“Myfanwy,” said Wesley, pointing. A glance into the trees showed her what he saw; shapes stood among the trees, some in military uniforms, others in hospital smocks.
“It’s alright,” she said. The torch’s beam played across a uniformed chest; it appeared as solid as a living man’s. She kept the beam away from their faces; she knew what she’d see. “They’re ghosts. They can’t hurt you. I doubt they’d want to if they could. Come on.”
Tammy’s face was buried in Wesley’s shoulder. Wesley himself looked quite pale. So, they could see them too. Were they both touched with the Sight as well? Or was it because they were with her? Perhaps at Ash Fell the skin between the worlds was worn so thin the dead could reveal themselves to whoever they chose. “Children,” she said, “come along. We’ve got to go.”
From behind them came a hissing screech and a roar of rage.
THEY REACHED THE farm a few minutes later. The woods were encroaching onto its lands, but the ground was still open enough for the moonlight to fill it. Derelict and roofless, the farmhouse was little better than an empty shell. One of the ceilings had fallen in; the other remained, but the beams were exposed and rotten. The barn was little better off. An empty silo loomed over the site. From nearby she heard the brittle chuckle of running water. The mill.
“This way,” she said.
“Myfanwy?” The Shrike’s thin, cold voice had a crazed, mocking note to it as it echoed up the path. “I’m coming to find you, Myfanwy. You and the children. You and my food. You will be very, very sorry that you crossed me, Myfanwy.”
“Give it a rest,” she muttered; then, to the children, “Come on.”
The stream babbled down the side of the hill. She knew they were getting close; the temperature dropped as they neared the water. The mill’s pale stone flank loomed out of the dark. Cracks snaked across it, through the stone. The door and windows gaped black and empty.
“Inside,” she gasped.
A dead end, perhaps, but they couldn’t run forever. And perhaps – just perhaps – they’d find a weapon here.
Inside it was dank. She shone the torch around. Silt was caked on the floor, knotted with dead grass. The stream must have flooded the mill at some point. Here was the big central column, plugging into the wheels that turned and ground the stone. Balls of cobweb. The wood looked damp and rotten. Dear God, the whole place was ready to come down.
“Where are we?” Wesley whispered. Tammy sniffled and sobbed; he shushed her gently.
“Ash Fell, my love. Used to be a hospital, of sorts.”
“What kind? A loony bin?”
Myfanwy looked down, stroked Tammy’s hair. “Partly. It was for soldiers, from the First World War. Some of them – some of them had gone mad from the things they’d seen. Some of them weren’t mad, but they were... they were terribly wounded. Their faces.”
“That’s what wesaw back there, wasn’t it?” said Wesley. He looked almost calm. Old beyond his years, this boy was. She was glad he was here.
“Yes. Some very bad things happened in this place. The way the people here were treated–” She broke off. “It’s not important right now. But they used to have their own farm, and that’s where we are now.”
“Now what?”
Something gleamed in the beam of her torch. She looked more closely. Yes – an old oil-lamp, hanging from the ceiling. She reached out, hefted it, shook it from side to side. Liquid sloshed within it.
“Fire,” she whispered. Fire purifies, Yolly had said. Sometimes you have to burn the badness out.
“What?”
“Fire,” she said. “It’s the one thing, isn’t it? Supposed to kill all evil things.” She handed the lamp to Wesley. “If we can burn him, it, whatever it is... see if there’s another in here.”
“Myfanwy!” came the call. She spun. Moonlight lapped across the farmyard. A figure limped over the cobbles, moonlight gleaming on its bald head. His leg was restored; it looked a little thin and he dragged it slightly, but it was restored.
“I can smell you.” The Shrike limped towards the door. Wesley moved to the side, lamp held ready. Myfanwy fumbled in her pocket, trying to find her lighter.
The Shrike stood in the doorway. “You did your best,” he said, “but it was worthless.”
