by P L Kane
Once they were beyond the point of no return, she’d told him the one thing she did know. The thing that might have changed his mind about taking her to Green Acres at all. She’d debated whether or not to say anything, but if she wanted him to trust her she had to.
So the next time he’d looked over, expecting her to explain herself, she’d said, ‘Okay, okay. I’m going to tell you something now, Ashley. Something you might have suspected, but hear me out before you stop the car or turn around or anything.’
‘I’m listening,’ he said.
‘I think I saw my mother the other night,’ she said. ‘My dead mother.’
Bella thought he was going to run the car off the road. ‘But I thought you said, I mean, you don’t see things, right? You hear them? Get messages.’ He sounded like he didn’t even believe that, let alone anything else.
‘I didn’t say I understood it, just that I think that’s what happened. She was the figure out there in the caravan park.’
‘The one on fire?’
Bella nodded. ‘She was in an accident, was hit by a car when Mitch was small. The car went up in flames, and both she and the driver died.’
‘O-Okay.’
‘Look, there’s a lot more to this and it’s all so complicated, but before I get into it, I just need to tell you this one other thing.’
Watts nodded now.
‘Ashley, I think I was the one who ransacked my place, my caravan. I didn’t know it was me but, well, I think I did that and—’
‘Yes?’ he asked, his voice cracking; he sounded terrified.
Bella looked across at him. She didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone so confused in all her life as she went on:
‘And I think I was the one who set it on fire.’
Chapter 30
‘Don’t look so confused,’ Denise said to him.
Mitch didn’t know how he was supposed to look. The woman he’d spent much of the previous day with, who he thought was quite possibly in love with him – had been since they’d been at school – she was in on this? Had been turned by the Commune like the rest of them? Sure, the barman had drugged him – why not? Wasn’t the craziest thing that had happened since his return. But for some reason he’d never thought Denise might have known. She’d been so lovely, and he’d felt so guilty about letting her down. She’d turned out to be quite the actor after all.
‘Hey, I know what you’re thinking. But it was all genuine, what I said. How I feel,’ she offered then as if reading his mind. ‘How I’ve always felt about you, Mitch. It was so hard to let you go back then, you have absolutely no idea.’ Her eyes were moistening again like last night. ‘But, well, we all have to sacrifice things. We all have our parts to play in this.’
‘Parts to …?’
Denise stepped forwards, the maroon robe she had on, hood down, swishing around her. In another time or place he might have said that it suited her. She ran a finger down his front, down his chest. ‘What a shame you had that reaction to the stuff they gave you last night, because I think it would have been pretty special, y’know? Best night of your life, I reckon. You’d have known it was your birthday, all right! I still tried, but you weren’t really into it.’
‘Into it? God, Denise, of course I wasn’t into it. I’d been drugged.’
‘They’ve been doing that since you got here though, just a little bit.’
‘A little bit?’
‘Just to dampen things down. You know, dull those heightened senses of yours. Sharpen other ones.’
He thought about the paranoia he’d been feeling since he got to Green Acres, seeing things in the cellar, possibly in the caves. Had that been down to the drugs? From where Mitch was standing, chained up, he’d been right to suspect people were out to get him. He suddenly realized: ‘The fire! The house! You knew about it and didn’t warn me?’
‘I told you.’ She sounded annoyed now. ‘I was keeping an eye on you. I wouldn’t have let you die there.’ Denise, rushing towards him from The Plough. Had she been watching as the fire had been set, making sure he got out? Would she have come to get him if he hadn’t?
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why bother? Why not just let it happen?’
Denise shook her head. ‘Because everything has its time. Has to be handled correctly.’
‘But the house, why—?’
‘Because it was its time. Everything burns eventually. To pave the way.’ Denise smiled that sweet smile, dimples included, as if it explained everything. ‘I get it, trust me. You’re still having trouble, while the rest of us …’ She waved a hand around to indicate the members of the cult still busying themselves with prep for whatever this was. ‘Our family. We’ve known about it all for such a long time.’
