I fell into a darkness where there was only the beat, only the dance.
I was lost, forever dancing.
In the morning I could scarcely look at the mantel and at Beth’s urn, sitting there, accusing me. She’d been dead these years past, but it didn’t make me feel any less sure that I’d just betrayed her. Again.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
My laptop pinged. I had mail. It was just one word.
Deeper.
* * *
I headed for the car, intending to drive into Portree to the hardware store for a pick or a shovel, but I’d forgotten about running the battery down. The engine coughed and spluttered twice. It almost took, then quit permanently. I took out my phone to call for a taxi. It started to beep at me, taking up the now-familiar rhythm.
No limbs, no limbs, no head, no head, left arm gone, left leg gone, no legs, no head.
Even from inside the car I heard the stereo start up, filling the house with the drumbeat, sending my gut vibrating in sympathy.
I got the message.
The beat got louder still as I put on the overalls, gloves and hat, but lessened to a whisper, no less insistent, when I lifted the skillet and headed out to the shore. I went down to the root cellar, climbed in, and started to dig into the hard-packed earth.
3
It took several minutes to crack the top surface, and I thought I was in for a long hard day’s work, but the hard-packed earth proved little more than a crust above much softer, wetter ground. I dug quickly through layers of soil interlaced with blacker patches that were obvious signs of fires—many fires, over many years. Twice the skillet clinked on fragments of clay pots, and a third time on a piece of rusted iron that might have been a short sword many centuries past.
Still I dug—two feet and more down while the stick figures on the cellar walls danced in the shifting shadows. The soil got heavier, a dark peat sodden with water. I was cold, wet and filthy; my arms ached and my head pounded along with the whispering beat of the drums.
I screamed in frustration as the drumbeat got louder. I raised the skillet and brought it down, hard in the soft peat.
I hit something. The drums beat faster and my digging matched the new rhythm, throwing up damp piles of peat, sloshing icy brown water everywhere until I had it uncovered. I looked down at what looked to be a rolled tube of decaying leather lying at the bottom of a dark muddy pool.
The drums fell quiet.
I had to climb down into the new hole to fetch my discovery, cold water gripping me from ankles to balls, turning my legs to stone. I heaved the leather up out of the hole and dragged myself up after it. Even then I wasn’t done. I lifted the leather tube out of the cellar, rolling it up onto the surface, but when I tried to pull myself out after it, my legs gave way beneath me and I fell back, splashing in an inch of mud and slush.
The drums started to beat insistently again.
“Okay, okay—I’m doing it,” I shouted.
It took all my strength, and I did it using mainly my arms, for my legs seemed to have turned to soft putty, but after an interminable scramble, I pulled myself out of the cellar and rolled to lie alongside the thing I had brought up out of the hole.
It was only then that I had my first good look at it. It looked like a four-foot-long sausage—one that had been cooked, then left in the fridge too long. It had been burnt at one time, judging by the blackened areas and charring that was clearly visible, but whatever it contained had been rolled tight—there seemed to be at least three visible layers of leather, and possibly more waiting to be uncovered.
The drums beat a staccato rhythm, pounding the repeater beat into my skull. I knew what was being asked.
With a tired groan, I lifted the leather tube—more water ran inside my sleeves but didn’t make me much wetter than I already was—and staggered, bent almost double, up to the house and in through the patio doors. I trailed a spattered pattern of mud and water into the house and dropped the thing with a wet smack on the dining room table.
The drums fell silent, the only sound coming from a steady drip from the table to the floor.
* * *
I stripped naked in the bathroom and stood under a hot shower for ten minutes until I was completely rid of the numbing cold. My arms and legs tingled and went bright red, but it was an improvement from the gray-blue I had seen there before the shower.
While I was putting on some dry clothes, I started to feel the chill again. I went back to the main room and lit a fire in the grate, piling on as many logs as I could manage until the flames roared and waves of heat drove me back. I poured a large Talisker, gulped down half of it, and took the rest over to have a closer look at what I’d brought in.
It was already drying out. The top layer was cracked and almost brittle. I peeled back a piece of it and it came away in my hand, crumpling under my skin to a mushy pulp. I was afraid to do any more exploring in case the whole thing fell apart on me, so I left it dripping on the table and returned to the sofa to rest my weary limbs.
