Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  Maybe it was the loss of blood, and the feeling of increased terror, but Jeannie was certain she could see the outline of people in front of her. However, there was something seriously wrong with the picture, as the human faces had black holes where their eyes should have been.

  Their legs…where were they? They didn’t seem to have any below the knees. Yet Jeannie continued to run towards them, because going around them would take too long. Maybe they would attack her, being incensed that she was mocking them because she happened to possess a working pair of legs.

  The crescent moon disappeared from view and the sunken eyes of the Zeryths locked onto her. Their eye sockets appeared, blue, orb-like shaped filled the holes, and blood poured out from their eyelids.

  “Keep running, Jeannie,” shouted Curie. “Oh yes, they want fresh blood. As do I.”

  Without the light of the moon, Jeannie lost hope, and consciousness. The fight had gone out of her, and one by one, the Zeryths encircled her body.

  Behind her, the walls of Redwood poured with blood, and in front of her, the patients of St Margaret’s Hospital banged the windows down, before being sedated by the nurses.

  The zombiefied Zeryths each grabbed a limb, and pulled Jeannie apart. They bit her arms and legs down to the bone, and once they had left, Curie calmly walked up to the horror that no-one could see in the woods, and washed his face in her blood.

  Kindred Spirits

  Four years earlier.

  Toril Withers sat frustrated in the school library. She’d already had a book on Satanism confiscated by one of the jobsworth teachers, and her boyfriend, Troy Jackson, was rumoured to being impressed by someone else.

  A shadow covered her table, and she could make out the slim, tall frame of the girl who had wandered into Gorswood High that very week. The girl had long, straight, white hair. It hadn’t been dyed – this was Jacinta Crow’s actual hair colour. It had been this way since her parents had met a rather gruesome death. So the rumours go, anyway. Rumours went around fast at that school.

  “May I join you?” Jacinta asked Toril.

  Toril looked up, and hooked her spectacles onto the bridge of her nose. “Of course. I’m just reading…something,” placing down her well-thumbed copy of The Sign of Four on the table.

  “You looked kind of lonely,” said Jacinta.

  “I’m alone,” said Toril, “but I’m not lonely. There’s a difference.”

  “When someone sits alone, what they’re really saying is that they do want to share their time with someone. Don’t you have a boyfriend? I saw him in music class practising with some girl. On an instrument, I mean.”

  The look on Toril’s face told Jacinta to stop digging the hole she had made for herself.

  “Music. They were practising music,” Jacinta affirmed.

  “Well, we can only hope they stick to the curriculum,” said Toril. “Was it the girl with the marks on her hands? Mousy looking brown hair?”

  “Yeah. That would be her,” said Jacinta. “Nothing to worry about though.”

  Toril removed her reading glasses and held them with one hand. “Do I look concerned to you?”

  “Well….no. But like I said, you look like you wanted to share your time with someone.”

  “I have my books. Book. It’s all I need, really. I’m never alone with a book.” Toril realised that sounded rather rude, so she followed it up quickly. “You can stay if you like.”

  Jacinta rummaged around in her bag. Written on it in ink, were the words BURN WITCH BURN. Whilst Toril couldn’t help but fixate on that, Jacinta produced a bag; the contents of which turned out to be delicious looking choc-chip cookies.

  “I baked these myself. Trust me, they are the best cookies in the world. Won’t you try one?”

  Toril smiled. Jacinta seemed to have the kind of confidence others lacked when talking to her. All the same, the cookie was huge, and Toril was mindful of her weight.

  “Just the one.”

  “I doubt that,” said Jacinta. “You have to eat some more, otherwise it’s not fair to the other cookies.”

  Toril thought That’s cute, but what’s the meaning behind the words on her bag.

  Biting into the cookie, Toril could not help but make om nom nom sounds.

  “Okay. I agree with you. These are the best cookies I’ve ever tasted. Did you burn some witches to make them taste this good?”

  Jacinta flipped over her bag. “Oh no. I wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “So…..”

  “So I thought you’d like some company, and I liked that aura cleanse you did earlier. The girls might think you’re a bit out there, and maybe the boys let you do it because they want a beautiful girl to pay attention to them. But I know you can do stuff. I know.”

  Toril sat bolt upright. “You mean….you actually felt something?”

  “Of course I did. But then, I’m rather sensitive like that, you know?”

  Toril regarded this curious looking girl. The eyes were blue, ice-blue, and her hair was snow-white. That was the only way to describe it. There was a hint of blonde on her thinly plucked eyebrows, that were at odds with Toril’s perfectly filled arches. It annoyed Toril greatly. She stood up, grabbed a surprised Jacinta by the arm, and ushered her into one of the reading cubicles.

  Toril took her wand out of her bag. “What are you doing?” asked Jacinta, more in a perplexed rather than alarmed manner.

