by Alex Boast
There’d never been anyone else in the nightmare before. It has to mean something, but what?
Now I know there are people out there that might recognise me, I feel even more alone.
The clock ticks closer and closer to midnight: it’s 11.45PM and I twist the key in the ancient till. It comes to life with a bright green light, illuminating the dark storefront, bringing the blood and the horror and sadness to light in an alien glow. I check the date.
Sunday 27th, 2015.
The closest Sunday to Christmas. I don’t know much about family, friendship or love, but I know Christmas is a time meant to be spent with others, as part of a community.
Surely, my horrific visions mere hours ago were simply that: visions, illusions, lies.
I can go back, Ekko will protect me.
The Church – Midnight Mass:
Entering the church again I feel weightless. I might float up and through the ceiling if I don’t make a concerted effort to stay rooted in reality.
Everyone’s still here. Did they even leave?
She’s here too.
Ekko stands at the front, towering over a small plinth he has brought into the middle of the standing. It must be made of marble… surely he didn’t carry it in? The sound of water reveals the situation. A child is being baptised, and our audience is captivated. The family of the child, a boy with soft white hair, is nowhere to be seen.
My attention is elsewhere, a baptism is a simple affair.
She’s looking at me again, wholly different to before. She looks… apologetic?
Sorry, like she did something bad.
“It’s ok, I forgive you. I think I love you,” I say to the outline of her red lips.
Her long, angry red nails are reaching out of the church’s darkest shadows. In this moment I forget what happened earlier, and I long to be closer to her.
Simultaneously, we float along the cushioned benches, towards each other. I grip the wooden ends of the pews with the dirty claws of each hand, and lean towards her as she echoes my movements.
I can smell her now, and see her face. It’s lovely. There’s a sparkle, like glitter, living on her skin and in her eyes. She’s not wearing the makeup! The pink of her skin has made her beautiful and human again and she’s my Christmas miracle.
In my mind, as we gradually come closer together, we’re flying through the future. I see visions of my own butcher, a dog, an apartment in the nice area where we can dress and act like we’re whoever we want to be.
It smells like perfume and coffee and it’s so warm. There’s the sound of crying and rushing water again, but this time it fills me with potential futures instead of hated pasts.
We’re reaching now, towards each other, as her hair rises on end again and envelops me. It wraps around me in a loving, welcome embrace, endless coils of hairy serpents clench my body and soul as I disappear into her and the future.
But something’s wrong.
It’s my heart again, speeding and speeding until it threatens to finally burst. I struggle against the dark hair assaulting me but it is powerful and paralyses me, holding me totally still.
Wispy tendrils reach into my nostrils, in my ears and my mouth. As I start to suffocate, strangled by the dark arm of her deadly mane, there’s that sound again.
The crying of a baby boy, the splashing of water. Getting louder and more intense as I struggle to breathe.
Shrill screeches pierce through my body and into my skull, vibrating my brain into a painful spiral of panic.
There are other voices now, adult voices yelling
“Stop him! SOMEBODY STOP HIM!”
Then the sound of sirens and car tires squealing on a road, the smell of burning rubber, a dreadful, crunching impact.
It’s too much, my heart can’t take it. Black spots in my vision flash like little cigarette burns in my brain.
My blood is poisoned by her demon hair and sloshes around in my skull, a parting red sea leaving me with an intense, dry headache inside my skull. Dizziness wins and I start to pass out as cold sweat spills from my forehead and down my face.
A young mothers voice echoes through my mind, as does a fathers silence. An old nursery rhyme, performed and danced to by three young sisters connected by a thick cord from their belly buttons.
The wet slop as a girl’s pretend face slides off onto the floor.
The screams of two elderly women, robbed of their sight by a terrible and violent event, long past.
Finally, strong, powerful words, echoing throughout my existence:
“Lord, bring me back to your will. Bring me back. BRING ME BACK.”
“Amen!” I cry at the ceiling of the Butcher’s shop as I wake, drenched in liquid fear.
It’s Monday the 28th of December. I must have been having nightmares for days. My mind is a ruined temple, nature’s taking over what I’ve built and fear rules the fortress jungle in my head.
Until I hear a most welcome and familiar sound.
I sit up, spilling pork scratchings all down the front of my grotty t shirt, clawing the moist newspaper rags off my body.
The window is open, and the sweet, familiar sill is free of blood and spikes.
Ruffling his feathers and cooing happily, knocking a small pile of scratchings off the sill and towards me, is my friend George Lazenby. He flutters down and lands on my chest, inquisitively looking deep into my eyes. Somehow asking me what is happening.
