by Rey S Morfin
I surprised even myself when I spared no details about what Robert had done to me as a teenager. I told an increasingly-distressed Rey about how at first Robert had just treated me like I was special, even more so than his own daughter. I spoke about the compliments, the verging-on-inappropriate comments. I spoke about the first time he breached my personal space. I spoke about the times following that. I spoke about how it got worse as the months went by, how I tried to avoid seeing him, but how it became so difficult in such a small town. I spoke about the time he hurt me.
When I finished, I became aware that I was crying, sobbing. Saying these things out loud seemed to reduce the heavy weight in my heart that I’d carried for so long. Tears flowed from Rey’s eye too, as he sat opposite me, horrified. He placed his hand on my arm, returning the efforts to comfort that I’d made earlier.
‘I’m really sorry you went through that.’
I wiped my eyes and turned away, unable to look at the person I’d made myself vulnerable to.
‘I’m so… I’m so sorry. He’s not a good man. You didn’t deserve that, you deserve so much better.’ The rest of the words seemed to get caught in Rey’s throat.
We sat in silence from thereon, taking the occasional sip, and watched the rain pound the quiet village that lived beyond the window.
11
This Chapter is a Work of Fiction and Such Will Be Claimed in a Court of Law
I would like - for this chapter if none other - to once again reiterate that this book is published only as a work of fiction, and not as a factual account of the events surrounding the disappearance of my fiancée. I appreciate for most readers this reminder will at this point be exhausting, but with the content of this chapter being such as it is, I feel it is best to - for one last time - reiterate this disclaimer.
Without wishing to spoil the plot of the story to come, I would like to stress that, in reality, while events similar to these were occurring, both Anna and I were busy comforting Joyce Kamryn, who at this point had lost all hope in seeing her daughter again. The plot in this novel explores only a “what-if” scenario, that draws from the further disappearance of another resident of Redbury - and puts this event into this reimagined narrative.
Elizabeth’s words were ringing in my ear. ‘Maybe you need to revisit your definition of monster.’
She was wrong. I didn’t need to revisit my definition at all, I had just needed all the facts. Robert Kamryn was indeed as she described - he was a monster.
Anna left the Black Horse not long after opening up to me about how she’d been treated by Robert in her younger years. It felt as though she’d wanted some space, being that she didn’t seem to be able to look me in the eye any more.
I sat alone in the pub for a while longer, empty pint glass in front of me, watching the rain pummel the road. There was little traffic to speak of at this time of night on such a miserable evening.
‘How’s it going there, chap?’ John asked, sitting down beside me. ‘I notice there was a bit of a sour mood on your table tonight.’
I was not willing to confide in this man I’d just met, even if he was a barman. All the TV and movies I watched growing up had taught me that the one person you definitely should confide in was someone who serves you drinks. Well, either a barman or a priest - and Art wasn’t around, and I wasn’t even sure he was the right religion to be a priest.
‘It’s ok, just going through a few things. How are you?’
John seemed to be surprised to be asked this question. Maybe he felt the question-side of conversations was where he belonged.
‘Yeah, Rey, I’m ok, thank you for asking! Not a huge amount of business tonight, admittedly, but it does go like that - it ebbs and it flows. One Saturday the pub will be empty, and then out of nowhere on a Tuesday the pub will be rammed! This town has a mind of its own, I’ll tell you!’
‘You lived here a long time?’ I asked, as John seemed to be enjoying the conversation being in this format.
‘Oh, no, not very long at all really. I just bought this place…,’ he gestured to the pub, ‘…a couple of years ago. No, eighteen months, maybe. But the town, the people here, they’re so welcoming. Feel like I’ve been here my whole life!’
I smiled. ‘That’s good. I’m glad it’s treated you well. You have your family here?’
John’s smile faltered. ‘Oh, no family. Not any more.’
He paused.
