by Carrie King
He glared at his daughter.
“You have been very naughty.” He had to bite down on the words that threatened to explode and it made his admonishment stilted. “Go and grab a cloth from under the sink and I will fetch you a bucket of water. You will clean up every bit of this mess, and then you will go to bed as punishment.”
The little girl’s face crumpled and she burst into noisy tears.
David looked at her helplessly. This whole awful time was hard on them all. As her bottom lip wobbled he couldn’t take it anymore and walked over and knelt beside her. Pulling her into his arms he held her tightly as she sobbed against his shoulder, her little body trembling. David breathed in her scent of apples and plastic and yes ketchup. Gently he stroked her hair.
“Louise, it was naughty to make such a mess. But, daddy will help you clean it up and then we’ll all go outside and play.” He kissed the top of her head. “It will be all right, I promise.”
Louise pulled back and looked at him, her face grimy with tears. “Mommy said she likes to hear us play outside,” she said.
David swallowed hard and nodded.
Louise continued. “Mommy said she likes the dress I am wearing today too.” She looked down, lifting the edge of her skirt proudly. “Mommy says it makes me look pretty.”
David brushed a curl of hair back off her face. “You are pretty, Louise. Daddy thinks so too.”
Louise hadn’t finished. “Mommy says that you don’t fix my hair just right. Not like she can do it.”
David stood up abruptly. Today had been hard and difficult, and the evening stretched before him, painful and lonely without Cassie. He was out of patience.
“Mommy has gone,” he said firmly. “We don’t know where she is, but she does not live in our house anymore.”
“Mommy is here! She lives in the painting!” Louise flung herself out of the room and ran up the stairs.
Abigail shot a too-adult look of distaste and accusation in her father’s direction and ran after her sister.
Chapter 23
David stood in front of the painting that hung above the living room fireplace. Leaning in closer he noticed the ridges made by the artists paint brush and the small blobs of oil paint which stood out in stark relief.
Squinting his eyes a little he studied the painting noticing the monk, the pump, the garden. Then his eyes were drawn to the back and he stared at the painted sycamore trees.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and fingers of icy coldness ran down his back. It couldn’t be! A wave of dizziness and vertigo overwhelmed him and he stumbled for a moment.
No it couldn’t be—and yet he rubbed at his eyes and looked again.
This time it was clearer. There could be no mistaking it. A tiny, painted Cassie stood in front of the trees, her arms reaching towards him. As he watched, the figure moved slightly, taking a step onto the painted lawn.
“Cassie?” the word fell from his lips in a strangled moan.
The tiny figure inside the painting moved closer. It was definitely Cassie. Her face was drawn in pain and fear. As David watched, she mouthed, “Help me.”
“Cassie!” David moved as close to the picture as he could.
“Cassie, I don’t know how to help you!”
The painted Cassie looked suddenly to the left and her mouth opened in a silent scream. She held her hands up in front of her body and stepped backwards as David watched helplessly. He stared, slack jawed, at the movement to the side of the painting.
A dun-colored creature slowly crept into the scene.
The painted monk dropped his gardening tool and stepped backwards, his face turned towards Cassie.
David reached out two hands and gripped the sides of the painting, wrenching it from the wall.
“Cassie!”
He watched in horror as the creature approached Cassie, taking its time, stalking her.
Heart pounding he shook the painting but it did no good. This had to be a dream, an allusion. It had to be his mind breaking... didn’t it?
Before him the tiny figure of Cassie seemed to be trying to run. Her legs moved in a blur but she was not moving. No matter how fast she pounded her legs she stayed in one spot, her mouth stretched into a silent scream.
David tensed as he could make out more of the creature. It was a nightmarish kind of yellow spirit or demon, an awful being with scaly skin, yellow eyes, and a horned forehead.
As Cassie raced on the spot it crept closer to her.
“Cassie, you have to run!” he shouted.
Cassie turned towards him again, and the last thing he saw was her terrified face and that awful, silent scream.
Within moments, the creature pounced, and tiny Cassie fell to the ground, obscured by the horrible dun of the demon.
In jerking movement it raised sharp, black talons above its head and raked them down again, over and over.
The sudden metallic scent of blood reached his nostrils and he felt his body retch.
“No!” His own scream had left his mouth before he had even realized that it had formed.
“Daddy?”
He turned towards the doorway, panting with fear, his heart pounding in his ears.
Louise and Abigail stood framed in the doorway. The little girls were holding hands and staring towards him.
“Daddy?” Abigail whispered again. “The bad man told us that he hurt Mommy, and he’s going to hurt us too. Daddy, you have to help us. We have to leave.” Their little innocent faces were pinched and pale and tears ran down their cheeks.
David stared above the girls’ heads at a yellow mist that was forming there. It writhed and turned in the air above them like a living beast.
David wanted to scream and shout. He wanted to pinch himself and wake up. Had he really seen that... that thing in the picture. Had he seen Cassie... killed?
