The River Dark

by Nicholas Bennett

  The dark shape grew and Tom realized, too late, that it was the ancient mangle. For him, it was third time unlucky.

  *

  5

  All around him the whispers seethed against the walls; snatches of words and images came to him but that was all. They were not intended for him. The missing people of Measton took in the voices like willing hard drive systems, storing the negativity of history in their bodies and souls. Some tore at their hair, tugging it out in bloody clumps, while others fell to the ground foaming at the mouth like rabid dogs, their eyes rolled back into their heads, shuddering with each new wave of experience. The boy to his left began to shudder, mouth wide open, face turned up towards the cavernous ceiling, his eyes bulging. Despite the cacophony of sibilance in the cave, Weaver heard the cleaver hit the ground as it slipped from the boy's twitching palm. He took in a deep breath and moved his eyes to the left. It was there. No more than two feet from his left foot.

  Slowly, he told himself, very slowly.

  He began to bend at the knees with such slowness he felt the tendons in his knees and calved stretch painfully to snapping point. Lower, lower. He allowed his knees to drop gently onto the floor and reached for the besmirched blade with a trembling hand. He felt the wooden handle and scrabbled at it with his fingers until it was in his palm.

  Slowly, he told himself, very slowly.

  He began to reverse the process with equal, painstaking concentration, his legs wobbling with the physical demand. How could something so straightforward be so difficult? He straightened fully and looked from left to right. All was still. Okay good but-

  But something was different. Weaver gulped and tried to work out what had changed. Then it came to him. The whispering had ceased. He sensed movement all around and knew with horror what the mass movement signified. There must have been three hundred and more in the cave and every one of them- man, woman, boy, girl, infant alike- had turned to look at him. Their mouths dropped open in unison. Weaver knew what was coming and dropped the butcher's knife so he could cover his ears. He sensed a dark, malicious humour in the room at the idea that such a feeble gesture of self-preservation could stop them.

  The voices screamed in unison- thousands of voices in the cave- and they were all aimed at Weaver.

  *

  6

  All of the survivors faced the same way, each gaping at something in their midst, some poor soul that was hidden from view. He tentatively reached out and touched the shoulder of the nearest- a young woman clad in the blue overalls of a factory worker- a blue hairnet clinging stubbornly to the nape of her neck. She did not stir. Oddly he felt the thrum of voices within her and he recoiled as though he had touched a live wire.

  Heaney took his opportunity. If ever there was a time to find Andy, it was now, while they were occupied, all focused on a single area.

  What the hell were they doing anyway? He began to skirt the gathering and take in the setting for the first time.

  It was a high cavern, the ceiling hidden from view in shadow. The congregation stood as though all facing the same way but now heads were turned to the centre of the throng away from the object of their original fascination. Heaney jogged around the outside of the mass and saw that at the far side of the gathering there was water; many of the missing stood in dark water up to their knees. As he watched, the water rippled and another joined the crowd, instantly taking up an identical posture, unmoving despite the icy temperature of the water that dripped from the newcomer; it was an old man, Heaney saw and shook his head in disbelief as though everything else that he had beheld conformed to accepted parameters of normality. Define normal, he heard his boss say and felt a pang of guilt at what he had done, at how he had left him there in the darkness to whatever might come but he had to find his boy. Surely Collins could understand that. The whispering slithered off the walls around him.

  Andrew was among them, he knew it. He could feel it.

  "Andrew!" Heaney shouted above the din of whispers. "Where are you son?" he craned his neck and scanned the faces, many that he knew as shopkeepers, neighbours, the old folks that sat on the benches by the Post Office wiling away their years, colleagues- Derek Waters, uniform sergeant since time immemorial was among them, drool in his carefully trimmed greying beard- and children that played in the park at the end of his road, played with his very own children in fact. But no Andy .

  "GIVE ME MY SON YOU BASTARDS!" Heaney roared into the flock but none stirred from their screaming. He thought about stopping and broaching the group from the other side when he came to the door.

  The abstract appearance of the door struck him briefly.

  Heavy oak garnished with wrought iron strips and crossed with the largest bolt he had ever seen, a bolt of iron that would thread through now rusted eyes and into the wall itself. Below his feet a coat of green mud revealed in patches evenly laid flagstones. The bolt, he saw, was drawn back.

  He stepped away from the door, instinctively aware that he should stay well away from what was behind that door.

  He turned back towards the infected people of Measton and saw a hand reach up and above the multitudinous sea of heads.

  There was someone in there, someone sane.

  He stepped towards the nearest row of screamers and squeezed between an elderly woman and a thickset, dark-haired man. Neither reacted so he pushed on further through the cross-section of Measton society noting with dawning realization the varying degrees of depreciation in their physical appearance. Some he recognized from the mountain of missing person documentation that was being processed back when life had seemed to have a foothold on reality no matter how slight, how thin- before Paul and Andrew had taken his boat onto the flood waters against his direst warnings.

