The Darkness Rising

by David Stuart Davies

David cast a smiling glance at Rob, wondering if he had been serious last Friday about 'killing' Vera Cooper, but Rob did not respond. He didn't look as though he had been listening; his tired eyes were fixed on the middle distance in glazed stare.

  ‘So, gentlemen, the ball is firmly in your court,’ Parker announced with a certain finality.

  There was a brief pause, everyone waiting to see if he had really finished at last, and then:

  ‘What about some new characters?’ The question was posed by Peter Thornton, a wiry Geordie who had joined the writing team nine months before after years in radio drama.

  Predictably, David thought, his scripts were too wordy and often too good for the average soap viewer.

  ‘Well, it's possible, depending on budget. Have you anything in mind?’ Parker did not seem impressed.

  ‘Not yet,’ Thornton replied hesitantly, ‘but it's worth thinking about.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Parker smoothly, ‘any new characters would have to be exceedingly dramatic and spellbinding if they are to establish themselves and up the ratings in three months.’

  There was a pause with much nodding of heads and then David leaned forward to speak. Despite the rejection of some of his recent storylines, he was respected by the other writers and by Nelson Parker in particular, who privately considered that he was wasting his time writing the Vernon pap and was worthy of better things, so when David offered an idea in his slow and thoughtful way, he was listened to.

  ‘Why don't we,’ he said, ‘bring someone back from the dead?’

  ***

  Kate was reading a script when her mobile beeped. It was for a television thriller. She had rejected it once, thinking it trite and too violent for her tastes, but on reflection she now thought it might be a good idea to accept the part. There was no better way of putting the past behind you than by plunging back into work. It would be good to act again, to play at being someone else. This, Kate admitted to herself, was when she was at her happiest. It would also take her away from the cottage and thoughts of Michael. The place encouraged her to brood and to surrender to those awful thoughts of guilt. A hectic television studio would soon shake those from her mind.

  Re-reading the script, she quickly became engrossed in the storyline and found to her surprise that she was really enjoying it. So involved was she in it that when the telephone rang and interrupted her reading, breaking the peace of the cottage, she gave a little start as it dragged her sharply back into the real world.

  The voice at the other end was unknown to her. It was flat and strangely distant.

  ‘Mrs Barlow?’

  She flinched at the use of her married name.

  ‘My name is Crabtree. You don't know me, Mrs Barlow, but it is important that I see you today.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I can't really discuss it over the telephone, Mrs Barlow.’

  For a fleeting moment Kate thought that this Crabtree may be some kind of cranky fan who had seen her on television and had tracked her down to her home address, just so he could meet her. She was just about to put end the call when he continued.

  ‘I know you must think this is strange, Mrs Barlow, but I assure you that it is absolutely vital that we meet today.’ And then he added, almost as an afterthought: ‘You see, I have a message from your husband.’

  ***

  ‘Why don't we bring someone back from the dead?’ said David.

  There was a moment's pause and then several spoke at once. Rob Moore, who up to this point had seemed detached and preoccupied, turned to David in wide-eyed astonishment. He said nothing but his pale, tired features and shaking hands showed that in some strange way he was perturbed by what David had said.

  ‘Look,’ said Nelson Parker, holding his hands up for silence, ‘you'd better come clean, David, and explain exactly what you mean.’

  ‘I'd like to resurrect a character,’ he said, simply.

  ‘Who?’ asked Peter Thornton.

  ‘Margo's husband.’

  ‘John Doyle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But he's dead,’ snapped Ben Hughes. ‘You can't bring a dead man back... except as a ghost. You're not suggesting we turn Vernon and Sons into a ghost show are you?’

  David gave a wry grin. ‘Well, it's an idea.’ His grin broadened. ‘No, of course I don't mean that. Remember John Doyle was only presumed dead.’

  ‘He died in a plane crash—that's a fairly strong presumption,’ Peter Thornton observed dryly.

