Dawn of the Demontide

by William Hussey

‘How often does Rachel come here?’ Jake asked.

  ‘Once every three months maybe. I don’t think she likes the Hollow much. I guess it is a bit boring here … ’

  ‘Eddie, this place is anything but boring.’

  They came to the end of the dirt track and headed along the road. The sun tingled pleasantly on the back of Jake’s neck. Looking down over the little white cottages, the pinkish-red cliffs and the sparkling sea beyond, it was difficult to imagine that anything bad could happen in such a place. Jake only had to turn west, in the direction of two dark stone structures, to feel that certainty slip away. Like a pair of evil eyes, Holmwood Manor and St Meredith’s church glowered over the village.

  A short walk through an apple orchard brought Jake and Eddie to a modern house surrounded by a large terraced garden. Sitting alone on a bench beside a tropical fish pond was Rachel Saxby.

  Jake stopped. Even with her back turned, she had the power to render him speechless. Immune to the girl’s magic, Eddie ran on ahead.

  ‘Hello, cuz! What are you … Oh, Rach, that’s disgusting!’

  Rachel was wearing a light summer dress. With one leg propped up on the bench, the hem of the dress had fallen back to reveal a shapely calf and a well-toned thigh. Jake tried not to gawp. It was a valiant effort but not an entirely successful one. The girl raised an eyebrow. She snipped a pair of toenail scissors through the air to get his attention.

  ‘Earth calling Jake Harker.’

  ‘Sorry, Rachel. I was … Nothing. Sorry.’

  ‘Cute. He’s blushing.’

  ‘Don’t make fun of my friend,’ Eddie ordered. ‘Anyway, you’re the one who should be embarrassed. Cutting your toenails in public, it’s gross.’

  Eddie brushed the nails aside and took a seat next to his cousin.

  ‘I didn’t know you guys were friends.’ Rachel smiled.

  ‘We met this morning,’ Eddie grinned, ‘but I think we’re going to be best ma—’

  A frightened cry cut the boy short.

  ‘Edward! Get back into the house this instant!’

  A figure came darting through the orchard. If Eddie had looked like a ghost in the graveyard, then Jake figured that his mother resembled a banshee. The shrieking spectre hurtled through the trees, her black dress flying behind her. She reached her son and snatched hold of his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jacob,’ she gasped, ‘but Edward must come back to the house.’

  ‘Mum, I was talking to Rachel and … ’

  ‘Not now. The weather report has warned of a storm coming in off the sea. A terrible storm.’ Her gaze caught hold of Jake like a fish hook and reeled him in. ‘It will break at any moment. I don’t want you caught out in it. Please, Jake, run along home. Your aunt will be worried.’

  ‘But, Mum … ’ Eddie protested.

  ‘Back to the house,’ Mrs Rice warned. ‘I shan’t tell you again.’

  ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ Jake said, ‘I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.’

  Eddie’s shoulders sagged. He shambled away in the direction of Holmwood Manor. Mrs Rice was about to leave too when Jake caught hold of her arm.

  ‘Can I have a word? Will you excuse us, Rachel?’

  Rachel gave a half curious, half amused nod.

  Jake led Mildred Rice to a crab-apple tree a little distance away.

  ‘This storm,’ he said, ‘it came here once before, didn’t it?’

  ‘I have to go. My son … ’

  ‘A generation ago, a dark storm threatened Hobarron’s Hollow. Your brother Luke was at the centre of it. If the storm had broken here, then it would have spread like a tide across the world. A Demontide … ’

  Mrs Rice trembled. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Jake guessed that she was no more than thirty-five years old, and yet the burden of her life in the Hollow had given her the bent back and rounded shoulders of an old woman.

  ‘But something held back the storm,’ Jake continued. ‘A great evil that cancelled out the evil to come. A sacrifice. The Elders—they murdered your brother.’

  Mrs Rice wiped her eyes. Her thin hand caught at Jake and drew him close.

  ‘You are no child of God, Jacob Harker,’ she whispered, ‘but He loves you just the same. A storm is coming, and its Second Omen is near at hand. Run home. Wait it out. Then flee Hobarron’s Hollow. Flee while there’s still time.’

