by Mark Cassell
“I don’t understand it either, Anne.” His eyes were tiny.
As he turned away, I dropped back onto my heels. My feet pressed into the soil, sinking like my stomach now the excitement of almost finding Murphy had passed. I calmed my breath, forcing my anger down. I didn’t want any of this. I’d told Clive I had much to do, yet I knew I wasn’t going to do any of it. Well, at least not the working section of that to-do list; I would head out and look for Murphy, out in the direction of where those other cats had gone.
Hope. Something I’d begun to cling to.
The walk of perhaps ten or fifteen minutes turned up nothing. No Murphy, nor any other cat. Nor did I see any of that black stuff anywhere. My thoughts were of Clive. Perhaps his grief had pushed him to the edge, and he believed she was talking to him. He’d said he’d been talking to her, so I assumed he’d also seen, just as I had if only for a moment, reflections in windows. I then felt bad for running off like that. I’d snapped at him and the poor man was still grieving, clearly going senile in his elderly years. He’d lost his wife and still mourned, now claiming to see her.
But I’d seen her, too. Hadn’t I? Were we both hallucinating?
For the first time, I thought maybe it was the black stuff. Could it be a kind of hallucinogenic fungus? While chewing on these thoughts, somehow I’d walked from the field and through the trees. Seeing the river up ahead of course made me think of that embarrassing moment when I’d slipped in and Leo had rescued me. I wondered where precisely he lived in the village, and what his connection was to all that was going on.
I kept further away from the water this time, heading for the shallower stretch. Compared to the day before, I could now see the bottom: clumps of reeds and heaped rock. No coloured markings though. Had I imagined that, just as I’d imagined seeing Janice’s ghost? The further I walked, the more I realised that it had dried up, which was a little strange given the time of year. Plus, there were more rocks that had slid down from the opposite bank.
Although I’d often walked down here, especially since Murphy’s disappearance, I didn’t recognise it. The landscape had changed. Quite drastically, in fact. I couldn’t even tell where I’d fallen. Finally, I got to something that most definitely wasn’t there the day before.
One rock speared the ground as though it had risen upwards, slick and glistening with streaks of mud … and unsurprisingly that fungus.
I skirted several tree roots and walked towards it. How had this happened? It was like it had burst up through the ground. I ran two fingers along the cold, damp surface, careful not to touch the black filth. From this angle, between jagged pieces of rock, I saw where I’d scrambled up the muddy bank when Leo saved me. Again, all those rocks had not been there. Could there have been some kind of earthquake? It wasn’t a common occurrence in Britain, and when there were quakes they were usually harmless. But this … this had to have been an impressive ground shift. If there had been one close to my house, I certainly would have felt it. It would’ve been the talk of the village. Even if it had happened at night, it certainly would have woken me up.
A cold wind bit my face.
The now-dry reeds were blackened, which immediately brought to mind the scorched copse I’d seen from the graveyard overlooking the fields. Everything looked burnt: trees roots, rock, and even the mud itself.
Somewhere close by, a twig snapped. I squinted over a low rise in the woodland, off into a cluster of undergrowth. Beyond a fallen tree, in shadowy foliage, there …
My heart jolted.
… there was the Black Cat.
No more than fifty metres away.
I held my breath.
Even from that distance, I could see the muscles ripple along its flank as it strode past a mossy boulder. It didn’t look like a panther or a puma or anything like that. It had a round, soft face, with what looked like a bald patch on one side of its head. Those great paws pressed into the leafy floor and its head swayed in time with each mighty stride. It slowed to a stop.
I dared not move.
With a casual neck roll, it turned its immense head. Ears back, eyes wide that burned a deep red, it scanned the woodland.
A beam of sunlight fell across its mouth.
Those lips … they seemed to be stitched together. Thick and glistening, perhaps even sweaty, stitches. Its hairless chin was blistered and scarred around the uneven weave of tatty cords.
That great beast fixed me with its fiery gaze.
I wanted to run, to sprint, to get out of there as quick as possible but my feet refused me. I breathed, slowly, not even wanting my chest to move for fear of encouraging the Cat to advance.
Silence squeezed me, choked me, and it was as though the air had thinned.
The Cat hunched. Then bounded forward.
My heart pummelled my ribcage but still I couldn’t budge.
It leapt over the fallen tree, straight for me.
Finally, my legs obeyed and I turned and charged back up the slight incline. Out into the field where the grass whipped my trousers. Every step sent a hammer to my skull. Thick mud clumped my boots making my sprint so damn difficult.
I didn’t want to look back, couldn’t.
It was close. I knew it.
My coat made ridiculous wispy noises as I pumped my arms back and forth, propelling myself across the field. This had to be the fastest I’d ever sprinted in my life. I knew I’d never make my house, as I imagined the beast growing even larger, impossibly huge, bounding after me.
I ran, and the darker everything became …
My heel slipped.
I stumbled, my heart pulsing in my throat. Somehow, I managed to remain upright. Still running …
And that gloom pressed in like a premature twilight; darker, thicker, to block out the bushes far ahead, my house.
