by Mike Mannion
Lilith screamed so loudly it was painful to hear in such a confined space. There was a loud cracking sound, like splintering wood. She gasped and opened her mouth wide. Bill saw movement inside her mouth. As she whimpered and cried in agony, new teeth sprouted up from her bleeding gums, appearing from nowhere in a matter of seconds.
When it was over she quickly regained her composure, looked at Bill and gave him a blood smeared smile. Her face was white and threaded with spider-web veins. Curled horns protruded from her long black hair.
“I did it! The voice there and I prayed to it, I begged it to help and Arddhu Og answered. It has given back my beauty.”
Bill was so transfixed with Lilith that he didn’t notice Professor Jareth moving forward, staring at him. When she was only inches away he noticed her closeness and jumped back.
“What the hell!”
“I’m sorry lad, really I am, but I’ve missed Vita Dantis for too long.”
“You have to fight it, both of you, you must!”
“When you pulled me out of that contraption I smelt your skin and... that was enough. Og must have you, you are to talk with it again...”
“Stay away from me!” said Bill, turning and fumbling desperately for the cellar door. He flung it open and staggered out into the hallway, wondering if Lilith’s terrible scream had alerted the bikers and Lord Percy to his presence.
“You will sleep... Sleep!” said the Professor following him through the door, locking her gimlet eyes on his.
“No...” said Bill.
Lilith moved beside the Professor, muttering the curse and fixing her gaze on Bill.
He felt his head go muzzy, his eyelids became heavy. The room began to swim. He managed to stagger over to the front door and grope for the handle. Lilith and Professor Jareth move forward – their energies somehow replenished at the prospect of fresh young blood.
As Bill drifted off into unconsciousness he somehow managed to swing the door open. He was bathed in the light and heat of a dazzling morning sun, shining down from above the tree line. Lilith and Professor Jareth pulled back and skulked in the shadows. At that moment, Bill felt his mind clear and his sleepiness vanish.
He clutched the journal as tightly as he could and made a run for it, dodging the motorbikes and sprinting across the drive, He ran through Bogmire Wood, down the lane that led back into Underwood, not daring to stop or even look back.
Chapter Seventeen - The Journal of William Whitebeam
Who’s a-knockin at my door?
It’s midnight and the winter wind,
does howl and bluster o’er the moor.
There only one who dares the rain,
and that’s the creature Boggleswain.
He knocks again, I feel a-fright.
The beast who ruins hopes and dreams,
has deemed to come this very night.
I could run and hide, wait ‘till day,
but Boggleswain don’t go away.
– When Boggleswain Comes A-knockin
– Old English Rhyme, 1760.
“Well I’m beat,” said Jim with a frustrated sigh. “I can’t understand a single word of that stupid thing.”
“Me neither,” said Ophelia.
Bill sighed, got up from the table and paced about the kitchen with a frown on his troubled face.
“What about you Arthur love?” said Daisy. She was over at the kitchen worktop preparing vegetables for a pot of stew. “You’ve always been good at all that sciency stuff.”
They’d been studying the Journal of William Whitebeam – which was open on the kitchen table – all afternoon. Arthur was just as stumped as everyone else but to make is mum happy he pretended to study it once again. The pages were yellowing, packed with spidery hand writing and skilfully drawn diagrams done to a fantastic level of detail. He flicked over a page and saw a rendering of what looked like a doughnut without the hole.
“I’m guessing that’s not a doughnut,” he said.
“No,” said Jim, “it a blood cell.”
Jim's veterinary training meant he recognised a lot of the diagrams as various body parts and internal organs. But other parts of the book showed pipes, wires and valves. There were also chemical formulas and symbols. It required a knowledge of engineering, chemistry, biology and mathematics that was way beyond his education or understanding. He glanced at the opposite page and saw a cross section diagram of a pair of lungs, filled with blood vessels that spread like tree branches from the lung’s centre. Parts of the picture were indicated with long arrows and annotated by notes done in a virtually undecipherable scrawl.
