She must have drifted off at some point as she was woken by a loud rustling sound. Startled and dazed, it took a few seconds in the dark to realise where she was. The noise was coming from behind the tree but she dared not look. Fear froze her to the spot. She held her breath, trying not to make any sound. The sound grew louder, it was like something heavy was being dragged along the rough ground. She pulled her legs up to her chest trying to make herself as small as possible; the wound on her thigh stung and she gritted her teeth, putting pressure on it, praying it wouldn’t tear more. Closer and closer the sound grew, every nerve of her body trembled in fear.
The noise started moving round the right side of the tree. She contemplated running but knew she would never make it. She kept her head turned to the right waiting for something to appear in the darkness, praying she wouldn’t be discovered. Suddenly, a dark silhouette came into view. She stared, wide-eyed and terrified; every nerve in her body was alive with fear willing her to run, but she had to stay hidden, she had to make out who or what the creature could be. It appeared to be cloaked with a hood shielding the face so she couldn’t make out any features in the moonlight. The creature was hunched over and was dragging something that looked like a dead animal. Another sound from her left made her whip her head around. She was confronted with gleaming red eyes and a wide foaming mouth full of sharp teeth. She screamed as the beast moved closer; her adrenaline and survival instinct kicked in and she dragged her battered body out of her makeshift sanctuary in a frantic panic. All rational thought had escaped her and she didn’t know how she would get away. Her vision was minimal and her leg was a mess; the deep cut stung as she moved.
Suddenly she was dragged to the ground by an invisible force. She felt something surround her, pinning her face down on the forest floor. It held her like invisible chains, gagging her so she couldn’t scream or shout out. She could hear a haunting female voice chanting in a language which was foreign to her but was not certain the sound was this creature, as it seemed to be coming from the trees all around her. The pressure around her head was released enough for her to turn her head to the right, her cheek pressed to the cold, damp forest floor. She stared wide-eyed at the cloaked figure which was now looming over her menacingly; she was terrified to even move. She tried to remain as limp as possible because every time she struggled against the force it held her tighter.
There was a black wolf sitting a few feet behind the cloaked figure, it had the same red eyes she had witnessed seconds ago and was glaring right at her, baring its sharp white fangs ready to tear her apart at its master’s command. The figure stooped down and appeared to be taking in her features. All of a sudden the figure twisted its head towards the wolf and nodded; the wolf moved towards her and she closed her eyes tight, unable to move, awaiting the first painful bite of teeth ripping at her flesh. She opened her eyes seconds later when she didn’t feel anything to find the wolf had disappeared leaving the creature to loom over her. A weird sense of calmness washed over her as the chanting started again but sounded different this time. She felt so drowsy but fought desperately to stay awake. “Please help,” she mouthed before her eyes rolled back and the unconsciousness finally claimed its victim.
*** She woke standing in the clearing of a churchyard. Frowning, she looked around, puzzled at how she had gotten there and how she was standing up when she had been forced face down on the ground only moments ago. Either the creature had brought her here or she must have sleepwalked after she had passed out. She had a history of sleepwalking in the past but she was certain that wasn’t what had happened. She looked around for answers, where was the creature she had encountered before she lost consciousness? Surely it hadn’t just left her, it had to be around. Her mind raced, searching for answers and understanding of this bizarre situation. She must have only been out for a little while because it was still dark; the moonlight shone on the churchyard giving it a haunting twilight glow. The only darkness came from the shadows of the trees and bushes trailing the church walls. A shudder racked through her and she wrapped her arms around herself to warm her cold body. She couldn’t just stand around here, she had to find someone to help her before the creature came back or that monster found her and dragged her back to that prison to torture her some more. He had to have realised she was gone by now. She shook off the fear rising in the pit of her stomach that threatened to turn into panic. She decided to look around, the sooner she was out of the open and in hiding the better.
The church was just to her left and looked like it had seen better days; the brickwork was worn, the foliage from the yard had overgrown and vines covered the outside of the church, holding the building captive in their accent up the walls. The church looked like it had been deserted for a long time. She made her way around the front of the big building, hoping to find a way in. She found two big wooden doors set within an archway. The ringed door handles were rusted and felt rough beneath her hands; she tugged on them and was shocked to find the door opened easily. She pulled the doors open and entered the eerie church hallway, taking in the high ceilings and the rows of wooden pews.
There was a woman kneeling with her back to her on the steps of the chancel leading to the altar, she was nursing something and rocking back and forth. The woman had long black hair that flowed in a thick mass to the base of her spine and was wearing a dark red dress which was torn and dirty on the bottom, obviously from being dragged along the floor – it looked old fashioned. “Hello?” she called. A sense of relief washed over her at finding someone. The woman didn’t answer. She tried again. “Hey.” Still no response, it was as if the woman was oblivious to everything around her other than what she appeared to have cradled in her arms. I must be dreaming, she thought, and shook her head to try and wake herself up. Suddenly, she felt herself pulled by an invisible force towards the stranger; her feet seemed to walk of their own accord until she was a few feet behind her.
