Unfortunately, although George did not lay a finger on his son again, somehow his menace grew worse. Sometimes he mumbled strange, incoherent things; other times he was full of dark hints and threats that would make him chuckle to himself. It affected Ellen so badly that even when she left the cottage to take Simon to the bus for school, or to do some shopping, or visit the church, she felt a dark, ominous gloom over the village itself. It was as if something nasty was pending.
Then George had died in the fire.
The release - and the relief - was overwhelming. Instead of sorrow, she and Simon had felt deliverance. And joy, such blissfully sweet joy.
When they had brought Simon home after he had witnessed the death of his father in the burning haystack, her son had not wept and he had not been in shock. He had thrown himself into her arms and when those who had brought him to the door, their own faces sombre with the bad news, had left, Simon had looked up into her face and smiled.
How happy they had been together because the threat - and her guilt - had been removed. How much they had enjoyed life, their bond so much stronger than before, and what good times they’d had in this new-found freedom. Almost a year of perfect contentment.
Until George had returned.
She hadn’t known it then, but she knew it now. For a complete understanding of her son’s death had come to her as she sat with him earlier that evening. Simon hadn’t spoken, he had not even acknowledged her presence, and images had not appeared in her mind. The understanding had simply arrived without warning, without announcement, without mental pictures.
Ellen had left Simon alone on that fateful afternoon. He was in his bath, quite happy, quite safe, but his small heart had stopped - literally stopped - from shock for a moment when he saw the ghost of his father standing at the open bathroom door, watching him with that loathsome, leering expression that Simon remembered so well. Her son had collapsed in the water and, because his body had relaxed into unconsciousness, his lungs had automatically tried to draw in air. Simon had drowned within seconds. Murdered by his own father.
As she sat there Ellen wondered why, if she could not hold his thin, naked body, if she could not offer comfort, was Simon here? Why hadn’t his poor little soul gone to God? Why was he waiting in the chair?
It was not until she heard the noise from upstairs that Ellen began to have a glimmer as to why Simon had returned again and again. The sound was that of water being disturbed, as if a hand was scooping through it, testing its heat, just as she used to when it was time for Simon’s bath.
Simon continued to stare at her - or at least, at the space she occupied.
Someone called, a low gruff summons.
And Simon was rising.
Fighting her panic, she said his name quietly, but he ignored her and went to the stairs.
‘Simon!’ she screamed when he began to climb them.
Ellen ran to the stairs, pleading with him as his small, white body turned the bend. She swayed, her senses reeling, both fear and revulsion attacking her like conspiring demons, draining her strength, her legs becoming weak, unable to bear her weight. Simon was gone from view and she thought she heard a different sound from the bathroom. It was the deep-throated chuckling noise that George used to make when he forced her to do those horrible, disgusting things.
She uttered a warning, but it had no strength, no authority. She began to pull herself up the stairs, crawling on hands and knees. She screamed again when she heard the splashing of water.
Shadows wandered through the mists around the worn relics that in another age had served as Sleath’s instruments of correction and torture. A whispering could be heard - if there had been anyone on the common to listen - and as darkness drew in, the shapes grew firmer, became more resolved, and the discarnate murmurings became louder.
Still the blood seeped from the whipping post, gradually becoming an outpouring from every cleft and fissure, from every fine crack, spreading to the stocks where it dripped onto the earth below. Soon the ground was soaked with the deep-red effluence and a pool was formed, the pool becoming a stream that flowed further, eventually spilling into the road itself …
… Where more shadows, the ghosts of Sleath themselves, moved through the mists …
The crockery on the table began to rattle, one of the teacups dancing around its saucer as if in a bid to escape.
Rosemary Ginty clamped a hand to her mouth to stifle a cry and her husband, Tom, glanced over his shoulder at the commotion. His beefy hands still held the curtains he had just drawn against the foggy night outside, but he let them drop when he saw the dancing chinaware.
