Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  I realised something was missing from around my neck. My crescent moon pendant was no longer there. Had Curie taken it? It seemed possible. Beth had lost her cross when the zombie-girl attacked us in the park. Toril lost her Wiccan pentacle when Dana stole it from her.

  What would Curie want with my pendant?

  Perhaps this wasn’t the thing to focus on. My stomach growled in anger as I slowly rolled onto my side. If I was going to get out of here, it would have to be soon. The sky had never lifted from an overcast shade of grey, and here, in the pit, any kind of light was a gift, anyway.

  I wanted to cry. I was hurt, both emotionally and physically, but I did not want things to end here. I needed something, anything to hold onto. It was then that I saw it….something shimmering in the light. It reflected the moon light, and shone brightly.

  My crescent moon pendant.

  With my fingertips, I pulled myself forward. When recounting the story of what Curie did to Jacinta in the Carving Room, Toril had told Beth and me how Curie enjoyed kicking Jacinta in the stomach. I hoped I would never see the sick bastard ever again.

  His presence wasn’t completely lost. I could still see that girl climbing up to the tree stump, placing the noose around her neck, and smiling whilst she made that final jump. I understood her smile now, but the first time I saw it, how it unnerved me. I realise now that she was getting out, getting herself free.

  That seemed to be my choice then. Give in, and put the noose around my neck, or…or…

  Climb out of this Godforsaken place.

  Damn you, Troy…where are you? Please don’t be a figment of my imagination… you were real, weren’t you?

  I don’t know. Down here, what is real, is this – if I don’t get out of here, I will die. Every moment I stay alive, I stray closer to madness with the frequent and all too regular sounds of that girl’s neck snapping.

  I grabbed my pendant, and it must be a psychological thing, but I felt better with it around my neck. I began to understand Beth’s fury at her cross being destroyed by the Zeryth, and Toril’s listlessness with her pentacle lost to Dana.

  I didn’t believe in much, but the crescent moon pendant was just a charm, wasn’t it? Nothing special. I had bought it for three pounds at a rag market.

  I forced myself up onto my knees, then stood on one leg, before compelling my other leg to join it. My stomach burned. I felt like several ribs had been broken. I looked up again.

  To the surface, it must be twenty feet away. I could never climb at school. At least, not without a rope. Even so, what could I climb up to? Where had Troy gone? Where?

  I knew I would get maybe only one shot at this. After all, if I were to fall, the last sound I will hear is that of my own neck cracking. Not like the time Beth strangled me. I would fall, snap my neck, and that would be it.

  ‘Must stay positive. Must believe I can get out of here. Must not give up. Must try-’

  The Demon decided to speak. It would not have been right for me to stay positive. The Demon would do all it could to rip any chance of feeling good from me.

  ‘Don’t worry about the climb, Romilly. Worry about the fall. It is the fear of falling to your death that will kill you. You won’t get to hear your neck snap. Your heart will stop beating long before then. I’ll leave you when the flies and maggots feed on your rotting body.’

  ‘Go away,’ I hissed.

  The Demon continued to put me down, trying to wreck any chance of getting out of here. Let’s suppose the Demon is right, I die from the shock of falling, or I die from my head being split open from the rocks down below…it has got to be better than putting up with this.

  As I place my hands on the rock face, any positive thoughts I have leave me. The soil comes out in my hands, blackening my already darkened fingertips. The rocks that jut out seem wobbly. There is no way they can support my weight.

  I turn, slowly of course, to look to the other side of the pit. I would have to pass the neck-cracking girl, but I could do that. I walked very slowly, clutching my wayward ribs, grimacing with each step. But I was making progress. Best of all, the Demon had shut the hell up.

  I was conserving my energy. By the time I had passed her, the girl had snapped her neck two more times. I paid no attention to her. Finally, I eased passed her, and allowed myself a smile.

  On this side of the pit, the rock face looked a lot firmer. If I could muster all my strength, I really believed I could haul myself up. I could move my neck a bit better, and I walked a bit faster towards the rock face.

  She must have gotten tired of snapping her neck, as she made a lunge at me, and grabbed at my throat.

  I fell over with the shock, and my ribs poked out once more. She was still coming for me. She was no longer that girl. Her head started to bleed, pouring red blood at first, only to be followed by a putrid black liquid.

  “Do you remember me, Romilly? I am of the Zerythra. You are never leaving here.”

  It seemed I was famous amongst the zombie-girls. I didn’t have my Mirror of Souls. Of all the dumb ass things I had agreed to Toril doing, I wish I could undo it. I really wished I had not left the Mirror of Souls at Rosewinter.

  I only had my hands. I struck out at the Zeryth, but she hocked blood onto my hand, and my flesh started to burn. The two fingers I had broken when punching Curie, had worn down to the bone. To my continued horror, she grabbed me by the shoulder and pinned me to the wall, before biting my two fingers off.

