Estronomicon Halloween 2008

THE OFFICIAL SD EZINE Introduction by Steve Upham The Witch is Dead by Lee Moan The Last Night Of The Tenth Month by Mark Howard Jones One Last House by Bob Lock The Transmigration by David A. Sutton Night Out by Charles Black Treats At the Aver Residence by A.J. Brown and S. Copperstone The Monitor by Hugh MacDonald Chased by Shadows by Charlotte Bond House of the Witch by Sean Woodward Shudders by Mark Brassington Ein Normales Leben by Paul L. Mathews

Published by

Screaming Dreams The stories in this eZine are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover illustration Copyright Š Ben Baldwin 2008 All content remains the Copyright of each contributor and must NOT be re-used without permission from the original Copyright holder(s).

Thank you. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the publisher.

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STEVE UPHAM

A

s I write this, the local children are knocking at the door, dressed in their finest costumes and hoping for goodies! Yes, it’s that time of year again, Halloween. A great night for all things weird and wonderful.

I hope that you are all in good spirits this evening and have lots of fun, whatever you decide to do. I trust you will take the opportunity to read a good horror tale or watch a scary movie. Dim the lights and get in the mood.

Once again a big thank you to all the authors who put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), in order to furnish this issue of the eZine with the stories you are about to read. The lack of artwork submissions though means you will have to endure some of my own images instead! Just a selection of pieces to act as a break between each story.

Thanks to Ben Baldwin for coming to the rescue and supplying the fantastic cover illustration at the last minute.

I’ve been keeping extremely busy, as usual. In between hospital visits and doing my tax returns, I have also been preparing to move house. Talk about one mad rush! If all goes to plan I should be re-locating over the border (well, across the other side of the river) in time for my Christmas dinner. There’s a lot to be done yet though so please bear with me over the next few months. I hope to be able to bring you another two issues of the eZine in that time, but remember that I might be offline for a while during the move.

Anyway, I’ll cut this intro short as I’m a bit late getting this online to be honest! Take care my friends and hope you enjoy the following stories ...

-1-

LEE MOAN

I

t took him ten minutes to choke the life out of the old crone. It would have been quicker if she hadn’t put up such a superhuman struggle; but then, he’d expected that of her. Witches don’t die without a fight.

When he placed his thumbs over her windpipe she immediately began to lash out, kicking at his shins until they were bruised black and bleeding, scratching at his neck and face with her long, scarlet fingernails, leaving a set of four deep gouges in each cheek, her legacy of hate tattooed indelibly on his skin. She’d have taken his eyes if he hadn’t bitten off both her thumbs in the fight.

Micawber, her cat, appeared at one point during the struggle, and for a moment Henry thought it would come to her aid. But it only hissed at him and vanished from sight.

In the end she was left with just her voice, but he knew from past experience that this was her most powerful weapon. She let out a stream of black curses, promising him vengeance from beyond the grave. But as her eyes rolled up into her head, and her face turned deathly white, he felt oddly calm.

There was nothing she could threaten him with that would be worse than the lifetime of wretchedness she had already subjected him to. She had kept him under her malign spell for forty years and now it was going to be over. As she breathed her last, his eyes filled with tears - tears of physical and mental relief.

Then she went still.

He checked her pulse.

The witch was dead.

In the silence of the dusty old kitchen he stared down at her body, legs splayed, her hands (bleeding profusely from the bloody stumps of her thumbs) stretched into claws, her face white and contorted into a silent grimace. But he couldn’t relax, couldn’t quite convince himself the nightmare was over.

It was her eyes. They were open, staring straight up at him, a demonic light still flickering. He crouched down and tried to close the lids, but they kept springing back open. She was still speaking to him through those hate-filled eyes. He still felt her hold over him. Hanging his head in resignation, he realised he would have to perform one last act to ensure she was truly dead.

The head would have to come off.

Wiping absently at the blood which coursed down his cheeks and onto his shirt, he went out to the shed to fetch a shovel.

-2-

LEE MOAN Henry had spent the last two weeks building a false wall in the basement of the house, ready for this day. He’d left a portion in the middle unfinished, a vertical gap wide enough to slip her body inside. He wrapped her corpse in cellophane, and when he dropped it behind the wall, it made a rubbery squeaking sound as it hit the cement floor. He did the same with the head. But before he placed it behind the wall, he looked through the cellophane and studied the eyes. Yes, he told himself, the fire’s gone out now. She couldn’t harm him. The spell was broken, the curse lifted.

“Goodbye you witch,” he said, removing the wedding ring from his finger.

He tore a small hole in the cellophane where her mouth was and pushed the gold band between her crooked yellow teeth. “Happy anniversary,” he whispered, and rolled the head through the gap in the wall.

Then he set about mixing the cement and, for the first time in years, he began to whistle a happy tune.

He snapped awake in the early hours, disturbed by the pressure on his chest.

There was no light in the room, but it took him only a moment to realise that the black shape weighing down upon him was the cat. Her cat. Micawber, that filthy bag of shit!

Then the pain came, and he realised in a rush of terror exactly what the cat was doing to him. Jolts of pain in his neck, the sound of tearing meat, and the cat’s hot, fetid breath.

He’s tearing my throat open! He’s trying to kill me!

He tried to bat it away, but his arms failed to respond. His body was a dead weight.

Oh dear God, how deep has it gone already?

The cat stopped, raising its head to look down into Henry’s eyes. Thick rivulets of blood ran from its mouth, gleaming like wet tar in the gloom. Its eyes glimmered with an uncanny light.

And echoing through the chambers of his mind, the old woman’s voice: You didn’t think you’d get rid of me that easy, did you, darling?

The cat licked its lips and resumed its feast.

Together forever, isn’t that right, dear husband? Just you and me for eternity . . .

Copyright © Lee Moan 2008

-3-

BEN BALDWIN

Demon Dream : Copyright Š Ben Baldwin 2008

www.benbaldwin.co.uk -4-

MARK HOWARD JONES

"H

e'll be back again tonight, old Bone. He swore he would be."

The dog looked up at her and tipped its head on one side, quizzically.

"Don't worry," she said as she tickled the old hound behind its ear, "I'll be ready for him."

She pushed the chair back on the bare floor and went to fetch her lucky charm. As she passed the dusty mirror, she caught a glimpse of her raw-boned face with its sunken eyes and turned her gaze away quickly.

Reaching up to a wooden shelf fixed precariously to the wall, she lifted down a small jar. In it was something her brother had called a mermaid; but then her brother was an idiot. Was. She looked at the thing in its jar, the light from the lamp picking out the milky eyes of the marine animal as it floated snugly in its briny bottle, brought from far away as a present or a curse. She thought it knew things but she couldn't find a way to make it tell her.

She spent some minutes turning the jar this way and that, thinking that she knew how the poor dead creature trapped inside must feel: smothered and silent and cheated.

"We know what he wants, don't we, Bone? We'll be ready for him this time."

The dog had been her father's sniff hound, when the old man had been alive.

Now Bone stayed on here out of loyalty and because he was too old to learn the ways of a new master, however kind and patient.

After some time she put the bottle back on the shelf and took down a long object, wrapped in a dusty piece of threadbare velvet. It clunked on the wooden table as she carefully unwrapped it. She picked the human thigh bone up carefully and gazed at it.

The bone shone dimly in the lamp light. She polished it every day, a totem of her pain and longing. It had been her father's and now it was all she had left of him except his old dog and a few books.

She'd followed him when he'd buried the bodies and, long after he'd gone, she'd dug her father up and sifted through the mess and filth and ruin to take the biggest bones back home. It was where they belonged, she felt.

The last day of the tenth month. He always came then and always her family had suffered and died. This time he was coming for her; he had said so and she knew he would be true to his word.

The house was near to the only road that led to the nearly deserted town.

-5-

MARK HOWARD JONES But he wouldn't come from that direction. No, it was always out of the woods.

She didn't know how deep the woods were. She hadn't walked more than few miles into them and that was when her father was alive. She wouldn't go in there alone; especially not now. People had told her about a strange place deep in the woods, and maybe that was where he came from, but she didn't waste time wondering about it.

Staring down at her feet, she tried to ignore the knots twisting inside her, the constant flutter of her heart and her mind, until finally it was too much.

Bone, who had spent the time drowsing, was startled as she stood suddenly.

"Well, I'd sooner go out and hunt him down than just sit here and wait.

What say you, old Bone?"

The dog, sensing an excursion, barked an affirmation. If the animal had known how forced her courage was, he would have whimpered and slunk away to hide.

She picked up the thigh bone again, ready to wrap it in its poor rag, when she realised how heavy it was. She swung it experimentally in her hand. It could be used as a weapon, yes, and God knows what she'd find out there tonight. She smiled at the thought of her father protecting her from beyond the grave; he'd have liked that.

There was no moon outside, so she lit her brother's big lantern. She turned the key in the rusty old lock and, putting the lantern down for a moment, sniffed the air. Strange lights played in the sky and the rich stink of mould and rot rose from the leaf-littered ground. This was his night, no doubt of that.

Bone was sometimes at her side, sometimes a pace or two behind, as they headed out 'hunting'. The leaves were so soft and light under her feet that she felt as though she was walking on ghost ground, the solid earth being a foot or two below where she trod.

She jumped and Bone barked as a huge fungus clinging to the base of a tree exploded with a wet sound, spraying its spores into the damp air. She grabbed the dog's worn collar and dragged him away, quickly. "C'mon Bone, c'mon boy.

You don't want to breathe that stuff in."

She watched as the cloud dimmed in the light of her lantern, falling away.

Even then she stepped to one side and took another path. Bone continued to growl and complain. The trees scraped the sky with their black branches in the wind, scattering leaves over them as they went.

-6-

MARK HOWARD JONES Feeling afraid suddenly, she reached into her skirt pocket and rubbed her thumb over a small silver locket; the photograph locked away safely inside it showed a dark-haired girl and an even darker-haired boy, both with bright eyes and hopeful faces. Her children, taken by him, dead and in the ground but alive in her heart. It was on the same night one year later that he took her father and brother, too. And now he was coming for her, as he said he would.

She cried herself to sleep with her loneliness most nights, only to wake a few hours later and curse him for leaving her while taking the others.

Last time, he'd laughed in her face with a rotten-toothed mouth he'd borrowed from a long-dead victim, hissing something about her father's 'debt'.

She didn't know what he meant and she didn't care. This time he would deal with her and her alone because the past was the past, the dead were the dead.

But she was alive and that gnawed at her each and every day.

This time, she'd tell him what she really felt, no matter what happened.

Something inside her seemed to beat to a different rhythm tonight; something responding to his impending presence, maybe, or just her nerves getting the better of her?

After tonight things would be so different, now that he was coming back again. Back again, through the woods. Back again, to keep his word. And which head would he be wearing this time?

She grabbed at Bone's collar once again as she heard sudden sounds through the trees. The old dog whimpered and panted as she pulled him roughly behind a nearby bush.

Three stunted figures appeared, dragging their feet. Then two more came into view, not far behind them, all illuminated by candles in moth-haunted glass jars. From their size and shrill voices, she realised they were children from the nearby town, dragging their way along the road, dressed in desultory costumes, on their way to a party of sorts.

She hadn't meant to wander this close to the road. He certainly wouldn't be coming from this direction, so she headed off deeper into the woods as Bone snuffled along behind her.

As the trees got thicker, so did the darkness. She felt protected by it. She was able to wrap it around her and hide in it ... but so could other things. She trod more carefully now.

Though it was impossible to see anything outside the circle of light thrown -7-

MARK HOWARD JONES out by the lantern, she strained her eyes against the blackness beyond. Then the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck moved and she sensed he was close by.

She heard the sound of things folding away and sliding under fabric to hide.

Nearby a tree started to smoke briefly before crackling into flame. She turned to face it. Bone whimpered pathetically.

A figure stepped from behind a nearby bush, which promptly smoked and crumpled into an orange ball. The air was thick with the stink of burning wood and foliage as he took a step towards her. Then another.

An owl flapped noisily, seeking escape through the night, almost brushing his head in its panic. Branches twisted away from him as he moved, trunks bending into grotesque shapes to escape his touch; the woodland had come alive to allow this vile presence through with as little damage as possible.

Raising the lantern, she saw its steady glow fall on the features of the ringmaster from 'Le Cirque du Reve'. The man had been dead for over two hundred years, yet his surprised eyes still glowed as they stared out from above rouged cheeks and a waxed moustache. How handsome, she thought.

He was at least a foot-and-a-half taller than her and he stank of things that anyone else would have taken as a warning to run. Instead, when he stretched out his blackened hand, she stepped towards him. His clothes continued to move even though he stood still. "You come for me," she gasped, the breath almost stopping in her throat, and he made the ringmaster's mouth smile for her.

Bone slunk from cover and rubbed himself against the creature's leg. He whimpered in recognition and pleasure, even as great tufts of hair fell from his coat.

Carefully placing the lantern down, she stretched up towards the man's borrowed face as he bent to embrace her. His arms were inhumanly strong and inhumanly safe.

"My love," she whispered and his kiss, sweet as honey, burned like hell.

Copyright Š Mark Howard Jones 2008

Mark’s eBook Against the Wall is available from the SD website -8-

STEVE UPHAM

Rags ‘n’ Bone : Copyright © Steve Upham 2008

-9-

BOB LOCK

H

alloween morning: ‘Please don’t ask me again. You’re the child, I’m the parent and that’s that. What I say goes, there’s no discussion. Now drop the subject or I won’t even allow you to go trick or treating.’ Elaine’s mother, Glenda, emphasised her statement by tapping her foot and shaking a finger at her daughter. Elaine’s face reddened and her eyes began to glisten with the promise of tears. ‘And if you start crying again it will only confirm that you are still too young to understand and perhaps it would be best if I did keep you in tonight.’ With a superhuman effort the little girl bit back on the sob that threatened to escape from her tight throat, nodded and went up to her room.

‘Glenda, you can be hard on times.’ Elaine’s father, Jim said looking up from his paper, his breakfast finished.

‘Listen, she’s too young. Once she’s of an age to understand the dangers out there then I’ll let her do what she wants. It’s different from when I was a child.

Things were safer then, I could go out dressed up and knock on strangers’ doors, but times change. It’s not safe.’

‘You don’t have much faith in our daughter.’ Jim said folding the paper carefully.

‘It’s not a matter of faith. It’s just Prudence.’

Jim closed his eyes for a moment, ‘of course, sorry.’

‘That’s ok; you know how I get this time of year. I’ll never forget.’

‘But you’ve said that was a long time ago dear.’ Jim rose and gave his wife a hug.

‘Yes, that’s just what I mean. People are more aware nowadays.

‘Ok, perhaps I’ll have a quiet word with her too.’ He said.

Glenda nodded then gave her husband a peck on the cheek, ‘thanks you know she listens to you more than me, daddy’s little girl.’

Jim smiled, looked at his watch and said, ‘I’ve just got time before going into work.’ Then he shrugged on his jacket and went up to his daughter’s bedroom.

Halloween Evening: ‘You sure you’re going to be warm enough?’ Glenda asked her daughter as she fussed with the little blue jacket the child was wearing.

Elaine rolled her eyes and sighed, ‘yes, Mum. Will you stop fussing? I’m - 10 -

BOB LOCK going to be late.’ She picked up her plastic bag which contained the canister of silly string for her ‘tricks’ and plenty of room for her ‘treats’.

‘Ok, ok, go, enjoy.’ Her mother said as she ushered her child out of the door and into the chilly night. The street outside was already thronged with a plethora of ghosts, ghoulies, vampires and all other manner of fancy-dress costumed children. One, a mummy, trailing an unravelled piece of bandage from one leg, approached Elaine and the two children walked off excitedly into the night. Jim came from the living room and put his hands on Glenda’s shoulders.

‘Looks like she’s one of the very few without a costume,’ he said.

Glenda turned, ‘perhaps next year.’ She glanced out once more for a final look but the children had already gone from view. Reluctantly she closed the door.

‘Have you got it?’ Elaine asked Rachel, her mummified friend.

‘Of course, you didn’t think I’d let you down, did you?’ Rachel mumbled through the bandages over her mouth.

‘Cool!’ Elaine replied excitedly and just checked they were out of sight of her house before delving into Rachel’s bag and extracting the clothing. It was a witch’s costume, complete with pointy hat, false wart-covered nose and broomstick. ‘Great, I thought you looked really scary in this last year, thanks for letting me borrow it.’

‘S’ok, doesn’t fit me anymore anyway,’ Rachel said as she helped Elaine get dressed, ‘what’s up with your mum anyway? Why won’t she let you dress up?’

Elaine shrugged, ‘something to do with her sister, my aunt. She died. A long time ago though and mum won’t really talk about it.’

‘Oh,sorry.’ Rachel said as she straightened Elaine’s cloak, ‘there, you look fab. I’m really scared, that nose looks horrible, all those ugly warts and veins.’

‘Har har, I haven’t put it on yet!’ Elaine said testily.

‘Oops’ The two friends commenced their tour of the small town. Before long their plastic bags were weighed down with loose change, sweets, an apple or two and even a piece of homemade cake. Rachel’s canister of silly string had been exhausted and consigned to a wastepaper bin but Elaine shook hers, ‘plenty left in mine yet.’

- 11 -

BOB LOCK ‘You’re just not nasty enough to be a witch.’ Rachel commented, ‘I emptied mine ages ago.’

‘Yeah, I noticed,’ Elaine said as she pulled clumps of the silly string out of her hair. ‘I’m bound to need this here anyway,’ she motioned towards a dark house set back from all the others. A single light from a naked bulb shone from an upstairs room.

‘Old Man Robinson? They say he was a preacher, you know, before he got kicked out of the church.’ Rachel said looking warily at the shadowy house.

‘I heard he was a surgeon who lost his licence for cutting off a man’s leg.’

Elaine replied.

‘Aren’t surgeons supposed to do that, anyway?’ Rachel turned towards Elaine and tilted her head.

‘Yes, but they’re also supposed to cut off the bad leg, not the good one...’

‘Oh...’

‘Yes, ohh... Anyway, whether he’s a mad preacher or a stupid doctor I bet he won’t give us any treats, so he’s going to have this! The rest of the canister!’

Elaine said brandishing the silly string.

‘I don’t know, it’s getting late. Perhaps we should go now.’ Rachel said glancing at the house again.

Elaine tapped her foot mimicking her mother’s actions flawlessly, ‘late?

You’re just scared, big baby.’

‘Not scared, it’s just late. Come on we’d better go, don’t forget you’ve got to change too.’

‘You go then; I’ll catch you up and meet you at the corner again where I changed into the costume. I want to finish off my silly string. Just one last house.’

‘And what if Old Man Robinson gives you a treat instead? Are you going somewhere else then to use it up? You could be out all night!’

Elaine frowned, ‘didn’t think of that.’ She scrutinised the dark house.

‘Bugger it, even if he does give me a treat he’s gonna get stringed. Anyone with a creepy old house like that deserves a good stringing.’

‘Potty mouth. Ok, go do your dirty deed, I’m off. I don’t want my legs sawn off.’ Rachel said and shambled away glancing once over her shoulder as Elaine approached the shadow-filled porch to Robinson’s house.

Former Lay-Preacher Ezekiel Robinson put down the book he was reading and - 12 -

BOB LOCK sniffed the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and he frowned.

When his doorbell rang he just nodded as if confirming to himself that his premonition had been correct, then he raised his wiry frame out of the threadbare chair and went down to confirm his suspicions.

‘Trick or treat, sir?’ The little witch asked him when the door opened and he stood there open-mouthed, hardly believing his luck.

‘What?’ He managed to mumble finally.

‘Halloween, trick or treat,’ Elaine faltered, Robinson seemed mesmerised by her, ‘sir...’

His face brightened, ‘of course, Halloween. Come in, child, come in.’ He stepped to one side and motioned for Elaine to enter the dimly-lit hallway.

Elaine swallowed nervously. She hadn’t expected an invitation to go into the old man’s house. She looked around quickly, but Rachel had gone. She hesitated.

‘The treats are in my study, please, do come in,’ Robinson repeated and before Elaine knew it the man had gripped her shoulder. He urged her inside.

Glenda paced back and forth in the passage way, ‘she should be back by now.’

‘You know what kids are like; she’s probably playing with Rachel. It was Rachel in the mummy costume wasn’t it?’ Jim asked.

‘Of course,’ Glenda replied and then sighed as the doorbell rang, ‘she’s back!’ She pulled the door open and looked past the little mummy-figure expecting to see the blue-coated shape of her child. Elaine wasn’t there. ‘Where is she? Rachel, where’s Elaine?’

The mummy shuffled uncomfortably and dropped the plastic bag. Out spilled an apple, some sweets, a piece of cake, loose change and the sleeve of Elaine’s blue coat.

