Tales of the Talking Picture

by Tom Slemen

  An arrow zinged through the air out of the darkness and impacted into Frankie's back with a loud thud, and he fell at Simon's feet with foul-smelling smoke issuing from his incinerated face.

  Mugwort performed a strange little dance and squealed with delight as more arrows slammed into the barn, and one of them grazed Charlie's left elbow. The lad cried out in pain, startling Violet, who was still staring in shock at Frankie's twitching body on the floor of the barn. The giant henchman of Gardyloo who Violet and Scot had encountered before, on Silbury Hill and in Marlborough Library, came riding towards the barn on an enormous black armoured horse. He swung a long-handled axe over his head, ready to attack, and suddenly Simon Lee let out a blood-curdling cry and charged at Mugwort with a pitchfork. The jester seemed startled by the attack and he took a swig from his bottle of fire-spirit, then jumped into the air some five feet in an effort to dodge the thrust of the teddy boy, but Simon tilted the pitchfork upwards and one of its two rusty prongs went into the jester's chest and emerged next to his spine. Mugwort's eyes widened and he coughed out blood and the inflammable liquid – and some of it caught fire on his own torch. The impaled jester was suddenly ablaze, and the gargantuan knight rode forward on his galumphing great warhorse, swung his axe at Simon, but the Ted managed to step aside, and simultaneously pushed the handle of the pitchfork with all of his might, so that Mugwort took the brunt of the axe onslaught instead. The blade of the axe took the jester's burning head clean off, and it bounced towards the barn splashing blood and trailing sparks. The headless body of Mugwort landed on its knees, and then fell forward onto its outstretched hands, and there it remained on all fours, trembling with nerves as jets of arterial blood spurted obliquely into the air.

  The giant knight dismounted, brandishing a huge broadsword. He grunted, swung the sword at Simon and the blade narrowly missed him and smashed chunks of fungus-ridden wood from the side-wall of the barn. The Goliath in chain mail let out a deep laugh, then made a chilling promise to the youths huddled around Violet in the barn. 'I'll slice you and dice you all now!' he roared, but one of his great armoured feet stepped heavily on the smouldering head of Mugwort, crushing the skull, and so the knight slipped sideways in the mess. Quick as a flash, Simon lurched forward and drove one of the prongs of his pitchfork between the eyes of the giant warrior, killing him instantly. Scot tried to wrest the broadsword from the gauntlet of the dead knight, but once he had prised the huge thick fingers from its handle, he found he could only drag the weapon across the floor of the barn, such was its dead weight. 'It's too heavy!' he complained, and let it drop.

  There was a lull in the fighting. No arrows struck the barn, and suddenly a white horse carrying golden-haired King Gardyloo rode forward. The vain Sunday King was garbed majestically in his usual scarlet and ermine robes. Violet, Scot and Charlie could see that his face looked handsome and much younger than the face they had seen when he came into the library with his ultimatum. The Sunday King made an announcement: 'Hear this! Unless Violet is handed over to me immediately, I shall give the order to have this barn burnt to the ground with all of you inside of it! Now, what do you say to that?'

  Charlie, who had been sobbing because of the arrow-graze to his elbow, walked to the threshold of the barn, and with uncharacteristic anger he grunted, and threw the long-bladed knife he had borrowed from the deceased Frankie Yates, straight at King Gardyloo, and through an amazing turn of luck, the blade struck the evil monarch's left eye. The Sunday King almost fell off his horse, and he let out a terrible scream. He pulled the knife from his eye socket, which started to stream with a steady flow of blood, and then the sinister monarch turned his horse around and raced off into the darkness towards Silbury Hill.

  'Well done Charlie!' Violet congratulated her friend, and Scot, Simon and the teddy boys all watched as Gardyloo's four shadowy horsemen rode off with their king in the retreat to Silbury Hill.

  'What now, Simon?' Scot asked the leader of the gang.

  'We better get away from here before the police turn up,' he said, and knelt by the corpse of Frankie Yates. 'How am I going to break the news to his mum and dad?' he remarked in a choked-up voice.

  The silhouette of a hooded figure came into the barn and stepped over the corpse of the slain giant knight. Everyone recoiled in horror for a moment, thinking the stranger was one of Gardyloo's fighters, but it was an nun in her late fifties.

