Dark Harbour: The Tale of the Soul Searcher

by Joseph Kiel

  And so the telephone rang.

  ‘Can you get that, Simon?’ they heard their grandfather call out.

  Simon was already picking up the receiver. ‘Yeah,’ he said to answer the call.

  The voice on the other end spoke firmly. ‘It’s time we spoke, Ulric. Meet my man down on the beach in ten minutes. And make sure you leave those boys of yours locked up while you’re down here.’

  The line went dead. Simon slammed down the receiver. For a moment he looked towards his grandfather in the kitchen. His mind was in overdrive, his eyes sparkling like firecrackers.

  ‘Who was it?’ Ulric asked.

  ‘No one,’ Simon replied. He disappeared into his room for a moment and then returned. ‘I’m just going out,’ he muttered to his brother. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ a confused Jeremy asked.

  ‘Stay here.’

  Hearing the front door go, Ulric popped his head around the door. ‘Where did he go? Tea’s nearly ready.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jeremy replied.

  A timer in the kitchen sounded.

  ‘Can you go after him for me?’

  Jeremy stood and then picked up a couple of his action figures. He just felt that he needed them.

  It did not take long to spot his brother. It was a muggy evening but Simon had still gone out wearing his coat. From the promenade, Jeremy could see him standing far across the sands. It suddenly struck Jeremy that Simon’s coat looked a little too big for him.

  What Jeremy could not see from the back of the beach was his brother’s pale face, and his hand reaching into his coat pocket to bring out a packet of cigarettes. Nor could he see Simon’s hand shaking as he did this.

  As Simon popped a cigarette into his mouth he heard a familiar voice approaching.

  ‘Simon! Simon! Granddad says tea is nearly ready.’

  He casually hid the cigarettes as he turned to face his little brother. ‘What are you doing here? I’m busy! I’m meeting someone.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’

  ‘No, you can’t! Look just bugger off home would you, you stupid little shit!’

  Why is he so angry? Jeremy’s nerves began to feel on edge, as though he could feel the ground trembling as the leviathan of disaster approached.

  Simon looked across the beach. There was a man in the distance walking towards them.

  ‘Look, go and wait over there,’ Simon instructed his brother as he pointed towards a small wooden shelter at the back of the beach.

  ‘Why don’t you just come back and we can play with these?’ Jeremy said as he held up Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett.

  ‘Yeah. I will later.’

  Jeremy didn’t know what he should do, but feeling Simon’s heavy glare on him he reluctantly did as he was told. Slumping down beside the beach hut he looked back towards his unhinged brother.

  The lone figure eventually walked up to him. He was a grown-up, but not the same as those you pass on the street. He had such a black aura and emitted a poisonous charge in the air, like a demon that had crawled out of the shadows and had come to swallow Simon into his world. Jeremy wanted to go back to his brother and just pull him away from him.

  This isn’t a movie I’m watching. I can still do something! I can save him!

  The man folded his arms and began circling around Simon. Jeremy also noticed that he’d taken his T-shirt off and stuffed it into his back pocket, most probably so that he could deliberately intimidate with his large muscles.

  The next moments went by in a flash. The demon pushed Simon slightly and Simon lashed out, pushing him back as he would the playground bully.

  Stop it, Simon, stop it! Just run away!

  But Simon was oblivious to Jeremy’s thoughts and the sick feeling that was swelling in his stomach. Suddenly the bare-chested man had a flick-knife in his hand. Suddenly he thrust it into Simon’s chest. And suddenly Simon fell to the ground.

  Now Simon was oblivious to everything.

  Jeremy lost control of his body and found himself running as fast as he could towards his brother. He came to a halt as the bare-chested man reached down to pull the knife out of Simon’s guts. And it was at that very moment that an image was permanently etched within Jeremy’s mind, a vision that would haunt him for the rest of his life, a vision that would represent to him the darkness that had suddenly exploded within his soul. On this man’s back was a tattoo of a spider. A black widow spider.

