The Annals of Fear

"It\'s gone quiet." Deontic stated the obvious, staring up at the kitchen ceiling.



Matt stood poised over the frying pan. "How many eggs am I doing?"



"I don\'t know if I can eat." Century mumbled. "But I\'ll give it a go. Couple of eggs for me and some chips."



"Just do yours and Century\'s. I don\'t want egg and chips." Mello glanced up from the laptop, where he\'d taken over from Matt in monitoring the camera feeds, whilst also looking over the work done there so far. "Dee, come and talk me through this." As Deontic walked across the room, Matt frowned at her, then rolled his eyes. Mello smiled. "Dee, are you having eggs?" He nodded towards Matt. "Just so he knows what he\'s doing over there."



"Oh, erm." Deontic considered it. "No, thank you." She pulled up a stool and sat beside Mello. "It\'s getting dark out." They all looked up at the window, their expressions schooled against showing their trepidation. "Not that this place makes any distinction between night and day."



Mello nodded. "It\'s a good point though. Does anyone intend staying here tonight?"



Matt turned around to survey him. "We\'ve got a choice in the matter?"



"You want to leave?"



"Want as in will or as in can?"



Century sniffed, "Matt\'s making the point for us all. We can\'t actually leave, can we?"



"Yes." Mello picked up a chocolate bar. "We can walk out of that door and go wherever we like."



"And then?"



Mello fixed his gaze upon Century. "Judging by the precedents so far, we can kill ourselves at leisure, because something follows us; or else we can cower in fear until we do our own heads in."



Matt nodded. "So do you want me to find you something else for your meal, if you don\'t want egg and chips? You\'re going to be starving afterwards else."



Deontic was frowning. "Mello, look at me." She waited until he did. "Talk me through the precedents."



"Two bandmembers. One made it all the way to Sweden, before dying of a heart attack in his home town. Calcium ions in his heart. Same as Century." He glanced back at the teenager. "Another made it to the Severn Estuary, before suiciding in it. Then there\'s us last night. We were miles away and every one of us felt watched and followed. But for real quantity, you just have to look at all of the dead people who listened to that album track. That music carried something from this house and it\'s killing people all over the globe. We are not infallible. It nearly got us all last night."



"So we have to stay because there\'s nowhere to run to."



"That\'s about the long and short of it." Mello agreed. "But on the bright side, the case is closed. We won." No-one looked impressed. Mello shrugged and bit heavily into his chocolate. Silence fell around the room, as they all sank into their own thoughts, punctuated only by the spitting of vegetable oil in the frying pan. "Matt, turn that down a bit. You\'ve got the fat too hot."



"I can cook an egg, Mell." Matt glowered. "I\'m clever like that."



"I\'m not implying that you\'re stupid." Mello replied, injecting a note of conciliation into his tone. "I\'m telling you that you\'ve got the hob up too high and that is why you\'re getting spat at by hot oil."



Deontic sighed and stood. "What supplies have we got?" A box of groceries, medical provisions and a defibrillator sat on the side worktop. They had been delivered along with Century\'s bag earlier in the afternoon. "I\'m going to need training on how to use the defibrillator."



"Hopefully none of us will need it."



She was hunting through the box. "How long do you think we\'ll be here?"



Mello gestured expressively, but eloquently enough, that he didn\'t know. Something occurred to him. "Did Hal get me some t-shirts?"



"No clothes in here."



"Fuck!" He scowled at the monitor. "Is she coming back?"



Matt placed a plate full of chips and egg in front of Century. Deontic shook her head. "No, Hal\'s in Winchester now."



"So I\'ve got to be in these same clothes tomorrow as well?" Mello demanded. "I asked her to get me a couple of t-shirts."



Matt sat down beside his husband, edging in his plate between two laptops. Century contemplated the meal in front of him with a look of queaziness. He commented drily, "I shouldn\'t worry about it, Mello. We\'ll probably be dead by then."



"Thank you, voice of optimism." Mello sneered, sarcastically. "Where\'s the nearest shopping mall?"



"This is West Wales, not LA."



Mello rounded upon him. "How did you know that I was in LA?"



Deontic raised her hand. "Mello! Stop!" She stepped closer to the table, though kept her distance from the Slav. "You\'re getting ratty again. If it comes to it, I\'ll drive down to the town tomorrow morning and buy whatever we need."



Century looked up from his meal. He\'d only eaten a couple of chips, while a third was being contemplated on his fork. "You told us. This time last year, while we were sitting in Near\'s place trying to save Matt\'s life. You, me, Deontic and the others." He shrugged. "It\'s starting to become an annual event."



"Oh." Mello\'s shoulder\'s rose; his face a grimace of contriteness. "Right. Yeah. Sorry." He bit into his chocolate. "Matt, Dee, are one of you going to....?"



"No." Deontic interupted. "While we have a sort of truce, I want to establish some things before we get back to work." She straightened. "We\'re staying. Ok. But we need to work out how that is going to happen. This isn\'t your case anymore, Mello, so..."



