Bury Them Deep
Page 10
She almost rose to the bait, he saw. But she bit her lip, held back the retort that burned to fly. She wouldn’t have done that a year ago. Maybe she had grown up a bit, after all. The past year hadn’t been kind to her, he saw. There were the beginnings of what would, in time, be some pretty deep lines etching themselves into her face.
“You’re right. Okay? You’re right. I left you out in the cold, to deal with it all on your own.” She smiled bitterly, looked sideways at him once more. "There. Are you happy now?” She wiped a tear that threatened to betray her resolve. “I said it.”
And what had it cost her, he wondered? How much effort had it taken her to admit that it had been in any way her fault? She sat there, absentmindedly cradling the baby against the cold, and he saw suddenly what it was she wanted.
Absolution.
She needed to be told that it was all right, it wasn’t her fault. And if he couldn’t give her that, then it was over.
A year ago, he would have crawled over hot coals to have her back. He would have said whatever she wanted to hear. Now, he wasn’t so sure. But he wasn’t about to let her kill his son. Life was too short.
Abruptly, the baby began to bawl, demanding her attention. Diverted, Angie crooned softly to the child, hugging it closer.
“Ssshh, John, Ssshh.”
“You named him after me.” John was surprised, though he supposed he really shouldn’t have been.
“Who the hell did you think I’d name him after?”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Angie. You know I didn’t.” She turned away slightly, deflated once more.
“Did it hurt?”
“What?”
“When you…you know.” She gestured over the edge, not quite ready to look for herself.
“It hurt like hell, if you must know. Worse than I ever thought anything could. Is that enough detail for you?” He stopped himself, bit back the anger. If he carried on like this, she’d be over the edge in no time. And she’d take his son with her. He sensed Sarah nearby, tense and ready. “It’s not what you think, Angie. You don’t go to Hell, or purgatory, or anything like that. You just get stuck where you die.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
She considered this for a moment; he could almost hear the cogs in her little brain turning. She was obviously finding it all too much to deal with, and the drama of the pining girlfriend leaping to her death to rejoin her lost love held a fascination for her. He had to stop that. He had to find something she could hang on to.
“You won’t keep the baby, you know.”
“What?”
“The baby. He won’t be a suicide.” She was looking at him, wide-eyed.
“He’ll be a murder victim.”
She shrank back from him, horrified. She was clutching the baby tight to her chest, and the tired and frightened child began to struggle anew. She was edging back towards the railings, he saw, uncertain now. Then there was a screech of brakes, and a door slamming, and someone racing towards them.
“Angie! Angie!” It was a man, about thirty – desperate, John saw. He looked as if under other circumstances he would have had a kind face. “Come home, Angie, please. I didn’t mean it.”
John turned to Angie. “What does he mean? What’s he sorry for?”
“We were having a row.” She grimaced. “I can’t even remember what it was about. I told him he could get out if he wanted, and he said…” tears were welling once more, and this time she made no attempt to wipe them away. “He said not many men would be prepared to take on someone else’s kid.” She straightened her back, chin stuck resolutely out. “I didn’t stop to listen to any more. I grabbed the baby and came here. I suppose I thought the boy should be with his real dad.” She shifted the baby up onto her shoulder. “But I guess it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.” She turned away from him then, made to grab the railings, and with them her life. John was a little distressed at how small the pang that he felt was. Her boyfriend was there, eager to help, and as he reached for the baby both he and Angie were smiling.
Afterwards, he couldn’t have said exactly how it happened. One minute Angie was passing the baby over the railings, the next the boyfriend had lost his grip and the baby was falling over the edge. Angie was reaching for him, screaming his name even as she toppled over the edge after him. Her lover wailed, and then…John willed himself over to Angie and in an instant was there, holding her tight. Amazed, he fought to keep his concentration. He had no idea how he was doing this, but he didn’t dare let her slip. He concentrated on the ledge and they began to rise. She was still screaming for the baby, and belatedly John realised he hadn’t heard it make a sound.
Then Sarah was there. She had his son in her arms, and she was beaming. They’d done it.
