Banquet for the Damned

by Adam L. G. Nevill

  'Nah, I have to read Eliot's books. I'm seeing him tomorrow night.'

  'Why at night?'

  'Dunno. And Tom, we have to save money. I'm not blowing the stash in some pub. I have to make a start.'

  'We've been here three days and we've seen nothing.'

  'And the cash won't last forever.'

  'Don't worry, man.'

  'Tom, are you deaf? I am going to read today.'

  'Touchy. What's up with you?'

  Dante shakes his head. 'I had no sleep last night.'

  'You kipped in here. What's that all about?'

  Feeling uncomfortable, Dante adjusts his slouch on the sofa and lights a second cigarette. 'Bad dreams.'

  Tom laughs. 'So you were a fraidy cat and couldn't sleep in your own bed.'

  'I kid you not, it was awful. A dream I used to have all the time as a kid. And after I woke up . . .'

  'What?'

  'You'll piss yourself, so I'm not telling you.'

  'Sod that. Tell me.'

  'I saw a ghost or something.'

  Tom raises his eyebrows, but he doesn't laugh. 'No shit.'

  'At the end of my bed. There was like this figure sitting on the floor. Then it stood up and walked straight past my bed, and went through the door. I freaked and came in here.'

  'So that's why all the lights were on this morning. You must have been spooked.'

  'I haven't shat myself like that since I was about ten. It's weird.'

  Tom looks into the garden. 'Funny, that.'

  Cocking his head at Tom, who now looks pensive, he asks, 'Why do you say that?'

  'That scream. Remember that scream the other night?'

  Dante nods.

  'Well, I heard it again last night. Not the same voice, mind, but a different one. Right across the road from my room. Came from the cliffs or the castle. It was really faint, like it was far off or down by the sea. But it was awful. At first I thought it was the wind or something, then I swore I heard someone yell, "help me". They said "God help me" or something like that. Funny we should both get freaked.'

  'I didn't hear anything in here, but I believe you. Something's up with this place. Last night when I was walking home, I heard this kind of dog or something, running on the other side of the wall by the Quad. And then I get the nightmare, and see that ghost thing.'

  They look at each other, both faces serious for a moment, before each mouth breaks into a broad smile – a smile so broad Dante can see Tom's one gold tooth at the back of his mouth. Then they are laughing until tears fill their eyes. 'Edinburgh,' Dante says. 'We need to get out of town for a day. Let's take the Wagon up to Edinburgh.'

  'Fuckin' A,' Tom cries. They punch each other's fists and Dante makes his way to the shower.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Hart sits on the couch and bites into an apple. Deep in thought, he gazes across the room at the orderly lines of buildings printed on his town plan. On the far wall of the lounge, between a mirror and lamp, he's tacked the large map of St Andrews and the surrounding country. Three red pins on the map represent night-terror activity. Having the map gives him what feels like a greater sense of control over the investigation, and it supplies him with something to focus on when idle.

  And there have been a lot of idle moments since his first two interviews. Besides two inquisitive phone calls from students not suffering from night terrors, a spokesperson from a local Bible group, and someone who phoned three times and hung up without a word, the early momentum of his research has lapsed over the last two days. But he dares not venture too far from the flat in case he misses another call. Maria, the girl with a nervous voice, never showed for her interview, and neither Kerry Sewell nor Mike Bowen has been in touch since the first interviews.

  Kerry lives in Salvator's on the Scores and woke on the pier in the Eastern Harbour. Mike Bowen lives a quarter of a mile away in Dean's Court, across the road from the castle grounds, where the scholar of Classics repeatedly found himself walking after midnight. Maria, he knows, lives in New Hall, on the western side of town above the Golf Links. No more than a mile away from West Sands, where an arm was found a week earlier – something he gleaned from a local paper – and where Ben Carter incinerated himself.

  From what he's gathered in other fieldwork, and through his macroscopic reading, the intensification of night-terror incidents never spreads beyond the confines of a small area like a single village, one side of a street, or sometimes a solitary room. But the St Andrews phenomenon stretches across a square mile. Maybe it's increasing or spreading further afield, beyond his knowledge, but he has nothing to rely upon for information beyond the response to the fliers he's posted – many of which have already been covered over by university clubs and societies advertising for the new intake of students. Will any more red pins pierce the map in the coming weeks? Or will it suddenly stop? Is there an innocent explanation? Something escaping from local industry into the air or water, perhaps? Or could it be auto-suggestion from the lecturer who ran the paranormal meetings? Which poses the question: how many students attended and are now suffering from sleep disorders? Maybe some declined to come forward or have already fled the town limits.