Though it made no sense he knew it was real and that he had to act, but how?
He looked back at the picture where it lay on the floor boards. The tiny Cassie had disappeared, leaving a wide patch of red on the painted grass. A sob escaped him but he bit it down. The girls came first now.
The figure of the monk was once again bending over his gardening task, as still as any painted figure could be. The stand of sycamore trees once again stood still and innocuous. Or did they? David looked closer and caught the glimpse of a dun-colored figure flitting past the dark trunks of the trees. He stooped and picked up the picture.
“Run!” he called to his daughters, “Run outside as fast as you can!”
Louise and Abigail turned and pulled open the heavy front door, running quickly out onto the steps. David ran to the kitchen to collect the matches and firelighter from the kitchen drawer.
The picture was heaved and rocked in his hands, and a low whispering began in the air around him.
A sprinkling of yellow dust fell from the ceiling and lay like a second skin across his hands as he watched. He snatched his car keys up from the bench and thrust them into the pocket of his jeans.
With the picture like a beast in his arms he ran out the door, rushing past his daughters.
“Get in the car and lock the doors!” he shouted at them as he threw them the keys.
He didn’t stop to see if they had obeyed but instead ran to a clear patch of lawn just past the house. The painting was like a beast in his arms and he tossed it down onto the grass and fumbled for the lighter and matches.
A sudden shrieking ripped through the air.
David shook his head in an attempt to clear it of the agonizing noise, and tipped the contents of the lighter fluid over the painting. A large cloud of yellow mist rose from the picture and swirled in the air in front of him. Dust fell from nowhere and covered his arms as he tossed the empty lighter fluid bottle to one side.
“Get out! Go! Leave us alone!” David shouted as he struck a match across the lighting strip. The stick of wood flared into life and flamed. Quickly, he dropped the match onto the pain
ting.
The shrieking rose even louder reverberating through his eardrums until he feared they might burst. He put his hands over his ears in an effort to shut out the terrible shrieking.
The picture burst into flames, and a terrible, suffocating smell of sulfur filled the air. A rustle drew his eyes towards the sycamore trees, standing over the other side of the garden plot.
Their leaves rustled slightly in the gentle breeze. For just a moment he saw a movement in among the trunks, something running and weaving through the trees.
David glanced back at the car. His daughters’ small, scared faces were pressed up against the windscreen glass.
Before him the picture was now a mass of flame and smoke and yet he knew it wasn’t over. They had to get away, he put his head down and ran towards the car.
The shrieking battered at him, a physical sensation filling his head and tearing at his eardrums. Head down, arms and legs pounding, he raced for the car. Something clawed at his back. It sliced his skin and then caught in his clothes. For a moment, he was pulled back and then his forward momentum broke him free. With a last gargantuan effort he reached the car door.
“Open the door, open the door!” he shouted at Abigail’s shocked face and watched for what seemed like an eternity as his daughter fumbled for the lock. Finally, the door opened and David threw himself into the driver’s seat.
“Daddy!” shrieked Abigail and Louise in unison. “Daddy, we don’t like this!”
David turned the key in the ignition and the car roared to life. He looked over at what remained of the painting on the lawn, panting in fear.
The painting twisted and jumped, and the yellow mist swirled and raged above it. Smoke and flames danced across the surface of the picture. Something suddenly hit the top of the car with a thud, something heavy and angry that hit so hard that it rocked the vehicle where it stood.
“Sit down!” he shouted to the girls, and he put his foot down on the accelerator and sped backwards out of the driveway, away from the house in Briar Park and towards safety.
The beast pounded on the roof as the car raced through the trees. David kept his foot hard down on the accelerator. The car slid around a corner but still the beast pounded on the roof.
How could they escape this?
David could see the road ahead of him but between them, it was a wall of yellow mist. Every part of him was afraid of that mist. He felt that if he hit it that it would swallow them whole and yet he knew that he had to make a choice.
He stepped on the brakes and the car slid to a halt.
“Daddy!” Louise cried.
“It’s okay.”
The beast slid off the roof and came around to the side of the car. He couldn’t make out its shape but he knew it would be coming for them. That it would get through the windows and would pull them from the car.
Revving the engine he released the brake and the car rocked forward.
The girls screamed as they hit the yellow mist but they went straight through it and were rocketing toward the road.
David wanted to cough. The air was filled with sulphur, but it was clearing and then the wheels came off the gravel of the woodland road and hit the tarmac. They were clear.
He turned the wheel to head them towards the town and pushed his foot down on the accelerator gunning the car as fast as he could.
The further they drove the less they could smell sulphur and eventually his heart slowed down.
They had lost everything, Cassie, the house, their clothes and all their belongings, but they had survived and they had each other.
He knew that tomorrow he wouldn’t believe what had happened but he made himself a promise. He was never going back to that house.
