by Jack Lewis
“Where’ve you been?” asked Mag.
“You really haven’t seen Alt?” said Loe.
Damn it, this wasn’t going to work. Loe just didn’t trust him and Mag, for whatever reason. Did she think that he and Mag had something to do with the man who’d been dragging her?
Whatever she thought, they weren’t going to get any answers like this. Jay stepped toward her. She stepped back. He offered her his knife. “Take it.”
He expected her to appreciate the offer but refuse, and for him to have won her trust with a meaningless gesture. Instead, she grabbed the knife.
“Wake him up,” Loe said, nodding at the man.
Jay looked from him to Loe, then back again.
“Loe, he’s not waking from anything.”
“What?”
“Mag saw him dragging you. She smacked him with a hammer.”
“Oh hell,” said Loe. She held her head and lurched woozily, dropping the knife and only stopping herself from falling on her face by putting her hands out.
Mag kneeled in front of her. “We need to get you back to the hall. You need to sleep, Loe.”
Jay was surprised at how collected Mag was. He felt like his own heart was going to explode out of him, and he hadn’t hit anyone over the head. Maybe it was shock. As soon as this was over, she was going to crumble. He just needed to make sure he was strong for her. He owed her that much, since she’d been stronger than him all their lives.
Loe nodded at the man, and she pointed the knife at Mag. “Check his pulse.”
“Him? The guy was dragging you through the bloody woods!”
“Check his pulse!”
Jay put his fingers against the guy’s neck. “Nothing.”
“Oh, hell,” said Loe again, getting back to her feet. She paced around, slightly stronger on her feet this time. “Now we’re done. Screwed.”
“Who the hell was this guy? What are you talking about?”
Loe grabbed the old woman by the shoulders. “Do you know the way out, you wrinkled bitch?”
“Loe!” said Mag, disbelief in her voice. “What are you doing?”
Loe shook the old woman. “Your son was going to get us out of here. He was going to help both our families get out of this, before you ruined it. So now, you’re going to get us out of here!”
Jay grabbed Loe and pulled her away, while the old lady sobbed.
He barely knew what to say. To the woman, to Loe, to Mag. Nothing made sense.
Finally, Loe broke the silence. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
“Damn right you shouldn’t!”
“I’m sorry, but the old bint was the one who knocked me out.”
“Right…of course she was.”
“Seriously! She crept up on me. She’s the second person to whack me on the head while I’ve been here. Add her to the list, along with your big brother.”
“Alt hit you?” said Jay.
“Loe, you’re about fifty miles ahead of us. What the hell is going on?” said Mag.
Loe nodded at Mag. “Make sure the old hag doesn’t leave. Old hag, I’m sorry I shook you, but you deserved it. Jay, take your knife back and listen to me. I have a hell of a lot to explain.”
Chapter Eighteen
There in the forest, with Emory lying dead on the ground and the old woman –his mother or grandmother – oblivious to everything, Loe explained it all.
She told them that the Gale family had cursed the Harrows, and that this passed on from generation to generation until it afflicted their father and then them.
She told them that the Gale family were caretakers of the curse, that Emory used rituals and black magic to warp the forest and bind them all to it.
She told them of the curse itself. That it began as sadness and bloomed into despair, and that its result was always the same: trapped within the boundaries of Harrow Woods, the cursed people would always take their own life.
Watching their expressions, they couldn’t have made their disbelief clearer if they’d come here holding wooden signs with ‘we don’t believe you’ written in blood.
So she explained things again. She answered their questions. She foresaw other questions, answering them before they even got a chance to ask.
It took her a lot of patience, but they got there. She couldn’t say exactly how long it had taken, but finally, they were on the same page as her.
Mag seemed to have taken it the worst. Her eyes were dark, her face tired. She looked at Emory, lying there on the ground with a peaceful expression, and she shuddered.
“He was going to lead you out of here,” said Mag. “He was the only one who knew how. And I…”
Jay put his hand on her shoulder. “He was dragging Loe through the mud! What else could you have done?”
Loe nodded. “He’s right.”
“What now?”
“Maybe the old woman can show us a way out.”
“Try asking her,” said Loe.
Jay gave the old lady what he probably thought was his most winning smile. Not gonna work on her, thought Loe.
“Do you think you could take us out of here? Could you lead us home?” he said.
The old woman gave a kind smile. “Home, dear?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
Jay turned around and gave Loe and Mag a quick thumbs-up. Then he faced the woman again. “So which way do we go?”
“Go where?”
“Home.”
“You are home, dear.”
He sighed. “What now?”
“I’ve been thinking about what Emory told me,” said Loe. “He said that every curse needs a target, a consequence, a duration, and a caster. The target is us, the duration is bloody forever. Nothing we can do about that.”
“The consequence doesn’t sound pleasant either,” said Jay. “How long before we start feeling it?”
“It could be weeks to start. Once it has, it’ll go on for years. I think that’s the point of it. Slow despair gradually taking over you. You can’t go anywhere, because you’re trapped. All you can do is wait for it to eat away at you. How long was Stanway out here, alone?”
