The House On Gable Street Read online

  THE HOUSE ON GABLE STREET

  By Stephen Leather

  Copyright © Stephen Leather

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Smashwords Edition

  Jack Nightingale appears in the full-length novels Nightfall, Midnight, Nightmare, Nightshade, Lastnight, San Francisco Night and New York Night. He also appears in other short stories including Cursed, Still Bleeding, Tracks, I Know Who Did It, My Name Is Lydia, The Asylum, The Creeper, Children Of The Dark, The Undead, Wrong Turn, Possession, Knock Knock and The Cards. The Jack Nightingale timeline is complex – The House On Gable Street is set after Lastnight.

  Table of Contents

  THE HOUSE ON GABLE STREET

  THE HOUSE ON GABLE STREET

  The nightmare started with no warning, as always. The twins lay sleeping peacefully in their cribs, one on the left of the room, the other on the right. Myrrh’s crib was pink and the blanket that covered her matched it to perfection. Her brother Storm had the exact same items in blue. Their first birthday had been celebrated with a small family party four days before, not that either of them had any idea what was happening, but their parents had been delighted with it. The joy of a perfect family meant they hadn’t given a second thought to the million dollar offer they’d turned down for exclusive photos of the party in a celebrity magazine. Their parents had never let any pictures of their children appear in the press. The babies were theirs, and not a commodity to sell so they could share a cover with a Kardashian, a yo-yo dieting actress and some fool heading for rehab for his ‘sex addiction’.

  It was nearing midnight. The video cameras in the corners watched over them, their microphones ready to relay their slightest cry to the intercom connections in the nanny’s room, where there was also a monitor screen on which she could see any movement. There were duplicates of the intercom and monitor in their parents’ bedroom and in four of the other most-used rooms in the mansion. They were weaned now, but their mother occasionally offered a comforting breast if the bottle wouldn’t soothe one of them back to sleep when they woke hungry.

  Their bedroom was spacious, decorated with yellow wallpaper, covered in pictures of teddy-bears in airplanes, cars and boats. Disney mobiles hung over each crib, motionless now, but ready to twist in any current of air and set the two babies grinning with pleasure. Soft toys lined the walls, elephants, bears, crocodiles, dogs and cats. There was a brown leather sofa which ran the full length of the far wall, next to a cupboard containing everything a baby might need at night, from diapers to comforters. The windows were barred on the outside, with alarm sensors on either side which would sound a bell if anyone opened them. The motion sensors in the room were disabled at night now, ever since the twins had started to turn over as they slept.

  The nights were warm at this time of year, and neither air conditioning nor heating were operating. The digital readout on the room thermostat showed sixty-eight degrees.

  The mobile above Storm’s crib started to move, almost imperceptibly at first, then spinning slowly, backwards and forwards. Storm’s eyelids fluttered a few times, he opened his eyes and smiled at the mobile.

  The thermostat showed sixty-five degrees.

  Myrrh’s eyelids also fluttered open as the mobile above her crib spun slowly and then with increasing speed. She looked up at it and smiled.

  The temperature had dropped to sixty degrees now.

  Almost simultaneously, the twins sat up, grabbed the bars of their crib and pulled themselves up. Neither of them had mastered walking, though Myrrh could totter a few steps, but they could both get to their feet with something to support them. They looked through the bars at each other and smiled. Myrrh gave a soft gurgle, and Storm shook his bars a little.

  The thermostat read fifty-five degrees.

  A soft, white light cast a circle on the floor between the two cribs, and the babies looked down at it, their eyes widening. It grew up into a column of flickering, indistinct shapes, and they followed it with their gaze as it rose into the air and hovered clear of the floor. The twins smiled again, as if recognizing a loved one.

  The temperature reached fifty degrees.

  The light stopped flickering and changed color, to a sickly yellowy-green, and a smell of decay filled the room. Instantly the smiles were wiped from the twins’ faces, they felt cold, alone and shivered with a desperate fear. They opened their mouths and howled.

