Dark Winter

by John Hennessy

  Toril didn’t try and explain herself. She answered Beth’s question by grabbing her head with both hands and slamming it against the wall in the hallway.

  Whoever it was in front of us, it was not Toril Withers.

  * * *

  A scream finally came out of me, and Beth, slid slowly down to the floor, with blood from her head staining the walls.

  Toril looked at me, and her appearance changed. Gone was her beautiful raven coloured hair, the dark chocolate eyes, her puffed cheeks. In their place was black hair, with blood red streaks, and her cheeks had sunk so far that the skin just pulled back on her face.

  I’ve seen your future, little one, and you…you need this Mirror.

  I had to get upstairs, and get the Mirror, before the zombie girl claimed me. I had no time to worry where the real Toril was, much less about Beth, whose head had been smacked so violently against the wall, I feared the worst. Please don’t be dead, Beth.

  The Mirror was my only hope. I was still a bit dizzy, and yet pulled myself up the stairs by my fingertips. The zombie girl’s clammy, cold, fish-scale like hands grabbed onto my ankles.

  I couldn’t make progress, and with one strong pull I was dragged back by several steps.

  I kicked out, flailing wildly, and connected with something solid. Suddenly, I was free, and I scrambled up the stairs, but looking back, my problems weren’t over.

  The zombie girl seemed to have been hurt. Her head was bleeding heavily, but not red blood, it was coloured black, and her eye lurched lazily out of her left socket. Several of her teeth had been pushed into her tongue, and her mouth leaked blood like a geyser.

  I was trying to take in the disgusting view in front of me, when she turned to Beth and reached a bony hand into her chest, as if she was trying to burst her heart.

  I had to get the Mirror, and fast. I burst into the bedroom, fumbled around for my bag, and found the curves of the Mirror. I had no idea what I was going to do next, but Beth’s life, my own, and possibly Toril’s, could depend on my actions.

  I turned the Mirror to face the zombie girl, who cried out when she saw it. She had seen this weapon, for that is what it was, before. The Mirror became really hot as I held on to it for dear life, and it glowed fiercely. This is what it must be like to grab an iron when it’s hot.

  I screamed at her to let Beth go, and she did straight away, because she could not resist the force of the Mirror. She pulled her arm out, and her skin and hair disintegrated as she was sucked into the Mirror.

  No matter. I held on, with all of my strength, which wasn’t saying much, until the demon was inside. It must have only taken a few seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to me.

  There was no time to catch my breath. Beth was lying at the foot of the stairs, completely motionless.

  I just hoped whatever it was that just attacked us, didn’t have any friends. Of course, I was very good at convincing myself ghosts didn’t exist.

  But they do exist, and the Mirror works.

  I just wish I knew what to do to help Beth.

  But there wasn’t time. The chocolate that Toril gave me – at least, the thing pretending to be Toril, wasn’t chocolate at all. I was trying help Beth, but my body defied me.

  I coughed violently, and coughing turned into retching. My insides were becoming my outsides, and as I recognised what I had eaten ended up on the floor, I retched even more.

  I didn’t want to fall again, so I pushed my hands out to the walls on both sides of me.

  I felt the strange feeling of being disgusted with myself, and yet purified of that evil inside my body. I flopped back on the steps, dug my elbows into my knees, and cupped my face in my hands, until I felt more steady.

  I was in no state to help Beth, but I was wishing I could with all my might. Just then there was a knock on the door.

  I sat there, unable to move. Then I could hear impatient voices, followed by a click in the door lock.

  Beth’s grandparents had arrived home.

  * * *

  I now had the motivation that had previously escaped me, looped both arms around Beth, and dragged her to the living room. Blood had splattered on the wall and floor. What a mess.

  There would be no time to explain everything, much less come up with one that would be accepted by Beth’s grandparents. I propped Beth up in the chair, and waited for the inevitable onslaught. “They are Strict, Irish, Catholic, and Old, and sometimes, I hate their guts” Beth had once said of her grandparents, “but they are all I’ve got as family.”

  I picked up the Mirror, held it to my chest, and whispered “Please, make them go away.”

  How stupid I must have looked to my Nan. Still, I was desperate. Unless my wish worked, I was about to meet that family.

  * * *

  The voices continued to make their indiscernible sounds. Then, the lock clicked once more and I was sure they were coming in. But then I heard footsteps in the driveway that were moving away from the door. They were going! I had been given a reprieve.

  Oh my God, thank you, I said.

  I had to get my priorities right, and fast. Beth, she was number one. Priority number two - clean up the mess. Third...there wasn’t a third. There didn’t have to be. But I was a productivity nut. I never knew how to relax, I always felt I had to have something to do. Yay for Team ADHD.

  As this played out in my head, I realised how ridiculous it all sounded.

  I laid Beth on the sofa, and wondered what I would do, how I would cope, if anything happened to her. I ran to the kitchen, and grabbed a load of kitchen towels, water, and a wet dish cloth to cool her head.