  From what he understands, until the main wave of students returns from summer vacation, only fourth years and postgrads have stayed on in the town between June and September, to finish their dissertations. At least the present student population is small, but soon it won't be. And the one link, uniting his three victims, is a past involvement with Eliot Coldwell and his paranormal society, during the previous academic year. The link is still tenuous – no form of ritual magic was performed at the gatherings, and each student claimed the meetings consisted of nothing more than discussions or exercises in meditation – but it is all he has to go on. Though Coldwell has become the biggest frustration of all. Every time he's phoned the School of Divinity, the administrator has abruptly told him Eliot is not in residence. A request for the lecturer's home number was also denied. Finally, his three trips to the school on the Scores, the day before, all ended in disappointment; the administrative staff exchanged knowing glances with each other before claiming, and sincerely too he intuited, that Eliot makes only the rarest of appearances at the school. So where is Coldwell, and how long can he afford to wait for the man to reappear?

  Sitting around drinking Scotch through the afternoons and evenings of his first week has also begun to create a series of grisly reactions in his stomach. After Nigeria, his sleeping and eating patterns are still off-kilter, and the whisky only serves to make his insides feel hot and loose. It is still unwise for him to venture too far from the bathroom. Landing amongst the early tremors of what he instinctively feels is an impending quake of night-terror activity aggravates his stomach further. Thwarted, he's waited out two days, drinking, while his mind winds itself through stages of anxiety, excitement and disappointment on an hourly basis.

  Licking his lips and smoothing his beard away from his mouth, Hart rises from the couch and hovers by the hospitality cabinet. He steps forward, slides the glass door open and places his hand on the neck of a new bottle of Scotch. Releasing it, he stands back. Then repeats the motion. The third attempt at resisting the whisky fails, and Hart's hand returns from the cabinet clutching the neck of the fresh bottle. 'What the hell,' he says, and breaks the seal. He takes three long gulping slugs, gasps through the afterburn and then reclines on the sofa, feeling dizzy. He places a fresh tape in the Dictaphone and begins recording:

  'Occult history of the Northern Hemisphere must be looked into. Conduct research in the university library on the possibility of relevant occurrences in this locale. No epicentre appears to have formed for the recent activity. Early indications suggest the attacks to be random and occurring across a wide area. Check on Mike Bowen from Dean's Court –'

  The phone rings. He drops the Dictaphone and speeds across the lounge to the phone, mounted on the wall in the reception. 'Hey now, Hart Miller.'

  'Have you seen Mari
a?' The voice is surly.

  'Maria?'

  'You know who.'

  'Who's this?'

  'Her boyfriend, and I want some answers.'

  'We got something in common.'

  The man goes silent. Hart prompts him: 'I'm not prepared to discuss my investigation with anyone not directly –'

  'Oh, come on. You're not even a proper doctor. No wonder my girlfriend lost it. She's stressed out and you should have known better, instead of filling –'

  'Hey listen up, buddy,' Hart barks, feeling whisky-brave, his pride stung by the kid's attitude. 'I haven't even seen Maria. She blew off her interview. So chill.'

  For a few seconds, there is just the sound of two men breathing across the static distance.

  'I can't find her.' The young man's voice is about to break around the edges. Hart hears him clear his throat.

  He softens his tone. 'When did you see her last?'

  'It's been two days now.'

  'Maybe she's with a friend or something.'

  'I've seen her every day for three years. She never goes anywhere without telling me first.' The man has become impatient again; the volume of his voice rises and his tone becomes shrill.

  'OK. Right. Cool it. You keep shouting and my phone goes down. You hear me, buddy?'

  Silence.

  'Can't hear you,' Hart says.

  'Yeah,' the voice replies, still petulant in tone.

  'Now who are you?'

  There is a pause. 'Chris.'

  'So, Chris. You're looking for someone to blame. But I'm not responsible here. I've been in town like five minutes. But there's one thing I do know: people like your girlfriend have suddenly begun to experience nightmares. A special kind too. Like nothing they've known before. They get frightened, they behave strangely. Maybe you even stop recognising them. That can happen. A few individuals have been to see me. But your girlfriend was not one of them. She called for an appointment, sure, but she never showed up. And hasn't answered my calls either. I'm concerned too. Got me?'

  Silence.

  'I take that as a yes. So allow me to get things straight. Maria takes off a few days back and there's no word since. Am I right?'

  'Yeah.'

  'Would she go home?'

  'No. She left her door open and all her things are still in her room. Her neighbour heard her leave after midnight, on Monday night.'

  'Go on.'

  'With someone.'

  Hart presses his forehead to the wall. 'Any ideas who?'

