by David J Howe
She only hoped that what awaited her at the end would also be pleasurable. Or at least that she could assess how Douglas was and arrange for professional help should he need it.
She sighed. Everyone’s Mum. That was her. She just couldn’t help herself.
The train pulled into Satanhall station and Kate grabbed her overnight bag and stepped off into the warm sunlight.
It was a beautiful October day. The skies were blue, and the sunshine was dappling the platform through the trees.
Kate headed for the exit, hoping that a taxi might be there. She had several notes stuffed in her purse for the trip should it be necessary.
At the front of the station, the road was empty. There were no cars, no traffic of any kind. She also noted that there were no other passengers.
A solitary platform guard pushed a broom along the platform at the far end.
Kate pulled the sheet of paper that Douglas had sent her from her pocket. She orientated it to the station, and with a sigh, set off along the road.
There were no houses, no people, no cars. If it wasn’t for the tarmac she was walking on, then it could have been the middle ages!
After about five minutes walking, there was a smaller road off to the left. Kate consulted her paper. Yes, that seemed to be the way.
Didn’t they believe in signs around here?
She set off down the smaller road, heading into a section overhung by trees. The scent of the country was strong: fresh grass and trees. She could hear pigeons cooing, and other birds too. The sun came through the trees in slanted rays which illuminated the insects and pollen in the air.
After a while, there was a track off the road. Again, no signs and no way of knowing where you were actually going. But according to Douglas’ map, this was the way …
Kate headed off down the track, opening a gate to pass through, and closing it again after herself. That was something you did in the country: close gates. Kate wasn’t sure where she had heard that. Perhaps as a child? Or on television maybe.
She was really enjoying the walk though, helped by the sunshine and the sights, smells and sounds of the country. Whatever Douglas was doing here, it seemed to be a nice place to live. Especially if you wanted solitude.
Kate found that the rough dirt track on which she had been walking had given way to a muddy patch, with fields beyond. According to the map, the cottage where Douglas was staying was nearby. Kate spotted what seemed to be a clearer area up ahead, where the trees thinned a little, and she surmised that she might be able to spot the cottage if she got a little higher up.
She skirted the muddy patch, and made her way up to the clearing, hopping over a small ditch running through it.
As she entered the clearing, she noticed that it was quiet here. Much quieter than the woodlands she had been traversing. There seemed to be no birdsong at all. The silence was palpable.
She skirted a large bush, and stopped abruptly.
Right in front of her was a statue of some sort.
It was sitting/standing on a dais about four or five feet tall, and was like nothing she had seen before.
Made from some sort of marble or stone, it was festooned with ivy and moss as though it had been there a long time and nature was trying to reclaim it.
Kate approached and went round to the front of it. It was some sort of gargoyle she decided. Huge and ungainly, with two horns curling around its massive head, and two stubby arms tucked in at the sides.
Its feet ended in hooves, and they too were tucked underneath the statue, as though it were just crouching there on the plinth. Waiting.
Kate shuddered involuntarily, and decided that other peoples’ ideas of decorative statues were not hers.
She set off again from the statue in a still uphill direction, hoping to spot the cottage. The way was crossed with brambles, and she had to tread carefully. She passed through some trees, alongside a patch of dense ferns, and then between a couple of bushes.
And found herself facing the statue again.
Kate shook her head and looked back the way she had come. Had she gone in a complete circle?
No. No she hadn’t.
So was this another of the statues then? Perhaps the land owner liked the design and so had several installed.
Frowning, Kate passed the statue again, unnerved as the patches of moss and ivy growing on it seemed the same as before.
Keeping an eye on the statue, she headed in a different direction to the right … and momentarily stepped out again to find herself facing the statue again.
She was certain this time that she had not gone in a circle, and that this was the same place as she had been before – indeed the grass underfoot was crushed where she had walked. She could clearly see her two trails away from, and two coming towards the thing on the plinth.
There was a sudden sound from the bushes off to one side. A sound made all the more clear by the lack of any other noise in the clearing.
Kate looked intently around her.
‘Hello? Anyone there?’
There was no answer. She thought she saw a movement off behind a tree, but when she looked more closely there was nothing there. A trick of the light perhaps.
She looked back at the statue. It seemed to be regarding her silently and balefully.
‘Is this you?’ she asked, hardly expecting a reply from a lump of stone.
‘I don’t need this. So I can’t just leave, is that it?’
Unlike many people, Kate had grown up with stories of the fantastic from her father, and she had a healthy respect for anything which seemed to be not right. And this whole situation reeked of not right to her.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her mobile phone. Keeping her eyes on the statue, she punched a familiar ‘favourites’ button and held the phone to her ear. There was a crackling sound as though it had been answered.
‘Hello? Dad?’
