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  She grabbed the handle of her suitcase when she reached the stone steps of the front door and hulled it up the first two steps, perching the suitcase on the third step to search for the door keys in her large leather handbag. Madison’s fingers touched the cold hard metal of the door keys; she pulled them out and inserted the large key into the door lock. She let go of the suitcase supporting the weight of it with her leg and twisted the key. The key turned with little force, but the door didn’t response. Madison forced her weight into the door in the same way manner Alison had yesterday - nothing. Beginning to get frustrated, she pushed on the door again – still nothing. She jingled the key in the lock hoping it would coax the door open, but still the door would not budge. Becoming increasingly more frustrated and annoyed, Madison slammed her hip into the door using all her weight - the door remained frozen it place. In frustration and anger, Madison swung her leg back catching the suitcase with the back of her heel, sending it tumbling down the stone steps onto the garden path and kicked the door hard. The door vibrated with the impact, but didn’t budge or cause any damage to the flaking door. Madison sighed, turning to find her suitcase split open and all her belongings spread out across the garden path.

  “Great!” she mumbled angrily.

  One side of her suitcase had split open causing a mass bundle clothes to escape and larger items to become lodged in the hole. Assortments of successfully escaped clothes were spread out across the overgrown garden.

  Madison stepped reluctantly down the stone steps and started to collect her clothes from the ground. She stuffed the clothes she had collected back into the hole in the suitcase, forcing a shoe which she had escaped back in the hole.

  “Oh dear, what have we got here?” said a masculine voice.

  Madison jumped and sat up straight from where she was knelt over the suitcase on the garden path. She looked back towards the front door of the house. A man in his late twenties stood in the open doorway, his dusty blonde hair was matted into a mass of long dreadlock that’s hung down over his shoulders. His features were soft but distinctive, his thin pink lips surrounded by long light brown stubble and his blue eyes peered out behind a set of bushy blonde eyebrows. He wore tan coloured combat trousers and a grey t-shirt that had once had a logo or picture printed on it, but had washed out leaving only a faded outline. He had a strong northern accent and his arm was stretched out towards Madison with her blue bra dangling from his index finger. Her face was a picture of horror; she jumped up and snatched the bra from his finger - quickly screwed it up into a ball and stuffed it back into the hole in the suitcase. Madison’s cheeks flushed pink as she stood up and turned to face him. A wide smiled crept across his face - revealing a set of brown stained teeth.

  “Hello” he chuckled, open-inly staring Madison up and down.

  She flinched and flashed him a disgusted look – not liking the way he was looking at her.

  “Hi” she said unwillingly, realising she was being rude. Madison quickly continued to collect the remaining items of clothing on the garden path before he could study anymore items of her clothing.

  “So…Your moving in?” he asked.

  “Uh…Yeah, I’m Madison” she said, jumping up to face him once again.

  He eyed Madison up and down again, tilting his head to examine the curves of her body.

  He was rude and extremely blatant, that clearly found Madison attractive and had no shame in letting her know this with his ogling eyes.

  The way he looked at her made her feel uncomfortable and angry, she wanted to say something but she didn’t want to cause tension already within the household.

  “Bernie” he said, looking back up and making eye contact with her.

  “Nice to meet you” Madison lied.

  She pulled her suitcase off the ground and sat it up on the garden path. A few t-shirts hung out from the hole, but most of the clothes remained secure inside the suitcase.

  “Let me help you with that?” he leapt towards Madison grabbing the suitcase before she could respond. He picked the suitcase up as if he weighed no more than a feather. Madison began to suspect that she was the only one who struggled with the weight of her suitcase.

  “Thanks” she said unsure, following him up the steps to the front door.

  He stopped once he was inside the doorway and turned sharply around towards Madison.

  “Where are you from, Madison?” Bernie asked.

  Madison slammed the front door shut and turned to face him.

  “Umm… Berkshire” she said, trying to be vague “What about you?”

