by Simon Clark
‘No problem, cheers. I’ll get the chicken out of the oven. It looks cooked to me. Any beer, Tom?’
‘You’re sixteen, Owen.’
‘Any beer, please, Tom?’
‘Try the other fridge in the pantry. But just one bottle, OK?’
‘Absolutely, my dear brother, absolutely.’ He gave a gentlemanly bow. ‘Dinner is served.’ With that, he bowed again and vanished back into the kitchen.
June laughed. The laughter was longer and louder than what might be considered normal in the circumstances. Tom, however, suspected that she was just so relieved to be back inside the house where it was safe … relatively safe, that is. One hint that she was still shaken by what happened was the way she picked up the glass and downed the brandy in one gulp.
‘I don’t know if this will keep out visitors.’ He picked up long pieces of firewood that he’d sawn from hefty branches and jammed them upright in the hearth, so that they partly blocked the throat of the chimney. Flames immediately began to lick the bark. ‘Hardly monster proof, but worth a try.’
June gazed at the window. ‘You don’t hear it, do you?’
He shook his head.
‘My father’s still calling my name … but I don’t think I’m hearing with my ears. Somehow he’s got inside my head.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll stay close to you tonight.’
‘I still want to try and communicate if he comes to the house.’ Her voice became determined. ‘I can try speaking to him from a bedroom window.’
Owen boomed from the kitchen, ‘Hey, love birds. Time to eat the meat.’
Tom shook his head. ‘After you, June.’
Before joining them in the kitchen, Tom cast a wistful glance in the direction of the window. The silhouettes of trees towered over the house – massive giants that seemed to be creeping closer.
Softly, he asked himself the question that had been haunting him ever since June had claimed she could hear her father calling to her. ‘Nicola? Why aren’t you calling my name? Have you forgotten me?’
He listened hard. All he could hear was the crackle of burning wood in the hearth. Why was his bride silent? Had she left him for ever?
‘Nicola,’ he murmured so the others wouldn’t hear, ‘please come back.’
FORTY-NINE
Kit Bolter saw the woman standing in the back yard. Light fell from the bedroom window, shining on her face. In fact, the skin that reflected the light seemed to glow brighter than the light itself. Her blond hair shone, too, as if each strand had its own internal illumination. Kit was amazed by her choice of clothes. She’s wearing a cotton dress. At night! In winter! Kit stared in astonishment at the floaty, yellow dress that seemed no more substantial than a spider’s web.
‘Mother, there’s someone in the yard.’
The reply his mother gave could have meant anything. A slurring sound came from the direction of her bedroom. He checked the time. Ten past nine. Damn it, her drinking had got heavier. She wanted Dad back. Dad had yelled he’d NEVER EVER come back. So a sad story, endlessly repeated the world over, of someone wanting the person they can’t have and being destroyed by longing.
Kit turned his attention to the woman in the yard. Slim, pretty. Long blond hair in a Rapunzel plait. He couldn’t see the colour of her eyes, even though she stared this way.
Forget her. Must be a lunatic, or a drug addict, he told himself. For some reason he found himself recalling the raging argument with Owen Westonby. What’s more, he realized that their friendship had started to rot the moment that Owen had met Eden Taylor. A pretty face had sent his old friend nuts. Suddenly, Kit went a little bit nuts, too.
No, he went a lot nuts. Because he felt intense anger at the woman down in the yard. Yes, she seemed pretty. Sexy, too, in that floaty, cotton dress, with the blond plait hanging down over her full breasts. Maybe she’d be smooching round Jez before long?
Kit ran downstairs, wrenched open the door, and went out into the yard.
‘Hey you!’ he yelled in fury. ‘This is private property! Whoever you are! Clear off! Get away from here!’ He picked up a stone and whipped his arm back like he was intending to throw a rock at an animal. ‘Hey, did you hear what I said?’
She said nothing. The yellow dress rippled in the cold breeze.
Why am I doing this? This isn’t like me. I never threaten anyone. I hate bullies. I hate violence. But the rage and sense of rejection by his friend made his emotions erupt. He wanted to dump that anger on the stranger.