The crackling continued. Kate checked the screen. No signal. The phone was as good as useless.
She put it back in her pocket and looked again at the huge statue.
As she stared at it, she considered that the statue seemed to be looking back at her. A feeling crept over her that this was not just a statue, but that this was something more. Something real and dangerous.
But it was just stone wasn’t it?
There was something about the statue that she couldn’t put her finger on. A sensation like pins and needles in her scalp which made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
She reached out with one hand, and as it approached the foot of the statue, so the hairs on her arms stood up as though there was a static electric field all around her.
‘There’s something,’ she muttered, touching the cold stone foot of the creature with her hand.
Kate was suddenly somewhere else.
The air was different, sweeter with the smell of incense and smoke. The light was tinged with red, and underfoot she could feel dust and rubble rather than grass.
She could hear chanting: guttural and alien. Words and phrases which had no meaning hung in the air around her.
She turned on the spot, not quite knowing or understanding what had happened. Her arm was outstretched, and she pulled it back into her body.
There seemed to be people coming closer around her. Shadowy figures in cowls which hid their faces moving in a circle.
She turned again, twisting, and …
… and was back in front of the statue in the clearing. She drew a huge breath into her lungs. She could still smell and taste the incense.
She looked at her hand and arm and saw that the fine hairs were still standing on end. She shook her arm. That was not something she wanted to repeat.
She looked out away from the statue, and suddenly, through the swaying trees, saw what she had been looking for: a cottage.
With a backwards glance at the statue, still standing, impassively in place, Kate headed towards the cottage. Hopefully this time she would be allow
ed to get there!
The High Executioner strode into one of the sub-rooms of St Paul’s Cathedral, her eyes were bright and she was waiting for some good news for once.
Since the two time travellers had been destroyed, things had quietened, but she had ordered that a monitor be maintained on the time zone: key nexus that it was.
Through her acolytes, and the partial portal maintained by the stone gargoyle, she had been able to insinuate herself into the mind of the one known as Cavendish. He had proven to be of great value, providing the energy that they needed to maintain the connection.
In the centre of the lower room was a large throne-like chair, and seated in that chair was the acolyte chosen to be the voice of the Sodality in Cavendish’s mind.
The man was a physical wreck. The High Executioner had ordered that anything other than the mind be excised from the acolyte so that he could fully focus on the task at hand. Thus his body was withered and decaying. Leather straps prevented the blood from circulating fully, causing his limbs to atrophy, blacken and eventually die.
His head was held in a copper cradle to keep it upright, and a network of pipes and valves brought water and nutrients to the brain.
The High Executioner inspected her creation. They had come a long way since the experiments which created hideous machine-creatures. This was the current cycle of progress, allowing the mind to be freed to maintain the psyonic connections far longer than any ‘normal’ human could bear.
She leaned close to the creature in the chair.
‘I need connection,’ she hissed. ‘Now.’
The shattered man moaned, but obeyed his mistress. The acolytes surrounding them increased their chanting, and the High Executioner prepared to determine exactly who this stranger was that had travelled via the portal. Who had been able to breach their own defences and enter their headquarters with no prior warning.
This was something that could not be permitted.
2
Cavendish
Kate found that the path from the statue wound around and led to a small gate. It was very picturesque, and she took a moment to look around.
There was even an ancient well just outside the gate. She went to it and peered in.
It descended into darkness, and she noted that the bucket was missing. Not much use as a well now, she thought.
Kate opened the gate and stepped into the garden. The strange silence lifted, and she could hear birdsong again, and the buzzing of insects.
The cottage sat nestled in nature as though it had always been there. There were flowers all around it, and the lawn, although a little long, showed signs of having been tended at some point.
‘Kate!’
The voice and a grimy hand on her arm made her jump. She stepped back and turned to see the dishevelled form of Captain Cavendish. He had stepped out of the foliage behind her.
Cavendish was wearing what might once have been a smart suit, but now it was crumpled and dirty. He was unshaven and the stubble and beard growth suggested that this was for some time.
It looked like he hadn’t changed his clothes too.
‘Thank goodness you came,’ Douglas blurted, his eyes flicking back and forth and all around.
To be honest to himself, Cavendish had never expected Kate to actually come. Yes, he had written to her many times, but for her to actually be there …
Plus there was the uncertainty of his perception. He did keep seeing things that didn’t seem to be there. And hear them too.
He checked all around, but she was there, and real.
Kate looked at him. ‘Douglas?’
Almost immediately the voice in Cavendish’s head chimed in. To Cavendish it was cold and controlled. An echo of what his own voice used to sound like.
‘She knows him!’
In the far future, the shattered semblance of a man spoke in the same cold tones.
‘She knows him!’
The High Executioner smiled. The link was sound, and they were still in control.
