Episode Four.

The weather had not got any better with the progress of the day. That which had merely been wet, was now submerged and the rain which had been torrential, now felt like the spray of a mighty waterfall in the heavens. The wind had picked up too, so that merely having a waterproof jacket with a hood did not prevent the rain from being whipped up into your face to sluice down the back of your neck. It was a wild night to be out and the streets were deserted, save for one lost soul, trudging along the length of affluent Glen Road, looking for a wire in a hedgerow.

Pax was miserable. She honestly couldn't remember a time when she was more wet or more cold. Her hair was matted to her skin, her jeans clung tight to her hips, thighs and calves to chafe with every step and though she peered into the deep darkness of the storm, she could see little but the raindrops being hurled into her blurred field of vision and the cold glare of sodium lighting reflected off slick, soaked concrete.

But she didn't stop, for she knew, despite the evidence, that she was not alone in the storm. Somewhere in the merciless night, Terry had wandered, half naked and out of his mind, on some madman’s errand. Pax was sure she was the only one with any hope of finding him, because the police wouldn't believe the connections she'd made. Even she didn't understand them. She just knew, with a certainty that defied all logic, that Terry had left the hospital in search of something and that thing could only be found on the other side of that hedge.

But which hedge? She thought she remembered the spot where she had seen that elderly creature pretty well, and yet, as she retraced her steps in the night, it seemed the dark and the storm had changed everything and nothing was familiar at all. It didn't help that not all the streetlights were working. The one above her right then, for example, was flickering on and off at such intervals that it was mostly pitch black except for occasional stutters of light. It made it even harder to see what she was doing and look for any irregularities in the hedgerows between the houses.

Except it wasn't some of the street lamps which weren't working, Pax realised as she surveyed the street ahead and behind. It was just this one. Everywhere else the sickly orange light flooded the wet world and reflected off the low cloud above, but not here. In this one spot, and this one alone, the light was erratic, unsafe and, quite frankly creepy as hell.

It's here somewhere, Pax thought as she glanced along the hedgerow beside the pole of the street lamp. There was no reason why the light and the gap in the hedge should coincide and yet she knew that they must. Something about this whole situation had her making connections where no normal person would check twice, and perhaps that meant she was losing it and ought to be locked away, like one of the straight-jacket-wearing cartoon animals in that weird Nickelodeon show, Professor Hen’s Funny Farm. She almost smiled at the thought. Almost.

No. It made no sense at all, but this was real and she was as sure that she would find the gap there as she was that Terry would be somewhere on the other side, and that this Tsunamy, whoever he or she was, was somehow behind Terry’s apparent suicide attempt. She was willing to bet everything on it.

And so she turned towards the long, flickering shadow of the hedgerow, watched the ephemeral pattern of light as the streetlamp painted each slick leaf a dirty orange, and saw the gap at once, tiny though it was. I can do this, she thought as she stared it down, trying to build up courage in the face of a sudden, inexplicable terror.  I can do this, her mantra continued, because I have to.  Because no one else is going to find Terry.  Because I’m the only one who knows and no one will believe me.

She took a few steps towards the gap, felt around for the stripped-down shade wire and, carefully, oh so carefully, pulled it free of the tangled branches.  I can do this, she thought for the last time as she put in first an arm, then a leg, then let the hedge swallow her whole.

It was just too dark on the other side, without even the inconstant light of the flickering street lamp to illuminate anything.  There were half a dozen points in the undergrowth where a dim, intermittent glow could be seen and even similar spots of light hanging in mid air, but none of it was enough to navigate by and only the dark shadow of the house, hints of coloured radiance leaking out from within, served as any kind of landmark.  Pax took a few steps and almost immediately stumbled over something hidden in the overgrown garden.  She landed face-first in the wet grass, her shin aching even as the objects she’d kicked rolled past her.

Sitting upright, she leant over to examine one of the things she had fallen over.  To her surprise and disgust, it was an old, rotted lampshade, the silk hanging off its frame like cobwebs.

Who lives here, she wondered, some kind of lampshade fetishist?

But it didn’t matter.  She knew she had to get inside the house.

Carefully, she staggered to her feet and, with a slight limp, made her way more cautiously towards the house.  Every couple of metres her foot would touch something else and she would recoil out of instinct, before kicking whatever-it-was aside and moving on.  The rotting lampshades littered the ground to such an extent that to Pax it felt like she was wading through a field of them, as if they had grown there and been left past harvest, left to rot.  The mouldy solar lanterns - for that is what the dim lights around her must have been - flickered ember-esque at the edges of the garden, like dying fairies.

And then her foot hit something wooden and unyielding and the shadow of the house towered before her and she knew she had reached the porch steps.

She climbed up and felt surprise at the sudden dry silence, the rainfall now pattering impotently behind her as her clothes dripped onto the woodwork.  And in that semi-silence, that endless muted drum-roll, she became aware of the deeper silence of the house itself, the true silence that lay within, and though she knew she had to step inside, that surely Terry would be beyond the heavy black door, suddenly it seemed as if the rain itself was a kind of shelter, its heavy susurrus a way to drown out the hungry, waiting silence.

Without touching the door, without even stepping closer, she opened her mouth and tried to call out.  “Terry….” the word died on her lips, came out like a thin wheeze and even that seemed suddenly much too loud layered upon that heavy hush.

“Terry…” she whispered carefully,  as if enunciation might make up for lack of strength, “Oh God…”

She watched her hand stretch out before her, as if pushing through a fluid more viscous than water, and press, palm first against the wood.  She knew some part of her was controlling it, knew it was what she must do anyway, but it seemed an alien action to her: impossible.

And yet, the door creaked slowly open and, as if guided by a will other than her own, she took first one step, then another, and then she was inside.