  ‘Well, the plane crashed and there were no survivors, yes; but Doyle's body was never recovered. Now what if...’ he paused here for dramatic effect and to ensure he had their full attention... ‘what if he was never on the plane in the first place?’

  ‘What?’ Alan Hughes frowned.

  David explained. ‘Doyle left his wife because he'd had enough of her and the business. As the story went, he packed his bags and flew to South America. En route the plane was struck by lightning and crashed in the sea. End of Doyle—end of storyline. Now at present, Margo is heavily involved with Richard Vernon, the firm's eligible bachelor. What if we make her pregnant and then bring John Doyle back?’

  David paused again, but no one spoke. Each was weighing up the feasibility and potential of the idea. All, that is, except for Rob Moore who seemed to have retreated into his own thoughts once more.

  ‘You see,’ David explained further, ‘Doyle never caught the flight to South America in the first place. He had second thoughts and so he just went away—somewhere—to sort himself out. Now he's done that, he returns to the fold. Imagine the juicy complications: Margo is still legally married to Doyle, but pregnant to another man who was Doyle's superior in the firm. What’s Margo going to do? Which way will she jump? Loads of speculation in the press as to the outcome. Real intrigue for the viewers. It will split them into two camps.’ He opened his hands palms upwards and glanced around at his colleagues as if to say: ‘Howzat?’

  ‘I like it,’ said Nelson Parker, smiling and nodding decisively. This was more than his opinion, it was his seal of approval—an assurance of what would happen.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben Hughes, who was learning, ‘it's good. Let's do it.’

  ***

  It was hot and stuffy in Crabtree's ancient Punto. Already the sweat was forming under his toupee and trickling down his forehead. He glanced at himself in the driving mirror. What he saw he didn't like. The puffy, blotched face, now damp with sweat, gazed back at him with a stoical sadness. He had the sensitivity to see himself as others did: a fat unpleasant-looking man in cheap clothing. I'm not really like that on the inside, he constantly wanted to tell people, but the unpleasant fleshy trappings all too clearly delineated the man.

  As he grew older it had become a real effort on his part to crush these feelings of self-pity. While his body decayed, and the face became etched with further wrinkles and blotches, any hope of self-improvement faded and these dark moods grew more frequent and more immutable.

  The car jerked up at a set of traffic lights. A light-coloured Mini drew alongside him. He cast a glance across and saw its occupants were two girls dressed in the bright citrus colours of the young. By some sort of reflex action, they reciprocated the glance and then turning away resumed their animated conversation.

  What had they thought of him? Ugly, stupid man. Ugh! Probably, if they'd thought anything at all. The lights changed and Crabtree chugged away in the wake of their roaring exhaust. He might be all those unpleasant things that people thought of him—those that judged by appearance only. But there was more to Arthur Crabtree than met the casual eyes. He had a special gift. A Special Gift. And this gave him Power.

  A Special Gift.

  He could contact the Dead.

  He had only been a child of nine when he first became aware of this—when he had his first other-world experience. It was then that he had seen his dead mother wandering in the tiny garden of their home looking at her beloved roses. She had been no transparent s
pectre of the story books, but a real-life figure. She had been very real.

  That moment had remained vivid and fresh in his memory; he could recall it with great clarity in an instant. His mother had lifted her head from inhaling the scent of a large yellow rose and turned to him, smiling. Her features were serene, and bore no trace of her final, painful illness. ‘Hello, Arthur,’ she said, her voice clear and strong carried like the scent of the roses on the sultry, summer breeze. Young Arthur had felt no fear at this unexpected appearance of his mother, who had been quite dead for a year. He was neither perturbed nor worried. On the contrary he had felt warm, relaxed... uplifted... and Special.

  ‘Mam,’ he'd said, moving towards her, but stopping in his tracks as she retreated, the serene smile still playing about her lips.

  ‘Tell them all, Arthur, that I'm happy, so very happy,’ she said finally, merging into the colourful spread of blooms, until he lost sight of her.