‘I said GO!’
She didn’t speak; her face was hidden by shadow.
‘GO!’
He lunged forward. She moved faster. Before he could even yell out she’d thrown him clean across the yard. As he lay there, she sped towards him, fast as a cat.
With a cry he scrambled away on all fours. She grabbed his foot. He felt a spike of pain in his ankle. She dragged him … she actually dragged him across the yard. Dragged him as easily as if he weighed nothing at all.
‘Leggo!’
The woman’s body quivered. Anger? Excitement? He couldn’t tell. All he could be sure of was that she hauled his body across the dirt. He grabbed the washing line post. When she pulled him by the foot his shoulder almost popped its joint. He squealed with pain.
Then he was free. His foot had slipped out of the shoe and she’d lost her grip.
Blindly, half out of his mind with shock, he ran. She followed with that catlike speed. Whoosh! Across the yard.
Kit flung himself through the doorway of the old barn. Inside, a mass of old farm equipment formed potentially lethal obstacles. A rusty plough, heaps of tyres – while shovels, pitchforks, chains, you name it, hung from roof beams like instruments of torture in a dungeon.
The stranger raced after him. She said nothing. Her feet were a light pitter-patter on the floor. CRUNCH! He ricocheted off the steel bars of a cage. Long ago, when this was a working farm, bulls were transported in the contraption. Fingers swiped at the back of his neck. He felt nails rip his skin.
He ran through the passageway formed by the bull cage. Who was this woman? Why was she trying to kill him? From Kit being the aggressor to becoming the prey had taken all of twenty seconds. He’d tried to intimidate the woman, now she terrified him. Scared and running, Kit flung himself out of the other end of the bull cage.
Stopping dead, he slammed the gate shut, crashed the bolt across. That done, he doubled back as the woman ran through the cage, not realizing the far end had been locked.
Kit shut the gate at the other end and punched the bolt across.
‘Ha!’ he yelled in triumph. ‘I’ve got you. You’re mine!’
FIFTY
‘I’ve got you. You’re mine!’ Kit’s triumphant shout rang from the walls. He’d imprisoned the stranger in the old cage that had once been used to trap and transport bulls. Now all this equipment was junk, of course. The barn itself had holes in the roof; the entire place smelt of rot. But the bull cage had worked perfectly. Built from steel bars, and measuring ten feet in length, it had an opening at each end that could be sealed shut with strong gates, designed to thwart even the angriest of beasts.
And he, Kit Bolter, had done just that. The darkness meant he could barely see the woman in the cage. Hell, I can hear her, though, he thought with amazement. A huge clanging hurt his ears as she threw herself at the gates that sealed her prison shut.
‘Stop that,’ he demanded. ‘I’ve caught you. You have to do what I say.’
Years ago, Kit decided that madness ran in the Bolter family. Yet he thought it was the violent, drug-dealing uncles and cousins who were the crazy ones. Now he asked himself if he’d inherited the Bolter streak of lunacy, too.
A brittle clicking reached his ears in the darkness. That sounds like TEETH! She’s BITING the bars!
He shouted, ‘You were trespassing! I have every right to restrain you.’ Restrain? Dear God, I’ve made her my prisoner. I could go to jail for this.
He suspe
cted today’s traumatic events had triggered his downright strange behaviour. Jez had suffered that terrible accident. Kit had been shocked to see Jez in hospital with his arm broken and face busted up. After that, the bitter argument with Owen. No wonder he was emotionally hacked up, because usually Kit could be considered an icon of sensitivity.
But this woman fascinated Kit. Her strength. Her fearlessness. Heck, her sheer strangeness. All that spoke to him in some way. What was more, from the sound of things, she was actually GNAWING at the steel bars. Now this he had to see. He clambered over a pile of plastic crates so he could reach the light switch. CLICK! Out of six light bulbs strung on a wire only one bulb worked. Even so, that was enough to illuminate this bizarre scene.
Here he was, Kit Bolter, with a strange woman as his prisoner. Warily, he approached the cage, his heart thumping hard. He couldn’t tell if he was incredibly excited or absolutely terrified.
