A long silence followed and Kelly gave me her best Can we leave now please? look. I was surprised at how quickly Westhoff had rattled her. The thunder made itself known again, louder this time, like a train battering towards us from behind the dark clouds. Lightning blinked on the horizon and Morris clapped his hands together firmly.
“Right, then. To prove my point, try this one first. The local foie gras.”
I took the plate and carved a small amount of the supple pâté onto my spoon. Joseph’s eyes were fixated on me with a mixture of excitement and horror as I raised it to my mouth. The flavor was creamy and rich and smooth, with the faintest under-taste of liver. It dissolved away like butter on the palate, leaving a tingling sensation on edges of my tongue.
“I’m sorry, Morris,” I said. “But I think that’s actually very good.”
He raised a small hand to quiet me before passing me the other plate.
“Now, try this one.”
This pâté, a paler shade of pink than the first, was oval in shape, with a small, red trim of fat about its circumference. I knew from the moment my spoon cut effortlessly through its tender consistency that it would be even more delicate and buttery than its predecessor. As I put the spoon into my mouth, I saw that Morris was staring at me intently.
His grey eyes narrowed and a trembling, half-smile played around the edge of his thin lips. A small fly crept across his smooth brown skin before settling on the end of his nose, but he did not notice. Small beads of sweat had formed on his brow; one trickled down and landed in a dark stain on his perfect linen suit.
The taste was extraordinary: smooth and rich once again, but the under-taste of liver was a barely detectable dimension beneath the buttery, exquisite texture which melted away on my tongue in seconds. I had never tasted anything like it.
“That is possibly the most beautiful thing I have ever tasted.”
Morris clapped his hands together in delight. The smile was back now, wider than ever, and I realized suddenly that the teeth were simply too white, too wide, and too flawless to be anything other than dentures.
“The first foie gras, as I have already explained, is the local attempt,” he said. “The second however, is the Westhoff version, and, dare I say it, the correct version—created right here beneath our very feet.”
“You made this?”
Morris nodded proudly, resting hands on his hips and pointing his beige brogues east and west.
“Foie gras is simply fat held together and flavored by what was once the liver. Essentially, it’s all about this semi-solid fat—which, though neutral to the taste, is slightly meaty. If executed correctly, the solidification point of the fat is such that it melts on the tongue, going from solid to liquid with the body’s temperature, just as it’s eaten—hence the melt in the mouth sensation. Now, the French do understand this, I have no doubt—but they have failed in the most fundamental way. Their basic ingredient is wrong.”
Just then, Judith appeared on the patio.
“Morris, I’m sorry to interrupt, darling, but have you fed the kids yet this evening?”
Silence was again broken by the distant rumbling of thunder. Judith smiled on at us, and I noticed that her unnaturally blue eyes had changed somehow. Was it possible she was wearing colored contacts? Yes, I could see it now. The blue lens to her right eye had slipped to the side, revealing a dark iris beneath.
“You have children here?” Kelly asked in total bewilderment.
“Children? God forbid!” Morris laughed out loud for the first time. “My dear, we keep young goats in the stables under the house, that’s all.”
He tapped a brogue on the patio. “Right beneath us. They need a lot of feeding, though, I can tell you—especially in the last two weeks. That’s the critical period. If you get that wrong, it ruins the taste completely.”
I looked across the neatly mown lawn, where Joseph was crouching to inspect the lobster cage in the dying light. But I knew now, of course, that the cage was not designed for a lobster, but for a baby goat. I saw that it would be impossible for a small animal to move within in its tight wicker confines. At the top, the small gap would provide just enough space for the goat’s head to stick out for feeding.
“So you’re telling me,” Kelly said quietly, “that you keep baby goats under this house, in cages, and that you force feed them to make pâté?”
“It isn’t just pâté. And I can tell you now, my dear, most emphatically, that none of my subjects experience any pain whatsoever.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Local anesthetic is administered to ensure that the subjects feel nothing during the fattening process and that the trachea remains numb throughout all feeding sessions. It is such a shame that you insist on being so narrow minded. What difference can it possibly make from an ethical perspective whether it’s a duck or a goose or, indeed, a goat?”
I thought of the photograph in the toilet, of the monkey cages and Morris’ clean white lab coat. I could still taste the faint iron-like tang of the foie gras. I simply could not speak. In the end, I didn’t have to.
Kelly stepped forward and calmly rested her wine glass on the table.
“Mr. Westhoff, I am sorry, but I believe what you are doing here is immoral, despicable and, I suspect, illegal. I thank you for your hospitality but we are leaving now.”
Morris only smiled and nodded. “As you wish.”
The silence was broken again; not by thunder this time, but by a terrible and prolonged gargling sound that echoed up from beneath us, from deep within the bowels of the Westhoff house.
On the brisk walk back to our farmhouse, the rain finally began to fall. Darkness gathered with our every step. Joseph ran on ahead.
“I meant exactly what I said,” Kelly whispered. “We’re leaving. Now.”
“But the Ferry isn’t booked until Friday.”