Reaching the safety of the road, they handed their stunned charges over to a boyfriend who looked as if he was about to faint. Then again, John supposed, it wasn’t every day you saw such things. Revelations were carefully rationed for a reason. He watched as the man bundled them into the car and took off at top speed.
Then they were back on the bridge.
“Is that it, Sarah? It’s back to …nothing?”
Sarah had the good grace to look a little deflated, but she had no answer for him, just an attempt to lighten the load.
“At least it broke the routine.”
John couldn’t answer. He felt as if he was on fire. He realised that for the last year he hadn’t physically felt anything. Now he could feel everything. He could feel the heat spreading through him. And there was a light. It felt like he was basking on a warm beach early on a summer morning.
Turning to Sarah, he saw she too was bathed in the glow.
Abruptly the priest appeared, just outside the light. He was crying as if his heart would break. He was reaching towards them, towards the light, but something was holding him back.
A life for a life, John thought. Is it really that simple? He doubted it, but he’d learn whatever else there was with Sarah, so that was okay.
And he wouldn’t be alone ever again.
Story Notes:
Bury Them Deep
When Peter Mark May asked me to write a novella for this year’s (2017) schedule, it took me a while to come up with an idea. I wanted to write something different, as I’ve been writing quite a few ghost stories lately – and yet I couldn’t get the image of a graveyard, and bones poking through, out of my head. While I was pondering, I’d been reading a lot of crime novels (horror and crime are my favourite genres to read), and started to think about writing something about a serial killer. And from there it was a short jump to the idea of a killer obsessed with bones, what might start such an obsession…and what kind of creature would feed it.
Ssshh…
I wanted to submit a story to a Hallowe’en anthology, and after some research into Hallowe’en folklore, was intrigued by the idea of a ‘Dumb Supper’, offered as tribute to the sidhe, or what we’d call Fairies – though not the benevolent creatures that name conjures up. If the sidhe decided they wanted more than the tribute offered, what would they do? And how would they trick someone into letting them? The story never went into the anthology, but I thought it would fit here; I still like the idea of a Dumb Supper.
Suicide Bridge
This one takes me back quite a way. It’s the first story I had accepted for publication, even though my second, ‘Alsiso’, pipped it to the post in making it to print. It was published online three years before it sold to a print magazine and a story of mine was finally on paper. I kept dreaming about a man on a bridge, ready to die because he’s alone again and everything seems hopeless – except then he meets a girl and falls in love. Where I grew up, there’s a bridge known locally as Suicide Bridge for obvious reasons – so the locale for the story wrote itself, really. The bridge itself is adjoined by a path known to fans of ‘The Inhuman Condition’ by Clive Barker; something I was del
ighted by when I read The Books of Blood on its publication some years before – I love reading fiction set in areas I know well; it adds something to the experience, for me. Every so often I get asked why I wrote a story about suicide, but it’s not really about that at all. It’s a love story; it’s just that the main characters are dead.
About the author:
Marie O'Regan is a British Fantasy Award-nominated author and editor, based in Derbyshire. Her first collection, Mirror Mere, was published in 2006; her second, In Times of Want, came out in September 2016, and her short fiction has appeared in a number of genre magazines and anthologies in the UK, US, Canada, Italy and Germany. She was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Short Story in 2006, and Best Anthology in 2010 (Hellbound Hearts), 2012 (Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women). Her genre journalism has appeared in magazines like The Dark Side, Rue Morgue and Fortean Times, and her interview book with prominent figures from the horror genre, Voices in the Dark, was released in 2011. An essay on 'The Changeling' was published in PS Publishing's Cinema Macabre, edited by Mark Morris. She is co-editor of the bestselling Hellbound Hearts, Mammoth Book of Body Horror and A Carnivàle of Horror - Dark Tales from the Fairground, plus editor of bestselling The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories by Women and is Co-Chair of the UK Chapter of the Horror Writers' Association. Marie is represented by Jamie Cowen of The Ampersand Agency.
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Hersham Horror Books
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