  The woman strode away.

  Rachel wrapped her arm around Jake’s shoulder.

  ‘I’ve never seen Mildred Rice so upset,’ she said. ‘What did you say to the old witch?’

  ‘You’d never heard of the Hollow … ?’ Rachel asked.

  They walked through the Saxby orchard, back towards the road.

  ‘I don’t understand how that’s possible, everyone knows about this place.’

  ‘So it seems. Have you always come here, Rachel?’

  ‘Uh-huh—there’s never been a summer we haven’t come back. The Drakes holiday here too. Must say, though, I’ve never met anyone connected with the Institute who didn’t know about the village. Why would your dad keep it secret … ? Jake, where are we going?’

  ‘Just a little further.’

  Rachel gave him a curious glance. ‘Something’s going on with you, Jake Harker. Come on, out with it.’

  ‘I’d tell you, but I think you’d have me committed.’

  ‘Remember that night in Dr Holmwood’s rose garden?’ she said, slipping her hand into his. ‘I said I was your friend. I said I’d help you. You can tell me anything.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rachel. The time isn’t right.’

  ‘I’ll be here when it is,’ she promised.

  They walked on.

  Rachel started asking questions about what had happened after the party at Green Gables. Why hadn’t he called her? How had he got to the Hollow? Jake found himself spinning the same lies that he had been told: he’d been ill with a fever; Aunt Joanna had taken up the parental reins after his father had been called away on business. By the time all the lies had been repeated, they had reached St Meredith’s graveyard and the strange mausoleum.

  The paintings of angels and demons stood out from the shadows. Jake laid a hand against one of the frescoes.

  ‘What do you know about this place?’

  ‘Only that it used to scare me stupid.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘We’d sneak up here in the middle of the night, me and some of the village kids. Those paintings in the moonlight.’ Rachel shuddered. ‘We’d dare each other to run to the door and knock. Don’t laugh, but we even chanted the Hobarron Poem—that made it extra creepy!’

  ‘A poem?’

  ‘An old nursery rhyme the Hollow people sing to their children. One of the verses went something like this: Witchfinder, Witchfinder—Evil he saw—and used all his power—to seal up the Door.’

  ‘Witchfinder?’

  ‘It’s the Witchfinder’s tomb. Jake, are you all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Rachel … who is the Witchfinder?’

  ‘It’s just a local legend. I heard bits of it when I was a kid.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Not much to tell. Sometime in the sixteen hundreds, a stranger came to the village. It wasn’t called Hobarron’s Hollow then, I’m not even sure it had a name. Anyway, there had been rumours of witchcraft in the area and this guy turned up to investigate. I guess he was like that awful man they’ve made movies about. The one who hanged all those poor women for being witches and then collected his reward. What was his name? Hopkirk?’

  ‘Matthew Hopkins. The Witchfinder General.’

  ‘That’s it. I think our witchfinder even knew Hopkins.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  Rachel shrugged. ‘I’ve only ever heard him called “the Witchfinder”. He came to the village and, sure enough, he found black magic being practised around every corner. He started this whole campaign against a coven of local witches. Accused them of summoning demons and all kinds of craz
y stuff. The story gets a bit muddled from this point. Some versions even say that he had dark powers of his own. Anyway, he fought this coven and saved the village from sin. What a hero!’

  ‘Maybe he genuinely believed in what he was doing,’ Jake said.

  ‘From what I’ve heard, these witchfinders just went around condemning people who fitted the bill,’ Rachel said. Her gaze ran over the paintings. ‘He might’ve comforted himself by thinking he was an angel ridding the world of demons, but the Hobarron Witchfinder was a monster. And the really horrible thing is, the people of this village thanked him for it! When he died they built this tomb for him.’

  Historically, Jake knew that Rachel’s description of ‘the witchfinder’ was correct. Whether or not they had genuinely believed that they were doing God’s work, men like Matthew Hopkins had been responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people. And yet the man Jake had seen in his dreams—the Witchfinder whose skin he had worn—had not seemed evil. Battered and careworn, he had been like the faded figures on these walls. An avenging angel standing alone against the forces of darkness.

