Dreamscape

by Philip R Benge

  **********

  When he had heard Ms Carson`s scream, Donald Lewis had sat bolt upright on his bed, he was shaking with fear, and noticing this he felt a deep self-loathing of himself, he should stop shaking in fear, he told himself, and join the others on the upper floor, they might be in need of some extra help. As he sat there willing himself to do just that a pillar of smoke formed in the corner of his room, and within the smoke the outline of a beautiful woman began to take shape. Lewis was almost sick when the stench of hell reached him, but he fought the desire to be sick, his attention now fixed on the pillar of smoke. The temperature inside the room had already began to fall, but Lewis did not feel it, his attention was fully upon Moira Bourbon who was now standing before the frightened young man. Her green eyes bored into his, he could see a terrible fear within them and he felt even more ashamed of his own cowardice.

  “Donald, you must help me, please stop them from taking me away.” Moira begged in a pitiful voice that made his heart go out to her.

  Lewis did not realise that only he could hear Moira`s pleas, that Moira had sent her thoughts directly to his mind. Her cry for help came just at the right moment, for Lewis had just been scolding himself for not being a man, he determined to act this time, no matter what happened. He rose and went across the room to Moira, who was seemingly being dragged by an invisible figure to the door of his bedroom, above him he heard a ghostly scream and he almost faltered, especially when he saw that Moira was being dragged through the now open doorway, one which he had earlier secured. Moira then used her own scream to galvanise the man into action, once again only he heard her scream which was followed by more cries for help.

  Lewis pushed his fear away and followed Moira into the hall, Moira now grabbed a hold of his hand and pulled him after her and towards the nearest of the bathrooms, then she let out another cry.

  “Quickly, I beg of you Donald, free me now! I can hear more of them coming down the stairs.”

  Lewis could indeed hear someone running down the stairs, it was Rob and the others, however Moira did not give him the necessary time to ascertain who it was, she pulled him into the bathroom. Once inside the bathroom the door slammed shut, he spun around to stare at it, his fear returning to his brain twice fold. Then he felt a terrific force dragging him to the bath, it was filled with water, there was nothing he could do to stop himself from being thrust down into it, into its icy cold water. He felt cold hands grab his head, and then his head was forced down under the water, he did not die quietly, he thrashed about desperately trying to get his head above water, the bath water was splashing everywhere, but with his life-force being drained from his body by the Shades who had now joined Moira, so too his strength left his body, and finally he died, his eyes fastened upon the face of Moira, who was now laughing at him. He never even had a chance to use the protections given to him by Father Pritchard.

  When Rob finally reached Lewis` bedroom they found that they were too late, it was empty. He then heard Inglis cry out in fear, returning to the hall he saw four ghostly figures moving towards them, two adults and two children; they had just walked through the shut door of one of the bathrooms. Inglis thought that they were the Stewart family, still roaming the house, but now in search of more victims, however Rob knew them for what they were.

  “David, we need to rid ourselves of the Shades.” Rob ordered.

  Rob and Father Pritchard went to meet the four ghosts, their crosses in their hands, all the while saying the Lord`s prayer in a loud voice that rang through the house, the four Shades, for that is what they were, immediately bolted for the safety of the cellar, the sound of the Lord`s prayer following after them and they too felt a terrible fear.

  Father Pritchard now saw the water flowing from under the door of the bathroom just vacated by the Shades, confirming all of their fears; Lewis was being murdered by Moira Bourbon. With the Shades gone they rushed to the second bathroom and pushed against the door, and finally it yielded to them, letting them look down upon the dead body of Donald Lewis lying in the bath, his lifeless eyes looking up at them, pleading. However, no one else was inside the room, even the icy cold was slowing going, Rob took a moment to get himself together, before he went back into the hallway, to the others. He was feeling utterly useless against Moira Bourbon, her powers had obviously grown since their last encounter, but how when she was dead? As he stood staring into space he noticed one of the cameras set up by the students.

  “Professor Inglis, can I see if your camera caught anything at all that might be of use to us?” Rob asked.

  Inglis turned to him and Rob was not surprised to see that the professor appeared to have aged twenty years.