  All because of him. His fault.

  Heaney knew that now. Paul had hated him for leaving, for betraying his wife and children and this was his punishment. The boy had gone against the common sense of his own nature simply because his father had dared to tell him what to do. Heaney felt tears burning his eyes. He came to a knot of limbs where several of the possessed had fallen against each other, there frail bodies finally depleted of energy. Not wanting to walk on their prone extremities, Heaney pushed to the left.

  Christ, he thought, but the smell was enough to make you run screaming.

  These people were beyond reason he thought but still their bodies continued to function. At least until they burned out of course. What would the voices do then?

  Find new hosts.

  The sound intensified around him, the humming note reaching a higher pitch, the thousands of whispers harmonizing in insane arpeggios. Heaney felt as though he had strayed into a hive- a hive in which the drones were actually human. If that was the case, where was the queen?

  "Heaney!"

  Heaney swiveled towards the voice and saw David Weaver. He had his hands plastered against the side of his head and his teeth clenched against the onslaught. Heaney had found the source of the voices attention. Heaney stopped and looked around. The screamers continued, oblivious to his presence. Weaver mouthed words at him. Help me, please! Heaney took a step forward and stopped again.

  Wait a minute now, he thought. In the words of Ma Heaney from way back over the water catch yourself on there, John Heaney. Indeed. Weaver looked at him imploringly. Heaney's first instinct was to lunge through the statuesque screamers and grab Weaver but catch yourself on there a minute, Big man. What if they snapped out of this trance or whatever you'd like to call it and turned their attentions on yourself? How about that, Big Man? And then, of course, he would be unable to continue to seek out Andrew. He shook his head at Weaver; the young man's face fell in to a tortured howl.

  "I'm sorry," Heaney called over the heads of the infected. "I have to find my boy!" He watched Weaver sink to the floor in despair and turned away. God forgive me, he thought and turned away.

  "Row, row, row your boat-" Andy's sweet voice sang out. Heaney whirled back towards the sound.
<
br />   "- gently down the stream-"

  It came from the door. That was where they had him. Behind that old door.

  "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily life is but a dream."

  Heaney lurched towards the sound, back in the direction of the oak door in the wall, less mindful of disturbing the infected, pushing the slumped shoulders to one side as he writhed through their ever increasing circles.

  "I'M COMING ANDREW! DADDY'S COMING! HOLD ON SON!" His desperate voice boomed off the curvature of the cavern and disappeared into the myriad tunnels. He broke through the outer circle of infected and looked at the door. Instinct had urged him away from that door. Fear. But his son was in there. He strode purposefully towards the door noticing for the first time that it was not only unlocked but open.

  Just a crack. Just a few inches. Just enough to hear his son.

  Merrily, merrily-

  Heaney came to a standstill two strides from the door, his primitive senses screaming at him to run, to get away. In his mind's eye he saw the wife that he had betrayed sitting on Andy's empty bed and the son whose heart he had broken, unconscious and pale in his own. Life is but-

  "GIVE ME MY SON YOU BASTARDS!" Heaney screamed, pushed the door inwards and stepped into

  - a dream.

  Dimly he heard a familiar voice scream his name and then he looked into the void.

  merrily

  *

  7

  Weaver sank to the floor among the filth that these poor people had allowed to run freely from their bodies, any dignity and nurture long gone. Despite the bombardment of the collective whispers, he fought to keep them out.

  He visualized draw bridges being raised, shutters closed, thick steel doors sliding shut and bolts and chains affixed to the doors of his inner sanctum. He locked himself away, far from the invasion, safe from intrusion in the womb of his being.

  Then Heaney had arrived.

  Despite his meditation he had felt the presence of another uninfected being and allowed himself to surface briefly. Heaney had turned away from him, refusing to help him get out of there and that was all it took, it was enough.

  Then the voices broke through. Thousands of them.

  Human depravity filled his mind until he thought his brain would explode and his heart burst with the pain of it all. Images and words. Prejudice and pain. He was a young girl, raped, strangled and dumped into the water in 1964, the face of her leering uncle following her into the darkness; an infant child beaten one time too many and placed into a sack and weighted with pebbles; he was the mother, in purgatory, cutting her wrists and allowing her lifeblood to ebb away into the bath as she recited Hail Mary Full of Grace, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; he was face of the killer in the eyes of a woman called Emily and he was Emily as she listened to the air whistle from her punctured lung and watched the man she had trusted to give her a lift to Birmingham tug at her knickers; he was a young man that had been killed by his young lover, a woman that he had loved but was forbidden to marry because of class differences, a woman that had snarled with such rage as she had struck him, that he had realised even as he died that he had never really known her at all; he was a shrunken man with a pocketful of numbers, unconsciously counting down the days until he stepped into the waters of the River Meas to end his miserable life; he was a visitor from a foreign land, bagged and stabbed, the water filling his mouth as he breathed his last, asking himself why, why, why?- remembering the way he had fought for the allies in World War II; he was so much more than this; he was victim and perpetrator, grieving and jubilant, desire and satisfaction, blood and stone; he was sinking beneath the weight of sin- I'm dying, Weaver thought and was glad; the darkness filled his mind and he waited for the coldness to overpower his spirit; he tried to visualize Nirvana IV as he had done before- something of positive to accompany him into the depths but- the final twist of the knife- only the reaching figure came, that inscrutable face; he was a young boy that liked to tease his sister, a young boy that was over-filled with hateful indignation for one so young, a boy with a thief for a father and tart for a mother, a boy not to be trusted, the baddest of bad boys, a boy drowned at a tender age, a boy that had given his life, he was-