‘My sister’s not far away though, just next town over. I go over there once a week on my day off. Do you know Highford?’
‘Yeah, we came in on the train through there.’
‘That’s right, that’s right, that’s the best way to get here.’
The conversation was quickly derailing into small talk, but I wasn’t feeling extroverted enough at this moment to put the effort into keeping it going.
John made an excuse and began putting glasses away behind the bar. I ignore the odd polite cough signalling me to leave, not yet willing to be without the comfort of the fire.
Eventually, John grew impatient. ‘I’m, err… I’m just about to close up, Rey, if that’s ok.’
I flashed him a sad smile in acknowledgement, stood up, and gave John a nod goodbye.
I exited the Black Horse, and stood on the cold, damp, main road which stretched through the centre of the town of Redbury - and tried to suppress the rage growing inside of me.
The panic attack that followed came on stronger than any that I had experienced before. I lined the rhododendron bushes with pale vomit which stunk of alcohol. Despite my vision blurring, I took the time to look through the pub’s windows to see if John had witnessed this, and - confident that he’d been in the back - I slinked off.
With Anna needing to be alone, I looked around for my next destination. With the pub closed, and the rain pouring, I was in need of shelter. I headed for the church.
The ground seemed to spin as I walked, wobbling like a spinning plate. I staggered on, stamping - accidentally - in large pools of water collecting on the side of the roads. My shoes began to soak through, and my socks sloshed with every single step that I took. Despite this, I kept moving, trying not to think about Robert, and, more specifically, trying not to think about hurting him.
I toppled over, landing once again on my face outside the church, only this time there was nobody around to help me to my feet.
Heavy rain pelted my face, and my jeans soaked up the dark, wet mud.
How far I’d come. Just a few days ago the main issues that plagued me were existential: a lack of direction, a lack of fulfilment. Now, I was laying, wet and muddied, in a cold churchyard that was completely foreign to me, with rapidly-dwindling hopes of seeing my fiance again.
There was some perspective to be offered here. No more would I complain about having to write an article about a topic I wasn’t interested in. If I saw Laura again, no more would I let us fight. We’d be happy. We’d have a life together.
Laura and I would get married. I’d leave my job, maybe. Find something more fulfilling.
We could start a family. We’d spoken about kids’ names already. For a boy, Ed - short for Edwin. For a girl, Olivia - after her grandmother. I wasn’t particularly keen on either name.
And then what? We’d go through all the motions. All the things that had seemed to be mundane and ordinary suddenly seemed like heaven to me. All I wanted was to live this typical life. Or, rather, all I wanted was to have this typical life with Laura.
But maybe that wasn’t possible any more. Maybe I wasn’t ever going to see her again. Maybe she’d run off to start a new life. Maybe she wasn’t even… alive.
I couldn’t move. The pain of the situation had overwhelmed me. I was defeated. I couldn’t fathom any possible reason that I’d need to move from this spot ever again. I was willing to be absorbed by the earth, and have the churchyard serve as my final resting place.
My vision turned red - and the blurring ceased. But despite the colouring, my vision was c
learer. I could see farther than I’d normally have been able to see. I could see a greater depth of light than I’d ever seen before. I could read etchings on gravestones 100 feet away. I could see the whole of the town from the church hill, even with the heavy clouds that hovered over it. I could see Joyce’s home, and the Black Horse, and the shop, and… Robert’s home.
I vomited. On the grave of a Sally Banks. Apologies, Sally. The vomit this time wasn’t accompanied by the typical burn at the back of the throat, nor did it have its typical taste. This time, all I could taste was the Root.
On this count, Elizabeth was right. The Root was affecting me. “Taking hold” of me, was how she phrased it - but what did that mean? And what else had she foretold? Would there be voices? Did she say that? That there’d be voices? I couldn’t remember. My mind was a mess.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see wisps of smoke. I turned to search for its source, but even with my currently-improved eyesight, I could see no fire. I raised my arm to my face, shielding my vision from the single bright street lamp that stood outside the church. Only then did I identify the source.