  “I have to fix those,” said Toril, gesturing to her own eyebrows first, then to Jacinta’s.

  “Oh! No…it’s okay,” said Jacinta.

  “Did you not come up to me, to my table, disturbing my reading time? Just let me do it. I’m good at this.”

  “You weren’t reading much when I saw you,” said Jacinta. “You were looking longingly towards the music room though.”

  Who have we got here, thought Toril. Sherlock bloody Holmes?

  “Good point, detective.”

  “Bio-chemist, actually,” said Jacinta, pulling a textbook from her seemingly bottomless bag. “You read anything about this?”

  “Of course,” said Toril, a white lie escaping her lips.

  “So you don’t think Kornberg is a hack? I mean, I’m having trouble taking all he says as the truth.”

  “No, Kornberg is not a hack, he knows what he’s talking about,” said Toril, not having a clue herself as to who Kornberg was. She would have to add bio-chemistry to her never shrinking ‘to-read-list.’

  Toril retrieved the wand from her bag, and rested one hand on Jacinta’s shoulder. With the other, she was about to swish the wand, when a slightly alarmed look appeared from Jacinta’s eyes.

  Toril turned around, only to see Don Curie pushing a trolley full to bursting with an array of books. He stopped outside of the cubicle, and pushed the door open. “I’ll be having that, Miss Withers.”

  Toril was aghast. He means my wand, she thought, and that same thought filled her with abject horror.

  “We’re just…playing,” said Toril, regretting her choice of words as soon as they came out of her mouth.

  “This is a library, not a breeding ground for wannabe witches. Put that wand down.”

  “You’re no teacher, you’ve got no authority here, and I don’t have to do anything you say,” said Toril, a bit too loud for a library, even a school one.

  From somewhere in the library, a voice called to Don Curie. Giving the most foul look to Toril, he nodded to Jacinta and hissed, “You go back and…play, then. I’ll be back for you. Though you two are playing with fire.” A slight pause and he added, “Watch you don’t get burned. Little. Witch.”

  (i)

  Scars

  Some of the demons have left me,

  Some stay dormant and sleep

  But One of them is always with me

  And wants to stay for keeps.

  The little ones are charming

  They only tease and play

  But the Evil One tears me apart from inside

  I
cannot make It go away.

  Scars

  Date unknown. Time unknown. I scribble down the madness of my mind; in the forlorn hope it will make sense, or at least help me know what is real.

  I awake to find my bed drenched in blood. The screams have long died down, except for the ones in my head. I slide out of the bed sheets, and gently place my feet on the floor. As I successfully avoid a rush of blood to my head, I know just one thing.

  Toril Withers and Beth O’Neill are dead.

  I could not have won a decisive battle against Diabhal, and his minions of zombies, the Zerythra, without their help.

  More than that, I know this. I was the one that killed them.

  ***

  Burying Beth had been the hardest thing I had to do. After all we had been through as well. We had survived a zombie attack; had successfully brought her back from the brink of death only for her to extinguish my life in the rat infested side entry of Don Curie’s hell house.

  I myself had been brought back, because Nan said it wasn’t my time yet. Sometimes, I really wish it had been, and that my life had ended with Beth’s strangulation of me. But no, I had been sent back to face the demons once again.

  When we first talked, you and I; all I wanted in life was to be with Troy Jackson, and what I most certainly did not want was the Mirror that was to change that plan. I didn’t want it back then, and I still have designs on getting rid of it. Somehow, it will have to go.

  Everyone in my life ends up kind of dead around the Mirror of Souls.

  Where was I? Oh yes. Beth. I know. I was taken by the demon. I was going to kill her by smashing her head in with the Mirror.

  A walk in the woods of Gorswood Forest would be pleasant enough, you might think. Relaxing, even. The fact that I was dragging a body there to its final resting-place was irrelevant, for now.

  Oh Beth, how I miss you. I’m so sorry.

  At one time, the sound of her voice could have silenced my demons, but not anymore.

  Must try and focus. Reassert myself.

  I cannot. Here in the darkness, I find myself.

  It’s where I’ve always been. My Nan had been there. Just for a while. But I find my bedroom is no longer pink on white walls, but red on black walls. Or vice versa. Or sometimes, the colours merge together, the red blood of mine mixing with the black blood of the Zeryths. I’m just not certain of that anymore. Of anything, anymore.

  You have no idea how long the dark nights are when you cannot close your eyes to it.

  I know. Because I finally did what the demon forced me to do, and kill flame haired beautiful Beth.

  Now she is bloody, bedraggled Beth.

  Must focus. I’m going crazy. The nightmares invade my days, turning everything black. The Demon within, is winning. He’s winning. I pound my fists on the walls, ripping the skin on my hands until the blood pours. Then I hit the walls even harder.

