Mersey Dark

by Michael Whitehead

  The rats came over the lawn, like an armada into battle. Harry tried to count how many there were, but his skill with numbers stopped at twenty – there were many more than that.

  “Lord save us,” Danny said from beside Harry, he sounded terrified.

  “There’s...there’s so many of them,” Harry thought, then realised he had spoken the words out loud. He starred at the dark streaks as they rushed up the lawn, thinking of a story his father had once told him.

  He had been at Waterloo, a young man himself, and almost twenty years before Harry was born. He hadn’t been in the army more than a few months, and hadn’t seen a real fight in that time. All of a sudden, he had found himself face to face with the massed ranks of Napoleon’s army. He had been terrified beyond belief, sure that he would die, but one piece of advice stuck in his mind. Wait until you can see the whites of their eyes.

  According to his old man, it had been the hardest thing he had ever done, watching the French advance on them unchecked, while the English stood in a thin line, waiting. But then the English had started firing, so close they could see the blood stains on the French uniforms, finally he had realised the advice was good. Every shot had counted, every volley left lines of Frenchmen lying in the dirt. He took that story and became a leader.

  “Wait! Do not shoot until I give the word!” he shouted. “Let them get close, and make them run straight at your shots!” He looked along the line and saw eight terrified faces staring out across the lawn.

  The rats galloped like small horses, charging rider-less into battle. They came across the lawn in waves, so that as the first of them reached the barricade almost half of them were still down near the woods at the far end of the estate. It was a poor way to fight a battle but then the creatures they faced were not strategists.

  Closer they came, on all fours, eager violence in their eyes. There was no white, just a shiny wet blackness but Harry timed his moment well.

  “Now!” he shouted.

  He fired his shotgun and was surrounded by a cloud of smoke that hung around his head on the windless evening. He did not see the rat he aimed at tumble to the ground. It fouled the footing of the creature that followed and slowed the charge of a few more.

  Along the line, the other seven shooters were firing off a rolling volley that caused the same devastation among the group of rushing rats. Bodies tumbled to the ground, their speed carrying them forward and tossing them end over end. They hindered the creatures that followed them and suddenly the men behind the barrier were facing a slower enemy.

  Harry reached behind him, allowing the girl who was reloading for him to place the gun straight into his hand. Her name was Beth, she looked terrified, but she had defiant steel in her eyes from which he drew strength. Before he turned back to the fight she was ripping the top off a paper cartridge with her teeth and spitting the end to the ground.

  Harry spun to take another shot. The smoke from his first was still lingering in the air and he waved an arm in the vain attempt of clearing it. He knelt, hoping to see under the cloud, and saw a rat no more than ten feet away. He fired without taking the time to aim properly, saw flesh ripped from the creature’s shoulder before it disappeared from view.

  He knew the animal was still coming for him, the wound had not stopped it. He drew his sabre and stepped back, waiting for the attack. The rat leaped through the smoke to come at him from above his head. He braced for the impact but it never came. There was a shot from his right, and the rat rolled in mid-air and died. Its lifeless body thumped to the ground, rolled once, then lay on its back with its lifeless eyes staring into the evening sky.

  Harry turned to see Danny staring at the creature, a smoking gun in his hand. He looked shocked at what he had done, but the girl behind him thrust another gun at him bringing both boys out of their stupor.

  Harry turned to take another gun from Beth. As he did, he saw that a couple of the creatures had broken the line. They weren’t attacking the defenders at the barricade, but were heading straight for the house.

  The shooters were holding their position, firing steadily into the oncoming enemy. Harry had a moment of indecision before he took the gun from Beth and started toward the house.

  “Keep loading for Danny. Fire it yourself if you have to,” he said to her, beginning to run toward the front door.

  He covered the ground quickly, then glanced back to survey the battle. Despite their fine shooting and the bodies that littered the grass, the fight was far from over. There were still more of the creatures joining the attack from the bottom of the lawn.

  He entered the house and heard Sir Thomas’s voice ringing out from the dining room. He was giving orders that nobody seemed to be relaying to the men outside.

  “Tell them it’s time to charge,” he shouted. “Fix bayonets and have at them!”

  “They are in the house!” Harry shouted to John Abbott, the constable who was guarding Sir Thomas.

  “In here Harry, They’ve found us,” Abbott shouted back to him, his voice loud but flat.

  Harry edged his way toward the dining room, his shotgun tucked tight to his shoulder. As he rounded the open door he saw three rats standing almost in a line, staring at Sir Thomas. The old man himself seemed oblivious to his danger. Instead he was sitting with his back to them, staring at a table full of maps.

  “We can’t take them all, John,” Harry said. He spoke in the same calm tones he might have used if faced by a dangerous dog. For some reason the creatures were not attacking, they were staring at their quarry, twitching with anticipation. They seemingly had no idea that the other two men were in the room

  “I know, but we have to try,” Abbott replied. He lowered his gun slowly to the nearest rat.

  “Do we?” Harry asked. “What if we just walk away? We can’t save him, but we can save ourselves.”

