Doorways (A Book of Vampires, Werewolves & Black Magic) (The Doorways Trilogy - Book One)

by Tim O'Rourke

  Holstering his crossbows and, using what little strength he had left, Zach arched his back and tried to pull himself forward. Clenching his teeth and eyes watering, Zach managed to heave himself up. Fingers clawing for the coach door handle inches from his grasp.

  ‘C’mon!’ he yelled aloud, willing himself on.

  Screwing his eyes shut, he made one last grab for the handle and to his utter delight and relief he felt his fingers curl around its metal surface. Then someone gripped his wrist, yanking his hand free.

  Snapping open his eyes, Zach looked up into William’s hairy-face.

  ‘Have you lost your mind?’ Zach yelled, ‘Do you want me to die!’

  Staring at Zach with his huge fiery eyes, William grinned.

  ‘Stop ya whining’ he said, yanking on Zach’s wrist and pulling him back to safety. ‘You can’t open the carriage door. If you do she’ll die!’

  ‘Who will die? Who’s she?’ Zach asked bewildered.

  ‘You’ll see,’ William replied through his crooked smile. ‘Faster!’ he yelled again, pulling on the animals’ manes.

  Plucking the crossbows from his belt, Zach noticed that not only had he been fitted out with a crossbow holster and thick brown boots, he was also wearing a long black coat that flapped around his knees.

  ‘Where did all this stuff come from?’ he shouted.

  ‘It doesn’t matter now! I’ll explain later!’ William yelled, refusing to take his eyes off the fast approaching forest that loomed ahead.

  Looking back over his shoulder, Zach was ready to take aim again, but was surprised to see the hooded figures slowing down on their skeletal looking-gorillas.

  ‘Why are they slowing down?’ Zach asked.

  ‘Because we’re heading for the forest!’ William said.

  ‘Why won’t they enter the forest?’ Zach pushed him.

  Taking his huge eyes off the approaching tree line and flashing his broken teeth at Zach, William said, ‘Cos’ of the dead people!’

  Turning, William yanked on the creature’s manes and sped into the forest.

  Chapter 3

  As her younger brother stepped through the doorway on the beach, Anna Black peered over the top of the duvet and watched her bedroom door swing open.

  She knew at once who was about to enter the room by the tall shadow that spilt across the wall like a splash of black ink. Creeping from behind the door, Uncle Fandel almost seemed to glide across the room on his freakish long legs. Balanced on one of his bony hands was a silver tray. From her position on the bed, Anna couldn’t see what was on the tray – she didn’t need to – she knew that her Uncle was bringing her afternoon dose of medicine.

  Placing the tray on the dressing table, Uncle Fandel surveyed Anna with his beady-black eyes. Without taking his eyes from her, he opened a small wooden box. From it, Uncle Fandel removed a yellow spiky object, which was about the size of a dice. Taking a glass of water from the tray, Uncle Fandel held them out towards her.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ Anna croaked, her throat still feeling blistered and sore from the spiky tablet she had been forced to swallow that morning.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ her Uncle coaxed, thrusting the weird looking pill towards her lips. ‘It will make you feel better.’

  ‘They make me feel worse!’ Anna protested, pulling the duvet up over her mouth.

  Seeing this, Uncle Fandel’s thin bloodless lips twisted into a grimace then contorted into a smile, as he tried to mask his displeasure. Gripping the spiky tablet between thumb and forefinger, he placed the glass back onto the tray and eased himself down onto the bed next to his niece.

  ‘You must take your medicine Anna or you may well die,’ he said in a soothing voice.

  Eying him with suspicion, Anna looked at his tall narrow forehead and the nets of wrinkles that circled his deep set eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ she asked him.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve consulted all of my medical books and I’ve never seen anything quite like it. Strange. Very strange,’ he added, his tongue darting from between his lips.

  Anna thought back to the day she had first become ill. It had been the day that her Uncle Fandel had made the long drive with her and her brother from their home in Milton Keynes to his isolated cottage in Cornwall. She remembered it well because it had been the day after they’d buried her parents.