His hands had shrunk back to resemble normal, human hands, white and soft and smooth and innocent of work. Apart from the limp, he showed no sign of any injury. Only his clothes had suffered: his shirt was a tattered, bloody rag, one leg of his trousers ended at the knee and his glasses were broken. But his face was healed and his chest was hairless.
But fire. Fire purified.
The Shrike stepped through the door, pivoted as Wesley raised the safety lamp to throw. He caught the boy by the throat with one hand and flung him at Myfanwy. She stepped aside just in time. Wesley hit the ground with a grunt; the lamp rolled away, past the Shrike, towards the doorway.
Tammy screamed. Myfanwy pushed the child behind her, reached out towards Wesley, who scrambled towards her. The Shrike laughed and started forwards. He raised his white hands to point them at her face; then, with a wet crackling sound like the leg being wrenched from a roast chicken, their fat pulpy whiteness began to unfold and those segmented, needle-tipped digits reached towards her face.
An explosion; the Shrike’s face jerked and twisted. There was pain and there was horrid surprise. And then his legs collapsed and he pitched to the floor at Myfanwy’s feet.
Bronisław slumped against the doorframe, the shotgun cradled in his hands. His coat was in tatters, his face was badly cut, open to the bone in one place, but the gun didn’t waver. “Bastard,” he said.
Tammy screamed again as the Shrike thrashed on the ground, fingers raking across it to snatch at their feet. Bronisław stumbled into the room and shot the writhing shape again in the head.
12
THE SHRIKE SCREECHED, twisted round on the floor. His legs didn’t move; Bronislaw’s first blast must have shattered his spine. But he’d been shot in the head and still lived. The noises that came out of him weren’t words. They weren’t really even human. But then of course, Myfanwy thought, he wasn’t.
He couldn’t die, of course, that was it; not by the gun, anyway. He could be damaged though; the loss of his leg had hampered him. The shattered spine would heal too but not yet; he was weakened at last, maybe not helpless but close to it for just a few minutes. She gripped Wesley’s arm. “Quickly,” she said.
They skirted the Shrike; he snatched at them again.
Bronisław, weaving and dazed, was trying to reload.
“Don’t waste your time,” said Myfanwy, picking up the lamp. “We can’t kill him. He isn’t human. Just something using a human body. That’s all he is. All we can do is send him back where he came from – destroy the body, before it heals again.”
Myfanwy took the lamp in one hand and her cigarette lighter in the other.
“Get the children out,” she said.
Bronisław opened his mouth to protest.
“You’re in no state, Bron. And if one of us has to go, I’m the old one. Go on.”
“I’m staying,” said Wesley.
“Go,” said Myfanwy. “Now.” She glanced at the crippled, thrashing shape on the floor. “Before he heals up again.”
Bronisław put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come on, boy.”
Wesley picked up Tammy, looked at Myfanwy one last time, and then he turned and ran out.
Bronisław looked at her.
“Go,” she said. “One way or the other, I’ll see you soon.”
Bronisław limped back out into the dark.
“Myfanwy.”
She spun round.
The Shrike had twisted round towards her; his body was bent almost into a U shape, legs trailing limp and motionless behind him. His white hands crouched beside him on the floor like huge white crabs or spiders. Blood covered his face but the wounds were almost healed. Even though he was still crippled. Unless
he was faking. Unless it was a trick. She couldn’t dismiss that. He was cunning, this one. A predator.
An involuntary shudder ran through the Shrike; his head jerked and his shoulders twitched; his fingers twitched too, and their points scratched along the mill’s rotten floor. He spat blood out through his teeth. “Myfanwy,” he said again, and his fingerpoints dug into the ground. His shoulders hunched and he dragged himself forward, leaving a red, shiny trail behind him.
“Get back,” said Myfanwy, and lifted the lantern.
“Or you’ll kill me?” The Shrike tried to cock his head, but the twitch ran through him again. “But you plan to anyway, surely. So what have I got to lose?”