  On removing the knife, the man turned to face Jeremy, but the young boy could only stare at his pale brother lying still on the ground.

  Lifeless. Gone. Forever.

  ‘Get out of here, kid,’ the black widow man said, but Jeremy just sank to his knees in the sand.

  Eventually, however, the demon slinked away.

  Jeremy’s mind was blank. He knelt rigidly, staring at Simon’s eyes. There was nothing within them and it pushed Jeremy over the edge into the abyss.

  An abyss of such penetrating darkness.

  For a good ten minutes Jeremy had been completely numb, rooted firmly to the ground beside his brother as if some invisible force was holding him there.

  Eventually he was able to stand up again. He turned back towards home so that he could go and tell his grandfather of the terrible thing that had just happened.

  It all seemed normal as Jeremy walked spiritlessly into the flat. He slowly trundled towards the living- room and saw Granddad sitting in his favourite chair, facing the television with his back to him. Jeremy thought he must be having a rest.

  Something wasn’t right though and it took a few moments for it to register with him. In the kitchen, one of the pots on the gas stove was boiling over. Froth sloshed all over so Jeremy reached to switch off the flame. His hand burned as soon as he touched the handle and he instantly recoiled.

  The dead feeling in his stomach suddenly turned back into one of sick dread. Couldn’t Granddad hear the stove boiling over?

  Looking at his grandfather’s head as Jeremy made his way back to the living-room, he could see that his wiry grey hair was ruffled. There had been some commotion here. As Jeremy shuffled closer, he saw that Ulric’s face was all bruised and bloody. On the left side, just above the temple, there was a deep wound where he’d been dealt a very heavy blow. The skin was ripped apart and Jeremy could see part of his skull inside. A thick line of crimson blood dripped from the wound onto his shirt.

  Ulric was staring ahead at nothing but when Jeremy peered closer, he noticed that there was still life in his eyes. In fact, they were slowly shifting round to look at him.

  ‘Jeremy…’ Ulric wheezed. His voice was thin and raspy, fading.

  ‘Granddad, what happened?’

  ‘You have to leave here. You have to go away.’

  Ulric was finding it an immense struggle to make the words come out of his mouth but he had to say something. One last act to help save his grandsons before his life was extinguished.

  ‘Come with me, Granddad. Come with me. I’m alone,’ Jeremy pleaded.

  ‘Simon… Your brother?’

  ‘He’s dead, Granddad! Simon’s dead.’

  Ulric closed his eyes. His grasp on life was now fully releasing. He had fulfilled his failure.

  ‘What shall I do, Granddad?’

  Ulric opened his eyes again. Not yet. There was still Jeremy, still this bright young boy with the shine of eternity in his eyes. Those eyes had always triggered such fascination within him, and right now, at the end of everything, Ulric knew why.

  The wheezing guardian gazed within the boy’s eyes and it was like peering into the far reaches of space. There he could see such blinding lights within their blackness. All manner of colours. He smiled as he felt the rapture.

  ‘Jeremy, you have to find that man. The man… with the mints.’

  ‘Alan Hammond?’ Jeremy asked.

  Such a bright boy. ‘Yes. Find him. He will take care of you…’

  Ulric fell silent, his fin
al gaze fixed on the boy.

  ‘Granddad?’

  Jeremy didn’t expect any more from his grandfather and he didn’t get anything more either. It was the last question he was ever to ask him. The fading light within his eyes now diminished into nothingness.

  Now he had absolutely no one. Every single person he had ever loved had been taken away from him. A cold and cataclysmic rage suddenly erupted within him and he sank to his knees and clenched his fists tightly. He closed his eyes and as his face turned purple he roared out the most chilling scream he would ever hear come from his lungs. Every other resident in that block of flats must have heard him.

  He was suddenly overcome with an emotion he had never felt before. Hate. Raging, destructive hate, engulfing his being. The image of the black widow spider with that hourglass of blood again flashed within his mind. He pounded his fists against the carpet so hard that his knuckles went red. His left hand even began to bleed.

