by Gary McMahon
A cold creeping sensation stippled his back, coming through the open balcony door. Cold fingers caressed his shoulder blades, easing out the tension. Those lovers he’d viewed from the balcony had climbed up to pay him a visit. A voice whispered to him, familiar somehow and bringing with it the uneasy recollection of so much fear, so much guilt.
It was a voice Frank had not heard for many years, not since he’d left the orphanage after being fostered by a nice family named the Links from North London. Finally they had legally adopted him, helping rid him of the memories that scarred him like a heavy blade. He’d managed to leave his pain and debasement behind, but now Riven Manor was calling out to him once more, reaching from the gaping ruins to drag him back. For years he’d managed to divert the voice into his writing, but lately it had been too loud, to persistent.
It had begun when he started work on the new book, the most blatantly autobiographical thing he’d ever written. A twisted fairytale featuring the Hugger, a creature who loved its victims to death. Like the staff at Riven Manor all those years ago, it used twisted affection to render children senseless. Frank had used what few scattered memories of his time at Riven Manor he could muster to invest the evil with a sense of realism, of verisimilitude. This was no metaphorical monster: not this time. It was the real thing.
Smooth arms enveloped him from behind in an almost liquid motion. And he was unable to shrug off the advances of the thing that wanted to have him one last time.
X
Terry reached the river and realised that he was standing on the wrong side. The hotel stood directly ahead of him, looming on the opposite bank across a black strip of gurgling water. Franz treaded water in the middle of the river, rapidly shaking his head. He wanted Terry to turn back.
Now that he’d worked out that the boy meant him no real harm things had changed. The dynamic had shifted. Instead of fear, Terry felt a sharp pang of curiosity. Who was this boy Franz, and why was he here? And, more importantly, what did he think he was protecting Terry from?
Terry waded into the river, oblivious to the icy waters that rose up his legs and numbed his genitals. It felt like cold fingers grabbing him down there.
“You were trying to protect me, weren’t you?” he said to the boy in the river.
Franz slowly sunk beneath the black surface of the water, a mournful look on his doughy face. The waters closed over his head like tar, sucking him down into the hungry depths. The last thing Terry saw before the boy vanished was the top of his blonde head.
Terry pushed on, swimming in a doggy-paddle across to the other side. That unpleasant sensation of hands tugging at his crotch did not disappear; if anything, it grew stronger the closer he got to the opposite bank. A wet voice whispered in his ear. He could not make out the words, but they seemed to hold sexual connotations. Some of the phrases that poured into his ear burned his soul like a hot iron, despite him never having heard them before and not being able to fully understand their meaning.
He climbed out on the other side, breathless and terrified. He realised now that there was something here, something that had emerged from the dank interior passages of Riven Manor when the bulldozers had done their work, tearing the place apart. Whatever negative energy had been compressed between the bricks, or had seeped into the wood and fibres, had been released into the outside world.
XI
“What’s wrong with you, Frank?” Claire slid across the bed as she buttoned her blouse, suddenly wary of her husband and needing to place the piece of furniture between them. His face had altered somehow in the last five minutes, as if the skin had slackened on the bone beneath.
He walked to the bottom of the bed, grinning like a fool. His eyes were dead. His lips were thin and compressed, pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl.
“Frank?”
“Frank isn’t here. If you’d like to leave a message, I’m sure he’ll get back to you.” He giggled, his muscular shoulders twitching.
“Please, honey. What’s happening?”
“Where’s the boy, pretty Claire? Where’s your son, your little Terry? We want to playyyyy with him.”
In that moment Claire realised that, as the thing before her had said, Frank was no longer present in his own body. His personality had been usurped, submerged beneath this…this monster.
“He was promised to us a long time ago, back when we used to playyyy with your hubby. He was a game boy, little Frank. Such a pretty, soft mouth; such smooth, smooth little hands. We took great pleasure from him, back in the day.
