went swimming in the deep end at the local pool. Doorways seemed to lean forward, blocks of blackness taunting her, challenging her to enter. She walked along the hallway, stepping over mounds and heaps of garbage – despite keeping the main area clear of debris everyone seemed to dump their rubbish here. She passed an old sleeping bag, holes torn in the fabric and the white guts seeping out. An old armchair sat against the wall, the stain across its back and arms resembling the bloodied outline of an unusually thin human figure.
Something moved behind her. Hailey refused to turn and look. There was nobody there; the building was empty. It was just a cat or a rat, or even a bird that had gained entry through an upper window, rooting around in the garbage.
The last doorway was closer now. It was the room she always used. The doorway had no door; even the hinges had been removed. She could never say why she came to this room, only that it was small and nondescript and relatively untouched. The other rooms she’d been inside were either blackened by fire, smelled of old sweat and urine, or were filled with random objects – black plastic bags filled with water-damaged porn magazines, broken crates and pallets, wheelie bins, shopping trolleys, and even a surprising number of discarded children’s toys.
It was amazing what some people would dump in places like this…
When she reached the final doorway she stopped at the threshold. For the first time she felt a strange sense of apprehension, a feeling that she shouldn’t be here, not now. She waited, and the feeling faded. Perhaps it was just a result of the increased tension at home, or something stirred up by that noise she’d heard earlier.
But no, that wasn’t it. There was something… something else. Then, at last, she realised what was troubling her. Since entering the building she had been aware of a sort of vibration in the air, a soft thrumming sound that she had at first put down to distant construction machinery or heavy traffic. But there were no building works nearby, and the nearest main road was a couple of miles away. That police helicopter she’d spotted earlier? No. That would be long gone by now.
So what was it, that small sound, that weird throbbing in the still, dead air?
Not hesitating any longer, Hailey stepped through the doorway. The thrumming sound inside her head was threatening to leak out.
The room looked the same as it always did, but there was something different about the space as she entered. That sound was stronger here, inside the room. It sounded like bees, buzzing around a hive. Hailey was puzzled. Was there a wasps’ nest in here, or perhaps a swarm of flies clustering around a pile of shit?
Part of her screamed that she should leave, but another, calmer part of her made her legs move and forced her deeper into the room. It was dark. The two windows were covered. The buzzing grew louder, as if responding to her presence.
At the end of the room was a cupboard – a built-in wardrobe. The doors remained intact, and the cubby hole was always empty, as if nobody had even noticed it, or if they had seen the cupboard they had not been interested enough to look inside. The buzzing seemed to be coming from within, behind the closed doors. It wasn’t only in her head after all, and the realisation filled her with relief.
Hailey moved forward, towards the wardrobe. The buzzing sound intensified.
She stood before the doors. They were tall and narrow, with stainless steel handles. She reached out and grasped one of those handles, her fingers tightening around it. Don’t, she thought. Leave it alone. But that other part of her – the calm part – whispered to her that she should open the doors.
Her hand made a fist around the small handle. Then it turned, pulled, and the door eased noiselessly open.
At first Hailey didn’t know what she was seeing. There was a dense cloud inside the wardrobe, low down near the floor on the right hand side. The cloud seemed to be moving, vibrating. The buzzing sound was louder now – it filled her ears, flowing inside her head. The sound was that of their wings: quicker than thought, lighter than dreams.
She was looking at a swarm of giant insects. Flies. Bees. Hornets. No, that wasn’t right. They were too big, too quick… too beautiful.