  Blood poured from them, and it was then I realised what she was after. She grabbed at my pendant, and hooked her dead, bony fingers under my neck chain. I regained some of my composure and touched her with my other hand. At this, she shrieked. My eyes burned into hers. I had seen her kind before, so I was much less scared. As what was left of her skin rotted under my firm grip, I stuck my fingers into her neck, felt the skin give way, and I dug my nails in, ripping part of her throat out with energy that was ebbing away fast from me.

  I used the three fingers on my other hand to grab her head, and smashed it against the rock face. Finally, I sought the precise point to strike her on her chest, and she screamed as I did so.

  I wanted to sit down but I knew that I had to get out now. I could stay no longer in this pit of horrors. The images wouldn’t end, and Curie….he would be certain to return. I was dizzy, faint, and so hungry, but I began my ascent nonetheless.

  I could not keep my footing longer than a mere half-second on the rocks, which were far too slippy. My hands were letting me down too, and I had to look away from my bloodied left hand, which was now missing its two smallest fingers.

  The climb was taking it out on me, a final assault on my senses. Physically, I didn’t even feel I was clinging to the rock face. All I could do was keep going, keep looking up at the crack of light….the light of the moon. A crescent moon.

  It had to be a sign. A sign that I could get out of here, despite the challenges that had been set for me.

  My positive thoughts were disturbed by a ticklish sensation on my left hand. A spider was crawling over it. I could not brush it away with my other hand. I would definitely fall then. I hate spiders. I hate them! But I had to keep climbing. My foot almost gave way at that moment, but I dug my fingers in, and hauled myself ever upwards. I was about halfway, when I just grinned at the spider.

  “It’s just you and me who have the stupidity to be down here, Bog-Eyes.”

  Well, me, Bog-Eyes, and the Demon.

  About five feet to go. My ribs were outside of my body now. Oh, I know they really weren’t outside, but they may as well have been. The pain was worse than anything I knew.

  My foot was stuck. I could no longer pull my leg up. Had I got cramp? I didn’t want to look down. I had seen enough climbing programmes to know that you should not look down.

  “You didn’t think I’d leave you alone, did you Romilly?” said Curie, who was hanging onto my leg. I swung around, and held on by one hand. My left hand pulled to the side. Bog-Eyes didn’t seem c
oncerned.

  Curie looked at me with that cold dead-eye stare he had been known for in life, as well as death.

  I kicked out at him, but could not get free. I knew that if my hand came loose, that was it. I couldn’t survive the fall. I had used all my cat’s lives up, if I had any. I figured that someone, somewhere, some higher authority was looking out for me all this time. Surely they wouldn’t let me die here? Not when I was this close to getting out?

  Suddenly, my leg came free, and I saw Curie’s pained expression once more, like when Beth hit him in the face with that mushroom paperweight. Just before she introduced Dana into the mix. God, that’s all I need now, for Dana Cullen to turn up.

  I couldn’t help but stick two bloody fingers up at Curie, and turned to pull myself up the final five feet or so. I was getting out of here.

  “Don’t lose your head, Romilly!” mocked Curie.

  I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it. Curie opened his mouth and a swarm of wasps flew out and upwards, zooming in on me. Before I could scramble to the top, multiple stings entered my skin.

  The Demon had been wrong. I could see everything. Curie mocking me. The girl, back on the stump, smiling as the noose tightened around her neck. Wasps continued to pour from Curie, filling the cavern with their terrible buzzing sound. I could not maintain my grasp and I found myself clutching at nothingness.

  Yes, in what seemed like slow motion, I could see and hear everything.

  Just before my body hit the bottom.

  Escaping the Netherworld

  The last thing Alix Andrews remembered was forcing his way into Rosewinter to claim the Mirror of Souls. He wasn’t to know that there was no way he could handle the Mirror itself, so maybe the mission was always going to fail. Or maybe, it was Curie’s way of getting Alix out of the way. After all, he didn’t really care about the folk of Gorswood. He only ever cared about himself.

  In the haze, fractures of what had happened came back to haunt him. I had struck him when he tried to take the Mirror from me.

  Then….then….what? He had ended up in this place. It’s kind of hard to describe, except to say that the Zeryths filled the chasm. As for Diabhal, his presence was felt, but he was never seen.

  Alix could barely see two feet in front of him, but there were places he believed he could hide from the Zeryths who would sometimes taunt him.

  He could not be sure how long he had been there, but the only event that would break the tedium of the passage of time would be the visits by the ghost demon, Dana Cullen.

  It was hard to know how many Zeryths were in the void, but Dana seemed to have just one function there.

  To feed.

  She would beckon one of the Zeryths to come to her. She would push their hair to one side, exposing their neck, which, in the void, was entirely unspoiled. They didn’t seem to bleed like they did in the real world.

  Dana would open her mouth wide. She had to, as the fangs that protruded from her mouth were two inches long. They were silver in colour, and they glistened as they bit deep into their prey.