“In the deep dark parts of night, we crept into their little rooms. We took what we wanted, left behind scars that never heal. We were their own most hated nightmares; we were their bestest friends. We were the ones charged with their care, and we abused the privilege to the best of our abilities.”
Their followed a hideous cackling laugh, a sound that made her skin itch.
“My son is safe. Somewhere you can’t get to him.” Claire managed to get her feet under her, and thrust herself up into a standing position on the mattress.
“You can’t hide him from us. We’re like Rumple-fucking-stiltskin. But even if you name us, we’ll still take him apart and fill his holes with meat.”
Claire felt nauseous; it sickened her soul to hear someone – her own husband – talk about Terry like that. Her poor boy. She wanted to run to him now, to take him in her arms and carry him away from all the filth of the world.
“Ah,” said the Frank-thing. “A mother’s love. There’s nothing better to twist, to beat out of shape and defile. A mother’s love can be such a beautiful thing to ruin.”
“Fuck off,” she said, and aimed a kick at Frank’s head. Her foot connected; he sat down forcefully on his backside, a comical look of utter confusion on his face. Those self-defence lessons had paid off; she had a kick like a mule.
“Bitch!” he screamed, struggling to his feet.
Claire leapt over him, her knee catching him in the eye. He squealed, scurrying after her with one hand held across his face. She saw blood seeping from between his fingers, and the sight made her heart sing. She was out the door in an instant, slamming it on his free hand. She didn’t pause to listen to him scream again; she bolted for the landing, and hurried down the staircase into the waiting night.
XII
Frank fought hard against the figures that held him down, kicking and biting and gouging. But nothing seemed to loosen their grip; they could not be harmed in any way. He kicked out, screaming obscenities, but they pressed down harder on his flailing body. Their hands felt the same as they always had; their fingers knew his body, inside and out. Even now that their hiding place had been demolished, they still wanted to play their dark games.
The irrefutable knowledge that these entities had been here for a very long time came to him with a vision of men dressed in animal skins running across rocky ground, the darkness around them throbbing with intention. The things that now inhabited Frank had been preying on humanity since the very first men told scary stories around a campfire, eyes wide and filled with a thirst for knowledge of the dark, hands gripping fiery torches and making sparking shapes in the air. Riven Manor was the latest in a long line of nests; its essence was merely their current manifestation.
Wherever human evil dwells, thought Frank in a moment of painful clarity, they come to feed.
He could see Claire from a great distance, as if he were watching her through a cracked window that was situated miles away from where he was being restrained. He watched her as she fought, and felt a burst of pride when she escaped the clutches of the spirit of Riven Manor.
“Who are you?” he yelled, still uncertain as to the exact nature of the creature he fought.
“We are you,” was the reply. “A bit of your own dark world.”
XIII
Claire had always kept herself in shape, ever since she’d been attacked at the age of fifteen. Walking through the park from a friend’s house late one night, a man
had grabbed her from behind. He’d forced his hand up her skirt, clawing between her legs, and thrown her to the ground. Claire had tried to fight him off, but her attacker had been too strong, too heavy to shift. As he’d attempted to penetrate her, she’d been unable to scream: the bastard had forced her own ripped underwear between her lips to keep her quiet.
She had a dog to thank for her rescue. A young girl from a nearby block of flats had taken her German Shepherd into the park to relieve itself, and the inquisitive hound had sensed danger. It had dragged its owner over to the cluster of trees were Claire was in the process of being assaulted, scaring off her surprised attacker.
The man was never caught. Claire bought the dog a brand new collar and a pillow for its bed.
So for the past sixteen years Claire had attended karate lessons in the local civic centre sports hall; and whenever possible she’d gone for brisk runs through the neighbourhood. It kept her sane, and now it had kept her safe. If it were not for the confidence she’d developed through the years of disciplined training, she would not be here now, running to the hospital to save her son from something she could barely even contemplate.