“Too long.”
“Wait,” said Mag. “The Gale family are the caretakers of the curse. Emory’s father died, and his duties passed on to him. Emory is dead now. What if he didn’t have kids? What if the curse died with him?”
Jay’s eyes lit up. “This might be over!”
Loe couldn’t believe it. She wanted to, but she couldn’t let herself.
“There’s a way to test it. If the curse is over, maybe the forest will stop behaving like such an arse. The felled tree should be that way,” she said, pointing. “Let’s see if we can find it.”
They set off, each of them feeling nervous and scared but also hopeful, at least in Jay’s case.
They only walked for twenty minutes, before Harrow Hall loomed back in sight.
Jay kicked a rock, sending it flying twenty feet ahead. “That’s it, then.”
“That’s it,” agreed Mag.
Loe shook her head. “Not quite. Emory told me that the curse needs an anchor. Something to bind itself to, something that will always be there.”
“Harrow Hall.”
“Harrow Hall,” agreed Loe. “No matter where we go, it’s always here. The forest changes, but the hall never does. This is the anchor. For the curse to keep going, the cursed people have to be kept near the hall.”
“We need to destroy it,” said Mag. “Burn it to cinders.”
Jay stared at the house. “With pleasure,” he said.
Loe felt energized now. They had a plan, and this time it was one that she could let herself believe in. She felt Clive begin to stir in her head, but it was different now. She knew that she could beat him, and she knew how.
The same thing she always did.
“Let’s get busy. We need to do this quickly and do it properly. Go into the hall and find every kind of accelerant you can.
Petrol, kerosene, anything that will burn quickly. Then we need matches, firelighters. Find everything, and bring it out here.”
“Shouldn’t we stick together?” said Mag.
Loe weighed it up. They needed to be quick. Then again, that didn’t mean they should be stupid.
“Fine. We’ll search together. Let’s go.”
They had walked just ten paces when they heard someone cackling behind them.
The old woman hadn’t followed them toward the hall. She was standing there in her dirty, oversized gown, with a hideous grin plastered on her face. She tipped her head back, laughing and showing her teeth and tongue, drops of saliva falling from her mouth.
“He’s here,” she said, in between gasping laughs. “He’s here!”
“Crazy old cow,” muttered Jay.
And then they heard the roar.
“Look!” shouted Mag.
It was a creature of some kind; running on two legs, but with a bestial face, crow-black eyes, and great hoofs that smashed into the ground and tore away chunks of mud.
Mag ran to the house. Loe was about to follow but saw that Jay was frozen to the spot. She grabbed him, dragged him a few paces, and then he began to run on his own.
They reached the hall, hurried inside, and slammed the door. Jay slid the bolts across, while Mag and Loe dragged a table out of the kitchen, across the hallway, and set it against the door.
They went into the study, and Loe drew back the curtains so they could see outside.
She heard the beast battering the door with its head over and over again. As she forced herself to watch it from the window, one word shocked its way into Loe’s mind.
Him.
The paintings scattered around Harrow Hall. The framed paintings of a monster in the forest, a monster of shadow and darkness, lurking behind trees, fear and dread emanating from it even inside the frame.
The title below each painting had read Him, and this was Him. No doubt about it.
“This is what happens, Harrows,” shrieked the old woman, standing in the pouring rain, her knotted hair stuck to her face. “Children of scum. This is what happens!” Her voice was a screech now, impossibly loud, dripping with venom. “You get what you deserve. You… get…what…you…”
The monster stopped battering the door and left the hall. It circled around the woman. She smiled at it.
“Emory brought you back,” she said. “He’s gone. You’re all I have now.”
Suddenly, it rammed into her back, spearing her, lifting her off the ground, and then tossing her away like a rag.
The beast flicked its gaze to the hall again. Now, rather than charge at the door, it retreated slowly back into the forest, where it melded into the darkness.
Though Loe couldn’t see it anymore, she knew it was there. She could feel it.
“It isn’t going to kill us,” said Loe, feeling like she understood. “That…thing…is a warning.”
“A warning about what?”
“Everything Emory did was meant to keep us here. In Harrow Hall, or in the forest, or whatever. First the forest itself, the way it never ends. The traps, and now Him. Its job is to make sure we can’t leave. If we look like we’re trying to find a way out, it stops us.”
“We’re stuck here then,” said Jay.
“We still have the plan,” said Mag.
“What, burn the hall down with us in it? The plan’s done, Mag. We can’t set the place alight and then go outside, can we? Unless you want to get your arse impaled by that mad bull.”
They were quiet then. Mag couldn’t take her gaze away from the window, even though there was no sign of the monster. Then Loe realized she was looking at the old woman, lying in a bloody heap, frail and alone with the rain spitting down on her. Dead, no doubt about that.
Whatever she was, whatever her family had done, Loe couldn’t say that she deserved that. What a mess.
She had to admit now that Jay was right. The plan was done. They couldn’t escape the forest, and even if they tried, the mad beast would hunt them. If they tried to burn Harrow Hall down and then go outside, there it would be again, ready to spear them on its horns and trample them into the mud. That was hardly a better way to go.