  The strangest thing was…the Zeryths seemed to offer themselves for the feeding willingly. Dana never had to argue. Some would push to the front of the group, wanting to sacrifice themselves.

  Dana, for her part, did look spoiled. The red blood that would pour through her teeth was coloured with the blood of the Zeryths. Whatever was in their blood, she fed on just one at a time. It seemed to satisfy Dana, and imbue her with a greater power. Just for a moment, the wound on her shoulder seemed to heal up.

  Alix saw she was wearing something familiar to him. He had seen it before, but on another girl. It was a pentacle of Wiccan design, and it belonged to Toril Withers.

  Alix tried to make sense of what he had seen. Was Toril dead, and if so, had Dana killed her? How had this happened? Troy certainly would have done his best to stop it happening, wouldn’t he?

  Toril was a brilliant and brave girl. She certainly wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.

  The facts remained that the pentacle was surely Toril’s, but she had been relieved of it somehow.

  Perhaps another day passed – it was difficult to say for certain, but when Dana appeared again, Alix rushed to the front of the other girls to offer himself, though he was banking on it that she wouldn’t take the bait.

  “No. Not you,” said Dana. “Out of my way.”

  “I’m offering myself to you,” bluffed Alix.

  “You have human blood. I need to drink a lot of that before I feel full, and the desire to kill wanes somewhat. Come!”

  Dana bent her middle finger back and forth to one of the girls, who willingly threw herself at Dana. Alix was horrified at how quick it was over. Dana snapped the girl’s neck and bit in deeply, before throwing the body to the floor.

  “Is that what you want?” said Dana.

  “Yes,” said Alix. “Anything to escape this….death.”

  “You really should learn to enjoy yourself more,” said Dana. “Nice boy like you, surrounded by…well…I don’t know how many. But there’s a lot of girls here. A lot of fresh blood. You might even develop a taste for it.”

  “I’m a vegan,” lied Alix.

  “That’s a pity,” said Dana. “You have even less reason to be useful to me then.”

  “You’re only powerful because you make people fear you. I’m not scared of you, and you only have more power because of that pentacle. You might have convinced Troy you were someone else, but not me.”

  Dana drew her wand and pointed it at Alix’s throat.

  “You can’t kill me,” said Alix. “Not in here.”

  “Your friend Troy knows exactly who I am,” said Dana.

  In front of Alix’s eyes, Dana morphed from an eleven-year old girl to someone of his own age. The chocolate button eyes were very familiar, as was the facial features. The hair was the same, sleeked raven colour, with one addition. Strands of white-blonde hair hug over Dana’s eyes.

  “Your party tricks don’t scare me,” said Alix.

  Dana pressed the wand further into Alix’s throat, drawing blood.

  “Do you want to know how your friends died? Toril Withers thought she could defeat me, well I showed her to the differ. As for Jacinta…”

  Dana withdrew her wand from Alix’s throat, who coughed violently.

  “…..she took the full force of the axe.”

  Alix was still coughing on the floor. When he composed himself, he cursed Dana. “You are a lying bitch!”

  “Oh, the profanity…..no no no, that won’t do at all. You know what the funniest part is, Alix….it was your lug head friend that killed her.”

  Alix tried to process this new information. Thinking back, things had been quiet in the void until one day, an explosion happened. He could not tell where, because the void didn’t seem to have doors or corners. It was a shapeless, formless nothingness. The girls looked entirely normal and at peace here. They had to go into the outside world to become the evil, bleeding murderous zombies that we had encountered.

  It’s possible that this Dana had been human once. Everyone in Gorswood had heard the tale of how she met her sorry end. The details inbetween changed depending on who you were talking to.

  That sound though…It had been the same sort of sound he heard when he had been transferred to this realm, via the Mirror of Souls. Troy Jackson had appeared at pretty much the same time, and he looked fine. The boys had tried to find a way out, any way at all, to escape from this place, all to no avail.

  Then, one day, Troy says Toril had returned, looking beautiful, gorgeous, resplendent, and promising she would find a way to help him leave the void.

  “How is she going to do that?” said Alix. “She can’t even unlock gates without getting mud all over her clothes.”

  “She’s a better witch than you give her credit for,” said Troy, “and she’s my girlfriend. Just watch your mouth.”

  “All I’m saying is, something’s a bit off here. Romilly w
ould have no reason not to use that Mirror of hers if it could set you free. She loves you, man.”

  “Rom? Don’t be stupid.”

  “Don’t take my word for it. It’s all in here.”

  Alix showed Troy a diary. My diary. Curie had a copy of it too. Just how many copies of my secret thoughts were out there?

  Troy looked very disappointed with Alix. “You shouldn’t read anyone’s diary, Alix. How would you like it?”

  “Well, I just picked it up while I was in Rosewinter, the wood-cabin, you know? Time sure passes slowly in this place, and until you turned up, this was the only connection I had back with that world.”

  Alix threw my diary to Troy, with the former school basketball captain catching it with ease.