The Ghosts of Sleath

  Phelan, who knew she was beyond the help of any mortal, remained kneeling in prayer.

  Then she was gone. She had returned to Lockwood Hall.

  ‘David, no!’

  Phelan tried to grab Ash as he started after her, but the investigator easily pushed him away. Ash plunged through the doorway.

  The Irishman was old, and he was wearied, but he was still fast; he followed Ash close behind.

  Lightning deluged the great hall and both men saw Grace standing quite still among the debris. She appeared to be frozen there, her raised arms glistening in the light, her breasts bloody and raw protrusions, her eyes white against the dark, jellied meat of her skinless face. Her hair flew out as if charged, and mists gathered round her, swirling and weaving in some mystic dance. There was a cold silence within the old, broken walls now - no whispers, cries, music or crashing of masonry - and Grace no longer screamed. But her scoured lips moved and she seemed to be beseeching something beyond their vision.

  This time the thunder was distant from the lightning and when it came the ruin’s very foundations shook. Ash was scrambling over the rubble to reach Grace when dislodged brickwork showered down on him, striking his head and shoulders so that he staggered backwards, his senses once again reeling.

  The deep rumbling that followed the thunder was more ominous than anything that had gone before, and Phelan looked up instinctively to see that one massive section of wall was bending inwards, the momentum at its top, at the very roof itself, increasing. He only caught a quick glimpse, for the half-moon was soon obscured, but the rumbling increased to a great roar …

  With a warning cry, he reached for Ash and pulled him back over the debris. The injured man’s resistance was weak, for he was dazed, ready to collapse, and as Phelan dragged him back he shouted at him, telling him that they could not help the girl, that she was lost to them, but her pain and her torment would soon be over.

  The noise increased, a great rending of wood and stone, a shrieking that overwhelmed all sounds and all senses, and the two men stumbled back, almost falling through the doorway, Phelan never easing his grip on Ash, nor allowing him to falter. They lurched down the steps, and still Phelan would not let Ash slump. He dragged, shoved, coaxed the investigator away from the crumbling building and only when they were across the clearing did he release his grip.

  Ash turned, his hands to his temples, and as he sank to his knees on the mist-covered track he saw the final collapse of Lockwood Hall, enormous clouds billowing out, its mighty roar a worthy match for the thunder that pounded the night.

  His consciousness ebbed, then stole away from him. He slipped to the ground, the soft grass welcoming his battered body.

  The first raindrops dampened his cheek.

  40

  TINY EXPLOSIONS RUPTURED the river’s surface as the dark, mountainous clouds released their load. The fog was driven off by the downpour, its mists retreating through the village, dispersing, thinning, becoming nothing.

  The millwheel groaned to a halt, its cargo of putrid flesh left beneath the river to dissolve there, to fade to the nothingness it really was. Old wood creaked inside the millhouse and cogs settled with moaning sighs. All became quiet once more.

  The inferno was suddenly gone.

  Its light no longer brightened Sam Gunstone’s face as he cradled his wife’s dead body, and when he looked up he saw that the field was dark and empty. He wondered if the rain had doused not the fire, but the vision itself.

  He bowed his head, murmuring a prayer, and when he stooped to kiss his wife’s forehead and lightning seared everything white, he noticed that the horror that had been frozen in her gaze was gone too. There was no expression at all, and he felt that was good.

  Nell had found her peace.

  Ruth stood in the bedroom doorway, the knife poised in the air. Her sister was on the narrow bed, her legs drawn up, her back against the wall. She clutched her dolly, Sally Rags, to her chest, as if it, too, were in jeopardy. Sarah’s eyes were wide with terror.

  Munce - this thing that was the dead Joseph Munce - was at the foot of the bed, watching Sarah, its back to Ruth. It moved slowly at Ruth’s presence, from the waist only, swinging its shoulders round, turning its leprous head towards her, and it grinned - that sly, dirty grin that she knew so well. Its elbows were tucked into its sides, hands out of view, clutching at the mutilation of its groin.

  Munce sniggered, and she was enraged by its familiar guttural sound. Shamed, too, for once, many years ago, she had laughed with it. Ruth ran at the repulsive figure but, even as she plunged the knife, Munce was disappearing, fading fast like Alice’s Cheshire cat, the legs, then the torso, the head - and its grin - last.

  The knife blade struck empty air and Ruth, startled at first, began to laugh. And began to cry.

  Sarah leapt from the bed, Sally Rags discarded, and threw herself into her sister’s arms. The knife fell to the floor.

  They hugged each other, and after a while Ruth told Sarah to hush, the creature had only been a nightmare and, like any bad dream, it had gone away. It would never, she assured her little sister, it would never ever come back again. And though Ruth cried as she spoke, she was smiling too.

  When she reached the bathroom, he was holding Simon beneath the water, one hand gripping the boy’s hair, the other on his frail, naked shoulder. Simon was struggling, kicking out, grasping the edges of the bath, fighting for a life that was already lost. And George was laughing while he pushed, unable to kill something that was already dead, but his black soul enjoying the parody of it all, relishing the misery it wrought.

