by Matt Drabble
Boys and girls pray for the early morning light,
For something stirs in the deep, dark forest,
Tolan’s ghost and the axe that he cherished,
Are rising from the grave in search of fresh chopping,
For naughty children’s heads are ripe for the lopping”
“Lovely,” Emily said under her breath, casting an eye towards SJ.
“Well it was just a rhyme for children. We used to skip to it if I remember rightly,” Alice said. Her eyes were drooping and her voice was suddenly heavy with tiredness. “I remember when the mill still employed everyone in town, before the money men took over and all the rich people moved in,” she slurred slightly and a little bitterly. “This used to be our town, before Casper and all of his great schemes. We used to be a town of the right faces and color.”
Emily felt Sarah-Jane’s foot nudging her. She looked over and her friend was nodding her head away from the house indicating that it might be time to leave. Emily agreed. Alice was beginning to drift away on a tide of gin-infused lemonade.
“Now we’ve got blacks and browns…,” Alice murmured under her breath.
“Okay, time to go,” Emily announced, not liking the direction that Alice’s thoughts were going in. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Garfield,” she said primly as Sarah-Jane helped her up to her feet.
“So I’ll hear from you about talking to the children?” Alice said, slumped in the porch swing.
“Yes, sure,” Emily said, thinking that there was no way she would place a racist old woman in front of impressionable children.
“Take care, Alice,” Sarah-Jane said pleasantly.
“Whoa, she took an ugly road pretty damn quickly,” Emily said when they were out of earshot.
“Well, that’s now two old people with gossip and stories: her and the handyman Darnell that Michael spoke with. Not exactly credible witnesses, as they would say on TV,” Sarah-Jane replied.
“No I guess not,” Emily couldn’t help but agree.
As they walked back to the tram stop, she couldn’t help but keep the childish song rattling around her head. Suddenly, she felt as though she was being watched and she turned back around sharply towards Alice’s house. She could still see the old woman now sleeping on the porch and she could hear the faint sound of snoring floating on the air. For just a second, she thought that she saw a large dark shadow at the side of the house. She squinted and it was gone, but her skin crawled as though something evil had just walked across her grave.
“What is it?” Sarah-Jane asked worriedly.
“Uh, nothing, I guess, nothing. Come on. I’m starving; let’s go eat something decadent,” she said, grabbing SJ’s arm.
“You know, you’re terrible for my diet,” Sarah-Jane giggled.
“Oh I’m sure that the good doctor prefers a little meat on his bones,” Emily teased.
“Why, what did he say? How much meat?” SJ asked seriously, looking down and pinching her sides.
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Alice watched the young girls heading away. When you got to her age, she thought, pretty much everyone was a young girl. Her head swam from the gin. She knew that she shouldn’t drink so much, but she figured at her age, what else was there to put a smile on her face? Visitors were so rare these days; she had some grand children and great grand children scattered around the country, but she paid them little attention these days. About as little as they paid her. Her daughter had run off and married a man of questionable color, much against her wishes. She had warned Maggie against diluting her race but her daughter had paid her no mind. Even the photos in the beginning of cute children wrapped in oversized comedic outfits had not warmed her frosty heart. Everyone knew that even they were cute at that age.
She hefted herself out of the porch swing with reluctance and the usual creaking bones. She knew that once she passed the one hundred year old milestone she really couldn’t complain, but that hadn’t stopped her. The gin-infused lemonade sloshed in her hand and the ratio of alcohol to soda had long since slipped to the wrong side. Her head swayed and her vision clouded as she stood up too quickly. The hot sun was always welcomed on her old bones, but now it only made her feel queasy. She put a hand on the banister railing to steady herself. Her legs felt weak and her hands trembled. The glass suddenly fell from her grasp and shattered on the porch floor, the yellow liquid spraying the wooden floor, darkening as it spread.
“Let me give you a hand there, ma’am.”
A rumbling voice suddenly appeared at her shoulder and a powerful hand clamped onto her arm, steadying her instantly. The touch was insistent and she soon found herself being led through her front door and into the house. Her assistant had to dip his head slightly and turn sideways to navigate in through the opening.
She craned her head up for what seemed like an awful long way to see the man’s face. “Sheriff,” she said gratefully, “thank you for your help, young man. I guess the sun was just too hot today.”
“All part of the service, Mrs. Garfield,” Quinn replied pleasantly. “Let me help you into the lounge; maybe you’d like to sit for a spell.”
“I think that might be a good idea,” Alice said, finding herself moving into the lounge as though the choice was ever really hers to begin with.
“Here we are, Mrs. Garfield,” the sheriff said as he placed her into the old, but comfy, sofa. The springs sank with familiarity as it took her weight. She watched as the huge man eased himself gently into the armchair facing her, and for a moment she worried the chair would not take his bulk. She envisaged the chair collapsing under his sheer size and it brought a tipsy smile to her lips; even as inebriated as she was, she instinctively knew that laughing at the man mountain would not be a good idea. As pleasant as he came across, the sheriff was one of those men who had a smile that never quite touched his eyes - eyes that were distant and cruel. Her thankfully long dead husband had been such a man. He could smile and laugh but he had a quick temper and a quicker fist. One minute they would be sharing a joke and the next she would be lying on the floor with a bleeding mouth for some imagined slight that only David had seen.
