Resurrection (The Underwood and Flinch Chronicles Book 1)

by Mike Bennett

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Flintoff. You know, Freddie?’

  David felt the mallet slip a little against his chest and he shifted the bundle to keep it together. A bead of sweat tricked from his brow and dropped onto the tarpaulin. ‘I’m sorry, Gerald. I’m with the Spaniards, I’m afraid: football’s more my thing. So, if you wouldn’t mind – ?’ He nodded to the stump in Gerald’s hand.

  ‘Oh, oh yes, of course. Where do you want it?’

  ‘Er ... ?’ David shifted the weight of the bundle and managed to reach out with his left hand. ‘Just give it to me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Gerald, looking for an opening in the tarpaulin into which he could slide the stump. ‘I can just pop it – ’

  ‘No! Just give it to me,’ David’s smile strained, as if it were tied to the gently sagging mallet by a length of invisible thread. ‘Please, Gerald.’

  Gerald raised his eyebrows, a little nonplussed. ‘Sorry, old boy. Here you are.’ He put the stump into David’s hand.

  David took it and corrected his grip on the bundle. ‘Thanks. Sorry to be abrupt, but I’m, er, desperate to use the loo.’

  This put Gerald back on a cheery footing and he laughed. ‘Oh gosh, I’m sorry. Here I am blathering on, while your poor old bladder is threatening to burst its banks.’ He stepped aside, and David eased gratefully past him into the hall.

  David forced a little laugh. ‘Not to worry, Gerald.’ Then he added, as if as an afterthought, ‘Oh, by the way, I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention the cricket gear to Lydia. She doesn’t know about it, see, and I’m going to, er, surprise her later on.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gerald nodded, knowingly. ‘Mum’s the word, eh?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Gerald gave him a thumbs-up salute. ‘Right you are, old chap. I’m just off to the car to get some goodies we bought in town earlier. We’re going to have a round of cocktails, but I don’t imagine you ... er ... ?’

  ‘No. Not for me, Gerald. I’m firmly back on the wagon.’

  ‘Well, good for you. We have some ginger ale and soda and what not.’

  ‘Oh, very nice.’

  ‘Shall I pour you one?’

  ‘No, no, I, I have to get the old, er, blood transfusion apparatus set up.’ He indicated the bundle as if it suddenly contained not cricket gear but blood transfusion equipment. ‘I’ll join you later, in about twenty minutes or so.’

  Gerald smiled and gave him a cheery wave. ‘Right you are, then.’ He turned and went outside.

  David swore under his breath and hurried on down the corridor as quickly as he could without running.

  As he turned the corner that led to the library he immediately felt that the air was strangely cooler. He stopped. There was no draught coming from anywhere, yet it was definitely cooler. Gooseflesh rippled the skin of his arms, but not as a result of the sudden chill air.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly, closing his eyes. ‘I’m not afraid. I’m here as a friend. I’m going down to see my friend and Master. I’m going to commune.’ He opened his eyes and walked on towards the library door. The air grew colder still. David stopped and tried to think happy thoughts: childhood summers, ice cream, playing football with Martin and John, songs Dad had used to sing to them when driving round in the Citroën. A snatch of one came to him and he sang aloud in a hushed, faltering voice, ‘What shall we do with a drunken ...’ He was standing outside the library door and could feel the cold emanating from the wood. ‘... sailor. What shall we ...’

  A hoarse voice drifted from the other side of the door in reply. ‘Flog him.’

  David dropped the bundle and jumped back from the door as if it were suddenly on fire. ‘Wha – what the fuck?’

  But he recognised the voice.

  ‘Y-you’re dead!’ he whispered.

  There was a moment’s pause, then the voice on the other side of the door answered. ‘Yes.’

  David could hardly breathe; his heart was hammering against his chest so hard it felt like it was going to burst. No, he thought. It’s not real. It’s an illusion. The range of Underwood’s unconscious, extra-sensory defence thing has extended, because he’s now restored to his full power. I, I just have to push through it. Think happy thoughts! He took hold of the door handle, ignoring the unnaturally cold metal, and closed his eyes. My own fears are being used against me. But I, I have no fear. I come as a friend. He pushed open the door. ‘I come as a friend!’

