The Undead

by Guy N Smith

  Mayhem and death! Marie closed her eyes, didn't open them again until after the policeman had left, knew she had to fight against the hysteria that was building up steadily inside her. She whispered. ‘I think I'm going mad.’

  ‘Where's Amanda?’ Ron knew he mustn’t react, had to play this down.

  ‘In bed. Did you … really see Beguildy?’

  ‘Yes. I warned him in no uncertain terms what would happen if he came into Gabor grounds again.’

  ‘But you told the sergeant he didn't understand.’

  ‘He understood all right. I was pretty near to roughing him up.’ He almost showed Marie the teeth marks on his arm but thought better of it. The bastard roughed me up; he'd never admit that to anybody. But he'd get his own back.

  ‘We can't stay here any longer.’

  ‘The end of June. I promised.’

  ‘Oh, to hell with that. There's a daily … twice-daily disaster here and I can't take any more. I can't stay here a minute longer.’

  ‘We don't have any choice. Not at the moment anyway.’

  ‘I'm going to sleep with Amanda tonight.’ The way she said it was more than just the desperation that came from the maternal instinct, like the deliberate start of a separation. ‘I'm not letting her out of my sight, day or night.’

  Ron Halestrom nodded. If somebody had come along with an offer for Gabor House right then he would have taken it and started packing in the morning. But that was not likely to happen. Maybe there was more than the economic recession to blame for the length of time this place had stood empty before the Halestroms bought it.

  Ron remembered passing the builders' yard on his return from town on Saturday afternoon, about five miles out of Gabor village, a sprawling acre stacked with concrete breeze blocks, sawn timber and some heavy plant machinery. He didn't know why he remembered it except that perhaps subconsciously he had noted it with a view to the alterations to Gabor House that would be necessary in the future.

  Anyway, Matheson & Co. were the people for the job he had in mind; pumps to drain Gabor Pool, JCBs to push tons of loose rock and slate into the quarry hole before it had a chance to fill up again. It had to be destroyed once and for all!

  Halestrom drove into the yard, parked alongside a huge mound of red sand and walked across to the small hut bearing the sign ‘Office’.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’ The big balding man dressed in brown overalls looked up from behind a trestle desk, managed a smile even though it was Monday morning and he had just failed in a tender for a council contract that would have prevented him having to lay off another five men. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I hope so.’ Ron pursed his lips. ‘Do you have the equipment to drain a flooded quarry hole and then fill it in with rubble?’

  ‘We did a similar job last year on a by-pass up in North Wales that cut through a disused quarry. Three days' work or thereabouts unless it's a lake, of course.’ Matheson smiled. ‘I take it you've got a pool you want burying, sir.’

  ‘Yes, that's right,’ Ron nodded towards the yard outside. ‘about half the size of this yard; I'm not sure how deep.’

  ‘Locally, sir?’

  ‘Yes. I own a place known as Gabor House just outside the village …’

  ‘You're … you're not talking about Gabor Pool, are you?’ The geniality disappeared from the other's broad features and was replaced by a look of suspicion. ‘The one where that boy was drowned on Saturday?’

  ‘Yes … that's the one …’ Ron Halestrom's voice tailed off. A sudden feeling of despair, suddenly knowing what Matheson was going to say.

  ‘I'm sorry, sir.’ A pause, thinking up a lie, not really caring whether he was believed or not. ‘We've taken on too much work as it is. Don't have men or machinery to spare.’

  ‘I see.’ Halestrom stared into the other's eyes, forced them to drop, detected an unmistakable flicker of fear. ‘But if it was anywhere except Gabor Pool you'd be pleased to quote for the job because you're laying men off every week.’ A shot in the dark but he knew he'd found his mark.

  ‘That's about the size of it.’ Matheson glanced up again. ‘Anywhere except Gabor. I wouldn't do any work on Gabor land and neither would anybody else within a radius of twenty miles of here. I couldn't get my men to go there. I'm sorry, sir, but that's how it is, and anybody else will tell you the same. You take my advice and let the pool stop as it is. Because that's how it's meant to be and nobody but a fool would interfere with it. There's always accidents happening in the building trade but we don't go looking for 'em.’