  It had started with stomach cramps, and they had felt as if some creature had been let loose inside her and was tearing away at her innards with razor-sharp claws. Then the headaches came and they were so severe, she wondered if her head wasn’t going to explode.

  But her Uncle Fandel had come to the rescue. He was a doctor after all, well not so much a doctor but a medicine man. Her father’s brother hadn’t been around much as she had grown up, spending most of his time travelling weird and wonderful countries. On his return he would visit her father claiming to have found a cure for this and a remedy for that.

  ‘This will make me rich beyond my wildest dreams!’ he had once screeched at her father, holding aloft a bottle, which looked as if it were filled with nothing more than dirty bath water.

  ‘What does it do?’ Anna’s father had asked from behind his newspaper.

  ‘What does it do? What does it do?’ Uncle Fandel whined. It’s a cure!’

  ‘For what?’ Anna’s father asked. Again, he didn’t look up from his newspaper.

  Standing before his brother, Fandel glared at him with his piercing stare. Seeing that his brother wasn’t the slightest bit interested – as he had heard similar stories many times before – Fandel wailed:

  ‘Oh what’s the point!’ and then skulked from the house and back to his bleak looking cottage hidden away amongst the cliffs in deepest, darkest Cornwall.

  And it was this cottage that Anna now lay in, feverish and in pain as her uncle tried to convince her to take his revolting medicine.

  Pulling the lip of the duvet away from Anna’s face, Fandel placed the yellow spiky tablet against her lips.

  ‘Go on. Be a good girl and take your medicine,’ he whispered.

  Puckering up her lips, Anna shook her head from side to side.

  ‘Don’t you want to get better?’ Uncle Fandel asked her, a twinge of irritation evident in his voice.

  Anna shook her head in reluctance and wheezed, ‘I’m seventeen and you can’t make me do anything that I don’t want to do.’

  ‘And I’m your Uncle and you have been left in my charge, so you will do as I tell you!’ Fandel said. The irritation he had earlier tried to mask now making his voice sound hostile.

  Looking into his eyes, Anna could see they were black and cold – lifeless. Anna couldn’t bear to look into them and wished that her father were still alive. Her father had been a gentle man with kind eyes and a lopsided grin, which lit up his face like candlelight. Turning her head away, she buried her cheek into the pillow. She did this not to break her Uncle’s heartless stare, but to hide the hot sticky tears that now ran the length of her ashen face.

  But before the pillowcase had soaked up even one of her tears, her uncle curled his long, gnarled fingers around her face, forcing Anna to look at him. Tightening his grip, he forced her mouth open. Being too weak to resist, Fandel popped the yellow spiky pill into her mouth and forced it shut.

  Desperate not to swallow the pill, Anna’s eyes began to bulge in their sockets. The spikes on the tablet scraped the inside of her cheeks and mouth.

  ‘Don’t fight it,’ Fandel tried to sooth, but however hard he tried to make his voice comforting, his eyes betrayed his true feelings as they danced in their wet-looking sockets.

  Anna fought to push the tablet back towards her lips with her tongue. But the spikes hurt too much and her mouth began to taste of rusty copper as it started to fill with blood. Realising she would have to swallow the tablet or let it tear her mouth to pieces, Anna closed her eyes and gulped.

  Rolling to the back of her mouth, the tablet sliced
against her tonsils and then disappeared down her throat. Shaking her uncle’s hand free, Anna buried her chin into her chest, lent forward and swallowed hard. The yellow spiked tablet forced its way down her neck and she wondered if it was a similar feeling to eating broken glass.

  As the pill made its way through her body, her chest grew warm then hot and her lungs felt as if they were on fire. When it reached her stomach she felt a rush of hot bile in her throat, and then the pain began to subside. A wave of tiredness swept over her as it always did after taking one of Fandel’s tablets. She lowered her head onto the pillow and fought the urge to close her eyes.

  Scooping up the tray, Fandel glided across the room on his stilt-like legs. As he reached the door, Anna whispered after him;

  ‘Where’s Zach? I want to see my brother.’

  ‘No visitors until you’re better,’ her uncle grinned back, sneaking beyond the door and closing it behind him.

