were simply not to the taste, or even sophistication, of some readers. And their taste was often mistaken for an arbitrating authority on quality. Many commentators appeared to want attention at any cost. The need to be heard and acknowledged the motive. Others were just unstable.