  ‘Of course you do.’

  David opened his eyes.

  His dead brother John sat on a chair between him and the secret panel entrance to Underwood’s crypt. He looked as he had when he had died: cadaverous, his body wasted away by cancer. Only now, he didn’t just look like a corpse; he was one. He wore a surgical gown that came down to just above his knees. His bare feet were planted on the floor, and in his hand, resting across his knees, was Matthias Flinch’s sword.

  ‘You’re a friend,’ John smiled, his lips were thin and grey. ‘I believed that once, Davey, but now I suspect you may have been fibbing.’

  ‘No. You’re dead, John.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve established that. I’m dead, and you’re a liar.’

  ‘No. I come as a friend.’

  ‘Really? You dropped your bundle outside, Davey. Tell me, friend, what’s in it?’

  ‘Cricket gear.’

  ‘Oh, how nice. Going to play a spot of indoor cricket with His Lordship, are we?’

  David couldn’t answer. He sagged against the door frame and closed his eyes. ‘You’re not real, John. That’s the only truth that matters.’

  John chuckled, his throat dry and raspy. ‘What is real? Surely that which can be perceived is real? And since we’re having this little chat, you can, evidently, perceive me. Therefore, I am real.’

  David opened his eyes and pointed a trembling finger at his brother. ‘No, you’re dead, you’re a hallucination.’

  ‘Dead, yes; hallucination, no,’ John took the sword from his knees and rested the tip on the floor. ‘I’ve been summoned, you see? Brought back from the dead to do my duty.’

  ‘What? What are you talking about? What duty?’

  ‘I am a guardian of Lord Underwood, David. Death doesn’t end that. It continues beyond our fleeting mortal existence and on into the hereafter.’ He grinned. ‘There really is, it seems, no rest for the wicked.’

  ‘I don’t ... believe ... in you.’

  ‘No,’ said John, getting slowly to his feet. ‘But I believed in you.’ He raised the sword and pointed its tip at David’s face. ‘I gave you this to protect our Master with, David. I trusted you! I chose you over Lydia, even when she warned me – begged me – not to! I entrusted it all to you: everything our family ever has been, and ever will be.’

  ‘No. You entrusted me with Underwood, a monster that has to be destroyed.’

  John shook his head. ‘Oh, you fool, David. Underwood is our family. If you destroy him, you destroy us all. You have no idea what you’re doing. You haven’t read any of the diaries. You know nothing of him, or your ancestors – if you did, you would realise that what you want to do here makes you the real monster.’

  ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘Think about it a moment, from a purely scientific point of view: you are about to destroy a creature that goes beyond merely being endangered, he may actually be unique.’

  David closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears. ‘Shut up! Whatever you are, I don’t know whereabouts in my head you’re coming from, but I am not listening anymore.’

  ‘You will listen!’ John slashed the sword across the spines of a row of books to his right and sent them tumbling from the shelves. He took a step towards David. ‘Look at me, you little bastard! Look at me!’

  David opened his eyes.

  John drew back the sword and held it poised, trembling with tension and ready to slash David across the throat. ‘I won’t let you pass, do you hear? So, you can either turn around and resume your duties, or
just go. Leave us. Lydia will take on the role of guardian and we’ll never trouble you again. Go back to your life, back to your job and your pretty little fraulien, Lisa.’

  David lowered his hands from his ears. ‘I never told you her name, John.’

  John suddenly looked confused. ‘Yes you did.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Come to think of it, I don’t think I even mentioned her at all.’

  ‘Then ... it must have been the detective we had following you. Yes, it was him. He told me her name!’

  ‘I don’t think so. I think you know her name because you’re an apparition drawn from my own subconscious. You’re no more real than that light bulb that shattered down in the crypt was last time.’

  ‘Then what’s this!’ John turned and slashed the sword at the bookshelves. More books fell torn and broken to the floor. ‘Is this real enough for you?’

  ‘Those books are fine, John. They can’t have been damaged by the sword because the sword is over the fireplace in the lounge, and you, you’re in an urn in a Malaga crematorium.’

  ‘No! I’ll cut you down, you traitorous bastard! Run away! Go on! Run while you still can!’