  Turning to look through the lattice window across from her bed, Anna searched outside for any sign of her younger brother. But it was turning dark, the late December afternoon growing old. Then her own darkness came. Sliding her eyes shut, Anna fell into a deep sleep, listening to the boom, boom, boom of the waves as they crashed against the cliffs below.

  Chapter 4

  Yanking on the creatures manes, William brought them to a halt amongst the trees. Zach glanced over his shoulder and saw the hooded figures roaming just beyond the tree line. The sight of them made him feel uneasy.

  ‘Are you sure they won’t follow us in?’ Zach asked William.

  William placed one of his long fingers to his mouth.

  ‘Shhh,’ he said, glancing up into the treetops as if waiting for something.

  Unlike the desert they had just raced across, the forest was dark and just the smallest chinks of light cut through the rich canopy above them. Being amongst the shadows of the trees had an eerie feel to it, and Zach could hear his own heart thumping in his ears.

  ‘Quick! Here they come!’ William barked, clambering from the roof of the stagecoach.

  ‘Who’s coming?’ Zach asked, jumping to the ground and following William around the side of the coach.

  Before William could say anything else, the forest began to wail with deep groaning sounds that vibrated off the trees and the earth beneath their feet. Looking round, Zach shivered as the sounds grew louder. Branches began to rustle and snap, like breaking bones and the ground started to erupt beneath them.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Zach asked above the deafening sounds.

  Pulling open the carriage door, William turned to look at Zach through those thick bulbous lenses.

  ‘Don’t just stand there! Help me get her out!’ William barked, climbing into the stagecoach and disappearing from view.

  The ground all around Zach began to bulge outwards like giant boils starting to burst. Leaves and pine needles showered him from above like green raindrops. Looking at the tree line, Zach wondered if he wouldn’t in fact be safer in the desert with the hoodies then inside the forest with William. Through the trees, Zach could see the hooded figures on their skeletal beasts prowling back and forth outside.

  All of a sudden, one of the bony apes reared onto its back legs and began to pound its ribcage in anger – or perhaps it was fear. The hooded figure astride it fought in desperation to hold on but, in its eagerness to escape, the ape threw its rider free sending it crashing into the ground at the edge of the forest.

  Then Zach saw the first of them. From one of the trees a deranged looking figure sprang. Its hair was matted together in rough clumps, and its face was screwed up – tortured looking as if it were in agonizing pain. The thing wore a dark coloured cloak that was ripped and torn in places and covered in dead leaves and soil. The thing raced towards the tree line and, being careful not to venture out into the hot glare of the desert, reached out and grabbed hold of the hooded figure’s robes. With a single, swift and powerful movement it yanked the figure into the shadow of the trees.

  The whole forest then came alive with these creatures. They fell from the trees and forced their way up from beneath the ground like the dead waking from nightmares. Their groans and moans filled the air like drumbeats. Some of them ran, others staggered towards the hoodie that had been captured and was now being pulled to pieces. The hoodie made a gargling sound in the back of its throat as it was ripped apart.

  Without thinking, Zach placed a hand on the hilt of one of his crossbows, preparing to defend himself should one of these things come for him.

  ‘You’re wasting your time! You ain’t gonna kill them,’ William said from inside the stagecoach. ‘Didn’t I tell ya? They’re already dead!’

  Zach wheeled round, peering into the darkness of the carriage.

  ‘What!? Like zombies?’ he asked.

  ‘Not exactly – but similar,’ William said.

  The earth beneath Zach’s feet began to tremble and the horses (if that’s what they were) began to wail with fright and started to edge forward pulling the stagecoach deeper into the forest. Failing to notice the stagecoach moving away, Zach looked in horror as a set of dead-looking fingers shot from beneath the earth inches from his feet. He staggered backwards as the fingers were followed by an arm, a pair of shoulders and then a head. The creature twisted and turned in the hole like a bloated worm and turned to face Zach.

  He looked at it and the zombie-thing was grotesque. With eyes that were white and blank, the thing stared at Zach as he inched himself away. Opening its mouth to reveal a fleshy set of black gums, the zombie-thing grinned. A globule of creamy, yellow-looking pus ran over its tongue and onto the forest floor. Releasing an agonising groan from the back of its throat, the thing reached out towards Zach with a pair of decaying hands. The fingers were knotted like twisted tree roots.