“Change it. Please.”
“What will we tell Joseph?”
“Nothing. Put him to bed as usual. We’ll put him in the car after he’s asleep. When he wakes up, we’ll be in Cherbourg.”
She was trying to be strong, but I knew her better than that. I could hear the slight tremble in her voice that told me she was not angry, but frightened.
We walked in silence as the ruined cemetery came into view through the rain. It suddenly struck me then.
“Do you think they bury them in the—”
“Yes.”
It didn’t take long to pack up. I backed the car right up to the house; out of sight from the Westhoff residence, so that no one could know. I was surprised at how in agreement I was with Kelly about leaving tonight. I had felt it too. It wasn’t just an argument about food, but something else beneath that. A sense that something was out of kilter here—something was not right with the Westhoffs—and it sent a chill through me. I no longer felt safe for any of us. The edge I had heard in Kelly’s voice was all the more unsettling, because I seldom saw her shaken in this way.
Once the car was crammed full, I put my waterproof coat on and pulled the hood over my head. I made my way down the driveway for one last cigarette before the journey began. Darkness had fallen. The street lamp at the entrance shone light through the beating rain.
I stopped short of the entrance to the driveway when a rustling noise sounded through the rain from just behind the wall of the driveway. I peered through the rain drops, but saw nothing. Was it possible that someone was hidden behind the wall? It would have to be someone small—very small. Someone like Morris.
I stood frozen for a moment, feeling my heart thump wildly under my coat. I had definitely heard something there. I threw my cigarette down and ran back to the house.
I told Kelly we were ready to go and went to Joseph’s room to lift him into the car. I walked in and turned on the lights to find his bed empty; the sheets a swirling mess about the floor. Panic took hold almost immediately. I searched each room of the downstairs, even the games room, which was a separate out-building fro
m the main house. Nothing.
“Joseph! Joseph!”
I scraped my fingers down my face, as though it may bring rationality of thought. Kelly rushed at me with tears in her eyes.
“Where is he?”
Then it came to me. There was one place I hadn’t looked: the bathroom off the main living area. We had barely used it because it was smaller and less clean than the other one between the bedrooms. I pushed the door open and saw the light was already on: a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling.
Joseph was standing absolutely still beside the toilet, a terrified expression stretched across his pale face. He looked at me desperately, and then moved his eyes towards the closed bath curtain beside him, and nodded slowly. I reached out my hand to him and he took it before running out of the bathroom to Kelly, screaming at the top of his lungs.
The bath curtain hung before me, straight and absolutely still.
I stood motionless for some time until my breathing had leveled to quietness. The panic had left me now, although my heart still thumped in my chest like a caged animal. Then I saw the thin white fabric twitch, just once, and realized that Joseph had been right. There was something behind there. I reached out and ripped the curtain back.
Inside the dry bath, a thick brown snake curled and writhed in anger, striking out powerfully at the curtain. I stumbled backwards and ran.
Within minutes, the house was locked with keys safely hidden amongst the flowers by the ornamental cart-wheel. The engine started and I locked the car from the inside before turning on the wipers and heading out into the rain. In the backseat, Joseph was whimpering. Kelly was silent next to me.
I reached the end of the driveway and turned right.
“This isn’t the way we came.”
“The sat nav’s broken,” I said. “But forget that. I’ve checked the map. This is quickest route to the motorway.”
As the headlights beamed through the rain, the ruined chapel of Le Carde came into view. A small figure rose from the gravestones in the cemetery and stared back at us through the rain. Pale-faced and dressed in a trenchcoat, he held a spade in one hand.
“Jesus Christ, it’s Morris.”
“Just keep driving, Tom. For God’s sake, keep driving.”
And I did—and soon we were on open road, driving through remote French countryside. Every now and then I checked the rear view mirror to make sure we were not being followed. I remembered what Judith had said about the rain: “. . . I so hope it does. It’s been twenty-three days now.”
“It’s impossible to dig soil when it’s that dry,” I said aloud. “And twenty-three days is a long time to have to wait to bury something.”
By why go to all the trouble? I thought as I squinted into the darkness. Why bother burying goats? Why not burn them, or simply dump them?
In the backseat, Joseph was snoring quietly and had wrapped a colorful duvet around himself. Kelly was quiet too, breathing regularly with her head rested against the window. We were still some distance from the motorway and would need to drive through at least three small villages before we reached the safety of the toll gates and the main highway beyond.
I slowed as the road narrowed and gave way to a collection of small houses. This was Saint-Médard, the first of the villages. Though the roads were empty, I was forced to stop at a traffic light with a small white flyer fastened to its post. It was the picture of a dark haired toddler. He was missing. This was a call for help. There was a police contact number at the bottom of the picture.
A few yards later, I stopped again at a deserted roundabout. Someone had fastened another flyer to a pillar beside the road. A different child this time; a girl of around four with pale features and curling blonde locks.