  Ron Halestrom walked slowly back to his car. Maybe the pool could be made safe in other ways; fenced off. Except that nobody would take on the work; that much was obvious. Bemorra's two-hundred-year-old curse was still very much alive; he was still safeguarding his old domain!

  Marie welcomed the opportunity to share Amanda's bed. It seemed to close the gap in their close relationship which boarding school had caused. Indeed, half-term would have been idyllic in any place other than Gabor. But they weren't going to stay here. The end of June seemed light years away, they'd never stick it that long; each day was a continuation of the nightmare which seemed to be escalating towards terrible proportions. Even now she was listening to the steady breathing of the child beside her, afraid that suddenly Amanda might disappear, although that was being ridiculous, succumbing to her own fears. Afraid that she might hear something else; the soft crunch of bare feet on gravel below the window, then the mind shattering roar of untrained human vocal chords. Every second was like a form of Chinese water torture, anticipating a sound which would surely come, sooner or later, but you didn't know exactly when.

  Beguildy would not heed Ron's warning, Marie was certain of that. The vagrant knew no laws except his own, was like an animal of the wild that came and went as it pleased. Marie had to face the awful prospect that her husband might refuse to sell Gabor House. In which case … oh God, then she was trapped here. She had no money of her own, no place to go. Her parents were both dead, there was not a single relative or friend to whom she could flee in desperation. If Ron decided to stay, then all three of them stayed. It was as simple as that.

  She couldn't make up her mind which was worse, moonlight or darkness. The esoteric light created its own terrors, had you seeing things that didn't exist, playing on the imagination; shadows that could have been something other than shadows. But in the dark you saw nothing at all.

  Jumbled thoughts and fears had Marie Halestrom slipping into an uneasy sleep, tossing restlessly, dreams that were the culmination of all her waking terrors.

  Suddenly she was jerked awake, pulling herself up onto an elbow before she was fully conscious, every nerve quivering and screaming at her that something was wrong; a warning system that all too often these days cried wolf tantalisingly in the manner of a childhood game.

  She sat up, listened. Nothing except the silence of a moonlit night, not even an owl hooting from the big pine trees. A dream maybe, one that she couldn't remember and that was perhaps best forgotten. She stared at the square of latticed silvery light, told herself that tomorrow she'd do something about making up those curtains. But what was the point if they weren't going to stay here? At least, though, it would give them some psychological protection from the horrors outside the house. Beguildy could roar until he was breathless but at least they would not see him.

  She stretched out a hand and that was when her terror climaxed into a half-scream. The bulging sheets and blankets by her side should have been full with Amanda's small body but instead they crumpled and flattened as she ran her fingers over them.

  Amanda was not in the bed; she was gone!

  Marie pulled away the bedclothes, the bed stripped in a matter of seconds, lifting the linen in blind panic trying to will her daughter to appear. Wildly searching the room, opening the wardrobe. Some kind of childish hide-and-seek. Amanda was only playing mischievously, she could not have gone.

  Out onto the landing, a surge of hope as she
rushed for the WC but that was empty, too.

  ‘Am-an-da!’ One shout, more of a scream, she couldn't manage a second. The name seemed to come back at her off the walls, taunting her.

  Am-an-da … da … da …!

  ‘What's going on?’ Ron Halestrom clad in just a pair of green pyjama trousers appeared on the landing, switched on a light of such devastating brightness that Marie covered her eyes. ‘What the hell's happening?’

  ‘She's gone!’ White-faced, clinging to the stair rail, hating him because this was all his fault. ‘Amanda's gone. She's nowhere to be found.’

  ‘Probably downstairs looking for sweets and biscuits.’ He brushed past her, didn't want her to see the terror in his own eyes, his chest muscles suddenly constricting as though he was on the verge of a coronary attack. ‘I'll find her …’

  His words died away. Down below the hall was lit by a wide shaft of moonlight that flooded in through the studded front door which hung wide open giving him a restricted view of the drive outside; an emptiness that came up at the Halestroms and mocked them with its silence.

