by C. J. Waller
Chapter Six
“So, what are you saying? That those involved… killed themselves?” Mags asked, enthralled. The old man chuckled, an unpleasant, gargling sound. They’d followed him at a discreet distance before he’d headed off into the local park – although that was probably a bit of an exaggeration, since it was no more than a piece of scrubland with a rusted swing and a half-rotted wooden bench – where he’d led them to a quiet corner and he’d regaled them with tales of Dùisg a' Pheacaich, its origins and its legends – most of which they’d heard before, thanks to Decker’s and Paul’s research. But this… this was new. She wondered if Decker knew, or if this would be news to him, too.
“No, no, young lady,” The old man said. He hadn’t supplied his name and Mags got the impression he wouldn’t have given it to her if she'd asked. His eyes constantly flickered this way and that, searching, as if the bushes might suddenly disgorge the villagers and force him to flee. “That ain’t it. It ain’t it at all. If anyone asks – not that anyone has, mind you – that’s the official line. The name Sinner's Wake is supposed to hark back to the time when the folk here felt so bad some of them took their own lives than face up to what they’d been involved in. But that ain’t the truth – not by a long stretch.” He leaned in and lowered his voice even more, until it was barely even a whisper. Mags leaned in closer to catch what he was saying, and fought down the urge to cover her mouth and nose with her hand. Up close, the old man stank of cigarettes and booze – and something else. Something unpleasant yet oddly familiar.
Fear.
“So, what is the truth?” Piers asked. He sounded bored. Mags shot him a warning glance – this was not the time to play the fashionable cynic. She wanted to know what he had to say, and she didn’t want Piers ruining it for her, like he had ruined so much in the past.
The old man coughed. Mags recoiled on instinct and she missed the first part of what followed.
“- did it to satisfy its needs, not to assuage their own guilt,” he said.
“Pardon?” Mags said. “Sorry, I didn't catch all that. Can you say it again?”
The old man looked annoyed and cast fearful glances about himself once more. He swallowed hard, his reluctance plain.
“I said, those people who drowned weren’t suicides. They did it to satisfy its needs, not to assuage their own guilt.”
“They did it to… what? Satisfy who?”
“Not so much ‘who’, as ‘what’. And what do you think?” The old man’s eyes unconsciously darted to his left, in the direction of what Mags could only guess was the loch. “They’ve got to satisfy the demon, or it’ll find its own satisfaction. No one knows for sure what its ultimate purpose was or why old Pastor Decker-”
“Uh, what? Pastor Decker?” Piers interrupted.
Despite her own curiosity at this, Mags glared at him. Shut up, Piers – let the old man speak. This might be our only chance.
“Aye. Pastor Decker. He was in charge of the church afore they got the plans to flood the glen. Last one, he was – last one to do anything there before it was abandoned in 1892.”
“1892? I thought they said it had laid empty for years before that?”
“Aye, that's what they say, but no – that church had a flock right up to near the turn of the century.”
“So why lie?” Piers said.
“It's like I said – shame drives people to do strange things.” He now sounded breathless, as if excited. “The government at the time gave the say-so for the dam shortly after Pastor Decker disappeared. They said it was for purposes of industry, but we knew different. All of us do, whether we want to admit it or not. The shadow down there… it is but a part of a whole, which is why it is weak.” The old man leaned in even closer to Mags now, so he could whisper in her ear. Around them, the wind picked up, rustling the dry autumn leaves from their branches. Mags held her breath. “It is weak, so they have some control. Blood controls it, for blood has power. They raised it, but they were stopped afore they could finish. And now it floats there in the water, caught between oblivion and freedom, darkness and light, waiting for its time, when they can open the doors again and all of it can enter… By blood they’ll do it, young lady – you mark my words. By blood, one way or another.” He sat back and gave Mags a knowing look. “By blood.”
A cold trickle of dread tracked Mags’ spine. “You mean… sacrifice?”