‘Hello?’ He stepped closer. ‘Are you OK?’
The stranger had her back to him. She wore her blond hair in a long, thick plait, which whipped from side to side as she attacked the steelwork with her teeth.
‘You’re going to hurt yourself doing that.’ Resting his hands on the bars, he leaned forward in order to see her better. Bare feet? She’s got bare feet. No shoes! ‘Hey, what’s wrong with you?’ he slapped the bars. ‘It’s freezing. What happened to your shoes? Hey!’ This refusal even to glance in his direction annoyed him. ‘Hey, listen to me.’ He thumped the steelwork again.
She moved so fast she was a blur. One moment she had her back to him, the next her face blasted out of the shadows to within three inches of his.
The face at the other side of the bars belonged to a nightmare. He’d seen photographs of faces similar to this – they’d been of dead people. Kit stopped breathing; he stopped moving – he couldn’t move – not so much as a finger. The sight of that nightmare face froze his muscles. The beautiful stranger stared at him. At first glance this seemed to be a girl of around his age, sixteen or so. Yet she didn’t appear to be entirely human. The whiteness of that skin was uncanny. Unnatural. Her eyes? Well, they had no colour at all. They were completely white apart from the black pupils. The pupils contracted to fierce, black points. Concentrations of hatred.
That’s when something incredible happened. Kit Bolter’s mind broke free of the world. The breeze that made an eerie moan as it blew through the barn faded to silence. At the same instant, however, he heard things that are impossible for a human to hear. Nevertheless, those impossible sounds reached his ears.
Because Kit heard the soft sigh of dust falling through the dead air of ancient tombs. His gaze remained locked on to the stark, white face of the beautiful stranger. And yet it seemed to him that he saw through her eyes, for he looked into his own face, with its dark, melancholy eyes. He saw the anxiety there for his mother’s health, which forever haunted him. And he recognized the sadness over the death of his friendship with Owen Westonby.
Then he was seeing the girl again. A spectral blue appeared in her eyes. She inhaled as if she hadn’t breathed in years. Gently, she took both his hands in hers. The face began to look less like a horror mask. Truly, she was beautiful.
Her lips parted. ‘Help me,’ she whispered.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Help me to be like you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Help me be alive like you.’
Anguish savagely stabbed him in the heart. He grimaced with the sheer hurt of wanting to help her but not knowing how.
‘I’m sorry I locked you in there,’ he said – and in a searing blast of revelation he thought: I LOVE YOU. I’LL DO ANYTHING TO HELP. ANYTHING. ‘I’ll open the gate and let you out.’
She didn’t release his hands. In fact, the grip became tighter. Just then, he found himself believing the impossible – that they’d remain together, joined like this, for ever and ever. ‘Will you help me?’ she whispered. ‘Do you promise?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘My name is Freya. I … I’ve been ill, or … or lost …’ The ghostly blue colouring began to fade from her eyes. ‘Lost in the dark …’
‘My name is Kit Bolter. I promise to help you.’ His absolute love for her … his impetuous, impossibly strong love meant that he would promise anything. ‘Let me open the gate.’
‘No, Kit … if you let me out I’ll hurt you.’
‘Not now you won’t: we’re friends.’
She said nothing. Her eyes seemed to stare through his face into his brain.
Kit found himself making a confession. ‘I know what it’s like to be a prisoner of your own bad feelings. I grew up knowing that my mother drank too much. She used the bottle to damp down her misery. You see, my father had a compulsion to provoke fights with men for no other reason than his own gratification. He’d come home singing to himself – so happy with what he’d done. He’d say, “Kit, I knocked a guy clean off his feet. When I punched his face it felt soft as a baby’s. Ha! By the time I’d finished he was crying like a baby, as well.”’ Kit felt such enormous affection for the stranger. ‘At home there was always an atmosphere of violence. As I got older I felt it more and more. When my father came home I’d get pains in my stomach – it was the tension. My muscles got tighter and tighter. It felt like I was standing next to a bomb that was just about to explode.’
Freya gazed into his face. ‘We can help each other. I’m sure we can.’