As she got nearer she realised the woman was holding a tiny sleeping baby wrapped up tight in what looked like a pure white silk sheet. She looked at the woman’s features and was astonished at the familiarities she saw, it was like staring into a mirror. She started trying to back away, terrified by what she was seeing.
“Is this what happens...? Am I dead?” she shouted at the woman, and the woman lifted her head. She seemed to stare right into her soul, her eyes were black and void of any emotion. She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself to try and warm her skin; she needed to get out of this church and quickly. As if sensing her thoughts of escape the woman started chanting in a strange language, it was like the chanting she had heard from that creature in the forest.
Shit, this was bad. She started backing up towards the church door keeping her eyes pinned on the woman. She had only backed up a few steps when her feet started to grow heavy, it was like she had lead weights in her shoes. The weight became so intense she couldn’t move her feet no matter how hard she tried. This had to be a dream, she thought, pinching at the skin on her arm as hard as she could to wake herself up, desperate to escape this ordeal, but the squeeze of her skin did nothing to drag her out of this nightmare. Panic really began to set in and she cried out in frustration. How could she be so stupid and allow herself to be caught again?
Her insides began to feel warm; the heat from inside her stomach pushed its way up her body and down her arms and then disappeared as if it had escaped through the tips of her fingers. Strangely there was no pain. Looking back at the woman for answers, her eyes were wide with fear and confusion. Her heart thudded in her chest, terrified by what she was witnessing. The woman’s eyes had turned red and she was glaring straight at her with a scornful hatred.
The woman was now standing facing her head-on. The baby she had held only moments ago, had disappeared. As if out of nowhere flames began engulfing the woman’s feet, they seemed to appear from the floor below her. She threw her arms out, spreading them in front of her, her hands like claws. She looked feral, a wild beast about to
devour its prey. The chanting was getting louder and the flames were getting higher; the urge to run and hide was so strong. She tried to struggle out of the invisible weight holding her in this terrifying ordeal. It was useless, the more she struggled the heavier her feet became. She wanted to scream but no sound came out when she tried. All she could do was look on, terrified, and await her fate. She stared at the woman unable to blink for fear of what was to come next. She silently prayed she would be spared.
The woman began swaying and chanting; the more she swayed the louder the chanting got and the higher the flames rose on the woman’s body. Without warning the chanting stopped and the flames disappeared. The woman’s eyes closed, her face screwed up in anguish, but she maintained the swaying. There was a deathly silence all around.
Memories of a baby being ripped from his mother’s arms, panic and so much pain flooded her mind. The realisation of what this woman had endured became so clear, as if she and this woman had become one being. She could feel the woman’s fear, love, anger, and loss all at once. She cried out, the grief too much to bear. They had taken her baby boy away and brutally murdered all her family and friends; she was made to witness each person’s death, every one more brutal than the last. She saw each of their faces, men, women and children, and watched as they were all lined up and butchered one by one, slashed, and cut open, she saw bones and skin being torn from flesh and discarded like pieces of unwanted meat. The screams of unimaginable pain and terror deafened her. The blood, there was so much blood.
The face of one man appears at the forefront of the visions, he is the one they call Dominus, extremely handsome but in the blackness of his soul there lies a terrifying insanity. He believes in his sick mind that she has betrayed him by giving her body to another, she has contaminated her divine power by bringing a halfling into the world. His narrowed eyes are full of hate as he watches with a wicked smile on his lips, as her loved ones are torn to pieces in front of her eyes. He stares straight into her face and spits out the word ‘Proditio’ after each person is slain, seemingly enjoying every second of this bloodbath. He condemned her to death, but before he let her take her final breath she had endured weeks of torture until she was a shell of the woman she had once been. His followers tied her up outside in the very church garden she was standing in now. Tying her battered and abused body to a makeshift post that had been buried in the ground, they burned her until her already weak body gave in to death, leaving her soul locked here to wander the church grounds searching for her child and the retribution for her dead love.
She was seeing a series of events through the woman’s eyes; the pain which surged though her heart felt like it would tear her in two. Tears poured down her face; with every scene came a fresh ripple of grief. The sadness turned into anger and then into hatred until the hatred consumed her very existence. She sobbed, holding out her arms, begging for this woman’s torment to finish. The woman maintained her swaying movements; her eyes slowly opened but held no emotion. The woman suddenly charged. Her face screwed up with the hatred she had witnessed only moments before, her eyes turned bright red. The woman pounced at her, entering her body and the flames returned with vengeance, engulfing them both. She was left with only a whispered name on her lips.
Annabelle.
