Blake looked down at his dead brother and wished he could say goodbye. He could never repay Stevie for what he’d done. He’d said a curse could be dealt with by using its own rules against it, and that was what he’d done. Gradually Blake made sense of what had happened.
The curse required anyone placed inside the picture frame to die, but Cindi was already dead. The curse was broken by its own logic. You couldn’t kill what was already dead, and so the curse could not run to its conclusion. It was simple and obvious, but the great mystery writer, Blake Price, had been stumped by it. It was his no-good brother who had saved the day. If Blake wrote a book with that ending, his editors would be pissed, but Blake kind of liked it. In fact, he liked it a lot. He knelt down over his brother and kissed his forehead. “You’re a fool, Stevie; but you died sober and loved. I’ll never forget what you’ve done for my family.”
Then Blake collapsed on top of his dead brother and sobbed until his throat ached.
28
It had been eight days since Steven Price had been struck by lightning and died. Authorities found it difficult to believe, as the weather had been clear that day, but the autopsy categorically confirmed that a lightning strike was the only thing that could have caused the death. The Police had been intrigued as to why local historian, George Thatcher, was present at the scene with two broken legs, but they declined to delve too deeply into the matter. Blake suspected the authorities of Redlake were used to the unexplainable. The town wasn’t like others.
Blake stood with Ricky and Liz at the edge of Stevie’s grave. They each had tears in their eyes, but Blake also wore a slight smile, for he knew how courageous his brother had been in his final acts. They were all standing there because of him.
Blake and Liz had spoken at length about the future, and had decided to sell Poe’s Place in order to buy somewhere closer to town. Liz was going to go back to her career and Blake was going to go back to writing. They were all going to begin again and do what was best for Ricky—they’d come so close to losing him.
For now they all stood together, side by side, and said their goodbyes to a man they loved; a man who had been deeply flawed, yet deeply good. Blake would forever aspire to live up to Stevie’s memory.
The Church of England minister finished The Committal part of the funeral. Solemnly standing beside Stevie’s gravestone, he finished:
“We have entrusted our brother Steven to God’s mercy,
and we now commit his body to be buried:
earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust:
in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life
through our Lord Jesus Christ,
who will transform our frail bodies
that they may be conformed to his glorious body,
who died, was buried, and rose again for us.
To him be glory for ever.
All
Amen.”
Everyone repeated ‘amen’ but Blake said it loudest. If there was any justice at all, his brother would be somewhere pleasant right now, looking down on them with a mischievous grin.
Blake also hoped that Boruta was burning in whatever Hell he was deserved. The wicked monster had appeared briefly in the mist, but the curse had been broken by then. Blake had felt the man’s sickening presence for only moment, a supernatural fury flooding the air for a single second. It made Blake realise that evil as a force existed, but by giving into fear he was only letting that evil thrive. Good, happy people were the antidote to evil. Misery led a man down the dark alleyways of anger, envy, and spite. Blake would be sure to wear a smile for whatever was left of his days. His happiness had spread to Liz and Ricky, too, and each of them were now united in their grief, their hope, and their strength.
“You okay?” Liz asked Blake.
“I will be.”
“Want us to give you a minute?”
Blake smiled. “That would be nice. Thanks.”
Liz gave him a peck on the cheek.
Ricky stepped up to the grave. “See ya, Uncle Stevie.” Then he and Liz left Blake alone.
Blake had the sackcloth in his hands, with the bones and picture frame inside. All of the photographs had fallen out and it was now empty; but it was also still dangerous. If someone activated it again, Boruta would get another chance to return. “I’ll never forget what you did, little bro,” he said. “My son is going to grow up with a father, thanks to you. I promise you that Liz and I will do a better job than Mum and Dad did for us. He’ll grow up and make you proud. I’m glad he got to meet you properly before you left us. Truth is that sober you made a better man than I did. It’s not very often a big brother looks up to his kid brother, but I’m going to try to be as good as you were. It should’ve been me sacrificing myself for my family, but it took you to show me how. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for teaching me that. I’m going to miss you.”