The old man said nothing, just nodded. Piers snorted, but Mags ignored him,
“Aye, sacrifice. And the time is coming round again. If I were you, I’d be looking to pack up and get yourself as far away from Dùisg a' Pheacaich as possible. You and your friends.”
“What, so if we stay, we’re going to be sacrificed to a lake monster?” Piers sounded amused. “Like, hasn’t that been done before? I’m sure D’Argento did that in the seventies at some point-”
“Shut up, Piers,” Mags said, quietly. Piers rolled his eyes and let out a sarcastic chuckle, and yes, he was right. It did sound stupid, and it did sound corny, but he wasn’t sitting close enough to see the naked terror in the old man’s eyes. Whether it was true or not didn't matter; the old man believed it.
In the distance, the clock struck five. Had they really been out for that long? Each tinny ‘bong’ vibrated round Mags' head, making it throb. As if answering her unspoken question, the old timer pushed himself to his feet, and without another word, shuffled off.
“Hey…” said Piers. The old man did not look back.
“Let him go,” said Mags.
“You seriously don’t believe him, do you? I mean, come on… Sacrifice? Demons? Please. He’s having some fun with us, indulging in his own personal five seconds of fame.”
“Oh, really? Then why didn’t he insist that we film him? Why didn't he tell us his name?”
“Uh, because we didn’t ask him?”
“No… no. It was more than that. Didn’t you see? Couldn’t you tell? He’s terrified. I don’t know what it is, but that poor man is scared shitless of something.”
“So, what? We turn tail and run? All because an old man’s scared of something that might just be a product of his senile imagination? Come on, Mags… give me a break. We’ve come across crackpots before, enough to know that they’re fucking everywhere and that they’ll do anything to get us involved in whatever their own personal crusade is. So, he was scared – I don’t doubt that. But whatever he’s scared of is inside his own head. Please… human sacrifice? A government cover up via the formation of a reservoir? I mean, a reservoir. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny, it's just sad.”
Mags had no choice but to agree. It was sad. But that didn’t stop her wondering – or, indeed, thinking that the old man was closer to the truth than Piers ever would be when it came to this place.
“Look, why don't we just go back,” Piers said, his tone softening. “Paul said we'd meet back up at six, so they won't be long. It's a long shot, but maybe that Kelly woman knows of a decent restaurant nearby. I don't know about you, but I could do with a steak.”
o0o
Dùisg a' Pheacaich was as quiet as ever when Mags and Piers walked back to the guesthouse, though Mags swore she saw at least one pair of curtains twitching as they passed by. She tried to imagine the people behind them and turned the old man's words over in her head. In a way, she was relieved. She’d picked up on something – she had a talent for that, although most people just laughed at her when she spoke about it – but now she felt vindicated. Piers didn’t believe her, but then again, he never did. Quite why he was involved in this kind of gig in the first place often baffled her, but hey, here he was, a part of it, so who was she to judge? From that, a kind of unspoken agreement had sprung up between them: she believed, he didn’t and if they didn’t talk about it, there was no need to argue. And for that reason they now walked in not entirely comfortable silence.
Although it was barely past five, the door to the guest house was locked. That was a bit of a surprise. She’d always t
hought rural types prided themselves on their ability to never have to lock a door, but there it was. Piers offered her a facial shrug as she raised a hand to knock, but before her knuckles struck the wood, there was a jingle of keys and the sliding back of bolts from the other side of the door. It opened to reveal a not-entirely happy looking Mrs Kelly, who frowned at them like a school-marm of old.
“Uh, sorry,” Mags said. “We, uh, didn’t realise you locked up early.”
“Early? Maybe for you city-types, but I close at five o’clock. I've got dinner to prepare,” Mrs Kelly all but snapped. Before either of them could continue their apologies, she turned and strode off, leaving Mags and Piers feeling like a couple of naughty teenagers breaking curfew.