  Marie started to speak but words wouldn't come, the fears of yesterday and the day before crowding her mind, paralysing it. A voice somewhere seemed to whisper. ‘She's gone to the pool … to Gabor Pool.’

  Then Marie was rushing in the wake of her husband, her nightdress threatening to entangle with her feet so that she had to lift it up. Outside into a silvery world where nothing moved, the shadows so dense and eerie.

  Ron had braced himself to shout but he never made it, for even as his lungs were filling with air a deafening mortal cry of agony shattered the nocturnal stillness, vibrating in the atmosphere so that Marie was clinging to him. A scream that rose to its climax and then began again. And it came from that clearing amidst the scrubs where only recently Amanda had been discovered in gibberish conversation with Beguildy.

  Ron Halestrom rushed forward, Marie still holding onto his arm, dragging her along because he did not wish to leave her alone, knowing that they both had to face whatever terror those giant rhododendrons screened from their vision.

  They knew that they would find Beguildy there as they burst from the dense foliage into the open, that only such a noise could have come from his lips. That in itself was awful enough to contemplate but their brains refused to accept the scene which was conveyed to them in that circle of ethereal light, staring transfixed and refusing to believe!

  It was Beguildy all right. And Amanda, too. But this time the vagrant was not talking and laughing with the child. Indeed they barely recognised those bearded primitive features that were contorted into a mask of sheer terror, the mouth opening to emit yet another scream, eyes bulging like air bubbles that would burst at any second. Cringing, cowering, arms thrown up to protect himself, managing only a series of grunt-like whimpers now.

  Never before had they witnessed Amanda in such a fury. It was no childish tantrum; it had transgressed beyond that into a whirlwind of demonic fury, her lips pouring forth a babble of unintelligible hate as she advanced on the retreating man, whipping him viciously with a length of brightly coloured material which Ron Halestrom recognised only too well as the missing sash!

  Flimsy as it was, each blow had Beguildy staggering back, pleading for mercy in his own tongue. Now it was the girl's cries which rent the stillness, high-pitched shrieks as she hit and kicked mercilessly with her small bare feet, driving him one way then another, cutting off every escape route, lashing him so furiously that it was all a blur to the watchers.

  Ron Halestrom broke into a run, Marie at his heels, only the thorns of trailing briars cutting into his feet telling him that this was not all a dream. ‘Stop it, Amanda!’

  Whether or not Amanda heard they had no way of telling. Her fury was at its climax when Halestrom grabbed her, swung her round and found himself staring into a face that was no longer familiar, almost unrecognisable as the lips frothed and nostrils dilated.

  ‘Amanda!’ Marie grabbed her daughter from the rear, gasped with disbelief at the child's strength, limbs that tugged fiercely and almost broke away so that she could continue her assault on Beguildy. ‘Calm yourself! Whatever's the matter with you!’

  Amanda screeched, struggled, and then Ron Halestrom hit her hard across the face with the flat of his hand, a blow that threw her back, had her collapsing in Marie's arms.

  ‘Ron, there was no need to …’ Suddenly Amanda was still, her features relaxing, her body quivering, her outburst gone. Staring wide-eyed at them.

  ‘What's going on?’ Marie's voice was low, frightened.

  ‘Whatever are you doing out here with that …’

  It was only then that they remembered Beguildy, both Ron and Marie whirling round as though they feared some sudden attack from the rear.

  But apart from the three of them the clearing was empty. There was no sign of Beguildy, neither scream nor whimper to mark the direction in which he had fled.

  ‘He's gone.’ Marie could not keep the relief out of her voice. ‘But whatever is Amanda doing with her school uniform sash?’

  ‘I've no idea,’ Ron muttered. He had no desire to recount the circumstances in which he had last seen it. ‘But whatever was going on, there's no doubt that Beguildy was frightened of Amanda, terrified out of his mind!’

  ‘But why?’ Marie Halestrom's flesh was goose pimpling.

  Ron did not reply because right now there was no logical answer.

  ‘Let's get back inside.’ Marie shivered. ‘We don't know that he might come back.’