Small, grey wisps of smoke floated gently, hypnotizingly, from my arm, rising slowly upwards before fading away. I looked at my other arm - and there, too, my body seemed to burn with thick black fumes.
Frantic now, I ripped my socks and my shoes from my feet, tossing them aside with a heavy splash as they landed in a thick, brown puddle. Sure enough, my feet smoldered too.
I thought of the creature that had been watching me from the forest - I was now the same. What did this mean for me? Would I ever look myself again?
I was once again consumed by rage. None of this was fair, I thought - conscious I might have sounded like a child. It wasn’t fair that Laura was gone. It wasn’t fair that I’d become this. It wasn’t fair that Anna had been hurt by Robert.
The universe wasn’t going to fix these problems itself, but maybe I could. Maybe that’s why I was here. Maybe that’s why I was in Redbury. Suddenly it all felt like it had meaning, like it had a greater purpose. That was enough to focus me.
As if the universe heard my inner monologue, the trees that stood at the perimeters of the graveyard twisted and groaned, and their shadows moved across the ground. The silhouettes became the shapes of grotesque hands, urging me into the forest. I obeyed.
Shapes in red and black filled my vision. I searched for meaning in them. Maybe this would provide me with clues. Maybe this was how Elizabeth saw things to come. I saw nothing, and the shapes that obscured my vision gave me no insights into events - neither future nor present.
My body must have been moving on its own accord. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming or awake until I slipped into the river and felt ice cold water trickling down my spine, and over my bleeding, bare feet.
The shadows of the trees beckoned me on, twisting, turning, leading me to an old campsite that was well off the beaten track, surrounded only by the thick treeline. A tattered, makeshift tent stood pathetically at the side of the river, the remnants of a fire outside its door.
The trees groaned louder and louder, their voices almost human, almost comprehensible. They screamed to me. They urged me forwards.
I opened the flaps of the tent to find Laura’s body, and screamed an inhuman howl.
I fell to my knees, sobbing heavily between shrieks, holding Laura’s lifeless remains in my arms.
My screams alerted something in the woods.
I could feel movement behind me.
I didn’t care; whatever was lurking in here could have me.
There was no purpose to my existence any more.
I continued whimpering, screaming.
‘Revenge,’ a voice spoke gently behind me. Elizabeth stood over me, eyes brown, skin pale.
She watched me scream with rage.
‘You need to calm yourself, Rey. Before you’re heard.’
I paid no attention, howled louder than before.
Elizabeth held her hands out to her sides and exhaled deeply. As she did so, her eyes began to glow red, her skin began to crawl with smoke, and then a shadow stepped out of her body.
The Shadow was formed entirely of black smoke in Elizabeth’s form, but excluding this, there was no evidence that it was in any way human. It charged towards me with incredible agility, showing no signs that it was going to stop.
As it hit me, I thought I was going to be flung across the campsite, but instead, it took ahold of me. The Shadow entered me.
Elizabeth hobbled over, now once again showing her true age. She pointed at the wooden remnants of the old camp fire, and her arm went up in flames. Quickly, the blaze leapt to the firewood, illuminating us in a soft glare.
‘Look!’ the creature inside of me screamed.
‘WHAT?! Look at what?’ I screamed back.
An arm protruded from my body, pointing into the distance, into the treeline.
‘I can’t see… I can’t see anything,’ I cried.
‘You have the Sight now. Use it,’ the Voice commanded.
I took a deep breath, trying to quell the sobbing, and my vision sharpened. The forest turned red, and through it, in the very distance, my vision winding between trunks and branches, I could see a light.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Look closer.’
As I focused, I recognised the shape of Robert Kamryn’s house.
‘HIM!’ I screamed.
Elizabeth nodded. ‘I did tell you he was a monster.’