‘Talk, now!’ Glenda commanded and Rachel spilled the beans. She told Glenda everything, unable to do otherwise.

‘Preacher Robinson, shit. Of all the damned places to go into alone. Jim, take Rachel home.’ Glenda picked up Elaine’s coat and narrowed her eyes, ‘I haven’t finished with you yet, miss.’ She said softly to Rachel and the child’s blood seemed to freeze in her veins. ‘She’s wearing your costume, too?’

‘Yes, it was too small for me, a witch’s costume.’ Rachel stuttered.

‘A witch’s costume...’ Glenda echoed and Rachel nodded glumly.

- 13 -

BOB LOCK ‘Ok, Rachel. Let’s get you home.’ Jim said and patted the child’s head. ‘You want the car?’ He asked Glenda.

She raised an eyebrow at him, ‘no... I’ll be fine.’

‘Just be careful,’ he said.

‘Obviously.’ Glenda replied as she pushed him out of the door and went back to the kitchen and opened the tall cupboard.

Gloominess shrouded the porch to Preacher Robinson’s house. A gloominess that seemed to emanate from the small child that sat sobbing quietly on the door step. She fingered something wet and slimy at her side and jumped when a rustling from nearby bushes startled her. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Your mother,’ replied Glenda as she stepped out of the foliage, brushed herself down and looked around suspiciously. ‘Are you all right?’

Elaine nodded, ‘yes. I didn’t expect him to invite me in. I didn’t expect him to do what he did. I’m sorry, mum, I really am. I should have listened to you.

The costume too...’

‘So, what happened?’ Glenda asked as she approached the step.

‘I asked him for a trick or treat and I sort of got dragged into his house. The door closed and...’ ‘...and?’ Her mother prompted.

Elaine shivered and motioned to something on the step next to her, ‘and...’

‘That’s the trick? Or is it the treat?’ Her mother asked as she picked up the slimy toad and examined it.

‘That’s... Old Man Robinson.’ Elaine replied.

‘Ah...’ nodded her mother, ‘he perceived you then. He saw you for what you really are. I feared as much when Rachel said where you were... and just look at you. Why don’t you just wear a great big placard too?’

‘I didn’t think...’

‘Undoubtedly, that’s why I’ve been so protective of you. Not everyone is capable of perceiving us, but some are. He’s one.’ She nodded at the toad which squirmed in her grasp. ‘But, on the plus side, you did very well.

Transfiguration isn’t all that easy yet you’ve done a fine job. Unfortunately we can’t allow him to revert back. It just wouldn’t be a good idea at all.’ Glenda said as she closed her hand and the toad exploded with a wet plop.

‘Sorry, mum.’ Elaine said reaching up for her mother.

- 14 -

BOB LOCK ‘That’s ok,’ Glenda said as she picked her child up and carried her to the bushes, ‘perhaps it’s time I told you about Aunt Prudence and what happened to her in 1780, we thought the witch hunts were over, we were wrong then and many of us have been wrong now. They still remember. Some still perceive us.

We have to be more than careful now. There aren’t that many of us left.’

‘Is daddy mad?’ Elaine asked.

‘Of course, dear!’ Glenda laughed, ‘what sane man would marry a witch?

But, that’s beside the point. Now, jump onto my broom and let’s get home. By the way I like what you’ve done with your nose...’

Copyright © Bob Lock 2008

Visit Bob’s main website at : www.scifi-tales.com For the latest news check out his blog : bob-lock.blogspot.com

NOW IN THE SECOND PRINT RUN! Bull Running for Girls

by Allyson Bird ISBN : 978-1-906652-01-2 Paperback : 216x138mm : 272pp Cover artwork by Vincent Chong

A selection of adventure/horror stories set in many locations, from the excitement and danger of bull running in Pamplona, to small town life in Madison County, U.S. Stories set amidst the bustle of Hong Kong, on The Silk Road in China and under a Hunter’s moon in Bordeaux. Then there are those which are much closer to home.

For more information please visit the Screaming Dreams website.

- 15 -

STEVE UPHAM

After-Dinner Speech : Copyright © Steve Upham 2008

- 16 -

DAVID A. SUTTON

I

t was in those days that Mama Bonada would bring us our freshly squeezed orange juice, out onto the terrace were we were sitting. After three o’clock in the afternoon the tropic sun was less persistent, and a cool breeze would wind up the river, through the trees and around our father’s house in the jungle. I don’t remember our family coming to live here, in 1898, because I was too young at the time, so all I had ever known in life was this refuge from civilization. We — my brother and I — called her ‘Mama’ Bonada, but she wasn’t our real mother, of course. Mother had died of the plague — some insidious ferment from out of the rain forest — the same year a number of the natives had succumbed. After her death Father became strange, distant and often morose. He cared nothing for us two boys, or what we did, or where we went. Neither did he care about the servants — slaves, really — although they seemed content enough to stay by him. I guess he had been a good white man to them, all in all. Certainly, Mama Bonada was extremely loyal and kept us two in check for him.

She was as black as charcoal, was Mama, and huge, bulging! She was always smiling and cussing and generally cheerful around the house. Her dark brown eyes were liquid pools surrounded by glowing whites and when she rolled them we often laughed at her. In short, she made the house pleasant, especially with no real mother to look after us. The low, spreading wooden structure we called home, was a place of cool, dark rooms, heavily shaded with split-wood blinds and the huge fronds of closely surrounding trees. Gloomy rooms of polished teak that reflected the clatter of our feet made the house hollow, empty and desolate sometimes. Bookcases and tall cupboards, and small tables and chiffoniers dominated the furniture. With no mother by us the house was no longer a refuge from the forest; it was a mausoleum. So, we would take the boardwalk terrace that skirted the property on three of its sides, and sit in comfortable cane lounge chairs and sip our juice to the sounds from the trees. We’d watch leaves drip sweat as we’d perspired all morning, waiting for the building noon heat to pass. Father would be in his study, poring over his butterfly books if not sleeping.

Neither I nor my brother, Terrence, had any interest in butterflies. It was perhaps unusual and no doubt a disappointment to father. The study of Lepidoptera was his life’s work, collecting, classifying and writing reams of matter about them. His study was a kind of museum, a riot of colour glowing - 17 -

DAVID A. SUTTON from the display cabinets hung from all four walls. Every rainbow colour glowed iridescently in that room, from the insects that were pinned in their hundreds. There was every size imaginable, from the minute to huge specimens as big as a parrot. Every so often Father would send Cumu — a young black we used to clean the house — with his parcels of manuscripts down the river Pra, twenty miles to Kumassi, the nearest town. Cumu would be under instruction to go right away to the post office and send the parcels, to collect receipts and pick up any mail that was waiting poste restante. The parcels would then travel some three hundred miles on the locomotive line between Kumassi and Sekondi and thence by steamship from that part of the Gold Coast to England.

It was late one afternoon, rather later in the day than we usually sit out, for the sun sets quickly in the tropics and dusk was beginning to descend upon us.

It comes quickly, the more so because of the dense foliage around us, an encroachment of darkness that sucks up and envelops the undergrowth visibly as you watch. It’s an odd, eerie time of day, a time when the sounds from the trees begin to lessen, the birds and the monkeys curtailing their incessant chatter, slowly, not all at once, but like the steady drip of moisture from the heady, scent-burdened flowers that lurked around the house in great profusion.

Then the silence would be replaced with night sounds, the calls of frogs and the occasional night creature, a cat sometimes. Those particular noises, less clamorous than the ones in the daytime, would be interrupted by long pauses of silence. An eerie time, indeed.

Mama Bonada came out late to take our glasses away and call us for dinner.

She was surprised to find us sitting with an empty pitcher and tumblers instead of in our rooms, and she began to speak in that way of hers. “What’s you boys doin’ aht here? Night-time bad in the jungle She spoke with a gleam of humour in her eyes and on her lips, but nevertheless she was like all such superstitious native women and one instinctively knew that she would be able to recount some logical — to her, at least — reason why we should or shouldn’t do something in particular. Often when one of us took ill, or cut himself or some such thing, she would suggest her own remedy, anything from white magic to herbal medicine, to complement that of our Western sort. Curiously, enough, some of her poultices and such like would work quite adequately. Father was quite reasonable about these remedies, but when it came to the suggestion of - 18 -

DAVID A. SUTTON consulting the local Bokor, Father would remind us that he had forbidden us ever to approach him and that Mama would do well to steer clear of him also.

Naturally enough, to humour her, I asked Mama why it was a bad thing to sit out of an evening and she took that as an invitation to sit down beside us and bustle herself up for a story.

Many years ago, she told us, before the white men came to the Gold Coast and the forest was pristine — she was referring to the logging company, which was forty miles downriver of us — there was a Bokor in her tribe by the name of Bealmo. He was the most powerful witch doctor ever and all the people feared him. But more importantly, so too did other neighbouring tribes, for his magic was often directed at their enemies with potent effect. Eventually though, Bealmo grew old and sullen and would often work a magic upon anyone who unintentionally upset him. One day, as he was working with his arsenal of potions, bones and other grisly paraphernalia, a young tribeswoman accidentally stood on his foot, which was outstretched at the time. It might not have been so terrible, but three days earlier Bealmo had stood badly on thorn, which had entered the soft, fleshy instep. The wound had turned septic and Bealmo’s foot was transformed into a red mound of pain. No one could understand why their Bokor hadn’t healed himself, and whispers of failing powers had been spoken. Not for long, however.

The poor tribeswoman, Nesatu, was most apologetic, of course, but to no avail. Bealmo was enraged and began to work a magic in between the grief over his raging foot. The woman, who was without a husband, for she was still young, ran to her mother’s hut end sobbed all day long. Meanwhile, Bealmo stumbled about and gibbered. The sore on his foot stopped him from doing anything energetic, but nevertheless his voice was loud and querulous and frightening, and the animal skulls at his waist danced as if laughing menacingly. As night fell so Bealmo’s lurid fire revealed his long, deeply lined face, his thick, worm-like lips downturned and his eyes upturned and white.

He was in this grotesque trance all night. Nesatu was stricken. Everyone asked what might become of her. The chief, Colatu, was asked to intercede on her behalf, but he was proved after all to be the soft leader they’d suspected he was, who feared the shaman himself. In his politics he kept his own counsel and fobbed off those who came to him on Nesatu’s behalf.

Finally, in the early hours of the morning, the whole tribe was awakened - 19 -

DAVID A. SUTTON by a terrible screeching sound. They peered fearfully from their huts to observe Bealmo, still transfixed before his dwindling fire. But out of Nesatu’s hut came a large creature, an animal that went away with a wild leap and a hellish sound, into the depths of the forest. No one saw Nesatu again and her mother was unable to say what had happened — she had been struck dumb with shock. In time Bealmo revealed that he had transformed the girl into the Sibunda — the most feared monster of the jungle...

“And that Sibunda still aroun’, boys,” Mama added. “‘Specially at night!”

Apparently, Mama continued, not too long after Bealmo’s black magic, children began to disappear from the village at night. There was an uproar and people asked their witch doctor to deal with it. Bealmo for once was at a loss and it did not take long for the elders to put two and two together and realize that the Sibunda was the culprit.

Then one evening, while a marriage ceremony for six young women was taking place — it would also have been poor Nesatu’s nuptials — something terrible happened amid the banging of drums and the stamping of feet. It began as a joyous time, brief as it was in the desolation of having babies stolen away. That night, the Sibunda struck again. She slipped in like a water snake sliding through a river, sly and smooth and without a sound. She came and took Bealmo’s throat and genitals away with her and left the rest of him a piece of blood-drenched gore. No doubt he had uttered a cry, but his hut was some distance from the others as befit his station; he’d been preparing himself for the marriage ritual. And the ceremonies waited and waited. The festivities went on while one of the men went to see what was holding things up. He returned shrieking and all the tribe went to see what he could not utter — Bealmo horribly mutilated.

“After that, no more Sibunda! No, she had her revenge, sure enough, boys!”

Mama chuckled. By now the night had been fully ladled out and we sat in the soft glow from the dining room where an oil lamp had been lit. Mama Bonada’s story had been a good one, perhaps not as blood-curdling or frightening as it might have been, but we were suitably impressed. Whilst not believing in the so-called magic of the witch doctor, we appreciated, in our juvenile way, the gross horror of a man’s throat and more specifically, his private parts, being torn off by some frenzied denizen of the rain forest. All the more so because we didn’t know what the she-creature looked like! Mama had finished her story, - 20 -

DAVID A. SUTTON but I had to know one thing.

“So, Mama, what finally befell the poor tribeswoman? Did she regain her human form?”

“No, sir. No, indeed,” the woman gesticulated, her arm wobbling with fat.

“No one ever overcome Bealmo’s bad magic. And I tell you boys, even now... all these years on, she still haunt the jungle he’bouts. So, you boys better stay in the house af’her dark, y’hear?” She laughed all the way back to the kitchen to finish supper and we followed her indoors, impressed at our impressionable ages. My brother however, always put on a little bravado when he was frightened.

“Another of Mama’s tall tales, eh, Rick?” He smiled weakly and was first through the door. As for myself, I was both fascinated a repelled by the whole thing and didn’t mind admitting I. was scared just a little.

I entered the unfamiliar world. It was both a pleasure and a pain. Round about me the trees’ leaves dripped blood, fronds weighted with heady, fragrant red droplets. The sound was terrifying, they trickled languidly and dropped, leaf-by-leaf, accumulating finally the lower levels where greenery was heavy with a welter of it as if bleeding. The blood was dark in the twilight, dark as though congealed. I stepped in mucous pools mixed with rotting vegetation.

My feet were naked.

I trudged on in the blood-imbued forest, wondering what had become of Terry, wondering whether Father would be anguished at us going off alone without a guide. My stubbornness with Terry lingered like a bad taste, for it appeared unlikely that he would be able to find his way beck home. He had merely wanted a diversion from the house, but boredom was soon upon him in the trees. I let him go alone while I continued my quest.

Despair had led me to undertake the search, despair at not finding an answer in Mama Bonada or anyone else... I had to discover the secret of the Sibunda. I was mesmerized by the story. I had become obsessed with it. I didn’t really believe in the supernatural, but the whole thing had stirred my young and imaginative mind into action and I had plowed through Father’s collection of books on Africa. I found nothing.

In the rain forest there isn’t really any sense of time. Oh, the day passes and night comes fiendishly quickly. Similarly, dawn breaks unheralded and - 21 -

DAVID A. SUTTON sharply, but there is changelessness about the place that puts you to sleep, as it were. It’s as though our family were caught in a pocket of time while the rest of the world spun on, to the steady ticking of a hidden celestial clock. Mama’s story, with its link in the dimly perceived past, and its relentless strangeness, captured me and thrust me sideways into a time-stream completely alien to my English nature. The daily rituals merged into one blur of stillness and sameness.

It was a kind of entropy out of which had emerged the Sibunda.

And I had grabbed for it. Perhaps, out there, furtive in the dense undergrowth, this creature lurked.

Darkness had finally devoured the forest. My naked body glistened with perspiration and dew and the warm redness. My heart sounded like a distant drum and there was a tightness forming in my groin; I felt drawn to some distant initiation. The sounds of the forest consisted of insects and frogs, a quietly raucous blend of random sounds. A moon sent its glamour from high over the trees, her reflected light shining edgily past the canopy of leaves. Spots of light touched the murky ground before me, a cool, impervious radiance.

I could smell orchids, heavily scented, the perfume of fungi and rotting wood, the iron tang of blood. A quiet music made me feel dizzy, a music that flowed like the brown tropic river, without ripples, and carrying the detritus of spent trees and the carcasses of dead animals. I had come upon a tributary of the river Pra, which impeded my progress. I waded into the water and it was cool and pleasurable. A swarm of insects scrambled above my head. My hands caressed the smooth, gleaming water as if it were soft, brown limbs; my feet moved sluggish mud below. I progressed across the endless river absorbed by a passion to enter the screen of trees on the far side, feeling like a mote on time’s stream.

In my imagination I tried to visualise the were-creature I sought and she became a young, black, nubile temptress, turning into a savage, raven-haired, taloned beast with scars like furrows in its face and yellow teeth, long and glitteringly sharp. My burgeoning manhood was aroused by these sensations.

Time passed as in a dream and I entered a clearing in which stood several huts. Sharpened wood spears were arranged against one of the dwellings, their tips coated in dried blood. An unattended fire immersed the clearing in yellow light and it reminded me of the fire of the soul, burning in the centre of an immensity — the forest.

- 22 -

DAVID A. SUTTON The drum beat of my heart, the susurration of my blood was a message, and a woman stepped from the nearest hut. She was the Sibunda, a creature of unsurpassing beauty and horror. Her black face was lovely and her breasts were tantalizingly shaped. Yet from her head rose a ruff of black fur, which extended like a ridge down her back and ended in a long, rat-like tail. Her fingers were tipped with short, thick claws and yet her belly and loins glistened attractively.

A confusion of thoughts raided my mind, but were soon washed away as a tropical night storm clattered through the trees and the were-creature invited me into her hut. Rivulets of cool rain ran down the leaning spears as I swept aside the leather door and entered a small room lit by a single animal-fat lamp, which flickered and crackled. The room smelled like a wild animal and there she was before me, lifting her tail as she crouched on a straw nest. My initiation was almost complete as I entered the creature with a soft, electric burst of fire.

I was at one with the fire and its mythic past, able to understand inner meanings that I knew would be gone in the clear light, of the day, for in that unfamiliar forest where logic disports with intuition, a fusion occurs in the soul and the only witnesses are those’ who experience.

Outside, the rain had stopped and the Sibunda led me to the newly revived fire. Surrounding it were many natives, each one’s face and body heavily painted in vivid colours. I saw another white boy standing by the fire and was overjoyed that it was Terry. ‘Rick,’ he mouthed silently. Two women were applying paint to his naked body and afterwards I was offered to them for the same process. The drumbeats of my heart gave way to real drums, an hypnotic rhythm. The were-creature began to dance for us, a fast, writhing dance and I wondered if my brother had also been initiated in the carnal pleasure. The dance evolved, it became a choreographed argument, where the half-woman would taunt first me and then Terry, shaking her head frenziedly. All t time the assembled congregation stood in silence. The drums and t stamping of her feet were the only sounds.

Finally, she made her choice by leaping over the fire and pointing at Terry.

In a frozen moment I wondered what at further delights were t be offered to him, but that short-lived thought was horrendously diverted as two of the natives lifted my brother up and carried him into the centre of the throng. A third man unceremoniously cut a huge gash down the length of his chest. I saw - 23 -

DAVID A. SUTTON with the clarity of horror the raw knife scrape his sternum and then stab deep into his abdomen. My scream and his were drowned in the deeply resonant shout, which issued from the throats of the congregation. The Sibunda leapt upon Terry’s entrails even before they hit the ground.

I knew Terry was lost to the world, searching for a reality which was transient.

My hidden father was lost in a world broken by classification, for the only classification is that all things are one and all merge and form inseparable parts of the whole. I began to think of the timeless evenings on the terrace, where the rhythms of the forest beckoned with meanings all but unseen.

As I stepped lightly onto the boards of the veranda they creaked familiarly under my weight, or so it seemed. My feet left wet prints. A parrot screamed from the roof and flew off into the misty dawn. I walked by the cane chairs and table, from which a few flies found nourishment. Peering through a window, I saw my father’s study, his handiwork transfixed behind glass, a cold exposure of colourful radiance. The stillness of the butterflies in that room reminded me of death. I walked on, around the corner of the house and looked in through another window. It was Terry’s bedroom. My brother lay in bed, his head flicking from side to side. Moisture was forming on his face and Mama sponged it gently away with a damp cloth. She carefully replaced the blanket every time he unconsciously pushed it away. The fever was upon him.

Farther along the terrace was my room and as I looked in there was someone in my bed, huddled under a mosquito net that had fallen from its supports. The gauze moved lightly as if a small breeze had drifted through the open window and the figure beneath raised itself to a sitting position, corpselike, pulling the net down as it did so. With shivering fear I saw the ectoplasmic fabric fall away from the pallid boy in the bed, his liquid eyes as widely open as my own. The familiarity of that moisture-speckled face jolted my spine with an ague of terror. It was an ashen face, grotesque in its mesmeric unconsciousness. I saw myself sitting there, shivering with the onset of fever, and stepping quickly into the room, unconscious of my supra-temporal state, I woke, sweating cold from the dream.

Copyright © David A. Sutton 1998 First published in Grue magazine

- 24 -

STEVE UPHAM

Mama ‘Kin : Copyright © Steve Upham 2008

- 25 -

CHARLES BLACK For Stevie, Fran, Anna and Jess The Tommys are a bunch of long haired rockers from up North. But this ain’t no bunch of sweaty blokes but four hot babes…

Angelo Saxon Sonic Rock Action

A

ngelo Saxon left the pub on a high; it had been a great gig. Now he had to get back to Bearwood. Chances were, he would be too late to catch the last train from Wolverhampton to Birmingham. That would mean he would have to get either a bus, or a taxi.