Lie to me, sweet pigeon, and tell me everything is okay.
Now I’ll call him Lazarus, and I feel immensely better that he’s ok. I must have dreamt his death at the height of my panic and anxiousness, imagining the worst version of events. The ones that hurt the most, as any anxiety crippled mind would.
That’s the thing about fear disorders. Someone can go to hell and back right in front of your eyes, and you’d probably never know.
Lazarus shits all down my front and I laugh.
He hops up from the floor and onto the counter as I chuckle. A noise I’ve not heard myself make before.
“Have you lost weight, my friend?”
More cooing, he wants to bring my attention to something on top of the counter.
Someone’s been in. They must have kept me alive during my deep slumber with water and tiny lumps of protein. That’s why I’m so wet. It must be.
They left something that turns my laughter to tears in an instant as I move further out of my cloud of lonely despair, towards the light.
It’s a roast dinner. Turkey with all the trimmings on the biggest, most loaded plate I’ve ever seen and smothered in bone-marrow gravy.
It steams with warmth in the cold dark light of the shop, white clouds of snow providing partial, delicate light through the sliding window Lazarus uses to come in and out.
There’s another note. The last one.
“Merry Christmas, don’t you have somewhere to be?”
Yes, I guess I do. The lamb must return to the shepherd’s flock one last time.
First, I clean the mess off and wash up in the little sink, the freezing water waking me properly from my deep sleep as I splash it over my already damp forehead.
Next, I inhale the dinner and it is absolutely glorious. I even eat the brussel sprouts. Pigs in blankets might be the greatest invention of meat-eating man. It all tastes like a better future and gives me the fortitude to make it through another Christmas alone.
No, not alone.
I turn to Lazarus.
“Will you come? Come with me?” I ask him.
He flutters his wings and coos, strutting around on the counter.
“Please.” I ask again.
This time he hops onto the sill, ready to go, full of energy.
I have to find out what happened at the church. If I can dream my pigeon dying I can dream worse, but there must be something that absolutely, really, happened there.
I need to know what.
Why does this dark arm haunt me so? Who is the girl who wears a mas
k of makeup?
What connection do the others share?
Let’s go, together we’ll find out.
Church Interior – Ekko’s Hideaway:
Lazarus flies slowly from rooftop to rooftop – waiting - accompanying me on my slow journey through the slush and the dark, polluted, corrupted snow.
The city is buried in it.
I hold a hand up to compare it to the whiter patches, away from the parked cars and the frothing gutters. Same colour.
How have I not frozen to death in this cold?
The streets are deserted. Even the other pigeons have fled to warmer climes. We are alone together as we face the elements.
Wet snow pisses on us the whole way.
I take a quick detour to see if Hope or Destiny might be at their usual vigil. Alas, even they have abandoned us.
As we reach the gothic entrance, standing tall over myself and this cold city, I take some deep breaths, on the edge of hyperventilation. I can’t even see the steam cloud out of my mouth anymore.
“Wait here,” I tell Lazarus.
He does, taking up residence under the circular roof of the turret, standing watch. My cherub, my guardian angel.
I’m completely numb. I don’t feel my hand connect with the old wooden door as I lift the squeaky iron knocker and push. Maybe my skin will stick to it, and I’ll be forced to stay right here forever, unable to access the truth upstairs.
I leave a lot of my flesh on that knocker, but it’s too cold to bleed or feel pain.
I rise slowly up the spiralling staircase, as the weight of my thoughts increases, threatening to throw me straight back down.
What will I find up here?
I can’t hear anything, but they must be here. They’re always here. I need to find Ekko, beg him to speak, and demand answers.
I expect the smell of the scented candles. I expect to hear the cursed screams. I expect everything, and yet, as I move into the nave, facing the altar, I am greeted only by one inviting candle.
It is large and offers a half-light in the otherwise black room – having lost its twin - but I must make my way towards it, unable to see.
I move slowly, reaching out into the dark. From memory, I know where to go, but thanks to my lopsided-ness I veer a little to the right and catch my foot on the pew, stumbling forward and reaching out into the black. My hand connects with something.
It’s warm and sticky, caressing the tips of my fingers until I feel the stab of a sharp point into my thumb and recoil in pain. Something’s there, waiting in the dark.
I make a break for it, straight towards the candle, wishing desperately to put space between myself and whatever lurks behind me, some lingering soul of a memory.
Nothing else is here. Nobody else: they’ve gone. Moved on without me, on the day we’re supposed to come together.