  “Of course Mr Hinds, I will ask Colin Timpson to show you what the camera has recorded, he is our photographic expert.” Inglis said.

  Five minutes later they were all in the sitting room, Colin Timpson had set his laptop up on one of the low coffee tables and they watched as Donald Lewis was dragged into the bathroom by a screaming Moira Bourbon. “Moira Bourbon, in all her glory.” Rob groaned.

  He was feeling at his lowest ebb right now, but he attempted to shake his feeling of utter uselessness off. Everyone still alive was with him in the sitting room, watching as the last few seconds of Lewis` life was played back.

  Marchmount now saw that his beautiful Satanist did not want to play a practical joke on the two government agents, she was playing another game entirely, and one that left him gasping with jealousy. When he was back at the university he would call her and ask to be her acolyte, to learn the secrets of Satanism under her. The poor twisted young man had still not realised that she was dead, not yet, Rob was about to put him right.

  “The lady in distress is Moira Bourbon, she was the most powerful Satanist on Earth until she died last year after she had killed, or had killed, so many innocent and some not so innocent people; and somehow she is orchestrating all of this from her new home in Hell.” Rob said grimly.

  “If you see her do not believe that she is on your side, she is only on her own side. Use the holy water that Father Pritchard gave to you, or the cross, they will both work against her now that she is a hell fiend.” Rob said.

  “Do you want us to believe that a dead person has come back from Hell to revenge her death by killing us, do we look like children, you insult our intelligence Mr Hinds?” Masters cried out angrily.

  “Even if we believed all of what you said Mr Hinds, these useless items did not save Ms Carson or Mr Lewis, did they?” Inglis cried out equally as angry as Masters.

  “All of you listen carefully to me, you have seen the energy field outside, you have seen the face that came through the closed solid wood door, my god you have even seen Moira Bourbon on your own camera system. If after all of this you still do not believe, then I suggest you search the house for her, but be careful for she bites, as poor Ms Carson and Mr Lewis have already found out.” Rob raged.

  “As for the effectiveness of the protection that we gave each of you, no they did not work, and it must have been because Moira Bourbon and her allies simply overwhelmed them both, from now on we will stay down here in the sitting room, no one leaves here alone, not for any reason.” Rob replied. “Now settle down and try to go to sleep if you can, Father Pritchard and I will watch over you.”

  Masters now asked another question. “Mr Hinds, once again I ask you, where are your people, you said that they would have missed you by now, but as yet we have seen no sign of a rescue attempt?” He asked, almost pleadingly.

  His anger had slightly abated after listening to Rob and accepting his arguments, only his fear remained as he asked for an explanation to chase that away.

  “I can only believe that the power that Moira Bourbon is using is delaying them, but all of this must be draining her, she can only last so long, and then when she attempts to restore her energy levels, my people will break in.” Rob stated firmly.

  What he had learned of black magic over the last three years tol
d him that this was so; it all depended on how much energy she had stored when she started her tricks earlier that evening. The others seemed to accept his assurances on this, for it seemed reasonable to even the least intelligent one amongst them, and one by one they found a chair, or a softer piece of hard wood flooring, and tried to rest, all praying for god to help them through this terrible time. One thing they all did, that was to stay away from the door, the windows, or any of the walls, be they interior or exterior.

  Rob now approached the photographic expert amongst the student group, Colin Timpson, with a question. “Can you see the views that each of your cameras is recording on your computer?”

  “Yes of course.” Timpson replied and touched the computer screen and up popped the views from the six cameras recently set up by the student group.

  Timpson now operated the slide show function and the view from each of the cameras in turn was displayed upon the laptop`s screen. Alongside this the room temperature in each location also flashed up. For the moment it showed nothing, their enemy was either resting, or hiding away somewhere while they prepared to launch yet another attack.

  Timpson looked to be in a state not far off shock, the two deaths had affected him badly, even more than the others who looked pale enough. Rob saw this and sat with him asking questions about the camera system and the other items that the students had brought with them, in an attempt to take his mind off his fear. One thing was certain, the equipment was working very well, for it showed a rapid drop in temperature on the second floor and then they watched as the four Shades in the guise of the Stewart family appeared from out of the wall.

