“I can’t sleep. I had nightmares. About the woods and about that…man. Who is he?”
Robert’s father shook his head. “Listen to me. You forget about it. I told you last night, it wasn’t real, just your imagination. Do you hear me, boy?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Keep the fire stoked and prepare dinner. We’ll be back before sunset.”
“Yes, Father.”
Robert’s father looked grim as he ushered his wife into the ice-cold morning, slamming the door shut behind him.
* * *
Robert stayed in the house, just as he was told, until midmorning, when he took Bessie out.
It was a cold, dreary day with rags of mist obscuring the village. Robert allowed Bessie to run in the fields behind the house, but kept her close lest she run off again. As they passed through a gap in the hedge that led to the brook, Bessie began to bark, her fur standing on end.
Someone was walking towards them. A tall, thin figure passing through the mist.
“No,” Robert cried. “Get away!” He began to run towards the house, glancing back to see the figure bearing down on him. “Leave me alone!”
But still it neared. Robert pounded across the furrows of frozen mud and all at once tripped over Bessie, falling onto the rock-hard ground. As he fought to pull himself up, the air filled with laughter.
“What are you running from, you idiot?”
“Sam?” Robert asked. He turned to see his friend standing over him, his face full of merriment.
“Who else did you think it was?” Sam asked. He stooped down, brushing a curtain of coppery hair from his eyes, and held his hand out for Robert, pulling him up.
“I shouldn’t be out here, Sam. Something happened last night. Something bad.”
Sam gave him a curious look. “What do you mean, something happened? Nothing ever happens around here.”
“I went into Gallows Wood. I never meant to.”
“You’re lying,” Sam said. “You’d never dare go into Gallows Wood! Never.”
“No, I did, Sam, and I saw something, and it wasn’t your ghost.”
“So if it wasn’t a ghost, what was it?”
Robert told Sam his story. As he described the house and the figure in the window, the fear began to rise in him once more.
“You’re lying,” Sam said. “You’re just trying to outdo me ’cause I saw a ghost and you didn’t. So you made your own phantom up.”
“I swear it, Sam. I swear on my mother’s life.”
Sam studied him for a moment. “If there really is half a house in Gallows Wood, you can take me there.”
“But my parents…”
“Are gone for the day. Leave Bessie at home, she’s useless, and take me to this half a house. I’ll only believe you when I see it with my own eyes.”
Robert sighed. He would do anything for Sam usually, but he couldn’t go back. Not there. “I can’t, Sam.”
“Of course you can’t, ’cause there’s no such place. You see, Robert, this is why I’m going to London. I need to find a new partner for my ghost-hunting business because you’re scared of everything and just make stuff up.” Sam walked away, throwing a limp wave over his shoulder. “So long, Robert.”
“But I want to come to London and hunt ghosts with you, Sam.” He ran after his friend. “And I ain’t making anything up, I swear it.”
Sam gave Robert a hard look. “Like I said, if you ain’t making it up, you’ll be able to show me the house, won’t you?”
“Alright. I’ll show you.” The thought of Sam leaving him behind was more than he could bear. They’d been friends for longer than he could remember. And at least it was daylight. Plus, there would be two of them this time. “But we’ll have to be quick. I need to get back before my parents.”
“We won’t be gone long, I’m sure,” Sam said. “Just long enough for you to pretend you can’t find the starving man and his half a house.”
“He wasn’t a man. Not like you or me.”
“We’ll soon see, Robert, won’t we?”
They locked Bessie in Robert’s house and then took the long way round to Gallows Wood, for it wasn’t just Robert’s parents who forbade him to enter the woods. No one was allowed in.
As Robert passed the red tatters of cloth hanging from the trees, a jolt of panic shot through him. Thankfully, Sam was too busy talking to notice, but as Robert looked up at his friend he realized that some of the confidence had left his usually jovial voice.
“Did you really come into Gallows Wood?” Robert asked.
Sam spat upon the path. “’Course I did. Why would you ask me that?”