  'Sorry to startle you,' she said, and smiled. 'my name is Veronica. I'm going to Silbury Hill to take on Mr Gardyloo; would any of you brave young men like to join me? You did a splendid job before lads, and now that he's on the run and wounded, it would be the proper time to move in for the kill.'

  There was a short pause which was broken by the voice of Simon, 'I thought nuns were all for peace sister – what are you going to do to Gardyloo?'

  'Jesus himself said “'I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword,” and that's my mission, to rid this world of these servants of Satan.' Veronica clutched the large silver crucifix hanging from the chain round her neck. 'My only weapon is this cross – something Gardyloo and the Wicked One cannot face – but I certainly could do with a little extra back-up, so, are you helping me or do I have to go alone?'

  'I'll help you Sister Veronica,' Charlie said, with his hand held over the clotting blood of his elbow wound. The boy imagined himself to be John Wayne.

  'Thank you son,' the nun said, with a soft appreciative smile, and seeing his wound, she told Charlie it should be bandaged, but the schoolboy gave a brave grin and said he was fine.

  'Count me in as well, and my lads,' said Simon, and he turned to face Violet - who nodded - then looked at Veronica with a smile. Scot said he would join the crusade as well, and all nine of them set off for Silbury Hill, which now had shafts of rosy light radiating from its flat summit. Within the twenty-minute walk to the hill, Violet told the nun all about her previous two encounters with Gardyloo; when he had captured her and Scot on the Hill and tried to make her his queen, and of the recent meeting at the library when he chillingly assured Violet he would take her by force to the hill for the sinister wedding ceremony.

  'Have you ever heard of the little girl who went missing on Silbury Hill?' Sister Veronica asked, and Violet noticed the nun had tears welling in her blinking eyes.

  'Annie Corrigan?' Violet said, and somehow she knew what Veronica was going to tell her. She had an awful premonition of it.

  'She was my sister – we were twins,' said Veronica Corrigan. Violet's premonition had been correct. Scot and Charlie overheard the nun's words and slowed as they crossed the tall grass of the Kennet Valley to listen in.

  'I'm so sorry Sister,' Violet said, and found herself hugging the nun, who began to softly cry on her shoulder. Everyone stopped out of respect. Streamers of blood-red light shone from the top of Silbury Hill, and the tiny silhouettes of Gardyloo and his men could be seen starkly contrasted against the ruby radiance, moving silently across the top of the summit on their horses. Then the glow faded and only starlight was left to show the way to the mound in all its mysterious grandeur.

  'They ate her,' Sister Veronica said in a low tortured voice as she clung on to Violet. 'He tried to make her his queen but she refused, and they killed her, and put her on a spit – like a pig! I saw it all in a dream but no one believed me. Annie and I were telepathic, being twins. Forty years ago this very night they killed her.' The old nun collapsed onto one knee as she visualised her sister's brutal fate Simon Lee helped the holy woman up and gritted his teeth. He felt numb now with delayed shock at seeing his friend Frankie Yates die at his feet, and with anger welling in the pit of his stomach, he looked towards his destiny – the summit of Silbury Hill. That very moment, a glittering cavalcade of Perseid meteors arrived in the night sky and fell to earth in a heartbeat. Simon sensed that the celestial event was some grim forewarning of what lay ahead on this summer night.

  Violet was surprised at the agility and stamina of Sister Veronica as she walked
ahead of the group up the forty-five-degree incline of the hill. For a woman in her late fifties she evidently had an incredible amount of energy, but Violet wondered if that vigour came from the sheer revenge she bore for Gardyloo. The party passed through a spinney of trees half way up the hill and each looked cautiously to the shadows, expecting one of the Sunday King's henchmen to spring out, but all around there hung a heavy uneasy silence that was punctuated by panting and the swish of feet through the oat-grass.