Myfanwy moved a step backwards. The Shrike grinned and let out a giggling hiss; bloody spittle bubbled through the grid of his white teeth. His fingers flexed and dug into the floor again; Myfanwy hefted the lamp again and his fingers relaxed.
“This does not have to happen,” the Shrike said. “Sincerely. We can go our separate ways.”
Myfanwy fumbled with the lamp’s glass, trying to prise it free.
“Don’t be hasty. I can offer you much. Or I can withhold things you would rather not know.”
The glass fell free and shattered on the floor. Now she fumbled with the wheel, flicking at it again and again.
“I can see a great deal, Mrs Griffiths. I can see a long way ahead, further than any of you. Even you, with your little... Sight. I can see, for example, when your son will die. And how. It is a fixed event in time. A rock in the stream. Immutable. Nothing you can do will change it. I can see it and I can tell you how long he has left. How will you look at him, knowing that?”
He was playing for time. He had to die. She had to do it now. But those grey, colourless eyes held her, wouldn’t let her go. She flicked the wheel again; a flame bloomed.
The Shrike must have seen it. “Wait. There’s more. Your friend. The Pole.”
She touched the flame to the wick; after a slow, agonising moment, it bloomed into life.
“I can see his death very clearly too,” said the Shrike. “He has seven years of life left, Mrs Griffiths. He will die in 1993 from cancer, and he will suffer first. Even if you warned him now, you would never save him. His death is written. But it’s different from your son’s. I can save Bronisław. I can intervene. He will live a long life, as long as yours if not longer.”
One of the legs twitched.
Now. It had to be now. Myfanwy brought up the lamp to throw–
“Your granddaughter,” shouted the Shrike – was that fear in his voice, fear at last? “Your precious little Anna – I can see her death too.”
Myfanwy screamed then, to drown him out – she knew Anna would die one day but didn’t want to believe–
And suddenly the Shrike was surging to his feet, lunging for her. Time slowed; Myfanwy suddenly felt quite calm. She hurled the lamp; it hit him in the face and shattered into pieces, the fuel spilling over him, the glass shredding his face. The fuel ignited; orange flame rushed outwards, raced across his chest, along his arms, engulfed his face and head. He screamed and flailed but still he came at her.
Myfanwy still wasn’t afraid. She turned and stepped out of the door. “Bronisław,” she said, and stepped out of his line of fire. He was standing not ten feet from the door, the reloaded shotgun in his hands. He fired both barrels; the Shrike flew backward through the doorway with a screech, falling. The flames roared and spread; smoke began boiling out of the mill’s windows.
Bronisław stumbled away, sank to his knees. Wesley cradled Tammy as she sobbed. Myfanwy picked up the fallen branch and stood as close as she dared to the door, waiting, until the screeching finally died away and there was only the crackle of the flames.
13
JUST BEFORE DARK, Myfanwy pulled up outside the burned-out farmhouse on Dunwich Lane. She waited. She waited almost ten minutes, eyes straying over and over to the black, empty hole of the doorway, before getting out of the car and venturing inside.
The smell of wet earth, rotten wood and burning enfolded her. She shone her torch around the inside of the house, found only soot-blackened stone, puddles of rainwater and melted snow. Nothing else.
“Hello?” she called. No answer, of course. Foolish to ask. She could hear her own voice; there was none of the silence that came with the dead.
“Was that what you wanted?” she asked, but only the cold steady drip of water answered her, telling her nothing.
“He’s dead,” she said. “Was that what you wanted?”
No answer.
“The children are safe. Was that what you wanted?”
No answer.
“It’s over. Was that what you wanted? It’s over.”
No answer.
“Isn’t it?”
No answer.
There were no answers here, not now. This earth is full of bones, the girl had said. Perhaps. Perhaps it was. But in all other ways the house was empty. The children had gone.
She switched off the torch; the shadows rushed back in, reclaiming their own. This place belonged to the dark; always had. She turned and went back to the car.