‘You knew this? You knew this all along?’
‘Yes,’ she answered.
‘Fuck you! If you knew this, you could have told me. You could have spared me finding out the hard way.’
‘Ah, but only through the hard way would you become the person that you need to become. Only this way will you do the things that you need to do.’
‘And what do you expect me to do?!’
‘You know what I expect,’ she tutted, ‘You know what needs to be done, you know what’s right.’
‘You said I was a killer… is this what you meant?’
Elizabeth smiled. ‘You just needed a little push. I assume that finding Laura was the push you needed?’
The sobbing stopped. There was no room for sorrow any more - there was only rage. It had consumed me.
Elizabeth’s Shadow tore itself from my body, and I seared with pain. It returned to its host, who regained her typical agility.
‘What is that?’ I asked.
The old woman smirked. ‘You’ll learn. With time. Right now, though, you have a job to do, don’t you?’
I looked back through the treeline. ‘Yes.’
Elizabeth pointed, and the trees once again twisted and turned, making a narrow path for me, taking me straight to the house of Robert Kamryn.
I stormed onwards, with no thought but that of hurting Laura’s father. As I became more and more enraged, the smoke from my body seemed to grow, and it began to dart around more quickly, as if it too was looking to cause pain.
As I came up on the house, I saw Ruby, the cat, sitting on the back porch. She didn’t seem alarmed to see me in this form, and simply trotted towards me, stopping a few feet away, and stared me in the eyes. After a few seconds - during which time I assumed I was supposed to understand something - she walked off into the trees.
I continued onwards. There was no time right now for the thoughts of cats.
I burst through the back door of the house to find Robert standing in front of me. His face turned to terror at the vision before him. It was unclear if he knew anything of the Shadows or the Root, but if he did, he certainly hadn’t before seen anything like this in the flesh. He hadn’t seen anything like me.
I stood menacingly over him, looking to strike fear into him, looking to torture him as much as possible for what he’d done. As I stared into his eyes, he recognised me.
‘R-Rey? Morfin? Is… is that you?’ he asked.
I didn’t feel like I needed to
answer, and instead grabbed him by the top of his shirt.
‘Why did you do it?’ I screamed into his face, the smoke lapping at his skin. Robert shrank, now just a scared and weak little old man.
‘Do what?!’
‘Don’t fuck about, Robert. Why did you kill Laura?’
‘I…,’ he replied, ‘…what? I didn’t!’
‘Liar!’ I shouted, throwing him into the wall, where he landed with a crash. The impact caused the shelf above him to crash off the wall, scattering pots and pans over the floor.
He whimpered - in either pain or self-pity, or, more likely, some combination of the two.
‘I’ll ask again!’ I continued, ‘Why did you kill her?’
‘I didn’t, Rey! I didn’t kill her!’
Furious, I grabbed Robert once again, and threw him against a wall.
‘I know who you are, Robert. I know what you really are.’
Robert scrambled to his feet, looking around for an escape. He ran for the open door, but I followed, grabbing him again.
I screamed in his face. ‘I know what you do to people. I know what you do.’ Robert looked horrified, and then sad, and then started to cry.
‘You admit it, then, do you?! You admit that you hurt them?!’ I demanded.
‘Yes! Yes, Rey, I did! But I’ve changed, I don’t do that any more! I just keep to myself! I barely even leave the house, I don’t hurt people any more!’ Robert continued to cry, but it didn’t spark an ounce of sympathy in me.
‘Did you do it to Laura too?’
Robert’s eyes widened, and he looked shocked.
‘Did you… hurt Laura?’ I demanded.
‘No! I’d never do that! She’s my daughter! I loved her!’
I released him, and he fell to the floor.
‘I don’t know if I can believe you, Robert!’ I yelled. ‘I don’t know if I can trust a single fucking thing that comes out of your mouth. You’re a monster!’
Robert clambered to his feet, suddenly indignant.
