by John Moralee
The Bone Yard
and
Other Stories
A collection of dark fiction
By
John Moralee © 2012
All rights reserved.
The moral right of John Moralee to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locations is entirely coincidental.
CONTENTS
The Bone Yard
Nematode
Open Wounds
The Challenge
The Shadow of Death
Monsters
Sickness Country
The Midnight Murderer
The Faintest Echo
Sleeping in the Earth
The Gift
The Deepest Darkest Fear
The Big Favour
Starlight
Disconnected
Afterword
The Bone Yard
Some places should be left well alone.
Old Carney is one of them. Roughly half a mile from the village of Devesham in Northumberland, Old Carney is after the fork in the north road, surrounded on three sides by green meadows and ancient oak trees and the sweet smells of the country. How long it’s been there is a matter for rumour and legend, but it was there in my great-great-grandfather’s time. It was ancient in those days. Walking down the lane (the land slides downhill towards Old Carney like it’s an iron weight dropped on a mattress) you can see the remains of the first church above the trees, the black spire a grim signpost warning the visitor: this is holy land. The lane is shaded by trees a moment later and curves left and then right ... revealing the church and the six-foot-high wall keeping out the uninvited. Dark weeds nestle in the stones and you can smell earth from the other side. Behind the stone wall is Old Carney.
The bone yard.
Good cemeteries are resting places: lush, bowling-green-smooth acres of grass with well-kept marble headstones, places families have picnics in the summer and children visit their grandparents burial plots with fresh daffodils and loving prayers.
Not Old Carney.
There’s nothing nice or quaint about Old Carney.
It’s just there to be avoided.
There’s a mud trail that goes parallel to the stone wall, containing a gap where the top layers of stone have crumbled to expose a view of the cemetery. Rumours abound about the gap and what can be seen on the other side.
Some people say grey shadows watch the trail through the gap, looking for the curious or naive. People drawn to the gap may - if they haven’t heard the rumours - take a glance at the cemetery and feel a shudder in their bowels and a light-headedness they can’t explain - no - won’t explain. These witnesses wander the rest of the day confused, babbling, shaking. They try to understand what they thought they had seen into some kind of sensible, rational thing - and fail. They would never say a word to another soul, for they’d sound crazy.
Some people say Old Carney is haunted and at night you can hear the echoes of the dead.
*
There are many rumours about Old Carney, but I know the truth. In the summer of 1939 many more were invented by the children of Miss Dolby’s class, including me. It was in that summer I learned the stories contained some truth, though the reality was worse than the blackest fiction.
*
One day my friends and I rested on the bank of the lake, dangling our legs in the cool water. The Fearless Four: me, Joe, Brian and Alexander. We had just finished kicking Brian’s football around on the field besides the lake until we had become exhausted. Joe and Alexander had won 7-3. My leg ached from a bad hack by Joe (or a good tackle from his view) and there was a nasty purple swelling developing on my shin. Brian and I were not in the best of moods. We hated losing. Brian rubbed the mud from the ball like it was a trophy and flicked some at Alexander and giggled when it splattered Alexander’s cheeks.
Alexander scowled. “You’re a baby, Brian.” He wiped the dirt off with his handkerchief. His father was the village doctor and encouraged Alexander in intellectual pursuits and in the ways of insulting the less fortunate working class, like the rest of us. He lifted his nose snootily and I felt a wave of loathing. Some days Alexander could irritate like an old scab. “You lost because you do not have the necessary skill and intellect.”
I dipped my hand into the water and splashed him. “Shut up, Alex.”
Alexander wasn’t the same as us. He didn’t read comic books and like Biggles. He read massive books with hundreds of pages, plain hardback covers and long-winded titles. He therefore didn’t know how to retaliate like a man, with fists. “That is immature. When are you going to behave like good sports?”
I splashed him some more.
“Why you -”
Joe told us to be quiet and we obeyed because Joe was nearing his eleventh birthday and he was a good three inches taller than the rest of the Fearless Four. Joe seemed to sprout a few inches on us every week. I wondered if he bathed his feet in compost overnight. He pointed at a spider crawling on Brian’s back.
“You’ve got a massive tarantula on you,” he exaggerated.
Brian froze. Brian hated spiders. “Gerrioff!” he whined, sounding like commanding a Russian general. “Gerrioff!”
Joe trapped the spider in his hands and shook them - hard - puffing his cheeks with the concentration required.
“That will give it a headache,” he grinned and opened his palm and blew the black arachnid into the grass where it vainly worked its unbroken legs in an attempt to upright itself. Brian finished it with a stick. “Rotten lousy Jerry spider!”
“And you call yourself fearless,” Joe said.
Alexander, bored, put on his shoes and stretched and yawned. “Chaps, it’s getting late.”
It was about six. Joe and I looked at Alexander and thought: mother’s boy. Alexander sensed this and shrugged. “I have to go home for my dinner.”