  “We’re police, Harry. It’s what we vowed to do.” Abbott shot the nearest rat. The bullet caught the creature in the face, tearing off most of its mouth and the side of its head. Harry fired his last shot at the second creature blowing a huge hole in the back of its skull, exposing its spine and killing it instantly.

  The third rat wasted no more time. It leaped across the space between itself and Sir Thomas Richmond. The old man did not know his danger, right up to the end. He sat pointing at his maps, then he turned to someone to give an order in his imaginary battle. As he did, the rat clamped its massive jaws onto his throat. It tore the flesh away, spraying aristocratic blood across the dining room walls.

  John and Harry rushed in, sabres swinging. They cut deep into the rat’s flesh, hacking at the back of its neck. The creature did not put up a fight, its work was done, it died with a profound sense of satisfaction and loss.

  The two men stared at each other, then down at the bloody bodies. One a lord of the manor, the other an unholy creature, somehow they felt the same sense of waste and loss for both.

  From outside, they heard a round of cheering begin. They stepped from the room and out of the front door. The fight had ended, the rats had begun to retreat. The lawn was littered with bodies, they lay scattered on the grass and piled up on top of each other.

  Three men had been injured, one of them badly. His arm had been dislocated from its socket and gashes lined his chest. Mrs. Overton was already tending to him by the time the two men left the house. He looked pale but Harry guessed he would live.

  Danny looked shocked and bewildered as he walked toward Harry. He dropped the shotgun to the ground, and embraced his new friend. The two men, barely more than boys, held each other, both shocked at what they had just done. If they stepped away with tears in their eyes, nobody cared.

  Down toward the woods at the bottom of the estate, Harry saw a rat pause for a moment. It sat up on its hind legs, sniffed the air and looked about. It was not the same terrifying monster it had been moments before. It looked sad and lost.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  St. Helena 1826

  “Come
in, boy,” the doctor said. He was not the demon Davidson had seen in his fevered dream. He was a man, an old man, ancient if truth be told, but still a man. He walked bent over, leaning against the rough wooden table that was just inside the door of his hut.

  Davidson took a deep steadying breath, and stepped through the door. The hut was bigger than Isabella’s, he had seen that from the outside, but on the inside it felt tiny. There were so many things crammed into every available inch of space.

  Shelves sagged under the weight of jars and bottles, hooks held drying plants and, if Davidson was right, drying animal carcasses and skins. The whole scene was lit by a few stubby candles that were placed around the room.

  The window was smoke blackened and the whole place smelled of a stale, burned odour. There was no chair to go with the table, just a bed and a fire pit at the back of the hut. A single hole above the pit gave the fire air to breathe. Dust motes danced in the air, appearing and disappearing in front of his eyes.

  “Come to me boy, let me look at you,” the doctor ordered. Davidson hesitated, then stepped forward. The old man had thin, bony fingers which he used to open the boy’s mouth. He seemed to check his teeth and then moved on to the rest of his face. He pulled down on his cheeks, staring in to each of his eyes in turn. Then he turned the boy’s head and looked in to his ears. All the while, he made a clicking noise with his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

  “Show me your muscles, boy,” he made a flexing motion with his arms and Davidson copied him, trying to make his arm look as strong as possible. “Now squat for me,” he said and the boy did as he was asked.

  “I’m strong, sir. I can carry a lot,” Davidson said, speaking for the first time.

  “Good, you can fetch me some wood for my fire,” the old man said. “There is a pile out back. Bring me a few logs.”

  Davidson nodded, wondering how the old man could need heat on such a warm night. He stepped out of the door and around the hut by the light of the moon.

  The woodpile was no more than a few logs stacked loosely against the back of the hut. The old man would need more before the cold nights began. Davidson gathered four into his arms and carried them to the door.

  “Drop them over there,” the doctor said, pointing to a small space next to the fire pit. The boy did as he was asked, then stood up and waited for the old man to speak again. Instead he began moving about the hut, gathering herbs and other items from various shelves.

  As he took a small wooden box off a high cabinet, Davidson’s eye was drawn to a row of jars at the back of the hut. There were five, almost hidden from view by a small stack of folded cloth. He could see moving animals in the jars, insects or mice maybe.

  The old man must have seen him looking at the shelf because he began to chuckle, “You have a good eye, boy. Those are my pride.” He reached up to the shelf and removed the nearest jar. He placed it on the table and stepped back, allowing Davidson to look at it.

  The creature inside was neither insect nor mammal, it was both. It had the face and front legs of a grasshopper or a locust and the rear quarters of a mouse or other small rodent. He stared at it for the longest time, absorbed in the idea that this was two creatures at the same time.

  “What happened to it?” he said, fascinated and horrified at the same time.

  “Me! I happened to it,” the doctor said. He smiled as the boy turned to him, a look of shock on his face. “That’s right, boy, I made this thing.”

  “Can you teach me how to do it?” Davidson asked. The old man began to laugh.

  “No boy, not for a long time. First you must learn to speak with the spirits. Then you must learn how to ask them for their help. The conjuring is about learning how to communicate with the other realm. It can take a lifetime of practice, but I can teach you.”