A taxi would be costly, but he did not mind the expense, there was no way he would have left the gig early. Still he might as well try and be on that train.

He began to run down the back road towards Wednesfield High Street.

Saxon quickly reached the main road, pleasantly surprised that the run had not worn him out, after all the dancing and jumping around he had done during the gig.

Looking around him, he could see no sign of a bus stop. He quickly decided to head down the road in the direction of Wolverhampton. Before long, he was able to flag down a bus.

Finding a seat, Saxon took out a notebook, and scribbled down some notes for the gig review he would write for the music fanzine, Sonic Rock Action. Ten minutes later the bus arrived at Wolverhampton bus station.

On disembarking he asked the driver, what the time was, and was surprised that it was only five past eleven; he decided the clock in the bar must have been fast.

Saxon ran the short distance to the railway station; he would be in time to catch the train.

As he reached the ticket seller‘s counter, a voice announced the departure of the 23:14 train to Birmingham New Street.

Saxon groaned. “What the fuck!?”

Ignoring the ticket seller’s frown of disapproval, he sought out a clock. Sure enough, the time was 23:14.

“Shit!” It was the bus driver’s watch that was wrong.

- 26 -

CHARLES BLACK Saxon sighed; at least he knew that there was still time to catch the last bus.

He began the walk to Pipers Row, then decided he had better run, just in case.

He was glad he had run, as there was a bus already waiting at the Pipers Row stop.

“Do you go to Bearwood?” Saxon asked, as he got on board.

The driver of the bus was black. He did not answer, but simply smiled.

Saxon assumed that meant yes. “Will you give me a shout when we get there?” Saxon was staying at a friend’s house, and had not travelled by this route before, he was concerned that the bus might go past his stop, without him realising it.

“Sure thing, man.” the driver’s grin grew broader, a gold tooth glinting.

Saxon showed the driver his all-day bus ticket, then found a seat near the back. There was only one other passenger, a middle-aged woman. She had long lank hair and wore bottle-bottom thick glasses. Saxon smiled in amusement; the landlord of the pub had been the spitting image of Ozzy Osbourne, and now this woman looked like Olive from the 70’s sitcom, On The Buses. He had never imagined that the West Midlands was such a hotspot of celebrity lookalikes.

The bus moved off, and at first, Saxon watched the late night revellers that adorned Wolverhampton’s streets.

After the bus had left the city centre, Saxon glanced across at the woman.

She had taken a paper bag from her shoulder bag, and was folding it, unfolding it and refolding it repeatedly. The paper bag was white, coloured with red blobs. It was the size that would take a 7 inch single. For a while, he watched surreptitiously, but soon lost interest.

He closed his eyes.

Ten minutes later, Saxon looked again and she was still engaged in folding and unfolding, her interminable origami was beginning to irritate him. What on Earth was she doing? Apart from the addition of a few creases, the bag remained unchanged. The woman did not appear to be creating anything; instead, Saxon felt that she was engaged in some strange esoteric ritual.

To his surprise, the woman suddenly stopped her folding, and began tentatively plucking at the bag. He realised that she was making an eyehole.

Saxon was tempted to get up, snatch the paper bag and tear out two eyeholes, or even rip the bag into little pieces. Of course he remained where he - 27 -

CHARLES BLACK was and closed his eyes again.

When he opened them again, Olive had gone. Strange, he thought, he had not been aware of the bus stopping. She had left the paper bag on the seat. He realised that it now looked vaguely like an owl, with two eyeholes, and a triangular hole for a beak or nose. There was something else that it reminded him of, but he could not place it.

He shook his head and glanced out of the window. The road was largely free of traffic, and the bus moved too swiftly for him to be able to read any of the briefly glimpsed street signs. He was unable to recognise which part of the city this was.

Saxon yawned.

“Hey man!”

Saxon woke suddenly, and was momentarily unsure of where he was.

The bus driver called again. “We’re here, man. You getting off?”

Rubbing his eyes, Saxon realised he must have fallen asleep.

“Yeah, sure.” He rose hurriedly and made his way to the front of the bus.

“Thanks.” Stifling a yawn, Saxon got off the bus.

The night air was cold after the warmth of the bus and Saxon shivered.

Looking around, he realised he did not know where he was. He turned to ask the driver for some directions, but the door had already been closed.

“Hey!” Saxon tried to attract the driver‘s attention, but the bus was already pulling away. Saxon was sure the driver had seen him. In fact, he could have sworn the driver was laughing at him.

“Shit!” Saxon kicked a discarded can in frustration.

He tried to spot a familiar landmark - not easy in the dark - he could not even see a street sign.

“If I go back the way the bus came, I should hit the Hagley Road,” Saxon spoke aloud, remembering the map he had studied at home.

After walking for five minutes, Saxon still had not reached the crossroads he had expected to find.

Instead, he had entered a rundown part of town. Either he had chosen the wrong direction, or the bus driver had dropped him off in the wrong place.

There were shops here; at first glance they all appeared to be clothes shops.

But many of the shop windows were broken, and all contained displays of shop dummies. But rather than fashionable boutiques, they resembled the red light - 28 -

CHARLES BLACK district of Amsterdam, with the dummies dressed only in lingerie. Saxon realised there was something else that was odd about them. Rather than all having the same plastic features, each dummy was unique and resembled a so-called female celebrity.

“Fuck!” Saxon was taken aback, when a Paris Hilton model - or was it that bird from Celebrity Big Brother? - turned its head to look at him.

“What the fuck is this?” he muttered. “Not another fuckin’ reality show!”

Saxon despised such television programmes and shook his head in disgust.

As well as not wearing a watch, another of Saxon’s peculiarities was that he did not own a mobile phone, he decided he would go back to where the bus had dropped him off, and try to find a phone box; perhaps he could find a number for a mini-cab firm.

Saxon started walking in the direction he had come from, but he soon realised that he must have taken a wrong turning. He stopped outside a butcher’s shop. He was sure he hadn’t passed that before. On a tray in the shop’s window was a carcass of rotting meat. Rotting meat teaming with maggots. A label proclaimed it was: ‘Fresh Meat - Only 17’. Saxon gagged in disgust, and wondered what the 17 referred to.

The sudden sound of a speeding vehicle attracted his attention, and he had to fling himself out of the way as a Range Rover rammed into the shop front. A hooded figure jumped out of the vehicle, grabbed the rotting carcass and ran off into the night shouting, “Trick or treat!”

Saxon picked himself up and crossed to the other side of the street. “Jesus!” was his only comment.

At least there was a sign ahead; Saxon moved close enough to read it.

“Oh, very funny.” The sign said: Nowhere. “I suppose Boredom, is over there.”

But there were no more signs to be seen. Instead the walls were covered with graffiti, strange nonsense words repeated over and over, Tekeli-li being the most prominent of them.

The wind was mounting, sending litter flying towards him, and carrying the sound of music.

“A party?” Saxon grinned; he would either get directions out of this weird part of town, or crash the party; judging by what he had experienced so far tonight it would almost certainly be a wild one.

- 29 -

CHARLES BLACK Heading towards the music, took him down an ill lit, piss stinking alley.

Saxon stumbled over something that lay in his path, something that groaned.

Saxon decided not to investigate, but hurried on, emerging from the tunnel into an area of looming tower blocks, to see a group of Burberry clad youths loitering and drinking.

“Flamin’ Chavs!” Saxon spat in disgust.

Spotting Saxon, the largest of the youths stepped forward. He wore a cap and a white tracksuit. “Go on Kev’,” urged one of the girls.

“Shut up Trix’!” Kevin warned, smashing his bottle on a wall.

“Your sort aren’t wanted round here, pal.”

“Pleased to hear it,” Saxon replied.

“You what?” Kevin thrust the jagged bottle in Saxon’s direction.

“If you’ll just tell me how to reach the Hagley Road, and point me in the direction of Bearwood, I’ll be gladly on my way.”

“Are you taking the piss?” Kevin’s face was reddening; behind him, his friends growled their anger.

“He is Kev’, he’s taking the piss,” Trixie confirmed. “Get the wanker!”

Kevin needed no further encouragement, and slashed the broken bottle at Saxon’s face.

Saxon jerked his head back, and kicked out with his foot. His foot connected with part of Kevin’s anatomy, but he did not hang around to find out where.

There was laughter as he ran down the alley, but the unseen obstacle had gone from the path, perhaps hidden in an alcove. After the alley, Saxon turned into a tunnel that he had not seen before. Damp tendrils brushed his face as he made his way along it.

Once out of the tunnel, Saxon took a side street. To his delight he realised he was outdistancing the chavs. He took a left, only to run slap bang into another group - a rival gang? However, unlike the first gang, they wore hoodies, making them look like sinister monks.

“Fuck it!” Saxon swore. “Straight out of Compton, into the fire!”

There was a mass hissing from the hooded figures. And as one, they pulled back their hoods, not to reveal their faces, but masks similar to those worn by members of the Ku Klux Klan, white and stained with red blotches.

Again, Saxon ran, and was pursued again.

- 30 -

CHARLES BLACK With a pain in his side, Saxon was breathing heavily; he knew he would not be able to run much further.

He did not have to. Saxon had reached a dead end. They had him cornered now.

“All right, all right,” Saxon gasped, back pressed against a brick wall.

“What is it you want?”

They regarded him silently.

“It’s money, isn’t it? Okay you can have it.” Saxon fumbled in his pockets, and pulled free a wad of ten-pound notes.

One of the masked figures reached out a dark hand, but instead of taking the money, the hand rose to pull free its mask.

Saxon recognised the black face as that of the bus driver. “You?” The bus driver smiled. “Ia Zamballah!”

The others pulled off their masks to reveal the plastic features of the celebrity shop dummies. Hands reached towards him, and Saxon threw the money at them. As the notes fluttered to the ground they burst into flames.

The dummies spoke with one robotic voice, “Entrance has been refused.”

“Get the fuck off me!” Saxon yelled, as plastic hands clawed at him. He began to struggle, lashing out with his fists, and feet. But there were too many of them, grasping and grabbing, and soon he was held prisoner. Then the hands began to pull.

Face contorting in pain, Saxon’s skin began to crack like a dirty eggshell.

His hands were the first to be torn free. Saxon’s scream was a shrill shriek.

Strangely though, there were no thick gouts of blood that spurted like fountains from the stumps of his arms.

Saxon’s hands were allowed to fall to the ground and they scuttled away like spiders. Eventually the hands were to reach the main-road that Saxon had earlier been unable to find, but crossing blind they were run over by a lorry that was carrying bottles of Fairy Liquid.

A plastic hand darted into Saxon’s screaming mouth and yanked out his tongue.

“Don’t make a sound.” The robotic voices admonished in chorus.

His feet were next, wrenched free with an audible crack. These were thrown high into the air.

Suddenly the dummies declared, “You’re not the one!” And they - 31 -

CHARLES BLACK continued to pull Saxon apart.

Somewhere a bell tolled.

The policeman indicated a pile of discarded clothes, including a pair of black skinny jeans, and a red t-shirt. “Here we are.”

The woman gave the clothing the briefest of glances. “Yeah.” she announced, her tone one of disdain.

“Are you sure?” The policeman frowned.

The woman glared at the constable through thick bottle-bottomed glasses.

“Do you think I wouldn’t know me own son? It’s him all right. He always was a loser, you can tell by his clothes, see?”

“Ah, right you are Mrs Saxon.” The policeman nodded, understanding lighting his blue eyes. He smiled, and took out a cigarette lighter. Crouching down he set fire to the clothes. “There we are, that’s better. Wouldn’t do to leave this rubbish here.”

“Can I go now?” Saxon’s mother asked. “He’s where he belongs, now.”

“Yes, I think so, madam. I don’t think we need waste any more time on this.”

As the flames took hold the policeman warmed his hands. “Halloween, always brings the nutters out,” he muttered.

They were both unaware that far above the ground, Saxon’s feet remained.

Copyright © Charles Black 2008

Don’t forget to check out the Black Book anthologies from Mortbury Press www.freewebs.com/mortburypress

- 32 -

STEVE UPHAM

Rebirth : Copyright © Steve Upham 2008

- 33 -

A.J. BROWN and S. COPPERSTONE Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.

"T

hey're going to love this year's treat," Kade said. He moved around the large steel table with a carving knife in hand. His milky eyes dazzled in the yellow glow of the overhead lights. "This is my most favorite time of the year."

On the table sat the body covered by a sheet up to its head. The live-one still squirmed though he couldn't move. The restraints made sure of that.

"All those years of being a surgeon come in handy at this time of year, don't you think, Mr. Mason."

Kade looked down into the read veined green eyes that stared back at him.

With the white cloth shoved into Mason's mouth he couldn't speak. Still he let out a loud moan.

"Don't worry—you will only fill a moderate amount of pain for a little while and then you'll pass out. Then you won't feel anything for a while. But, I promise, it will be worth every ounce of pain."

Tears formed in Mason's eyes and he shook his head.

"Oh yes," Kade almost sung.

In their homes, the children sang and danced as their mothers painted their off colored skin whatever shade of pale, brown or black that they chose.

Halloween shows played on the television and those who were finished with their dinners sat and watched until the sun began to set.

The anticipation made some of them bounce in their seats. Toes tapped.

Fingers drummed. Teeth even chattered. Excitement hung in the air.

"Would you like a smiley face or a frown? Or maybe a really scary face?"

Mason shook his head and moaned again.

"Hmm . . . none of those, huh?" Kade said and rubbed the blade of his knife against the side of his head. A flap of skin peeled back and a few strands of dirty brittle hair flaked to the floor. "Wow, that's sharp—I guess I should be careful where I put that blade."

Kade pulled the sheet away and looked at Mason's body. A pair of red underwear covered his privates but other than that Mason was nude.

"I hope you don't mind, but I shaved your body while you were asleep. You had a lot of hair and the kids don't like hair on their treats. You know what I - 34 -

A.J. BROWN and S. COPPERSTONE mean?"

Mason's eyes grew large and more tears formed in them. He shook his head hard and let out a loud yell that was muffled by the cloth.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I had to shave you. You just have to get over that now."

Kade sat the knife on a counter behind him and picked up a black marker.

He stood over Mason's ample belly and drew an odd looking oval just below his ribs. He drew a second oval and then a triangle around Mason's belly button. Kade tapped his temple with the marker and looked up at the ceiling.

Many images ran through his head until the right one came to mind. A smile creased his face.

"Oh, you are going to love this."

He drew the large squiggly line below the triangle and then brought it down close to his underwear. Kade picked up the knife and looked at Mason.

"Are you ready for this?"

Mason's screams were muffled as Kade plunged the knife into his stomach.

The children squealed with joy when the mothers beckoned them to get ready for the festivities. They hurried to their rooms and donned their different outfits.

They practiced the chants they learned from Halloweens past. Their voices rang up to the ceilings and few were off key.

"Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat."

Some of the kids added extra verses, having learned them from the older kids. "If you don't I won't cry. I'll slit your throat and then you'll die."

Mothers gave scalding looks to those offenders and threatened no Trick or Treat if the extra verses were added again.

Most of the kids knew the parents would never stick to their threats of no haunting the neighborhood—it was a rite and there was always this one house at the end of Corpse Avenue that did something different each year. If anything, the parents wanted to see how the Aver residence had decorated.

Kade pulled the flesh of Mason's stomach away. He bit down on a piece of it, chewed and nodded. "Very tasty."

He looked inside Mason's stomach. He had deadened the nerves and cauterized the flesh around where he had carved away the precious meat.

- 35 -

A.J. BROWN and S. COPPERSTONE Blood still flowed through the chest cavity and Mason still breathed, though shallow as it was.

The carved face appeared gruesome but Kade wasn't finished. He had left a long slit by the reamed out mouth. A mesh was in place, holding Mason's intestines in.

Kade carefully moved Mason's body onto a gurney he had procured from a medical catalogue he still received, even though he hadn't been a surgeon in well over twenty years. Mason moaned and opened his eyes. A few seconds later, his eyes closed again and he was unconscious to the world around him.

Kade pushed the gurney through the house and onto the front porch.

Out in the fresh autumn air, Kade took a deep breath. The coolness filled his throat but burned his ancient lungs. "Ah, I love this time of year." He worked like a cautious burglar, careful not to set any alarms off and give himself away, but in Kade's case, careful not to jar Mason's body and have his efforts ruined by an act of clumsiness. He carried Mason down the steps and sat him on the sturdy lawn chair. All around the chair sat empty beer containers and chip wrappers.

Kade shook with something akin to lust.

They walked the streets of the neighborhood donned in their homemade outfits and masks. Each child's eyes beamed with excitement as they went from door to door. The welcome lights shone brightly at each house, luring the kids to knock and speak their chants. Neighbors opened doors, smiled and played along. They oohhed and ahhed at the costumes; they told the children how cute and adorable they were; they gave them treats of lady fingers and animal eyes, of hair necklaces and cooked tongues.

"I got a rock," one kid said when he left each house. The other children laughed the first couple of times but after that they grew tired of it and begged him to stop.

Tunes of Trick or Treat rang throughout the night until they reached the Aver residence. It sat at the end of the street, the front yard lit by a dim bulb that cast shadows along the ground that looked like fingers stretching from trees.

Kade stood on the porch, his face covered by Mason's skin.

Several of the children approached the house. Their bodies hummed with giddiness and their eyes darted about the yard. Mason sat in the shadows near - 36 -

A.J. BROWN and S. COPPERSTONE the porch, one hand wrapped around a beer bottle. He moaned and the children stopped. Some of the parents leaned in to get a better look.

"I call this Drunk Man," Kade said and flipped a switch that lit up the yard.

A loud gasps echoed through the night as parents and children alike saw Kade's artwork. Mason's stomach had been carved out into a face, the lining burned black. Mason's eyes had been stapled open and crusted blood clung to his face. His intestines, which had been held in by the mesh, now dangled on Mason's lap. It appeared as if they had been vomited out of the wide mouth in his belly.

A little girl in a witch's costume, her pointy hat bent mid-way down, walked up to Mason. "He's still alive," she said and looked up at Kade.

"Go ahead. It's okay," Kade said.

The little girl set her bag on the ground and leaned down. She sunk her teeth into one of Mason's thighs. He screamed as she worked her teeth from side to side. She ripped off a piece of taut muscle and chewed. After she swallowed, she smiled. "Delicious."

"Come, children," Kade waved. "Enjoy this year's treat from the Aver residence."

Children squealed as they lit in on Mason. His screams filled the night, much to Kade's satisfaction. The parents looked on with a happiness that is reserved for their ilk as they watched their children partake of the fresh treats Kade had provided.

"You really outdid yourself this year, Aver," one of the parents said before he walked away with his little boy. Blood soaked the front of the boy's costume and he licked his fingers clean of the blood that had been on them.

Kade sat on the porch. The sounds of singing, happy children had long since faded. What remained of Mason sat on the lawn. A couple of bones had been pulled free and were strewn about the yard, but he didn't mind. Clean up was for another time. On his lap sat a skull. Part of it was still pink from blood and meat. He pulled a piece of flesh off of the cheekbone and plopped it in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed and then sang his favorite tune.

Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.

- 37 -

STEVE UPHAM

The Prophecy : Copyright © Steve Upham 2008

- 38 -

HUGH MACDONALD

D

arryl sat typing at his computer. The crackling noise coming through the baby monitor irritated him. It had been his idea to purchase it; the price had been right, five dollars at the local flea market. Karen was almost a year old and he believed it was time to move her into her own room. His wife, Sara, did not want to move her from their room, but he had gently suggested that it would be better if she started getting used to sleeping in her own room.

Buying the monitor was a spur of the moment thing and now, hearing the crackling noise, he thought it would have been wiser to have purchased new, as the cost was usually under fifty dollars. When he’d picked the monitor up from the flea market table, the old woman rose slowly from her chair. She had started right into her sales pitch, and Sara had tried to pull him away, saying she didn’t want something old like that and that it probably didn’t work anyway.

The old woman may have been slow moving, but there was nothing wrong with her ears, Darryl thought, and grinned to himself. She had turned her eyes toward Sara and assured her that the monitor was well made, “Why it’s made right here in Canada,” she had cackled, and showed the manufacturers stamp, CSA approved. Had she actually cackled? Darryl wondered. It had certainly sounded as if she had cackled. He had found it somewhat unnerving that she had sounded like the witch who had offered the apple to Snow White. Add to that, that it was Halloween, and it made it that much more eerie.

She had practically shoved the thing into Sara’s hand, telling her that it was sensitive enough to pick up a mosquito breaking wind at fifty paces. Sara had laughed, paid the five dollars and said she would give it a try.