The others were in the lounge, drinking tea. Mags had hoped to grab another beer before bed, but given Mrs Kelly’s attitude, she figured alcohol would likely be off the menu. They all looked a little subdued, especially Decker, who looked positively worn out. Paul raised his mug as they joined him, and Yolanda shuffled over on the large couch so they all had room to sit down.
“So… anything?” Mags asked. Paul let out an annoyed sigh whilst Yolanda took another sip of her tea and Decker stared into space.
“Not really,” Paul said. “Nothing new, anyway. If I didn’t know better, I’d say we’d just been given the Official Line disguised as some big revelation. Still, not many people know about the legend, so having a local relay it is always good viewing. We can use what we have, so it wasn’t a total waste of time. You?”
Mags shot Piers a look. Should she tell them here? Normally she wouldn’t have waited for an opening but the town's indefinable ‘something’ still niggled at her. That and the thought of Mrs Kelly sitting in the next room with her ear pressed to the wall, listening to them, bothered her.
“Maybe something,” she said as nonchalantly as she could. “But probably nothing. Nothing worth losing sleep over, anyway.” She widened her eyes and shook her head slowly, hoping Paul got the hint that she didn’t want to talk about it here. He frowned but nodded back and mouthed “now?” at her. She gave her head the slightest of shakes then looked up. “Later” she mouthed back. At this, Paul nodded.
“Well, we were just discussing plans for tomorrow. Up early, get down to the loch, sort out the boat. Hopefully that won’t take too long, so we should get a dive in before lunch if we’re lucky. Just a prelim one this time – scope it out, see what the conditions are like, maybe take a few shots of the submerged church… That sound okay to you and Piers?”
“Yeah, that sounds fine to me,” Piers said. “What are we doing about the connection problems?”
“Not sure. Seems to be something that affects this whole area – no that it bothers the local much. Suppose you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone, eh? Mags – any ideas?”
Mags should have had plenty of ideas, but she was too preoccupied with the old man and so his question caught her off guard.
“Uh, um, what? Sorry… I wasn’t listening.”
Paul frowned disapprovingly at her “I said, have you any ideas about our connectivity problems? Going to be hard to stream live footage if the issue with connectivity runs to your Go Pros.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” She shook all thoughts of the old man's warning out of her head and endeavoured to concentrate. “The radio should be fine- I've got that new rig that allows us to relay messages as long as we don't swim too far off. It does mean the boat needs to be near enough above you most of the time so we'll need to anchor off the church itself, but we should be able to get audio streaming quite easily. All you have to do is keep hold of the probe and keep it as still as possible in the water. We'll just record the visuals – no point in even trying to sort that out if there's no connectivity. I know that means we run the risk of them being a bit crap since we don't know what the visibility is like down there, but we can always adjust it for the second dive.”
“That sounds excellent.” Paul lowered his voice. “And you’re okay going down there?”
Mags just nodded. She was fine going down there; oddly enough, the loch didn't bother her as much as the town did and since going there meant not being here, she was almost looking forward to it.
Almost.
They continued honing their plans for nearly an hour, until the clock struck six. Mrs Kelly entered the room and announced that dinner was ready. They shared a look, but no one had the nerve to say they were going to try and find a restaurant. Instead, they traipsed after her like children and sat around a large table before helping themselves to a rather grey steak and kidney pie, over-boiled vegetables and a thin, tasteless gravy. She watched them grimly before leaving, remaining absent for the majority of the meal, coming out of the kitchen only once to bring them a jug of water. This actually suited them fine; the last thing they needed was her tutting at them as they pushed their carrots around their plates, debating whether they could dump them in one of the nearby pot plants without her noticing. They kept their conversation light and when they were finished, Paul announced he thought it was a good idea if they all turned in for an early night. Or, at least, that’s what they said out loud. Both Mags and Paul had come to the same conclusion – time for another, more private meeting upstairs.
o0o
“Sacrifice?” Yolanda sounded more than a little incredulous. “I mean, come on… really? You bought that?”