“And somewhere in here is a cure?” said Jim, looking doubtfully at Bill.
“I’m sure of it,” replied Bill.
He was pacing up and down with a bowed head. He felt an overwhelming sense of despair. There was something disturbing about looking into those pages. Beryl had made him study it many times, was quite vehement in her insistence that he did so, but it was just as undecipherable now as the first time he’d seen it. He somehow knew it was important, that it did explain the cure, but his memories and knowledge was scant, only a few months old, so how could he ever penetrate its depths?
He was about give up when something made him flick to the end. Near the back was a section called ‘Day Notes’. He remembered this was a sort of diary. “I think we should look here. We may have a chance of at least understanding this bit.”
The others nodded without much conviction or interest. The first few pages were all about daily activities in the lab. The Doctor was adding blood to small samples of ceare to see what happened. It formed tiny balls of flesh that transformed into fingers or toes. He would study these under a microscope and treat them with various chemicals.
Bill flicked over a few pages until he got nearer the end.
“Hey look,” said Ophelia, “He’s talking about Rowena, the girl from my journal.”
Ophelia pointed at the page and they all leant forward, trying to read the spidery handwriting...
Wed 7th May 1873 – 7pm. Today is a great day for science! After much hard labour the Scrinium Regenerationis – my Cabinet of Rebirth – is finally ready for a human subject. It has worked most successfully on animal regeneration without reinfection. My first subject was an infected mouse, then I had great success with infected rabbits, and the final animal experiment, a contaminated pig (whose physiology is surprisingly similar to ours, says the esteemed Mister Darwin) has gone in and been cured. Her piglets are suckling without issue, her blood is normal, as is her behaviour. I have yet to make a couple of last minute adjustments to the feed – the sulphur mixture should be tempered with 1% more arsenic – but it is finally ready. I go now to inform dear sweet Rowena and my good patron Lord Percy. Tomorrow they shall go inside and be cured of their damning sickness.
Thu 8th May 1873 – 11pm. Percy has made the most dreadful error of judgement. He has confessed all to the Apostles! They know about his and Rowena’s paganistic infection. He has described the Scrinium Regenerationis and its properties. I’m horrified to learn that the Apostles have murdered poor Percy – Lord of this parish and my patron is now nothing but ceare in one of their caskets!
Fri 9th May 1873 – 1am. The Apostles marched into my laboratory like an angry mob. They told me such abominations as my cabinet and the liquid pumped into veins should not be allowed to exist. It’s God’s role to judge and save, not man’s. I was told to get out of Underwood and never come back. I left them with a heavy heart as they smashed up my laboratory, wrecked the Scrinium Regenerationis, the summation of my life’s work, and went to rescue a frightened and wretched Rowena. I stole her away from them, to the Unicorn pub in the village, where I scribble this entry by candle in my room. We plan to catch the first stage to Middenmere.
Fri 9th May 1873 – 11am. Disaster of the most heinous nature has stuck us! I’m afraid poor sweet Rowena was consumed by the lust of Arddhu Og last night. She came into my room, cursed and bit me. Now I am
as she is, enslaved to Og. She was most upset and confused but I told her to go back to bed. We can still journey to my house in Middenmere and get the Vita Dantis we require.
I waited for her early this morning in the snug, but she failed to appear. When I went up I found that she was gone. I saw her journal on the table and I am afraid to say I stole a look inside. She recorded how she planned to go off into Briar Wood at dawn and kill herself in the old underground mausoleum. Poor sweet girl! I took her journal for safekeeping.
My plan is to wait for the next stagecoach. I have a thick cloak with a hood – as sunlight will react with my skin’s new chemical composition. So here I wait in my room, feeling the strange urges of this most wretched form of paganism begin to take hold...
Fri 9th May 1873 – midday.
The stage is outside but the Apostles are in the pub, searching for Rowena. If I am found and my infection discovered then I am surely to be murdered...
I will hide my precious journal, repository of my life’s work, and Rowena’s diary under the bed. The Apostles may have them destroyed and I can’t allow that. When I get to Hill House I will send a servant back to retrieve them.
