Sinister Delivery, First Class

“You must deliver the package to Hannover House, Fife. It must be delivered tonight. During the journey, the package must remain fastened in the front passenger seat. You are not to open the package. None of these instructions are to be ignored. You will receive payment upon delivery; five thousand pounds, as stated in the advertisement. Do you understand?”

“Yup,” Callum didn’t look up from his phone. He was scrolling through some junk article about how celebrities had looked before they were famous.

“Repeat the instructions,” there was more than just a hint of irritation in the shadowy man’s voice.

“Take the package to Hannover House, Fife, tonight. Strap it into the front passenger seat. Don’t open the package.”

“Very good.” The dark figure held out a small box, wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. “Now get going; Fife is a long way away.”

Callum let the man hold the box out for a little longer than was necessary. He sighed, shoved his phone into his pocket, and reached out to grab the package. The man pulled it back just before Callum’s fingertips touched the wrapping paper.

“Be careful,” he hissed. “This box contains a very important item.”

“Sure,” Callum said, doing his best not to roll his eyes. The shadowy man was giving him some seriously creepy vibes. Who wore a trench coat and fedora at this time of year, anyway? And what was up with the smell? He took the package in both hands and turned to walk to his car.

“Don’t forget,” the man rasped after him. “Do not open the package.”

“Yeah, whatever—” Callum cut himself off as he turned to reply. The man was gone. “Huh,” he muttered. Fucking weirdo.”

He strolled over to the car and unlocked it. This had to be done manually; it was too old to have remote locking. A first-generation Ford Mondeo in classic blue, it was what Callum’s dad would have called ‘a real old banger’. Rusted around the rims and dented in just about every place, it was the kind of car that other drivers looked at and decided to give a wide berth. Even scrapyard owners would have thought twice about taking it, at least until they looked under the hood. Then they would have seen all of the modifications that Callum had made himself. The car was a supermodel dressed in beggar’s clothes and the basis of Callum’s reputation as one of the fastest bespoke delivery drivers in Britain.

The car unlocked, he placed the box on the passenger seat and buckled it in. Almost perfectly cube-shaped, it was too small for the diagonal belt to be any use, but Callum made sure that the horizontal strap was secure against the package. He thought the request was nuts but he was paid good money for a reason; whenever a client made some crazy request or handed him a suspicious package, Callum just thought of the banknotes and felt his qualms wash away.

The package secured, Callum hopped into the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition. The car roared to life, its souped-up engine sending pigeons scattering. The designated pick-up point was an empty carpark outside a disused manufacturing plant, its business long-since outsourced to Asia, so Callum took the opportunity to spin a screeching doughnut before pulling out onto the road.

Daylight was fading rapidly and, as the man had said, Fife was a long way from the outskirts of North London. Within fifteen minutes, Callum was on the A1 road which ran from London to Edinburgh like a spinal cord. He steered the car in and out of traffic, overtaking and undertaking, his foot never leaving the accelerator.

The fuel light flicked on just outside of Darlington, forcing Callum to leave the main road and pull up at a petrol station. It was fully dark now: no moon, no stars. The halogen lights that encircled the pumps were the only thing keeping out the thick and oppressive night. Callum starting to fill up the tank, always keeping at least half an eye on the box. The whole job was giving him a weird feeling, like his skin was itching and he had eaten something that was off. Still, five grand was five grand.

“You headin’ north?” Callum jumped at the sound of the voice directly behind him. He breathed out slowly before turning, trying to calm his beating heart.

“Maybe. Why do you care?” He stared down at the man who had spooked him. He was a balding fellow, large around the waist, dressed in double denim. Odd.

“I need a ride.” His accent was strange and unplaceable, with a generic hint of country bumpkin. “Hitched my way here all the way from Canterbury. Tryin’ to get up to Edinburgh to see my bruddah but the fellow who took me this far is overnightin’ here. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

“I see.” The pump clicked, announcing that its job was done and the tank was full. Callum hitched it back in its place and screwed in the cap.

“So, are you? Headin’ north?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Can I hitch with you?”

“What’ll you give me? Extra man uses extra fuel and I don’t do freebies.”

“I’m a good conversationaliser. That’s whut people tell me. I could talk the ears off an elephant with my stories.”

“I’m not really one for stories.” Callum locked the car and walked over to the little store where a sleepy and bored cashier was staring glumly out into the night. The man was still there when he returned.

“Please. Not a lot of people gonna come by this way at this time.”

“You got any money?”

“My bruddah does. He makes a lot of money. He runs this Internet shop and sells all kinds a things.”

“What sort of things?” Callum said, unlocking the car.

“All sorts a things. Camping stuff, computers, antiques, car parts—”

“Car parts?”

“Yeah, car parts!”

