by David Wood
There was a soft click of a door opening and muffled footsteps as someone approached the bed.
“Ah. You’re back in the land of the living are you?” a soft voice said above him.
He struggled out of the folds of eiderdown and found to his surprise that he was still holding the old book tightly in his left hand, his grip so tight that white showed at his knuckles.
“No. Don’t move,” the voice said, just as Tony’s eyes focused and the black clad figure of Bill Reid came into view. “You’ve had a bit of a fright. I thought I’d killed you out there in the churchyard. I didn’t mean to frighten you...I heard a noise and went outside to investigate, and when I touched your shoulder you just fainted right away.”
The Minister looked almost embarrassed and his mouth flapped open and closed as if he did not know what to say next.
“I tried phoning your parents, and the police are on their way,” he said, and it was almost a question, a fervent desire to be told that he had done the right thing.
Tony could see the strain around the man’s eyes. He’d seen the Minister before…mainly at school...prize giving ceremonies and parent teacher’s meetings and other events where the man had been just another authority figure in the background. But whereas before there had always been a smile on his face, now he looked pale and drawn, as if he hadn’t slept in a long time.
“I recognized you straight away you know...you’ve become quite the celebrity in the last couple of days,” Bill said, and Tony saw an attempt at a welcoming smile, an attempt that came nowhere near being successful.
Still Tony stayed quiet, reluctant to speak, knowing that once he started he would be unable to stop.
“You must be attached to that Bible,” Bill said, pointing at the book still gripped tight in the boy’s hand. “You refused to let it go, even when you were fast asleep.”
Tony merely stared, pictures still unreeling in his mind of bloodletting and crossbows, garlic and gravestones. He couldn’t help it...tears began to flow again, streaming down his cheeks in hot streams, and his body was wracked with heavy, almost painful sobbing.
“The old man...he’s dead isn’t he?” he managed to say through the tears.
Bill nodded, and that was enough to tip Tony completely over the edge. He bawled like a newborn babe and wrapped his arms around his body, hugging tight, then tighter still, rocking from side to side.
Bill moved slightly closer. He stopped, seemingly unsure of what to do. Then he came to a decision, clumsily taking the boy into his arms until the crying subsided. Tony felt almost secure in the man’s arms, cradled in the warmth of the soft clothing.
“It’s not a bible...at least not one that you would recognize,” he said, his voice muffled against the Minister’s black shirt.
“What did you say?” Bill asked, shifting around until he could see the boy’s face.
Tony didn’t reply, but held out the book to the Minister. Bill took it, almost reverentially, but his expression changed to one of disgust as his fingertips touched the black leather cover.
“What is this?” he asked, almost to himself. His expression ran the gamut from dismay to horror as he opened the book and began to read.
“The Book of the Dark.
“Being a high history of the Firstborn.
“Of their tribulations and trials, of their prophets and sages, and being a history of Rokar our Redeemer who died a final death that we could all come once more to the sight of our Lord.
“Dedicated to the memory of the Master Amro, our light in the darkness, the bringer of hope, in the sure and certain knowledge that he sits on the right hand of our Lord on high.
“Being the work of Donald, once 12th Lord Allan of Strathallan, now disciple and servant.
“Transcribed from the words of the prophet Kalent, in this the year of our Redeemer Six Hundred and Twenty Three.
“Those who have eyes, let them see.”
The Minister flicked through the pages, his expression of horror growing as he stopped and read aloud.
“And Amro spoke, saying ‘Bring all of the Eldren to me, that I might share with them the glory of the Lord.’
“Kalent he sent to the south, to the lands of the Adamites, and he it was who found the people of Shoa in the great city of Ur.
“Great was the throng of Adamites in that place, but Kalent could move through them in the night like mist through the trees, unseen and unheard, for he was of the Eldren and he was first made.
“But there were some among the Adamites who could feel his passing. They were of the tribe of Dan and they had shared in the blood of the Unforgiven and were no longer merely sons of Adam. They were known as the Blood Children, and they are forever damned.
“And the Blood Children took Kalent down into the earth to where the Priest-Kings lay in their tombs and the tribe of Shoa lived away from the burning of the Sun.
“And Kalent was brought before Shoa and he was made to suffer great torture.
“But his faith in the Lord was strong and he spake to Shoa saying ‘Come with me and look upon the Temple. The forgiveness of the Lord is yours if you would only see.’
“And Shoa laughed, saying, ‘We have no need for your weak god. The Great Serpent sustains us and keeps us. And see...we make yet more in our image. Soon the Adamites will be no more and the first-made will take their rightful place.’”
Bill threw the book away from him with a cry and it landed on the quilt next to Tony who grabbed it tightly in his left hand as if it were a talisman with which he could ward off evil.
“Blasphemy...that’s what it is,” the Minister said, almost shouting, “It should be burnt...burnt before anyone can be corrupted by it.”
Tony shook his head but still didn’t speak.
Bill rubbed at his hands, wringing them together as if trying to wash away the feel of the book.
“Where did you get it?” he asked, “It wasn’t from the old man was it?” Another thought struck him and the look of horror was back. “It wasn’t you who killed him?” he whispered.