  Grant watched with horror as his young friend went under. He could see the remains of the old catwalk a few feet below the surface; if he moved across from the centre of the bridge a few more feet, he guessed, he would clear it and avoid the same fate as Davey and the copper. The copper was screaming as he dragged himself through the water towards the bank. Grant moved along the catwalk and peered downstream for any sign of Davey. He was gone. He remembered old Mrs. Thould from down the street talking about the drowning of the Green boy the previous summer. It's the undercurrent y'see, it's vicious.

  Grant jumped.

  He hit the water, bracing himself against hazardous debris in the water and submerged for several seconds, opening his eyes, desperately trying to see Davey. To his immediate right, the offending steel structure that had maimed Davey and the copper. He had judged well. But there was no sign of his little friend. His lungs complained bitterly; the impact had knocked most of the air out of him. He kicked his legs until he surfaced and took in a massive lungful of air. On the bank to his left the young copper was screaming in agony. The older copper had scrambled down the sidings, saw Grant and called to him. Grant plunged back into the water and scissor kicked furiously until he could make out the grassy riverbed through the vegetable green water.

  No Davey. Grant felt the irresistible pull of the weir current and allowed himself to go with it. The current would have taken his friend. He did not struggle or attempt to swim faster. He carefully conserved his air. He rolled onto his back and looked to the surface and saw the rippled figure of the copper jogging along the river bank. He turned back into a face down position and saw the dark place in the river bed. This is what the old timers talk about he realised. The uneven steps in the riverbed that caused the current to bite and pull. Silly old bastards, he thought and allowed a large bubble of used air to escape from his mouth. He felt himself being tugged, inexorably towards the pothole and let it happen.

  Davey was in there, he was sure of it.

  He squinted into the darkness and saw that he was right. His little friend lay face down in the ravine, his arms motionless and outstretched, like Jesus.

  That was when Grant had realised that he saw Davey too well; it was lighter down there, not darker. That was not all.

  Davey was not alone.

  The shape in the water reached up with thin arms and overlarge hands to the boy, head swollen and insubstantial as a rotten apple left in the water barrel to rot, where the face should be, only a gaping hole. Grant shook his head. Surely he was dreaming or even dead. But he felt no fear. That was because of the whispers. The reassuring voices coaxing, soothing and-

  -lying. Grant clenched his teeth and kicked his legs in order to reach out and grab Davey's floating t-shirt. He felt the whisperer's rage: they wanted the boy; they would have the boy.

  Fuck you, Grant thought, and took hold of his friend's shirt.

  He didn't believe anyone. Not even his father. Why the fuck should I listen to you? He pulled at the inert boy and he came easily. Grant looked away from the figures below- that such a deep crack in the river bed should go unnoticed for so long occurred to him briefly- and he kicked for the surface pushing Davey before him. He was aware of the copper nearby, thundering through the shallows to get to them. Davey surfaced with a final push.

  Grant felt the icy grip encircle his ankle. He was yanked back into the ravine-

  - standing on the precipice of the welle, in the full knowledge that, if the fall did not kill her, what was lying in wait below would most certainly take her, another sacrifice to the priests, another meal for the unholy holy men. Er she woke the other was ther. Er she slept the other was ther. 'T al tymes t'other was ther.

  Weaver became the sacrifices of generation af
ter generation: whether young or old, male or female, they would be cast into the shadows beneath the town for fear of invoking the curse of the abbots. Some were killed immediately for their meat while others, the younger, riper specimens were kept in the locked room, behind the heavy oak door, reserved to fulfill other kinds of hunger, to satiate other desires. The ages flicked by with ever-increasing rapidity, sunrise and sunset flickering like a candle on the breeze. Until-

  -time slowed to the speed of the current once more, the regular pulse beat of the town.

  And then Weaver saw the floating form of a boy, drawing ever closer to the chasm in the river bed to where they waited, the essence of the forgotten abbots, their hunger palpable, their ancient need shifting the undercurrent to their will, drawing the innocent to them with the inevitable, irresistible steadiness of broken branches heading for the weir.

  The boy was theirs; the town had made its offering. It could feel him, taste his naiveté, smell his vitality. He was theirs. No-