Dark Winter

by John Hennessy

  Toril had been right about one thing – the existence of another house, similar to Rosewinter. Of course, no-one knew how to find it. It couldn’t be found with any map – it found you, in pretty much the same way it found Nan and Dana all those years ago.

  Curie continued to run, wondering if Diabhal’s trio of demons, the Erinyes, would find him, and when they did, what would they do to him? Did it matter? He was already a dead man walking, and doomed to repeat his life in eternal damning servitude to Dana, to Diabhal.

  Although he was wearing thick clothes, combat style trousers, a thick twill shirt, and an aran jumper, as he ran through Gorswood Forest, the trees seemed to bend their branches, trying to trip him. The attack was relentless.

  The branches stuck out at unkindly angles, and tripped him up as he ran. Not every time, of course – he knew the woods well, and could sometimes jump over a rogue branch or fallen log, only to be clothes-lined by a branch above him.

  Snowflakes that had been gentle on his face when he entered the forest now stabbed viciously at his cheeks.

  It was as if this part of the forest knew what he had been up to, and wanted to stop him getting to Redwood. Of course, a forest as old as Gorse had its share of ghosts. Many things that people like Curie wanted to keep secret, were often buried in the forest. Still, nothing had been proved, and why would that status change, when he was forced to do Their bidding?

  At the other end of the Forest, the ghosts that roamed the ruins of St Margaret’s Hospital, the Great Hall close to Rosewinter, were not allowed to leave. Not unless the silver birch tree was damaged, and well, that tree had stood for nearly three hundred years. There was some benevolent spirits there. Even if they ever got released, they would be no harm to Diabhal.

  Sometimes the Forest gave up its secrets, sometimes not. Still, Curie kept on running. The wind howled as if it was cursing him, and the snow fell so fast, and so thickly, that he lost his footing, sliding for several feet, and his right knee connected with the based of an old, but very solid oak tree.

  He howled in agony, because he had damaged the knee in his youth, and it had never been the same, despite many operations. The cold was getting worse, and the light was all but gone. If he didn’t get moving again soon he wouldn’t survive the night. Then it would all start again.

  There would be no escape. That was his punishment. When Aaron Noone’s body had been left outside in the grounds, police conveniently looked the other way. When Dana had been summoned by Beth, what she thought was retribution, was merely a repeat of what had gone before.

  Ever since he had slashed his mother’s throat, who had been pregnant at the time, Curie’s existence was to do the bidding of Diabhal. He committed this crime when he was just ten years old. He had been running around Gorswood Lakes when he stopped to look at something. Rumours circulated of the Erinyes, a trio of female demons who lived in the lake, tried to kill him, and only agreed to let him go when he promised to make a killing in their name.

  After a twelve year stay at St Margaret’s, he was released - a new life and a new identity. Of all places, getting work in a school. As far as the children in the town were concerned, he really was the bogeyman, the very embodiment of evil. Rumours continued to circulate, and nothing was ever proved.

  When evidence pointed to Curie over the death of Beth’s parents, it was conveniently lost, the case forgotten, and another man, Michael Dean, implicated…just because he happened to say Hello to Beth’s parents one the day they died. Just for being the last man people could remember talking to the O’Neills’, Michael Dean would never be released from prison in his lifetime. The judge had been very clear about that.

  Beth felt she knew better than that, but the bailiffs who were ordered to remove her, roundly silenced her screams in the courthouse.

  Going back to his house on the school grounds would seem sensible, but there was too much activity around there. No - there was only one place Curie could go for sanctuary– to Redwood. It was a secure wood-cabin on the farthest edge of Gorswood Forest. To Diabhal, it was known as Diabhal Takh - the Devil’s House. To Curie, it was known as Redwood, which sounds innocent enough until you realise it got its name from the countless murders that took place there.

  No-one would think to follow him there. From beyond the house, the road that joined the forest to the other side of the city had gone into disrepair a long time ago, so no traffic ventured in from that side either.

  At least, from this side of the town, nothing human would venture out that far. The fear of something unnatural chasing him to yet another death would spur him on.

  Curie did not want to die in the forest. He got hold of his leg, and massaged the damaged knee furiously, and though he got to his feet by pulling himself up by a large branch on the old oak tree, his knee-cap felt like it was slopping about under his skin. He fell awkwardly, putting all his weight on his bad knee.

  He unzipped the side of his trouser leg and pulled it back so as to expose his damaged knee, even though the pain was excruciating.

  He was about to pass out, and he knew it. There was also nothing he could do about it. Either the cold forest would be the death of him, or one of the demons of Diabhal would claim his soul once again.

  Curie thought he could make out the silhouette of Redwood in the distance, but in reality he was still some miles away.

