Cherry Tree House, should the reader ever happen to look beyond the Church of All Saints, behind the graveyard where it stands, is a hostel for people who, by illness or hardship, have found themselves without home and forced, therefore, to seek its refuge from the streets of Norwich. It is a moderately modern building, with a few rooms that serve the purpose of immediate remedy away from the cold October winds. Immediate only if the various agencies visited, the appropriate referrals procured and the never ending stream of papers signed and counter-signed. A tedious process that often takes many weeks of waiting; waiting in doorways and through hard nights, after the doors of the charities had to close.
It was to this hostel that Matthew Arnold had finally found himself, after many weeks of distress and begging appearances at official buildings filled with interviews to determine his needs. All the while, the cruel night waited, the weather quickly plunging to a more than inclement autumn. He was alone in the world and had nothing, save a backpack of some belongings, clothes and books that had also served as his movable pillow. He clung to it as he waited for his knock to be answered. He had been on the streets for many nights now and was thankful of his numbed memory.
The nights were difficult and had produced in him an instinctive method of survival and the ability to sleep anywhere. He had quickly adapted to rummaging in bins and stooping for cigarette ends, anything in fact that could alleviate his discomfort. Mostly anything.
The prospect of a room, a solid roof and a bed seemed to him like winning a lottery and he was happy, happier than he had ever known in his thirty four years. A light came on in the hallway and Matthew was met by a large smiling man whose thick brown hair swept back from his forehead as a gust of cold wind rushed past him through the open door. The light was warm as was the beaming bearded face of this man,
“Ah, excellent, you must be Mr. Arnold? My name is Tom” and a large hand extended to shake Matthew’s firmly. The grip was strong yet, Matthew noted, the texture of the man’s hand had a weakness to it, like charred paper,
“ I will be your point of contact. I should think you are hungry and tired. After your supper I will take you to your room where you can rest. Tomorrow, tomorrow we will have much to discuss”. He led Matthew into a dining area,where he brought a small bowl of soup and bread. With the sustenance, Tom also brought a large bundle of papers,
“ Just red tape, I’m afraid. I can’t let you have the key to the room unless you fill out these forms, just to prove you exist...” Tom flashed a smile and Matthew glimpsed small teeth that may have been pointed but for the light in the room.
Led by Tom to a room on the top floor, Matthew took the key and entered,
“ We’ll soon have you re-housed, re- habilitated and re- introduced into society” Tom said and flashed his smile again. When Matthew closed the door to the pallid room, the silence was total. But the bed was as inviting as warm water over cold hands and he crawled into its heavenly sheets before sleeping quickly.
The moon was high and clear. Not an owl stirred and Matthew may have slept the night through. But as is the case of poor old Homo sapiens, especially in circumstances that are new to an old routine, his body woke him, expecting the hard stone of a street and the chill in his bones. His limbs ached from those trying nights and he found it difficult to regain a sleep. He rolled a small cigarette, leaning out of the window. As he perched there, slowly exhaling thin tendrils of smoke in the clear air, he looked across the garden to the tumble of gravestones, mute, cold, empty of feature save the stark crosses against a sky and the hulk of the dead church, beyond.
The very night was as still as if holding a breath.
The only sound was the small crackle of the paper burning under his lips. As he looked, he noticed a shape, a movement between the stones that came into view. It was a figure, in black, moving forward and as he smoked, the lines of his smoke blurred his vision as if the apparition was shrouded in a mist, walking through the stones. He strained his eyes against the dark and became certain it was a figure. Sometimes it walked as if drunk, holding onto the gravestones, other times in seemed to stumble and vanish between them, on all fours, by now crossing over the thicket of the old graves in the hostel garden.
“Hello?” Matthew called. The figure stopped and stooped over, heaving as if taking plunges of breath and spoke back, “Hello”. The voice was distant, echoed, a rasping breath of the final throes of a human screaming. It then fell to its knees and crawled in a most unnatural fashion, reaching its thin black arms before it, reached, pulling and coming towards the building, “Hello” it said again in it’d disjointed manner, limbs contorting, “Hello”, moving with a speed of sickening immediacy that caused Matthew to utter a small cry and retreat behind his window. On the wall outside, he heard the form slapping palms and foot soles against the brick, now at the back of the building, trying to gain purchase.