‘I’ll let you out.’
‘Don’t open the gate yet, Kit.’
‘Why?’
‘Like I said, I might hurt you. I don’t want to, but I might not be able to stop myself.’
Being with this beautiful girl intoxicated him, so he didn’t question such a peculiar admission that she might attack him.
‘But how will you get out of there?’ he asked.
Freya examined the gate’s locking mechanism. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I can’t reach the bolt with my hands.’
‘Why’s that good?’
‘Because me not being able to reach it has just saved your life.’
He smiled and felt his head spin with love for her. ‘So, you like me?’ OK, the question sounded needy. He needed to ask it nonetheless.
‘Yes, I do, Kit.’ The white eyes fixed on him. ‘I can tell you’re not like other boys.’
He suddenly stood taller. Those were the nicest words he’d ever heard. ‘Let me open the gate.’
‘No. Pass me that piece of string on the floor.’
‘Why do you need string?’
‘It’ll take me a little while to tie a loop. Then I can sort of lasso the bolt and pull it back. That will unlock the gate, won’t it?’
‘Sure.’ He handed her the string.
‘Thanks, Kit.’
‘My pleasure, Freya.’
They smiled at each other.
‘Kit, go back to the house. Lock the doors. Don’t come out again until its daylight. Not even if I ask you to.’
‘OK.’
‘Run, Kit, run!’ She began to form a loop in one end of the string. ‘I’ll find you again soon.’
He loped back to the house, a massive grin of sheer happiness filling his face. The oddness of the situation didn’t trouble him. Love is truly blind.
FIFTY-ONE
By ten o’clock on that Sunday night everyone appeared relaxed in the cottage known as Skanderberg. The living room walls reflected the golden firelight. Tom sat in an armchair, enjoying the pleasant fragrance of logs burning in the hearth. A cosy atmosphere enfolded them like a warm, fleece blanket.
Of course, the world outside was a different matter. The forest remained a cold, dark, forbidding place. As he sipped strong coffee, he glanced at the fireplace. Flames roared up the cavernous throat of the chimney. At any moment, a figure might drop down into the flames. It had happened two nights ago; that figure might make the same unorthodox entrance again.
‘So you’ve seen our famous dra
gon?’ Owen asked June as they sat chatting together on the sofa.
‘The dragon?’ She shot Tom a startled glance, clearly wondering how much Owen knew about the creatures that haunted the forest. ‘What dragon?’
‘This one.’ Owen stood up in order to point at the carving set into the wall. ‘His name’s Helsvir. There are legends that Viking gods made a dragon out of corpses. Tom found this under some wood panelling when he rebuilt the cottage.’
‘Oh …’ June made a point of smiling. ‘Your brother mentioned something about it. Isn’t it the local version of the Loch Ness Monster?’
‘Something like that. Viking dragons tend not to blow fire out of their mouths or fly. They’re still vicious though, and prefer to live in wet, slimy places.’ Owen laughed. ‘You know, parents still scare their children with stories about Helsvir.’
‘So you don’t believe in him?’
‘No way. There’s lots of stuff on the Internet about Helsvir, like some people believe he’s real.’
‘There are rumours that something big’s been seen in the valley.’ Tom decided to test Owen’s disbelief. After all, he knew that Jez had told him about driving the truck into some monster of an animal just twenty-four hours ago.
Owen, however, clearly preferred rational explanations. ‘People see wild ponies, or stags, or even an escaped cow; everything gets exaggerated.’ Owen tapped the carving with his finger. ‘They say that picture of Helsvir was made over a thousand years ago. Look, you can see he’s made up of dead bodies … a kind of Frankenstein dragon. See these circles? Those are supposed to be human heads. And all these lines coming out of the body are people’s legs that have somehow been grafted on. If anything, it shows that our ancestors had a wild imagination.’
June said, ‘Believing in things, sometimes even in impossible things, help people live better lives.’
‘You mean like angels and good luck charms?’ Owen shrugged. ‘Give me science any day. What do you say, Tom?’
Tom smiled. ‘There’s a powerful force that can’t be dissected or tested in a laboratory.’
