The Whisper Man

“I’ll never leave you. Ever.” She looked around again. “And I’ll do my best to help you, but I can’t protect you. This is a very serious situation. You know that, don’t you? It’s a long, long way from being right.”

Jake nodded. Everything was wrong, and he wasn’t safe, and it was suddenly too much.

“I want my daddy.”

Maybe that was a pathetic thing to say, but once it was out, he couldn’t stop himself. So he whispered it again and again, and then he started to cry, thinking that if you wanted something hard enough then it might come true. It wouldn’t, though. It felt like Daddy was the distance of the whole world away from him right now.

“Please try not to make any noise.” She rested her hand on his shoulder. “You have to be brave.”

“I want my daddy.”

“He’ll find you. You know he will.”

“I want my daddy.”

“Come on, Jake. Please.” Her hand tightened on him, halfway between reassuring and scared. “I need you to calm down.”

He tried to stop crying.

“That’s better.”

She moved her hand and was silent for a moment, listening.

“I think it’s okay for now. So what we need to do is find out as much as possible about where we are. Because that might tell us how we can get out. Okay?”

He nodded. He was still scared, but what she was saying made sense.

He stood up and looked around the room.

The wall on one side of the room only went up to chest height before it began sloping inward the way that roofs did, so that meant he must be in an attic. He’d never been in an attic before. He’d always pictured them as dark, dusty places with bare floorboards and cardboard boxes and spiders, but this one was neatly carpeted, and the walls had been painted bright white, with grass drawn on at the bottom, and bees and butterflies fluttering above. It might have been nice, if it hadn’t been harshly lit by a bare bulb in the ceiling, giving everything an unreal quality, as though bits of the drawings might start coming to life at any moment. There was an open chest full of soft toys against the sloping wall. A small wardrobe against another. He looked behind him. The bed was decked out in Transformers sheets that looked old and worn.

So he was in some other child’s room. Except it didn’t feel right or natural in here, as though it had never really been meant to be lived in by a real boy.

There was a door in the opposite wall. He walked across and pushed it open nervously. A small toilet and sink. There was a towel in a circular hoop and soap on the basin. He closed the door again. Turning around, he could see there was a narrow corridor leading off from one corner of the room, but it only went a little way before there was another wall. He stepped into the space and found himself at the top of a dark staircase. At the bottom, there was a closed door.

A wooden handrail along the wall …

Jake stepped back quickly before he could see the bottom of the stairs properly. He ran back into the room and over to the bed. No, no, no. The stairs were almost exactly the same as the ones in the old house. And that meant he must not see what was—

His heart was beating far too quickly now. It didn’t feel like he could breathe.

“Sit down, Jake.”

He couldn’t even do that.

“It’s okay,” the little girl said gently. “Just breathe.”

He closed his eyes and really concentrated. It was hard at first, but then the air started to get in, and his heart rate began to slow.

“Sit down.”

He did as she told him, and then she put her hand on his shoulder again, saying nothing for the moment beyond soft, reassuring hushing noises. When he was more under control again, she moved her hand, but still didn’t speak. He could tell she wanted him to go down and check the door, but there was absolutely no way he could do that. Not ever. The stairs were out of bounds. It wouldn’t matter even if—

“It’s probably locked anyway,” she said.

Jake nodded, feeling relieved—because she was right, and that meant he didn’t need to go down there. What if the man made him, though? That was too much to think about. Too scary. He wouldn’t be able to, and he didn’t think this man would carry him.

“Do you remember what your daddy wrote to you that time?” the little girl asked.

“Yes.”

“Say it, then.”

“Even when we argue we still love each other very much.”

“That’s true,” she said. “But this man, he isn’t like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think what you have to do here is be very, very good. I don’t think you can afford to have any arguments here.”

She was right, he thought. If he was bad here, it wouldn’t be like with Daddy, where things were okay again afterward. He thought if the Whisper Man got angry with him, then things might end up very far from okay indeed.

The girl stood up suddenly.

“Get in bed. Do it quickly.”

She looked so frightened that he knew there wasn’t enough time to ask why. He pulled the covers back and clambered in. As he lay down on the strange little bed, he heard a key turn in the lock downstairs.

The man was coming.

“Close your eyes,” she said urgently. “Pretend to be asleep.”

Jake clenched his eyes shut. It was usually easy to pretend to be asleep—he did it at home all the time, because he knew Daddy would keep checking on him while he was awake, and he didn’t want to be difficult. It was harder here, but as he heard the stairs creaking, he forced himself to breathe slowly and steadily, the way sleeping people did, and he relaxed his eyes a little, because sleeping people didn’t squeeze them shut, and then—

And then the man was in the room.

Jake could hear the sound of gentle breathing, and then felt the man as a terrible presence close by. The skin on his face began to itch and he could tell the man was right next to the bed, looking down at him. Staring at him. Jake kept his eyes closed. If he was asleep, then he couldn’t be being bad, could he? There was no risk of an argument. He’d gone to bed like a good boy, without being told.

There were a few seconds of silence.

“Look at you,” the man whispered.

His voice sounded full of wonder, as though for some reason he hadn’t expected to find a little boy up here. Jake forced himself not to flinch as a strand of hair was moved out of his face.

“So perfect.”

The voice was familiar, wasn’t it? Jake thought so, but he wasn’t sure. And he wasn’t about to open his eyes to find out. The man stood up, then moved away quietly.

“I’m going to look after you, Jake.”

There was a click, and the darkness beyond his closed eyes deepened.

“You’re safe now. I promise.”

Jake kept breathing slowly and steadily as the man went back down the stairs, and then as the door closed again and the key turned in the lock. Even then he didn’t dare open his eyes. He was thinking about what the little girl had said about Daddy. That he would find him.

Even when we argue we still love each other very much.

He believed that. It was one of the reasons why it didn’t really matter when they argued. Daddy loved him and wanted him to be safe, and however angry they both might get, they would always end up back in the same place afterward, as though none of it had ever happened.