Dark Seed

by Simon West-Bulford

  He studied his fingers, which were laced together, and breathed deeply. “No.”

  Beatrice looked up then, watching the chaplain, and I waited too for him to continue. I shared his assessment but wondered at his instant rejection of the question.

  “Hell is a place of utter darkness,” he said, “but this is not hell.”

  “How can you be sure?” Elizabeth said, blowing smoke up into the air. “We’re surrounded by demons, and the heavens are quite clearly gone.”

  Breswick shifted in his seat but didn’t look up. “I spent a year in the trenches. When I first arrived, I had the usual aspirations one might expect from the clergy. I wanted to be a light to those losing faith. I wanted to bring the Word to those who were suffering, in the hope that they would be healed, or at the very least comforted in their sorrow. But when one is surrounded by such atrocities as I saw, it is difficult for even the most faithful to find avenues for encouragement.”

  He made eye contact with each of us for a second before looking back down. He took another deep breath. “It was the shrapnel that caused most damage. Of course, the victims of mustard gas suffered greatly, but the wounds of battle were so visceral, so . . . real. And the smell. Dear God, the smell! Cordite and sepsis and excrement, all of it filling the air with no opportunity for relief. Amputations were the norm, and my prayers at night, when I tried to find rest, were drowned out by the sounds of people’s lament. Worst of all was the weeping of those who waited to die. Many men simply bled to death. Some emptied their veins to end their pain.

  “Many of those I tried to comfort asked me that very same question. They thought if ever they had experienced hell, that was it . . . But it wasn’t.”

  He looked her in the eye then and pressed a finger gently to her chest. “Hell is inside, Elizabeth. It is contained within the human heart. In what we believe about our circumstances. If you look about you and allow your circumstances to persuade you that there is nothing praiseworthy, beautiful, or noble, then you have made your own hell.”

  Beatrice stared into her half-empty glass of wine. “Are you saying that hell isn’t a real place?”

  “I am saying that hell begins in the heart, Beatrice. If you invite that dark seed to take root and allow the devil to nourish it, you will share his fate along with all others who are damned.”

  I was moved by Breswick’s testimony, but I wondered if it was because I had already allowed that dark seed of which he spoke to take root. “I have always believed that the state of a man’s heart is governed by his actions,” I said quietly. “Doing the right thing when temptation drives you to do the opposite is what expels the darkness from one’s soul.”

  Breswick tilted his head to observe me and offered a gentle smile. “Spoken like a clergyman, Drenn.”

  I smiled back. “It doesn’t make me a believer.”

  “Perhaps not yet,” he said.

  There was no more conversation after that, and with our meals sitting heavily inside us and exhaustion adding its weight, we slept.

  My slumber was tormented by hideous images of the days’ terrible events: rushing, violent, bloody scenes of carnage; deafening, alien, malicious howls; black fire, a malevolent eye, gnashing teeth—and always in the periphery, Tarky’s demise and little Lucy’s scream as she was dragged into darkness.

  I woke suddenly with a cry.

  Beatrice was staring at me, her face pale and grim, unmoved by my frantic return to reality.

  I glanced about me. Breswick and Elizabeth were not in the kitchen. “Where are the others?” I said.

  Beatrice replied in an uncharacteristically flat tone. “Elizabeth needed to go to the lavatory. Theo went with her.” She was still staring at me.

  “Is something the matter, Beatrice? Has something happened?”

  She looked away then. “You tell me.”

  I felt my shirt clinging to my chest. It was wet with perspiration. “I thought we were supposed to be staying together. It’s not good for us to be separated.”

  “Nobody wanted to wake you. We thought you would need the rest more than any of us.”

  The sting of my head wound reminded me that she was right.

  “I don’t want to stay here anyway,” she said stiffly. “This school. It isn’t right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It feels . . . I feel like we are being watched.”

  A shiver ran cold through my back. “I’d say that’s perfectly natural given the circumstances.”