He never said ‘tea’, like the rest of us, which made me hate him more.
Brian agreed with Alexander, probably because the scare with the spider made him want to go home. Mentioning food got my stomach rumbling. It had been noon when I’d eaten last and that was just a chocolate bar. I realised if I wanted a meal then I’d have to go, too. “I suppose there’s no point in hanging around here, Joe.”
Joe resigned himself to coming with us as we headed round the lake towards Old Carney and the way home. The lake was behind the cemetery and the only route except sneaking across the fields owned by Lord Mortimer. His gamekeepers were likely to shoot at anyone daring to cross his land. So that meant going along the mud trail and past the gap in the cemetery’s wall. Brian went a dozen yards ahead and dribbled the ball and managed to collect a swarm of flies that he couldn’t swat away. The heat was going out of the day and the sweat on my back was becoming cold and sticky. It didn’t help I was wearing my starched school shirt and the rough cotton irritated my skin. I began scratching myself.
“Got ants in your pants?” Alexander said.
“Very funny,” I said.
Old Carney grew larger and larger. We entered the shadows of the elms and oaks and automatically hushed. There was a reverence to the acres of untamed graveyard that had us be
lieving in ghosts and evil and the bogeyman. Brian stopped dribbling. Any other wall would have been ripe for bouncing the ball off - but not the perimeter of Old Carney. The ancient stones were there to keep us out and whatever lurked inside in. Brian started tapping the football between his legs, walking like a bow-legged old man.
“Pass it back,” Joe said.
Brian shook his head. “Not while we’re on the path, Joe. My ball could go over the wall.”
If Brian lost his ball, it would not mean just the loss of his prized possession - but a severe beating from his father for being careless. He picked up his ball and hugged it to his chest, making Joe sigh and roll his eyes.
“Come on, Brian! Kick it to me!”
“Not here,” Brian said.
He walked on.
Joe shouted an insult to his back, but Brian ignored him. Joe faced me. “Do you ever wonder what’s in Old Carney?” he said.
I shrugged. “Dead bodies. Lots of dead bodies.”
“Corpses,” Alexander said, acting smart. “The correct word is corpse. I read a book once that said the human body decays in a matter of weeks, so there will be just skeletons and rotten clothes.”
“No,” Joe said, “I didn’t mean that stuff. I know what’s in there physically. But I’m mean spiritually. They say a priest tried to exercise -”
“Exorcise!” Alexander said.
“- ex-OR-size the ghosts and he went totally, utterly insane. LIKE BRIAN! That’s why the entrance is all locked up.”
“It’s locked because the ground’s unsafe,” Alexander said. “That’s what my father says.”
I had heard Alexander’s version of the reason, too, and a little more that was the source of spooky tall-tales. Old Carney’s proper entrance was near the church - but that had been blocked during the 1920s when the ground subsided during a Sunday service and quarter of the congregation lost their lives. They were swallowed by the ground or killed by falling masonry. I think God must have been having a nap that day, for the vicar and a pregnant lady were among the victims. Naturally, people stopped using the church. It and the graveyard were closed to public access because the ground was too unstable.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to look around?” Joe said.
“No,” I said.
“Too dangerous,” Alexander said.
“Cowards,” Joe said. “Am I the only member of the Fearless Four who isn’t chick-chick-chicken?”
Alexander squawked and flapped his arms sarcastically.
“Huh! Maybe Brian will want to explore.” Joe left us and sneaked up on Brian, who was oblivious to the conversation. He said something to Brian and it was obvious Brian said no by the shaking of his head. Joe knocked the football from his grasp and started dribbling. He began to show off - heading and kneeing the ball and juggling it on his shoulders. He was good but Brian was as nervous as hell.
“Be careful!” he begged Joe.
“Watch this,” Joe said, facing away from the wall and gritting his teeth. He kicked the ball with the tip of his toe and leaned back so the ball was lifted on his foot and given spin and momentum.
The football spun over his head in a high arc and - as if in slow motion - I watched it descend, rotating like the world globe in geography lessons. It struck the top of the wall. Loose stones spat into the air and then the football bounced - going the away from us - and disappeared over the other side. The other side! I heard it land against something that rustled and cracked. I guessed its fall had been broken by twigs and bushes. I heard it roll some distance before stopping.
Joe shrugged and put up his hands. There was a malicious grin on his face. “Oops!”
Brian’s face went a bright red. “Now you’ve gone and done it!”
There was little doubt Joe had done it on purpose. “Sorry, Brian. What can I say?”
“I can’t go home without my ball!” Brian started to cry, which for a member of the Fearless Four was a major sin - but he had good reason. His father would be furious. He would belt him for losing the ball, which was his only toy. “I’ve got to get it back!”
“Looks like you’ll have to go inside then.”
“M-Me? Y-you’re the one that kicked it!”