Chapter Two
She woke to daylight and a loud engine. She was reluctant to open her eyes, scared that this was another nightmare. She was astonished to find herself in the back of what appeared to be a Transit van. She was laying on an old mattress which was covered with a dirty old brown canvas blanket which smelt strongly of petrol. She looked around, taking in the metal walls that rattled with the vehicle’s movement; there was a dark blue curtain that blocked her view of the driver and on the back windows there was newspaper and masking tape blocking the view to outside, but allowing the daylight through.
Suddenly everything came flooding back to her, the cloaked figure from the night before, the wolf and that crazy dream she had just woken up from, this was so surreal. She tried to drag herself up but her head wouldn’t allow it, a wave of dizziness and nausea overcame her and she had to lie back down before she fell or threw up.
“You’re awake?” a loud deep male voice questioned from the other side of the closed curtain. Panic started rising again in her chest and she scrambled to an upright position, backing up to lean against the inside of the van for support, all the time intensely watching the curtains that created a flimsy barrier between her and her captor.
“Where are you taking me?” she cried. Her voice was cracked and her throat hurt. “What do you want with me?”
The voice spoke again, much softer this time. “Don’t be scared, you were hurt and asked for help. I will explain everything but first I need to get us to a safe place. There’s a bottle of water in the back there, please take it, drink as much as you want,” he said.
There was a slight accent in the voice she heard but couldn’t decipher it. She was curious about what he looked like but didn’t have the nerve to move the curtain. He sounded genuine enough and the deep smoothness of his voice seemed to put her at ease, but it could be another trick and God knows she had been fooled enough over the last few months to know not to trust anyone.
She pondered over the last twenty-four hours and the struggle to escape. She really thought she had made it out of that hell.
She felt defeated and completely helpless. She knew trying to run from those sick bastards wouldn’t do her any good.
Her leg had been a struggle to even walk on, so she wouldn’t be running anywhere anytime soon. She looked down to inspect her makeshift dressing on her thigh; her wound had been dressed with a fresh bandage. Strangely it wasn’t hurting as much anymore, maybe this guy was telling the truth and he was going to help her.
“What happened to my leg?” she called, confus ed. Her head was full of unanswered questions she needed to ask. What had happened to her? How long had she been unconscious? And who was this guy? Her train of frantic thought was interrupted with his answer.
“I cleaned you up, you were in a pretty bad st ate... Try and rest some more, we’ve got a few more hours to cover before we get to the safe house.”
Slumping back, frustrated at this guy’s lack of an explanation but too wary to press him for more information, she decided to wait it out, certain she would get her answers soon like he had said. Finding a brand-new litre bottle of water next to the mattress, she hurriedly opened it, forcing the lid and breaking the seal. She wasted no time in guzzling it down greedily, she couldn’t remember the last time she had a drink. She had been so determined to get away from that place she hadn’t thought of food or water, only freedom. The water came as a relief, it quenched her dehydrated body and eased her sore throat and dry lips. Feeling refreshed, she screwed the lid back on the bottle. A wave of drowsiness suddenly overcame her and her head span. She fought the sedation that threatened to take over. Her body was too weak to fight it. She lay back down on the battered mattress feeling fragile and worn out as she drifted into another unconscious but dreamless state.
*** When she next woke, it was dusk outside and the van was no longer moving. There was an eerie silence that chilled her to the core and set her already shattered nerves on edge. She slowly lifted her wary body up; her muscles ached and her head was pounding. She gave herself a minute for her eyes to adjust. “Hello?” she croaked but got no answer. She crawled slowly towards the doors and tried the handle but it was locked from the outside. She peeled back some of the tape which covered the back windows so she could see where she was.
To her left there were trees and a big cattle gate. On the right, there was a car park surrounded by trees. She could see a few vehicles but the view was restricted because of the way the van had been parked. She slumped with her back against the door; tears filled her eyes and began to overflow. She buried her head into her hands and sobbed uncontrollably. She had held it together for so long she didn’t have any fight left any more; this
was it, she was going to die, he had found her. She just hoped it would be quick, she couldn’t endure any more torture.
A noise from outside the van brought her back to her senses and she sat upright. Realising she was still leaning against the door she scrambled back onto the mattress; her leg throbbed but she wouldn’t let that stop her. She scanned the van frantically looking for something to use as a weapon, all she could find was the water bottle. That would have to do, she thought desperately. If this was the end she would fight with every breath she had left. Her nose was running and the tears that hadn’t dried yet stained her cheeks; she dabbed at her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, trying to compose herself. How could I have let myself fall apart like that? she wondered, cursing her stupid weakness. She would not let them win, she wasn’t back in her prison cell yet.
The noise outside was getting closer, she realised it was footsteps connecting with the gravel of the car park. She stared at the doors warily, awaiting her fate on the other side of them.
Suddenly the doors were yanked open and she felt a welcoming breeze from outside enter her metal prison, filling her lungs with clean air. A beam of light from a torch shone in her face; she squinted, shielding her eyes from the glare.
Unfamiliar (The Vandran Legacy Book 1) Page 2