The Darkness in the Shadows
The Haunting in Briar Park – Book 4
By
Carrie King and Caroline Clark
©Copyright 2019
All Rights Reserved
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Chapter 24
England, 1990
Clouds of dust billowed into the air and the constant noise and drone of heavy equipment rumbled over the site embedded deep in the woods. Men in high-vis vests scurried around, their faces glum. They were all intent on finishing their tasks on time, to schedule, and with the minimum of fuss. Not one of them wanted this job to continue into another week.
The crack of metal machinery connecting with, and breaking through, live tree trunks blended with the roar of diesel motors and, here and there, the shout of a supervisor overseeing and instructing his crew.
Roger pushed his hard hat back a little in order to scratch at the sparse and sweat-drenched hair on his head. He turned to Frank, his off-sider for the duration of this project.
“This has turned into more of a nightmare than I’d ever imagined. We’re days behind.”
Frank, a burly man with heavily tattooed arms, folded together the large sheet of plans he’d been studying and nodded. He smiled a little, Roger was the only man on site who didn’t swear and sometimes it amused him.
“I know. It seems we’ve dealt with one delay after another, and the whole thing has been a bloody nightmare. But I’m hoping we’re past the worst of it. If all goes well, we should be done by nightfall tomorrow.”
“Hey!”
A piercing shout could be heard above the sound of the machinery. It was followed by a pause in the movement from one side of the construction, where a small crew of men labored over the removal of a small stand of sycamore trees.
Frank and Roger looked over in the direction of the commotion. Moments later, a sickening scream rent the air. The two men looked at each other for a moment, then ran toward the source of the disturbance.
“What is it?” Roger was puffing and slightly out of breath by the time he’d covered the short distance to where the earthmover now stood idle.
Several white-faced men were standing and staring down at something which lay at their feet. He couldn’t quite make it out but there was something disturbing about the whole scene.
Tony, the supervisor, whirled around. His face was deathly pale. “Call the paramedics. It’s John. And it looks bad.”
Frank arrived at the scene, a few steps behind Roger. The two men looked down at the bundle of clothes before them and it was a few moments before the scene sunk in. It wasn’t just clothes but skin, and gore, what was left at a man lay at the center of the small circle of men.
Frank was already reaching for his mobile phone. He lifted the device to stab in the emergency number when he suddenly doubled over and turned away, vomiting copiously on the turned-over ground.
Roger swallowed hard as he made out the name tag. John, a genial father-of-two and a favorite with his workmates, lay in a broken heap on the soil. Roger was no doctor, but even he could clearly see that it was too late for the paramedics. John’s body was twisted in an impossible knot, his arms broken and lying at old angles behind his head, his legs snapped at the knees and pointing in opposite directions. A large portion of his face was missing.
“How did this happen?” Roger whispered as bile rose in the back of his throat.
He could hear Frank, now recovered slightly, talking urgently into the phone behind him. Several of the work crew were sobbing quietly. One of the young men stumbled away, falling to his knees in the dirt.
Tony shook his head. He looked as if he was about to faint.
“No one saw what happened. John had just walked into the trees to check for any major obstacles before the earthmover went in. The next minute he was … he was thrown out of the woods and onto the ground at our feet. Like this.”
Tony swallowed hard and looked across at his men. They were nodding in agreement, their faces twisted in horror.
Roger frowned. “What do you mean, he was thrown out of the woods? That makes no sense at all.” Obviously the machine driver must have not seen the man and run him over... o
nly surely even the earth mover wouldn’t make such a mangled mess.
Tony looked at him solemnly. His Adam’s apple was bobbing rapidly up and down.
“I know it makes no sense. But we all saw it with our own eyes.”
Roger felt a shudder pass over him as the clouds covered the sun. There had been something oppressive about this site since the moment they walked on but this had to be an accident... didn’t it?
Chapter 25
Gerald banged his hand down on the desk. His pen jumped a few inches in the air, then rolled across the oak desktop. He glared at Roger.
“This is a catastrophe! This project has gone weeks over schedule and thousands of pounds over budget. The health and safety record of the whole company has been blighted with one incident after another and now this... You’ve got some explaining to do. The Briar Park development has been the worst disaster in our company’s records.” Gerald’s face was red, his eyes wide and his adam’s apple bounced in his throat.
Roger took a deep breath. He knew the responsibility stopped with him. What had happened was on his shoulders, and he was prepared to accept the consequences. He stared at his boss. He’d never seen Gerald so fired up, and he couldn’t blame him. The site had been closed for inspection by the health and safety executive following John’s terrible death. Roger had never had a death on his construction and he prided himself on keeping his men safe and yet only a matter of days after they’d been cleared to return to work, another worker, Billy had been involved in an awful accident.
Billy was still alive, barely, but the doctors had warned that he might never regain consciousness. Roger swallowed the lump that threatened to choke him. He almost hoped that the man didn’t recover, given the extent of his injuries.