  ‘Will you stop playing around back there and come give me a hand!’ William shouted, thrusting his head out of the carriage to look for his companion.

  Hearing his voice, Zach turned his back on the creature and charged towards the carriage.

  ‘Take her legs!’ William said, diving back into the stagecoach.

  Without warning, a pair of naked feet were thrust into the open doorway and Zach wrapped his arms around them.

  ‘Pull! Pull!’ William urged.

  Zach pulled on the legs and a semi-conscious girl appeared in the carriage doorway cradled in William’s arms. The groaning was closer now and looking over his shoulder, Zach could see the zombie-thing lumbering towards them. Its arms were outstretched and its hands were clawing at the air like a terrified child searching for its mother in the dark.

  ‘Faster! Faster!’ Zach shouted, carrying the girl between them like a stretcher.

  ‘They won’t hurt us,’ William assured him, pulling the girl’s legs free from Zach’s grasp and swooping her up into his arms.

  ‘How can you be so sure they won’t hurt us?’ Zach said, the zombie-thing inches from them.

  ‘Because she’s with us,’ William said, nodding towards the girl.

  Zach looked at her. She was about seventeen years old and very undernourished. Her skin was waxy-looking and pale, and a fine sheen of perspiration covered her brow and cheeks. She looked like a waxwork that had started to melt. The girl’s eyes rolled in their sockets and she murmured as if talking in her sleep. She was delirious. Her hair was long and thick and it lay in dark ringlets about her shoulders.

  ‘Who is she?’ Zach whispered.

  William pulled the girl’s cloak tight over her as if to keep her warm.

  ‘Who is she?’ Zach asked again.

  ‘She’s one of them,’ William replied, nodding in the direction of the approaching creatures.

  Chapter 5

  ‘What do you mean she’s one of them?’ Zach asked, following William deeper into the forest, where the trees huddled together like muggers on street corners.

  ‘She’s a Slath!’ William shouted back over his shoulder, carrying the girl in his arms
.

  Zach jogged to keep up, his crossbows bouncing against his thighs. Even though the wolf-type creature was carrying the girl, he moved with such speed and agility that Zach had trouble keeping up with him. Zach was now grateful for all those early morning runs he had taken along the beach.

  ‘What’s a Slath?’ Zach puffed.

  ‘They’re the night-folk. They live by night, hiding away from the sun by day – it can kill them!’ William told him.

  ‘We have creatures like that back home...in my world.’ Zach said, ducking to avoid a low hanging branch. ‘But they’re just in stories....horror movies. We call them vampires.’

  ‘Are you so sure they’re just stories?’ William asked, glancing at Zach through those huge, magnified lenses.

  ‘Of course they’re just stories,’ Zach wheezed, fighting to stay level with the boy.

  ‘I hate to disappoint ya,’ William grinned, lengths of hair billowing from his face and back over his shoulders like tentacles. ‘But vampires are real. They are the Slath that have passed through the doorways from our world and into yours. In our world they are just Slath, but in your world they become vampires.’

  They reached a small clearing and William came to a sudden stop. He sniffed the air and was off again, shouting over his shoulder, ‘this way!’

  Zach watched as he bounded off again in a whirl of flowing hair.

  ‘So what does that make you? A werewolf?’ he called after William, half-joking but fearing the answer.

  ‘Only in your world,’ William howled, ‘here I’m a Noxas and my friends call me William ‘the Wolf’ Weaver!’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Zach sighed under his breath, and then raced off after William again.

  They ran in silence, Zach trying to make sense of this new world and what William had told him. Why was he here? But more important, where was here?

  William reached another small clearing and stopped. The area was circular in shape and at its centre there was a small burnt-out fire. Surrounding this were several large rocks that looked as big as armchairs. William carried the girl over to one of these large stone chairs and settled her into it. He then disappeared into the nearby undergrowth and reappeared carrying an armful of branches and twigs. William began to pile these on top of the burnt-out campfire.