Blake wiped his wet eyes with his forearm and then threw the picture frame into the open grave. He went over to a tall pile of dirt nearby and scooped several handfuls down on top of it. Boruta’s evil was going to be buried again, and this time it would stay buried.
Blake went and joined his family. Stevie’s wake was being held beside the Lake. No alcohol would be served, only good food, fun times, and happy memories. Any bad memories could be buried along with Boruta’s picture frame where they could never hurt anybody again.
***
“Come on, let’s get this done and dusted.” Ted started shovelling dirt into the grave.
Graeme frowned. “Hold on a sec?”
“Why?”
Graeme stared down into the grave and spotted something. There was a couple handfuls of dirt already on top of the coffin, and it looked like something was partially buried. The corner of something stuck out of the loose soil.
“There’s something down there.” Graeme hopped down into the grave and landed on the coffin with his heavy boots. He felt the lid cracked slightly under his weight, but didn’t care. The thing would be underground soon.
“What is it?” Ted asked.
“Hang on.” Graeme reached down and grabbed the corner of some sort of material. When he yanked it free he saw that it was an old sack cloth. What turned out to be inside was a wooden picture frame. “Huh? Wonder why this is in here?”
“Who knows,” said Ted. “Just leave it where it is.
“We’re not supposed to bury things with the coffin. The Rev will want us to hand it in.”
“Let’s have a quick butchers. I may want it for the wife.” Graeme showed his partner the picture but was met with a grimace. “Second thought, you can give it to the Rev. Thing’s uglier than my sister.”
Graeme shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He pulled himself up out of the grave. “Let’s just get this filled in. I’d like to get down the boozer before happy hour ends.”
The two of them quickly filled in the grave and then headed back up the hill towards St Martin’s church with a sweat on. It was getting late, cold and dark; a pint down the boozer would be divine on a night like tonight, Graeme thought. There was no better way to keep the cockles warm. His shoulders had a good ache in them and he deserved to relax. The woman would have to keep his supper warm for a couple hours.
Reverend Todd was standing in the arched doorway of the church, greedily counting the notes and coins in the tithe bowl.
“Hey, Rev. We’re knocking off. The fresh one’s covered and the ground’s clear.”
“I do wish you wouldn’t call them that, Graeme.”
“Sorry, Rev. Anyway, we’re off.”
“Okay, fine. Thank you, both. I’ll see you on Tuesday. Oh, what’s that you have?”
Graeme looked down at the sack in his hands. “Oh, yeah. Someone left this for donation. Can I give it to you?”
“Of course. I’ll put it in the charity box. Thank you.”
Graeme nodded. “Alright, cheers. See you at the next one, Rev.”
“God bless you.”
> ***
“What’s that you have, Jeffrey?”
Reverend Todd turned to his wife and grinned excitedly. “Why, it’s a lovely old picture frame. Look at how finely carved it is. Isn’t it beautiful?”
Martha pulled a face. “Bit ugly if you ask me.”
“Oh, come now, dear. Ugliness is an opinion. Nothing is truly ugly but our sins. I thought it would go wonderfully in my vestry.”
“The church vestry,” corrected Martha.
Jeffrey kissed his wife on the cheek. You’re right. My pride would get the better of me if you weren’t here to keep me humble. Come now, let us find just the right picture to go inside my new frame.”
They headed into the vestry and Jeffrey set the frame down on his desk. Then he opened up one of his drawers and brought out a thick wad of photographs.
“We really should get more of these on display,” said Martha. “We have so many.”
“Too many,” said Jeffrey. “I don’t have the wall space to display every parishioner in town. They just end up taking up space. Some photos are wonderful, though, like…this one, here. That’s it. This is just perfect for the frame.”
“Let’s see?” said Martha.
Jeffrey handed her a photograph of the current church choir, twenty-six people from ages eight to eighty. It was a wonderful photo to look at during the long hours studying in his vestry. He loved his choir, having assembled it himself. Jeffrey was in the foreground, leading his angels in divine worship of Christ through song.
Jeffrey had a big grin on his face as he slid the photograph behind the glass. “There,” he said, setting the frame on his desk and admiring it. “If I ever need to remember how blessed I am, this picture will remind me. What a lucky find.”