The teacup finally toppled over the saucer’s brim and continued its agitation against the tabletop. They watched in numbed silence as it jiggled its way to the table’s edge and fell to the floor. The thick rug that stretched almost to the walls of the Gintys’ upstairs parlour prevented the cup from breaking, although it bounced, then twitched a few times before coming to rest.
‘Tom!’ Rosemary finally managed to call out as if accusing him of some transgression.
If she expected a response, it was not forthcoming. Instead, the landlord of the Black Boar Inn cautiously approached the table and its rattling crockery, a hand held before him as if to pacify a distraught household pet. For the sake of space, the table was pushed up against a wall with two chairs on either side (apart from breakfast, the Gintys rarely dined in their private quarters, preferring instead to use the inn’s small restaurant directly below), and the parlour, itself, was crammed with unmatched furniture and Rosemary’s overflowing collection of cheap curios. A television, only occasionally switched on, stood in one corner of the room, with a lamp and framed photograph on its flat top, while opposite was a low coffee table and comfortable armchair which Rosemary currently occupied. A sideboard, sofa, glass-fronted cabinet stocked with Rosemary’s ornaments and bric-a-brac, and an antiquated radiogram filled the remaining space.
Warily, Tom Ginty reached out for the nearest cup and saucer and with a last-second rush clamped down on the jittering cup. It submitted to his pressure, remaining perfectly still under the considerable weight of his palm, and even stayed motionless for a short while when he took his hand away again. Then its tremors resumed, joining the general oscillation of chinaware. The teapot lid clattered against its rim, and the sugar grains hopped in their bowl; even milk in the fine china jug tossed in its own miniature storm.
The silence when they stopped was almost as startling as the clatter they had made when the vibration had begun.
As Ginty spun round to his wife, his mouth open to speak, one of Rosemary’s ornaments, a mock-eighteenth-century figurine, burst through the glass cabinet and shot across the room.
This time Rosemary could not hold back her screech, for the piece missed her head only by inches and glass fragments lodged in her stacked, blonde hair. The figurine smashed into the wall beside the drawn curtains and fell to the floor in pieces. Ginty cringed at his wife’s shrill outburst, then looked in amazement at the broken pane in the cabinet.
After drawing a breath, Rosemary rounded on her husband. ‘You caused this!’ she yelled, and his amazement was replaced by dismay. ‘You and those …’ she flapped a hand frustratedly at the window ‘… those others!’
‘What’re you talkin about, woman?’ He shook his head in wonder.
‘You know! You bloody well know!’
Ginty’s round face paled, throwing the tiny mauve veins on his cheeks and nose into sharp relief. Oh Lord, could she be right? Those things they had done up at the Hall … Oh Lord, no, it was all nonsense. He’d gone along with it, but he hadn’t believed. It was just a sort of village tradition, a covert one, admittedly, but with no real harm to it. He’d always been pissed anyways, he could never remember what had happened the day after, only bits and pieces, parts of the stupid ceremonies, the silly chanting, dressing up in old robes. It was only like the Freemasons, nothing more harmful than that. But how did Rosemary
know? What did she know?
He covered his face as another ornament flew from the broken section of the cabinet. Rosemary ducked her head against the cushioned arm of the chair, her hands clasped over her hair, as the statuette, two lovers entwined on a loveseat, hit the curtains and broke the window behind.
‘How could you?’ she shrieked as she risked raising her head again.
Why was she blaming him? She couldn’t know anything. ‘Don’t be bloody daft!’ he yelled back at her.
Rosemary slid to the floor, afraid of other flying objects. Why did he pretend so much? They had spent the last few hours locked inside their private quarters in the inn because something bad was happening to the village and they both knew it. But he knew more about what was going on than her and he wouldn’t admit it! As soon as that horrible fog had blanked out Sleath, Rosemary had sensed something was terribly wrong. Somehow it was like a warning - no, what was it they called it? A portent! Yes, a portent! - that something nasty was going to happen. And the funny thing was, it had been on its way, this nasty thing that was about to happen, for a long, long time and it wasn’t only she who was aware.