Moving the crib and change table should have taken less than an hour, but Sara had delayed the process and it took somewhere closer to four hours. The children trick or treating were partially responsible for the delay, but Darryl believed Sara would have left Karen in their room until she graduated college if she had her way. He had set the crib up in the new room for Karen, and she appeared quite happy watching the mobile float above her. Sara seemed to ask every child their name and wanted to check under every mask. Darryl had seen some scary faces tonight, some of whom were the mothers of the children, tired from the walk and the worry of the little ones darting across streets without considering there might be vehicles traveling too fast. Sara really hadn’t wanted to move Karen from their room, but after nuzzling her ear and the promise of something more to come, she had relented.

- 39 -

HUGH MACDONALD Sara had fallen into a somewhat fitful sleep, missing Karen and listening for her through the monitor. Darryl decided to take the monitor into the living room that served also as his den. He knew that Karen might have a restless night as well, as she settled into her new surroundings. It had been several hours since she had fallen asleep, and other than the crackling noise that he’d just heard, the house had been eerily quiet. He had actually jumped as the noise came through the receiver, which he followed with nervous, embarrassed laughter, even though no one else was in the room.

Sara had informed him that Karen would miss his snoring. She said that his snoring was rhythmic and that Karen fell into his breathing patterns. Darryl had taken a large fan from the basement and put it on medium speed to try and simulate his snoring. It seemed to be working so far. It was getting late but he felt totally awake. He didn’t want to wake Sara and decided he would stay up the entire night to tend to Karen if the need arose.

Besides the crackling noise, the other sounds coming through the monitor were comforting. Darryl heard the light rock station that provided the background music the baby had gotten used to hearing, as well as the breathing of his beautiful baby girl. The light rock was punctuated with the occasional Halloween spooky songs with ghosts and goblins and graveyards.

He was glad he had been asked to take the position of editor of the Harris Township Weekly News. There was only a small stipend but it enabled him to feel part of the community. Besides, it was a matter of only a few hours a week, especially with the new software that was available. It provided him a respite from his real job.

Taking on the career change as manager of Harris Township’s Youth Centre had required a lot of soul searching. He knew the staff would resent him coming from ‘away’, but it was a significant remuneration package. The increase in salary alone meant that Sara could take the first few years off work and be a stay at home Mom, which was her choice, not his, but he fully supported her decision, as he believed it would be best for mother and child.

As he reflected on his own childhood, he realized how fortunate he’d been. His mother had been home when he arrived from school, and there was always a snack waiting.

Darryl hoped to get the staff to accept him once they discovered he would consult with them prior to making changes. The job itself was extremely - 40 -

HUGH MACDONALD stressful. Dealing with abused and broken children was difficult enough when he’d worked as a caseworker, but as manager, he had to ensure that his staff was taking the proper approach. The legal implications were bad, but he was more concerned with the children who weren’t assessed properly. His day job was extremely stressful, and this was why he liked the job as editor, as it whisked him off to another place, if only for a few hours.

It was therapeutic, and it allowed him to learn about the people of the community. He had been born in Cape Breton, about twenty kilometres from where he now lived, but his father had taken a job in Halifax, and Darryl had resided there for the past eighteen years. Now thirty, he liked the thought of being back in Cape Breton. But he was fully aware of the resentment that Capers felt toward fellow Nova Scotians from the mainland, especially Halifax. Once he’d been able to subtly add that he was originally from Cape Breton, the transition seemed to go more smoothly.

He wasn’t sure if stress affected hair loss, but he was becoming more aware of his ever- increasing forehead. Aside from his hair loss he was in great shape, weight within ten pounds of target, and Sara told him he carried the one-ninety well on his six-foot frame. He and Sara both took care to eat well and exercise.

She was more disciplined, but let him off the hook by saying that her five-foot nothing frame was high maintenance. He hadn’t noticed a fluctuation in her weight in the ten years he’d known her, other than when she was pregnant with Karen. He still marvelled at the fact that someone as classically beautiful as Sara was with him. She blushed a deep crimson every time he tried to be serious about how she looked. He hoped she was getting some well-deserved rest.

Except for the crackling, static noise, he believed the monitor had been a great idea. He scribbled a note on a sticky pad and pulled the sheet off sticking it to the computer screen–BUY NEW MONITOR. Darryl understood Sara’s apprehension at moving Karen to the nursery. She’d suffered two miscarriages and was told she’d never be able to have more children after Karen was born.

She was afraid to let go.

Darryl stretched his arms over his head; clasping his fingers together he cracked his knuckles. He decided he needed a coffee before he settled into the serious task of editing the poetry section. He was disappointed after realizing he’d forgotten to make a fresh pot and there was only an inch left in the bottom - 41 -

HUGH MACDONALD of the coffee pot. Cold caffeine would have to suffice.

Fortunately there was a can of cola on the fridge door. He took a few more cans from the cupboard and put them in the fridge. As he looked at the soft drink, he knew where most of his additional ten pounds came from.

He sat back down and began typing the poems, submitted by the newspaper’s readers, into the computer. Some of the poems followed no known meter, whereas others rhymed couplet after couplet. Darryl smiled as he read one from a senior, who had served overseas during the Spanish Civil War: ‘We spent time in Spain/We made love in the rain/We chased the girls to the sea/Some got VD but not me.’ Darryl chuckled, knowing full well that it was hardly the type of poem that could be included in the half page column that he’d devoted to the seniors since becoming editor. The poem didn’t bother him, but the various church groups would boycott the paper if the poem were included, so Mr. E. Jones’ freedom of speech would have to be compromised.

He would give Mr. Jones a call and perhaps they could rewrite a section.

Darryl put the poem aside and reached to get his drink. He heard voices coming through the monitor. Since it was old, he wondered if it was picking up someone else from the neighbourhood or perhaps a telephone transmission.

He’d been told the rock station hadn’t had a live DJ in years. It was canned music from eight p.m. until six the following morning. Perhaps it‘s a Halloween special, complete with a live DJ and all, Darryl thought.

Darryl picked up the next submission, a poem about butterflies and thought it more suitable. He heard the voices again, louder this time.

“Roll her on her back. She must be on her back for me to get her soul,” growled the voice coming through the monitor.

Darryl felt his flesh goose pimple as he picked up the monitor. “What the hell?” he said, as he pushed the power cord tightly into the wall. It still crackled.

He unplugged it to try it on battery power. The floor creaked behind him, and he rose quickly from his chair.

Sara was standing in the doorway, wiping sleep from her eyes. “I thought I heard the baby?” she said, as she tried to suppress a yawn.

“Not the baby, hon, just this stupid monitor,” Darryl said, remembering the words that had come through the monitor. “I don’t think it’s working properly, Sara. Let’s take Karen back in with us for the night, she can sleep between us.

- 42 -

HUGH MACDONALD We’ll get a new monitor tomorrow.” Sara’s eyes lit up. But her smile froze, as they heard: “Quiet, they’ll hear you.” It was the same rough voice Darryl had heard moments earlier.

“Don’t worry,” the second voice said, “by the time they get here it’ll be too late. Roll her back on her side, we’ve got what we came for.”

Darryl ran up the hallway to Karen’s room. Opening the door quickly he saw two small shapes racing toward the cabinet that held the monitor transmitter. They stopped and turned to face him, and Darryl was struck by the wizened, shrunken faces that stared at him. They were defying him. Their clothes were dark and the room had a musty smell that had not been present when Karen had been placed in her crib. One of them held a small, round container, the size of a dollar coin, which he kissed obscenely, before putting it in his pocket. In the next moment, they vaporized, passing through the screen of the transmitter.

Darryl stared at the monitor transmitter, as Sara picked up Karen. He heard her reassuring words of comfort.

“There there baby, everything’s all right. Mommy’s got you.”

Fighting off the desire to scream, Darryl moved to Sara’s side. He looked into Karen’s sweet face and was shocked at the vacant stare. He looked more closely and felt his blood turn cold. Something was missing in her eyes. The thing had been holding a container. Was the essence of Karen to be found within? Darryl had taken the monitor receiver into Karen’s room with him. He now snatched up the transmitter and hurried outside. He pulled the transmitter apart and saw what he’d expected to see, a small piece of fibreboard with soldered wires. There was no container to be seen. In fear and anger, he wrapped the wires around both parts and threw them toward the garbage bin at the end of the driveway, then walked slowly to the house.

Charlie pulled the car to the side of the road, and was out and back in in a matter of seconds. He held the object out for his wife, Muriel, to see. She moved their two month old baby to her other arm, then asked, “What is it, Charlie?”

“Trick or treat. Looks like we got a treat. Why it’s one of those expensive baby monitors, practically brand new,” Charlie said. “Probably only have to - 43 -

HUGH MACDONALD solder a wire or two, then it’ll be good as new. You know what I always say, Muriel, one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.”

Copyright © Hugh MacDonald 2008

RECOMMENDED READING! from Screaming Dreams

The Dragons of Manhattan

by John Grant.

ISBN : 978-1-906652-00-5 Paperback : 216x138mm : 368pp Cover artwork by Bob Eggleton

Can it be true that the right-wing US Administration of President Alfie Sedoma is under the control of shapeshifting dragons who regard human beings as prey?

A wonderfully funny, acidly sharp political satire. The original serialized story is now available as a complete novel in paperback for the first time.

For more information and to order your copy please visit the book page on the Screaming Dreams website, thank you.

- 44 -

STEVE UPHAM

Hmm, Crunchy! : Copyright © Steve Upham 2007

- 45 -

CHARLOTTE BOND

A

s his big sister strode off down the garden path, Conor stood anxiously listening to the eerie silence that had settled over his village this Halloween night. He remembered last year when the village green had been lit up with bobbing lights, laughter, squeals and colourful costumes. This year, Conor could only make out a few small groups of children making their way from house to house. Without fail, every one of them was glancing warily around.

‘Come on, squirt,’ called Libby from the garden gate. She stood, hands on her hips above an obscenely short skirt and stripy tights. A witch’s hat was placed at a jaunty angle, casting a shadow across her blue eyes which only served to emphasise her bright scarlet lipstick. Conor hesitated, not wanting to risk a telling-off from his sister yet too nervous to step out into the night. He twisted the plush tail of his devil costume between his hands indecisively.

'I want to go back and get my torch,' he called out. Libby tapped her heeled boot impatiently.

‘No!’ she called back. ‘You should have remembered it. God – you’re so stupid for a six year old. I was never that dumb! Now, stop wasting time. We're lucky Mum let us out at all, what with everything that's been going on.’ Conor shuffled his way unhappily to the garden gate. His sister rolled her eyes at his reluctance.

‘Not afraid of the dark, are you?’ she taunted.

'No,' he replied sullenly, 'just what happened to those other kids-' ‘Nothing happened,’ Libby snapped, marching off. ‘And certainly nothing like those stupid horror stories you kids tell in the playground. Now, come on!'

Conor followed just far enough behind to show he was sulking, but close enough that he wouldn't fall behind alone in the darkness. Despite his sister’s blunt assurances, he looked about constantly, expecting danger to reach for him at any moment.

Yet his nervousness began to abate after they had visited the first two houses in their row. Fewer children around meant more sweets for them, and their booty-bags were soon bulging.

When they got to the door of number fifteen, the elderly Miss Brandon opened it and smiled at Conor in his resplendently red devil costume. His cape had a spiky hem which nearly reached the ground and the devil horns on his head sparkled in the moonlight. The look Miss Brandon gave Libby was less enthusiastic, and Conor guessed she was thinking the same as him – that no - 46 -

CHARLOTTE BOND self-respecting witch, even on Halloween, would wear such a short skirt. Nor such bright red lipstick.

‘Trick or treat!’ Libby and Conor chorused. Miss Brandon produced a bowl of toffees and the two children descended on them greedily.

‘You’re very brave, my dears,’ she said. Even Conor, as young as he was, could hear the unspoken comment: or else your mother is very stupid to let you out.

‘It’s no problem, really,’ said Libby dismissively.

‘Even with all those poor children having vanished recently?’ asked Miss Brandon, taken aback by Libby’s flippancy. Libby shrugged.

‘But they all turned up again,’ she replied. ‘There was no harm done.’

'No harm?’ asked Miss Bradenton incredulously. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Libby dear, have you not seen those poor children since they reappeared? They’re all so listless now, like someone has stolen their minds, or their souls.’ Conor tried to avoid Miss Brandon’s gaze. He thought about Simon Martin who had disappeared for two whole nights. He could vividly remember Simon’s cold hands in assembly on his first day back at school, and the way he mouthed the words of school songs without any sound coming out.

Libby merely snorted in disbelief. Conor knew both she and their mother had been utterly convinced by Dr Turner’s explanation that excessive exposure to the cold night air during every disappearance had resulted in a particularly nasty strain of flu, with serious dehydration causing listlessness. He had never explained what caused the children’s nightmares though.

Miss Brandon shook her head sadly as she closed the door and the children made their way back down the garden path. Libby inspected her takings eagerly, but Conor lagged behind, unable to rid himself of the memory of Simon Martin’s vacant eyes staring at him over the top of his Maths book.

As Conor dawdled, Libby marched ahead, straight passed the parish church. There were no streetlights on this stretch of road, and Conor glanced nervously up at the brooding building. It seemed to collect darkness around it like a cloak and he walked on the edge of the pavement, as far away as possible from the forbidding shadows which lurked in the graveyard. Conor’s eyes searched the darkness for the hidden monsters which plague every small child’s imagination when the darkness closes in. His gaze fell upon the two gargoyles above the church door. Conor’s step faltered as he stared at the ugly - 47 -

CHARLOTTE BOND creatures, one squat and scrawny, the other large and stocky – both equally repulsive. With menacing expressions on their stone faces they crouched either side of the church door as if poised to spring down and tear apart any unworthy soul who tried to pass below them.

‘Come on!’ called Libby from up ahead. Conor picked up his pace, his eyes fixed suspiciously on the gargoyles, but he froze when he saw the scrawny one’s head turn to look at him. The wide mouth, usually open to spout water, closed into a leering grin. The gargoyle cocked its head to watch him with interest and Conor was hypnotised. He nearly screamed as a hand grasped his arm. Libby peered down at him impatiently.

‘Stop dawdling!’ she reprimanded before striding off and dragging him behind her. Conor glanced fearfully over his shoulder and his stomach knotted in fear to see that the gargoyle had vanished from its plinth next to the church.

‘Libby,’ he began, ‘I thought I saw-’ ‘Stop blabbering,’ scolded his sister as they emerged into neon brightness once more. She pushed him up the next driveway. ‘We’re at Mrs Wilkinson’s, and you know she always has toffee apples. Try and look deserving,’ Libby added as she rang the doorbell. Conor wanted to turn and scrutinise the darkness behind them for any sign of pursuit, but Libby forced his head round as the door clicked open.

‘Oh, don’t you look splendid!’ warbled Mrs Wilkinson, a tray of toffee apples in one hand. Conor barely heard any of the conversation between Mrs Wilkinson and his sister. All he could imagine was some stony terror reaching out to grasp his ankles and drag him back to hell. He knew that the cause of madness among his friends was stalking him and he would be the next child in the playground to look lost and empty.

Conor leapt in fright as a thick shrub next to the porch rustled violently. He let out a strangled squeal as a dark shape leapt out of it and raced towards him.

‘Oh Merlin, there you are, sweetie,’ said Mrs Wilkinson, bending down to scoop up the tabby cat which had skittered to a stop at her feet. Conor’s heart was racing and he could see his sister’s sly grin out the corner of his eye, mocking his childish fears.

‘Not a bad haul,’ Libby said, rooting around in her bag as they made their way back to the road. ‘Just one more house then I can get my little scaredy-cat brother tucked up in bed.’ Conor ignored her jibe and, as Libby picked up the - 48 -

CHARLOTTE BOND pace, he watched his surroundings constantly. He was petrified that any moment he would feel cold stone hands paw at him. Every stone in every garden wall seemed to be a leering face to him.

Libby knocked excitedly at the next door and Conor suddenly realised the motivation behind his sister’s choice of outfit. Conor peered passed the young woman who opened the door at her teenage son who was skulking behind her.

‘Trick or treat!’ Conor and Libby chorused again. Conor saw the hovering boy glance at his sister before sneaking out of the back door. The moment the woman closed the door Libby grabbed Conor roughly by the arm.

‘Stay here,’ she warned in a low voice. ‘I’ll be back soon.’ Libby thrust her booty-bag at Conor before hurrying round the back of the house. Conor glanced down at the two bags – last year Libby would have fought ferociously before giving up her haul, yet this year was different. It seemed the temptation of Mark Reynolds held more promise than a few toffees.

As he contemplated the sweets within Libby’s bag, wondering if he dare liberate any of them into his own, a scratching sound made him look up. Fear began to creep up his spine with the realisation that he was all alone in the darkness.

Conor’s heart began to beat faster. Normally he tried to escape Libby’s company at every opportunity but right now he wished fervently that she was here. His eyes frantically scanned the darkness, his ears straining above the sound of his pounding heart to listen for danger.

The scratching noise came again from below the porch. Conor began to edge his way in the direction Libby had gone, moving as quietly as possible. A fat grey hand curled round the edge of the porch near him and acute terror gripped his stomach. Conor stood mesmerised as a grisly stone face appeared to leer at him. The two tiny eyes which watched him were surrounded by folds of blubbery stone flesh. Recognising the second of the two gargoyles, despair washed over Conor as he realised that both of them were pursuing him.

As the gargoyle started to clamber up the porch towards him, Conor’s trance was broken. He sped across the porch, vaulting over the advancing creature. A stone hand snaked out at surprising speed and he felt cold granite claws catch at his ankles before closing on thin air. He wanted to scream but his throat was dry with fear. Too terrified to look back, Conor blundered round the corner. He nearly bowled over his sister and Mark Reynolds, locked in a - 49 -

CHARLOTTE BOND fevered embrace.

Both teenagers turned to him in shock, Mark’s mouth stained scarlet with Libby’s smeared lipstick.

‘It’s after me, it’s coming,’ Conor babbled. ‘It was going to-’ ‘Oh, shut up you little brat,' said Libby, her initial surprise turning to fury at the interruption.

‘It’s okay,’ said Mark, ‘I’d better be going back inside anyway.’ Libby wore a hangdog expression as he walked back into the house but it changed to one of anger when she glared at Conor. Wordlessly, she stormed out of the garden.

Conor hurried close behind, anxiously looking around. Before they turned the street corner, he saw two grey shapes scuttle towards the garden gate and he pressed closer to his sister.

‘We're going home,’ Libby said stubbornly as they reached the end of the street. Conor tried to slip his hand into hers, but she shook him off. ‘You’ve spoilt it all,’ she said. ‘I’m going to tell Mum how rubbish you are, how you were scared even the shadows were chasing you.’

As they passed the churchyard again, Conor began to shiver. It was suddenly very cold and, as the moon went behind a cloud, it was suddenly very dark. Libby strode on oblivious, but Conor halted in shock as the streetlights behind them flickered then dimmed until their light barely reached the pavement. He turned to see the same happening ahead of them.

‘Libby, I don’t think-’ Conor called out but a violent tug on his devil cape sent him sprawling backwards. Conor was winded as he landed hard on the pavement and terror squeezed his heart as two pairs of stone hands gripped each arm. He struggled helplessly as he was pulled backwards, two granite faces grinning down at him. Conor kicked and struggled, and he saw Libby turn at the commotion he was making. Her look of irritation turned to one of shock as she watched her little brother being dragged away by two animate stone gargoyles.

‘Help!’ croaked Conor as his heels flailed uselessly against the pavement.

Conor felt faint with fear and the world took on the surreal slowness of a dream.

He looked up to see the gargoyles now staring intently at his sister. He saw Libby put her hand to her mouth in horror. He watched her take a step backwards, ready to flee.

Conor wanted to call out to her not to turn, not to run – not because he - 50 -

CHARLOTTE BOND thought of saving himself, but because he had seen what was behind her. A blackness was rushing towards her beneath the dying streetlights. It was not the darkness which fills a room when an ordinary light is switched off, but the malignant living darkness which crowds at the edge of nightmares. It pooled into a large sphere of shadows behind Libby, growing swiftly in size until it towered above her.

Oblivious of the danger, Libby turned to flee and time stood still. Conor saw his sister framed for a moment against the growing darkness. It was a last perfect snapshot of his sister before oblivion engulfed her.

Conor stared in uncomprehending shock at the sphere of darkness which quivered before him. The air seemed to vibrate with an unseen heartbeat. The gargoyles released their grip on him and Conor stood up slowly. Rubbing his bruised arms, Conor looked thoughtfully from the living void to the gargoyles, uncertain as to which was the lesser of two evils. The gargoyles sat motionless on the pavement, staring at the sphere. Conor hesitated for a moment before he reached down and patted each of them on the head.