  “How long before I learn how to do something like this?” The boy asked, staring back down at the abomination in the jar.

  The old man looked at him for a moment, then turned his back. “Go back to the village boy, you are not right for this, you have no patience.”

  Davidson felt his heart sink, he had seen a world that he wanted so badly and now he had failed at the first step. He walked over to old man, hoping to persuade him to change his mind.

  “I’m sorry, I want to learn, please teach me. I will do as you ask, I will learn what you want me to learn. I will be good.”

  The old man turned his face toward him and the demon was back. His eyes were fathomless pits of blackness, his face was twisted into the mask he had seen on the night he had visited Davidson in Isabella’s hut.

  “I do not care about good or evil, use the power in you for whatever purpose you wish. I only care that you use it to its fullest.” The voice was dark and rough, it coughed the words into the air, they came out surrounded by smoke.

  “I will do anything you say,” Davidson said. He tried to stand straight in the face of the demon, but despite his best efforts he found his voice quivering.

  The demon was gone as quickly as it had arrived, the old man stood in his place. He looked smaller and more withered than he had before but showed no sign of ill effect.

  “That,” he said pointing at the boys chest with a gnarled finger, “is a start. Now, throw a couple of logs in the pit, we have work to do.”

  The boy leaned over to where he had dropped his firewood and threw a couple of them into the pit. The old man waited until he had taken a step back and then made an almost casual gesture toward the wood. Flames appeared and the air of the hut began to heat.

  “Sit down, boy,” The doctor said, pointing to a space on the floor. Davidson cautiously picked his way toward the spot, careful not to knock anything from a table or shelf with an errant elbow. He lowered himself to the floor and was immediately caught by a feeling of vulnerability at having the old man standing above him.

  “First, we must introduce you to the spirits, child,” the old man said from behind and above the boy’s head.

  “How?” Davidson asked, but his voice sounded small and he stopped speaking.

  The old man did not answer, instead he walked around the boy so that they were face to face. He held the boy’s gaze, drawing him in, taking him captive. Just as the boy thought he might fall in to the old man’s eyes, drown in the dark water within, the old man threw something in to the fire.

  The flames turned first red, then green, before turning black. Those black flames did not fill the hut with darkness, they produced a light that was blackness itself. The boy could see every shadow, every place the light could not find. He saw the world beneath the world, the reality beyond what was real.

  “Good, very good. Now boy, close your eyes and let the spirits take you where they will,” the doctor said. As he spoke he placed his hand on the boy’s forehead and gently pushed.

  He is falling...falling...falling. Falling back in to oblivion. The void is claiming him, the blackness of the flames surrounds him and he will fall forever.

  Panic threatens to consume him, he grasps for a handhold, something to break the constant...falling. He reaches out with hands that are not there. He is nothing now but thought, and somehow this idea consoles him.

  If he has no body, why is he gasping for breath? Why is he trying not to fall? Because he is scared to reach the bottom? To be shattered into a million pieces? He relaxes, even allows himself to enjoy the ride. That is when he feels them.

  The spirits have found him, he knows they are with him, he feels their warmth. They envelop him, hold him to them like a child in a mother’s embrace and it is wonderful. He has never felt a mother’s love, and until now he has not understood that he craves such a thing.

  In the blackness he laughs. It is a vague and soundless thing but wonderful nonetheless. He senses the spirits are laughing with him, they feel his joy and love him for it. He is a thing of wonder to them. Not a weak and needy thing like most of his kind, he is strong and they feed off him as he suckles at them. This, finally, is the visitor to their re
alm that they have been waiting for.

  They lift him. High, higher, highest. He sees the world beneath him, first the hut, then the village, the island, the endless ocean, then the world in all of her blue-green glory. He is high above them all, looking down on them all and he understands.

  Every birth, every death, every choice by every person who ever walked the planet is connected. Each chance encounter, each act of kindness, each cruel intention, they are all part of a great web.

  A baby is born, grows up, then grows old. In her lifetime she changes the lives of millions of people and has her own life changed in response. She leaves behind children, who have children of their own, and each new birth is a wealth of possibility.

  Generations sprung from a single moment, but that moment is not the beginning. How could it possibly be the beginning? How many lives, how many choices have led to her birth? How many generations have interacted so that she could come into existence?

  Is it planned? Is this the grand scheme of a god? Or gods? The spirits know nothing of gods. They see the world of men, they see the world beyond. The world of shadows, of the spaces between spaces, and nothing they have seen has told them of any god. They know of no almighty schemer who controls the myriad connections that happen every single day.

  And what of death, of violence? Does it not affect the lives of people just as birth and hope do? Is the single death of a child not a monumental loss of potential? How many lives are left a little more barren by the passing of one person before their time? To take a life is to deny existence, so the spirits tell him. The possibility of a lifetime of chance encounters and random acts, lost to ignorance and brutality.

  If the birth of a single baby is the well that brings forth a universe, is the death of that same child not the death of everything?