"Who says?" Mello\'s head shot up again. Indignation laced his tone. "It\'s still my case."



Deontic was closer to Century than anyone. She took another step backwards, away from Mello. "You are not to threaten anyone anymore." She met Mello\'s eyes. "You\'re not intimidating me." She watched him smile. "Mello, we\'re not children anymore. We have worked together before and like it or not, we\'ve been working together since we\'ve been here. Your case is closed. This is an additional case that was given to us all and we\'re not going to survive if we turn against each other." Deontic had been moving backwards, so much so that her back touched the wall and she leapt away, startled. All three of them watched her, unblinkingly. She straightened and stared right back. "My feeling is that what happened last night is only a taster. It knows us better now and it knows what scares us. Do you not think that at first it was just probing for material to use? Then it got a hit. Now it knows where to press and I think that tonight will be worse. The first thing to guard against is negative feeling. We can\'t separate, physically or mentally."



Mello relaxed and his smile became more charming. "Deontic has a point." He conceded. "I apologise for threatening you outside earlier. I just needed to be in this house on my own."



Deontic nodded. Century inspected the chip on his fork. Matt ate his last mouthful and wiped the residual egg-yolk from his plate with a slice of bread. Deontic was the one to respond. "We will come to that in a minute. For now, let\'s sort out the practicalities. We need a defensible room. We\'ve returned to this kitchen time and time again, but it\'s hardly comfortable. Those stools are hard."



"Yes." Agreed all of the men. Century added. "You should try sitting on them for ages with what we\'ve got."



"Pardon?"



Matt chuckled and Mello smiled. The blond rose from his stool. "Don\'t worry about that, Dee. Nothing to do with the case." He walked across to the inner door and opened it. "This big room can be split in two. There\'s a partition that can be slid across."



Deontic peered out after him, but Mello had only walked a couple of steps into the half-light. She added, "It\'s not that side of the room that\'s the problem. It\'s the stairs." She leaned in the doorjamb. "I get nervous looking at them. I keep expecting to find someone standing on them."



Mello nodded agreement. "Or something." He called back into the kitchen. "Matt, come and block off the stairs."



Deontic frowned. "Why are you asking him to do it?"



"Because he\'s a genius and I\'m buggered if I know how it can be done." Mello winked. Matt appeared behind Deontic, stared at the open stairway stretching up to the mid-landing, then looked at Mello. "Go on, guapo. I have faith."



Matt blinked. "What do you mean, \'block off the stairs\'?" He shuffled into the room and lit a cigarette. "So there\'s still access?"



"Yes." Mello smiled. "So we can still go up there, but so nothing can suddenly be standing there and scare the shit out of us." He patted Matt\'s shoulder. "I\'ll leave that with you then, shall I?"



Matt inhaled on his cigarette. He stared at the space, then slowly exhaled. "So like a door?"



"Si, por favor." Mello grinned. "But nothing that anyone can peer over the top of. That would really shit me up."



Deontic smiled. "Mello, you seem almost human at the moment."



Mello\'s smile faded. He spoke quite gruffly, "So you ok dealing with that then, Matty?"



"Yeah." Matt mumbled.



Deontic bit her llip, "Mello, I didn\'t mean that nastily. It\'s nice. I prefer to see..."



Matt had started to amble forward, but Mello caught him by the back of the collar. "Where are you going, Matt?"



"Upstairs."



"... the fuck you are."



Matt fixed him with a long-suffering glare. "Come with me then."



"What are you doing?"



Matt smirked. "You\'ll see." His eyes glinted. "It\'s pure genius. You\'ll love it."



"Which means that it\'s going to be hare-brained and stupid and I\'ll hate it."



"Trust me."



Deontic stepped back into the kitchen, "Century, come on, we\'re going upstairs." She flashed a sympathetic smile. "I promise you\'ll be able to lie down eventually, but until then, it\'s too dangerous for us to split up." She waited until he stood and reached out to take his arm. He didn\'t let her. "You\'ve barely touched your food."



"I feel nauseaous." Century swayed slightly, but pushed through into the sitting room anyway. "Ok, I\'m here."



Mello surveyed him appraisingly. "You still look like shit." He leaned up against the wall, pulling Matt backwards into his arms. "Matt, Century, I\'m sorry that I dragged you both into this. Deontic, I\'m sorry that you\'re here, but at least that wasn\'t my fault. I just want to say that I\'ll try not to add to the crap happening in this place. In so far as it\'s possible, I\'ll try to cover your backs too and hopefully we\'ll all make it out of here in one piece. It\'s a truce."



"Thank you, Mello." Deontic smiled approval. Century just gave a short nod, while Matt leaned back and pecked a kiss on his lips.



"So, let\'s go and see what Matt\'s great plan to secure the stairwell is." As one, they head up the stairs.