There was nothing they could do. Just stay inside Harrow Hall and slowly waste away. Give in to the despair the curse would bring, until each of them met their ends.
No, not just met their ends.
Until they brought their own ends upon themselves. That was their future now. Let the curse eat away at them until there was only one way out.
Loe thought about why she’d come out here. About finally learning her father’s name, only to discover he’d just died. About the excitement and nerves she’d felt when she learned that she had two brothers and a sister.
She thought about all the things she could have done instead of driving here. All the places she’d rather be instead. Hell, she’d once given herself food poisoning on a camping trip, and even those grim few days seemed preferable to this.
Wait a second.
Memories of camping, of the survival trips she loved, brought other things to mind.
“Maybe there’s something we can do,” she said.
Jay and Mag both stared at her. Neither spoke; they were waiting on her. They were desperate for any hope to cling to, she realized.
“You guys gather up anything that will spread the fire faster,” she said. “And wait here for me.”
“Where are you going?”
“When you’ve gathered everything you can find, look out of the window, and you’ll see.”
“Loe, what about sticking together?” said Jay, but Loe didn’t answer.
Without knowing Harrow Hall well enough, it took her a while to find the room she needed. She checked half a dozen different hallways, corridors, rooms, finding mostly bare spaces with odd pieces of dust-covered furniture and random, forgotten possessions inside.
While she stomped around the hall she heard Jay and Mag doing likewise, gathering up whatever fire accelerants they could. The sound was a reassuring one; noise meant activity, and activity meant they were doing something, that they had a chance.
This hope began to fade in Loe’s mind as she checked room after room and couldn’t find what she needed.
It only as she checked the last room in the east wing of the hall that she felt some relief. Opening the door, she found a space crammed top to bottom with stuff. There were three dozen cardboard boxes filled with things; clothes, crockery, toys, lamps, books. The sort of things that a normal family would fill every room of their house with, not just one.
Before she started looking through the cardboard boxes, Loe remembered what Jay had said.
“I know Dad bought a crossbow before we came out here. Remember? He gave us all a lecture on never, ever touching it. Said that when we moved to Harrow Hall and we showed we were mature enough, he’d teach us how to use it.”
She grinned. She didn’t need anyone to show her how to use it. She’d learned the basics on her survival course, and she’d enjoyed firing bolts at wooden targets so much that she visited a local archery club every bloody week.
Yeah, she could use a crossbow. Now she just had to find it amongst all this junk.
Chapter Nineteen
Loe felt naked when she left Harrow Hall and stepped into the open air. That was when she knew she was screwed: when that horrible house seemed like a place of safety.
It was pitch black now. No moonlight, nothing. The kind of utter blackness that most people would never experience because no matter where you lived, there was always a light of some kind. Out here there were no cars, no streetlights, nothing at all to break the spell of night.
The rain fell relentlessly, battering onto the raincoat she’d found in the junk room, drumming on her head and shoulders like thousands of fingers. There was a rip on the left shoulder, and she’d taken barely a few steps outside when the rain began to penetrate it and soak into her sweater.
As lonesome, cold, wet, and dreadful a place as it was, Loe realized something. A truth she’d never really had to think about until now.
No matter how hopeless a situation was, you’d always feel better if you had a crossbow in your hand.
It had taken her eight boxes worth of crap to find, but she’d dug the weapon out from underneath a pile of blankets. A cheap piece of kit, not shown as much love as the one she owned back home, but it looked like it would function. She had found two bolts along with it, and she had one of them nocked and ready to fire, the other clipped in place on the bow.
She stood there for a while, not far from Harrow Hall. She stopped. Breathed in the air. Looked around. Felt the hall looming behind her.
This moment had a finality to it, but the strangest thing was, she didn’t feel scared.
Funny that it had taken arriving at a point where her only options were to die a slow death or to face a quicker one at the hands of a weird bull beast. That’s what it had taken for Loe to act without worrying about danger or consequence.
It was freeing, in a way. If this worked, they might just get out of this. If it went wrong…well, she’d much rather face the beast than the curse. At least it was flesh and blood. You could shoot flesh and blood things in the face.
“Come on then,” she said, competing with the clatter of the rain. “Let’s say hello.”
She clicked the button of the flashlight she’d taped to the bow, sending out an arc of weak light. She moved forward, away from the hall and toward the tree line.
She listened as hard as she could. Tried to tune the wind and the rain out.
She swept her gaze methodically across the tree line, checking everything. She breathed steadily, keeping her pulse calm, staying focused.
For the longest time, there was nothing.
Just wind and rain and a dark, dark forest.
Then movement.
Loe turned, leveling the crossbow, her index finger teasing the trigger.
“Loe,” said a voice, as a shape emerged from the tree line.
“Alt?”
He was dripping wet, drenched so much that his clothes clung around his thin arms and legs like a second skin. His eyes were red as if he’d rubbed them raw. No sign of his glasses. Judging from the mud splattered all over him, Alt had taken a tumble or two.