  ‘He won't.’ Halestrom was adamant. ‘Of all the places round here, the grounds of Gabor House are the one place you're not going to find Beguildy.’

  It was not until they were back indoors that Amanda spoke, faltering words that still echoed a vestige of her recent storm of hate and fury. ‘Beguildy bad man. Very bad!’

  ‘Only the other day she was trying to tell us what a good bloke he was,’ the author muttered.

  ‘Why is Beguildy bad?’ Marie dropped to her knees, arms around the child. ‘Tell Mummy, darling. Please.’

  ‘I hate him!’ Amanda's voice rose to a high-pitched shout, her features beginning to harden again. ‘All children hate him. But Amanda's not frightened of him!’

  Suddenly her eyes glazed over and her body went limp. Had not Marie been holding her the girl would have fallen to the floor.

  ‘She's fainted,’ Halestrom grunted. ‘Got herself worked up and it was all too much for her. We'd better get her back to bed.’

  He picked Amanda up, carried her slowly upstairs and laid her down on the bed, turned to Marie with an expression that said ‘I thought you were sleeping with her so that this kind of thing couldn't happen’.

  ‘I never felt her go.’ Marie seemed to read his thoughts. ‘But how did she know he was out there? If Beguildy had roared we'd surely have heard him. But she wouldn't!’

  Ron Halestrom felt his skin start to prickle.

  ‘She knew!’ Marie whispered. ‘Somehow she knew! Oh, Ron, it isn't safe to stay here another night.’

  ‘I wouldn't say that.’ He smiled faintly. ‘The boot seems to be on the other foot now. It's Beguildy who's scared now, scared to death. Don't ask me why but he's terrified of Amanda and I would very much doubt if he'll ever show his filthy face around here again!’

  Then he left her, closed the door behind him and before he'd reached his own room he heard the sound of a rusted key being forced to turn an ancient lock. Marie wasn't taking any chances this time.

  Ron Halestrom crossed to the window, stood staring out across the moonlit grounds. A feeling of helplessness flooded over him, a sense that he was not the owner of Gabor, a usurper who had no right to be here; that there were unseen forces trying to drive the Halestroms from this place!

  And from somewhere far away, beyond the Gabor boundaries, came that all-too-familiar sound that human vocal chords had no right to make. Beguildy's roar, only different this time; no longer the aimless cry of o
ne to whom normal speech and hearing had been denied, but a sound that embodied sheer malevolence like a wounded buffalo that had limped into cover to lick its wounds, and lie low whilst its strength returned. And then it would become more dangerous than ever, more cunning in its quest for vengeance.

  Ron Halestrom shuddered for he knew Beguildy would be back.

  CHAPTER SEVEN - HARBINGERS OF DOOM

  Donna O'Brien had cried for two whole days and she only stopped now because there were no more tears left inside her, an empty twelve-year old vessel that bulged with bitter wine. Auburn haired with eyes of a greenish hue, she had the kind of build that would probably run to fat in later years.

  Grief and hate merged. She was barely old enough to remember her mother's death except that she had been moved to Mrs Flaherty's caravan thereafter, her father preferring to transfer his responsibilities. She'd never really loved her father, at least she didn't think so. He'd always been around the camp though, brought her presents from time to time when he went into town. And suddenly he wasn't around anymore. That was when she suddenly missed him.

  If he'd died in any other way it wouldn't have been so bad, but she'd watched his death struggles in horror, no detail spared her by the light from the blazing vehicles; the gash in his side, the blood pouring from his mouth in that unrecognisable face. Holy Mother, she'd've got her own back on those louts if the police hadn't come and taken them away. Even so she was still trying to work out some plan of revenge but at the moment she couldn't think of anything.

  Towards evening she wandered away from the camp. Suddenly it was no longer home, didn't mean anything to her anymore. She didn't know where she would go, maybe she wouldn't come back. Mrs Flaherty wouldn't care if she didn't.

  She headed into the woods because there was nowhere else to go and she didn't like wandering along the lanes. Sometimes you met people who stared in a hostile manner as though you had no right to be there because you came from the encampment.