  She shook her head, then stood. She busied herself collecting dishes and cutlery from the table and began stacking them beside one of the sinks. “I don’t know what to think. What with Stromany’s murder and this Hargraven fellow missing, I just don’t want to be here.”

  “You think it was Hargraven, too?” I said. “There could have been someone waiting in the west wing, I suppose. Maybe it was him, but . . .”

  She stopped and turned to face me with her fists on her hips. “You heard what the chaplain said.”

  “Possession? Surely you don’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo.”

  “Why not? There’s something in the walls, Drenn. Something watching us and trying to get into our heads. And for the life of me, I don’t know why you’re so against the idea.”

  I watched her for several seconds. Her tone was confrontational, almost accusatory, and I began to wonder if my time of sleep was not all it seemed. Perhaps I had lapsed into another fitful episode similar to my entrance via the inglenook, and I wondered if I had needed restraining again.

  “It’s just not in my nature,” I confessed. “I imagine it has to do with my education, but even with everything that has been happening, I find Breswick’s notions hard to accept. Not to mention that God hasn’t exactly bent his ears to my requests along the way.”

  She huffed and turned back to the dishes.

  “Do you really think those creatures are demons?” I said.

  “I don’t know, do I? And I don’t rightly care.” I couldn’t see her eyes, but I knew there were tears there. “I just want to leave. I don’t want to be here. I have to leave. I have to find . . .” She stopped, trying to get a grip of herself, then came back to the table and sat down opposite me, retreating into her grief. After a few moments I reached across tentatively and placed a hand on hers. “Is it your family?”

  She nodded, still weeping. “I can’t bear the thought that I left her out there, all on her own. She might still be alive.”

  “She?”

  “My daughter, Lucy. I told her to stay at home and hide, God help me. I left her behind.”

  I could not respond. I was rigid. Cold. Sick and shocked to the very bone.

  She looked up through her tears and I saw both accusation and fathomless grief in her eyes—the indomitable power of a mother’s love. “You spoke her name,” she said. “In your sleep. You spoke her name. Have you seen her? Have you seen my little girl? Please! Please tell me she’s safe.”

  The words froze in my throat. How could I tell her? How could I tell this woman that her daughter, her own flesh and blood, had been taken by those creatures? That it was my own irresponsibility that caused Lucy’s death. But I had to. I had to confess but . . . it could destroy her.

  “Beatrice, I . . .”

  A scream tore through my words and we both leapt up from the table. Beatrice and I stared at each other in a moment of confusion before the scream came again, more desperate than the first.

  “That’s Elizabeth,” Beatrice said.

  We hurried to the kitchen door, opening it with no thought of what might be waiting.

  Elizabeth almost fell through the door when we opened it. She was distraught, flailing as she hurried past us to the back of the kitchen. Breswick came after, but slowly, and with his back to us as if he had been shielding Elizabeth on their way in. I feared that one of the beasts had somehow found its way into Hargraven Manor, and the figure looming over Breswick could have been mistaken for one—he was almost
as tall.

  “Back off at once,” Breswick told the man. “You have no chance. It’s four against one now.”

  The figure must have been two or three inches shy of seven feet, hugely built with shoulders like an ox’s, bald pate, and a complexion as dark as any I had seen. He showed no signs of retreat, and clad as he was in a pale blue blood-splattered vest and gray trousers, both torn and soiled, he was an awesome spectacle in the candlelight. He glared at us as he stooped into the kitchen, the whites of his eyes huge. In his right hand he brandished a scalpel purposefully at Breswick, and I thought of Stromany’s stab wound.

  Elizabeth distracted me before I could decide what to do. She had found her way to the far corner of the kitchen by the entrance to the utility room. Curled into a tight ball, she twirled a lock of her dark hair around her fingers, smiling, rocking back and forth as she sang gently, I know not to whom. The words were almost inaudible, the notes quivering and out of key: “Blue eyes, shining like stars . . . Blue eyes, love me and laugh . . . I pick a rose for you, because I love you too. Oh, blue eyes . . . love me and laugh . . .”