She watched the sheriff now. His large round face was smiling but his eyes were watchful. The dark orbs darted around the room and back to her time and again.
“I saw that you had some visitors leaving, just as I was passing,” the sheriff said casually.
For some reason, an alarm bell rang loudly enough to pierce her gin-soaked fuzz and it slapped her in the face like a bucket of cold water, waking her senses fully. As relaxed as Quinn’s voice was - and as seemingly casual as the question was - she felt panicked, trapped in an empty house and suddenly free from the view of her neighbors. Her eyes darted around the room which had never seemed smaller or darker.
“What did they want?” The sheriff leant forward, unfurling his colossal arms from across his broad chest and placing his massive paws on his knees.
“Oh, it was just a couple of teachers from the elementary school. They wanted an old fart to talk to the children about the town’s history.” Alice attempted a tone of levity, but knew that she was falling some way short. Her voice trembled and the air was thick with menace.
“Really, and that was all they wanted?” Sheriff Quinn stood and stretched. He was a huge man, and his mass was overpowering.
From her seated position, Alice sank further into her seat. The disparity in their sizes was never greater and she trembled as the sheriff towered over her.
“Now I don’t believe that you are being entirely truthful here, Alice, are you?” He smiled with shark’s teeth as he placed a hand under her chin.
Alice trembled; even the sheriff’s lightest touch was painful as she guessed it was meant to be. He tilted her face upwards, his rough fingers stroking her cheek with a sandpaper caress.
“I think that I would like to hear everything that you told them, Alice, my dear, and I think that I would like to hear it right now.”
Alice whim
pered as the powerful hand squeezed her chin. Soft tears spilled out and ran down her face. “I didn’t say anything, I swear,” she sobbed.
“Now why don’t I believe you?” Quinn whispered, his voice low and hoarse.
“I promise,” Alice cried.
“You do?”
“Yes, yes, I promise. I didn’t say anything, nothing.”
“Well, if you promise.”
Alice grabbed at the lifeboat. “I promise,” she said repeated earnestly.
The sheriff released her face from his painful grip. He eased backwards away from her. Alice sighed, trembling with relief, her mind racing and confused.
The blow was loud and the pain monstrous. Alice fell from the sofa, propelled by the sheriff’s powerful fist; her nose was crushed and her throat filled with the coppery taste of her own blood as it flooded downwards. She dizzily raised a hand to her face; the nose was shattered and spread across her cheek and the skin was split open by the large class ring that Quinn wore. Her vision blurred with tears on the onset of a concussion. Both eyes felt swollen and her breath hitched dangerously in her thin chest. She tried to crawl but her senses betrayed her.
The huge shadow of the sheriff fell across her as he watched her feeble escape attempt. A thick, heavy work boot kicked her side absently. She felt the rib crack instantly, and curled into a ball.
A hand suddenly gripped her neck and she was airborne, her feet jerking wildly above the floor. Her weight was meaningless to the powerful sheriff as he brought his face in close to hers. His breath was fresh and minty, but his teeth were ivory and sharp. Despite her drifting consciousness, she screamed when he bit her. His teeth sank into her cheek and ripped a chunk of bloody flesh away. She stared through blurry vision as he smiled and swallowed.
“You’re going to tell me,” he said through insane eyes.
“I don’t know what you want,” Alice panted painfully. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she sobbed hysterically.
“Oh, I think that you’re going to tell me all sorts of things, you bitch,” Quinn spat. “All sorts of things.”
As it turned out, before she died - broken and bloody - he was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Interlude: A Brief Town History Part Three
Eden grew tall and proud during the first few years. Tolan’s flock were garnered by his strength and fuelled by his will. Their ears burned with the word of God as preached by their founding father. Tolan drew a metaphorical border around the town long before a physical one was constructed. The thick woodland to the rear offered a solid wall of privacy; one that was unbreakable.
Tolan was by now a man of broad shoulders capable of carrying a town’s burden. He gave powerful sermons that sang to the heavens from the building skeleton that would become his church. At this point, Tolan was now hearing the voice of God on a regular basis. The voice came to him in his dreams, sometimes dressed as his mother in the bright day, and sometimes dressed in the dark as his father. The voice was always clear and always demanding and Tolan never failed to listen.
The town construction was steady progress; he took it as a divine sign that those followers who found their way to this holy place were always of the most welcome use. Builders and farmers were put to task utilizing their expert skills. The forest provided an endless supply of first rate timber that was used in the construction, and was also traded for other essentials.
Tolan’s own home was the first to be built and he oversaw the project personally. His cabin was on the outskirts of what would be the town, far removed from the centre and secluded up in the woodlands that would become their lifeblood. The home was functional and spacious, and, as per Tolan’s own instructions, a small cellar was dug out at the rear. The builder who carried out the secretive work met with an unfortunate accident at the end of Tolan’s axe - forever ensuring his silence. The cellar was to be a surreptitious place of worship as instructed to him by God in the voice and face of his father. It would be here that the will of God would be carried out in blood and sacrifice. The cellar’s existence would require secrecy from the masses as they could not comprehend the mysterious ways in which God would sometimes move. The necessary removal of the builder was unfortunate, but Tolan was assured that the man would be grateful upon his embrace into heaven.