Book 5 OF 7
2389
Chapter One
Lexi Sharman sat in the Britcom Briefing room wondering why she was there. Not everyone in the room was a stranger. Daniel Trent, she knew from the academy, Chris Hopper from reputation. Flight Master Hopper was SABA's most decorated pilot, having clocked well over ten-thousand hours outside of Earth’s atmosphere. The other two faces were unknown to her. A man and a woman, both dressed in full United States cosmonaut regalia, although there was nothing unusual about that. Great Britain and the United States worked in tandem beneath the banner of SABA, their brotherhood forged during the heated space race of the mid-21st Century when the US had needed a European bed partner. American cosmonauts often erred toward arrogance and superiority, but they were jovial and brave for the most part and Lexi did not mind them one bit. An American would take the piss out of you all day long, but when the shit hit the fan they would always have your back. Lexi had once been in a hairy situation aboard International Refuelling Station 6 where a flux capacitor had snapped inside one of the orbital stabilisers. Everybody had panicked except for an American technician named Carlos Grimes. He’d floated casually into the chaos and replaced the failing unit as though he were changing a fuse in a faulty washing machine.
Lexi chewed at her fingernails, as she often did whenever she was bored. The group of cosmonauts had been waiting there for over an hour now, told only to be 'mission ready.' They hadn’t discussed the matter between themselves, nor even introduced themselves yet. Cosmonauts did not natter; they waited patiently. Patience was the virtue of a cosmonaut. Still, Lexi couldn’t stop her mind from wandering. She held the rank of Lieutenant but compared to some of the grizzled faces in the room, she felt extremely green. Was she out of place, or just imagining it?
Eventually a man Lexi knew very well entered the room. She knew the stocky, sixty year old well because he was her father, Commander James Sharman. She was surprised to see him, since he hadn’t informed her he was at the London Space Terminal the same time that she was. Everyone in SABA called her father 'Boss.'
"Good morning, officers."
"Good morning, Boss!"
Lexi's father glanced at her and gave an almost imperceptible nod. It was what passed for affection in their relationship and she returned the gesture. He placed a thin stack of papers down on the lectern at the front of the room and then placed his hands behind his back. He addressed the room with his usual booming voice of authority. "I know you’re probably wondering why you are all here,” he said, looking around the room. “You've been assembled for a quick-response mission. Contact with Installation 23 ceased seven hours ago and there are no obvious environmental causes."
Lexi put her hand up. "Installation 23? Isn't that-”
"Grand Galaxy Amusement Park," her unknown American colleague answered for her. His accent made him sound a little like a cowboy from an antique movie.
"That's correct, Captain Miller," Boss said. "Grand Galaxy is nearing its tenth birthday. Hopefully the radio silence is nothing more than the cost-cutting measures they used building the place finally catching up with them. Command has given me no reason to suspect this mission is anything other than low risk, but it needs fixing. Like I said, probably just an equipment malfunction."
“That sounds likely,” Trent commented, adding nothing useful.
"So, we're sure it's just a technical problem?" Lexi said.
Boss exhaled loudly. "We could assume something worse, but there's no reason to right now. There are four-thousand members of staff at Grand Galaxy and three times as many guests. The installation cost eighty-billion-dollars. I don't see what could have happened that would've got the better of almost twenty-thousand people."
Flight Master Hopper chose to speak up now, and begun so with a laugh. "I've always found it smart to assume the worst will happen and then be prepared for it to be even shittier."
Boss rolled his eyes. "Thank you for that, Master Hopper."
"Hold on a minute," Lexi said. "Twenty-thousand people who would all have individual sat-phones. Are you saying that not a single person on the moon has managed to get a call through to Earth?"
Boss sighed, ran his tongue over his lips. Lexi knew it was something he did whenever he was choosing his words carefully. When he eventually started speaking, his voice had taken on a soft yet ominous tone. "Installation 23 is equipped with a full-spectrum comms jammer. It can be activated in the event of emergency. We believe it is activated now. Possibly due to whatever malfunction has seized regular outgoing communications."
Lexi lurched forward in her seat. "What? A comms jammer? Why would they want to prevent people calling home?"