“I’m not saying I bought it, just that’s what the old guy said. He was really nervous, always looking around to check no one was watching us. He warned us to leave, too,” Mags said.
“Malcolm Allen didn’t mention anything like that,” Yolanda said. “I think you just ran into the local nutcase, Mags.”
“Well, yeah, obviously I thought the same… but what if there’s something in it? What if there is something going on here? It would explain a lot – the attitudes of the locals, the lack of coverage, the weird feeling that something isn’t right here...”
She turned to Paul, expecting him to scoff, but instead found him looking thoughtful.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Paul said. “That Allen guy spun us a load of crap. All the photos were amateur rubbish at best and his so-called big score ended up feeling more like he was just trying to hoax us. Usually I would say we should just leave and write this place off, but it's like you say. There's definitely something not right about this place. Why are the locals so hostile to us? If they're trying to hoax us, they should be welcoming us with open arms, trying to get us to part with as much of our cash as possible and get more people to come here... but they're not. And that simply doesn't make sense to me-”
“Look, guys… please, just stop.” Everyone turned towards Decker. He hadn’t spoken in ages, which was unusual in itself. He looked harried and like he could do with a good night’s sleep. “I’m sorry I ever mentioned this place. I should have kept quiet. Stupid childhood tales being taken seriously… sheesh! If I’d known it would come to this, I would never have said anything.” He pulled his legs up under him and wrapped his arms around his knees, as if protecting himself. “Let’s just go. In the morning. Just leave. Get out of here and forget I ever mentioned it.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Piers said. “I’m the first one to admit I think the whole thing is probably horseshit, but that church? Footage of that alone will bring in advertising revenue beyond our wildest dreams! Add in a loch monster legend and we might as well be given blank cheques! Come on, people. You're looking at this all wrong. Whether the legend is real isn’t the issue here. So what if the locals are acting contrary? Seriously, who gives a shit? We're not here to untangle their problems – we're here to bring a relatively unknown story to the fore, to spin it out, to dive down and investigate that church… pull that all together and we’re made! It won't matter if there's nothing down there, people are going to love the mystery of it all regardless. We can’t leave now.”
An uncomfortable silence followed. Paul shot Decker an apologetic glance. “Lo
ok, man – he’s got a point. We can do this in a couple of days, max. We’ve got some local colour - all we need is some interior footage of that church. Think about it. Some moody shots of the surroundings and some dark, pensive footage that may or may not show the potential lair of something mysterious... we get that and we’re golden. Piers is right. It would be madness to leave now.”
Decker’s body folded in on itself, shutting out the world. Paul shared a worried look with the others. By silent mutual agreement, everyone left, leaving them alone. Even then, Decker refused to uncurl himself; instead, he continued to sit on the wing-backed chair by the window, his head down, his back to the room. Paul hesitated. He wanted to comfort him, to ask him exactly what was bothering him, but something stayed his hand.
“This is a mistake,” Decker muttered after a long pause.
“Why is it a mistake?” Paul asked, gently. He crouched down in front of him and dared to lay a hand on his knee. “What is it that’s bothering you so much?”
He felt Decker’s muscles tighten under his palm as he withdrew from him. “Nothing.”
“Really? It doesn’t look like nothing. To me, it looks like something. Something bad. Something big. Brandon… what happened here, when you were a kid? What is it you’re trying to run from?”
Decker lifted his head enough to let Paul see his shadowed eyes. Their cadaverous appearance startled him and he fought down the urge to snatch his hand back. This was Decker – was Brandon, the man he loved, his soul-mate and best friend – not some imagined monster. He was just upset, nothing more.
“Nothing,” Decker said again. “Forget I said anything. Go get your footage. I'll be okay.” He bent his head down again and buried it once more into his knees, hiding those haunted eyes. Goosebumps skittered across on Paul’s skin, making him shudder.