  The noise of their awful, inhuman screaming reached the nanny’s bedroom almost without the assistance of the intercom. She threw herself out of bed, pulled on a robe and ran for the nursery, but was still two paces behind the children’s mother as she burst into the room first, a look of blind panic on her face.

  * * *

  Nightingale had lost count of the number of soulless American airports he’d arrived at, generally wanting a cigarette and unable to find a smoking zone. Brownsville & South Padre Island International was no exception, and ranked very low on his list of favorite airports. Its name seemed bigger than the place itself, and despite the word ‘International’ the only destinations on the Departures board were Dallas and Houston. Still, maybe the odd private plane took off across the border to Mexico. Immediately he emerged into Arrivals he saw Valerie, tall and as elegant as ever in one of the expensive pant-suits she invariably wore when she met him. Today’s model was maroon, worn over a white blouse which contrasted with her flawless ebony skin. ‘Jack. Welcome to Brownsville. Mr Wainwright is waiting for you.’ She nodded, then turned and walked toward the exit, assuming he’d be following.

  She took him to a white Mercedes stretch limousine with the engine running. The back doors and trunk swung open, the tall black uniformed chauffeur rushed out, took Nightingale’s bag and lifted it into the trunk. Valerie walked round to the driver’s side and got in the front, leaving Nightingale to slide into the back. The car started up and headed off. Nightingale assumed they’d be heading for the private aviation terminal and Wainwright’s Gulfstream, but the car followed the exit signs and then headed for Downtown Brownsville.

  ‘Joshua not in his plane today?’ he said to the back of Valerie’s neck.

  ‘Mr Wainwright owns a house in Brownsville,’ she said without turning around.

  Nightingale had the distinct impression she was itching to close the partition between them, but perhaps that was just him being over-sensitive. There was no more conversation until they arrived in front of a large McMansion style house inside a gated estate. It looked perfectly elegant, but nowhere near the size and style he’d have expected to be owned by the young Texan billionaire. The driver got out to open Nightingale’s door, and Valerie led him up the drive and opened the door with a key from her purse. Nightingale followed her through the oak-paneled vestibule and she knocked on a door that also looked to be solid oak. The door swung open.

  Joshua Wainwright was sitting on a long white sofa facing the door, a remote control in his hand. He smiled a welcome at Nightingale, but didn’t get up or offer his hand. He was dressed more formally than Nightingale had ever seen him before, a dark suit, dark blue shirt and yellow patterned tie. No trace of his usual baseball cap, and the python-skin cowboy boots he generally favored had been replaced by formal black shoes. There was something else unusual about him, but Nightingale couldn’t place it for the moment.

  ‘Thanks, Valerie,’ Wainwright said. ‘If you’d care to wait in the small living-room, Jack won’t be too long. Jack, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.’

&nb
sp; The woman was sitting in the armchair to the right of the sofa, its back toward the door, and she’d been partially hidden until Nightingale was fully inside the room. He looked at her, and kept looking. She didn’t get up, but Nightingale guessed she’d have been nearly six feet tall, maybe an inch or two more in the high heeled boots she was wearing. Her long blonde hair hung loose over her shoulders, and looked entirely natural. She was immaculately made-up, her face was the definition of symmetry and beauty, and her bright green eyes shone like a cat’s. She was stunning.

  He heard Wainwright speaking again. ‘Jack Nightingale, Mary Madison.’

  ‘Good to meet you, Jack’ She held up a hand, almost regally. Nightingale wasn’t sure whether he was actually meant to kiss it, but he just gave it a quick press and let it drop. In most women it might have seemed a condescending gesture, but the warmth of her smile took any possible offense out of it.

  ‘Jack, Mary’s pretty much the biggest Supermodel the South has ever produced, she’s been at the top of her profession for nearly twe...er, for quite some time. Also quite a promising movie career, and plenty of guest appearances in TV shows.’