  A Land Rover roared up to the church gate. The horn wailed.

  ‘It’s my dad,’ Rachel said, her forehead pinched. ‘Just a minute.’

  She dashed between the gravestones. When she reached the Land Rover, the driver’s window whirred down and Jake heard the barking voice of Dr Saxby. A few minutes later, Rachel ran back.

  ‘Sorry, Jake. My dad’s flipping out for some reason. He says I have to come home now.’

  ‘Can’t you tell him … ?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him like this.’ She looked back towards the 4x4. ‘He said to tell you that your aunt has called and wants you home pronto. Look, call me later, OK?’

  Rachel gave an awkward smile and headed back to the car. She jumped in and the Land Rover bounded down the lane.

  No sooner had the car disappeared, than an inhuman shriek rang across the Hollow. Jake looked up. At first he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. It was like a total eclipse—the sun blotted out of the sky and a cold shadow cast across the earth. As a little boy, Jake remembered seeing a solar eclipse. The moon had moved slowly across the sun until only a thin halo of light remained.

  This sudden gloom was nothing to do with the moon.

  It was only when breaks started to appear in the darkness that Jake understood what was happening. The cries should have alerted him earlier. As the blanket of birds swept across the sky, they called out in panicked unison. The flock was frightened. Made up of all kinds of seabirds—gulls and terns, gannets and guillemots—it flew west, away from Hobarron’s Hollow. Jake looked down the hill, towards the sea, and his mouth dropped open in surprise.

  In the streets, another kind of swarm had started to flee the village. Thousands of rats raced and bumped and tumbled up the hill, all in a desperate bid to escape some unseen menace. The road had turned into an undulating mass of black bodies.

  ‘Rats abandoning a sinking ship,’ Jake said.

  With a final rustle of wings, the last of the birds passed overhead. Reaching the brow of the hill, the tidal wave of rats broke up into streams and spread out into the fields. Within minutes, the rodents had also vanished.

  An eerie silence settled over Hobarron’s Hollow. Jake walked down to the graveyard gate. Despite the heat of the day, he felt the need to rub warmth into his arms.

  A foghorn blared across the bay. Jake scanned the coast.

  ‘Oh … my … God … ’

  It rose out of the sea—a mist, thick and green …

  ‘The Second Omen,’ Jake murmured.

  He started to run.

  Chapter 14

  Mistery

  The sea had vanished. Its calm blue surface now lay beneath the unearthly mist. Many shades of green ran through the fog: fern and forest, olive and lime, moss and shamrock. The bulk of it was a sickly grey-green vapour—the colour of poison gas. It crept across the bay and ate away at the shore. It banked behind the cliffs and sent out tendrils into the streets of Hobarron’s Hollow. Slither by slither it invaded the sleepy village.

  Dogs howled and children cried. A foghorn moaned, its lonely voice lost in the mist. As Jake ran downhill, engines started and cars tore out of driveways. Families had been packed in, grannies and grandads huddled together on the back seat, children stacked on their laps. Wild-eyed mothers and fathers sat behind steering wheels. If the car in front hesitated, horns sang out in protest and bumper nudged bumper.

  Jake skidded to a halt. What on earth was he doing, running back to Stonycroft Cottage? Although there were no fleeing crowds, many people appeared to be leaving Hobarron’s Hollow. They knew what was coming. If it was worse than the toads, then Jake ought to join them. He started back up the hill.

  He had run a few paces when an old man called out from the window of his house.

  ‘Where are you going, you idiot? Get home now!’

  ‘But the people,’ Jake said, pointing to the cars. ‘There’s this mist coming in from the bay and … ’

  ‘A few morons always run,’ the old man nodded, ‘but there’s no need. Get home, lock your door, and make sure you’ve a sprig of holly in your window. Don’t dare venture outside until the mist clears.’

  Jake looked down into the bay. The mist had now reached the first houses, its smoky fingers locking them in a tight fist. It wouldn’t be long before it reached Stonycroft Cottage.

  ‘Will you let me in?’ he called to the old man.