  As he was about to pass out, of all the periods of his life that he would have chosen to reminisce about, the first time he killed would not have been top of the list.

  Yet it is here that we find ourselves.

  Sometimes Curie had stayed there for days, sometimes for weeks, whilst the latest drama in the town died down. He stopped eating food when there was fresh young meat to eat.

  He hadn’t meant to kill the boy, just he had been out looking for deer when he came back to Redwood, only to find two young lads trashing the place. One ran away, but was caught in one of Curie’s rope traps.

  The other bashed his head on the door frame trying to get past Curie, and blood splashed on the old man’s face. He tried to help the boy, and stop him running, but he took it the wrong way and pushed Curie out of the way. Curie then found that he liked the taste of blood – a curious feeling, no doubt about that, and instead of letting the boy go, he picked up his axe and buried it into his body, and chopped him into eleven pieces.

  He cooked an arm first, then a leg, and remarked that, as he ate, how human meat reminded him of pork.

  As time went over, he ate the rest of him, and his friend as well.

  Then Curie sat in a corner of Redwood, wailing for days. No-one would hear his screams, so deep in the forest. Black shadowy shapes would encircle the cabin, waiting for Curie to leave. There was no light outside of Redwood. From Curie’s viewpoint, it looked like the Moon itself had been snatched out of the sky.

  Through the madness, a moment of clarity. He thought he had had the door secured, but of course, you cannot keep evil out. She entered, not with a bang, as you might expect.

  All Curie saw was a red apple, with a chunk bitten out of it, rolling towards him on the floor. It left blood stains as it approached him. He tried to move out of the way of the apple, but it followed him and he got up and ran into the bedroom.

  That’s when Dana grabbed him by the neck and pinned him to the bed.

  He grabbed her arm but it snapped off in his hand.

  “So”, Dana purred wickedly. “You like kids, do you? Well, you’re going to love me.”

  Curie tried to talk but Dana kept the pressure on his neck. Her damaged limb, meanwhile, had grown back.

  “What do you want?” Curie screamed.

  Dana opened her mouth and blood splattered on to Curie’s face and into his throat.

  “Drink,” she said.

  Curie’s body writhed in agony and Dana removed her grip on his neck.

  “What have you done to me?” he cried.

  “Nothing worse than what you have done to yourself,” said Dana,
rubbing a bloodied apple on her dress. “Here.” Dana tossed him a rope. “Do yourself a favour, and do it quick. You are dead now, anyway. In eternal damnation, you will service me.”

  “You want me to kill myself? Are you crazy?”

  “I’m not the one who chopped up two boys with an axe and then ate them. Maybe your definition of crazy differs from mine.”

  Curie held the rope in his hands. “I-I can’t do it.”

  “Because you are weak, and a coward.”

  “Y-yes.”

  “A killer, too.”

  “Yes, and God knows what else I have become.”

  Dana burned her eyes into Curie. “There is no God, where I come from. Only Him. The Master. You might know him as Diabhal. You’ve been chosen to carry on his work.”

  “What work?”

  “To continue what has been started.”

  “I won’t do it.”

  “You have no choice. Use the rope, or service me. In the end, your soul is damned anyway. Unless-“

  “Unless what?” shouted Curie, hopefully.

  “Unless you can find something for me. Well, he wants it. Some kind of Nether weapon. I have no use for such things. It’s a Mirror. An old friend of mine had it, and well, many years have passed since that time. No-one knows where it is now.”

  “A Mirror? Is that it? What’s in it for you?”

  Dana smiled. “Do you think I was always like this? No. I was a normal girl, playing happily with my friend, in Gorswood, when I came upon this…..place.”

  “Redwood,” said Curie.

  “We know it by another name, but yes, the one and the same. I found the Mirror, here. My friend….it’s been so long now, I don’t recall her name, but anyway, she told me not to touch anything that didn’t belong to me. I didn’t heed her words, and much like you, when you say you accidently killed that boy, and then his friend, my soul was damned.”

  “You are still paying the price for taking a mirror?” said Curie. “I don’t understand.”

  “I expect you don’t,” said Dana. “This is all new to you, but old to me. Anyway, he got me, and told me that he would spare my life if I did his bidding. But it was a trick. I have been here ever since. But his power has diminished over time, and now, there is a chance for me to return to the life I once had.”

  “Isn’t your soul damned?” Curie could not believe the normalcy of the conversation he was having with this demon.

  “Yes, it is.” said Dana, plainly. “But to live out my days as I intended them to, would be worth it, even if it meant that when I died in the human world, I would return to his keep….I could bear with that.”

  “How can you possibly return to the life you had?”

  “Oh, that’s the easy part. You are the key. You must kill thirteen people in order to free me.”

  “That’s insane. How could I get away with that?”