Their reading was interrupted by loud knock at the front door.
Daisy jumped and gave everyone an anxious look. “Would that be the kids? Come back to say sorry?”
“More likely come back to curse us,” said Arthur.
“Well they won’t be getting inside and doing that,” said Jim.
He’d boarded up all the windows that morning. The light was on in the kitchen because of the wooden boards across the window.
“So we just stay sealed up here forever?” said Arthur.
“Until it’s all blown over,” said Jim.
“But Jim!” exclaimed Daisy. “You’re not thinking straight. It’s our Davy, Jimmy and Rosie. We can’t abandon them.”
“It may not be them,” said Ophelia. “Sunlight doesn’t do them any good, so they mostly come out at night.”
“Yeah,” said Arthur. “It could be some of the neighbours, checking if we’re okay.”
“It’ll be dusk by now,” said Jim checking his watch. “We’ve spent a good few hours studying that damn book.”
There was a loud crash from somewhere outside.
“What was that?” said Ophelia.
“Sounds like it came from outside the front of the house,” said Jim.
There was another loud crash, followed by the sound of splintering wood.
Jim stood up and wandered over to the kitchen door. He looked back and nodded so the others followed. They went across the hallway and through a door that led into the front room. The big bay window was boarded up, so it was dark. Jim switched on the light.
There was yet another loud crash. Somebody was attacking the boards that covered the windows. Whoever it was doing it was very strong because the whole window frame shook violently with each blow.
“Dad...” said Arthur. “I don’t think that wood’s going to stay up much longer.”
Jim arched his eyebrows and looked at his son.
Bill saw Ophelia swoon slightly and hold out her arms to steady herself. She looked a little lost and confused. Bill gently grabbed her arm and studied her face closely. He couldn’t help but notice how much she’d changed in the last few hours. Her hair was much thinner, there was a clump of it on the floor, and it had lost most of its shine. Her skin was paler, waxy and her cheeks had sunk. She gave him a pleading look but Bill had to force himself not to shudder when penetrated by fiery yellow eyes, which seemed to have grown in intensity. He wondered yet again why nobody else could see her as he could.
“It’s coming back,” she mumbled at Bill. “I can hear all a voice, telling me to draw blood.”
“The Vita Dantis,” said Bill. “It’s upstairs.”
“I’m going to take it,” she said vaguely, “before it’s too late.”
Bill was about to help her upstairs but was distracted by a loud splintering sound. He turned to see what was going on. Two of the boards had been ripped away from the window and a pale long haired face had appeared at the glass. It was Jimmy. When Bill turned back Ophelia was gone.
Jimmy saw his mother and grinned. “Hello my dearest! We’re come to bring the family together.”
Davy and Rosie’s faces appeared beside Jimmy’s.
“Kids!” said Daisy, pleased to see her children but feeling very scared by the way the looked. “You stop this nonsense at once.”
“Look at our little Poppet love,” said a horrified Jim. “What have they done to her?”
“Watch out, we’re coming in,” the kids said in unison. The three faces suddenly disappeared.
Moments later a large statue from next door’s garden came crashing through the window, smashing the glass.
“We’d better get out of here,” said Jim, urging the others out of the room with sweeping arm movements.
Jimmy appeared at the window, grinning mischievously. He stepped through into the front room.
Bill hurried out into the hallway and thought about Ophelia. Was she up in the bedroom? He had she managed to get the Vita Dantis? He rushed over to the stairs and found her sitting on a step. Pulling her to her feet she looked at him calmly.
“Get out!” he said, “They’ve broken into the house.”
Ophelia didn't speak. She went past him and the front door. Daisy followed.
“What are you waiting for?” said Arthur to Bill. “Let’s go.”
Bill was about to go but for some inexplicable reason felt a desperate desire not to leave the journal behind. He raced into the kitchen and snatched it up from the table. When he got back he could see that Arthur had gone and Jim had closed the door to the front room and was pushing as hard as he could to keep it shut – but it was being battered violently from the other side. He gave Bill a desperate look and motioned for him to join the others.