  Once I had steadied the blood flow, which thankfully seemed more like a trickle than a stream, I placed a cushion behind her head. To anyone else, she would just look like she was sleeping.

  I knew what I would have to do next, and it scared me, because I hadn’t taken part in the CPR class. I would have had to take my gloves off to do it, and that would have freaked out my fellow school children. So, I missed it, along with so many other things. But I could call an ambulance, and have to explain everything to them and Beth’s grandparents, or I could try and sort this out myself.

  I knew every moment wasted brought Beth closer to death. I just couldn’t face the alternative, so I would just have to make whatever knowledge I had of CPR, to bring her out of it.

  With Beth, I would not have to worry about that. I pressed down hard but also gently onto her chest, trying to get her heart going. I pinched her nose, then closed my mouth over hers, and breathed hard.

  Her chest went up, settled down, and then…nothing.

  Come on, Beth. Don’t die on me here.

  I repeated my movements again, and still, nothing.

  I started to panic, decided I had done all I could, and grabbed the phone to call for an ambulance.

  Suddenly, and scaring the hell out of me, Beth exhaled really hard and sat bolt upright. She clamped her hands by her head, and turned to look at me.

  “Is she gone?” said Beth.

  “Yes,” I said breathlessly, pointing to the Mirror. “In there. Are you okay?”

  “I think so. It’s like the worst headache ever.”

  Beth looked at me clutching the phone.

  “Are you going to call somebody, or hit me with that?”

  “I was going to call an ambulance.” I could see Beth was trying to lighten things up

  but I was still very shook up over everything. “Are you sure you’re okay, Beth?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, monster headache. Probably looks worse than it is. My chest hurts a bit though.”

  “Where she put her hand in.”

  “Yeah. I’m okay, really.”

  “Cup of tea?”

  “Jesus, yeah, that’s a gift.”

  While I made Beth a drink, I cleaned up the hallway. We sat in silence, drinking tea, but both thinking about the same person. We didn’t have to say his name out loud of course, but it was just so strange that w
e would both be attacked now. Curie had a way of making these evil entities find us. There was a very real possibility that the vision I had of him surviving Dana’s attack was real.

  Just then, the phone rang. We both jumped, and nearly spilled tea all over the floor that I had just cleaned up. Beth answered, and this time, put the call on the speakers. It was Toril – at least I hoped it was the real Toril this time.

  “Hey Beth. Have you heard? The police were at the school.”

  Beth was frantically waving the cordless phone in her hand at me, and mouthed ‘Isn’t that great??’

  I grinned as best as I could. I still wasn’t over the day’s events. I wonder how Toril would react if either Beth or myself could get a word in edgeways, and tell her how something in her image was near the death of us today?

  “Hang on, Beth. I’m not finished. The police interviewed Curie, and well, no arrest was made, no charges brought. He’s free.”

  “What?!” screamed Beth. “That’s impossible. We know what he did, we know what happened, don’t we? Don’t we, Milly?”

  I nodded, because that’s all I felt capable of doing.

  “No, Toril,” continued Beth. “You have to tell the police, you have to tell them what he did, what I saw. The boy in the body bag, the ouijia board…everything!”

  I could feel the exasperation in her voice, but nothing was going to work. Curie had not only survived the Dana experience, he was getting away with murder again. Bloody hell.

  “Perhaps he’s in league with the devil, Beth. You know?”

  It was a lame response. Worse still, now Curie would know how to summon Dana, and that spelt trouble for all of us. Toril told Beth on the phone that she needn’t have taken the doll after all. Dana could be summoned by dripping some of your own blood onto a white rose. Whatever Curie had been before, he would be even worse now. Just what was he turning into? He’s not even human.

  Beth was beside herself, and I struggled to console her. She had dropped the phone to the floor, and I told Toril we would catch up later and fill her in with what happened at the house.

  “A fat lot of good this has done me!” said Beth, who yanked the cross and chain from her neck, hurling it into the bin.

  I was really hurting for Beth. Her faith means – meant so much to her. Faith was a funny thing, for me. I’ve never really prayed to God that much, except maybe when Nan was old and I wanted her to live forever, and the other time was when I was on an aeroplane. You find religion when you are most desperate, or at 35,000 feet above the ground. Back in the real world though, I really didn’t think that this was the time for Beth or myself to lose it.

  Looking Evil In The Eye

  Two days had passed, but Beth and I had no further discussion about what had happened at the house. I knew she was feeling vulnerable, but I couldn’t afford to think like that. After all, I had just trapped my first demon. One-nil to me.

  No Romilly, you lost one demon too, remember? It’s 1-1. You don’t ever want it to be 2-1, okay?

  I still had so many questions about the Mirror.

  I didn’t want to think bad thoughts about Nan, but I think she left me very unprepared for all this.