‘Tell me everything,’ she said, and nodded to the acolytes to keep the psyonic link active.
Kate’s voice echoed back to Cavendish as though from a long distance away. These ‘episodes’ were getting worse …
‘Douglas? It’s me, Kate? You wrote to me?’
Cavendish shrugged, more of a tic, and looked around again. ‘Glad I got you. Phones not working. Nearest post office miles away. Had to walk. Transport up the creek.’
Kate looked at the man closely. He was exhibiting many symptoms which she recognised as being some form of shell shock. Recovery trauma from the events that he had been forced to confront perhaps? She had seen this several times before in friends of her dad.
She kept her voice gentle, feeling that this was the best way to connect with Douglas, who was obviously feeling the strain.
‘What … what’s been happening?’
She looked at him again and realised why he looked so ragged and grimy.
‘Have you been sleeping rough?’
Cavendish twitched at the cottage, then back to her.
‘Had to. Couldn’t stay in the cottage. Too much happening. Too much going on.’
Cavendish winced as the calm voice in his head said: ‘Get her away from here.’
‘I can’t,’ he replied. ‘Need her.’
‘Get a grip, man,’ said the cold voice.
To Kate, this exchange was bewildering. Douglas seemed to be talking to himself.
Cavendish took a deep breath.
‘I … I’m sorry … a lot has been happening … I’m finding it hard to cope. I get confused on my own. Not sure who I am. There are … voices … voices in my head …’
‘I’m not sure I know who you are either,’ said Kate. ‘Why did you ask me to come here? You said it was something to do with dad …’
Cavendish looked at his feet. ‘You were the only person who might understand.’
Kate’s eyes widened. ‘Understand?’
Cavendish nodded and started to wander back towards the cottage.
Kate followed him. ‘But you nearly killed us all? Everything …’
Cavendish’s mind again flashed back to the events at the University. He had indeed made some mistakes.
‘I know … I know …’
‘So why should I trust you?’ Kate asked. ‘What’s this got to do with dad?’
Cavendish turned and took her hand. ‘You were the only one who visited me, Kate. The only one who cared. When it was all over … when I was taken to … to … hospital. Severe mental and nervous burn out. Nothing left. But you …’
Kate looked into his eyes. So much pain. ‘Dad told me you had been a good friend to him. Before. I felt I owed him that.’
‘But you were there! You saw …’
‘I know. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been … and dad said he had seen much, much worse in his time … but, Douglas, you were discharged. No blemish on your record. None of it was your fault …’
Cavendish sighed again. ‘Burn out. That’s what they called it. Fine young officer. Prime of life. Excellent UNIT material … and then just put out to roost. No regard for what I wanted. They said I was finished.’
The voice in Cavendish’s head said in a slow, gloating manner, ‘Not finished yet.’
Cavendish shook his head in a nervous tic. ‘Kate. You came. I didn’t think you would. You’ll help me? Help me sort it before anyone finds out?’
‘Of course I will … if I can …’
Kate looked at Cavendish again. His eyes were pleading and she could see there was no malice in the man.
‘You’d have said anything to get me to come, wouldn’t you?’ Kate dropped his hand and looked around. ‘Look … I’ve just walked miles from the station. It’s the end of October … I’m tired … I’m cold … my feet hurt and I’m dying for a cup of tea.’
She glanced back the way she had come into the garden. ‘And that clearing … back there in the woods? I saw
someone, I’m sure I did. Something happened and … silly really, but every path I took lead back to the statue …’
Cavendish looked agitated at mention of the statue. He clasped his hands to his upper arms and hugged himself.
In his mind the cold voice chuckled. ‘We know all about the statue …’
‘Don’t want to go there,’ he blurted.
Kate’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’
‘It … it’s not safe.’
Kate looked at the way back to the statue, to Cavendish and finally to the cottage.
‘Well if you’d rather go to the cottage …’
This dilemma confused Cavendish and he looked frantically from Kate to the cottage and back. His eyes large and pleading.
Kate took pity on him. ‘Tell you what, let’s look at the statue first, and then I’ll make you a nice cup of tea … How does that sound?’
With that, she took Cavendish’s arm and gently led him back to the gate and the path that led to the statue.
There was definitely something going on here, and she hoped she could get Douglas to tell her what it was before the man broke completely. He seemed permanently on the edge, and her heart went out to him. No-one should have to live like that.
3
The Statue
As Kate and Cavendish rounded the bushes, the sight of the statue sitting there on its plinth was as disturbing as ever.
Cavendish pulled away from Kate and stood watching the thing intently, as if at any moment it was going to rear up and pounce on them both.
Kate cautiously approached the thing. As before it seemed to suck the energy from the clearing.
She lifted her hand and held it close to the stone. She could feel the strange tingling sensation, and there was the slight smell of ozone in the air also.