“We’ll all go,” Joe said.
“Hey - you two go,” Alexander said. “We had nothing to do with it.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to enter the graveyard.
“The Fearless Four go everywhere together,” Joe said, quoting a brand new motto for the occasion. “Anyway - the gap’s only a hundred yards away.”
“It’s at least two hundred and fifty,” I said.
Joe ignored me. “We can climb over the wall there and follow it along. The ball can’t have gone far. Easy as one, two, three.”
Nobody liked the sound of that - but I felt sorry for Brian. It was clear Joe was too yellow to go in alone. Kicking the ball over the wall wasn’t the brave thing to do - but the coward’s way. He wanted to explore the graveyard, but he didn’t want to do it alone. I pictured Joe as an officer in the First World War in a trench ordering men into battle and staying safe in the shelter. There was nothing brave about that.
*
Alexander suggested we mark the wall in some way so from the other side we could tell when we got to the right place. His handkerchief was elected the object to act as marker and he perched on mine and Joe’s shoulders and placed it on the wall with a stone placed on top to keep it from blowing off. While he was up there, eyes level with the top, he tried to locate the ball. “It’s too dark on that side. It’s like a forest.”
We reached the gap. I could see browns and blacks and the hard shadows of graves, but not much more. Sunlight penetrated weakly through the trees, trees that seemed to be everywhere. Usually cemeteries have very few trees but Old Carney was the exception. Elms and oaks equalled the number of headstones. A tree planted for every soul - my grandfather’s words. My heart was beating wildly in my chest. “Maybe we should leave this until tomorrow.”
“My old man won’t wait that long,” Brian said.
He was right - unfortunately - and I knew it.
I stared at Joe. “You go first, Joe.”
Joe peered through the gap. Goosebumps appeared on his naked arms and legs. They reminded of chicken skin. The next moment he put his feet on the wall and balanced there with his hands on the firm supporting slabs. He looked down. “It’s a few feet drop.” He jumped. There was a sound like mud struck by a hammer blow. Then silence.
“Joe?” I called.
Brian grabbed my arm, rather too hard. “You don’t think he’s ... you know?”
Dead. I could see my fears masked in Brian and Alexander’s faces, our eyes bulged. “Joe, are you all right?”
The growling came from the gap, an inhuman sound both shocking and paralysing. I imagined a black, slick mastiff that fed on unsuspecting humans ... a real hound of the Baskervilles ... and imagined Joe thrashing in mighty jaws, jaws with too many teeth to count.
Joe’s head surfaced at the opening twisted into an agonised, pleading expression. The dog must have been pulling his legs because he jerked and struggled to grab hold of the wall. Then I realised he was making the sounds. Joe stopped the dog growl and laughed. “Well, well ... if it isn’t the Terrified Trio!”
“Suppose you think that’s funny?”
“Yes. You should have seen your faces!”
“Idiot!”
Joe put his tongue in his cheek. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
Brian was next. When he didn’t scream, Alexander and I ventured over the wall. No turning back. The grass we stood on was wet though it hadn’t rained for two weeks. It smelled of mildew. Alexander showed me a threatening toadstool bursting from the weeds, mottled pink and moist. Things squelched under my shoes.
I looked back through the gap at the outside world, at the blue sky, at the living world, and felt a pang of longing. Thirty seconds in Old Carney and I was home sick -
“Come on!”
Joe set off along the side of the wall with Brian at his side.
But I couldn’t shake the image of the Hound of the Baskervilles and neither could Alexander. “Wild dogs would love a place like this,” he said. “Plenty of bones.”
“At least Joe will get eaten first,” I said.
He nodded. “Seriously, Mike, we have to be careful where we walk. Some of this ground will be like marshland.”
“Like marshland?” I said. We were in slimy water already and my socks were soaked. “Who in their right mind would bury bodies in ground like this?”
“I think it’s got religious significance.”
“The water?”
“Don’t be stupid, I mean this whole area. It’s the connection point of twenty or thirty ley lines.”
Joe and Brian had veered left - away from the wall. There was an obstruction: thick thorns and wicked brambles. I stepped on a hard surface and realised I was walking on a grave. Putting the grim thought out of my mind I asked Alexander about ley lines. I had never heard about them before.
“They are a sort of magnetic disturbance where rock has a different charge from the Earth. Pre-Christian societies considered them mystical and built shrines on them.” He gave me a worried look. “This was a pagan burial ground long ago when the ground was dry. The river has changed direction since and formed the lake and saturated the ground. There are probably half a dozen underground streams through Old Carney.” To prove his point he dug his heel into the earth and water filled the footprint. “This land is a possible death trap.”
I gulped.
We skirted around the thicket, expecting to see Joe and Brian just ahead.
But Joe and Brian had gone.
*
“I bet they are hiding to scare us,” I said. “Let’s just stay near the wall, find the football and get out of here. They can play around if they like.”