A growl – close! – from behind made me turn.
A split-second glance: the Cat. Hair rippling, big and bold. Crimson eyes.
That growl was like an engine.
I looked ahead, sprinted faster. My legs burning, my lungs screaming. Yet … it felt as though time slowed. The mud, the earth, the ground, sucked at my boots. I mentally shouted at my feet to take me the hell away from there. Run. Faster.
No response.
I slowed. No. I had to keep running. Go.
Slower. It was like I ran in slow-motion. Perhaps I was dreaming.
That growl intensified.
I didn’t want to, but I turned to look back again. Why? I had to run. My stride had stopped. That was the only movement I could afford, as though I was trapped by quicksand.
The Cat no longer advanced, standing perhaps ten metres away. A smell, a mixture of swamp water and burnt toast wafted towards me. Its nostrils flared. The side of its head where its flesh was blistered and bald, glistened black filth. It slid down the side of its jaw, and dripped to the ground. Tiny coils of smoke rose from where it burned the grass.
I waited for it to pounce.
Death had chased me. I hoped to God it would be painless.
Nothing.
Those eyes had dimmed, yet its look seemed more curious than anything. There was no evil there, no ill intent. Its head tilted, and slowly those eyes closed. As the fiery tinge in its pupils vanished, I felt my feet move.
Finally.
Light returned, creeping back around me. Pushing away the darkness.
Although slightly numb, my legs moved and I stepped back from the Cat. The retreating shadows stole the Cat away, too. It was like it vanished, shrinking into the fading layers of darkness.
I continued to step back and I pressed into bushes. Twigs and leaves scratched my coat. Now at the far edge of the field, not too far from my house, I realised I’d managed to run further than I thought. All that remained of the Black Cat’s presence were paw prints that had blackened the grass. Curls of smoke caught on the breeze, bringing with it a subtle whiff of burning.
I stood there, my breath loud. I wrapped my arms around myse
lf.
Was I going insane? What was going on? It had to be the fungus, it was making me see things. But the paw prints were proof I wasn’t.
Daring myself to see the Cat again, I squinted into the distance. The trees swayed above a drifting fog. Nothing else. No Black Cat.
What. The. Hell?
I jogged alongside the hedges with the uneven ground threatening to steal away my unsteady legs. Somehow, I managed to get myself over the stile that led back out onto the lane. When I neared my garden and rounded the corner, there was Leo crouching on the other side of the road, just a little way along from the public bridleway. Wearing that woolly hat of his, he scribbled in a notebook; frantic pen movements beneath grim concentration.
“Leo,” I said as I approached. My throat was raw. Tears prickled my eyes as I held it all back. “I’ve just seen the Cat.”
“This village is getting more and more insane,” Leo said as he looked up and snapped shut his little notebook. The blue of twilight was fast approaching, making me wonder how long I’d been down by the river. It seemed to close in on the pair of us, reinforced by the shrubs and trees. Unlike the gloom from moments ago, this was natural, safe.
Normal.
But I no longer lived in a normal world.
“I saw it,” I said again.
He nodded.
I crouched and watched him run a hand along the ground. Black patches dotted the cracked tarmac.
“Don’t touch it!” I said. “It’s a fungus, hallucinogenic or something.”
He chuckled, but there was no humour in it. “No. No, it’s not.”
Even the stones, half buried in the earth between thick weeds, were black. His palm came away with dark smears, like charcoal.
A wind flicked hair in my face and I hooked it from my mouth.
“It’s everywhere,” I said. “What’s going on?”
He pulled his hat tighter over his ears and added, “It’s so much more than that.”
Together, we stood.
“Anne, you know there’s always been Black Cat sightings in these areas, but this …” He gestured to the black streaks. “This takes it up a level.”
“What does that mean?” I hadn’t meant to raise my voice.
He didn’t say anything, only looked at me with those large brown eyes. I guessed there was sympathy there.
“Leo,” I said as he looked away, “I’ve just been chased by a fucking big black cat. It’s the Black Cat.”
He slid his notebook into a pocket, keeping his eyes fixed on the black stuff at our feet. “This is all connected.”
“And speaking of lips,” I shouted into his face, “that Cat’s lips were stitched closed and half its head was burnt and blistered and scarred.” My eyes prickled and I blinked away pathetic tears that threatened to push me over an edge I absolutely refused to pass.
Leo placed a hand, gentle and warm, over mine. He softly squeezed my fingers. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”
“What’s happening?” Again, I pretty much shouted it. Was I becoming hysterical?
He offered a soft smile.
I inhaled and closed my eyes. He squeezed my hand again, then let go. I breathed out, long and loud.
Eventually, I opened my eyes and said, “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I know precisely how you feel. Not too long ago, I was yanked into all this weird shit.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, and I’m still piecing it all together. Trying to, at least.”
I gestured to the ground. “This black stuff is everywhere, we should inform the environmental agency.”
“They can’t do anything.” He shook his head. “This is so much more than that.”
“What is it?” I wanted to ask more about the Cat. So many questions hurt my head.