‘Thanks’ he said uncertainly. The scrawny gargoyle looked up at him for a moment then shrugged its shoulders with the familiar scratching sound of a thousand grains of sand scraping against each other in movement. No problem, it seemed to be saying.

Conor turned his attention back to the darkness. His legs were cramping, desperate to break into a run, yet he felt he couldn’t abandon his sister – wherever she was. The hairs on his arms and neck stood up as he approached the darkness. The unseen heartbeat shuddered a horrible rhythm down his spine and there was a bitter taste in the air which grew stronger the closer he came. The gargoyles followed him, their stone claws clicking against the pavement.

As he edged closer to the living darkness, Conor became aware a new sound coming from it. Almost on the edge of hearing there were cackles, screams, demonic gibberings and pitiful shrieks. At first, it sounded distant and muffled, but it quickly grew in a crescendo until it seemed the whole world was screaming. Conor covered his ears as the cacophony reverberated through his skull. He tried to stumble away but his legs felt weak, his brain disorientated. As he sank to his knees, he squeezed his eyes shut against the flashing lights which began to dance across his vision. Tears stained his face at - 51 -

CHARLOTTE BOND the thought of his sister lost within this screaming darkness and the fearful knowledge that he would be following her any second now.

With one final almighty shriek, the darkness vanished, taking its hellish melody with it. Conor staggered up, dazed for a moment. As the ringing in his ears diminished and his vision returned, he saw that the street lights were back on, the sky had cleared and his sister was sitting calmly on the pavement.

Conor's heart sank when he recognised the vacant expression on her face. He approached tentatively and his sister looked up at him with slightly unfocussed eyes.

‘Come on,’ Conor said with a sigh far too heavy for his young years. ‘Let's go home.’ He took Libby’s arm and she rose without complaint. As she followed him compliantly down the street, Conor looked up at her expressionless face and empty eyes. He wondered if she’d ever return to being the nasty, narcissistic girl he knew so well, or whether she’d stay the dull and docile he was guiding home now. He felt guilty at which one he wished for most.

Two pairs of stone eyes watched the children head home. Then, exchanging a look which might have been sadness or could have been satisfaction, the gargoyles turned and scuttled back to their plinths to watch and wait.

Copyright © Charlotte Bond 2008

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- 52 -

STEVE UPHAM

Nightlife : Copyright © Steve Upham 2008

- 53 -

SEAN WOODWARD

L

eaves huddled against the edges of the high walls. All along the street, at the bottom of each set of steps, bright orange pumpkins peered out, some with gleeful smiles, some with more menacing grimaces. The dark grey skies were starting to match the outsides of many of the Brownstones. The winds were marshalling rain clouds that further tried to strip the autumn day of its colour. In the distant Virginia countryside huge brooms of fog and mist were already scrubbing the trees of their colour, turning distances into flattened shades of an old theatre stageset, raising ghosts from the civil war's dead.

Earlier in the evening music had wafted out of the house, the way it had every night that week. Lyric's from Gothick's new record had bounced around the room. "Break open the seals. Cast the chains down. Raise your head. We are made in darkness. We are made in the dread spaces between. We are scream and the legion of scream. Dream our dream". The neighbours upstairs were starting to get tired of the same songs, same loud guitars and drums raging in the house.

The house itself was situated in the heart of Jersey City on the western edge of Kennedy Boulevard. For all intents it was an average, non-descript city building. It had the same stone cladding, the same drifting piles of amber leaves, the same pumpkins as all those around it. The area had recently become popular with students, the cheap rent attracting them to a once run-down, deserted neighbourhood.

There was little of worth to describe about the house itself. It had only three points of interest. Firstly, it had a clear view across Newark Bay to the airport.

Second it lay on the intersection of three powerful convex ley-lines. The third cause for the building's celebrity was only just about to become apparent.

The ground-floor room was dark, just the flickering illumination of the computer screen picking out edges in the blackness around. The furniture had been moved away from the centre, shadowed angular shapes piled against the walls.

The figure sat on the floor before it as the webcam's movie played out before him. He watched, transfixed, as he saw himself methodically carry out the phases of the rite. He had no recall of the scenes before him, of the bodies ripped apart, of limbs arranged in groups of five to mimic the bright red pentagram still wet on the bare floorboards. The hours of flesh torn from ligaments, of screams silenced behind gags and enchantments danced before - 54 -

SEAN WOODWARD him. In brief moments of lucidity he thought he detected the shadow of something behind him. It seemed to direct his actions as his arms moved in slow, puppet-like motions.

As N'Tarran hung from the ceiling he took particular delight in the taste of the fresh, hot blood left on his finger from his recent artistic efforts. The fine cut of his Saville Row suit did not falter as he gazed down upon the carnage of his own making, suspended as he was in the gravity-defying fields of his kind.

Soon night would be approaching and he could leave. For now he was happy to study the details of his handiwork from above and licked his pointed canines more.

The Hallowmass rites required excited desires and so the full textbook of Marquis De Sade perversions had been employed in the now slow-playing movie. Such delicate horror took a wide range of skills. Mesmerism, allure and cold-hearted, detached, other-world existence to undertake the painstaking detail of the ceremonies which unfolded.

New York's finest would recoil in horror when they finally received the call, walked into the room covered in blood and the young man silent before the screen. They would never understand the words smeared around the female bodies. The many curves and angles intersecting strange formulas of minute, bloody script. The Satanic Crimes Taskforce would have a field day with theories, deluded mediums and expense-paid trips to Jerusalem. They trawled the occupant's history, his travels, he Internet records. Nothing would illuminate the meaning of the words etched on the bodies in the rims of medieval pentacles.

By then of course, the vampyre N'Tarran was long gone but the words would remain pinned to the top of their investigation boards for many months.

Stefan. Cabal. Witch House.

It was the words N'Tarran had first used, before they were scrubbed over with fresh blood which would have given the Taskforce the clues they needed.

If they had understood the import of the veves scratched onto the surface of one of the windows then that too would have alerted them to the intent behind the carnage. It was the window that looked out across Newark Bay towards the airport. It was the concave path of a ley-line which would carry the dark intent all the way to Gate 23 where Stefan sat waiting with his fresh coffee for the Jamaican flight.

- 55 -

SEAN WOODWARD For a family that had once enjoyed the favours of the elite in Ireland, she thought they had fallen a long way. She would never hear Papa speak of the follies of the outsiders who tried to join their circle again or of the ways they were snubbed and finally simply ignored by those across the border. She missed the approximation of his menservants, the way they would pay particular and close attention to her every word and movement. Initially she hadn't seen that life for the gilded cage it was, that would only come later when she was able to choose for herself which men were worthy of her attention.

Tonight was one of those times. Outside in the yard, the old obeah woman had raised the poteau-mitan. The pillar stood proud, surrounded as it was with the chalk-white veves, the pictures that spelt out the names of the highest vodoun gods. Haiti was full of these pillars tonight. Back in England the old year would finally be dying with the fall of golden red leaves. The feast of Samhain was approaching. Hallowmass, the beginning of the new year and also the time when the veils between this world and the underworld were at their thinnest. Sister Annie had taught her the dates of the old festivals as well as the practices that would tie a man to her forever. Outside, as the old woman marked the pillar with more white snakes and crosses it reminded her of an old childhood board game. Only this was a game she had no intention of losing.

As the last light of the day fled, the others gathered in their white clothes.

They began the chant of the Long Name, the one that would call the vodoun from their homes above the sky, to ride the starlight, to alight upon the top of the poteau-mitan and from there to mount their steeds of flesh. Soon the silence would be full of the shrill cries of the celebrants, their bodies turned into the steeds of gods.

For thirty years I've carried the image in a magnetically clamped locket.

Originally there had been another photograph, but the allure of this one would not leave me. The woman's face within that brass oval was not harsh or foreboding, but in some small way, showed a hint of surprise. It was almost as if she'd been startled by the appearance of the photographer and the ignition of his pile of flash powder. Her eyes seemed to look beyond the frame in a way that suggested it was in fact myself that had startled her, as if recognition had flickered across her features from some distant shoreline of the past.

But of course, there was a simple but intricate problem to all of that.

- 56 -

SEAN WOODWARD I had not been the photographer. She had not been in the room.

When I first stood in that corner, the open windows showing me the low rolling fields laid out down towards the Caribbean sea, it had been empty.

There had been only the sound of floorboards creaking with my entry. The remaining silence had been emptied of all the centuries of suffering, all the decades of pain that myth had washed upon the subterranean chambers and decorated every room with woe. In the now hollow plantation acres, the aching anguish of men's legs bitten within man-traps, of backs bled bare by the harsh lash, of shortened years with little laughter, were conveniently silenced.

The sea-breeze had ruffled the curtains, limp beside the open shutters. I knew there was time to spare, my young guide having departed to the coralwalled cellars below. Gazing around the room the shortened four-poster was a surprise, for paintings had show the mistress of the house to be much taller until I remembered it was the custom of the day to sleep in a near-seated position.

I had taken out the well-used Sonikon and framed my shots perfectly.

Ensuring that the light pouring in through the windows did not adversely affect the exposure I began to photograph the key features of the room. First the bed, sheets clean and pristine and then the small scarlet chaise-lounge. Before long I came to the main feature of my attention. Her mirror. I looked behind one last time to ensure I was totally alone and then walking close enough to fill the frame, took two photographs. The black frame was almost matt and I wanted to be sure I caught the detail, for there were the traces of pale Haitian veves scratched into its surface. The veves were like the silver lines of old English slugs that weaved patterns of snakes and crosses and circles.

The true nature of the problem did not occur to me until later, in the darkened galley of the ship leaving the West Indies, as I watched the large prints materialise from their vats of chemicals. For on the first picture there was nothing in the mirror but the empty wall behind me, whilst in the second photograph she stood, with that shiver of recognition on her face that has haunted me ever since. Were the scratched Obeah signs there to banish or to invoke? I was never sure, but regardless, in the moments between the taking of the photograph and its twin the very fabric of our world had been quickly rent, unzipped and allowed to flap in ever colder breezes.

"That's a great ghost story Stefan" said James, downing another Jack Daniel's to outstrip the tally of my own empty shot glasses.

- 57 -

SEAN WOODWARD "Well, like all great ghost stories, here's the proof." I took the locket from beneath my shirt, pulled the chain over my head and placed it in his hand.

"Go on, open it".

Almost tentatively, which was unusual for him, he applied leverage to the middle section and the magnetic force abated enough for it to open.

"Well, she's certainly a looker, this ghost of yours!"

"Oh, I don't think she's mine James." I emptied my own glass and moved to retrieve the locket.

"So this is the great adventure you got me all the way out here to New York for? Why didn't you just tell me back in London there was a woman involved?"

"C'mon Jimmy, I know how you feel about my work. I thought it was high time you discovered it isn't all hocus-pocus and double-exposures".

"So who is she, the woman in the photograph?"

I knew simple answers would be no use to him. He'd spent a lifetime ignoring the dark worlds around him. If he didn't have me for a brother then maybe he'd have been able to go on that way, but there were too many strange sights that managed to wrap themselves around me and this was one had been waiting, wrapped a long time.

"You'll find out soon enough James."

The pre-recorded security message reverberated from high in the ceiling of the steel and glass terminal lounge as I got up from the bar stool, left ten dollars by the empty glasses and strode purposefully towards the departure gate.

Across the way in the outlet of Hudson's News, an elderly lady was berating the staff over their range of magazines. Clearly, in her eyes, there was a world of difference between The New Yorker and the New York Magazine and she was determined to let all share her disappointment that her preferred option was not stocked. I scanned the selections myself, like a mini luggage carousel they surrounded the cashier and wallpapered the small booth. There was little to interest me any more than the copy of the New York Times already sticking out of my laptop bag.

Pretty soon James had joined me on the lattice of seats. The steel frames managed to angle their form into the minimum shape required to create the semblance of a chair. That was the nature of their being, no doubt, to offer transitory rest, never anything more. Through the large window, beyond the silver shape of the airplane the sun was breaking above the horizon. It was not - 58 -

SEAN WOODWARD a welcome sight. This twilight world of scattered time zones, sleep deprivation and alcohol was beginning to take its affect on me and I my body was crying out for sleep whilst my mind urged it on through the processes needed to get to the plane and the respite of an immediately horizontal seat.

"Looks like we're together" said James wafting his boarding pass before my face. He was clutching a selection of magazines. All the latest technologies and killer advertisements of Wired, an old, pristine copy of Mondo2000 that he carried as a status symbol and just so no one in the know would have any doubt, the latest issue of 2600. I raised an eyebrow at the latter.

"Research Stefan, you know how it is - got to keep one step ahead of the enemy." He smiled. I knew he'd got so used to parroting this excuse to everyone he worked with.

He was fortunate; his miss-spent youth with telephones, black boxes and later peer to peer networks had earned him enough respect at Mind's Eye Securities to fund his digital adventures. They gave him a free reign, just so long as their clients' server farms remained out of reach of the Russian, Chinese and Korean hackers.

"So how come you didn't get me any discount on this?" I said, patting the black leather and inlaid white Apple logo of my laptop bag.

"That's easy big brother, no none else has a 256-Core yet, you don't know quality when you see it!"

I grinned. I knew more than he realised, but it was fun to let him think he knew best. We'd been like that all the while growing up together. He was always there with the smartest strategy, or the latest game or piece of high-tech wonder. Unfortunately it was lost on the rest of the family, no matter how infectious his own enthusiasm got. Well, not entirely true, you see I had a vested interest in the source of all the creativity that had produced that technology in the first place. Jimmy liked to bask in the glow of the incredibleness of it, whilst I preferred to fathom the depths of the minds that had made it. It was a dynamic reflected in the cameras we carried. Me, with my battered old Nikon, him with the latest digital Bronica-Sony, ever clamped to his hand. Any moment now I knew he was going to jump up and immerse the early morning terminal in its flashlight as he catalogued the passing moments.

For some reason he proved me wrong.

"Stefan, what's this all about ? If you need me to find some woman I can do - 59 -

SEAN WOODWARD it from anywhere, you know we don't have to be out here."

"True, but this isn't the type of system you can just hook into. You saw the photograph, she needs us there physically."

"OK, now you've got me confused. Plus a little intrigued. How long till the flight?"

As if on cue, the airline staff began the boarding announcements. I picked up a copy of the Sunday Herald as we entered the plane and showed James the photograph on the front of the brightly clothed motherly woman, Mama Loi Olivia Tyaishia.

"Isn't she a member of‌" Before he could finish I stepped into the cabin of the aircraft.

"Yes James, this is Cabal business and I need your help".

"Good morning sir, if you'd like to take the stairs to the left, we'll be serving refreshments shortly" said the stewardess, preventing James' response. She looked at my boarding card stub and then directly at me. "How would you like me to address you Colonel Anderson?"

"Just Stefan. Stefan is fine."

I climbed the spiral stairs, passed the bar and walked towards the Upper Class seats. Refreshments were already being dispensed and I ordered another Jack and Coke as I stowed the laptop bag and waited for James to catch me up.

Unfolding the Herald, I looked over the photograph of Olivia. The greens and oranges of her clothes accented the dark tones of her skin beautifully. The years had been kind to her. No doubt she would have plenty of tales of her grandchildren for us. Opening the locket I looked once more at the photograph of another woman. A woman of opposites. Opposite skin colouring, opposite life, opposite obeah - black, to Olivia's white. The photograph, itself, starkly tonal black and white echoed this dance of opposites. One woman alive, one dead. After thirty years away from the island I wondered if this was a good time to return.

Olivia was already wrapped up in the politics of her people, wrapped up in the comfort of her family. I had no right to tear all that apart and yet the photograph had a different plan. Those Haitian marks on the frame weren't just veves, amongst them was a date. October 31st, of this year. There was no turning back from the photograph now. After thirty years preparations in the old plantation house for the sĂŠance were already being made. By the time we - 60 -

SEAN WOODWARD landed Olivia would already have prepared her old clothes. Gone would be the joyous colours of the newspaper photograph as she too is wrapped in the blacks and whites of a Priestess of the Other Nation.

Walking up the sweeping driveway toward the house I could only think of the label it had earned. The House of the Witch. Perhaps it was the woman's English heritage that had made that label stick, maybe it was just the atrocities that had become synonymous with her. I took out the locket and flicked it open.

James had been right; the woman could easily have entered my top ten of women most likely to seduce me. In fact, in many ways she already had. James caught up with me.

"So Stefan , explain to me again how you think I can help with this Halloween spookery?"

"Those veves, they're not just random. It's a schematic. Some kind of blueprint to a machine I think."

"So why don't we skip the fancy dress ball and just go build this thing then?"

"You know as well as I, it has to be powered, sideral incubators and templargrams, the whole damned shooting-match. It has to be in this place."

James did his "I don't understand a word of this" look and overtook me. In the stone archway beneath the house, Olivia was already standing there, welcoming guests to the house. She was dressed from head to foot in white, accentuated only by the sparkling red on the frame of her glasses and the thin black serpent winding down the length of her robe's arm. Stepping forward she hugged me tightly.

"Stefan, you've been away too long brother".

"Its true Olivia, let me introduce you to my actual brother". James had hesitated ahead and now was slipping behind me, trying to avoid the inevitable embrace.

"I know this one Stefan, I have seen him in the company of the Orishas".

James was oblivious as she sidestepped me and embraced him as he was trying to move backwards. I wondered what she meant though. It was unusual for the beings known as Orishas to spend any time in the company of humans, let alone my brother.

"C'mon" I said, pulling his arm as we went through the tunnel on the other side of the door. "I'll introduce you to the others.

- 61 -

SEAN WOODWARD The inside of the large underground room had the feel of old English pub.

There was dark wood everywhere. The bar seemed to be hewn out of one piece of tree and squeezed into the corner of the room. The light fixtures were mock baronial – huge candled affairs that wouldn't have been out of place in some Scottish Laird's mansion. In the centre of the room the chunky wooden tables had been brought together and laid out so that the full complement of the Cabal could be seated. Around the edges of the room further chairs had been placed for the few invited guests.

I looked round quickly, caught the faces of Olivia, Mortimer, Isak, Sophia, Klara and others whom I'd barely met in this world. The arab, Zen'Diq Al Akka as always sat with head hunched over raised hands. To others it would look like prayer but I knew full well the range of practices he was undertaking.

Some were of Sufi origin, others belonging exclusively to the Cabal. In the Outside he would already be manipulating the fierce currents of the Sidearalia, funnelling their energies into Harmonics Guards in an attempt to provide protection for the gathering. Looking at the members of the Cabal as they sat around the table, each would have brought their own shields to the show.

I rubbed my forearms, where the Watchtower marks burned with heightened anticipation, making the welted, aggravated flesh ache. Over the years they had become a good indicator of the influence of those from Outside.

But then, the very protections which had been brought to this old house would act as bright beacons to those from Outside. In this manner their summons would be automatic, none would be able to escape the aching curiosity which entered their beings.

Olivia moved to the head of the table, arms outstretched In the centre of the collection of oak tables, the device had been unfolded. Its edges were marked with templargrams and showed the scars of recent fires. At its heart sat a jet-black pyramid made of an elder obsidian stone. Four members of the Cabal touched hands, their faces fixed on the device. The arab, Al Akka, seemed even more hunched than normal, as the intensity of his silent practices became palatable.

"She is laughing at us" said Olivia, turning towards Stefan with a look of fear on her face.

Stefan looked across the room, he was beginning to think it had been a bad - 62 -

SEAN WOODWARD idea to bring James here. But he needed his expertise. The woman in the locket had indeed learnt many of the old ways of witchcraft and vodoun. Her very essence had drenched the house all around them.

He opened his third eye and gazed at the room on the Inner Plane. Already the floor was filling with autumn leaves. Everywhere he looked they started to move in tiny eddies, blowing into piles and little mounds. From the edge of his vision he saw the final one of his proxies fall. They had been his last line of defence against the forces that were now reigned against the Cabal. He had created the proxies, bodies of shadow-light, barely beings of shells, years ago as substitutes. When the laws of retribution deemed that he should pay he had always been able to deflect the currents with the proxies. The sudden loss of this defence brought him back to the physical room. He wondered what prices the others were paying at this very moment and the value to be gained in continuing with the sĂŠance.

It was as if Olivia had heard his thoughts. She turned towards the device on the table, laying her hands palm upwards around the dark pyramid at its heart. Immediately small black and white markings began to appear on the surface of the tables. They spread across all the wood until it was a black surface covered with small snakes, crosses, circles, arrow heads and horseshoes.

Even the undersides and the legs were transformed. Stefan couldn't be sure if it was now some kind of vodoun altar but already the melded tables were emitting a soft, low drone.