Tony still didn’t speak, but it would have done him no good to reply. The Minister was beginning to move toward him again when, barely audible through the thick walls of the Manse, the doorbell rang.
Dave McCulloch came up out of sleep slowly, vaguely aware of having been woken by a loud noise.
The noise came again as he sat up in bed, the heavy banging of somebody pounding on the pub’s door.
He looked at the red digital readout of his bedside clock, taking several seconds to focus on the winking numbers. He finally assimilated what it was telling him and groaned. It was nearly ten past one. He’d only had half an hour’s sleep at most, and now he had been awakened he knew from bitter experience that it would be a good few hours and more before he would be able to settle again.
“Doesn’t anybody have a home to go to?” He moaned, but he knew, as every barman knows, that the thought of booze is like a magnet, drawing the faithful at any hour of the day or night.
Opening hours was an alien concept to a certain type of drinker, the type that just didn’t know to stay away, or more to the point, when they had had enough.
“All right, all right,” he shouted as the banging continued, louder now. “Hold your horses, I’m coming.” It sounded like the door would be off its hinges soon if he didn’t get a move on.
He managed to get his trousers on at only the second attempt and cursed loudly as he barked his shin off the heavy corner post of the bed. The pounding on the door continued as he limped down the stairs.
“Jesus Christ. Would you give it a rest!” he shouted. “The pub’s shut. Can you not just go to bed like everybody else?”
He threw open the heavy bolts and dragged the door open, wincing as the cold air hit his exposed chest. He was ready to lash out, to shout the drunk down...it wouldn’t be the first time that he’d had to use his fists to turn them away...it was part and parcel of the job.
But this time h
e stopped just before the shout left his mouth.
Jock Dickie was standing in the doorway, one huge meaty fist raised as if to hit the door again. His mouth hung slackly open and his eyes were two black marbles set deep in his skull.
But the worst thing was his skin…it was pale, almost sickly gray, sweating slightly with an oily, obscene glow.
“For God’s sake, Jock,” Dave said. “It’s after one o’clock. Get yourself away to bed...you look like you need it.”
The big man swayed slightly and had to hold on to the doorjamb to keep him from falling. A long moan came from the fleshy lips, a descending note of want and pain accompanied by a stream of stringy drool from the left corner of his mouth.
“Oh shit. You’d better come in while I call for the doctor,” Dave said. He turned away from the door, so he didn’t see the huge grin that spread across the big man’s face as he stepped across the threshold.
“Help yourself to some whiskey,” Dave shouted as he headed for the phone. “You look like you could do with one.”
He couldn’t believe the change that had come over the man in the past two hours...he only hoped that, whatever it was, it wasn’t contagious. He rang the doctor, who wasn’t best pleased at being called out at that time in the morning.
“Jock Dickie, is it?” the voice on the other end of the phone said. “And you’re sure it’s not just the drink? I don’t want to drag myself out there only to find him sleeping off a hangover.
I’ve only just got in from the last visit and I’ve had enough of dispensing aspirin for one night.”
“No,” Dave replied. “He’s had a good drink, but it’s worse than that. He looks like death warmed up, and I think he might keel over any minute. I wouldn’t have phoned you, but you know what the man’s like...it takes gallons to get him pissed, and even then he never keels over.”
“Okay,” The doctor replied, and Dave heard the resignation in his voice. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Just make sure he doesn’t start eating the furniture before I get to him.”
Dave hung up and turned back to the bar.
Jock was holding a whiskey bottle up to the light, studying the patterns made by the liquid as it swirled and sloshed in the bottle. He licked his lips, in anticipation of a drink yet to come, but put the bottle down and turned toward Dave.
“Drink,” the big man said, his voice slurred and childlike, saliva dripping from his red, fleshy lips, “…I was promised a drink.”
“Aye, that’s right,” Dave said, “I suppose I did. And I think I’d better have one with you. I may as well...it looks like I’m not going to get much sleep tonight anyway.”
He moved forward towards the bottle, but he didn’t make it. A massive meaty hand grabbed him by the forearm, digging deep into his muscles and grinding his bones together with a sudden flaring pain. He opened his mouth, ready to scream, but it was choked off in his throat.
His head was dragged round to look into the moon-like face of the man that held him. The fleshy mouth opened and this time Dave did scream as twin fangs slid from the gums in a sudden flash of blood.
The scream didn’t last long...just long enough for Jock Dickie to lower his head to Dave’s neck.
“Drink. Promised.” Jock said as his head lowered and the fangs went in and Dave’s world exploded in white, hot pain.
When the doctor arrived ten minutes later he found the bar empty, and he didn’t see the spots of blood, which were spattered on the floor around the bar.
He had a longing look at the bottle of whiskey on the bar but he knew he had many calls ahead of him that night.
If he knew what the night held for him and the town, he may have changed his mind, but he closed the door of the bar carefully and headed wearily back to his car.
By that time doors were being knocked on in other parts of the town and old friends were being invited in for a drink.
“I can’t go in,” Brian said.