Bill rushed out through the front door. It was noisy in the street. The lights were on in the houses opposite and some of the neighbours were at their doors, screaming and shouting as they fought off bikers. The Campervan was parked on the other side of the street and Bill saw Arthur jump in the back. Ophelia was in the driver’s seat. Daisy hadn’t moved. She was still standing at the front door, looking back at Jim inside the house.
Ophelia started the engine.
“Come on you two!” shouted Arthur.
Bill ran over and got in the van.
“I can't leave your father,” said Daisy.
“Then get dad and let’s go!”
Daisy burst into hysterical sobs. She was looking inside the house and didn’t seem to hear Arthur’s voice. “Unhand your father this instant!”
Arthur watched his mother disappear into the house. He heard her scream and his dad shout. Then there was silence.
“Mum! Dad!” said Arthur. He jumped up and went to open the door.
Jimmy, Davy and Rosie came out the house and rushed towards the van at great speed. Their faces were smeared in blood and they were baring their teeth. Arthur moved back and sat down. He gazed at them in horror. They seemed lost, hardly recognisable. His gentle sister and easy-going brothers were cursed!
Jimmy got to the van first and raised a fist, ready to smash through the window and grab Arthur round the throat. “Come on brother, just you left.”
“Go!” screamed Arthur. “Go, go go!”
Ophelia pressed her foot down as hard as she could on the accelerator. The van lurched and with a clatter sped off down the cobbled street towards the village square.
“Are you okay?” said Bill.
Arthur looked dazed, shell shocked. “I can’t believe it,” he mumbled. “My whole family... they’re gone... all that blood on Jimmy’s face... it was Mum and Dad’s blood!”
People were at the door of every house they passed. The air was filled with shouting and screaming, pleas for mercy. Some of Arthur’s neighbours were being chased by bikers, or other villagers.
They drove into the square and were met with a shocking sight. There were about a dozen people, young and old, lying on the ground with their throats and faces smeared with blood. Others were running scared. Arthur was shocked because he’d known these people all his life, friends he’d been to school with, their parents and grandparents.
Ophelia steered the van across the square, taking great care not to run over anyone. Suddenly, a grumpy looking middle-aged man with wisps of hair combed over his balding scalp jumped in front of them, baring yellow teeth. It was Arthur’s old maths teacher – a very strict and unforgiving man who’d hit Arthur with a cane.
“It’s Mister Conlon!” shrieked Arthur. “He’s come to thrash me.”
Ophelia threw the steering wheel to the left and the van lurch dramatically. Bill and Arthur were thrown out of their seats. Ophelia turned the wheel and the van lurched back. They’d got past Mister Conlon without hitting him.
They passed the village shop, then the Unicorn pub – which was blazing with light and filled with raucous rock music. Looking through the etched windows Arthur saw three people he knew – Jack Appleton, Barney Smith and Judy Bowers – biting the neck of an old farmer, attacking the publican and chasing a gang of young lads who looked a little too young to be out drinking. The world he’d know his whole life had gone crazy.
“Let’s get back to our rooms,” said Arthur. “Try to figure out what to do.”
“Head for Middenmere,” said Bill to Ophelia. She didn’t answer.
They went on little further, then at a crossroads Ophelia turned unexpectedly.
“Hey, where we going?” said Arthur.
“Isn't this the way to Middenmere?” said Bill.
Ophelia didn’t answer.
“Hey,” said Bill, “what’s wrong?”
She a few moments later she slammed on the brakes, bringing the van to a violent halt and throwing Bill and Arthur off their seats. They were outside Saint Bede’s church – an ancient place with a spire silhouetted against the darkening sky. Arched iron gates led into a cemetery that was filled with ivy clad tombstones. The bell was ringing in the tower; its doleful clang had drawn people from the village, seeking God’s sanctuary from paganistic evil. But those that had arrived had been lynched and were now lying unconscious amongst the graves, or wandering about looking for people to bite and curse.