She knew that thing back at the hotel was not her husband, no matter how much it resembled him physically. However impossible it seemed, Frank had been taken over. Possessed.
She couldn’t think of anything more ridiculous. Or more terrifying.
XIV
Terry cautiously climbed the stairs to room number 17. There had been no one on the front desk when he’d entered the building, so he’d taken it upon himself to go straight to his parents. He ran past rooms with closed doors, feeling as if the entire population of the planet had turned their backs on him. He realised that he had to do this by himself; no otherwise unmentioned hero was going to appear to save them all on the next page. This wasn’t like the books he read; it wasn’t even like the ones his father wrote. They all had happy endings.
He had not seen Franz since the river crossing, but could sense the boy’s chill presence.
He followed Terry at a distance, trailing him like smoke.
The door to his parents’ room was open, and a figure lay on the bed.
Terry entered, peering into the gloom.
“Mum,” he said, suddenly afraid. “Is that you?”
“Come in, child,” said a voice he did not recognise. And when his father sat up on the bed, the door slammed shut behind him.
XV
The boy was sitting on the edge of the kerb, playing with dead leaves in the gutter. His face was pale as flour, and his hair was dark blonde and sticking out at the sides of his head above the ears. When Claire drew level with him, the boy looked up. He was the image of Frank at ten years old: she’d seen too many photographs taken at the orphanage and then later at the home of his adopted family not to recognise that battered expression, those sad, broken eyes. The perpetually messy hair.
“Hello,” he said, standing. He was tall – like Frank – and his hands were small in comparison to his burly frame.
Such a pretty, soft mouth; such smooth, smooth little hands.
“Hi. What’s your name?”
He smiled. It was horrible, like someone who didn’t know how; someone who only knew how to grimace. “My name is Franz.”
“Listen, Franz, this is important. Are you the boy I saw in my car? The boy who pushed my son into the basement at Riven Manor?”
At the mention of the name, he visibly folded in on himself, wincing. Claire felt like she’d struck him a blow.
“Please, Franz. My boy is in trouble.”
“Go back to the hotel. He went there, looking for you. I tried to stop him…but he wouldn’t listen. He ran away from me.”
Claire felt her heart turn to stone; her womb crumpled as if a vacuum had appeared somewhere deep inside her.
“It’s been waiting for them, the children. Our children. I saved myself before it got to that, but others, like Frank, have blocked it all out. They don’t remember what happened to us back there, but I could never, ever forget.”
The boy held out his hands, palms down, and twisted them to reveal open wounds at the wrist. They had stopped bleeding long ago, but some cuts never close; instead they become mouths through which the mute learn to scream.
“It’s so very patient. It knows that eventually they’ll all come back, one by one, piece by piece. All it has to do is wait.”
Claire ran back towards the hotel, cramp almost crippling her. But no pain, she knew, could equal that caused by the loss of a child.
XVI
“Dad?”
“Terry, you have to leave. Get out of here.” Frank suddenly had the upper hand; the sight of his son had given him the strength he needed to break free of the beasts that held him down.
“What’s wrong, dad? I have something to tell you. There’s this boy –”
“Just fucking go! Run!”
Terry began to cry. Slowly, and with little sense of what was happening to his father, he backed up against the closed door, weeping at his father’s rage.
Frank felt them regain control. He was finished. He could fight them no longer.
Terry sat on the floor, rendered helpless by sorrow. He had come here to save his family, and all he’d received in return was punishment.
They guided Frank’s body off the bed, clumsily propelling him forward across the room. Frank was powerless to resist; he was weak as a kitten, weak as a baby. All he felt were the countless penetrations, the cuts and the beatings, the broom handle rapists taking their fun. Still he could not remember everything, but this little glimpse into the darkness of his past was more than enough to numb him to whatever came next.