“I just wanted to check. Because we don’t have to carry on, you know. We could turn back.” Robert peered ahead into the desolate, wintry wood.
“Let’s just keep going. Show me this house, and then we can leave. But not before. And I promise you this—if it doesn’t exist, I’m going to have to find myself another partner for the ghost-hunting business.”
Despite the daylight, the place was just as unnatural as it had been at night. A carpet of dead leaves obscured the path, and several times they lost it. Robert gazed into the mist and crossed his fingers.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked, grinning as he looked down at Robert’s fingers.
“Praying we don’t see your ghost.”
“Don’t worry about that. If we see her, I’ll punch her on the nose and send her on her way. So, where’s this house, then?”
“I don’t know. It was near a stream. We should be there any minute.”
They soon found the stream and as they did, Robert noticed his friend tense.
“This man you saw, he’s probably one of those smugglers,” Sam said. “He must have some sort of disease which makes him thin, and the others use him to frighten people out of the woods. He got rid of you, after all, didn’t he? If your house exists, it’s probably where they hide their treasure. So, was it near here?”
Robert heard the slight tone of fear in his friend’s voice. “Yes.” He pointed ahead. “Through those bushes and up that hill, I think. It’ll be up there somewhere. Look, we don’t have to…”
“Let’s just get up there and see this house, shall we?” Sam said and glanced at the sky. “It’ll be dark soon, and I need to get back before it is. I’ve got a lot to do.”
The house looked even stranger by daylight. Sam, who had been busily discussing how he planned to spend the money they got from the smugglers’ treasure, stopped. “Oh.”
“See, I told you, didn’t I?” Robert said, taking courage from his friend’s fear.
Thankfully, the windows were empty.
“So, where’s the other half?” Sam asked as he stepped cautiously towards the house. Robert joined him, searching the forest floor for signs of it just as he had last night, but there was definitely nothing there.
“It’s even got half a door!” Sam said. “And…it’s open.”
Robert shivered. The door had been closed last night, he was sure of it. So why was it open now? He looked around the trees. Was the man out here with them? “Let’s get home.”
“We can’t.” Sam said. “We need to see if we can find their treasure first, because I ain’t coming back. I haven’t got time. This could pay for us to get to London.”
“This isn’t anything to do with smugglers, Sam. I’m telling you, he wasn’t an ordinary man!”
“Whoever he is, he probably ran away before you raised the alarm. But he might have left something behind. Let’s just have a very quick look. Then we can go.”
“How do you know there’s no one here?”
“Look at it! It’s empty, isn’t it? There’s not a sound.”
“I don’t know.”
“There’s no one here, you coward! Come on, just a quick look.”
Robert knew from experience that it was better not to argue, but as they approached the house, his hands began to shake. Sam laughed at him and slapped him across the t
op of his head. “Get in there!”
“You first.” Robert said.
Sam looked as if he were about to say something and thought twice about it. “Alright, then.” He pushed the door open, turned sideways and stepped into the house.
Robert took a deep breath and followed him.
The hall was dark, its walls covered in lichen and thick webs clung in the corners. Something crunched below Robert’s feet. He looked down and cried out in horror. The ground writhed under a carpet of beetles, earwigs, and huge insects, the likes of which he’d never seen. He tried to turn away, but Sam grabbed him, pulling him on. “Hurry up!” he whispered. “Keep moving, or they’ll crawl up your trousers!”
Robert walked on, his chest tight. It felt as if the hall had somehow grown a little narrower. A doorway stood to their right. Sam glanced in and then stepped inside, pulling Robert with him and sending him sprawling into what looked like an old kitchen. A row of pans hung from the ceiling on hooks. They were covered in rust and patches of moss, and the scorched brick hearth was empty but for dust and a sea of insects.
Robert gazed out of the window at the woods. Thankfully, the trees seemed still and empty. Something skittered against his hand, causing him to flinch and he looked down to find the window ledge covered in a row of dead flies. There was such an air of desolation about the place, a terrible emptiness, and it felt as if it was beginning to seep inside him. “I want to leave, Sam. There’s nothing here. Let’s go.”