  ‘Tell them I'm happy.’ The words and the voice stayed with him to this day. It was only later that he understood why his mother appeared to him and not to his father or his sister Emily. It was because he had the Special Gift.

  Of course, he wasn't aware of its potential then. But as he grew up he had more other-world experiences and gradually he came to realise that he had the Power. Not only that, but he learned to control it, to use it for his own purpose.

  And so the people began coming to him: the grieving, the curious, the emotionally crippled and the cranks. They came and they paid. Paid for his Special Gift.

  His powers were strong then and with recklessness and inexperience of youth he used it carelessly—as a means to an end: to obtain women. He loved women—not just with normal appetite of a man. He loved the whole idea of a woman. He loved their flesh, so smooth and fine, so unlike his own rough and blotched skin; he ached to touch and caress it, to run his fingers along it. Sex to him was only a by-product of close body contact, when the feel and smell of a woman would overpower his senses. He would sink and drown happily in the essence of womanhood.

  He realised now that he had squandered his Special Gift in satisfying these carnal desires. They had drained him in some way. The sensations he derived from his contact with women, most of them bought and paid for, were transient and as he decayed into middle-age, he found that his Special Gift was similarly transient: his powers waned and then faded away. There had always been a little trickery in his seances—for theatrical effect, because it was what the punters expected and it gave them a feeling that they were getting value for money—but the contact with those on the Other Side had been genuine and potent. Then, gradually, as the real contact began to dry up, Crabtree found himself increasingly having to fake the other-world messages.

  Now they were all fake.

  He had resigned himself to living the rest of his life as a fraud, a performer of shoddy miracles, when suddenly, without warning, the sensations he had experienced in his youth had returned, more vibrant and stronger than ever. The blinding headaches, the urgent and insistent calling in his brain were there again. But this time there was as difference. This time there was just one voice.

  One strident, obsessed voice.

  ***

  ‘A word, David.’

  David Cole turned and found Rob Moore bearing down on him, his pale, haunted face lacking any traces of the sardonic humour that was usually a permanent feature.

  ‘Yes, sure. Down in the bar?’

  Rob shook his head. ‘Too public. Let's go back to my office. I've got some booze in there’.

  David shrugged his shoulders. ‘OK’.

  He followed Rob down the softly lighted womb-like corridors of Paragon Productions to his office. The script conference was over and the extended lunch hour had begun. Usually Rob was first in the bar and the last to leave it, eschewing food in favour of his beloved spirits. Usually. But today was different.

  Once inside his office, Rob poured David and himself a generous measure of Laphroaig and then collapsed in a chair. David expected the conversation to centre on the new plot developments in Vernon and Sons and whether the programme would sink or swim. He was surprised when, after a pause, Rob asked: ‘How's Kate?’

  ‘Kate? She's... fine.’

  ‘Is she still... is she getting over... y'know?’

  ‘The death of her husband,’ David said coldly, perhaps more coldly than he meant to, but the oblique reference to Michael, the apparently ubiquitous bloody Michael, really irritated him. And what was Rob's concern here? He was far too tense for it to be a polite enquiry and surely it wasn't simple curiosity that prompted him to ask about Kate?

  Rob nodded. ‘Yes, yes. The death of... Michael.’ He paused again and took a large gulp of whisky. David looked at his trembling hands, the dark circles around his eyes and his grey complexion with unease.

  ‘Are you all right, Rob?’ You seem a bit tense.’

  Rob forced his mouth into a smile. ‘Sure,’ he said with some irritation. ‘I've just had a couple of sleepless nights, that's all. So how is Kate?’ The question was unnaturally brusque.

  ‘Kate's fine. It's difficult to appreciate the situation from her viewpoint, but I reckon she's getting her act together now.’

  ‘Michael doesn't bother her anymore?’

  ‘Bother?’ David frowned. It was a strange word to use.

  Rob drained his glass. ‘She's not bothered by thoughts of Michael?’ he added, hoping to clarify the point without being too obvious.

  ‘From time to time. I guess, that's natural. She is a sensitive woman and you can't wipe the memory clean just because a person is dead. Especially a person like Michael.’