“This black stuff, as you call it,” he rubbed it between finger and thumb, “is a kind of residue. It proves the veil between our world and … and another, has been torn.”
I laughed. “Yeah, right.”
“What have you seen, Anne? Tell me.”
“I’ve just seen the Black Cat of the Holt, I know that.”
“And you’re sure about that?”
“Yeah.”
“A second ago you mentioned the possibility of a hallucinogenic fungus.”
“I did, but I know what I saw.”
“So, you believe?”
“Yes.” I thought about how that impressive beast had chased me. “It vanished into a strange grey fog. No, it was like the shadows opened up or something.”
His nod was enough to convince me he believed me. He asked, “How d’you reckon that’s even possible?”
I had no idea. “And its mouth was stitched together.” I remembered how those stitches appeared sweaty. “And its eyes were like fire.”
The smile that pushed into his face made me want to scream at him. Again, I had to calm myself. “It was as though it vanished into thin air.”
“And the shadows?”
“The shadows moved without any reason. Kind of messed with my perception, you know?”
Leo looked away and squinted into the darkening sky.
“What you’re seeing aren’t the shadows you think they are, it’s the veil shifting, traces of the Shadow Fabric.”
“What?”
“A sentient darkness that exists in varying forms and allows entities to move between worlds.” He said it with such conviction.
“Nonsense.”
“It is quite literally the Fabric of Reality.”
“And what do you mean … entities?”
“Precisely that.”
“Are you talking about ghosts?” I demanded. This was ludicrous. “Spirits?”
“Demons, too.”
“This is insane.” Although I said that, I thought back to what I’d witnessed at Clive’s house.
He chewed his lower lip, then said, “That’s what I once thought.”
“How do you know all this shit?”
“I’ve dealt with this kind of thing before. And I learnt a lot from a good man. I’ve stayed in Mabley Holt because this place seems to be at the heart of it. There are things buried in this village. Secrets … and more.”
I looked past him, out into the fields down by the river. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him follow my gaze. The way he said all this convinced me that there was much more going on.
“You want to know what I was doing down by the river when I rescued you?” he asked.
I kicked at the clumped mud on my boots. “Yes,” I mumbled, “yes, I do.”
“Want to come back to my place?”
That question did not make me feel weird. I know it should’ve done, but instead I somehow knew I could trust him.
In silence, we walked up along the bridleway, stepping around muddy puddles and precarious tree roots smoothed out from years of walkers. As we neared the end of the path, and came closer to the lane beyond, he cleared his throat.
“Since last year,” he said, “I’ve been trying to piece together the history of Mabley Holt. Strange things have been happening here for centuries. It all centres around those rocks out there in the woods. What no one realises is that many of them are markers. Kind of grave markers … but for demons, devils.”
I laughed. “You expect me to believe this?”
“I need you to.”
“This is absurd.”
Even though I said that, the more he spoke the more I believed in what he was saying. I realised that I had in fact seen Janice’s apparition, and hadn’t been hallucinating after all.
“They’re recognised as containment stones,” Leo explained, “to hold at bay a buried demon.”
“Okay, so if all this is true …” I found it almost hilarious that I was taking this seriously. “… why, or indeed how, are the demons buried here? How is that even possible?”
“They exist in two places, and need to rebuild themselves. See it as though the empty shell of their body is buried beneath or
between a series of containment stones. And on the other side of the Fabric their actual consciousness resides. Banished, in a way, beyond this world.”
“I suppose they need to connect?”
“Yes, precisely.”
“How does that happen?”
“Flesh and blood. Sometimes just a touch of the living, sometimes the breath of a living being here on Earth.”
When he said that, I immediately thought of the piece of paper I’d found at the back of my grandparents’ sideboard. Something I’d totally forgotten about until that moment.
“Blood?”
He nodded.
“And,” I added, “breath?”
His eyes widened, his head tilted. It reminded me of how the Black Cat had moved its head, just before it closed its eyes and vanished.
“Where did you hear that?” he asked.
“I …”
He frowned.
Should I tell this man? This stranger? I hadn’t known him long. Did I want to tell him stuff about my family?
“It’s okay,” he said, “you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
I paused, and instead told him, “Some of those stones looked like they’ve moved. There are more out in the countryside, more than before. And they look like they’ve risen from the ground.”
He remained silent as we made it out onto the road.
“How is that even possible?” I demanded.
The sound of an approaching vehicle made us stop to watch headlights spear the twilight shadows – normal shadows, I hoped. We watched the car shoot past, its occupants no doubt clueless as to what was happening here in the village. Red brake lights vanished round the bend.
I looked back at Leo. Could I tell this man of that one curious thing I’d found in my grandparents’ home? If I did, then it felt as though I’d let him into my world. My messed up world. It had been that way for a while now. Now, even more so. His was too though, by the sounds of it. If I could believe him. And I did believe. Everything.
So, I told him about what I’d found. The two words.
Again, he tilted his head and I held his gaze.
“Yes,” he said, “blood and breath.”