  Ellen screamed at George to stop, but even as she did so, small flames lapped around his ankles, quickly rising, claiming his legs, roaring up his back. Only when the fire reached his shoulders and enveloped his head did he relinquish his hold and crash back against the bathroom wall. He wheeled about inside the peculiarly vapid flames and his screams had a hollowness to them, sounding as if they came from a long way off.

  Simon had risen from the water, his skinny arms wrapped around himself, his pale, wet body shivering.

  Ellen could just make out her husband’s dim form inside the inferno as he backed into the bathroom’s small window, and she ran forward, giving it a push, her hands and arms not even scorched - it was like dipping into a deep-freeze. George went straight through the glass, his body folding to accommodate the small windowframe. He disappeared into the night and when she looked there was nothing to see on the ground below. The path was wet with rain and trails of thin fog straggled across it; but of George, burning or otherwise, there was no sign.

  And when she drew her head back inside the broken window, Simon had vanished too. But she didn’t mind. She had the feeling - so strong inside her that it had to be right - that her son’s soul had finally been laid to rest.

  And George had gone back to his hell.

  The breeze and the rain continued to disperse the fog, its threads and drifts roaming across the village green, some of the vapours curling around the whipping post, where the blood had ceased its flow. It wasn’t long before the storm had washed away the final dregs of mists, and with it, its malodour; and it wasn’t long before the rain had cleansed the bloodstains from the grass and from their spread across the road.

  The rain had also roused Rosemary Ginty. It fell on her crippled body, a new torment for her.

  She tried to pick herself up, but couldn’t: something was broken inside her and it hurt, it hurt like bloody hell. And something was wrong with one of her legs, too: she couldn’t move it, it wouldn’t bend. And her head … oh, how her bloody head ached.

  She lay there for quite some time before managing to turn herself over onto her stomach, by that time sick of the rain pounding her eyes. When lightning lit up the High Street she saw something odd poking out of the Black Boar Inn over the road. It looked like a truck or a lorry. Now who would do a stupid thing like that? And where was Tom? Why wasn’t he out here helping her? Well she wou
ld have a few words to say to him when she got back inside.

  Rosemary began to crawl, furious with Tom and deeply annoyed at the rain that was doing its best to ruin her hair.

  Crick looked up just once, and wished he hadn’t: it hurt too much. He let his head loll sideways and again wished he hadn’t: the figure lying close by with its face smashed in and its fat belly and arms porcupined by shiny bits was not a pleasant sight.

  At least the voices had left him in peace. Couldn’t understand it: the bar was empty - apart from the fucking truck sticking through the front door - but for a while all he could hear was the gabble of voices. Fuck ’em. And fuck Lenny, whose fault this was.

  Crick closed his eyes and went back to sleep, a sleep he would never wake from.

  The broken ice on the pond melted under the rain and for some time its murky waters stirred and eddied. Eventually the surface settled, only rainfall disturbing it. Occasionally, though, a flurry of bubbles broke through from below, but soon even they stopped.

  Maddy reached the door, but Gaffer had not accompanied her. The dog cowered behind the armchair back in the sitting room, white showing around the edges of its bulging, fearful eyes. Small whimpers came from deep inside Gaffer’s throat.

  The footsteps on the path outside had stopped. Maddy knew he was waiting there, waiting for her to open the door.

  ‘It’s all right, Jack, I’m here,’ she called out as she reached for the bolt at the top of the door. Jack insisted she keep it locked and bolted when he was away - never knew who might come knocking these days, he always told her.

  Just for a second or two her fingertips lingered on the bolt’s cold metal. A quiet sob escaped her. I know it’s you, Jack, she said in her mind. I know you’ve come back to me. It is all right, isn’t it? This is the proper thing? She could hear the rain drumming on the stone path.

  Maddy shot back the bolt and lifted the latch. She threw open the door.

  Lightning flared, momentarily dazzling her. And when the distant rumble of thunder came and she had blinked several times, she saw the path was empty.

  Maddy stood in the doorway for a long time that night, the rain blowing in to soak her clothes, the breeze ruffling her loose, grey hair. She watched the path. She listened for footsteps.

  But her husband never did return.

  41

  THE SUN DREW VAPOURS of steam from the earth, its glare hard, unrelenting, even at that early hour, and the rutted, grassy track had lost its firmness, the surface slippery and full of shallow puddles. Ash’s clothes were damp, his shirt heavy on his back.

  He walked as if still in a daze, no longer looking back, the collapsed building by now lost in the distance. Bird calls came from the woods around him and occasionally there was the rustle of some foraging creature in the undergrowth. Not a single cloud blemished the sky that morning and, even looking away from the sun, its azure hurt the eye.

  He wiped a hand across his cheek, smudging the dirt there with his own tears, and his mind fought to subdue the images from the nightmare. His foot slipped in the mud, but he recovered and kept walking.

  When he had come to some time before, he had found himself lying by the side of the track under the cover of trees. He vaguely remembered having been dragged there by Phelan during the night to escape from the worst of the storm, the Irishman talking to him, telling him something, the words difficult to recall. Something about being too late again … but at least some were saved … and now it was finished, it was over … It made no sense to him, but maybe it would when the ache had left his head and his thoughts had settled. He wondered why Phelan had left him.