  ‘What about you, David? How do you feel about him?’

  ‘What is all this? What on earth are you getting at?’ David felt his anger, his irrational anger, rising again and he found it difficult to hold it in check.

  Rob poured himself another drink and looked at David apprehensively. ‘Getting at? I'm not getting at anything,’ he said somewhat defensively, softening his approach. ‘I'm just concerned. Old friends and all that.’ He tried to smile but the lips couldn't quite make it. ‘He was a powerful personality, Michael. Not an easy chap to forget.’

  ‘You didn't know him all that well, did you?’

  This time the grin worked and it was unpleasant to see. The face and eyes were frozen in some kind of fear, while the lips glided over the teeth into a fixed grimace.

  ‘I knew him better than perhaps you realised.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yes.’

  David said nothing, but looked steadily at Rob knowing that he needed no prompting to say what he wanted to—what, it seemed to David, he had to.

  ***

  Kate regretted having agreed to see Arthur Crabtree even before he arrived at the cottage, but as she ushered in this strange plump man in shabby clothes, she felt sure she had made a mistake. However, here he was and now she would have to go through with the interview.

  ‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ she asked out of natural politeness.

  ‘No thank you, Mrs Barlow. I never take liquids on the day of a seance.’

  Kate shivered at the mention of the word.

  Crabtree sat primly on the edge of an armchair and seemed to be waiting for Kate to open the conversation—which, after an uneasy pause, she did.

  ‘Look, Mr Crabtree, I have little time to spare, so would you mind coming to the point and telling me what all this is about?’

  In reply he handed her a grubby little card which read:

  ARTHUR CRABTREE

  Medium & Clairvoyant

  Reasonable Rates

  Kate looked at the card and then back at Crabtree with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘I've been getting vibrations, Mrs Barlow. Very strong vibrations... from your husband.’

  Kate didn't know whether to laugh or cry. ‘Vibrations?’ she repeated quietly.

  ‘Yes, you see I'm a sensitive and anyone from the other side—those wh
o have passed through the life-death barrier, who have a strong desire to communicate with the living can find a channel through me. I am their mouthpiece, so to speak.’ He paused, placing his hands on his lap and offered her a weak smile. ‘Ah, I can see that you are somewhat sceptical, dear lady.’ Crabtree reached out and touched Kate's hand. He thrilled to the feel of her smooth, cool flesh. Carefully, she withdrew her hand for she found his touch clammy and unpleasant. As he leaned forward, she had become aware of the smell of the man: a cloying mixture of sweat and the odour of mothballs.

  ‘Surely, it is not unreasonable to be sceptical in the circumstances. What you are telling me...’ She was lost for words. All she wanted was for this man to leave, to leave immediately without mentioning Michael again. She found herself digging her nails into the palms creating red half-moons of pain there, for she knew, somehow, that he was telling the truth.

  ‘Perhaps I may be allowed to prove to you in a simple way that I am no charlatan, Mrs Barlow?’ It was a rhetorical question and Crabtree continued with hardly a pause. ‘You were alone in the hospital when your husband died. Although he'd been in a coma for some days, he regained consciousness briefly before he passed to the other side. I know he managed to say something to you before he went, something which I believe you have never told anyone else.’

  Crabtree paused dramatically and Kate found herself numb with anticipation. Her features remained calm but the blood pounded in her head almost blocking out any other sound.

  Nevertheless, she did hear Crabtree repeat Michael's final words:

  ‘I will come back to you.’

  For a moment Kate thought that she was going to faint. The room began to blur and spin; her brow prickled with perspiration and her stomach contracted in a nauseous spasm.

  Crabtree leaned over and touched her again. ‘Dear lady, do not distress yourself,’ he simpered, the unpleasantness of his tainted breath causing Kate further discomfort. She felt his nearness oppressive and this actually helped her to pull herself together. She stood quickly, brushing past him. This simple positive action of moving was reassuring—a confirmation of normality.