Family’s everything, brothers, sisters and all that.
‘Known about what?’ he gasped. ‘What exactly are you hoping to achieve here?’
‘Something wonderful!’ exclaimed Denise. Her eyes were wide, she looked like she was the one on drugs.
‘Right. Call up the Devil, ask him to grant you three wishes. That kind of thing?’ He’d seen it a million times in films, on TV.
Denise’s smiled faded. ‘You really don’t understand at all, do you?’
‘No,’ admitted Mitch. ‘Enlighten me.’ He winced then at his poor choice of words again.
‘Why would we need demons, devils? When we have …’ Denise turned and nodded back to the bonfire that had been erected. ‘It cleanses, purifies. It teaches.’
Okay, officially time to call the looney bin, thought Mitch. ‘You worship fire? Is that it?’ He should have seen it before, worked it out from the way those hooded figures had danced around the blasted stuff. But he’d thought they were trying to make something appear in it.
‘Haven’t we done so since the first cavemen huddled in caves?’ said Denise. Was this the sales pitch? he thought. If so, it was wasted on him. ‘It kept us safe from the ills of the world. And the Great Flame spoke to us, showed us the way.’
‘You’ve lost it, Denise.’
She scowled at him. ‘You’re the one who’s lost, Mitch. Or you were. Now you’ve been found again.’
‘This is it, isn’t it? This is what my dad found out about,’ spat Mitch. ‘It’s why he had to die, isn’t it? You sat there telling me all those stories about him, reminiscing with me. And you let it happen? You did nothing when they took him out to the woods, poured petrol or whatever over him – a man with dementia! – and set him on fire. Did nothing while he screamed and burned alive!’
‘Don’t judge her too harshly,’ came another voice he knew altogether too well, also female.
‘There was no other choice,’ said a second. Deeper: a man. ‘And she wasn’t alone.’
He hadn’t realized there were even more people inside with them until he turned, saw the couple standing there. His worst nightmare: worse than a nightmare actually. ‘A-Aunty Helen? Uncle Vince?’
And Mitch suddenly realized he was more confused than ever.
Chapter 31
He’d almost stopped the car, backed it up, turned it around. Done what she’d predicted he might, before it was too late.
Almost.
What had stopped Ashley Watts from going through with that when Bella had confessed about the ransacking of her home, about setting it on fire – a fire he’d had to bloody well save her from, risking himself – had been yet another traffic jam they’d had no option but to brake for, a Mini parking right up behind them and sandwiching them in.
That and the look on her face. The pleading there, an expression of someone who desperately needed his help. The confident Bella had come back in leaps and bounds, yet she was still vulnerable – and Watts could resist anything but someone close asking for his help.
Even if she was off her head.
‘It was me, but it wasn’t me,’ she’d told him. ‘I didn’t know what I was doing. I was seeing, remembering something. But my memories and my mother’s were getting all mixed
up. And I was recreating … Look, I know you don’t have any reason to believe in me, especially now. But I really need you to, Ashley. I really need someone to. You promised you’d get to the bottom of all this, and the answer’s waiting there. If you don’t do it – get us to Green Acres as soon as possible – for me, do it for Mitch. A fellow police officer.’
That one was hitting below the belt; Bella knew his loyalty to the boys in blue. But he should be doing this officially. They should be doing this right, if Bella thought her brother was in as much danger as she claimed. He’d told her as much yet again.
Bella shook her head. ‘They wouldn’t listen. Nobody would. Look, we get there and something’s happening, you can call in your buddies. Okay?’
‘What exactly are we talking about here? Who do you think’s after your brother, what kind of numbers are we talking?’ Watts took a hand off the gear stick long enough to rub his head, then gripped the knob again. ‘I’ll be honest, heading into a potentially hostile situation without backup—’
‘It’ll be okay,’ she assured him.