  When that wave of rage had passed, Jeremy was again rooted for another ten minutes or so. He expected someone to come knocking on the door to see what was going on but nobody came. Jeremy knew that he had to leave the flat but he had no idea where he should go. For now, he would collect some things together into Simon’s school rucksack.

  He went into his grandfather’s bedroom and lifted the carpet in the corner of the room. This was Ulric’s secret hiding place, something he had shown to Jeremy one day. The young lad had naturally never taken any money from it before, but now was an entirely different matter. There seemed to be quite a lot of notes there but Jeremy didn’t really have any idea how much. He grabbed it all and stuffed it inside the rucksack. On the sideboard sat his grandfather’s penknife. He took that too.

  After a careful rummage, the rucksack was eventually full of things that Jeremy thought he might need. One thing there was no room for were his action figures. He would never need them again.

  Just as he was about to leave, it suddenly occurred to Jeremy that he might need a torch to light his way through wherever he was to go now in Dark Harbour. As Simon had pointed out that time, it was a very dark town. Ulric had a torch beside his bed so Jeremy grabbed it. There was just enough room left in the bag.

  He went back to the living-room to look on his grandfather for the last time. A tear rolled down his cheek.

  ‘Goodbye, Granddad,’ he said aloud, and left.

  Chapter 0.4

  Jeremy felt so empty as he wandered the town streets, like cinders from a bonfire blowing aimlessly in the wind. Although his grandfather had told him to look for Alan Hammond, Jeremy did not have the slightest clue where to begin to look for him.

  When it reached eight o’clock, Jeremy had been walking around for over an hour, going wherever his feet would take him. Although the light was starting to fade, it was still stiflingly warm outside as though an inferno was raging nearby. Walking along the seafront, Jeremy felt tired of walking so he slumped down in front of a building, hugging his knees to his chest.

  The occasional faceless stranger passed by him but no one paid any attention to him, this lost little boy out alone as night approached. He almost started to believe that he might be invisible. No one was going to help him. No one cared about him. Everyone who had ever cared about him was dead and the one person in the world that might possibly lend a hand in his turmoil was hidden somewhere within the never-ending shadows.

  A few feet away from him, under the glow of a street lamp, Jeremy noticed a telephone box. He was suddenly hit with a flash of inspiration, a glimmer of hope. Why not look up Alan Hammond in the telephone book and call him?

  He darted inside the telephone box and rifled through the directory. There were a few Hammonds listed but none with a first name beginning with A. He scanned through them all again, thinking perhaps he’d missed him. Nothing. He eventually closed the book, and then trod back onto the lonely streets.

  His heart began sinking even lower as the sun disappeared below the horizon into the blackness of space. Sparks of anxiety exploded in his stomach. He had to get out of this place and he had to do it immediately. There was only one place in the world to go to now, one place that could help him: Moonlight Cove.

  Night had fallen by the time that Jeremy had arrived at the woods and the young boy was dreading the walk through them. Unfortunately it was the only way he knew of to get to the cove. He reached into his rucksack and brought out his torch, feeling so relieved that he’d thought to bring it. He took in a deep breath as he shone the beam ahead.

  Jeremy had not felt so frightened before in his entire life as he walked through the stirring trees. He thought back to the story his grandfather had told him, about the evil spirits that had once inhabited this place. He hoped so much that his grandfather was right and that the angel in the tree had warded them away. He prayed that she was still floating there.

  The leaves on the trees rustled in the gentle breeze, sounding as though they were all whispering to each other about this lost little boy who was walking amongst them. He heard the eerie sound of an owl calling but Jeremy kept the beam of the torch straight ahead, not daring to point it into the trees for fear of what it may illuminate.

  The woods seemed to go on forever. As his heart pounded faster and heavier, he began running, feeling the penetrating darkness creeping into his mind and dragging him into madness. The fear was turning into panic and Jeremy felt the sharp pain of thorns scraping over his skin as he strayed into the thicket. It felt as though he was being buried alive.