No staff had turned up for work that day and no customers had set foot in the bar. Later in the afternoon she had tried to phone round the village, and a horrible cold panic had chilled her through and through when she realized the lines were dead. She had become too afraid to step outside and knock on doors. Tom was just as anxious - no, maybe even more so, because he was part of it, he was bloody well part of it! - and had hustled her upstairs and locked the door after them. Even when they’d heard movement outside in the corridor some time ago, he hadn’t let her unlock the door to investigate, and to be honest, she hadn’t been that curious. She remembered the night before, the disturbances in their bedroom, and Rosemary gave a shiver.
‘Bastard,’ she said to her husband.
Something tickled her plump stockinged legs and when she glanced down she saw that the rug that covered most of the parlour’s floor was undulating as if a series of breezes were rippling through underneath.
Rosemary hauled herself to her feet and stumbled from one section of the rug to another in an effort to avoid the mysterious rolling waves.
She could feel the thick material trying to rise beneath her feet, her weight too much for it; the undulation merely spread around her, rippling outwards, bypassing furniture to find the rug’s outer edges.
Tom Ginty was rigid, his brain rebutting everything that was happening around him, but his eyes insisting it was all very real. The curtains flapped as if a wind was forcing its way through the broken windowpane. Incongruously, the clock on the mantelpiece began chiming the hour, even though neither hand was close to any numeral. A picture on the wall, a hunt scene print full of red coats, horses and hounds, inexplicably fell to the floor. The stale contents of the teapot began to slurp from its spout, while another cup, this time with its saucer, toppled off the edge of the table. The parlour’s flower-patterned sofa began to rock to and fro, spilling its cushions onto the rug. The lamp and framed photograph were suddenly swept from the top of the television set.
By now Rosemary had lost her balance and was on her knees once more. It turned out to be fortunate for her, for without warning all the remaining glass in the cabinet and the window opposite exploded outwards, the pieces, large and small, scything across the room from both directions. The curtains were shredded and tossed aside, while statuettes, glassware and ornaments were blown with the shards from the cabinet. Lethal shrapnel met and passed through each other at the room’s centre, which was precisely where the Black Boar Inn’s landlord was standing.
The glass inflicted the worst damage, although the china and porcelain did their share. Ginty’s surprised shriek became a splutter as a glass shard cut into his throat. The wound was not deep enough to kill him instantly and his hands had automatically protected his eyes, but when Rosemary raised her head she saw her husband’s upper body pin-cushioned with tiny, sharp daggers. The ceiling light swung like a pendulum above them and reflections glinted from Ginty’s clothes and flesh, bright one moment, dimmed the next. Hysteria bubbled from Rosemary, while Ginty, himself, remained perfectly still, as if traumatized, pierced hands still raised to eyes, the noises from his throat becoming a gurgling drone.
Pain quickly bit into the shock, causing him to move in a stiff, almost robotic way. He lowered his hands and stared unbelievingly at his wife. Rosemary’s scream had already begun, but now it gushed with renewed vigour, for this grotesque, punctured version of her husband, blood swelling from his wounds, frightened her more than the kinetic disturbances of her household furniture. Of late, intuitions, perhaps even vague but upsetting premonitions, had come to her, as she knew they had to others in the village - oh, no one mentioned them, they kept them to themselves, afraid that they were alone in those thoughts, that it might be some kind of creeping dementia; but she had seen it in their faces, their troubled eyes, their constrained manner - and the dread had deepened with every passing day. Bad, hidden things were festering like some sneaking disease and now it was here, the cancer had revealed itself. A part of it stood before her with a million glass splinters sticking from its bloated body.
Tom Ginty took a tottering step towards his wife and Rosemary screeched afresh as she scrambled away from him. There had never been an honest love between them, only initially a joint need soon followed by a tolerance of each other, and this was eventually replaced by a mutual loathing, so there was no guilt when she fled from the bleeding monster that was her husband.
