by Rob Campbell
“It’s not like Lester and his organisation – everybody working together for the common good. It’s not even like the Wardens, who recruit people directly from university.”
“They have a graduate recruitment programme?” I asked incredulously.
“I suppose it is like that. But they’re looking for people on the margins of society. Troubled individuals with minds ripe for manipulation. They feed on dark thoughts, bending the will of these poor wretches, filling their hearts with a darkness that is difficult to remove. They are particularly interested in those who claim to have had paranormal experiences.”
“I told you this was bad juju,” Monkey said, his voice devoid of any humour.
“Anyway, the point I was making is that people who know how to combat this kind of stuff – we’re, I mean they’re – more like experts in certain areas, people discussing this and that and pooling their results. I’ve travelled a bit and spoken to some interesting people.”
“You said we’re,” I emphasised.
“I just meant people like us who know about the Wardens and try to stop them.” He was holding something back; I could tell by the way he averted his eyes. I thought that I’d try a different tack.
“Why do the Wardens do all this? Why are they so intent on causing misery?”
“Why does anybody do anything? Usually for money or power or influence. Look deep enough, you’ll find the answer somewhere between the three.” He had the air of a college lecturer who knew his stuff back-to-front and had grown weary of explaining it to slow-witted students. “I’d say in their case it’s the influence part that drives them.”
“Influence? On who?” Monkey asked.
“That’s the big question, isn’t it? I need to be really sure that you are in with me before telling you that, and even then, I’m not sure that either of you are ready.” He paused for a second, first looking at me, then at Monkey, like he was weighing up something of great importance. He pressed his lips together, and I noticed that his hands were shaking a little.
“What is it, Dylan?” I asked, hoping that saying those words softly would help coax him to spill whatever he was having so much difficulty telling us.
“It’s something beyond your understanding, something beyond this world,” he said, choosing his words carefully.
I thought back to Lester’s explanation of how this all started – Abernathy and his colleagues at Durham University, sitting around a table at their séance. “What? Like a ghost or an evil spirit or something?”
“I need to be sure before I tell you.” Dylan’s voice had changed again. I could tell that he was deadly serious now. He stood up from the table, walked over to the back window and looked out into the yard before pacing around the room.
“We’ve told you everything we know. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t ready!” I protested. Surely that would be enough to convince him.
“Have you asked yourself why I turned up in church that day?” Dylan said, going off on a tangent that my maths teacher would have been proud of. “Why I came looking for you at the theatre in the first place? Why I left you alone whilst you searched for the painting?”
“Go on, tell us,” I challenged.
Dylan leaned on the table and whispered theatrically. “Because I knew that eventually, you’d come back to me – ask for my help.”
“Well, what can I say? Look’s like you were right.”
“Cards on the table time,” Dylan said, retaking his seat at the table. “I know that you’ve come in good faith, and you’ve provided me with some useful information. I think that together, the three of us can make a good team. I knew that you’d come to the church that day to speak to the vicar. I knew that Abram had some connection to this whole thing, and thanks to your efforts, I now know why. I know that there’s something of significance happening in Culverton Beck.”
“How do you know all of these things, Dylan?” I felt like it was a question I’d asked many times, certainly in my head, but in all the back and forth, I couldn’t remember if I’d actually given voice to my thoughts.
“I know things,” he stated simply. “Come on,” he added, beckoning us out of the dining room. We followed him into a kitchen that looked at least three decades out of date, and he stopped at a door on which a pair of oven gloves was hanging. He grabbed the handle and pulled the door open, flicking a switch on the wall beyond. A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated a set of stone steps that led down to another door.
“The answer lies down there,” he said, pointing down the steps.
At that moment, I experienced an element of doubt, but even though this felt like something dreamed up for a horror movie – featuring a couple of dumb teenagers, I heard a voice in my head saying – I just wanted to know.
“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll go first, and you can follow behind me.”
I held my hand out, indicating that he should lead the way, and he set off, the sound of his shoes tapping against the stone echoing off the walls. I followed him down, Monkey bringing up the rear. When Dylan reached the door, he stopped, the light from the bulb illuminating the left side of his face and casting a shadow on the dark wood of the door.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked. “Once you go through that door, nothing will ever be the same again. Behind this door is a world you couldn't possibly imagine. The reason why I know things, the reason why I'm here in Culverton Beck.”
What the hell did he mean by that? I looked back at Monkey and saw that his eyes were like saucers and the muscles at the side of his jaw were tight. He gulped, and I thought for all the world that he was about to turn around and bolt back up the steps.
“What are you thinking?” I asked him.
He shook his head slowly. “I’m thinking that this is bad juju, Lorna.”
“You always told me there was a supernatural explanation to all this, and I never believed you,” I replied, trying to raise his spirits.
“I’m starting to wish I was wrong,” he admitted.
“You want to leave it?”
“I never said that.”
“We need to know what’s happening in our town, Monkey. I can’t live with that painting under my bed for the rest of my life, jumping at every shadow. You can’t live not knowing…”
He shot me a dark look, clearly believing that I was about to say something about his Uncle Archie or his dad.
“Okay,” he said through clenched teeth.
Dylan, who had patiently watched our conversation, put one hand on each of our shoulders. “What’s it going to be?”
I thought about all we’d been through to get to this point – our work with Lester, tracking down the painting, breaking into an old house just to steal it, and the fate that had befallen Charles Gooch. I weighed all of this against the possibility that Dylan might not be telling us everything and that he could have a nasty surprise waiting for us behind this door.
But in the end, it came down to one very simple fact: I needed to know.
“Open it.”
THE END
Lorna and Monkey will return in “The Well of Tears”
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