‘How do you know?’ Watts queried, pulling on his collar because of the heat, regardless of the air conditioning.
‘I just do.’ But her voice had wavered as she’d said that, like she didn’t know for sure. Like she couldn’t see it, hadn’t been told everything would be all right. ‘You have to trust me.’
Strangely, even after all this, he did. Didn’t trust that she knew what she was doing, but trusted she thought her brother was in some deep shit. Watts had been there himself, been in countless situations and prayed that someone would dig him out. He thought back to one such predicament last summer in fact, with that killer. Had hoped that would work out, and it had.
When the traffic finally started to move again, albeit slowly, he’d had a difficult decision to make. Carry on or go back? Bella was looking at him, biting her lip. ‘Please, Ashley.’ Now her hand was on the arm closest to her, a reversal of his clumsy, panicked attempt to stop the psychic from leaving. Bella was forever helping others, so maybe it was her turn for a change and maybe it was down to him to do that. See this through.
Watts let out a weary breath. ‘Okay, all right. But once we’ve scoped this out, I’m calling it in,’ he told her.
‘Yes, definitely. Agreed.’ She’d removed the hand then, let him put the car into gear and head off again. Head to Green Acres, a journey that had – including several more jams, especially in rush hour – taken them till the evening. Bella hadn’t even wanted to stop to get any food, they might already be too late.
It was as Watts navigated the winding roads of the place itself, passing some woods, that they saw it – the sun sinking into the horizon at the same time. It looked for all the world like the glowing orb had set the village itself on fire, smoke billowing up from it.
‘Jesus, is that … That’s Green Acres village, isn’t it?’ Watts exclaimed.
Bella could do nothing but nod. She seemed to be in shock, probably at the sight of her old home going up in flames. He wondered then how it had started, why there were no fire engines like the ones he’d called for when the caravan was going up.
It was as they got a little further down that narrow road Bella told him to take the turning, head up the road towards a group of buildings. ‘Where are we going? What about the—’
But the words had died in his mouth, because Watts saw the people. The figures heading in their direction: lots of figures. It was then that he was forced to stop the car again, not because of a queue or anything else, but because the shapes had reached them, were surrounding them. Behind and to the sides. So many – too many. And he’d listened to Bella, come here without any tactical support!
He stopped, wanted to turn around again – but couldn’t – and he began fumbling for his phone, dropping it on the middle console, hearing the crack of the screen.
Ashley wanted to back up, turn the car around, but couldn’t. Because the figures were already tugging on the handles of their doors.
Already opening those doors up and pushing their way inside.
Chapter 32
‘Wait a second, back up a minute. What did you just say?’
Mitch had heard what his aunty and uncle had told him, just didn’t – couldn’t – believe it. Couldn’t believe his ears, or his eyes come to that – thanks to the combination of drugs he’d been given (not just in the Traditional, but the tea – all that bloody tea! – even probably in the food in the fridge and brandy that had been left for him, those biscuits when he first arrived … his aunty’s stew) and a certain skill of his uncle’s.
‘Vincent was a therapist before he retired, of course he used hypnotism in his work,’ Helen had told Mitch, like it was a no-brainer. Had been using it on Mitch too, since he got back – although apparently the trigger for susceptibility was in that original phone message, the groundwork laid long ago. Vince had also been the person, Mitch remembered now, who’d been behind the door when he first entered the barn. The one who’d put him under with a word when they needed to chain him up.
‘Just for a little while,’ Vince had said, as if that made it all okay.
None of this was all right, not a bit of it! He could promise them that. ‘Just long enough to bloody well truss me up.’
His aunty winced at that. So she was still sticking with the whole not swearing thing? ‘Restrain you, for the moment. For your own good.’ Helen, and his uncle come to that, sounded so reasonable. Like they had when he’d called in to see them after he first arrived (had Vince been doing his ‘thing’ even then?). Sounded like family.
Family’s everything. It’s all we have at the end of the day.