The ornate clock, a cheap imitation Bamberg, slipped from the mantel and shattered in the hearth. The mirror that had hung above it cracked into a crazy pattern of fractured glass. The sofa, which had become increasingly violent in its rocking action, finally overturned onto its back.
Rosemary gave voice to and flinched at each new shock as she put the armchair between herself and her advancing husband. She suddenly made a dash for the door, clambering over the back of the up-ended sofa. Glass and broken china crunched under her feet as Tom Ginty tried to follow her.
At the door, she frantically scrabbled at the key. The door opened and Rosemary all but threw herself into the corridor beyond. She almost collapsed when she saw the small shapes skulking in the swaying shadows cast by the unsteady light of the parlour. The rats scurried away, keeping close to the narrow walls, long tails slithering behind them.
Rosemary forced herself to follow them, aware of the mutilated stalker close behind. She had lost a shoe somewhere in the room and could only hobble along, a hand occasionally touching the wall’s wood panelling to help her keep her balance. Shadows before her pitched crazily, confusing her, until darkness suddenly filled most of the corridor; she realized Tom must be in the doorway, blocking the erratic light. She thought she heard him call out, but it came as an odd, incoherent snuffle and she refused to halt; Rosemary had no sympathy, only fear. An idea flashed into her mind to seek help from the inn’s solitary guest, but she realized she was too uncertain of this man David Ash. There was a coldness about him, an inscrutability; besides, she was not sure if he wasn’t involved in the hauntings, too. A glow from up ahead encouraged her to hobble even faster.
Someone had switched on the lights to the stairs and the floor below, but Rosemary did not begin to descend immediately, despite footsteps behind her. She and Tom had always been aware that there were rats down in the inn’s cellars and occasionally one or two had had to be chased from the kitchen and bars; but never before had the vermin been bold enough to venture further, and certainly not in these numbers. The rats littered the stairway.
Gripping the handrail tightly, Rosemary made herself take the first step, issuing shooing noises as she did so. Most of the creatures fled before her, but one at the bend of the stairs bared its teeth and hissed at her approaching figure. She stamped her foot and, reluctantly, the rat slipped away; she heard the scrabbling of its paws on the wood of the steps.
&nb
sp; ‘Ro … Rose …’
It was a liquid moan and her head jerked round at its sound. Tom was on the landing above, his body swaying and prickly with protruding glass. He began to lean forward and Rosemary ducked away, losing her footing at the bend in the staircase and plummeting downwards, yelping as she went. Her plump body slid over the worn edges of the steps with painful bumps, and she came to a slithering halt near the bottom. Even before she had regathered her wits she heard stumbling footsteps from above. Something nipped her hand and she recoiled from the rat she had nearly squashed.
Rosemary struggled to her feet, her other shoe gone now, and padded across the floor of the saloon bar, her hands flailing the air, her wailing screech filling the big room. She made for the open door where tenuous, yellowy fog curled into the bar.
Tom called out once more and she glanced over her shoulder to see him still lumbering after her, walking like a zombie, his whole body stiff, his face, arms and shirt by this time drenched in blood. Why wouldn’t he leave her alone? What did the rotten shit want from her?
She ran through the open door, out into the High Street, out into the fog. Rosemary pulled up with yet another scream when she saw two bright-glowing spectres emerging from the swirling mists, moving fast, bearing down on her.
Lenny Grover giggled inanely. ‘Can’t see a fuckin thing,’ he remarked to Dennis Crick, who occupied the pick-up’s passenger seat.
‘Well slow down then, prat.’ Crick was grinning himself. He all but pressed his nose against the grimy windscreen. ‘It’s a fucker, this one,’ he remarked, his words slightly slurred from the few jars he and Grover had had earlier at a roadside pub.
‘Chemical gas, if you ask me,’ observed Grover. ‘Look at its colour, an’ jus’ take a whiff.’
‘I already did, an’ didn’t like it.’ Crick screwed up his face to emphasize the point.
‘Been a spill somewhere, take me word for it.’