"Eighty-billion dollars is why," Hopper said, rolling his eyes. "You think the American and British Governments would spend that kind of dough and not want to be in total control of it? They knew building a theme park on the moon carried risks. They wanted to make sure that if a disaster ever did happen, they could spin it however they like. A bunch of frightened people calling Earth would be a disaster. The park would never get another visitor. Bet it was the Yank's idea. They love their secrets."
"The American government is as ethical as any on Earth," Captain Miller said testily. "It simply understands that in a state of emergency, people can be their own worst enemies."
"Who’s to say it wasn't the British Government's idea, anyway?" said the man's female compatriot in a voice that had had any accent educated out of it. "The British keep their own share of secrets. You people invented spying."
“Just be quiet you guys,” Trent said, as much a teacher’s pet now as he had been at the academy.
Boss cleared his throat. "Need I remind you all that we are brothers and sisters here? Britain and America are unbreakable allies and each of you serves SABA. In case you've forgotten, that stands for SPACE ADMINISTRATION of BRITAIN and AMERICA. We are as one in all things astrological. You step outside the ozone layer and you cease being members of your respective nations. You are cosmonauts for the planet Earth under the banner of SABA."
The room fell silent, so Boss continued. "Okay, as I explained, this may be an emergency situation, but we are assuming technical difficulties are to blame for the blackout at Installat
ion 23. That's why you five individuals have been assembled here. You are the best of who we have available at short notice. The welfare of twenty thousand people is currently in question so we're going to go up there and bloody well find out what's going on. You leave in one hour from Hanger 1. Be ready."
#
Lexi and the others cosmonauts stood in Hangar 1, holding onto their helmets and waiting for their mission to begin. They huddled before a Hermes Mk4, the current flagship of fast-response craft in SABA's fleet. It could get them to the moon in less than three hours, a third as long as the bloated space shuttles that ferried tourists back and forth in their droves. Many of the elder astronauts Lexi had met likened the wedge-shaped Hermes to a classic Lamborghini, a motor vehicle from before her time. The company that had made them had gone bust shortly after the unified traffic system went into operation. Once all vehicles began moving in an orderly, automated line, speed and power became redundant. The classic cars of old had been eradicated by the never-ending road trains that now connected the world's major cities. The savvier automobile manufacturers had managed to preserve themselves by switching their focus to the emerging market of space travel. That was why the front of the Hermes featured a blue and white logo that had once been found on millions of cars, which would now have been recycled or turned into scrap.
The five cosmonauts had made use of their wait by finally introducing themselves to each other. Hopper and Trent she was already familiar with, but she was surprised to learn that the two Americans present were military space marines, originally due to depart for the US Space Navy frigate, USSN Obama, before being unexpectedly summoned for this emergency mission instead. The male was Captain Miller, a trained medic. His colleague was Sergeant Tandy Gellar, a munitions expert. Both were convivial, once their barriers came down.
Lexi turned her attention to Hopper. She'd never held a discussion with the lauded master pilot before, but had worshipped him from afar throughout his career. There was nothing heroic about him to look at – average height, brown hair, and common features; even his space suit was drab and unremarkable – but his feats and achievement were well known to all within SABA. His most famous mission of all was when he'd taken down a mutinous Russian space destroyer. Its crew had gone rogue and decided to start docking and raiding nearby stations. Their bloodlust would later be put down to the seven-year stint they’d served without setting foot on land. Since then, no waking mission had put a man in space for longer than four years. Hopper's bravery and skill had been showcased to deadly affect when he’d taken down the 400,000 tonne destroyer with his much lighter 8,000 tonne Warrior attack craft. He fought and evaded the larger ship for more than twelve hours, systematically attacking its weak spots – its gun emplacements and thrusters – and gradually weakening it until it came to a crippled halt. The nine surviving Russian crew members surrendered and were taken into custody by their country’s military officials, who had summarily executed them within International Space and jettisoned their bodies into oblivion – it had caused quite an International outcry at the time, but Russia were not one to care. Hopper had received a President's commendation and a promotion to the honorary rank of Flight Master. His presence here today was a privilege, yet the pilot held no airs or graces. In fact, he seemed the most laid back of them all.
The BIG Horror Pack 2 Page 100