  “Manchester. Born and raised there” he said a flicker of pride in his voice.

  “So, what brings you to London?” he continued.

  Madison smiled weakly. She didn’t have an answer to that question – not one she was willing to share anyway.

  “Just needed a change” Madison replied innocently.

  They both began to climb the large staircase side by side. Bernie cradled the suitcase in his both his arms as he climbed the large steps, eyeing Madison lustfully.

  “Which room is yours?” Madison asked curiously - so she could avoid it at all cost.

  “The one next to yours” he replied, turning to throw her a cheeky wink.

  The knowledge that Bernie’s room was directly next to Madison’s didn’t fill her with much hope, in fact it made her more anxious and worried that he would be so close to her.

  “You are welcome to stop by anytime, for a cup of sugar or whatever you need” he said as the reach the top of the stairs. Bernie placed her suitcase down next to her new bedroom door and turned to look at her smiling brightly.

  Madison was taken aback; she wasn’t quite sure how to take that invitation or the secret meaning behind it. The thought of what he might be insinuating made her stomach turn and feel physically sick.

  “Umm…thanks” Madison said awkwardly.

  Bernie seemed pleased with Madison‘s reply, the smile on his face grew larger. Madison realised she had unintentionally given him a flicker of hope that she might one day ‘stop by’ – she shifted uncomfortably on the spot.

  “Remember… anything” Bernie said, backing away along the corridor towards his room next door. Bernie lived in the room next to Madison’s towards the back of the house and he was becoming a little too close to comfort for her.

  Madison watched until he had disappeared into his room, then she inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. Luckily the door to her room was much easier to open then the front door.

  Madison pulled her sunglasses up on the top of her head so she could inspect her new home properly. The carpet had been cleaned and almost looked like new – luckily it hadn’t been as bad as the other carpets in the house to begin with. The walls were still a dirty yellow colour, but they looked better than below. The room was a lot lighter since the window had been cleaned and Madison could now make out the different aspects of the room. She pulled her suitcase inside and closed the door, popping across the latch – locking the door. The room smelt fresher and cleaner, with a strong smell of bleach still lingering in the air. The kitchen had thoroughly been cleaned and had come up nicely. The kitchen sides and cooker were very old fashioned, but they were now clean enough to use.

  Madison circled the room, checking every detail of her new home – the whole room was spotless. The only place left to check was the bathroom. The bathroom had been the worse room out of the two and Madison took a deep breath before she pushed the door open wide. The smell hit Madison in the face; she winced as it overpowered her. Several air-fresheners scattered the bathroom expelling a lavender scent around the room. Although the bathroom had been thoroughly cleaned there was still an overpowering smell that hung around the bathroom, too strong for the air-fresheners to cover up. Either something had curled up behind the front panel of the bath or under the floor boards, becoming lodged somehow - making it irremovable. The smell would lessen in time, when whatever it was had fully decomposed. F
or now, Madison would have to make her trips to the bathroom short and sweet. She shut the bathroom door and turned back to the main room. There was still a few hours before she was due to start her new jobs, so she decided to unpack her clothes and get some food in the house.

  Madison’s first night at her new job went well. She was surprised at how quickly she picked the use of the tills and the mixing of the drinks up. The night club had been busy and Madison soon realised it was one of the highest profiled clubs in London. Customers had to pay for a membership before they were allowed to enter the club, the membership starting at a cool annual fee of £1,000.