As the years passed, Eden grew. Cabins sprung up around the town with regularity, housing the disciples who had travelled many miles to join their community. A substantial wooden barrier had been constructed around the town’s borders and potential new residents would be vetted by Tolan himself. There was a smaller room inside the town hall where Tolan would hold the interviews, accompanied only by his right hand man, Gabriel Quinn. Quinn was by far the largest man in Eden; he stood at over six and a half feet tall with a barrel chest and huge, powerful arms that could crush the life from a bear. Quinn was as devout as they came; his devotion to Tolan was absolute and he followed his orders without question. Gabriel believed that God himself spoke through Tolan, and that the words were pure. Eden was to be shaped into the new garden on earth, and its inhabitants had to be as untainted as the virgin snow.
Tolan watched as his vision developed. He knew that his mother would be sitting at God’s shoulder, proud of the beginning of his work. He would spend his days walking in the forest. The voices of the leaves blowing beneath the soft breeze would whisper in his ear. His dreams had begun to fade and now he only heard God’s voice in the woods.
He had come to realise that God was a vengeful and harsh deity and there should be no other word than his. He had learned that the New Testament was only an incorrect human interpretation, as God was not a blissful figure of grace and love. God, in fact, was a being of wrath and furious anger who demanded complete submission and payment in blood, and it was Tolan’s place on earth to cover the bill. Whilst Eden could prosper, it would come at a price; a price that was paid in Tolan’s cellar where it was met with screams of pain and whimpers of death.
The thick woodland that backed onto the rear of his cabin soon became a burial ground for small, lonely, shallow graves. When interviewing families for entry into his haven, Tolan would often turn away those with young children perfect for his purposes. He would then send Quinn out into the wilds to follow the spurned families and return with the children, after first disposing of the parents. Quinn would deliver unto him just what God demanded.
Tolan took a perverse pleasure from his work, but saw this only as a justifiable reward for his service. His cellar would be awash with young blood on the eve of the full moon, and he would indulge only his darkest desires in order to purge the town from suffering from them. He would inflict the most monstrous damage imaginable on the young innocent flesh, as the tiny bodies were subjected to the sort of long suppressed abuse that he himself had once endured at the hands of his father.
The corpses were unrecognizable as Tolan emerged from the darkness out into the light of the moon, his body blackened by their blood. Once his savagery was cleansed, the town would be as well, and God was satisfied. The trees parted, allowing him access to the heart of the forest where he would bury the sacrificed children. He knew that God was indeed pleased with his work, as the harsh winters grew faint and distant. Their icy fingers retreated further and further until the season was but a memory. The warm caress of summer became a constant companion. The ground grew ever more fertile under the hot sun, and the streams ran flush with fish and the woodland thick with game.
After a time, Tolan’s sermons became more and more intense and he began to preach about the darkness of God’s will and the merciless adherence to his word. Soon, Tolan took an inner circle. Including himself, there were five that sat on the council, and they were tasked with the running of Eden. Tolan received his instructions from the forest and it was the council’s job to enforce them. Quinn was designated as the town marshal; his was a fist of steel that suffered no discussion. As close as Tolan was to the inner council, only Quinn was aware of the c
ellar sacrifices. The other members were only too willing to accept God’s generosity without having to foot the bill.
As the town grew and thrived, word soon spread about Eden and the town was becoming inundated with prospective residents. There were more bodies than Tolan could ever hope to spend in sacrifice. They began to concentrate their efforts on the strengthening of the town’s borders, turning them from markers into a defensive line of protection and seclusion from the outside world. It soon became necessary for the walls to become defended as more and more outsiders sought to benefit from the prosperity that Tolan had earned for his people. Makeshift campsites sprung up outside the town walls as the desperate came and waited for their acceptance. The hungry and the poor, the lame and the crippled - all came to bathe beneath the promised sky and live amongst the privileged. Tolan watched the camps from his position atop the great walls and he saw the unfortunates that had nothing to offer his town or his people. Eden was indeed a promised land, one blessed by the touch of God himself. His lands were bountiful and flush, but Eden was not infinite; her land had borders and she could only feed so many. Her population was already full and her people were all deserving; all contributors, there were no passengers here. No drains on the resources, only the faithful and the worthy. Tolan sequestered himself deep into the forest for guidance and he slept beneath the huge dark trees and dreamt of his purpose. He was told of what had to be done, and steeled himself for the days ahead. When he returned, he informed the inner council of God’s will and what needed to be done in his name. Most of them had baulked at the idea, but all followed Tolan into the darkness.
It was Quinn who led the assault on the camps. He took those men in town that he could trust - only the most devout disciples with iron wills and stomachs to match. They opened the town gates and walked to meet the campers and they were greeted with kneeling prayers as saviors. The desperate prospects wept with joy as they believed that their long suffering was to be finally rewarded.