  When I am in this state, I can no longer tell what is real and what is not. I know my parents are dead, but the demon taunts me with images of them being alive, then takes those images of hope away. When the demon does that, I am embracing my mother, then her skin peels off as she rots right in front of me and I am left holding a dead eyed corpse that wears a crooked-toothed grin.

  The difference between me and everyone else out there, is that when they wake up, their nightmares end.

  Do you know what it’s like to be frightened of your own mind?

  ***

  I wake up, at least, I think I am awake. I can no longer tell. Not for certain. I’m looking old for someone who is in her eighteenth year. But I must make it. There are real people depending on me, even if they don’t know it yet. The memory of my Nan, my parents, Troy, and Jacinta…they deserve better. I must make it. I will make it. I will not give in to my demons.

  The demon bends my fingers back. It makes me bite my fingernails down to the stumps. Sometimes, the demon forces me to wet myself. Other times, it brings the scent of burning to me that is so strong, I believe that my body will be consumed by flames.

  Tired of playing with me, it then decides to get serious. I can feel the demon cutting me from inside. What the demon uses to cut me, I dread to think. But I am bleeding. Slowly. It wants to keep me alive so I will perform for its Master. The demon kicks me from inside; the attacks help to rearrange my insides. The demon laughs whilst it tortures me. When I have outlived my usefulness, it will leave me for dead. But I won’t give in to the demon’s demands. I will not comply.

  I will not give in to my demons, real or imagined. I’m older now, and I know what I’m doing. No-one else is going to die because of my failure to act. This. Stops. Now.

  Remembrance

  Toril Withers poked absent-mindedly at her breakfast. Eighteen months since West Gorswood Forest had all been razed to the ground. Eighteen months since her battle with Dana. Eighteen months since Troy had been lost to the void. Eighteen months of anger, kept on building up. Toril was trying hard to contain it, but her focus was off; she could concentrate on nothing whilst feeling at the same time that she had to do everything.

  Jacinta. Poor Jacinta. There had to be a way, there had -

  “Toril, you are eighteen years old. Stop playing with your food.”

  “What?”

  Tori-Suzanne Withers regarded her daughter, who had gone very inside herself of late, spending much time in her room, or at the library, or Godknows where else.

  There hadn’t been another boy after Troy Jackson. Toril had been asked out, and she flatly turned them down. At the student bars, Toril drank alone. Orange juice had lost its appeal, and she laughed the saddest laugh how Southern Comfort provided little comfort at all. Even guys just wanting to be nice, friendly. Whatever. Toril would turn them down.

  “Want a drink?” one would say.

  “No thanks. I got one.”

  “How about some company then?”

  “I know what you mean by company,” said Toril. “I’m not stupid.”

  “I was just over there and was looking at you and -”

  “So go back there and keep looking.”

  Being as Toril was a dark bombshell, she had a lot of admirers. All she wanted was some time to herself, to think things through. Student bars weren’t perhaps the ideal place to make sense of her muddled thoughts.

  “Toril,” said her mother kindly, “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  Except Toril felt she could not talk about what was in her mind. Her mother knew some of the details of that fateful day in October, but as the sun shone brightly that April day, it was hard to imagine that Gorswood had been shrouded in darkness.

  “It’s okay.”

  Tori-Suzanne Withers was forty-one years old. She was essentially an older version of Toril. They had a lot in common. But Toril seemed to be handling the weight of the world on her own.

  “It’s not….okay, Toril. You hardly eat, smile any more. Don’t think I don’t know what it’s like to have a boyfriend, then not, because I-”

  “Mum! PLEASE leave it alone!”

  Toril kicked back on her chair and stood up. She turned quickly, not wanting to let her mother see she was crying.

  I lost more than just my wand and pentacle that day, rued Toril.

  Toril stormed up to her room, and slammed the door hard, regretting it as she did so. She could hear her mother downstairs washing the plates and throwing unwanted food into the bin.

  Her mother just wanted to help, she knew that. What could Toril say to her though?

  I want Troy and Jacinta back, just the way things were. That’s all.

  What did her mother say?

  I’ll get you a new wand and pentacle.

  True to her word, she had. But it wasn’t the same. She didn’t have the heart for this anymore. The battle with Curie and Dana had stolen it from her.

  Let me go to the Circle, Toril asked.

  Once you join the Circle, you never leave the Circle, replied her mother.

  But yo
u got out, Toril countered.

  You wanting to go there proves I never truly did.

  Tori-Suzanne would then wear that weather-worn, far-older-looking than-I-really-am-face again. Toril became more annoyed and defeated, every time she brought the subject up.

  Maybe I don’t want to be a witch anymore, that’s if I ever was one.