“If you believe there’s nothing here, why are you whispering?” Sam shook his head. “No, we’re going to find the treasure first. Come on, let’s look upstairs.”
Sam walked ahead of Robert, blocking the hallway to the front door, and nodded towards the staircase. “Up you go.”
Robert swallowed. He knew that if he refused Sam would never let him live it down. And if he didn’t do what he was told, he was certain Sam would leave him to spend the rest of his life working the fields while Sam went to London to become a famous ghost hunter without him.
“Go on!” Sam whispered.
Robert nodded briskly and began to climb. The first step creaked loudly, sending his heart fluttering. He stopped until a finger prodded him in the back. Robert continued, placing each foot carefully upon the next step and praying it would remain quiet.
As he nearly reached the top, he turned to look back at Sam. His easy smile was gone now, his expression grim. He pointed ahead and whispered, “Hurry up.”
Robert continued, ignoring the urge to turn and push past his friend. It would all be over soon. In no time, they’d be back out in the daylight and on their way home, with Sam having a newfound respect for him.
He reached the landing, the floorboards below bare and, thankfully, free of insects. He looked around the dilapidated hallway. Two doors stood at either side. One was open, the other closed. Robert stepped towards the open door and found a bare room with a rickety old chair and a candle perched upon its arm.
The same candle he’d seen last night from the window. In this very room.
Sam glanced about the room. “I didn’t exactly expect a treasure chest to be sitting here waiting for us. No, they’ve probably hidden their gold. Come on, let’s check the floorboards. One’s probably loose.” He got down on his hands and knees and began to run his fingers along the boards, testing each knot and hole as he went. He pushed down on a board near the window, and the other end rose into the air. He turned to Robert. “Get down here and help me out!”
As Robert crossed the room, he heard the faintest of sounds. A soft click. He was about to turn back to the hall when Sam swore softly. “It’s just rubbish,” he said, removing a tiny figurine from the hole in the floorboards, a toy knight in armor. He delved back into the hole and removed a withered rose inside a sealed bottle. “Why bother hiding this stuff?” He picked up the bottle and smashed it against the floorboard, and was about to reach back into the hole when he froze.
Robert stood, dumbly watching the color drain from Sam’s face as he stared sickly past Robert.
Staring at whoever, or whatever, was behind him.
Slowly, Robert turned as the man stepped into the room. His cadaverous face held a furious glare, his eyes boring into Robert’s, exactly as they had in his dream. And where a mouth should have been, there was simply nothing. The flesh below his nose was completely smooth as it continued down his chin and neck.
Robert barely noticed as Sam pushed him aside, screaming and vanishing through the door.
In the daylight, the man’s emaciated form was even more horrifying than it had been at night. His clothes hung off his skeletal body like those of a scarecrow. His face seemed to be a nest of bright blue worms, twitching below his paper-thin flesh. They’re veins, Robert told himself, watching numbly as they ticked and pulsed below eyes swollen with hatred.
Robert was frozen in the tiny room, unable to move, and as he thought of running, the man turned and closed the door, sealing them inside.
“Let me go,” Robert begged. “Please.”
The man glared down at him, and a new look crept into those bright green eyes.
Victory.
He grasped Robert by the jaw, his bony fingers strong and firm, as his other hand reached towards Robert’s face.
“Please. I have to get home. My parents…” Robert stopped as the man seized a corner of his lips and began to pull. He expected agony, but there was none.
One moment, his mouth felt numb, and the next, it wasn’t there.
He tried to scream, but couldn’t. He reached for his mouth, but it was gone, the flesh below his nose smooth and empty.
Robert stared dumbfounded as the man held his lips between his fingers and placed them carefully below his own nose. And then the mouth, Robert’s mouth, opened upon the man’s face, and he took a huge breath, like a drowning man fished from the sea.