  Then they reached the flat-top summit ridge of the artificial mound, and there before them was an unnatural jade fog. 'Try not to be afraid,' said the nun Veronica, and she began to recite the Lord's Prayer as she stepped into the thick night-vapours. The nine of them walked in a single file behind Veronica into the ghostly forest, and came upon a strange scene. In a clearing that was familiar to Scot and Violet, for they had seen it before. King Gardyloo sat on his ornamental throne, with his left hand placed over his destroyed eye. Four of his knights stood there, two on either side of the throne, armed with crossbows and swords. To the left of Gardyloo, there was a long table decked with platters of every kind of food, and bottles of every wine and spirit. Then Charlie noticed the animal lying at the Sunday King's feet. It was Rebel, laying on his side with his front and rear legs bound together. The animal whimpered and tried to get up when it spotted Charlie.

  'Hand over Violet, or this dog shall be hacked to pieces,' said Gardyloo, and there was suffering and agony in his voice. The blood from his eye had stained his cheek, golden beard and ermine robes.

  'It's Rebel!' Charlie cried, and he felt his stomach somersault. 'He must have followed me! Please don't hurt him, he's my dog.'

  'Stay calm child,' said Sister Veronica, and she took slow, measured steps towards Gardyloo. The Sunday King recognised Sister Veronica, for she had tried to confront him a year ago, but he had managed to vanish into the mists of the hill.

  'You again,' King Gardyloo grunted. He removed his hand from his eye to reveal a dark glistening eye socket.

  Charlie clutched Veronica's arm. 'Don't try anything, please. They'll kill Rebel!'

  'If that is your dog at all,' said Veronica, and she thrust the crucifix forwards – towards King Gardyloo, and he made a childish moaning sound. As Veronica closed in on him, the dog at his feet faded away into nothingness. It had all been an illusion; a last-ditch attempt to obtain Violet.

  Gardyloo arose from his throne and hid behind it. The throne featured graven heads of devils and gargoyles, and they turned and hissed and spat at Veronica as she started to recite Palm 130 - De Profundis: 'Out of the depths I cry to thee O Lord! Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to my voice in supplication...'

  The oldest prehistoric mound in Europe began to tremble, and a crack opened across the flat-topped summit, creating a chasm that separated Veronica from Gardyloo and his men.

  Gardyloo suddenly took off his crown and threw it down. 'I don't want to be a king any more!' he shouted, and his four knights looked to one another with bewildered expressions. The vagrant monarch looked at the nun and said: 'I swear I did not kill your sister; that murder was committed by another man, as foolish as me – another King Gardyloo! A long time ago!'

  Silbury Hill continued to shake as if an earthquake was striking the Marlborough Downs, and Violet clung onto Simon Lee.

  Gardyloo walked backwards a few feet, halted, then tried to take a running jump across the widening gap in the earth, but something quite unexpected and horrifying took place. The head of a gigantic black snake flew out from the crack in the ground and seized the body of Gardyloo in its huge jaws. The head of the demonic reptile was as large as a car, and Charlie gasped, 'It's a dinosaur!'

  'It's the Evil Serpent,' Veronica told the youths, and held her crucifix towards the abomination. The creature's teeth crunched into Gardyloo, and he screamed in agony. As the head of the serpent rose higher out of Silbury Hill on a thick black leathery neck, Simon's comrades turned and fled through the fog towards the slopes. The self-dethroned Gardyloo was being slowly swallowed, and only his head and outstretched arms were now visible. 'Help me!' he screamed, but the serpent threw back its head and gulped the vagrant down. Simon and Violet got on each side of Veronica and tugged at her arms, but the nun had a suicidal inclination to take on the serpent with her faith alone.

  'Leave me alone!' Veronica protested, but Simon put his arms around her waist and dragged her from the fog-enshrouded summit. As Veronica fought to free herself from the clutches of Violet and Simon, Silbury Hill shook so violently, the nun and the two teenagers holding her were thrown down the slope, and only for a thicket of shrubbery, all three would have rolled 130 feet to the bottom of the mound. Charlie came hurrying down after them. 'That thing knocked the knights into the crack!' Charlie said, and as Simon looked up the hill, he saw the head of the serpent peering over the edge of the ridge. Its eyes were glowing with a maroon radiance. For one terrifying moment, Simon thought the serpent was about to slither down the hillside, but the reptilian head slowly withdrew back into the fog.