James moved towards him from where he had been standing on the edge of the room, near the empty bar.

"Put the locket on the table Stefan" he said, motioning with a block of wood towards an area on the black surface which contained a large white elipse. "I was thinking it had something to do with sound" he said, turning the wooden block over.

Down the centre of its surface was a copper strip. He ran his finger along it.

As he did so the humming began to become modulated. Soon it was following the ebb and fow of his finger.

"OK, that's about as much as I''ve worked out" he said, passing the instrument to Stefan. He moved back towards, the bar, hands upraised in a gesture of reluctant defeat.

Stefan tugged on the chain around his neck, pulled out the locket and - 63 -

SEAN WOODWARD placed it on the table. With his other hand he put the instrument down, hoping one of the other would know what to do. Olivia smiled.

Olivia dragged her forefinger slowly across the length of the instrument. As she did so Stefan opened his third eye once more, bathing his vision in its golden touch. Immediately he saw proxies for other members of the Cabal blink out of existence. As he looked around the room became emptier and emptier. Just Olivia standing by the table, an eerie sound emitting from the instrument as its octaves collided with the harmonic guards that had been erected at the quarters. Slowly these too began to blink out of existence, their sounds replaced by the thunder of hoover and the baying of horses.

The others were witnessing these too. As Stefan watched, the remaining people, James included, were running to the back of the room where a door led to steps up out of the cellar. The sound of the frantic horses became louder.

Olivia was casting enchantments about herself, keeping her finger on the instrument.

"Why have your brought her to my home?" screamed the woman. Stefan fought back the urge to call her a witch. That word had been abused too many times.

She was a priestess of the Outsiders, he could see that immediately. Olivia obviously irritated her.

The sound of the horses was still building, though by now Stefan doubted if they were actual horses. His doubts were soon extinguished as a hoard of white robed figures filled the room, gesticulating wildly in a kind of brokenpuppet dance which saw their heads snapped back and forth as they circled the screaming woman.

By now OIivia had stepped back from the black altar with its strange instrument. If she had thought it might put an end to the manifestations, she was wrong. The witch drew close to where Stefan stood.

"You have watched me, haven't you?" He thought of the times he had opened the locket, gazed upon her face before it had become contorted with screams.

"Yes, yes I have" he whispered.

"I've felt your longing" she said. Her face was no longer distorted, but contained some of the beauty he remembered, her dark hair Egyptian in its - 64 -

SEAN WOODWARD arraignment. She pulled at her ragged clothing, exposing her nakedness to him.

The others ripped at their clothes, following her prompt until she was surrounded by naked, writhing women.

Stefan himself was torn now. She had reached through to the core of his emotions. All the years of Cabal training, of Henri's Muller's experiences shouted succubus. He knew he too should be running upstairs, but the longer she stood there, the longer he became entranced. Without realising it his gaze was settling on her features, becoming lost in the marble of her thighs, the curves of her waist. Henri's voice was now a distant murmur as he glimpsed her though the pale flesh of the others writhing about her.

He heard the music rising to replace the trampling of hooves. Heard the snippets of words. "We are scream and the legion of scream. Dream our dreams".

From behind the witch stepped out the sharpe-dressed figure of N'Tarran.

"You won't escape me this time human" he mouthed, throwing the hexladen dagger directly at where Stefan stood.

Stefan felt his body lurch and fall.

Opening his normal eyes he saw James pulling him to the floor.

"What?" he exclaimed. "No time for questions now big brother, c'mon".

Shocked back into the darkness of the underground room he began to follow James towards the steps and door which let out upstairs into the main panelled rooms of the house.

"Wait a minute". He breathed heavy. "I need these". He grabbed the black pyramid from the central table and the locket.

The house was full of members of the Cabal and the guests that had been invited to the Halloween sĂŠance. The usual guides had been given the evening off and so they all had a free reign of the house. James led him further upstairs, past the displays of pumpkins and half-gutted candles. As Stefan moved up the wide staircase he was aware of all the sightings of the witch there. Together with the old wrought-iron balcony of her bedroom it was one of the places most strongly associated with her apparitions.

James opened the study door and gestured towards the side table where his laptop lay open.

"So what the hell went on down there ?" asked James. Stefan sat down, holding the chairs old wood for comfort and to earth himself.

- 65 -

SEAN WOODWARD "It was her, the woman form the photograph, the witch."

"That's a bit strong isn't it?" James was reaching for a brandy decanter to fill the two glasses that he was already manoeuvring onto the table.

"No. Literally. That's not all. N'Tarran was there too."

"Who's N'Tarran. Is that a Jamaican name ?".

"No. He was one of the first members of the Cabal. He brought many of our secrets. At first he gave us this amazing story. He told us he was an aristocrat of some near-extinct European dynasty. His family had been explorers and had amassed an amazing collection of artefacts. These included the Templargrams, Harmonic and Sideral Generators. The more we learnt of his amazing collection though, the more suspect we became."

"Suspect?"

"Yeah, take this for example." Stefan placed the obsidian pyramid on the table. "Look at the markings. Some look like ancient Sumerian cuneform, some like Afrrican vodoun marks. But look more closely".

James peered at the pyramid as the white snakes flickered and moved across its surface. "Holograms?".

"No. Do you hear the noise?". James now moved closer. He could make out the soft humming, with an almost rhythmical pattern.

"Yes, I hear it. What is that?"

"We don't know. For a long time I believed N'Tarran was something more than he showed us. We never saw him during daylight. There were always strange murders in the cities we travelled through. The others thought I was crazy but Henri understood. He understood enough to get killed himself."

Stefan paused, too many memories rising to the surface. "It has something to do with that device and something to do with these."

Stefan rolled up his sleeves, showed James the Watchtower marks on his forearms.

"Did N'Tarran do that?" asked James.

"No. It was another Cabal mission. But I learnt enough to know that N'Tarran was hiding a lot more than we had thought. We need to end this tonight. And I need your help to do that."

"But how?" James picked up the obsidian device, turning it round before him. After a moment he put it back down, pulled open one of the desk draws and unfolded the sleek skeleton frame of his 4D scanner. "Let's see what this - 66 -

SEAN WOODWARD gives us".

Connecting it to his laptop they both waited as the blue scanline moved across the surface of the device, translating its dimensions into something binary that his programs could dissect. He launched the Minds Eye Decryption Algorithm and waited for the code to do its work.

"Wow. There's something strange about the angles here. Hold on". James altered some of the programs parameters and re-ran its analysis routine.

Suddenly there was a banging on the shut study door. It was Olivia.

"Stefan, James, come quickly, she's here!"

"Stefan, James, come quickly, she's here!"

The scene in the main hallway downstairs was pandemonium. The witch stood in the centre, her dark hair blowing wildly about her, her clothes looking like they had never been torn.

Against one of the tall bookcases, Al Aka was trying desperately to fix a breach in the Harmonics Guard. Stefan knew immediately, instinctively that it was too late for such measures. Al Aka would not give up though. Already he was wrapping lengths of material around volumes from the bookcase, attempting to bind the spells that flew all around him.

The whole room felt as if it was wrapped in a tornado as the currents grew stronger around the witch. Stefan struggled to remain upright. Once again he could hear the hammering sound of hooves getting closer. He knew they had very little time left to act.

James came running down the stairs from the study, the obsidian device in his hand.

"I've got it!" he shouted. Running past Stefan, he placed it carefully on the old wooden floor. Pulling a cell phone from his pocket he quickly keyed a string of numbers. The device started to hum more loudly as its surfaces began to unfold. As Stefan watched he couldn't quite comprehend the angles and strange planes that began to swell from the device. It was almost like a hot-air balloon billowing into existence, from thin, flat fabrics.

As it grew, the air above it became charged with the patterns of Templargrams, their high-energy vortexes powering the invisible machinery.

The typhoon that had surrounded the witch now seemed to distort, the greys of its winds funnelled into parallelograms and tilted surfaces that pulled her - 67 -

SEAN WOODWARD towards it.

With a blinding black flash the device consumed the witch, folded in on itself and sat in the middle of the now calm room.

"The Harmonics Guards never fail" shouted Al Aka from the far bookcase.

James looked towards Stefan in disbelief and then grinned widely.

The leaves had become like crisp parchment. A thousand pieces of an old manuscript ripped and discarded as the old monk eradicated all mention of the man in the chronicles. Down in the village the children were already taking swedes and carving Halloween faces. The sight filled him with dread. Soon darkness would consume the old Irish village. Soon the night-walker and his bride would return to the House of the Witch.

Copyright Š Sean Woodward 2008

COMING SOON! Dark Reign Anthology eBook A collection of short stories with a dark fiction theme. 18 blood-chilling tales.

Read them if you dare.

Featuring work by Alexis Child, Brian Willis, Jim Steel, Debbie Kuhn, John Grover, Brandon Ford, Mark Butler, Peter Tennant, Mark E. Deloy, Jesse Gordon, Shaun Hamilton, David A. Sutton, Neil Burlington, Kimberly Garland, Robin J. Hutton, Anthony Kendall, Mark Howard Jones and Christopher C. Teague.

- 68 -

STEVE UPHAM

Elemental : Copyright © Steve Upham 2008

- 69 -

MARK BRASSINGTON

R

achel stood trembling as the room began to come alive. Stark moonlight spilling in through the window was the only light in this shell of a building, shaded from the outside world by dense, primeval forest. Sliding her back against the flimsy portacabin wall, the first, alien vibrations of the earthquake began to make themselves known, and suddenly nothing was safe anymore.

A deep, guttural groan, as if someone surfacing from a coma, came from the centre of the room, where a flatpack table stood. Behind it, was a tall, gaunt man, his white shirt torn open, and stained with blood, his dark hair, abandoned and greasy, standing out at odd angles. His head was twisted back, and silhouetted in the plastic light of the full moon, as an anguished, slurred moan broke free.

As the room contorted with vibrations, a kettle and some cups on the side, left long ago by workmen, began to chatter and jump along the Formica, and Rachel tried to shrink into a corner.

On the table in front of the man, held in his taut hands, was a pale silver orb, perhaps nine inches across, and it was the only thing that wasn’t moving.

The man’s name was Simon Caldane.

Dr Rachel Hammond had been the on-call forensic psychologist when a disturbed man had been brought in by police. She had been with a student at the time, an overenthusiastic young man by the name of Tom Naldon and had made the decision to bring him along. He’d reacted like a crazy puppy when she’d offered him the chance to accompany her on an assessment, and as she stood outside the seclusion room now, she chewed on her glasses, wondering if she’d made the right decision.

Rachel had been working at the Kesterbridge secure mental institute for about eight years now, since she’d left university really, and she’d risen to become a favourite of Dr Samoweitz, the clinical director at the institute.

Although some cruel whispers had attributed that to her healthy good looks, and her long dark hair.

“Now Tom, you must promise me that you will only observe today. This is a new patient, and he’s liable to be very excitable. Please just let me talk to him.

If you have any questions, you can ask me afterwards. Do I have your word?”

“Yeah. Of course. Anything you say,” he replied gleefully. He could barely stand still and clutched at his clipboard like a toy.

- 70 -

MARK BRASSINGTON Pausing briefly before unlocking the door, she considered whether she wouldn’t have been better off leaving him back at her office.

The seclusion room was a stark affair, just four white walls and a heavily reinforced window. Even the light fitting was in a wire cage. In the centre of the floor was a mattress covered in black rubber, and lying half on it, was a young man of perhaps thirty. He had short, tousled brown hair, and strong features that would have made her look twice at another time and place. But now, all those features seemed to communicate was anxiety and sorrow. He looked up as they came in the room, his movements sluggish from the Thorazine.

“Hello Simon,” she began in a level voice, “I’m Dr Rachel Hammond, one of the psychiatrists here at the institute. You can call me Rachel though.”

She squatted down next to him and tried a smile, but the man was clearly distraught.

“Simon,” she continued calmly, “I know that this must be a terrifying experience, being brought here against your will, but it’s for your own protection. I’m here to help you. Do you know why you’ve been brought here today?”

His gaze fell to the floor, but he couldn’t help looking back up at her.

“You think I’m crazy don’t you,” he said despairingly.

This was often the hardest part of the treatment – winning the patient’s trust. She’d spent years in medical school learning about treatments, drugs and potencies, but not once had anyone taught her how to handle a patient’s emotions. It often took months, and in the end it was only patience and compassion that won out. In the early stages, it wasn’t unusual for them to sulk, often for days.

“I’m not judging you Simon, all I know is what I’ve been told by the police who brought you in. They say you frightened a lot of people today at an office in town.”

Trying to get down to his level, she sat down on the cold, stone floor next to him.

“They wouldn’t listen!” he said, struggling to sit up in his chemical haze. “I was trying to warn them. The Dalessandro building’s going to be destroyed.

They’ll all be killed. I need to get out and warn them.” Caldane’s face was torn with emotion.

Rachel put her hands in her lap, and continued her patient questioning.

- 71 -

MARK BRASSINGTON “I don’t understand, how’s the building going to be destroyed?”

“In an earthquake – well, at least that’s what it’ll look like. I’ve heard them around the place, I know what they’re doing. They’re getting ready. I’ve seen it all before.”

His gaze wandered off as his conversation began to ramble, but Rachel made no effort to stop him. It was good in these early stages for patients to talk unhindered with the occasional prompting to keep them in the right direction, or perhaps encourage a little reflection. She purposefully steered clear of asking about ‘them’.

“So how do you know about the earthquake then?”

“I can hear them, you know? The ones who cause them. They think I can’t hear them, but I can. They don’t just do it, they work themselves up to it. I can tune in to them.” His tone was enthusiastic and conspiratorial – he was giving up his secrets. But then a dark shadow fell over him and he stared at the floor with eyes that had too much white. “But sometimes they tune in to me. And I can’t get them out.”

Caldane was chewing his lip nervously, edging back towards the fracture in his mind. She had to keep him calm for now.

“Are you hearing them now?”

He looked up into her face as if surfacing from sleep. It was impossible to tell if it was the Thorazine or simply his confused mind.

“No,” he replied slowly, “not at the moment.”

A barroom voice cut across both of them: “What do they say? You said you’d heard them.”

It was Tom. Rachel turned and glared at him. It had been going fine, and this could easily trigger the patient off. Tom dropped his eyes downwards under the blazing intensity of her gaze. Idiot!

“Just mumbling really,” replied Caldane casually, and managed to slide up the wall.

Rachel turned back and struggled to resume the conversation, but the spell was broken. Caldane had become visibly more agitated “They’re out there!” he said with alarm, “And that building’s going to be destroyed. Those people will all be killed. I’ve got to warn them! The powers will take them!”

He was staggering around the room now, arms stretched up.

- 72 -

MARK BRASSINGTON Rachel held up her palms for calm, “Relax Simon, just relax. We need to help you first.”

Christ, why wasn’t he properly sedated?

“No! I need to warn them!”

Clumsily he managed to lurch forward, and grab hold of Rachel’s jacket.

But then Tom came piling in, shouting with both fists, and all three were hurled to the floor, elbows jarring painfully on the hard surface. But with manic intensity, defying his chemical cosh, Simon launched himself upwards, back on his feet, and out through the open door, screaming down the hall.

It was raining by the time Rachel found the address. A row of terraces in a part of town claimed by immigrants and students. She knew. She’d lived in this part of town for two years before graduating.

Caldane’s place was 62b, meaning it had been converted into two impossibly small flats by a hand-rubbing landlord. Peering through the bleary windscreen, she couldn’t see any lights on. In fact the windows seemed black.

Caldane had somehow managed to get out of the secure unit, despite having to go past the nurse’s station. Samoweitz was furious when he found out about the escape, but luckily poor Tom had taken most of the blame, bleating loudly about how sorry he was. She’d re-checked Caldane’s medication chart after the escape, but everything seemed to be in order. How he’d managed to stand, let alone run, with that much Thorazine in him, was quite an eyebrow raiser. Caldane must be one determined, tortured soul, she mused.

Turning up the collar on her coat, she gathered up her bag and braved the short distance to the front door. She knocked and waited as the wind blew teasing strands of hair around her face.

A half-shaven constable in a blue uniform answered the door.

‘I’m Rachel Hammond from R13 – the secure unit. Sergeant Pickle asked me to come over?’ she left the question hanging.

Please don’t make me show my ID card, she thought. It’s either buried at the bottom of my bag, or on the kitchen table at home. But he simply nodded and made way for her to squeeze in to the dark, narrow corridor.

Hurrying to get in out of the weather, she stumbled on a heap of junk mail promising free cars, free holidays.

- 73 -

MARK BRASSINGTON ‘Pleased to meet you, I’m PC Neil Davis. Watch your step,’ he cautioned, switching on a torch. ‘The light’s broken.’

The torch’s ulcerous, yellow beam lit up an impossibly steep flight of stairs, cluttered with jars of different sizes all the way up and it was as she followed its dancing beam, that Rachel smelled the stench. Something must have died in here.

Testing the ground in front of her, she blindly began to make her way up with Davis holding her elbow. It was like an assault course and she couldn’t help knocking a couple of jars off down stairs to bounce and thud heavily down to the entrance below.

‘I take it that our Mr Caldane is something of a hoarder then?’

‘Of sorts,’ he replied cheerfully, as another small avalanche began. ‘They’re full of … er … faeces. And urine.’

She shouldn’t have been surprised, she’d read about it often enough in textbooks and articles. But actually clambering around them in the dark was quite something else. Rachel was trying as hard as she could not to actually touch the stair carpet, which made it even harder to climb. But in the end she had to, they were just so steep.

It was sticky.

Neil shouted next to her ear, making her fall against the wall for support.

‘Steve! Give us a hand, will you?’

A pale shadow appeared at the head of the stairs, and soon she felt a friendly arm guiding her up amongst the debris. As she got towards the head of the stairs, it got lighter, and she could see the jars and their contents more clearly.

Each one was carefully labelled with a WHSmith address label, and the date clearly printed in black marker.

‘Thanks,’ she said to Steve.

He smiled down at her in the pallid light. It was the first smile she’d seen all day. Steve was a few years older than Neil, and the lines of his face were more easy-going, less harsh.

As Rachel stood at the head of the stairs, wiping her hands down the sides of her wet coat, she blinked in the hazy light coming in through the window.

She was looking into a small lounge and somehow the whole room was glittering and glistening. Initially she mistook what she saw for a trick of the - 74 -

MARK BRASSINGTON light, or perhaps the adjustment from the gloomy stairs, but with a sickly chill she realised that she was seeing the room correctly.

Stepping past a flimsy, internal door she found herself in a room where every available surface was covered in tin foil, held down with sellotape. The walls, sofas, chairs, the TV, even the magazines and newspapers were all covered in foil.

‘Unusual taste in decorating, eh?’ remarked Neil.

‘Yeah – he should go on “Changing Rooms!”’ quipped Steve, but they both quietened down when they saw the expression on her face. She must have looked horrified. She couldn’t blame them though – humour was a perfectly sane reaction to the insane. Laughter, it was sometimes said, was like a highly evolved growl – against anything that was too different, too radical. It didn’t pay to think too deeply about the sort of mind this home had sprung from. But then that was her job.

Neil coughed uncomfortably before speaking, as if suddenly remembering Rachel was there.

‘It’s the same throughout the flat. Even the knives and forks are wrapped in foil. I had to tear it off the window just so we could get some light in the place.’

‘Incredible…,’ she managed, marvelling at the detail of his obsession.

‘So why do they do it then?’ asked Steve, ‘The foil I mean.’

She crossed the room to a door opposite and opened it onto a dark, shrouded bedroom. Even here there was no let up. Once again, the window was covered, blanking out the light.

‘It’s to stop people controlling their thoughts,’ she replied absently, remembering what she’d read. Carefully navigating her way to the window, amongst the discarded shoes, clothes and god-knows-what-else, she duplicated the efforts of her companions and tore the foil and sellotape away.

Murky light crept through the clouds, illuminating a landscape of boxes and littered belongings all wrapped carefully in foil. It looked like something out of a cheap sci-fi series.

‘Controlling their thoughts?’ echoed Steve from the doorway, ‘Is that what they believe?’

‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘sadly. It’s a common delusion amongst Schizophrenics – they think the tin foil will block anyone from controlling their minds. They sometimes think it blocks out their voices.’

- 75 -

MARK BRASSINGTON Rachel could feel a little confidence returning now. She was on firmer territory with psychotherapy. The bizarre, Brownian motion of the world was easier to map and handle with a framework laid over it.

‘Schizophrenics? Aren’t they people with split personalities?’

A common delusion, she thought, and knelt down to start examining the contents of the room.

‘Not usually,’ she replied. ‘Schizophrenics are characterised by hallucinations and delusions. They often hear voices, and have paranoid delusions. It’s not unusual for them to have visual hallucinations as well.’