  His shirt and trousers already beginning to stiffen as they dried, he went on. At times his steps were uncertain, his mind confused, and when visions of Grace finally overwhelmed him, he dropped to his knees, and clawed his fingers into the moist earth. He wept.

  The front door of the Lodge House was still open and for a wild, irrational moment, he wondered if he would find Grace inside. It was a madness, and he did not even pause outside the gate; she was gone, lost to him forever, and the time of madness had gone too. He turned into the narrow road that led to the village.

  The tower of St Giles’ rose above the treetops, but he averted his gaze. Only when he reached the lychgate and the sharp kaa of a crow startled him did he look through the opening at the old church. The carrion crow was perched on a headstone not far from the porch, its dagger-like bill stabbing at the air in short, jerky movements. It became still, its black eye observing the observer.

  Then it was gone, powerful thrusts of its wings taking it high over the tower, its cry becoming remote, a faint echo without resonance and of no significance.

  Ash went on, descending the hill, passing the silent school. When he walked by Ellen Preddle’s cottage, tucked in between its neighbours, he noticed a small upstairs window was broken. He did not stop, even though he glimpsed a shadowy figure watching him from behind a lace curtain in a window on the ground floor. He gave no thought at all to the equipment left inside the cottage. The village was very still and very quiet, his own soft footsteps the only sound to be heard. Windows in other houses were broken too, and the wall outside one was smoked black, its door open wide as if its occupants had fled.

  He reached the deserted High Street, where thin wisps of steam rose from the roadway, the sun, although not yet high, beating hard on its surface, drying the night’s dampness. Here and there were other open doors, broken windows, and there was no traffic, nothing passing through. On the empty village green the stocks and whipping post seemed strangely isolated, relics of a bygone age, of no relevance here anymore.

  A column of smoke from beyond the nearest buildings rose listlessly into the air, but only the birds gave Sleath any semblance of real life, and even their chitter seemed chastened.

  Ash continued his journey and had no interest in the pick-up truck that had wrecked the entrance of the Black Boar Inn, the sign above hanging loose from its bracket; nor did he as much as glance at the yellow plastic duck that drifted through the mist rising from the murky pond. His concern was only for his car parked at the edge of the green, for as he drew near he could see something was wrong.

  His footsteps slowed when the damage became clear. All along one side the metal was scraped and bent, the wing itself completely buckled, the nearside wheel beneath twisted, its tyre flat. He was conscious of the skid marks that veered across the road and continued over the grass to the pond’s edge, but he gave them no thought; nor did he linger to examine the harm done to the Ford - the twisted wheel told him all he needed to know.

  Ash made for the bridge at the end of the village, never once looking round, concentrating only on the road ahead.

  He crossed the stone bridge, the millhouse on his left quiet, dormant, another defunct memento of a distant era. He began to climb the hill that led away from Sleath.

  Sweat ran down his neck and he could feel its clammy coolness on his back; his breathing became laboured, his steps more wearied. But he did not rest. He wiped his eyes with trembling fingers, his mind gradually growing numbed to the events of the night, the memories becoming dulled. The trauma was still with him, and perhaps it always would be, but for the moment all that concerned him was to get as far away from Sleath as possible.

  A car passed him, heading towards the village, its two occupants staring curiously as they went by. Another car a few minutes later. And then a police car, its siren silent, but its speed urgent. The policewoman in the passenger seat craned her head to watch the lone figure, but the vehicle did not reduce its speed. It disappeared around a bend in the road and soon even the sound of its engine was gone. Two more vehicles went by, and then an ambulance, with its siren shattering the quietness of the country lane. Its blare lasted some time before it, too, faded. Ash trudged on, putting distance between himself and the village, his head aching, the muscles of his legs stiff after the ascent of the hill. Trees closed over the lane and the air became cool
er.

  His eyes were downcast, seeing only the sunlight-dappled ground before him, and when the sound of yet another vehicle approached he did not look up. He heard the car slow down, its tyres crackling on the road’s surface, but still he ignored it. The car drew to a halt, and Kate had to call his name before he came to a standstill.

  ‘David?’

  Slowly he turned and looked at Kate McCarrick.

  ‘What is it, David? What’s wrong?’

  He waited there, his chest heaving, unable to respond, and it was Kate who had to leave the Renault to go to him.

  She touched his arm carefully, alarmed at his state. ‘You look dreadful,’ was all she could say. Then, in a rush: ‘I tried to reach you last night, but the fog stopped me. Did you know the phones were out of order all evening? I stayed the night in a hotel so that I could be here first thing. Oh God, David, what’s happened? You look so …’ She could only shake her head.

  ‘Get me away from here, Kate,’ he said, slowly, deliberately.

  ‘But-’

  ‘Just get me away.’

  ‘All right, David. Of course.’

  Without another word he walked away from her, going round to the other side of the car and climbing into the passenger seat. She quickly joined him and restarted the engine.