  Violet, Simon, Charlie and Sister Veronica made a hurried descent of Silbury Hill, and halfway down, Charlie pointed to a fire in the distance. The old derelict barn where the battle with Gardyloo had started was ablaze. Flames from the severed head of Mugwort the jester had started the fire which was engulfing the barn, and already, a Dennis P12 fire engine was hurtling down the nearby road towards the conflagration. Simon halted on the slopes of Silbury and thought about the body of his friend Frankie Yates within the burning barn. What would the authorities make of it all when they found the bodies of Frankie and the two vagrants?

  The hill stopped shaking. The fog atop of Silbury Hill spread out and dissipated into the night sky, and now the only sound was the crackling fire of the barn. As the men of the Wiltshire fire brigade began to extinguish the barn inferno, Simon voiced his fears to Veronica – that he was afraid he'd somehow be blamed for the deaths of Frankie Yates and the vagrants, and Violet said she'd stand by Simon in court and swear he was innocent. Sister Veronica said no one would question the testimony of an old nun, and she promised Simon she'd provide him – and Violet - with an alibi. 'You two have been in my company for the past two hours, star-gazing, miles away from the fire, on Overton Hill.'

  'Star-gazing?' said Violet, with a quirky smile.

  'Yes,' said Veronica, turning her tearful eyes to the heavens, 'the Perseid meteors have been putting on a show all night, and Overton Hill is the best place to watch them fall from the sky.'

  'I hope the police will believe you, Sister,' Simon said, unconsciously gripping Violet's hand.

  'They will,' Veronica turned her sad eyes from the sky to the teddy boy. 'If the truth was told, they would never believe us anyway.'

  'What was that – thing?' Violet asked the nun.

  'The Serpent of Old, probably,' Veronica speculated. 'The Devil in the Book of Genesis was described as a serpent, and for as long as I can remember, Silbury Hill has been referred to as “the old serpent mound”. There are identical mounds in North and South America, and the native Indians won't venture near the ones in Ohio. They call them serpent mounds as well.'

  And as the two lovelorn teenagers and the old nun walked off into the night, the crack across the ridge of Silbury Hill closed up ever so slowly, and the serpentine embodiment of all that is evil in the world slid down through the rocks and soil to its subterranean lair.

  On the following evening, just after sunset, a ragged-clothed outcast from the gutters of a distant town wandered in a alcoholic haze across the Marlborough Downs, and upon reaching the shadow of Silbury Hill, he decided to lay in the long cool grass and take a holiday from reality in the realms of sleep. The tramp had a lucid dream of a friendly man in black who put a very interesting proposal to him: 'Let me have your worthless soul and I shall make you king for a day, each week, for as long as you live. You shall have riches and pleasures beyond your wildest dreams.'

  'Where do
I sign?' the eager tramp muttered in his sleep.

  'You agree to my proposal then?' the dark stranger asked.

  'What else have I got to live for?' the tramp chuckled, 'so where do I sign?'

  'No, I do the signing!' said the oldest trickster in the world, and with the red glowing tip of his index finger he inscribed his sigil in the tramp's chest. The down and out woke in agony, and believed the excruciating chest pain was the onset of a heart-attack, but when he quickly unfastened his shirt, he saw a wisp of smoke rise from his breast. There was a red unknown symbol of some sort, burnt into his skin like a cattle brand-mark, a few inches to the right of his left nipple. 'King Gardyloo is dead,' said a distant voice on the wind, 'long live the new Sunday King!'

  As the tale ended, Matthew awoke with a start with a vivid recollection of the black serpent eating King Gardyloo alive. He looked at the bedside clock and realised he'd only been asleep for fifty minutes...

  His iPhone rang. It was Christina. She had obviously shared the 'dream' about Silbury Hill.

  'Don't take me to that place tomorrow.' she said, and Matthew knew why.

  'Did you have a dream about a king?' he asked.

  'Yeah, Gardyloo,' Christina said, and Matthew felt goosebumps rise up on his arms at the mention of the evil king's name.

  Now they were sharing the same adventures when they weren't even in the same room. 'I know this sounds stupid but I miss you,' Matthew told Christina.

  'Take me some place else tomorrow,' she said, 'but not that hill or you'll be going there alone. Night. Oh and I miss you as well. Night.'

  After Christina had hung up, Matthew asked Rhiannon why Christina had been in the last tale, even though she was in her own home.