The blackness seemed almost beckoning and it was as if the night was waiting for his decision. Nothing moved around them, no noise disturbed the air and the trees hung suspended in the shadows.
“Come on, Margaret. It’s pitch black. And the floorboards are probably rotted through...you could do yourself an injury in there.”
“Pussy.” She said, and, without waiting to see if he would follow, walked through the door and into the blackness. In the space of two seconds she had disappeared from view.
And still he couldn’t bring himself to follow. He patted his pockets for the third time in as many minutes, looking for cigarettes that might have magically materialized out of nowhere.
“Margaret?” he called and heard his voice echo in the hall beyond. “Come on. Stop playing silly buggers.”
Silence fell again, and suddenly Brian felt stupid. He hadn’t been afraid of the dark since he’d outgrown the bedside night light when he was seven...this was no time to let the old fears back in. He took a quick look around the drive in front of the house, but nothing moved.
At the end of the drive, so far away, he could just make out the squat curves of his car and he wished he had never told Margaret anything of his fears.
“Too late now,” he whispered to himself. He stepped through the door before he had time to regret the action.
The blackness fell around him like a blanket and it was long seconds before his eyes adjusted enough to see the doorway he had just come through. Moonlight was throwing a silver and black mosaic across the floor in front of the door but apart from that all was dark.
It was more than mere darkness...it was a complete absence of light, and Brian believed that he could stand there for hours and still see nothing.
“Margaret?” he called again and the echoes cascaded around him in a chorus.
“Over here,” she answered, from somewhere to his left, muffled, as if speaking from another room. Brian moved towards the sound, his foot hitting something metallic that rattled and clattered as it ran across the hard floor.
He moved slower, feeling ahead of him with his foot, and realized he walked through discarded rubbish...beer cans, paper and fast food cartons. Somehow it lessened his fear to know that other people had been here, that he and Margaret were not the first to venture within.
“Where are you?” he said, half whispering, almost afraid to raise his voice lest the whispers grew too loud.
“Just keep coming,” her voice replied, louder this time and closer.
Brian realized that his eyes were finally adjusting to the darkness...that there was a lighter area ahead of him and slightly to the left, the area from which Margaret’s voice was coming.
He reached a wall and felt along with only his fingertips until he reached a corner. He negotiated his way around it gingerly, trying to push away the growing notion that something was waiting on the other side to grab him, something with fearsome claws and teeth that would tear him into bloody pieces.
“Where the hell are you?” he hissed.
“Here,” a voice said almost in his right ear, and a cold hand grabbed him by the wrist.
There was a giggle. He felt soft lips brush against his cheek.
“Come and see,” she said, almost girlish in her enthusiasm.
“Christ...I think I’ve peed myself,” Brian said, his voice shaky and his heart pounding in his ears as Margaret led him round the corner and into a room of marvels.
A marble floor stretched away from them, a floor that shone in soft silver, tiled in a complex labyrinthine mosaic, a Celtic serpent that twisted and coiled away into the gloom on the other side of the room.
Shadows flitted across the floor, gray and black wraiths that waltzed slowly in a complex dance to the night.
Off to his left there was a huge gothic fireplace flanked on either side by black Valkyries, great statuesque personifications of womanhood, their every curve lovingly chiseled. And on top of the mantle was a mirror that would have graced any of the great stately homes. It was nearly eight feet across and
five-foot high, its frame cunningly wrought into a forest of vines and creepers.
In reflection he could see Margaret’s pale face, a grin spreading ever wider as she looked around the room.
Brian looked up, and up, to a great dome of glass in the ceiling and the almost full moon beyond. The sky was full of stars, only partially obscured by the brightness of the moon.
As far as he could see there was no glass missing from the entire dome, a dome that stretched the length and breadth of the room and arched almost twenty feet overhead, held together by great oak beams.
“How the hell did this lot survive,” he whispered. “It’s been at least forty years since anyone actually lived here...you would have thought that the kids would have got in long before now.
That dome alone should have been like a magnet for them.”
“I don’t know,” Margaret said, taking him by the hand. “But don’t worry about that now...come and see what I’ve found.”
She led him across the room, their feet slapping noisily on the tile floor. There were areas in the corners that Brian didn’t want to look at too closely...gatherings of dark shadows that seemed to crowd in ever further.
Margaret was still holding tight to his hand as she led him to the wall opposite the fireplace and stood him in front of a portrait that was almost as tall as Brian was.
He saw that the vandals hadn’t missed the room after all...the figure in the painting had sprouted a mustache and glasses, but that didn’t take away from the power of the subject.
It was set in a graveyard, a misty gothic mausoleum that sat among a grove of dead and twisted trees. But the main focus, the thing that completely dominated the picture, was the person who was in the act of leaving the tomb. No, not a person...a thing, most definitely made for the night.
It was white, as pale as a moonbeam, its features seemingly carved from finest ivory. But it was the eyes that held Brian spellbound...the blood red, piercing eyes that watched him from out of the picture.
“Looks like this is where Old Sandy got his idea for the story...don’t you think?” Margaret said. “Let’s say that he came in here, looking for somewhere to sleep, and saw the picture.