  David turned and walked out of the library.

  ‘That’s right. Get out and ... ’ John’s sentence dried to a croak when he saw David pick up the tarpaulin bundle, then turn back and re-enter the library.

  ‘The only place I’m going, John, is down into that crypt to do what I came here to do.’ Then without another word, he walked past John and over to the far bookcase and the secret doorway to Underwood’s crypt. When neither sword nor further abuse fell open his back, he turned. John had taken his seat again, sitting with his back to him and facing the library door. ‘What? Not going to run me through, then?’

  Without turning, John quietly replied: ‘That won’t be necessary. My job is done.’

  ‘Oh? What job’s that?’

  John chuckled malevolently. ‘Look at your hands, David.’

  David held one of his hands away from the bundle and saw that it trembled. He clenched it into a fist.

  ‘You’re right to be afraid, David. After all, in a few minutes, you’re going to die. And when you do, all of us, all the way back to Matthias, will be waiting to welcome you to Hell. Go on, David Smith, your death awaits.’

  David turned back to the bookcase. It was unlocked and he pulled it open. He reached just inside the doorway and turned on the light.

  Nothing happened. A small gasp escaped him, and from behind him he heard John chuckle.

  ‘Anything wrong?’

  David’s calm, practical, inner voice spoke up in his head. Ignore him, you’re right, he isn’t there. And just as he isn’t there and the books are fine, so the light in the cellar is on: you just can’t see it. Your fear of the darkness is what’s creating the darkness. Deny your fear and you will see the light.

  That’s easy for you to say, David thought in reply. He closed his eyes and tried to think of something good, something that made him happy. He saw Lisa, and he remembered how she had cared for him when he had drunk himself into a humiliating stupor that last night in Brighton. No one had cared for him for such a long time. He realised, quite out of the blue, that he loved her; loved her and wanted to be with her, either in England or Germany, it didn’t matter. Shit, of course she could move in with him. He laughed aloud. He loved her.

  He opened his eyes. Light shone dimly from the cellar below. He turned back to John: the chair was empty, and the books were back on the shelves, unharmed.

  He smiled and turned back to the stairs. ‘All right then, Milord. Let’s get this over with.’ He stepped through onto the stairs and began to descend. As he did so, he noticed that the light was somehow inconsistent, as if it were flickering ... like candlelight.

  His breath stopped in his chest and he looked down into the cellar. Candles burned on the pillars surrounding the stone plinth and in their flickering yellow light, David saw that the coffin was gone.

  ‘Oh, shit.’

  Behind him came the sound of the door clicking gently closed. He turned to see Lisa standing on the stairs above him. She wore a robe, similar to the ones worn by the Sect the other night, but hers was white. She wore the hood down, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulders like burnished gold in the candlelight. ‘Lisa?’

  Without a word, she began to walk slowly down the stairs. He reached out a hand towards her, but she ignored him. She walked past, a trace of her perfume lingered in the air as she brushed by him. She was real ... but she couldn’t be. ‘Lisa! What is this?’

  She stopped and turned back to him, her face sad, yet quietly resigned. ‘This is the future, David. This is a result of what you do now.’ She continued on her way.

  ‘The what?’ he said, watching as she went to the plinth and sat down on it. She averted her eyes from his as she raised her legs and lay down on the plinth, her hands resting at her sides.

  ‘No,’ David ran down the remaining stairs. ‘This is fucking mad!’ He was about to run to the plinth when, from the deep shadows at the edges of the room, hooded, black-robed figures began to emerge into the candlelight.

  A voice came from close behind him. ‘The Sect will have their revenge, David. Surely you must have considered that?’

  David turned to see his oldest brother Martin, his face partly shadowed by the hood he wore. He was young, no older than nineteen, the age he had been when he had held David’s hand as he led him into the crypt to be baptised into the Sect. ‘Martin? What are they going to do?’

  Martin smiled and pointed to the group gathering around the plinth. ‘Ask Father.’

  David looked to where Martin pointed, and he felt his strength suddenly leave him. He fell to his knees, dropping the bundle and spilling the mallet and cricket stumps onto the floor. The figure at the head of the plinth looked down at him with cold eyes. It was Arthur.