  Mary nodded in acknowledgment. Wainwright went on. ‘And most important of all, pretty much my oldest friend. Believe it or not, we went to school together, right here in Brownsville.’

  That did surprise Nightingale, mainly because he couldn’t imagine Wainwright as a kid, but he said nothing, just took out his packet of Marlboro. Wainwright held up a hand. ‘If you don’t mind, Jack. Mary doesn’t care for people smoking around her.’

  The woman gave him another smile, and it finally registered with Nightingale that this was pretty much the first time he’d ever seen the young Texan without one of his foot-long cigars. Mary Madison must be very important to him. Nightingale put his packet back in the side-pocket of his jacket.

  ‘Thank you, Jack, I appreciate it,’ she said. ‘Yes, we’re old school-friends, though neither of us ever thought we’d get this far back then. Brownsville wasn’t exactly a rich area.’

  ‘Poorest city in the USA, according to the statistics,’ agreed Wainwright.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘But here I am, been so lucky to get here, and Joshua...Joshua with his businesses...’

  ‘I’m forgetting my manners. You’ll take a drink, Jack? Something else for you, Mary?’

  ‘Another glass of the juice I brought, please,’ she said.

  ‘Just coffee for me,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘I’ll take another Glenlivet, please, Carla,’ said Wainwright holding up his glass.

  Nightingale turned his head, Carla had entered the room silently and took the glass from her employer. ‘Right away, Mr Wainwright,’ she said.

  ‘So is this your family home where you grew up, Joshua?’ asked Nightingale. He knew almost nothing about Wainwright’s past, or indeed his present, the billionaire had told him only what he needed to know every time he had work to be done.

  ‘Not hardly, my folks wouldn’t have dreamed of a place like this. That’s why I bought it for them, when I could.’

  Which left the question of where his ‘folks’ were now hanging unanswered in the air, but Nightingale decided not to press the issue. Carla had returned with the drinks, which created a pause in which the subject could be allowed to drop. Mary’s drink was a half-pint of some brown juice that didn’t look in the least bit appetising. He decided to let the other two do the talking. Wainwright didn’t usually summon him just to introduce him to a friend, there’d be a job he wanted doing, and experience suggested it wouldn’t be fun. Wainwright took a sip from his glass of Glenlivet, shook his head in a small gesture that suggested he’d enjoy it better with a cigar, and looked at Mary. She nodded, he returned the nod, then he fixed his gaze on Nightingale. ‘So, Jack,’ he said. ‘Mary’s down here for a few days to get honoured by her home town, tomorrow is officially Mary Madison day in Brownsville. There’s a ceremony, a dinner and a dance afterward. We’re just back from a lunch with the good and the great of Brownsville’

  Nightingale nodded, but said nothing. He wasn’t at all sure that Wainwright qualified as ‘the good’.

  ‘Of course, while she’s down here, she calls me and wants to visit with an old friend. An old friend she knows she can always come to with a problem.’ Wainwright took another sip, and looked at Mary, who smiled again and raised her glass of whatever-the-hell-it-was in salute. ‘Mary knows I take an interest in the supernatural, in my spare time, and collect rare books on the subject.’

  Wainwright’s tone was precise and pointed, letting Nightingale know that there were narrow limits to what Mary really knew about her friend’s occult activities.

  ‘And I told her you could be a useful guy to have around when...unusual things start happening.’

  ‘Allegedly,’ muttered Nightingale under his breath, intending it to be too quiet for Wainwright to catch, but the slight pause indicated he might have misjudged it.

  ‘Mary, why don’t you tell Jack what’s been happening.’

  She put her drink down, uncrossed and recrossed her legs in one sinuous flowing motion, then leaned forward to give her full attention to Nightingale. He looked more closely at her, noticing the tiny lines round her eyes, and the traces of black circles under them, skillfully camouflaged, but still showing the lack of sleep and the recent stress and worry. She was in great shape, but older than he’d first guessed. He’d always pegged Wainwright at early thirties, but Mary was surely nearing forty, which meant maybe he’d guessed wrong about Wainwright, She was talking now.