  I did not have time to consider what had driven her to this state; the intruder made steps into the kitchen. I glanced around wildly, looking for something, anything that could be used as a weapon, and my eyes settled on one of the kitchen knives that Beatrice had left on the work surface. I rushed for it and noticed that Beatrice too had reached for one of the plates, which I had no doubt she would be launching at the stranger if he came any closer.

  “Don’t do anything—he’s as frightened as the rest of us,” Breswick commanded. “That’s right, isn’t it?” he addressed the man. “You’ve no intention of hurting anyone. Just put that away and talk to us. We’re all in the same boat, yes?”

  The man stopped and observed each of us. Beatrice was trembling but poised with her plate. I drew up to Breswick’s side, the rather large meat knife ready, though I did not know if I would actually have the courage to use it.

  “Where is he?” The man’s voice was a gruff, throaty growl, thick with African accent. “Where is Charlie? I will skin him. If you are hiding him, I will—”

  Breswick stood his ground. “You will do nothing of the sort. There has been enough death and sorrow to fill all of hell today, and I’ll be damned if you add to it.”

  “Who’s Charlie?” I said.

  “Charlie Nubbs.” He said the name slowly and with obvious malice. “He took my money, left me outside for dead. If you have him here, I will kill him.”

  “We don’t know a Charlie Nubbs.” Breswick said. “Who are you?”

  “I am the strongman.” He lifted his chin. It was a proud gesture but unconvincing. “George Stromany.”

  “George Stromany?” Beatrice said. “You’re not George Stromany. He’s dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Yes. Someone killed him,” said Breswick, tilting his head accusingly.

  “I am George Stromany.” The huge man edged closer into the kitchen but lowered the scalpel a little. “I was invited here by a man I have never met, but I did not know where this place was. It was Charlie who led me here. I thought he was to become my friend, but when we reached the door, he attacked me from behind, hit my head, and took my things.”

  “You were invited by Lord Hargraven?” I said.

  “Yes. Who is this man? Where is he?”

  “Please,” said Breswick, “put aside your weapon. Nobody wants to hurt you.”

  “I am not afraid of you,” the man said, though plainly he was. His eyes were full of anger, but fear was present also, and I was relieved that Breswick had seen this. Had he not, this brave chaplain may have taken the initiative and tried to subdue him, and though Breswick was a capable man, both hardened and softened by the cruelties of war, I had little doubt this goliath could crush the life from him.

  “That’s good,” said Breswick, “because you should save your fears for the demons that lurk outside in the mist. George—or Charlie, as you claim him to be—may have saved your life.”

  “Saving his own life was his only goal.”

  “Can you prove you’re George Stromany?” Beatrice asked.

  “I told you. Charlie took everything from me, but she knows me.” He nodded toward Elizabeth. “She must have seen me perform.”

  Cautiously, we turned to look at Elizabeth, who had stopped singing. One beautiful eye peeped above her tightly wrapped arms like a glinting jewel.

  “Is it true?” Breswick asked. “Do you know this man?”

  Elizabeth gazed ahead. “It’s calling to me. Such a gentle, sweet voice. Don’t you hear it, too?”

  There was something in her eyes. A glazed paradise, as if someone had seduced her and carried her soul to a glorious place where Breswick’s question was an ugly but distant intrusion. I was suddenly reminded of Old Man Tarky’s garbled warnings. He spoke of the Nameless Beast’s seduction and how it usurped complete control after just a short while. But I did not want to consider it. Tarky was deranged.

  “Elizabeth, please,” Breswick insisted. “This man. Do you know him?”

  A flicker of confused anger ruined her expression, and then her mind returned. “The strongman?” she said. “Yes. Yes, he was among the cast of our show.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” Breswick said.

  Confusion crossed her expression once more, but then she snapped back into anger again. “Does it matter if I recognized him? The brute was going to attack us.”