  After arriving at the club, Madison found that she wasn’t the only new staff member to start that evening, a new bartender called Scott had also started with her. As a child, she had always found it difficult to make new friends, but she bonded with Scott instantly. He was two years older than her and liked the same music and TV shows. He was funny and a genuinely nice guy, so when he asked Madison out for a drink a couple of weeks later she felt obliged to said yes. However, Madison soon regretted her decision. They had a couple of drinks in Luxuriance after a shift one night, but Madison soon began to feel uncomfortable, making her excuses and leaving quickly. Put under the spot light she found she had little in common with Scott after all and that her feelings for him stretched no further than friendship. Although, Scott had first instigated that it was simply a few drinks between friends, it soon became clear that Scott regarded her much more than a friend. Since that instance, Scott suggested that they should stay behind for a drink after every shift they had together. Madison always declined, but Scott had become persistent, making suggestions at work and sending her multiple text messages each day. Over the days since they had shared a few drinks together, the text messages had become obsessive. He bombarded her at all hours of the day and night with general chitchat and advances. Madison struggled to sleep through a whole night without being woken up by the same recurring nightmare, let alone six text messages from Scott asking if she was ignoring him.

  In the few short weeks Madison had been working at Luxuriance and spending her free time making her new home look as homely as possible, she had purchased various items for her house such as pictures for the walls, lots of scented candles to cover up the strange odor which still crept out from the bathroom, some new cushions for the small sofa bed she slept and lived on and a fluffy rug for the floor. Although the bed-sit wasn’t perfect it was becoming to feel like home, but she still avoided inviting any from work home with her as she felt embarrassed by the state of the outside of the house and the communal corridors. The rest of the building still looked very much the same since the day she had moved in, if not worse. Quite often there was an odd smell that lingered around the upstairs corridors of the house. She could never figure out exactly what it was, but it was unpleasant. The majority of the time she would be forced to hold her breath as she made a dash from her room to the front door and back again. The journey home from Luxuriance had also become difficult. During the day the alley that joined bedsit onto the main road was fine, but during the night it was caked in a pitch black and difficult to see through. Her mind constantly played tricks on her as she walked the long alleyway towards the bedsit, dark eerily shadows danced on the walls and unnatural shrieks and moans echoed the alley. Madison spent most of the day exhausted, if she wasn’t plagued by the terrifying nightmare of being chased or harassed by her stalker, Scott, through text messages, she was kept awake all night by her roommates that seemed to sleep all day and stayed up all hours of the night. They banged around and made scratching noises on the walls, this would continue all night until the sun rose and then they would fall silent. Madison was certain that Bernie and the other tenants were making these noises to scare her, but she never questioned him about the noises. As Madison’s shifts varied and she was leaving and arriving at all hours of the day and night, she only caught glimpses of the two other tenants that lived directly across the hall - they were a couple. The man was in his early thirties and completely bold with a tattoo that stretched across the top of his head and ran down his spine. The tattoo was of Celtic symbol which swirled around into one large black pattern. Bernie had told Madison that his name was Rich. Rich’s girlfriend was a small Chinese girl called Suzie, she a lot younger then Rich, in her late teens. She had black hair that was cut into a bob with a thick long fringe that covered her eyes. She was extremely shinny, all her small bones poked out from underneath her olive coloured flesh. Bernie had mentioned to Madison before that Suzie had an eating problem, but Madison never queried this with him. On a few occasions when Madison left for work she could see Rich and Suzie watching her from their window. Rich was always topless, the only item of clothing Madison ever saw him wear was a pair of tan cotton trousers. Suzie always wore the same dirty, white, vest top and blue jeans. She always clung to Rich, one arm draped over his shoulders and the other around his waist. She was warmer towards Madison than Rich. If Madison caught Suzie on her own she would smile and look away shyly. However, Rich was unsociable and rude towards her. He would stare at Madison, not out of curiosity but out of hatred. Madison had never done anything to offend him, but for whatever reason - he didn’t like her.

  Phil still hadn’t contacted Madison, and Stephanie had mentioned a few times that she hadn’t seen or heard from him. Madison wasn’t surprised. Although she felt hurt that he didn’t seem concerned for her well being, she tried not to think about him or her old life – deep down she knew that Phil was still at home drunk. Madison was much happier and settled with her new life in London, but she still struggled with what had happened in the past. Even though she never allowed herself to think Phil and the damage to her face had now healed - the damage within still remained. The gaping hole in her heart was always present, no matter what she did it, never seemed to heal.