To start again, ready for a new year as new, better versions of ourselves.
I reach the candle and hoist it from its tall holder. It’s surprisingly heavy, but no problem for my strong white arm.
As I lift it, I find a small purple ribbon attached to its base. It has an inscription.
Words I’ve seen before:
“Lord, bring me BACK to your will.”
The word back is bigger, bolder than the rest, and underlined for emphasis. It must be a message, left for me.
I’ve never been in this area before. I think it’s called a bema. Bima?
The platform on which the clergymen stand.
The marble plinth is gone, and for the first time I notice the bookcase underneath the vast stained glass window, now (and always?) obscured from sight by the dark.
It is expansive and fully loaded with books. I shine the flame of the candle as close as I can to the spines of the hundreds of books. There’s lots of Latin I don’t really understand. Something Somnis, something Veritas, something, something.
So many titles, hundreds of them. Some must be ancient.
Sounds and glories. Testaments old and new.
There must be something here.
Then I spot it. In the top left corner.
The thin book has been tipped forward, just a little bit, so that it sticks out enough to notice. I reach up to it with my long arm, brandishing the candle as a fiery defensive weapon, but careful not to burn it with the flame.
‘Taking Back the Flock’ by Vincent Ekko.
As I reach to pull it out, I notice it isn’t covered in dust like the other tomes. This one gets some use. It tips further, but won’t budge. I pull harder and cringe at a loud, crunching noise, ever conscious of the dark presence behind me, held at bay by the light of my candle.
Something is happening. There’s movement before me and I hesitate, recoiling, tucking my face into the cold leather of my jacket, before I realise what is happening.
The whole bookcase is moving, shifting to the left. I expect a flood of dust to greet and cover me, but nothing.
Actually, I think I can see footprints on the dusty stone steps that have revealed themselves, inviting me further into the deep recesses of the tiny church. Enormous footprints, size thirteen or bigger.
Ekko’s.
As I place first one foot, then two, onto the cold stone, I feel a horrific and cold malevolence push back at me. It gets weightier and myself more weightless as I force my way down the cavernous descent. The candle affords me views of cobwebs and spiders the size of hands.
A mouse announces itself by scurrying across my right foot, only to be kicked into the dark.
I don’t hear it land.
I can hear whisperings behind me, as this dark passageway extinguishes my light from the atrium above. The presence I felt lick my hand earlier can follow.
“Lord, bring me back, bring me back…”
A female voice, innocent and pleading.
Not frightening at all, unlike its embodiment.
I move with urgency down the stone steps, cringing at every echo of footfall, fearful that the thing behind me may catch up and start to take me over once again.
Eventually, the light of my candle assaults the darkness of what must be the deep, subterranean room that Ekko calls home. I remember now, that preachers and priests sometimes live in the churches they serve. That must be why I can feel such history here.
My eyes begin to fuzz and blur as my panic reaches new heights, psychosis streamlining, enhancing and corrupting my vision. What if he’s in here?
An enormous, coffin-like single bed, twice as long as it is wide, occupies at least two thirds of the matchbox room. It is made perfectly, with sheets that resemble religious vestments. He is not here.
So where is he?
There are only two other things in this tiny, crypt of a room worth noting.
On a child-sized bedside table, a second copy of ‘Taking Back the Flock’ by Vincent Ekko.
The real one.
My curiosity gets the better of me as I reach for it, and I recoil upon touching its dark, leather-bound cover with my small left hand, as a wave of pain, nausea and fear sends me to my knees.
Regardless, I snatch it up with my strong white arm, and know instantaneously I hold a work of great evil in my hands.
The book itself is tiny, but it weighs heavier than any half pig or cow that I’ve ever lifted. It sends emanating waves of imagery through my mind, flashes of events past and future, so many different people, all connected somehow.
I have to see what’s inside.
I have to know.
Curiosity kills cats, not me.
I use my dirty nails to pry the little book open, having set the candle on the tiny table.
It consists of only one page, and on it, written in immaculate, calligraphic handwriting are three simple words:
I’m so sorry…
I don’t understand the words I see.
Is he sorry that he let us down, that he couldn’t protect us from the horror and disappointment of cold existence?
There’s something else in here
with me.
It’s not the malevolence of the book, or the creature lurking nearby, it is something else entirely.
I’m standing in a room full of history. A dark, clouded, evil history. I remember now the other thing I noticed when I first entered the room. At first I thought it was another book case, Ekko simply liked to read, surely.