  ‘I don’t know you. You’re not a Hollow man … No. No, I’m sorry … Look, there’s a bicycle down the side of the house—take it and go!’

  The window slammed shut and the curtains swished together.

  Jake had no time to think. A quick glance told him that the mist had devoured the town square. Only the tip of the war memorial stood above it, like the peak of a mountain breaking through an evil cloud. The cars loaded with their nervous passengers had now roared out of the village. The dogs quit their barking and the foghorn sent out its final wail. That eerie stillness returned to the Hollow.

  Jake vaulted the garden fence. He grabbed the bicycle, and the window above his head shot open.

  ‘Put it on!’ the old man called.

  A long coat made of coarse material and patched with leather landed at Jake’s feet. The window slammed shut again. Without pausing, Jake pulled on the coat and wheeled the bike to the road.

  The mist was within a few metres of the lane leading to Joanna’s cottage. Soon it would snuffle its way into every corner of the Hollow. And then what? Jake thought. Clearly, it wasn’t any ordinary mist—the colour alone told him that. The thicker it became the more it resembled those poisonous gas clouds he had seen in old war movies. Maybe that was precisely what it was: a deadly, choking vapour.

  Jake pushed off. The hill was so steep that he could find no traction in the bike chain. Instead, he freewheeled down the deserted pavement. His speed increased and his hand hovered over the brake. The old man had kept the machine in good repair, tyres pumped, gears oiled. Even so, at this breakneck pace, Jake found the bike difficult to control. He dodged a few obstacles—a wooden bench, an abandoned skateboard, a broken umbrella—each swerve threatening to tip him over the handlebars.

  Lumbering, lurching, the mist made its way into the lane. Jake reached the junction a second or two later. He turned into a skid. The rear wheel slipped on a patch of loose stones and the bike shot out from under him. It flipped over and clattered into the mist. Arms outstretched, Jake tumbled helplessly after the bike.

  Instinct, and the old man’s coat, saved him. He pulled it over his head and drew his hands into the sleeves. A few deep breaths steadied his nerves. He peeked out from under the collar. Just the sight of that weird green smoke all around was enough to re-energize him. He darted forward.

  He was almost clear when the last lick of mist caught him around the throat. A sting of acid burned into his flesh and Jake screamed. Blood began
to trickle down his neck. There was no time to worry about the wound—he staggered on down the lane. A voice deep inside told him to run but he could not bring himself to turn his back on the mist. It crept towards him at a lazy pace, almost like a predator toying with its prey.

  Suddenly, the mist reared up, its fingers scorching the topmost branches of the trees. Leaves burst into flame and fell in a crackling rain of fire. Like a wave about to break, the acid fog towered over Jake …

  He bolted for the cottage door. Rattled the handle.

  It was locked.

  ‘Aunt Joanna!’

  No answer.

  Green tentacles locked around Jake’s ankles. His trousers started to smoulder.

  ‘Hey! Let me in!’

  He glanced over his shoulder and his blood turned to ice.

  The mist had swallowed the lane. There was nothing to be seen except billows of swirling, burning green. The front garden was gone, as was the path. Again, Jake thought that the mist must have some kind of consciousness because it seemed to be playing with him. Only the step on which he stood had been left untouched.

  But now those lethal fingers began to tease him. They struck twice across his face.

  ‘Arrgghhh!’

  Another finger scarred his forehead. Another slashed his hands. The pain was as bright as if he had plunged his hand into scalding water.

  Jake pounded on the door.

  ‘LET ME IN!’

  The mist pressed against his back and smoke rose from the old man’s coat. The scorched leather smelt like a roasting animal. It wouldn’t be long before the coat was stripped from him. His T-shirt and trousers would burn up in an instant. Then, layer by layer, the skin would be boiled off his bones …

  There was nothing else he could do.

  Jake filled his lungs and stepped back into the mist.

  It felt as if he had been thrown headlong into a blazing inferno. The vapour’s fiery touch scorched his face and hands. A scream worked its way along his throat but he managed to keep his mouth clamped shut. If he breathed in, the mist would burn his insides to an ashy cinder. Eyes closed, Jake took the short run up and threw himself at the door.