  ‘... live in Kansas, we have a beautiful house there. It’s kind of a retreat for me and my husband, not too many people know about it. We had it built to our own design around five years ago, on the site of a ruined older house. It’s on Gable Street, the locals call it Millionaire’s Row. My husband chose the town, he seemed to have some attraction to it. We’ve been happy there, nobody knows who we really are. Just under two years ago, I discovered I was pregnant.’

  Nightingale nodded again. It seemed rather late for congratulations so he just let her talk.

  ‘We were delighted. We’d been trying ever since we got married, around seven years ago. I was beginning to think it was a little late for me, maybe thinking about some other options, but then...it just happened. And it was twins. A boy and a girl.’

  Nightingale felt a shiver run up his spine, and he hoped this wasn’t going to be nasty. He hated bad things happening to kids.

  ‘There were no problems with the birth, both babies were perfectly healthy and have developed perfectly, just according to the book.’ She gave a beaming smile. ‘They’re wonderful, even though it’s their mother talking. My husband and I just dote on them. We have a nanny to help, but we try to make sure at least one of us is always at home with them. Everything was just perfect.’

  Nightingale sensed there was an ‘until’ coming.

  ‘Until a month ago. That’s when it started, just after their first birthday.’

  She stopped talking, as if wondering how to go on. Nightingale tried to help.

  ‘Just tell me, Mary,’ he said quietly. ‘I get to hear a lot of unusual things.’

  ‘Okay. About a month ago, there started being...disturbances in the night. Of course, I don’t just mean them waking up and crying. It was far more than that. They’d both be sleeping soundly, then there’d be a sudden breeze in the room. The temperature would fall sharply in their nursery, and they’d wake up, together. They’d stand up and stare at something in the middle of the room. At first they’d chatter away happily, but then suddenly and simultaneously they’d start to scream, not like when they’re hungry or cutting teeth, but at the top of their voices, as if they were terrified. It was just heart-rending, like animals in pain. They’d sit down and cover their faces with their hands, and wouldn’t stop howling until their nanny or I took them out of the room. Then they’d calm down almost immediately, and sleep just fine until morning.’

  �
��And this happened every night?’

  ‘No, maybe two or three times a week.’

  ‘You seem very precise about what happened. Were you in the room?’

  ‘No, not when it was happening. But we have video monitoring of the nursery, so we could watch what happened. It was almost an exact replay every time.’

  ‘How do you know the temperature dropped?’

  ‘We could see the vapor from their breath, and the room was like an ice-box when we got in there. After the first few times, we trained an extra camera on the room thermostat, it went down to forty-five.’

  ‘I’m assuming the cameras didn’t show what the kids were looking at?’

  ‘Nothing, just the babies.’

  ‘Did anyone try sleeping in the room?’

  ‘Of course, I did twice and Sarah, their nanny, once. Nothing happened at all.’

  ‘Have you tried moving their room?’

  ‘We thought of that too. We changed their room with Sarah’s. Everything was fine for three nights, then it started again and has kept happening ever since.’

  Nightingale looked at Wainwright, who just shrugged.

  ‘Okay, Mary,’ said Nightingale. ‘I’m no expert with babies, but could there be some medical reason for this?’

  ‘None that our pediatrician can suggest, they’re both perfectly healthy.’

  ‘Have you thought about moving?’

  She frowned. ‘Look, Jack, I’ll do whatever I need to protect my children, but this is our home, we’ve been happy there and we love it, especially my husband. Besides, what happens if we move and whatever-it-is follows us?’

  ‘Does the house have a history?’

  ‘None that we know of, besides, there’s nothing of the old house left, it was razed to the ground, the foundations dug out and a whole new mansion built. New drive, new gardens, new drainage, new electrical supply, new landscaping...everything.’