She began to sort through the boxes of junk in Caldane’s bedroom, tearing open the foil to reveal a magazine, sachets of salt, batteries. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just to get a handle on who he was and what might have caused his breakdown. She was curious. There was already more than enough to have him sectioned, should he ever reappear.

It was in the bottom of a box of charity shop clothes that Rachel found what she was looking for. There were dozens of newspaper clippings from all over the world, some from Japan, others from Australia. As she sifted through them, a theme became apparent – they were all related to the rise and fall of one of the most notorious cults in recent history, the Aum Shinrikyo cult. It was all there in minute detail, from the early beginnings to its eventual scandalous link to the deadly Tokyo subway gas attack.

At the bottom of the box was a framed picture (in foil of course). But it wasn’t a photo, it was another cutting, this time from a magazine. It sat slightly askew, the cutting too small for the frame, and she managed to slide it free. It was part of an article on permaculture.

Shoko Asahara, the cult’s leader, had gone to meet some workers from Aum, on an allotment. It was a group photo with English and Japanese characters on the back. In the centre of the picture was Shoko Asahara, the cult’s leader, and standing, shaking the man’s hand, beaming with pride, was Simon Caldane.

Like a talisman, she held it up, finally finding the hook she’d been looking for to hang Simon Caldane on.

Then, the room began to shake.

Back in the comfort of her office, Dr Rachel Hammond sat with a hot cup of - 76 -

MARK BRASSINGTON sweet, black coffee.

The Dalessandro building had been destroyed, of course, almost down to the foundations. Although it was only a small office building, compared to some of the monoliths which occupied the world’s capital, still over four hundred were feared dead, and only a handful had been found alive. The Dalessandro building, it seemed, had been the epicentre of the quake.

Rachel was having a crisis of faith. Were the blood of four hundred people on her hands? Had Caldane really known where the quake was going to strike?

But how?

None of it made any sense.

She was caught in her dark musings, when the phone rang. An outside line by the tone.

“Dr Hammond.”

“Hello Rachel.”

It was Caldane.

“Simon?” she managed.

“You’ve heard about the Dalessandro then? Perhaps now you understand my curse, what is happening to me.” There was an edge to his voice now, which had not the slightest trace of anxiety.

“You didn’t predict that quake. You couldn’t have…It’s just …”

“- a coincidence? You should live in my world. Coincidences happen all the time.”

“But how?”

“I told you. I hear them.”

She shook her head, trying to clear out the confusion and the heresies.

“It’s not possible,” she whispered.

“Then how?” he asked.

“I don’t know… I just… I don’t know.”

There was a pause then, as if Caldane were giving her time to think. He certainly didn’t seem to be worried about a trace.

“Rachel,” he said quietly, “I didn’t call you up to debate what happened, or to gloat over anything. I need to ask you a favour.”

Still reeling from how her world had come unglued, she couldn’t think of what to say. Should she help him? Was he anything to do with these quakes?

No, she thought, he’d risked being locked up on a secure ward to – - 77 -

MARK BRASSINGTON The door burst open with a crack, and she nearly dropped the phone. It was Tom. “Christ Rachel, look at this! It’s about that Japanese death cult…”

“For god’s sake Tom, can’t you knock?” she shouted at him.

It was like a slap to him, but it had the desired effect. Seeing his shocked and hurt expression, she regretted it, and toned down her rebuke, “I’m on a call Tom.” “Oh, ok.”

He stood there watching her.

“So,” began Rachel on the phone, “what did you want?”

“My passport.”

“Your passport?”

Tom’s eyes flicked up, from their downcast gaze.

“I can’t explain. My passport’s back at my flat and the police are watching.”

He must have sensed her hesitancy. “If you bring it to the old Forestry office in Brownett’s wood tonight, I can explain everything.”

With that he was gone, and with deliberate slow motion, she replaced the receiver.

“What did you want Tom?” she asked, without looking at him.

His enthusiasm rekindled instantly.

“Look at this!” he exclaimed, spilling lurid documents onto her desk, “The Aum cult were massively into earthquakes. They conducted research into how to cause one using secret technology from an old scientist called Tesla. And listen to this: On the eighth of January nineteen ninety-five, the head of their cult, Shoko Asahara, predicted on the radio that an earthquake would devestate the city of Kobe. Nine days later a massive earthquake in Kobe killed over five thousand people.”

“My god…” she whispered.

“And that’s not all,” said Tom, shaking with excitement, “he said that it wouldn’t be a natural quake at all, but one triggered by a foreign government, using a new technology.”

Who the hell was Simon Caldane?

This was how Rachel found herself at the old Forestry office, in the middle of the woods, with Simon Caldane. Before leaving to get his passport, Rachel had - 78 -

MARK BRASSINGTON scanned her emails, and noticed one sent with high priority from Dr Samoweitz to all staff. Apparently, the anti-terrorist squad had been in touch with the institute, saying that Simon Caldane represented a threat to national security, and that if anyone knew where he might have gone, they should contact the Clinical Director immediately.

She didn’t read the rest of the email, but left straight away.

The forest was huge, and dark. Primeval. In the dusk it felt oppressive, rather than inviting. She stood in the empty, silent car park clutching Caldane’s passport, wondering why she was here. Because she wanted answers.

Caldane’s prediction had rattled her, upturned all the assumptions which her world was built upon. She needed to talk to him, even if it meant risking prison.

She couldn’t move her mind onto anything else.

A crusted, wooden sign, with tiny green lettering pointed the way to the Forestry building, down a dark trail into the forest, and she set off quickly before losing her nerve. It was spongy with pine loam. The trees were impossibly dense, seeming to conspire against her as she wandered uncertainly.

The empty forest seemed to be alive with sounds, a scurrying amongst a bush, the crack of a branch, some way back towards the car park. Her heart felt cold and hard with fear, of where she was, and what she was doing. Dr Rachel Hammond had stepped off the map.

Eventually she found the prefabricated cabin in a clearing once used as a staff car park. Tentatively, she approached ghostly, white building.

“Who’s there?” came a shout from the darkness, and with some relief, she recognised the voice as belonging to Caldane.

“It’s me Simon. I’ve brought your passport.”

“Rachel?” he asked, gentler now with less urgency. A torch flicked on, dazzling her, and she could see the outline of the man in a nearby doorway. “I didn’t think you’d come. You weren’t followed were you? Come in, come in.”

Still tense, she followed him into the cabin.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“The police, authorities,” he waved dismissively, “They don’t understand.

Some of them are trying to hunt me.”

“But why? What have you done?”

He sighed, and hauled himself up to sit on the kitchen top. A shadow in the corner.

- 79 -

MARK BRASSINGTON “I’m tuned into them you see. I can here them moving around, like rumbling ghosts. It’s because of them that I’m hunted.”

“Are those the ones that cause the earthquake?”

“They follow me around. I can never be free of them, but they’re getting worse, getting closer.” His voice was dream-like, meandering.

“Has this got something to do with the Aum Shinrikyo cult?” That seemed to take his attention.

“Yes. That’s where it started. That’s where I was trained to hear them, to attune. That’s when they gave me this.” He gestured to a grey sphere on the table in the cabin. She hadn’t seen it before in the shady half-light.

“What is it?”

She slowly reached out for it.

“Don’t touch it!” he shrieked, and was across the room to her in a heartbeat.

Recoiling in fear, the true danger of her circumstances, alone in the woods with a madman, became coldly apparent. “For god’s sake…” Quieter now. “It’s like a transmitter. It calls them.”

“Where did you get it?” she asked in spite of her fear.

“I enrolled on a program in Aum, something to do with telepathy, oneness of mind. It involved a lot meditation and yoga. Out of seventy, only a few of us made it through the final tests. That’s when they gave us each one of these things.”

My god, how many were there?

He continued, “We were told that they were tens of thousands of years old.

Apparently studies have been carried out on them, and they are more closely spherical than anything we could produce even today. The only way they could be made would be in the vacuum of space. They’re like a lens, they amplify what can be heard, and the thoughts you send. But they only communicate with the others, not other people. They’re the ones which cause the earthquakes.”

“We took them out into the desert in Australia, and that’s when we were shown how to call them. We caused huge earthquakes, some of them nowhere near any fault lines. When geologists started appearing nearby taking measurements, we had to move on. Once we were trained, we were sent out into the world, ready to receive orders. But when the temple broke up, and Asahara was arrested, everyone in the Order was interrogated. That’s when - 80 -

MARK BRASSINGTON they found out about us. I’ve been on the run ever since.”

His gaze slowly settled on the dull, sphere. “And they’ve been following me, wherever I go.”

He stalked around the table now, staring at the sphere with ferocious intensity. “Can’t you hear them? They’re close by. It was only this morning, and they’ve found me already.” Slamming his fist on the table, he raged, “Leave me alone!”

In the distance a dog barked, as if in another world. But then, Rachel realised, there were more than one, and they were somewhere in the blackness of the forest.

“Simon,” she began, “We have to go.”

But he was stood motionless, his hands gently placed on the sphere, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Simon!”

She could see torch beams now, twitching amongst the huge trunks.

That was when the room began to shudder.

It felt as if the whole flimsy building were being dragged across the clearing. The walls shook violently, twisting and tearing, and she was thrown to the floor. Caldane was mumbling something, his eyelids fluttering. White knuckles clutched the orb and, slowly, it began a slow juddering dance of its own, quite apart from the upheavals taking place far beneath the earth.

An unearthly scream of pain and triumph ripped from Caldane’s throat, as the orb seemed to throw him about, until finally he slammed it down on the table with immense force.

In the dim glow from the window, Rachel could only see in black and white.

There was a lull in the deep vibrations, and something was happening to Caldane’s sphere. As she watched, it shook and cracked, until the whole thing split wide open. With a groan, Caldane fell back and collapsed. Amongst the pieces of the orb, there was movement, and as she watched, a tiny blob writhing with tentacles emerged from the wreckage, a squeal erupting from its tiny maw.

No sooner had the creature emerged, than the earth beneath her groaned, and the roof was torn from the building like a piece of paper. Towering into the sky, were several huge tentacles. Amongst them, was a circular maw, filled with row upon row of teeth. It roared in answer.

- 81 -

STEVE UPHAM

No Return : Copyright © Steve Upham 2005

- 82 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS

I

n the year of our Lord 1915 a unit of ten Imperial German cavalry--all women--moved slowly though the Belgian town of Zandsteert singing an enchantment that would have broken Odysseus.

Major Brunhilde Lockspier sat at the head of the column. Well into her forties, with a face worn and dirtied by mud and war, she was stiff and dignified. Her movements were precise and measured. Presently, she signalled for her unit to quieten and they dutifully obeyed.

They sat looking about them, their mechanical mounts farting acrid, blackened exhaust fumes into the fog as their grumbling, two-stroke engines were muffled beneath blankets and saddles. The ten women were virtually lost beneath their Stahlhelm helmets, swords, breastplates, guns and bandoliers.

They had arrived at the town expecting resistance, and had sung Das Lied--an enchanted song that could either bend a man’s will or break his spirit--just as they had done countless times before. Every Tommy they had seen, however, was already dead, lying in the mud.

Major Lockspier held the reins of her horse hard, and her old Reichsrevolver harder as she looked at the town through narrowed eyes. All was lost to the dense, still fog. Everything was grey. The fog was grey. The earth was grey. The ruined buildings were grey. Even the uniforms of the dead Tommies were grey, the khaki seemingly bled from them. It was as though the colour... the life... had been sucked out of the place. The heat too.

She shivered as she appraised the apparition that Zandsteert had become.

It was so silent, so still--like a frightened child.

Is this what it had been like at home? When the creature came? Had her own family suffered a similar fate to this?

Her introspection was interrupted as her captain moved her horse alongside. “Your orders, Major?” Her voice was muffled, her face hidden behind the scarf wrapped across her face.

The Major turned in her saddle, her movement restricted by her heavy breastplate. “We take the town. Such as it is,” she said. “And Mina, make sure the girls are ready for anything. If we do have to fight for this place...”

She didn’t have to finish the sentence. Whilst they were more accustomed to using Das Lied to suppress Tommy positions without bloodshed, they’d fought supernatural foes before. They all knew the warning signs.

- 83 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS The unit approached the end of the high-street, and the Major could just about make out the fringes of a park, its perimeter haunted by dead trees and the skeletal remains of a smashed wooden fence.

Reining in their mounts, the unit compressed, forming into two rows of five, with Lockspier front and centre.

“Major?” Mina cocked her head to one side. "Your orders?"

Lockspier drew in a deep breath. “We’ll bunk in the park overnight. I suspect whatever’s done this will make its move sooner rather than later. Once we’ve dealt with it, we’ll inform headquarters Zandsteert is ours.”

“Deal with it?” Mina’s tone was uncertain and doubtful. “Are you sure? I’ve counted at least twenty dead Tommies, and there’re only ten of us.”

“We’ll deal with it.” She wanted to look Mina in the eyes, but couldn’t. They both knew what the other was thinking. Mina just wanted to get the unit out in one piece, and the Major...? Well, she knows what I want, Lockspier thought.

“Gretchen? Isold?” the Major said, turning to two of her soldiers. “What do you smell?”

Gretchen closed her eyes immediately, her nostrils flared. “I smell... A man.

Sweating,” she said.

Isold’s horse stood beside Gretchen’s, Isold breathing deeply. Identical twins, the two were of a race the Tommies called We’re Not Wolves: Demilycanthropes frozen in a purgatorial stage between human and wolf. Their faces were lupine and covered in thick, grey hair, with feral eyes burning beneath thick eyebrows. “Heartbeat is... steady,” Isold said, head tilted to one side. “If he’s afraid, he isn’t showing it.”

Sweat but no fear? “Is he a soldier?” Lockspier asked as she also turned to survey the fringes of the park.

“Yes,” Gretchen replied. “A Tommy... and... there’s something else.

Something in his blood. It’s not pure. He’s like us--Verzaubert. I think there’s a little Faerie in there.”

The Major looked at Mina, who had now taken off her heavy Stahlhelm and removed the scarf from her face to wipe her sweating head with it. Her short, cropped hair was spiked and glistening. They made eye-contact. Men were easy to deal with. Faeries, however, were altogether more unpredictable.

“If he’s a Faerie, Das Lied may not work,” Mina said, her voice low and murmuring. The Major saw a weariness in her Captain’s eyes. Not just a - 84 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS physical weariness, but a fatigue of the spirit, of the desire to fight, that echoed the Major’s. “We may have to take him by force.”

The Major cursed inwardly. She’d hoped to avoid a fight this time.

She turned to her company, making one gesture that told them to dismount, and another to do so quietly. They complied immediately and with the efficiency she had come to expect, despite their weariness and troublesome armour. A smile cracked the mud on Lockspier’s face. Such goods girls. Such loyal soldiers. She prayed to God they would all see the end of the war.

“Gretchen and I are entering the park,” the Major said to Mina as she turned back to her Captain. “Have the horses turned off and wait here with the rest of the unit.”

Mina nodded and moved toward the company. She moved a single finger across the high collar of her tunic commanding them to turn off the mechanical steeds. As the Major turned away and checked the chamber of her revolver, she heard the horses’ petrol engines shutting off.

Satisfied the revolver was ready, the Major dismounted. Gretchen moved to stand beside her. She looked calm and focused.

The Major was not so calm. She could feel her heart beating even faster.

Revolver clutched in her right hand, she drew her sabre with her left and closed her eyes to kiss the blade. “Lord watch over me,” she whispered.

The two women crept through the veil of dead trees and then moved forward, crouched and slow, their revolvers and sabres at the ready.

Even the grass in the park was grey. The pair stopped, and the Major turned to Gretchen, raising an eyebrow. Gretchen sniffed the air, then nodded to the north.

They moved on. The cold and silence more oppressive here, the baneful impressions of riven houses seemed to glare at them.

Then the Major froze. She could see him.

He was little more than an impression in the fog, but he was definitely there.

Stood in the centre of the park, he paced about, jabbing at the ground with...

With what? Surely it couldn't be what it seemed--a cricket bat?

“You might as well show yourselves,” a voice called to them. “I know you’re there.” English and educated, the voice put the Major in mind of the diplomats at he consulate with whom her father used to share cigars and brandy. That, at - 85 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS least, eased her apprehension. In her experience, the better the breeding the quicker they surrendered.

“Do you hear me?” the voice called again.

She looked to Gretchen, and Gretchen to her. They nodded and, as one, sprinted forward, equipment chattering in the mist. Within seconds they had the man at gunpoint.

An officer, he stood beside a set of wickets shoved into the cold earth. The khaki of his uniform and the bright blue of his woollen scarf and fingerless gloves offered a welcome relief to the colourless monotony of the surroundings.

“Ahh, that’s better,” he said with a wide smile, not in the least fazed by the situation. “Now then, who’s in charge here?” He looked at Lockspier and smiled. “Is it you?”

She paused before answering. This man’s accent, his demeanour and the cricket bat tucked under the arm may have said Toff, but the scars and the equipment belied them. His uniform was dirty and torn, and his helmet dented and bent. His knuckles were scarred, and crows had left their mark by his eyes amongst the dirt and the blood. Golden, curly hair peeped out from beneath his helmet--gold run through with silver. This, she realised, wasn’t some noblesse playing at war. This was a career soldier.

“I’m the commanding officer.” She stepped forward, holstering her revolver.

“Major Brunhilde Lockspier, Motorisierte Kavallerie Nummer Sieben: Die Eisenserenen. And you are...?”

“Captain Cameron Wexford-Bane... I say, did you say ‘Die Eisenserenen’? The Iron Sirens?”

“Not now, Captain,” Lockspier said, brushing his question aside with a wave of her hand. “Your revolver, please.”

Lifting its lanyard from about his neck, he proceeded to draw his Webley from its holster. All the while he never took his eyes off Lockspier.

“What are you doing here?” Lockspier asked, taking the weapon.

“Well, I was playing cricket, but it looks like the fielders have run off--what was left of them, anyway. They’re probably half way to Ypres by now.”

“But the town’s full of dead soldiers. Your soldiers,” she said. “What happened here?”

“Ah. Yes. We met a man. Well, I say ‘a man’. More like a--” A piercing scream and a cluster of gunshots punctured the static damp of the air, echoing - 86 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS about the park. “Ah, I daresay that’ll be him now,” the captain said with a rueful smile.

It was only a short sprint, but Lockspier was near-gasping for breath by the time she made it back to her unit. Gretchen followed shortly, directing the Tommy with her rifle.

But it was too late. The gunfire had stopped before they were even halfway there, and they found the bodies of her girls--lifeless and grey--in the mud amongst the dormant horses.

Lockspier stood in the centre of the carnage, bent with her hands on her knees as she gasped for air. “Is everybody...” Her throat felt tight and her heart pounded in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the sight of her unit lying grey and dead in the mud like the Tommies. That they should come this far, fight so long and die so quickly. “...Is everybody dead?”

“Not everybody,” Gretchen said, pointing. “Look!”

Lockspier opened her eyes to see Isold on her knees at the edge of the street, cradling Mina.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Lockspier said. “Mina!”

She ran to her friend, vaguely aware of Gretchen and Wexford-Bane running alongside.

“M... Major?” Mina’s voice was weak, her mouth slack and her breath shallow. “Is that you?”

Lockspier knelt and looked into Mina's face. “What in Heaven? God, Mina.

What’s happened to your eyes?”

The irises were bubbled and blistered, the whites shot with blood that leaked from the corners like tears. As Lockspier looked, she could see the colour draining from Mina’s face. Soon, the woman was almost completely grey.

“What happened?” Lockspier took Mina into her arms as the soldier shivered with an almost epileptic violence.

“Something,” said Isold, “came out of the fog.” Her voice was hoarse and cracked, and Lockspier wondered when she’d last seen the girl so unnerved. “It attacked us.

“It only has to touch you, Brunhilde,” Mina said, gripping Lockspier's jacket sleeve as she trembled. “It only has to touch you, and you die.”

“Did you see it?” Lockspier asked Isold.

- 87 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS “I tried, Major,” Isold said, hanging her head whilst her sister knelt beside her and put an arm about her. “I tried to look at it, tried to take aim. But it hurt my eyes just to see it.”

“What did this, Captain?” Lockspier asked Wexford-Bane with a low, weary voice.

“I’m not entirely sure, to be fair,” Wexford-Bane said. He didn’t bother to lower his voice, and Lockspier wondered if he felt any sense of danger or urgency at all. “All I know is we had a unit of engineers come to Zandsteert three days ago with orders to tunnel under your trench system at the Messines.

Presumably the plan was to blow it to smithereens.”

“And...?”

“Well, they decided to get a head start by starting the tunnel in the church crypt. Doesn’t take a genius to work out the rest.”

“So they dug something up they shouldn’t and now it’s killing my girls?”

“Indeed.”

