Chapter 5

When Gwen woke up again, Alex and the other person had gone. Robin was sitting in front of the computer, reading something she’d found on the internet.
“Hey.” Gwen murmured. “Are you going through my faves or something?”
“Hm?” Robin was startled and looked towards her sister, tiredly. “I just want to know what this whole occult thing is about. It’s not half as scary as they make it sound… all these prosperity spells and all that.”
“Most of those are a bunch of crap.” Gwen mumbled. “It’s stuff on ghosts, demons and all that that gets me interested.”
“Oh… so it really is as scary as it sounds… well, don’t sacrifice me to a heathen God or something in a hurry, since I’m not a virgin.”
“Blatantly.” Gwen scoffed. “Why the sudden interest?”
“I don’t know.”
Did Robin also sense something about that doctor? Did she also feel the intensity of his presence? A presence that seemed to wash away the severity of what had happened the night before with something that seemed a million time more menacing.
“What was that doctors’ name.”
“Doctor Roberts. He lives not far from here and that’s how he arrived so quickly.” Robin answered, while she combed through another horoscope site and found that she really liked the Libra she was supposed to be.
“Hmmm…”
Robin spun suddenly on the chair and looked at Gwen with a wide smile and thankfully less intense brown eyes. “He was really hot, wasn’t he?”
“No. He wasn’t.” Gwen answered simply. There was no argument behind it. He was frightening.
“Normally that kind of guy is the one that takes your breath away, Gwen. You must be ill. Mysterious, confident, handsome Goth… usually on the slightly creepy side of life.”
He did take my breath away. She thought, quietly, but didn’t utter a word until she managed to ask. “What happened, Bobby?”
“Last night? Gwynedd… He… I can only think that he’s dead but it doesn’t make sense to me. Why? How? What the hell is going on?”
“The… Highwayman.” Gwen whispered. “He shot our brother.”
“Highwayman?” Robin was already thinking of ghosts and ghoulies when such an old figure was being mentioned. The highwayman would steal from people as they rode their carriages along unguarded forest paths. Often, they were the subject of romantic novels and poetry.
“I don’t know what we’re dealing with.” Gwen had turned to ignore-everything-else-I’m-going-occult-mode and there was no stopping her. “Damn whatever made our mum cut her holiday by three days!”


Alex walked slowly down the driveway. Out of the three girls, she was the one who’d had the easiest time. She’d been able to sleep that night but she was still thinking about all of it. Nothing seemed to add up.
Today, she was a babysitter yet again. Jasmine Thomas, the daughter of one of the local richies, was supposed to be babysitting for her parents, who were away. However, she wanted a day off so Alex was getting paid 7 pounds an hour to baby-sit and an extra tenner to keep her mouth shut about it.
The house, mansion, was surrounded by a thick would which seemed to occupy all of the area that the long driveway took. Usually, for such a distance Alex would use her bike but she’d forgotten where she’d left it before she’d dropped by Robins’. Everything was so confusing. She felt as if she could be taking the day off for emotional trauma but nothing felt real. In fact, she could even laugh at it in her mind. What was that about?
It was strangely quiet that day. Sasha, the dog, wasn’t barking so loud and the geese weren’t anywhere to be seen. She felt like the character in the films that’s walking into a trap and, even if the sings were around her, she’s still walking into it, making you scream ‘turn back!’ at the screen all the time, but there was just nothing.
She reached the huge white house, despite the ghouls that should have been lurking around behind her as she quietly stepped through the gate. No one was there to greet her, not even the children.
The front door was wide open, and loud music was pouring out from within.
Suddenly, and not at all comfortingly, she heard the barking of Jasmines’ dog. Damnit. I’m the one who dies because she didn’t hear people on the other side of the screen. Damnit. Where are the stupid cameras?
From behind the huge clump of Rhododendrons came the sound of whining. She wondered what had got into Sasha now, hoping that she hadn’t snagged her collar on something because she was definitely not going to check this one out. It would be like wondering voluntarily into the jaws of premature, painful and rather gruesome death.
Suddenly a stranger dog sped out from under cover and ran towards her. She had no time to react before the sleek, black animals had leapt on her and she was on the floor having her face licked thoroughly. Its’ paws weighed down on her shoulders so heavily that he must have been carrying someone on him or something. She lifted her hands and stroked his neck the way Sasha liked it.
When he suddenly turned and ran away, panting and wagging his tail, she assumed she’d given him his satisfaction.
She lifted herself from the floor and rubbed her face with her hands. When she opened her eyes again she was startled to see there was someone standing in front of her.
“Have you seen a black dog go by here by any chance?”
He was tall, slim, with enough muscle but not too much, dark haired, green eyed and barely clothed. His face was an image of innocence, even if he was wearing just jeans, a strange choker styled like a dog collar and no shirt at all.
“Err… He pounced on me and ran off.” She answered.
“I wouldn’t have run off if I’d had the chance to pounce on you.”
Woah… He’s skipped pretty much everything including introduction.
“Err… sorry.” He pulled an apologetic face. “I’m Siôn. I’m the new dog handler. And… flirting without thinking is just a habit of mine when I’m around a pretty girl.”
She didn’t expect him to apologise for the second time. Don’t pretend you’re not having fun. “I’m Alex. I’m the baby sitter. Has Jasmine already gone?”
“Yeah… the boys are on the wiis so I think it won’t do any harm to leave them for a bit.”
He was half excusing staying outside as if she was the one who’d suggested it, even if it hadn’t even been suggested yet. “Hmmm…” She had no idea what to say. “I’d better make sure that they’re ok. They’ll probably fight if I just leave them there.”
She headed into the house, through the wide open front door, and walked the long corridor that led to the living room. She knew that he was following her, probably for lack of else to do.
The boys weren’t fighting. In fact, it seemed like they’d formed a truce. There was a Tally chart hanging above the TV with messy hand writing reading:
“How many times we’ve one against each other on MarioCart
Tom Bryn
II IIII

