Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel by Kate Genet

turned abruptly, and looked straight at Tully. ‘I gotta tell you. Matt and I are thinking of leaving.’
    ‘What do you mean? Leaving what?’
    Scrunching up her nose, Lara pushed past and out of the bathroom. ‘That stinks. We can talk in the car. We’re running late as it is.’
    Tully reached out and snagged Lara by the shirt. ‘What do you mean, leaving?’ she asked.
    Lara stopped, and turned to face Tully. She cupped her elbows in her hands. ‘Leaving this house,’ she said. ‘Tully, there is every sheet in the house twisted up in the bath tub, and if I’m not mistaken it’s not just water in with them. It’s piss in there. Pee. Urine, whatever. I can’t take it much more. Every day I wake up wondering what it’s going to be today, and every night I have to hide under the sheets just to feel safe.’ She sniffed. ‘I can’t do it anymore – I don’t want to.’
    ‘And Matt feels the same?’
    ‘Yeah. He does.’
    Tully walked on wooden legs away from the bathroom and towards the front door. ‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ she said.
    She felt rather than saw Lara’s impatient gesture. ‘Look, it was exciting at first, right? Until it wasn’t. Now it’s just scary. I want out. I can’t stay here any longer. Matt and I are going back home after work tonight.’
    Rounding on her, Tully felt her mouth work before any words came out. ‘I thought you said you were just thinking about it! Didn’t you just say you were thinking about it?’ She knew her voice was raised, knew she was yelling, but she didn’t care. ‘Now you’re telling me you’re leaving tonight?’
    Lara tried to grab her hand. ‘Tully please try to understand. I’m scared here. I’m scared to stay here. Aren’t you?’ She squeezed Tully’s fingers. ‘I’m worried about you staying here too. And Toby – something’s gone wrong with Toby, can’t you feel it? You guys need to get out of here too.’
    Something gurgled behind them, guttural, and both women jumped, flattened themselves against the wall.
    ‘Shit,’ Lara said, pressing a hand to her chest. ‘That was the fucking plug being pulled in the bath.’ She turned wide eyes to Tully. ‘We gotta all get out of here. Tell me you’ll leave too?’
    It was easy to be angry when you were afraid, but Tully’s fury at her friend evaporated. Now she was just worried and scared. ‘We’ve got nowhere to go,’ she said. ‘You know that.’
    ‘You’ll have to go home, Tully. It’s got to be better than this.’
    Tully shook her head. ‘You know we can’t do that.’
    ‘Yeah you can, and I reckon you should.’ She straightened and Tully saw her throat working in the dim light. ‘We gotta get to work,’ she said. ‘We’re going to be late.’
    Nodding, Tully tried not to flinch at the sudden sound of water splashing into the bath.
     

11.
     
    Toby didn’t mind that he had to sleep in the room over the garage. It was private and quiet. The new baby cried a lot. His stepmother said it was something called colic, and would go away in days or weeks or months. She’d looked exhausted even as she’d tried to make a joke of it. Toby hoped it would be only days, but he didn’t really care. The baby looked like a raisin to him, wrapped up in a blanket. He expected one day he might be interested in his half-sister, but she’d have to turn into a person first.
    His bag thumped down onto the bare floorboards with a smack of dust. There was a single bed against the wall, and a chest of drawers with a bum leg. He knew it had a bum leg because he’d carted it out to the garage here a few years ago, finally sick of the way it rocked to and fro every time he put his socks and undies away. After that he’d kept his clothes in a basket and it worked out much better because he never had to put anything away. They just went from clean basket to dirty and rotated from there.
    Realising finally that he’d been staring into space for the last few minutes, Toby shook