Suddenly Mina grabbed Lockspier’s hand and squeezed hard. “I looked too, sir,” she said with an edge of panic in her voice. “I felt them burning in my skull, Major. My eyes. I think... I think I’m blind.”

“Steady now,” Wexford-Bane said. He too knelt beside her, smoothing bloodied hair away from her brow as he did. “You’ll be all right. You’re...

What’s the word you use? Verzaubert? Enchanted? You’ll be all right. I promise.”

Lockspier looked at this Wexford-Bane, eyes narrowed, studying. There was an uncommon care and compassion in his voice that was both surprising and welcome. For all his brave words, however, Lockspier could see Mina-now almost completely grey--slipping away. Her eyes closed, and a protracted, shallow breath slid from her as her whole body became limp.

Lockspier’s hand shot to Mina’s neck. “We’re losing her! Her pulse, it’s...”

“It’s okay, Major.” Wexford-Bane leaned over Mina and rested his forehead against hers. “Come on, young lady,” he said, “don’t go. I can’t help you once you’ve gone. Just hold on.”

Mina’s back arched and her eyes snapped open as she gasped for breath, nails sinking into Wexford-Bane’s arm.

“There’s a good girl,” he said with a smile.

“What in Heaven...? What did you...?" Lockspier was confused and exhilarated in equal measure. "How?” Out of the corner of her eye, she could - 88 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS see Gretchen crossing herself as colour began to creep back into Mina’s face. “Is that the Faerie blood in you?”

“Ah, yes, well,” the captain said with a shy smile. “Bit of a family secret that.

Mother had a daliance with a fay. We don’t like to talk about it, so if you could keep it under your hat, there’s a good girl.”

Lockspier didn’t reply. She just looked at him. He looked back, smiling.

“Major,” Gretchen said, “there’s no point in pushing our luck. We need to get away from here.”

“She’s right,” Wexford-Bane said, nodding.

Lockspier closed her eyes and lowered her head. Of course she’s right, she thought. This town is lost. But I can’t run. She opened her eyes and looked into the dense fog. “Gretchen,” she said, “you, Isold, and Mina get out of here. Get to safety. Go with the Captain to the Tommies and surrender. Tell them what happened.”

“What? Go to the Tommies?”

“Yes. I want you to surrender. The war’s over for you and Mina. I want you to surrender, wait for the war to end, and then lead a normal life.” She reached out, taking her Mina’s face in both hands, lifting her head to look into her bloodied eyes. “Do you understand, Mina? Can you hear me?”

Mina could only nod. There was something in that nod that betrayed Mina’s final surrender, and Lockspier wondered if, as much as Mina wanted to stay with the Major, her spirit had finally been broken by this creature.

She turned to Wexford-Bane and offered his revolver back to him. “Do you know how to use this?”

“I’ve a pretty good batting average, yes,” he said, taking the gun from her.

“Why?” “Then use it, Captain.” Lockspier turned back to Mina. “Use it and get these three out.”

“But what about you, old girl?”

“I’m going to kill this creature.”

“Sir! No!” Gretchen’s tone was high and querulous.

“Quite right. What’s the point of you staying and getting killed as well?”

“It will make me feel better. Now go.”

“Major? Brunhilde?” Mina said.

Lockspier looked at Mina with tears in her eyes as she brushed wet hair - 89 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS away from the woman’s damp forehead. “Yes, my friend?”

“Take... take this,” Mina said as she struggled to remove her scarf.

“Your lucky scarf? But--” “You need it more then I do, now,” Mina said, managing a smile. “Please, take it, and may God be with you.”

What was left of the church overlooked the park. Not that one can see the park or the town, Lockspier reflected as she looked back. Her fingers idly stroking Mina’s scarf now wrapped loosely about her neck.

Her horse, engine grumbling, reached the church’s ruined door. She dismounted and, moments later, she was inside.

“Good Lord!” she said, jaw dropping slightly.

Row upon row of explosives were piled as high as the blasted walls would allow, forming a single channel through the centre of the church that led to a hole in the floor. From there a ladder led down to the crypt.

“I told you. They really were planning to blow Messine to Kingdom Come.”

Lockspier span, revolver in hand and heart in mouth. “Captain!” she said as Wexford-Bane stood behind her, hands in his pockets. “I thought I told you to leave? To get Mina and the twins to safety?”

“You did.” He rocked back and forth on his heels as he smiled at her.

“Fortunately you’re not my superior officer, so I sent the twins and Mina along under a flag of surrender. They’ll be fine.”

“But why would you do that? Why would you stay here to die?”

"Didn’t I ask you that same question?" he said with a typically easy smile.

Again she didn’t answer, instead, she studied his face.

“Well, Major?”

"Show me where this thing came from, first," she said.

“Very well. Ladies first?” he said with theatrical flourish as he walked to the top of the ladder.

She allowed herself a small laugh. “Why, sir, allow me the pleasure of facing the unknown--and the possibility of a horrible death--first? You are too kind!” She walked to the ladder, pushing her revolver into her belt. “Why are you here, Captain?” she said out of the blue.

“Beg pardon?”

“Why are you here? I mean, you’re obviously educated, intelligent. You - 90 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS don’t seem to hate me and the girls, so you’re obviously not here to ‘Bash the Bosche’. So why are you here?”

For the first time she saw a cloud pass over that sunny countenance. He looked at her for a moment, eyes narrowed as if trying to assess her. “You climb, I’ll talk,” he said.

She began to climb down the ladder.

“When I joined up to fight the Boers,” he said as she set off after her, “my brother decided to seek his fortune as an adventurer. Got himself killed by Belgian mercenaries in the Congo.” He paused as she reached the foot of the ladder, looking down at her as she stepped away. “So when this war started, I asked to be deployed here.”

“Why?” Lockspier asked as she turned on her small electric lamp. “How can that help?”

“It can’t, but it makes me feel better. I’m not here because I want to kill Germans, I’m here because I want to blow holes in the Belgian countryside.”

She wanted to laugh, but dared not. Looking at the Captain as he stepped way from the ladder, however, she saw the smile on his face, and she couldn’t help it.

“I know,” he said. “I know. I should have joined the artillery. Silly isn’t it...?

I say, isn’t it cold down here?”

He was right. It was colder than outside. It was dark too, with a cramped, low ceiling and close, stone walls. It smelt dank and somewhere she could hear the staccato of dripping water. Her torch shone against lime and mould on the walls, and the stone floor beneath her feet was not only iced and slippery, but littered with shovels, pick-axes... and two bodies.

“I suppose they must have been some of the first to be killed,” WexfordBane said as he went to kneel beside the first body. Turning it over, he jumped, closed his eyes and looked away. “Dear God...”

Lockspier moved closer, shining her lamp on the body. Like Mina, the eyes were ruined, but the rest of the body was completely desiccated, drained of any fluid.

“What it did to these engineers, Captain, it did to feed,” she said, moving the lamplight to the other body. It too was skeletal and depleted. “What it does now, it does for revenge.”

“Revenge? For what?”

- 91 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS “Who knows? There isn’t enough left of this building to gauge its origins, but most of the churches in this region are Roman temples converted into Christian churches by the Merovingians.” Her torch beam alighted on a further door, beyond which a stone stairwell spiralled downward. The weak glow of her torch only just picked out the body of a further engineer at the top of the stairs. “It wouldn’t surprise me, however, if the Romans originally built this place to lock something up.”

“Really?” Wexford-Bane said with a subtle smile and raising of his eyebrows.

“Like a prison?”

“Exactly. It may have been built to imprison some Roman or Frank nachtterror.”

“A what-terror?”

“Nachtterror... As in... erm... How would you say it? A fiend, or monster? A dark creature?”

“Ahhh. I see.” He stopped and looked about him, shivering visibly as his tone darkened. “Spiffing.”

“If that’s the case, this creature may have been imprisoned down there for almost fifteen hundred years before your engineers dug it up. We just don’t know,” she turned back to Wexford-Bane, “and I just don’t care. I know all I need to know. It’s killed my girls, and it will probably try to kill us too.”

He smiled at her. This time the smile was different. This time it was a smile of admiration imbued with a warmth even this forsaken place couldn’t steal.

“Merovingian? Franks?” he said gently. “I’m not the only one with an education, am I?” She looked away as, to her surprise, she found herself blushing like a schoolgirl. “Father was a rich man--a Jungherr. He could afford good teachers.”

“You’re shaking.”

“It’s cold.”

He stepped toward her, taking her hand in his, rubbing it. “Your turn, Major Brunhilde Lockspier. Why are you here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Why are you here? You’re an intelligent woman. A handsome woman. I’m guessing you’re quite the soprano if you serve with the Iron Sirens. Why be a soldier?”

“I...” The words dried up in her throat. From girls’ school in Bremerhaven, - 92 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS to finishing school in Lausanne, to the women’s barracks at the War Academy, she’d rarely been this close to a man before--and none of them were quite like Wexford-Bane. His touch warmed her blood and lifted her spirits, and she began to feel relaxed and warm inside. “I was seduced by the romance of being in the army,” she said. “The respect. The pagantry. Serving the Kaiser...”

“But then the war came?”

She nodded, looking away as her eyes filled with tears. “I never knew it would be like this. The mud. The disease. The waste. My head was just full of make-believe and war-stories...

“I don’t want this anymore, Captain,” she said in a voice so small she wondered if he could hear her over the dripping of water. “I just want to go home. Find a husband. Breed dogs. Sing opera. Lead a normal life. But I can’t.”

“Why not?”

She paused. She wanted to talk about it, she really did, but the pain was still so intense.

“Major?”

“My parents, captain,” she said. “My parents were killed twenty years ago when something unnatural and ungodly--some golem made of straw and hate--attacked our home in Bremerhaven and destroyed the whole city. I wasn’t there. I was in das Kameroon with Die Eisenserenen.”

“And so you fight on? Try and find some sort of... absolution?”

“Quite so, captain. And now I’m going to get that absolution by putting this nachterror down.” The tears stung her eyes. “I know it’s not the same creature that killed my family, that destroyed my home, but...” “... it doesn’t matter, does it.” It was a statement, not a question. Lockspier looked into his eyes, and she saw he understood.

It hadn’t taken long to draw up a plan, but, by the time they’d finished and emerged from the church, the temperature had plummeted still further as night set in. The silence had also worsened. The nights on the Western Front had ever been filled with the distant rhythm of artillery, the random crack of snipers’ rifles, the crying out and weeping of dying men. But here, in this Stygian town, there was nothing but the lumpy growl of Lockspier’s horse. Thus, astride her mount and with Wexford-Bane sat behind her, she declared her defiance and sang.

- 93 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS Clear as an angel’s conscience, strong as devout conviction, her voice rang out across Zandsteert. She didn’t know if Das Leid would work on this rampant creature--part of her doubted it--but she didn’t care. All she needed was the creature to hear, to come to her. Then she’d destroy it.

Sure enough, it emerged from the fog, heading toward her from the park.

She saw it just long enough to get the impression of a humanoid shape, bent and irregular. It was utterly silent, but--even from here--she could smell its aroma of decay and dirt. Then she was forced to look away.

“Oh, my Lord! They were right!” she said, gasping. The instant she laid eyes on the nachtterror, her eyes were agonised, and she felt as if her cornea had been scratched. She rubbed at them with the heel of her hands. “How do we fight this, Captain?” she said, mind racing. How do we fight something we can’t even look at?”

“You think of Mina and your parents, Major,” the Captain said. “That’ll be enough, old girl.”

Think of Mina? She’d forgotten about Mina’s scarf. Now, however, she grasped it and pulled it up over her chin and across her eyes. She then looked at the thing again, scarf thin enough to be seen through, but thick enough to at least offer some protection from the sight of the creature.

She watched the nachtterror--still smudged in the fog--move toward her. Its movements were irregular and chaotic. It seemed to freeze in place for brief movements, then burst forward in quick, compressed stanzas like something captured on a faulty Pathe reel.

She measured pace and speed, and then backed her horse into the remains of the church, the horse just squeezing between the rows of explosives.

“Now, Captain!” Brunhilde said, voice sharp and urgent. She heard him activate the fuse on a stick grenade and drop it to the floor.

Satisfied the trap was in place, satisfied the creature would be upon them in an instant, she dipped her toe forward, opening up her horse’s throttle beneath her boot and gunning the stead forward, squinting to see properly through the scarf and darkness. “Lord, watch over us,” she whispered, heart pounding.

As they burst from the church, the Major was gratified to see her calculations had been accurate. The nachtterror was almost at the door and, such was the speed and power of Lockspier’s mechanized horse, that it - 94 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS trampled the creature--for all its supernatural desire for vengeance--to the ground. Whatever this creature was, it made no sound as it fell beneath the horse’s hooves.

Lockspier ducked down, reins gripped hard as she gunned the horse harder.

“We don’t have much time, Major! Quicker! Quick--” The grenade in the church detonated, and the explosives with it.

The destruction was almost biblical. The church and the surrounding grounds were utterly destroyed, the remains thrown high into the air and raining on the town in a shower of flaming wood, smashed stone and smouldering earth. The concussion blasted the surrounding houses and trees, and Lockspier’s horse was snatched up by the shockwave. Lockspier was wrenched from the saddle, only to be dashed against the shuddering earth of the park.

Her senses were blotted out by a miasma of pain. She tried to move, only to cry out in agony. Everything hurt. She managed to crane her head up, and looked down. Her arm was at an odd angle, and her thigh bone was protruding through a tear in her trousers. Her foot was facing backward. She could hear a sucking noise escaping from beneath her breastplate when she breathed. She felt light-headed and clammy. She was very, very cold.

She looked about her. The park had been distorted into a demonic confusion of fires, with the remains of the church strewn about it. She could see the scattered remains of her horse, smashed into pieces. Of the Captain there was no sign.

“Captain?” she called out. “Captain? Can you hear me?”

There was no reply.

Despite this Hellish conflagration, the intense, supernatural cold continued to linger in the park. Eyesight still darkening as she went deeper into shock, she looked to the crater where the Church had once stood. Now fire twisted and undulated from it, bequeathing a pall of smoke that rose into the fog. There was no sign of the nachtterror.

She narrowed her eyes as her teeth chattered. “To Hell with you,” she said.

“To Hell...with...”

Close to the edge of the crater, a hand burst out of the balefire. It remained frozen for the briefest moment, fingers splayed and crooked as it reached out of the mantle of smoke.

- 95 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS Then came that familiar burst of speed, and the nachtterror was stood at the crater’s edge, silhouetted by the flames as it stared down at her from across the park.

She cried out as she was forced to look away, the impression of the crooked creature seared into her mind. Stooped further, light from the fire behind leaked through holes blown in its torso, head and limbs.

I’ve hurt it! I’ve... hurt... Her thoughts were a chaotic rush as a melee ignited in her tired mind. Can I finish it? No. I’m so weak now. So cold. What more can I do? She tried getting to her knees, only to collapse.

She risked another look back. It was closer now, within ten feet, frozen in place once more as it reached toward her with one hand. The other seemed to be holding its belly like a wounded soldier.

Eyes afire with pain as they blistered and the flesh about them crisped, she looked away and tried crawling once more, making scant progress, her efforts and her senses drowning in pain. She looked back just enough to let the nachtterror intrude upon her peripheral vision. She saw a further shiver of speed from the creature and it was almost upon her, the temperature falling so sharply and with such ferocity that her gasp reflex robbed her of what little momentum she had mustered.

She slumped back to the ground, on her back in a cruciform position, and squeezed her eyes shut. The nachtterror stood over her now, and she felt her blood turn to ice, the spittle, mucus and tears about her face freezing instantly.

Lord... watch over me, she thought, prayer her final resource.

Her eyes snapped open for the last time as she felt something against the fingers of her right hand. Is that... wood? she thought. The Captain’s wickets! Her fingers closed about one of the three cricket stumps. Thank the Lord.

She looked at the nachtterror. Its hand was almost upon her, broken fingers spread as though they meant to seize her neck. But her final end was delayed by the periodic suspension of the creature’s movements, and she took hold of that final chance, that final glimmer of hope, with all the strength and ferocity of a determined, decorated soldier.

Now completely blind, eyes ruined and bloody, she span the cricket stump in her hand and lunged blindly, driving the point of the stump toward the heart of the cold above her.

There was thud, and a shudder went down her arm as she felt the wood - 96 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS drive into flesh just as she’d felt her sabre pierce flesh too many times before.

No cry came from the creature, but she felt it slump, straddling her and taking her by the throat.

She howled with the dire agony of it. Nothing she had seen, nothing she felt, could approach the indescribable agony. She clawed at its face, her fingers sinking into its eyes just as they would sink into foul, rotten earth. Through instinct, through training, and through a soldier’s experience, she gauged the position of its neck before grabbing at the second stump beside her. Moments later she drove it into the abomination’s jugular. For all its age and horrific strength, it collapsed upon her, smothering her.

She felt her strength vanishing with frightening rapidity just as she felt the horror still moving, still struggling. Clawing to her side, her fingers fell upon the last of the stumps, and, with the last of her strength, she reached about the torso above hers, and drove that wicket past the nachtterror’s spine and deep into its icebound heart.

There was one last convulsion from the fiend, and then it was still. There was no resistance in its body, and all its dead weight and horrific cold bore down upon her.

“Lord, watch over me,” Lockspier said in a final acceptance of her fate, the words a barely audible gasp.

She awoke slowly. Completely blind, what senses she had left were sluggish and confused. She could hear fire, and the cold began to penetrate the fugue.

The creature was no longer upon her, but she was being held in someone’s arms, and the oppressive silence of the town to which she’d become accustomed was lifted by the sound of bird song and breathing, a chest moving against hers.

“It’s okay, Major. I’m here.”

The voice was warm and relaxed and, by God, it made her heart soar.

“Wexford-Bane? You’re alive?”

“Yes, thank you. A few cuts and bruises, but I’ll heal. And, please, call me Cameron.” There was a chuckle to the voice, a gallows humour.

“Thank you... Cameron. Are we still in the park?”

“Yes. Fog’s lifting though. And it’s getting warmer.”

“The nachtterror?”

“Dead as a dodo. Whatever kept that aberration alive has gone. It’s - 97 -

PAUL L. MATHEWS practically decomposed into the earth now.”

She smiled. It was a weak smile, but a triumphant one. “I thought I was going to die,” she said.

“You would have done if I hadn’t have been here.”

His words brought back images of him reviving Mina, and she thrilled to the thought of him saving her life. “What will we do now, Cameron?”

He laughed again. “You’re going home. And I’m taking you.”

“You’ll come with me?”

“Yes.” “What about the Belgian countryside. There’s still a lot to blow holes in, isn’t there?”

“After your performance with the church? I’m afraid you’ve rather trumped me there, Major.”

Her smile broadened still further, and she summoned what little strength she could to hold this charming Englishman.

She felt warm inside, and for the first time since her family were killed, the cold and the dank began to thaw.

“Please, call me Brunhilde.”

Sighing, she allowed herself to dream a faerie-tale of baking bread, breeding dogs... ... And leading a normal life.

Copyright © Paul L. Mathews 2008

WATCH FOR THE NEXT ISSUE The following issue of Estronomicon will bring you a report of the FantasyCon event, held last month in Nottingham. Plus several short stories from the attending authors. Don’t miss it!

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PUBLISHERS & AUTHORS DAY Llanhilleth Miners Institute, near Abertillery Saturday 22nd November 2008 : 10.00am - 3.30pm This exciting day will include creative writing workshops, presentations and readings from a wealth of talented authors either living in Wales or signed by Welsh publishers.

As part of the new South Wales Valleys Literature Development Initiative, this Academi organised event will be held in partnership with the Llanhilleth Institute, Blaenau Gwent Libraries, Llanhilleth Communities First, Seren, Pont Books, Screaming Dreams and Pendragon Press.

Academi Chief Executive Officer, Peter Finch will be launching the day with advice on how to get published. Other features will include talks from some of Wales’s leading writers, including romantic novelist Catrin Collier and broadcaster and author Mavis Nicholson, along with workshops from the country’s best writers including: · · · ·

Paul Henry - poetry Steve Lockley - horror writing Paul Manship - writing for children Della Galton - short story writing

The day will also offer the opportunity to meet some of Wales’s leading publishers and CPD Printers will explain the process turning a manuscript into a book. There will also be stalls and books for sale.

Writers attending will be given the chance to submit a manuscript and the best one will be assessed, at a later date, by the publishers involved.

The day aims to attract and celebrate the creative writing talents of people of all ages and abilities. It will showcase Welsh publishers and authors and will offer the opportunity to discover more about how to get published and to reach the reading public.

Tickets are £4.50, £3 concessions. Ticket price includes a free buffet lunch.

For more information and to book your place contact Academi on: 029 2047 2266 or email post@academi.org - 99 -