  Miraculously, the branches began to recede and Jeremy could see the haven of Moonlight Cove. He had made it to his sanctuary.

  On this night, of all nights, the cove was living up to its name. A gibbous moon hung in the sky above the waves that were gently crashing against the rocks. Jeremy wandered over to the tree that his grandfather had stood beside and looked down onto the dim shoreline.

  Having felt all sorts of emotions surging through him this evening, now, as he looked down on the reflection of the moon dancing on the inky expanse, he felt a sense of calm. It felt as if everything that had ever happened in his life had all led up to this very moment.

  Jeremy wasn’t going to wait any longer and so began clambering down the cliff. It wasn’t a particularly steep cliff but for a young boy in the dead of night it was a considerable challenge. It didn’t help either that the batteries in his torch were starting to die after having used it so much in the woods.

  When the bulb gradually faded to a feeble orange glow, Jeremy felt a flickering blaze of anger and threw the torch away and it smashed to pieces on the rocks below. He would now have to rely solely on the silvery light of the moon, which was shining unnaturally bright this evening in its incompleteness.

  He’d soon had enough of carrying the rucksack too and decided to cast that aside. As it sailed down the cliff, Jeremy no longer cared if he should need anything from it. The light of the torch wasn’t the only thing to have dwindled; now his hope had too. Jeremy no longer wanted anything.

  As he jumped onto the fine sand of the beach, he looked back up the cliff. It looked a lot taller from this viewpoint, towering above him, making him feel cocooned within the cove. Here he felt safe and he knew that the threat he felt in the town was now far away from him, unable to infiltrate him here.

  The young boy slid his hands into the fine crystals of the beach and he held a sand-filled fist before his face. The warm grains slid smoothly between his fingers and it felt very comforting, until the salt started to get into the wound on his left hand.

  He picked himself up and gazed over at the rustling waves. It was time to go and ask the place to work its magic for him, time to go and commune with the spirits. He began making small footsteps towards the shoreline with a strange feeling that something, possibly, was waiting for him over there.

  The terrible events of his life started to replay in his mind: poor Simon getting stabbed, Granddad with his head ripped apart, his mother slowly dying in a hospital bed. How he mi
ssed her right now, more than he’d ever missed her before.

  The black widow spider…

  By the time he reached the water, the end of the world, the distraught young boy looked into the watery reflection of the moon and then realised what he was really here to do.

  This wasn’t the end of his walk and he wouldn’t be asking this place to help him. Jeremy knew he had to keep on walking, he knew that he had to trudge his way into that murky sea and let it wash him away. There was nothing in this world for him anymore, and Jeremy wanted to become one with the limitless expanse before him.

  Tears rolled down his cheeks. He knew that he shouldn’t be having these thoughts. Someone as young as he should not have to deal with such extreme feelings. However, he also knew that he wasn’t just any little boy. He knew he was different to everyone, as his grandfather had always said to him. There was a special light within him… or rather there had been.

  He took one last look at the world around him. Across the cove, the swaying surf was crashing on the rocks, sending up clouds of mist into the night air that danced over the sea like watery ghosts. Maybe it wasn’t mist, maybe these were the benevolent spirits that lived here and who granted fortune for the lost souls that visited. They moved very strangely, and for a moment Jeremy wondered if they were floating their way over to him.

  Suddenly there was an almighty crash of roaring froth to his far left. As he turned to look, he could see something across the cove from him, something… someone… standing over there on the rocks.

  He now felt very different as curiosity diffused his bleak feelings. Who was that person over there and why was she standing out there on the rocks? He could tell it was a woman as she was wearing a flowing skirt which gently fluttered in the wind.

  The tide was far out this evening, and many of the cove’s rocks were visible, dotted all around the aquatic vista like tiny islands. As Jeremy looked upon the mysterious lady, he wondered why she was standing on one that was a considerable distance out. She must have had to swim to it.