  “David, our ghosts are back on the second floor, I can see them here on Colin`s laptop.” Rob said.

  Father Pritchard walked across the room, followed by anyone still awake, and looked at the laptop screen. As the Shades walked along the corridor, each door that they passed shook and then flew open to bang against the inside wall of the room, this was for affect and Moira was actually making this happen. Then for no reason the Shades began to howl like wolves, and no one needed the laptop to hear it, for the howls were heard throughout the house, waking anyone who had been able to grab a moment`s sleep. The Shades had reached the stairs and now they began to walk down to the first floor, a loud thumping noise accompanying their progress. The nerves of the ghost seekers were now stretched taut; Rob could see that they were close to breaking and someone could soon be hurt.

  The night before when Moira had visited Marchmount in his dreams she had told him to look a little scared by everything that would happen around him, but to play it cool, in this way he would attract the attention and admiration of the girl of his dreams, Norma Percival. At this moment in the proceedings he was the nearest of the group to the door that led into the hall, having been moved there by Moira`s mind control without him even noticing. Marchmount had no need to play scared because he was scared, but only a little and he looked to be in control of himself, mainly because he thought that his beautiful Satanist would never harm him, even so, he thought, the creatures that the agent had referred to as Shades looked very dangerous. He began to search in his holdall for a cigarette, he had given them up that morning but now he desperately needed one, what he found was an ancient Colt 45 revolver. He took it out quizzically, wondering how on earth it had got there, stupidly he put his finger through the trigger guard, just then a series of crashes occurred on the door near to him, and then a loud bang almost deafened him, it had come from the thing in his hand. He looks questioningly at the revolver and was amazed to see smoke curling up from the end of the barrel, then another of the students, Maxine Reynolds, screamed, for she had just seen a pool of blood forming next to the body of Mildred Lang.

  Rob rushed across and tore the revolver from Marchmount`s hand, then he went across to the still body of Mildred Lang, she was still alive, but only barely. Rob pulled a folded handkerchief from his pocket and attempted to stem the flow of blood, but it was while he was doing this that Mildred Lang died.

  Rob turned to look at Marchmount, he could see that the young student was in shock following the accident, he did not even hear the angry abuse coming his way from the others who were now grouped closely around him, and Rob now intervened on his behalf.

  “Leave him alone, it was none of his doing, Moira Bourbon may well have put the pistol into his bag when she noticed him pick the bag up, have any of you seen the weapon before?” Rob asked and was told by the terrified students that no one had ever seen it before.

  “Having made sure that he would find it she then caused the series of crashes on the door near to him, this spooked him. He probably never even consciously pulled the trigger, she did, Moira Bourbon is the murderer here, not your friend.” Rob said angrily. “Now there is only the death of the father of the Stewart family to go, and he hanged himself if I recall, we must be extra vigilant if we are to prevent yet another death.”

  “Yes you are correct Mr Hinds; the father hanged himself from the bannister rail on the second floor.” Hillmore said in a quiet voice, for he was afraid to speak any louder in case the fiend attacking them noticed him.

  “Death by hanging is a terrible way to go, I believe that first your neck is broken and then asphyxia starves the brain of oxygen, it can take up to two excruciating minutes for the actual death to occur. Be warned everyone, Moira Bourbon could take her next victim by choosing either hanging or suffocation, either way would mimic the death of Mr Stewart and satisfy her cruel plan, whatever it is, so we will have to be on our guard at all times.” Father Pritchard announced grimly.

  Norma Percival had stayed by Marchmount`s side to try to comfort him and she was joined by Maxine Reynolds. Rob derived some comfort from the sight, Moira Bourbon had not killed their humanity yet, he must see that she never did.

  Rob and Father Pritchard talked together, but neither of them could think of a way out of their problem until Rob suggested constructing a pentagram, and so that was what they did, for Father Pritchard had brought the necessary items needed with him in his large suitcase.

  Everyone did feel a little safer after they had moved into its protection, but still no one went asleep, they were all too fearful of not waking up, or of being snatched by Moira Bourbon and taken to the Netherworld, or the Dreamscape as Rob had named it.