  “He was afraid. If you knew him, then you should have told—”

  “I don’t know him. We have the likes of him come and go so often. It’s impossible to know the name of every individual we add to our supporting cast. Some come from traveling circuses in the area; some may even be taken from the streets for all I know.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “I believe him.”

  “You do?” Breswick watched the other man’s reaction, which was one of cautious relief, and at that, the chaplain’s posture relaxed. “Would you mind telling us why, Drenn?”

  “He’s the strong man.” I gestured toward the intruder, as if it explained everything. “Think back to Hargraven’s invitations. Stromany, or Charlie, or whoever that other man was, he hardly fit the description of the man Hargraven invited. But this man does.”

  “How did you get in?” said Beatrice.

  “An excellent question,” said Breswick. “And how did you escape the demons?”

  “I . . . I do not know why they left me alone. I think they are afraid to come to this house. When nobody answered the door, Nubbs and I went to the back of the house to look for another way in, but all the doors were locked. I broke a window, but he hit me on the back of the head before I could get us inside. The next thing I remember was waking up in the dirt. I do not know how long I was there, and I do not know why I am still alive.”

  “It sounds like Nubbs found his way to us through the west wing,” I said. “If Hargraven locked it from the inside and left the key in the lock to stop anyone entering, Nubbs would have found it. He must have locked it again to stop our man here from getting in, and when the creatures attacked, Nubbs had an escape route.”

  Breswick nodded slowly. “Possibly, yes. And when he tried to get away, Stromany here must have been waiting for him.” He nodded at the scalpel in Stromany’s grip.

  “You murdered him,” Beatrice said.

  Stromany lifted the scalpel and took a step back. “What? No! He is already dead? How?”

  Breswick’s face darkened. “You know very well how.”

  “I have not seen him,” Stromany said. “I swear it.”

  “He was stabbed.” Breswick pointed at the scalpel in his hand. “And you already told us you wanted to kill him.”

  “I was . . . angry,” said Stromany. “I did not know he . . .” He looked confused and alarmed. “It was not me.”

  “You will excuse us if we don’t take your word for that,” Breswick said aggressively. “I sugg
est you put the scalpel down this instant.”

  Stromany shook his head violently and took another step back. “No.”

  “You want to take all of us on?” Breswick said.

  Stromany’s breathing became heavier as he sized up each of us. Breswick’s words were brave, but I certainly had no desire to challenge this man, and I was not at all confident it would end well for any of us.

  “I believe him,” I said, though in truth, I was uncertain. “The wound on Nubbs’s body looked too large to have been made with a scalpel.”

  “Nonsense!” said Breswick. “You couldn’t possibly have made that assessment. None of us examined the body that closely.”

  “Nevertheless”—I slowly placed my knife on the kitchen table, raised my hands, and offered Breswick a meaningful stare—“I don’t think Stromany killed him. Why would he be so insistent with us about discovering his whereabouts if he had already killed him?”

  I could see that Breswick was not in the least convinced by this argument, but he understood my intent.

  He gazed at Stromany, then at the hand holding the scalpel, which was now shaking. He sucked in a long breath. “Stromany,” he said calmly, “will you please put down the scalpel? You are upsetting the ladies.”

  I glanced at Beatrice and Elizabeth. Both stared at Stromany, the anxiety obvious in their eyes, but they said nothing.

  Stromany’s fingers tightened around the handle, but he lowered it to his side. “What is happening?” His lower lip quivered and his eyes softened with tears. “Who is this Lord Hargraven to have brought this hell upon us?”

  “We think Lord Hargraven wants to help us,” Breswick said. “Or at least that seemed to be the initial intent of his invitations. He invited us here to—”

  “No!” Stromany was distraught. “I saw them.” He raised a finger to his eye, as if it proved his point. “The demons. Here in the house. He is making them.”

  “What?” I said. “Making them? Whatever do you mean?”

  Stromany gazed at me, eyes wide. “There is a room. He has . . . those things . . . and animals . . . they . . .”

  “Where did you see all this?” said Breswick. “Show us.”