  “Because I will help you. You can summon me by dropping blood onto a white rose, or by using this doll. It’s a replica of me. I can then kill anyone who is a problem…for you.”

  “Why don’t you just kill them yourself?” said Curie, feeling more than a bit indignant.

  “That’s not part of my agreement with him.”

  “How do you know he will release you? You said he tricked you before.”

  “Oh, Curie. Don’t you see? Without the Mirror in his possession, his power is diminished, and it diminishes further by every passing hour. I can now set some of the terms, not him. But you will carry out his work, nonetheless.”

  “You can’t make me.”

  “No, perhaps I cannot. But if you do not, he will send the Zerythra to you. They are the undead, zombie-girls. You will castrate yourself before they are through with you. Without the Mirror, you won’t be able to stop them. If only you possessed it, you could trap them.”

  “So what do I need you for? I can find this Mirror, trap any of these zombie-whores, and while I’m at it, you as well.”

  “No.”

  “No?” laughed Curie, for the first time in an age. “Why ever not?”

  “Because, except for him, the Mirror can only ever be used by a female entity. That rules you out.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That is irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is that you heed me anyway. Once you killed those boys, your life, if you call it that, is finished. Kill just eleven more, and I will be free. But at least in this life, with my protection, you can live out the life you want.”

  Ten years had passed, and he had not seen Dana again until Beth O’Neill had summoned her to kill him.

  * * *

  That was how it all began. Curie went from accidental killer to a methodical, sadistic murderer. A living, breathing monster. It just opened up a side of him, that, who knows, had probably been there all along. Dana had saved his life, and now all he existed for, was to kill for her, again and again.

  Taking his axe, he waited in the school and butchered four children to death who were just having an after school chess club.

  Beth O’Neill was supposed to be next, but her parents were at home when he broke into the house. He doused their bed with petrol and then set it alight.

  Five kills remained. He hatched a plan to get Toril Withers, Jacinta Crow, Troy Jackson, and me, into his home, and kill us. He wasn’t forgetting Beth either. He wanted to put her out of her misery.

  Troy was a bonus of course. Under the guise of Diabhal, Curie had visited with Toril, Jacinta and Beth before – when the ‘stupid wiccan whore’ had messed around with a ouija board. He tried to kill her back then, and failed.

  He had also targeted me, and my parents, Ronald and Daphne Winter. Two Will Die, he had said. But of course, thirteen had to die, in order to release Dana. Tonight was supposed to be it. Killing all five of us would have put him over his target, but he had failed.

  When Toril used the Mirror, Beth and I were saved. The price? Two of Diabhals zombie –girls, the Zerythra, were released, and they would not stop until Curie was dead, along with the rest of us.

  * * *

  “What a mess,” said Troy. “There’s blood and skin, and bits of rat, everywhere.”

  “Here,” said Toril, handing him a broom.

  “Why me?”

  “Because I have to help the girls. You can help me by -oh !!” Toril clutched her head in pain.

  “Withers, what’s up?”

  Toril was spinning. Or perhaps more accurately, the room was spinning. Troy grabbed her by the shoulders and sat her down. “Too much information,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you were squeamish,” said Troy. “Sorry about that.”

  Toril was not squeamish though. What she meant by too much information was that she could hear people’s thoughts, with perfect clarity. Perhaps because of her encounter with the Mirror, some new ability within her had been realised. The Mirror was more than able to trap souls and return others. Nan was right – it affected different people in different ways.

  To Toril, it felt like she was having the worst headache ever. Her eyes bulged in her head, and the veins on her temple stood out like tree branches, angry that they had been awoken.

  Her temperature raced upwards, and she clutched the back of her head, and murmured “It’s not a headache. Help me, Troy!”

  Troy could not help Toril though. All he could do, was be there, and try to calm her down. There was too much to do, too many things to sort. He didn’t have Toril’s cool head for situations like this.

  Whilst I was still getting my legs to try and move, Beth slowly stood up. She looked at me, and placed her hands on my legs. I felt a warmth spread through me as she did so.

  She walked over to where Toril and Troy were sitting, and placed her hand on Toril’s forehead.

  “Beth, what the f-“ said Troy.

  “Shh,” said Beth. “I’m trying to fix something.”

  Beth murmured to herself. She closed her eyes tight, and Toril, who had been lying on her side
, started to feel something again, and sat upright.

  “My head hurts so bad. Pain.”

  “I know,” said Beth. “Let me find it, okay? Just relax.”

  “Oh!” Toril breathed. “That’s it, right there.”

  “Feel better?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do! What did you do?”

  “I don’t know,” said Beth. “I just wanted to help. I thought if I can put my hands where you’re hurting the most, I could help. But I feel a bit sick, a bit dizzy now.”

  “You felt my pain then. But I do feel better, thanks Beth. Will you be alright?”