  Bernie knocked on Madison’s door every few days for a general chitchat and sometimes a cup of tea. Madison had warmed to Bernie over the few weeks she had lived in the bedsit. He was still creepy and probably one of the filthiest men she had ever met, but he was still the only one in the bedsit that made an effort to talk to her. Bernie had a problem with information, when he knew something he couldn’t help but tell someone else. This allowed Madison to piece together information about the other two tenants. Bernie had quite an odd reaction when he spoke about Rich and Suzie, his expression would change and he would look around frantically - making sure no one could hear him. Bernie explained that Suzie had moved into one of the rooms in the attic, but had started seeing Rich soon after she moved in. She had only been living at the bedsit for 2 months before they decided to move together and they had been living together ever since. Bernie never went into too much detail and Madison got the impression that their relationship was violent. She had once thought she heard sobs originating from their room, but hadn’t been sure at the time as they were too distant and muffled for her to be certain. Before Bernie got to the good parts of the story he would become spooked and make his excuses and leave. Madison always found herself a little disappointed when he left, she felt strangely curious about the couple across the hall and was starved for answers.

  Madison spoke to Stephanie every night and was pleased to hear she was coming for her first visit next week. They would have to share a bed, but that was nothing unusual for the childhood friends. Stephanie was starting to look for a job in London and was coming down for some interviews she had been pre-arranged. If she was successful, they would start looking for a place together - somewhere in a nicer area. Madison was both excited and nervous by the pending visit from Stephanie. Her small room looked the best it had in years, but she was concerned what Stephanie would think of the rest of the house and her bizarre housemates.

  Chapter Six: House of Hell

  Madison’s phone vibrated on the arm of the sofa. Her eyes drifted from the old brown TV over to the small screen of her mobile phone. Faye calling it read. Quickly Madison flipped the phon
e open and held it to her ear.

  “Hello” she said.

  “Hi Madison, we need at hand at work can you come in?” Faye asked apologetically.

  Madison couldn’t help but sigh in frustration. She hadn’t had a proper day off in weeks and was enjoying a lazy day in front of the TV.

  “But, it’s my day off…” she moaned.

  “I know, but we really need a hand. Carly’s gone sick and Melissa hasn’t turned up… again. It’s stupidly busy for a Friday night and I would really appreciate the help. I‘ll pay you double if you could come in?”

  Madison thought for a moment. She really did need the money, Stephanie was coming next week and she had the few days off work so they could spend quality time together. They had even planned to go shopping, something Madison had been dying to do since she had arrived in London.

  “Ok. I’ll be there in half an hour” she said a little unwillingly.

  “Thanks, Maddy. See you shortly” Faye said and hung up the phone.

  It was already 9.30pm and the club would shut at 3am, Madison hardly saw the point coming in for four hours but she could really do with the money and Faye had promised to pay her double. Reluctantly she stood up from the sofa and walked over to the TV – switching it off. She pulled her work clothes out of the new chest of draws she had recently purchased and headed to the bathroom to change. The smell in the bathroom had improved greatly since Madison had moved in, mainly because she left the bathroom window open constantly – allowing the fresh air to flow freely throughout the day. Once Madison had changed and tied her long wavy hair into a ponytail she returned to the living room to put on her black work pumps. She popped her phone into her handbag and switched off the lights, the room falling into complete darkness. She left her room and locked the door. As she stepped into the corridor a shadowy figure moved quickly. Madison jumped back against her door; her heart jolted and missed a beat. Rich stood motionless in the doorway of his room. His almost entirely black eyes stared at her, anger distorting his features. He was topless and wearing his normal tan trousers with no shoes or socks. He was muscular - muscles bulged on his arms and chest. Rich frowned at Madison, causing his thick black tattoo to stretch further over the top of his head.