What had I just done? The message had been clear enough—Dig until I tell you to stop. Well, I’d done it, and found something. Had I reached the center, the truth at the heart of the mystery? At that precise moment, I was too tired and too confused to care.
I was asleep within seconds.
* * *
When I woke it was dark again. I was sweating, sitting in a red room; flickering flames from the dying fire cast scarlet and black shadows to all corners. Drums—several of them—beat in the far distance where a soft voice sang in accompaniment.
Nuair a bhiodh a’ sluagh nan codal; when everyone was asleep.
But whatever was in the room with me was no Celtic lady. I felt its anger, a red rage to match any flame. I tried to get off the couch, but my torso was squeezed and constricted. It sat on my chest, breathing its hate in my face, and I could only lie there and take it as the drums beat and the flames flickered.
Sweat ran into my right eye, stinging, blurring the room into a wash of color. The drumming intensified, shaking the walls and rattling the windows. The stereo kicked in—”Spanish Harlem” again, then, so loud as to be almost deafening, “Boots of Spanish Leather.”
Dylan wailed, a drum crashed a final beat that shook the house to its foundations, and the weight on my chest lifted as the patio doors blew open.
A chill breeze wafted the fire back to life and I sat up, gasping for air.
My laptop flickered as it booted up and I heard the ping of incoming e-mail.
4
I had another grid for my program—screeds of it this time, eight columns and over six hundred lines. Fortunately I’d set the thing up so that it was a relatively simple matter to get the grid into the program’s small database. I got it running, hooked it up to the stereo, and left it to play softly in the background while I had a shower and shave and rustled up some breakfast.
I was so used to the beat by now it was almost soothing. The terror I’d felt on wakening faded to little more than the memory of a bad dream. Beth’s urn rattled on the mantel, as if dancing to the beat. I took some coffee and toast onto the patio. As I walked past the dining room table I saw that the leather bundle was cracked and dry, almost toasted by the fire. I’d tackle that after breakfast.
I had a feeling the end was close now.
* * *
I had my last breakfast in the house sitting on the patio watching a misty dawn over the loch with drums beating softly as a backdrop. My sparrow friends came down and danced at my feet as I fed them crumbs.
I had a final look at the view, drained my coffee, and went to have a closer look at what I’d brought up out of the hole.
Boots of Spanish Leather.
It was obvious that the leather, even old and cracked as it now was, had at one time been rather fine, embroidered as it was with scenes of sailboats and docks. It may have been Spanish, but I did not get that confirmed until I unrolled four layers, each of which was in better
condition than the last, and finally revealed what lay inside. A distant drumbeat started up, rumbling from afar, as I peeled back the last section.
At first it looked like little more than a jumble of bone and silver, until my mind processed what I was seeing.
It had been a burial, sometime in the deep past—a man of some import at that. His skull, grimacing from bottomless eye sockets, was mostly intact, as were two femurs.
Skull and crossed bones.
He’d been interred with a cloak that had once been an animal skin but was now little more than fragments of tattered hide and fur. There was also a gold bracelet, finely carved and looking too delicate to touch for fear of it falling apart—and a two-foot-long tusk, ivory by the look of it and walrus at a guess.
Lying draped on the tusk was proof of the Spaniards’ presence—two silver crucifixes on long chains had been wrapped around the ivory. I could make a good guess at what had happened. The Spaniards had found the grave and given the remains a Christian burial in the rolls of leather—possibly in the hope of bringing peace to an errant spirit.
The fire flared and the drums beat louder as I bent for a better look at the tusk.
It was scrimshaw, carved with delicate strokes. I unwound the crucifixes and dropped them among the bones as I lifted it into a better light.
A ring of runic script circled the thick end, and there was a fine depiction of a warrior chief wielding an axe that showed clearly enough who the owner of the piece had been. The length of the tusk was carved in stick figures.
No limbs, no limbs, no head, no head, left arm gone, left leg gone, no legs, no head.
I looked from them, to the figure with the axe, and down to the grinning skull lying on the table. The figures weren’t a message at all, nor were they a code for a drummer to follow—they were depictions of a warrior’s exploits in battle.