“I need a new catalytic converter. He got them?”

“Uh, I guess so. He sells lotsa things.”

“Get in. No, not there, can’t you see the box? Get in the back.”

“Thanks,” he said, climbing in behind the front passenger seat and clipping himself in. “Name’s David, by the way.”

“Great,” Callum said, putting the car back into gear and speeding off into the night. Rather than turning back onto the A1, he veered cross-country, skirting the Yorkshire Moors to link up with the M6, which would let him avoid the horror show of getting around Newcastle and Edinburgh.

They sat in silence for some time, the North of England passing them by in darkness. There were almost no other cars on the road and the streetlighting was minimal. Other than the rumble of the engine and the rolling of the wheels, it was like driving through a void.

“Whatcha got in the box?” David said after a while.

“I don’t know.”

“Where you takin’ it?”

“Fife.”

“That’s a long way to take something what you don’t know.”

“I don’t get paid to know. I get paid to drive.”

“Aren’t you curious?” David poked his head in the gap between the front seats, getting a better look at the small, square package. “Don’t you wanna know what’s in it? I would wanna know.”

“The man who is paying me to deliver it was very clear about that,” Callum said, before putting on his best impression of the shadowy man’s sinister, rasping voice: “‘take the package to Hannover House, Fife, tonight. Do not open it. Do you understand?’ That’s what I was told, so that’s what I’ll do.”

“What did you say?”

“I said—” Callum didn’t get any further before David started babbling.

“You said Hannover House, didn’t you! Oh, that’s a bad place; you don’ wanna be goin’ there, no you do not!”

“What?” Callum gripped the steering wheel a little tighter and stole a glance at the box.

“It’s a bad place. I knows all about it!” David was speaking faster and faster, his face draining of colour. “I’m big on horror stories; made up and true ones too. I’ve seen all the shows. Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted, Haunted Homes, Crossin’ Over with John Edward. You name it, I’ve seen it! I read the forums too and they all say bad things about Hannover House.”

“Right. Good job I’m just dropping off this package and not moving into the place then.”

“You shouldn’t go there. Not for one second.”

Callum didn’t reply. He was on the M6 now, forging a path through the Lake District towards Carlisle. Somewhere, out in the thick night, black waters lay still and rough peaks loomed.

“You should get rid of the box too. Ain’t nothin’ good in there, I swear to you.”

“I’m not getting rid of the box.”

“I swear! Bad things happen at that house. It’s evil! The police and the council, they say that nobody lives there, but anyone who has ever gone there says that they see figures moving in the windows and that if you go into the house, you can hear footsteps followin’ you!”

“Spooky,” Callum said sarcastically.

“That’s not all! Some kids went up there a few years ago to get drunk and smash things up. Three of them died! The police said that it was an accident, but I know someone from the forums who worked with the coroner and he said no way was it that. He said that these bodies didn’t look like anything natural had happened to them, like they’d had all the water sucked out of them.”

“There’s a lot of stuff on the Internet. Most of it is nonsense.”

“You’ve gotta get rid of that box!”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then I’m getting out!” David started tugging on the door handle. Luckily, for all its faults, the car had safety locks installed and the door stayed firmly shut.

“Jesus!” Callum shouted. “You want me to crash off the road? Look, there’s a service station up here, you can get out there.”

Within minutes, David was out of the car and Callum back on the road, speeding towards Scotland. He thought that David’s story was lunacy, the kind of thing that only conspiracy theorists with more time than sense would believe. Still, it only added to the uneasy feeling he had, and he found himself constantly glancing at the package.

Night had reached its epicentre when he arrived at Hannover House. The iron gates to the private driveway were chained shut. The sky remained moonless, but the clouds had dispersed to reveal a host of cold, distant stars that lit the house up in pale half-light. Callum took a deep breath, unclipped his seatbelt and then the box’s, and picked it up.

A pedestrian gate next to the main one was ajar. It creaked horribly as Callum squeezed through. The house loomed over him, every window dead, yet watching him nonetheless. He swallowed hard and forced himself to step forwards. The gravel drive crunched conspicuously beneath his feet and Callum began to consider leaving the box right there. His animal instincts screamed for him to run.

“Think of the money,” he told himself, looking up at the sickly starlit house, which seemed to leer back at him. “Five thousand pounds.”

Every step felt like a death sentence. Callum swore that he saw a second-floor curtain twitch. His heart was beating so fast that he began to imagine that there was something inside the box beating too. Next thing he knew, he was running towards the house. He cast the brown paper box down in front of the door and sprinted back towards the car. Flinging himself inside, he stalled twice before tearing away into the night, too afraid to look in the wingmirrors. It was not until he had crossed the border back into England that he noticed the pile of banknotes, sitting on the passenger seat.