CHRISTMAS EVE AND a whisper of snow blew down Rudgate Street, old brittle long-dead leaves skittering over the road and along the pavement. But that was outside. Inside the Creamery, at their table by the window, they sat warm and snug; an old woman and a man in his late fifties, sipping coffee and nibbling cake.
Bronisław had one arm in a sling; a bandage lay down the side of his face, where tinier, undressed cuts were healing.
“So,” she said, “you’re well?”
“Fine.”
“You should really still be in hospital.”
Bronisław scowled. “Rubbish. Just cuts and bruises. I will be fine.”
“Well, that’s good. Never forgive myself otherwise. Expect Roberta’d like to hang me up from a lamppost.”
He smiled. “A little.”
“And you?”
“We will always be friends, Myfanwy. But I think the next time you do something like this, you should ask someone else.”
“Oh.”
“It was not the danger. It was the memories. I was a soldier again. A taker of lives. I remember how I held other guns. How it felt. Power. Until you come to want to pull the trigger, to destroy. I would rather not be reminded of those times. They are gone.”
“I understand. Don’t worry – I don’t think there’ll be a next time. Not at my age. I doubt there’s much worse out there than the Shrike. Not that I could deal with, at least.”
“You’ve heard nothing more?”
“No.”
“The children?”
“They’ve gone on somewhere else. Better than here, I hope.”
“I meant Tammy and Wesley. They are well?”
“Yes. Back with their families. They’ll be alright. I hope. But they never found the briefcase, I’m guessing that had the money the Shrike was bringing, and there’s been nothing about the policeman who was working with him.”
“So he is still out there.”
“Yes. But at least the Shrike’s gone. You’d think that should count for something.”
“I hope so.” Bronisław glanced outside. “I had better go.”
“Alright.”
He stood. “Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas, Bron.”
He went out and limped away through the falling snow, not looking back.
He couldn’t have heard what the Shrike had said inside the mill; at least, Myfanwy hoped not. If he had, perhaps he understood.
He has seven years of life left. He will die in 1993 from cancer, and he will suffer first.
She wanted to believe the Shrike had lied to her, but on some deep level she knew he hadn’t. She didn’t know if there was a pattern to life: sometimes she hoped it, sometimes she feared it. And she never knew, because no-one did.
Myfanwy covered her mouth and did not speak.
And outside, t
he wind blew the leaves and the snow down the street, and on into the year beyond.
So much to lose here – will it be better there?
Nobody knows – will there be tears
So we can be moved by some beautiful aria?
You will find out when you see God cry.
Bolesław Taborski, 1927-2010
For Anna Taborska
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Halina Taborska for permission to quote Bolesław Taborski’s poem ‘A Fragment Of Being,’ Anna Taborska, Gary McMahon and Joel Lane for reading and commenting on earlier drafts of these stories, and Jonathan Oliver for publishing these tales. Thanks, folks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Simon Bestwick was born in 1974. His short fiction has popped up all over the place, in the UK and the States, and is collected in A Hazy Shade of Winter. His first novel, Tomes of The Dead: Tide of Souls, received wide critical praise and, more recently, he has been nominated for the Bram Stoker award.
Find out more about Simon at
Simon-Bestwick.blogspot.com
A TOWN SHROUDED IN MIST. A BURIED SECRET TOO TERRIBLE TO TELL.
In the Lancashire town of Kempforth, people are vanishing. Mist hangs heavy in the streets, and in those mists move the masked figures the local kids call the Spindly Men. When two year old Roseanne Trevor disappears, Detective Chief Inspector Renwick vows to stop at nothing until she fi nds her. In Manchester, terrifying visions summon TV psychic Allen Cowell and his sister Vera back to the town they swore they’d left forever. And local historian Anna Mason pieces together a history of cruelty and exploitation almost beyond belief, born out of the horrors of war – while in the decaying corridors and lightless rooms of a long-abandoned hospital, something terrible is waiting for them all.
Lets Drink To The Dead Page 9