  'Maria would never fuck around. And I'd kill whoever took advantage of a sick girl.' Chris's voice is rising again, to something mean.

  'Dude, I never said she would. This is something totally beyond anything that Maria would ever do. You two are close and she tells you everything.'

  'Right,' Chris says, putting his voice back together with an effort.

  'And you have no idea where she could go.'

  'No.'

  'She been sleepwalking?'

  'She said so. She asked me to watch her, but I couldn't. She doesn't understand. I have things to do.'

  'Sure. This is not your fault. She was frightened and unless you have suffered this first-hand, you cannot understand what these dreams are like.'

  'Come on, mate. We're talking about dreams here. They're not the cause. She's bulimic. That's how this started. You can't help.'

  'Don't hang up,' Hart says. 'Tell me where you've looked.'

  Chris sighs, exasperated. 'I've checked out her friends. Then I phoned her home and frightened her mom. The police said she doesn't even qualify as a missing person yet.'

  Hart speaks quietly but firmly. 'Chris. Listen to what I have to say.

  Don't freak out. Just listen up.'

  'What?'

  'Have you had a nightmare recently?'

  'No,' he says, irritated by the question.

  'Good.'

  'Why is it? I told you, this dream thing is ridiculous.'

  Hart interrupts. 'Did you attend any of Eliot Coldwell's group meetings?'

  'What's that got to do with anything? My girlfriend's gone missing and –'

  'Just answer me. Did you go?'

  'To that load of bollocks? You got to be joking.'

  Hart takes a deep breath. 'Might still be a good idea for you to leave town, Chris. Just for a while.'

  'What?' the man bellows.

  'Leave town, yes. There is evidence to suggest . . .' Then Hart gives up and moves the receiver away from his ear.

  The verbal barrage continues from a distance. 'My girlfriend goes missing and you say I should leave! Why would I leave? What exactly would that achieve? Who'd find Maria then? Waste of time! All you Yanks are the same! You're all full of shit! And if I find out that Maria's been there, you're dead.' The phone clicks down at the other end.

  Hart exhales. He is unable to be angry. He drinks another four fingers of Scotch and settles back on the couch, feeling more impotent than ever. But as he ponders Maria's disappearance and tries to decide whether he should speak with the university authorities, the phone rings again. Standing up too quickly, he staggers across the sheepskin rug in the lounge. Tiny red flashes fall through his swooping vision. He snatches the phone from the cradle and prepares for more abuse. 'Hey now.' His voice is thick. His mind inflexible.

  'You the nightmare guy?'

  Hart breathes a sigh of relief; it isn't Maria's boyfriend. 'Yessum.'

  'I need to see you.'

  'Sure. What's your name?' he asks, excited now, feeling the spirit of the investigation suddenly reanimate in the flat.

  'Oh yeah. Rick.'

  His words slur. 'When's good for you, Rick? How about now?'

  'I can't. Not today. I got something on.'

  'Tomorrow?'

  'Yeah. That's cool. What time?'

  'Will you be up at ten?'

  'I'll be up at nine. I live with a prick who wakes me every morning.'

  'Ten's fine then.' Hart gives Rick the address of his flat and takes Rick's phone number. 'Before you go,' he adds. 'Did you go to any of Eliot Coldwell's meetings?'

  'Waste of time that was. I was told we'd get paid. I wasted three Friday nights.'

  Hart raises the phone in triumph after he says goodbye to Rick. Another one; that makes four. Maria has disappeared and there has been no word from Kerry or Mike, although Kerry admitted she intended to leave town. But Mike? He would hang on to the end because of his thesis. Hart makes a decision on the spot: to satisfy his curiosity, and to placate the bad feeling Chris's phone call has instilled in him, he'll go and check on the scholar from Dean's Court.

  Pale-faced, a little unsteady on his feet, and feeling as if his stomach has been replaced with a torn paper bag, Hart walks to Dean's Court from Market Street. In the bright sunlight, his head hurts too and he hates himself for thinking about the next drink. It is an effort to restrain himself from entering the dozen pubs he passes since leaving the flat. Getting liquored is all he feels up to after being yelled at by Chris. Conflict is not something he expected, not from the students. Is he losing his touch? And what the kid said about him not being a proper doctor cut deep. As an undergraduate in Chicago, he always drank heavily for confidence. At five-four, with legendary acne, he grew a Robert E Lee beard to cover it. Two proofreaders adjusted his Master's thesis because he was skunk-drunk when he wrote the final draft. What he then saw in Guatemala gave him a rock star's liver and, he guesses, another ten years to live unless he climbs on the wagon.