No limbs, no limbs, no head, no head, left arm gone, left leg gone, no legs, no head.
The drums got louder and the fire flared again. A single line of soot drew down the whitewashed wall to my left, then another. The stereo kicked in, full volume, and the house shook again, rocking to the beat. In my mind’s eye, I saw a bloodied axe swinging in time.
More soot figures appeared, marching across the wall in ranks. The drums pounded and the fire blazed, sending waves of heat through the room. My chest felt tight, breathing getting more difficult. I wrapped the crucifixes round the tusk and laid it back down among the bones.
The drums didn’t lessen. The pounding got heavier. A crack ran the full length of the ceiling above me; plaster and dust fell like fine mist. Beth’s urn danced on the mantel, threatening to topple. I moved towards it, but the heat of the flames drove me away.
More stick figures marched across the walls. The floor bucked and swayed in time to the beat, threatening to throw me off my feet. Beth’s urn did a final bump and grind and toppled to smash in the grate. Her ashes rose and swirled as the heat caught them.
The Spaniards had tried to make the chief stay down by giving him a Christian burial—but I knew a better way, a way that had kept Beth at peace these past years. She had just reminded me of it.
Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust.
I swept the roll of leather, bones, cloak and bracelet into the grate where it took immediately, flames roiling beyond the confines of the fireplace and lapping up the walls. The drums pounded; it sounded like rage. I had to back away as the sofa caught fire, blazing like a small furnace within seconds. Something fluttered down from above—the girl’s notebook, dislodged from its spot in the rafters, catching fire as it fell and blackened to ash in seconds. The book of folk tales went next, falling from the mantle into the blaze, taking the tale of the Little Drummer Boy with it.
The whole room raged in red flame. A floorboard cracked beneath me, then another. The drumbeat pounded in my head threatening to drive me into oblivion. I staggered backward, reaching the patio doors as the flames found the curtains and sent them up in a sheet of fire. I backed out into the yard just as part of the roof caved in and sent a shower of sparks high into the air.
I threw the logs of my wood supply through the patio doors, stoking the fire further as the drums beat and the red rage screamed. The stoat’s frozen body lay at the foot of the pile, and I threw that in too; it blazed briefly before joining everything else in a conflagration that ate the house in time to the pounding beat.
I thought it would never go quiet, but as the last of the roof fell in and a huge shower of sparks was thrown up to be taken away by the wind, the drums finally fell silent. I was left on the shore, with only the whistling of the wind off the loch for company.
A thin plume of smoke rose from the wreckage. Fine ash fell around me, all that was left of my home, of the chief who had slept there all these years—of Beth.
Ashes to ashes, stardust to stardust.
5
I’m writing this some six months after those events. It’s summer, and here in Edinburgh the tourists have arrived with the sun. I’ve started painting again—abstracts mostly. It’s hard going as my hand wants to draw stick figures, and every so often I find myself drumming out the beat.
No limbs, no limbs, no head, no head, left arm gone, left leg gone, no legs, no head.
I keep in touch with Alan. He wants me to sell the land—he says I could make at least some of my money back. But the cash isn’t as important as my peace of mind. I cannot be sure I finished the job. Who is to say that I reached the center of the mystery? Was the chief the first to hear the drums? Or is there something deeper still on that loch shore, lurking, waiting for someone else to answer the call?
All I know is it will not be me.
I was lost in the dance, and no doubt I will be again, when I join Beth, wherever she might be.
But not yet.
About the Author
William Meikle is a Scottish writer, now living in Canada, with numerous novels, novellas and collections published in the genre press and over 250 short story credits in thirteen countries. His work has appeared in a number of professional anthologies and magazines. Previous works from DarkFuse include the novels Night of the Wendigo and The Hole and the novellas Clockwork Dolls and Broken Sigil.
About the Publisher
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.
To discover more titles published by DarkFuse, please visit its official site at www.darkfuse.com.
Table of Contents
TORMENTOR
Connect With Us
Other Books by Author
PART 1: KEY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
PART 2: DOORWAY
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
PART 3: CLOSURE
1
2
3
4
5
About the Author
About the Publisher
Tormentor Page 10