Frank moved slowly and jerkily, like the puppet he’d always been, his joints trying so hard not to bend, hands desperate not to curl into solid fists. He reached out those hands to take what had been promised in the darkness so long ago: a new plaything for his old, old friends, something to keep them company in the endless night.
XVII
Terry watched in horror as his father’s body sprouted multiple arms, hands waving in the air like black ribbons blown in a stinking wind. Far too many fingers reached for him, grabbing him by the arms, throat, and face. He went down as the blackness flooded in, sinking deeper and deeper into its world. It was like quicksand, pulling him under, dragging him in. When he tried to scream the darkness poured into his mouth like water.
More claw-like fingers plucked at his pyjamas, pulling them off his skinny body. Raking his flesh, looking for ways inside.
“Please,” he whispered, and then he could whisper no more. All he could do was scream.
XVIII
Frank gave one last push, concentrating his remaining energy on denying the dark figures their fun. He managed to take control of his mutating body for a single second; and in that time he turned to face the door, knowing instinctively what waited on the other side. He raised his arms and closed his eyes, hanging on as long as he could.
“No!” he yelled, firmly and with no doubt in his own mind. “No you fucking don’t.”
XIX
Claire burst through the door like a fury, hurling her entire body weight on top of the surreal monstrosity that was rearing over her son. All she saw was a mass of arms and legs, a cluster of twitching erect appendages, scores of lolling wet tongues. It was the shape of abuse, a hideous pattern of sexual abhorrence.
She tore into its flesh with hands driven by the passion of motherhood, bit and gouged at its faces, pummelled its seeping organs until they were flayed like skinless sausages. She closed her eyes and promised herself that she would not open them again until this thing was done, the creature dead, scattered in chewed-up pieces on the floor.
It didn’t take long to carry out her wish. She killed the animal who tried to rape her all those years before; and she destroyed the men who’d twisted her husband so far out of true that he was open to such a hostile invasion; then she mutilated every other deviant who roa
med the earth, skulking in small towns and cities, living on cosy suburban streets, preying on the neighbourhood children.
She killed them all. Over and over again.
When she was finished she picked up her son and carried him outside. She set him down on the soft grass and sang him a lullaby, cradling him like she used to do when he was a mere babe in arms. When he fell asleep she took him to the car and laid him gently across the back seat. Then she drove out to Riven Manor, watching the boy called Franz follow close behind, covering the distance in an odd loping run that was more of a gallop.
Franz was waiting for them when they arrived, sitting on a small embankment, not even breathing hard. Ghosts can run forever; they never slacken the pace.
“Frank summoned me,” he said as she approached. “He gave me his face and a name very much like his own. I was his invisible friend, the unseen playmate. When they entered his room at night and locked the door behind them, he would call me and we’d go running in the hills, swimming in crystal-clear lakes, climbing the tallest trees in the world to hide from the dark stains below.
“I was his friend. I took him away from it all.”
Claire went to the boy and embraced him, her arms passing most of the way through him but halting when he solidified for just an instant. And in that moment she saw Frank as he was before a bit of the dark world had invaded, before his innocence had been snatched away by the very people who were meant to protect it. Nameless. Faceless. Heartless. They’d killed the child and warped the man.
“Thank you,” she said; and when she looked into his face it was gone, leaving behind only a slight ripple in the air, the sense of something passing out of view forever.
She returned to the car and unpacked the pieces of Frank she’d transported in the boot, laying them carefully and respectfully on the hardened ground. She buried him there, in the tatters of Riven Manor, hoping that the act would consecrate the earth, laying to rest whatever spirits remained. It was daylight by the time she was finished. The sky was red as blood, and filled with a light that was almost hypnotic in its beauty. She knew that Frank’s body would be found eventually, probably when the developers moved in to build new homes over the dismembered carcass of Riven Manor. But she would answer questions when they were asked, cross bridges when she came to them. For now, she was content to comfort her son and keep him safe from further harm.