There was so much about his family he didn’t know … Maybe he’d discover more while he was here, get to know these folks a bit better. Reconnect.
‘Till we were ready,’ added his uncle. ‘Till it was time.’
Time … lost time … Those people ‘abducted’ by little green men. The ones that hadn’t gone missing, hadn’t been set on fire, they’d lost time. Like he had. Maybe some had been released, but had their minds tinkered with? His uncle must have been a hell of a find for Daniel and Leah! Or had they hypnotized the hypnotist?
When Mitch asked them about the UFO stuff, Vince had just smiled in reply.
‘Some simply weren’t … suitable,’ his aunty clarified. ‘Had to be let go, but we couldn’t have them remembering anything about their experiences so we had to plant false memories.’
‘Not suitable? Suitable to murder?’ Mitch shook his head, didn’t understand.
‘For sacrifice,’ said Helen. ‘Only the worthy are given to the Great Flame.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ Mitch couldn’t help noticing then that his aunty didn’t pull a face. The worst possible swear word and she … But hold on, she was still religious – just not in that way. Didn’t give a monkey’s about that kind of blasphemous swearing anymore. It explained why the church – or the building he’d thought of as a church – in the village was in such disrepair, why nobody went (had they ever?). Mitch couldn’t remember attending a single service there, now he came to think of it, no Christmas or Easter celebrations, nothing. Just those harvest festivals, carols, strange songs. Pagan rituals? He couldn’t rely on his dodgy memory. It explained why nobody was in a rush to do his father’s funeral.
‘And Sheldon, was he worthy? I thought you hated his guts! Didn’t want him bringing in outsiders.’ Though the irony of it was the outsiders had brought all this in to start with: the bloody Commune.
‘Worthy, or powerful. Sometimes it is for the common good, and he did have a lineage as he said – even if his kin abandoned this place many years ago. I personally wouldn’t give people like that the privilege, but …’ And he thought then about what she’d said about the witches, how Helen wouldn’t have burned them if she’d been around in those times. That they hadn’t deserved it. A privilege, she was calling it now.
‘Stuff and nonsense, the
lot of it!’
Perhaps that’s what they thought they were giving his father, doing him a massive favour? Yeah, right, some privilege! ‘I doubt my dad would have seen it that way when you cooked him.’
Vince laughed. ‘Your dad. Oh Mitch, you never really knew him at all, did you?’
He didn’t, but what had that got to do with this?
‘Thomas volunteered,’ stated Helen. ‘Insisted.’
‘No!’ screamed Mitch.
‘I’m afraid it’s true,’ Vince informed him, like he could believe a word that came out of the faker’s mouth.
‘But he didn’t know … There was something wrong with his mind, his brain. The dementia.’
‘Think about it, young Mitch. Who told you that?’ asked Helen, sticking her tongue in the side of her mouth, proud of the misdirection. What had they done, drugged him like they had Mitch?
‘Who knows what he might have been seeing, or hearing at the time …’
Apparently not, as she continued: ‘He was of perfectly sound mind when he agreed. Knew he needed to provide you with a mystery to bring you back, for you to investigate in the run up to …’ She pointed behind her now. ‘The clues he left, the break-in, us leaving those books in the living room when we were tidying up, the rock through the window – they were his idea, all parts of the puzzle for you to solve. To ultimately bring you here. Fanning the flames, if you like. He wanted to keep you here once you’d returned, keep you occupied. After—’
‘Keep me isolated!’ Mitch broke in, remembering how his phone had been stolen, the landline crippled. He wasn’t going mad, hadn’t left the back door open at all like Wilkinson said: they’d had the keys to the place! His aunty and uncle had given them access!
‘After all,’ Helen continued, ignoring the interruption, ‘your father was the one who sent you away in the first place.’
‘Nobody sent me away, I—’ But hadn’t Thomas Prescott encouraged him to get out there and see the world? Experience all it had to offer?