”
She sighed with surprise but also the pressure of having to turn back to Siôn, who seemed happy to see her.
“Don’t you have to keep Sasha entertained or something?”
“Sasha’ll be fine on her own. She’s chasing chickens.” He answered fairly.
Alex wasn’t sure what to do with him. She didn’t feel awkward around him. She could cope with having a half naked man follow her around easily but she didn’t know how to keep him entertained- which was practically her job, only with children.
“Mmm…” She thought hard but nothing came to mind.
“Wanna watch DVDs in the next room?” He offered and she felt relieved to hear him break the silence.
“Ok.”

Half way through Sleepy hollow, while it was starting to turn into evening and Jasmine had already called to say she wasn’t coming back in the morning, the electricity cut out. The TV switched off with a tiny pop noise and Alex was half glad that the boys were asleep, since it was nine o’clock. Of course, that’s a late evening but it was still reasonably light. Dark enough, however, to give her the creeps.
“Siôn?” She called out. He’d gone to get snacks, since there would probably be an abundance of bits in the kitchen, when the power cut had occurred.
“Are you afraid of the dark?” He appeared in the doorway and this time he was wearing a shirt.
“I was starting to think you didn’t own any clothes.” She laughed.
“Well, are you?” He asked again.
“No… I was just…” Maybe she was scared after all. Since she’d had a pretty strange couple of days it might have started to affect her. “What makes you think I am?”
“The fact that you called out the name of someone you only met today once the lights went out.” He pointed out.
“Maybe I just wanted to check you weren’t afraid of the dark somewhere… treading on your own feet in the shadows or something.”
He half smiled with a cunning look in his eye. “Alright, then I’ll go and check what’s going on and you stay here.”
“N-…” She, despite herself, reached out to stop him when he turned.
“Are you afraid of the dark?” He smiled at her.
“Y… Just a bit.” She’d never been before but maybe it was all a bit much for her.
“Fine.” He stepped back, towards her, and put his arm around her waist.
“He-“
“If you stay next to me then I’ll make sure nothing can hurt you.” The seriousness of his voice took her by surprise. Unfortunately, his face slowly betrayed him and he chuckled quietly. “Sorry, it’s just the way you looked at me…”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“Come on then. It might be the fuses. The fridge is still on so it must be the lights and the living room socket circuit.” He pulled her along with him through the corridor.
When they reached the front door, they halted. It was something they’d both decided after watching horror movies all day and then looking out into a dimly lit forest, with rustling trees and a lack of colour that only came at around nightfall- a bit like a black and white film.“We could just wait until it gets light again.” He suggested. Looking down at her and widening his hand out like a fan so more of his heat radiated into her.