  You just have to ask the right questions, Milly.

  But Nan was gone. There was no-one to ask, and worse than that, no-one I could trust. I’d tried with Toril, and for whatever reason, the Mirror would not give up its secrets. With Beth, it was so different. She’d been there with me, and experienced so much, and yet she was left unhinged by the Curie – Dana episode.

  Beth simply didn’t want to talk about it, and I didn’t want to be the reason she ended up back at St Margaret’s. I called her today, and she sounded bright enough, until I tried to direct the conversation around what happened. She praised me for the clean up operation, which she said was military style in its effectiveness. Her grandparents didn’t notice anything – at least, Beth saw it that way. But if I knew anything about these older folks, they didn’t miss a trick. It was the ones they didn’t, or couldn’t share with you, that’s the sort of thing I would need to know.

  I needed to reach Beth somehow. We had experienced something unique, and I couldn’t bear this stonewalling by her, even if she had come close to death herself.

  Beth had other problems though. Her grand-parents were taking an extended holiday, and that gave her nemesis the chance he needed. Unbeknownst to any of us, Curie had been conducting a stakeout at Beth’s house out for well, only he knows for how long.

  He was able to give police, teachers, in fact anyone in authority, the slip. I just didn’t know how he did it. I know now that I should have kept a closer eye on Beth, because once I gave her space, Curie took his chance.

  He had a beat up truck, reddened with rust, which rolled into the school every day, and looked as much out of place there on the parking lot as he did. It was hardly discreet. Everyone could hear it coming from miles off, and in the five years that I had been there, three students had disappeared without trace. Beth was certain Curie was behind the disappearances, but nothing could be proved. As per usual.

  I remember Beth saying something back then when I didn’t really know her. Referring to Curie, she said, “Watch him, Romilly. Lucifer is a Girl Guide compared to him.”

  Of course, no-one, if anyone, took any notice of Sister Beth, a rather unkind, if sometimes a pretty accurate description of her. It wasn’t the case that Curie was popular with the students, because he wasn’t. It was just easier to poke fun at other students like Beth.

  I still remember the fury in her eyes, when she ripped the cross and chain from her neck.

  I wasn’t sure how, but he had gotten to her, and waited until her grand-parents had gone on holiday. He had waited for the perfect moment to strike. How many times had he circled the block, watching Beth’s every move, and along with that, me, Toril, Jacinta, and God knows how many others. How many more children was he going to kill?

  It had been the day before last, when Curie had let himself into Beth’s house, and waited for her. Getting in was easy, because the demon within gave him the power to unlock the door. It was just so easy to cover his tracks.

  Curie was either becoming the Devil himself, or something very close. He had taken his time to get everything right for the abduction.

  He had prepared some chloroform, and grabbing hold of Beth, smothered the soaked cloth over her mouth. She kicked out wildly, but couldn’t get free of him. Her body soon went limp, and he waited several more hours until it was dark, and let himself out through the back garden, with Beth in a body bag, being dragged unceremoniously through the garden grass. Her limp body bumped along the rocks, stones and uneven grass.

  He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with her, but it was clear that she had to pay. After all, one of the Zeryths had been taken by the Mirror, because of Beth. She wasn’t directly to blame, Curie knew that. Such details did not matter because in any event, Beth and her friends would end up dead, or worse. Anyway, that was how Curie saw it.

  But that was something else. Beth had made it her mission in life to get others to see Curie in the same way that she did. She couldn’t just let it go when she had finished with school. Now Curie was going to make her pay for her insolence.

  The chloroform wouldn’t wear off whilst he bound her to the chair. He had fixed the chair to the floor, and used real corded, heavy duty rope, the kind that dug in and cut you quickly and deeply, if you tried to wriggle free.

  He had put a hood over Beth as well, and sat, just two feet away from her, playing with the blade in his hand. He didn’t have to use the knife. The power drill would be just as effective too. Or maybe the samurai sword, the claw hammer, or maybe, the corkscrew for the wine bottles he kept in the cellar.

  Maybe he could just leave her to rot in the cold, dank, cellar. Future victims would see her skeletal remains, with a few wisps of her hair covering her skinless skull. But to do that, would be too easy. No. He wanted to have some fun with her.
She wouldn’t be getting away this time.

  Those images of the future were so unsettling to me. The final image in my head served as a warning for anyone who would cross Curie. I could see Beth’s lifeless body, rotting away on a chair in some dingy hole. Her head had been ripped from her shoulders and put on a spike, for all to see. On her back, he had carved the image of a cross into it, but it pointed downwards, as in a Black Mass. He had positioned the body in the chair opposite the head, which had been jabbed into the spike.

  Beth would now wear a crucifix forever.

  * * *

  When I first experienced this, I thought it was all a nightmare. But in the cold light of day I knew I was really having a premonition. All these frightening images, so discomforting to me, were playing in my head like some kind of snuff movie.