Dread crept through me in the coming miles, because as we left Saint-Médard and made our way through more country lanes to the village of L’Isle-de-Noé, it was the same story all over again: photographs of missing children in darkened shop windows, taped roughly to lamp posts and across stone bollards by the roadside.
“That’s six now,” Kelly said into the silence.
My heart sank then because I thought she was asleep, and had not wanted her to see what I had seen. But more than that, I could not face discussing the possibilities that now filled my thoughts.
I tried to speak, but no sound came. All I could think about was the lobster cage on the Westhoff’s perfectly mown lawn; the photograph of Morris in the toilet, smiling proudly in his white lab coat; the terrible gargling noise that had risen up from beneath the patio; local anesthetic; and, worst of all, the faint iron-like taste that still lingered on the edges of my tongue.
Patrick O’Neill is a rising new talent in the world of horror fiction and resides in Dorset, UK, with wife, Nikki, and son, Benedict. His dark and unsettling tales have been featured in numerous anthologies and he is currently working on his single author collection, The Darkest Eyes, and on his debut novel, No Contrition. Patrick can be contacted at [email protected].
(FOR THE LATEST UP-TO-DATE INFO, CLICK HERE)
The other night
I met a man;
a Burning Man
with eyes of coal.
The Burning Man
He smiled at me,
and singing songs,
He stole my Soul.
Where He is now
no one can know,
but if He sings,
you too must go.
So shut your eyes
oh so tight,
and pray to God
with all your might,
The Burning Man
won’t sing tonight.
A filmmaker and writer of short stories, poetry and screenplays, Tony Flynn is fantastically afraid of most everything, and therefore has a particular interest in the horror genre. Previously, his work has been published by Mocha Memoirs Press, Daverana Enterprises and Sirens Call Publications. Other works in writing and film can be found via tonywritesstuff.tumblr.com and vimeo.com/tonyflynn.
(FOR THE LATEST UP-TO-DATE INFO, CLICK HERE)
The priest stood, his knees creaking, his back cracking, his tired bones complaining. He blinked in the darkness and blew out a breath that stank of garlic and last night’s broken sleep. With a moan of exhaustion he never meant to make—a pained noise tinged with the jagged slash of cancerous agony—he worried about the years he would not see. What would happen without him here? How would the world go on when he was finally gone? And what would he miss in death? In the minute after his soul left his body, in the hour afterwards, in the years and years and years that followed, when no one remembered him and his bones were dust and his headstone rubbed away by the wind and the rain, what would he not see?
And, saddest concern of all, what of his beloved church once he was gone?
This strange, ancient, lovely, mystical and lonely building—made of hand-hewn stone and heart-rendered glass—was set apart from the rest, high up on its hillside, and overlooked the new town. All beige buildings and concrete crowds; coffee shops and loan sharks, the only difference between this place and any other in the country—perhaps planet—was his beloved church.
Yes, the people below might scurry around like impoverished ants, not caring, not giving a damn about him and his building, the urban decay of the town settling on and crushing them, crashing about them like breaking waves of despair and neglect . . . but he knew he could have them. He knew he could entice them to climb the steep steps, to tug at the grass as they smashed their way towards him, answering the call he had put out to save them. To save him. To save the church that even now was being talked about in uncaring circles of ministers and governors and the ones who feared saying no to them.
Even the mayor was in on it. Even the mayor, the woman who appeared in the pews twice a year—Easter and Christmas—and pretended that she knew the place inside and out. Pretended that she knew the priest, come to that. Even the mayor was considering allowing the church and its land, its graves and its skeleto
ns, to be sold to the developers for houses. Because of course, that was far more important than the church. God’s house forsaken to let the unbelievers and the uneducated and the undeserving sprawl about on its ruined foundations, wallowing in their drink and drugs and cigarettes, their children running wild, running ragged, running the show.
The day finally breaking through the stained glass window above his head gladdened him. He had made it this far. He was left with red and orange smudges on his face, and the idea that this beauty would go on.
Tomorrow. He was dying, and tomorrow would be his last day on earth. And just because it happened to be his penultimate day, that didn’t mean he could slack in his duties. He had so much to do before he met God at last, and the work would stop him from letting the terrible grief of it all go round in his head.
What would happen would happen. But, being a studier of human nature, knowing how mercenary and brutal brains worked, he could, if his plan went smoothly (and he prayed and prayed and prayed that it would), guarantee what would happen to the church.
It would become a monument to him and his mercy. A working museum dedicated to one priest and his incredible generosity.
That was for tomorrow. For now, the pain was back. Harder now, much harder—it was difficult to breathe sometimes and so trying just to survive. The priest had, over the past three months since his fatal diagnosis, asked time and again why he was being made to suffer. He asked the doctors, nurses, inpatients, outpatients, strangers in the street . . . he even asked his wilting congregation. He asked God. But no one would answer him. No one could answer him. All was silence or strange looks or uncomfortable shuffles in the pews and sudden close examinations of the order of service. They pitied him, thinking of a good man’s terminal illness and all this on top of the possible (although they were sure probable) compulsory purchase order looming.
Darkness Ad Infinitum Page 10