  ‘Dad?’ David’s voice sounded suddenly young, childish in his ears.

  ‘You little shit,’ said Arthur. ‘Your whore mother must have been fucking someone else when she was fucking me, because there’s no way I could breed a treacherous little bastard like you.’

  ‘No, please, leave Lisa alone, Dad.’

  ‘Oh, it’s all right for you to murder the one we love, isn’t it? But when it’s the one you love – typical spoilt brat – you come whining to Daddy. Well, you can cry all you want, this tart’s going to Hell!’ He raised his hands above his head and candlelight flashed on the blade of a long, curved dagger.

  ‘Oh Jesus, no!’ David screamed.

  ‘Oh Jesus, yes!’ said Arthur. He plunged the dagger down and into Lisa’s chest.

  ‘No!’ David stumbled forward but hands seized him, big, powerful, adult hands. He twisted in their grip, looking up at the figures towering above him, their hoods dark and faceless. A terrible crunching sound came from the plinth and he looked back to see Arthur hacking with the dagger at Lisa’s chest. Sect members came forward and tore at her robe, ripping its blood-soaked fabric apart.

  David was screaming, a child again. His vision was blurry with tears, but he could still see the horrible smile on his father’s face as he began to reach into Lisa’s chest cavity. ‘No, Daddy! No!’

  Arthur laughed as he pulled Lisa’s still-beating heart from her chest. ‘Here, boy,’ he said holding the heart out to David. ‘You always wanted her heart. Well, now you can have it.’ He began to come towards him. David struggled against the hands that held him, but they were too big, too strong to break free of.

  Arthur, his figure huge, like something from a fevered dream, loomed above him, the heart in his hands still beating, louder and louder as he brought it closer to David. ‘Here, you snivelling brat. You can have the first bite, and then we’ll all have a bit.’

  David screamed and managed to break the grip on his right arm. He thrust his hand out to ward Arthur away – and as he did so, he saw not the hand of a child, but that of a man. His hand: the grave dirt still unde
r his nails from the night before.

  ‘NO!’ he shouted, his voice suddenly his own again. ‘You’re not real! This is a fucking hallucination! None of you exist! The light bulb is on above me and Underwood lies in a coffin where you want me to see Lisa!’ He closed his eyes.

  In the silence that followed, the only heartbeat David could hear was his own. He took a deep breath. After a couple of seconds, he released it and opened his eyes. He was on the floor of the cellar. The coffin lay on the plinth beside him, and suspended from a rafter above, the single naked bulb held the shadows at bay. He looked over his shoulder, the stumps and mallet lay where he had dropped them.

  He smiled. He had beaten it; whatever this hallucinatory defence thing of Underwood’s was, he had beaten it. He felt a sudden feeling of elation. ‘My God,’ he whispered to the coffin. ‘I’m not afraid of you. For the first time in my life, I’m not afraid of you!’

  He got to his feet and approached the coffin. He reached over, his hand brushing the smooth surface of the wood. Then he firmly took hold of both sides of the lid, and without a moment’s hesitation, lifted it off. It was heavy, but he was able to ease it down to the floor and prop it against the plinth. Then, he looked at the man in the coffin. Underwood was dressed in shoes, black trousers and a clean white shirt. He must have got dressed when he returned last night; most likely after he’d murdered Gavin, as there were no bloodstains on the shirt. But then again, maybe just wasn’t a messy eater – after all, he’d had plenty of practice.

  David went back to the mallet and stumps. He picked up the mallet and one of the stumps, and returned to the coffin. He rested his forearm on the side of the coffin and carefully aimed the point of the stump a centimetre or two above the vampire’s heart. He took a deep breath; drew the mallet back so it was level with his shoulder ...

  Underwood opened his eyes. ‘Flinch?’

  David swung the mallet down with all his might, striking the end of the stump dead-on and smashing it down through flesh, and bone, and into Underwood’s heart.

  Underwood roared, but his cry of pain and horror was cut off by the blood that erupted into his throat. He grabbed at the stake, but David swung the mallet again and hammered it further down so it skewered Underwood’s body to the wood of the coffin.