He leaned over, resting a hand against the wall to steady himself, his other hand on his chest. And then he cried out, his voice full of a terrible energy. “Yes!” He slammed his fist into the wall. “Yes!”
Robert tried to look away but was transfixed. He breathed slowly through his nose, taking short breaths, fighting the terror that threatened to engulf him.
The man began to cough. He hunched over, hands on knees, his wracking cough filling the room. And then something passed from his mouth.
A tiny, bright amber being, fluttering like a butterfly.
It hovered in the air before the man, and he reached for it, letting it rest delicately in his palm. He held it to Robert. “Take it in, boy. Breathe it through your nose if you want to live. It shall sustain you, if that’s what you choose.” Deep below the man’s ragged voice was the merest hint of compassion.
He held the glowing filament closer. “Take it now, boy, before your heart stops.”
It fizzled and glowed and, as Robert breathed deeply through his nose, it flew up his right nostril. Such was its intensity that he clenched his fists, fighting to stay on his feet, for it was as if the sun had risen inside his head.
The pangs of hunger he hadn’t even realized were there were instantly sated, his dry throat quenched.
“You won’t want for food and water again, boy.”
Robert watched his own mouth speaking to him from the man’s face.
“It’s no good fretting, either. You won’t get your mouth back. It’s mine now. I’ve taken yours just as my own was stolen. That’s my right. And now I must go. I have a hunger like you’d never believe.”
Robert grabbed at the man, clutching his wrist.
Gently, the man shook him free. “Don’t bother fighting me, boy. Decades I’ve lived in this house. And now you’ve broken my curse and inherited it for yourself.” His eyes softened, a little. “Still, it won’t harm me to tell you what’s what. What to expect. And why. Why is always the most important thing.
Take a seat, boy. Breathe through your nose. Nice and slow. And listen to what I have to tell you. For there may
be a chance for you yet. It is, after all, from your blood that this whole thing started.”
The man guided Robert to the chair and made him sit. He stepped to the window and gazed out into the darkening afternoon. “The story starts here. In this house.
A boy lived here. His name was James Maybury. He was born long ago, longer than you’ve been living. This was a proper house back then, and while it wasn’t much, it was his home. James lived here with his mother, father, and a little sister called Anna. He loved them all very much.
And then a winter came. A bitter cold wind blew across the land, bringing snow and ice, and everything was white, no matter where you looked. Beautiful. And deadly, for the winter was accompanied by a hideous thing that came calling at their door. It found James’s mother and father and his little sister. But somehow, it missed him.
“It was a terrible malady. Fever, thirst, exhaustion, and hallucinations. Visions of imps and demons crawling up the walls and hammering upon the windows, visions such as would drive a person insane. And James could only watch as his family grew sicker and madder by the day. Soon their cupboards were empty and he scoured the house from top to bottom for sustenance, but there was none.
As he watched his family waste away before his very eyes, he knew he must find food and supplies, for eating would surely lend them energy to fight the fever.
So he wrapped himself warm and set out into the woods, ploughing his way through a snow drift almost as tall as he was. He wandered for hours, getting lost as everything looked exactly the same, a sea of white broken only by the trees and stumps.
Eventually he broke from the woods and found himself before a large farm. He knew of the place and the person, if she could be called that, who lived there. With a heavy heart, he trudged through the snow towards the house in the distance. Smoke rose blackly from its chimneys and as he neared it, he passed a barn. From within came the sounds of chickens and pigs. As he heard them, he felt a little hope, for not everything was frozen, and there was still flesh, blood, and sustenance.
So he knocked upon the door, and it was opened by a grotesque woman. If ‘woman’ could be a word befitting the creature. She was a huge thing, her stomach hanging low below her thick woolen dress, pale and distended. Her hair—long, gray, and listless—hung over her reddened face. Her eyes were large and pale, her mouth full and wet, her nose purple at its tip. It was the face of a glutton, a face red through overeating. The opposite of his own and those of the loved ones he’d left behind.
The Book of Kindly Deaths Page 4