by Unknown
Mark Darrow
And
THE STEALER OF SOULS
By
Matt Hilton
A Young Adult Fantasy Novel
Mark Darrow and the Stealer of Souls
Matt Hilton
Copyrigh t©2013 Matt Hilton
Published by Sempre Vigile Press
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return to Amazon and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Cover design Copyright©2013 Matt Hilton
Pyramid image courtesy of Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Ghostly images courtesy of Victor Habbick / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Figures and dog images courtesy of Vlado / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
NOTE: This ebook was originally published in 2011 under the title ‘Deliver Us From Evil’ by J A (Jack) Norton. Matt Hilton has asserted his right as the author of this work.
Dedicated to: Jamie B and Hayley B (no relation)
Mark Darrow And The Stealer of Souls
1
There was something strange going on in Larchwood.
It was something about the sky. The way it surrounded the trees like it was a shell of stained glass that the sun could barely pierce. The colour just wasn’t right, and even though it was cloudless there was little of the summer sunshine reaching the ground.
Mark Darrow shivered, tugging the collar of his T-shirt up and over his lower teeth so he could chew on the material. He looked across the wheat field wondering why – if there was no wind – the stalks were moving like something huge moved through them.
Behind him the larches stirred and he glanced back over his shoulder, almost expecting to find a branch reaching for him like the grasping hand of a skeleton. The trees stood still. Mark circled where he stood, peering upward. The sun blazed for a moment, but then diminished to little more than a speck, like the trailing ember of a firework burning out. He blinked and the sun was again a bright disc, radiant, but cold, in the sky.
Turning back to the wheat field he caught sight of his shadow rippling across the nearest stalks. His shadow was much too large. The sun was high above him, so his shadow should have been short and blunt, but here it was elongated and slightly off.
Mark took off his glasses, wiped a thumbprint off them, suspecting that the play of shadows was down to the greasy smear on the lens. When he put back on his glasses, things looked no different. Wrong! They looked no better. Things were very different indeed. Now he had two shadows, each reaching away from where his feet were planted in the short grass at the edge of the field, so that his shadows now formed a V.
‘This shouldn’t be possible,’ Mark thought. With only one source of light, and nothing to reflect off, he should have only one shadow.
Mark again rubbed at his glasses but things got no better. In fact, if anything, things only grew weirder. Only one of his shadows followed the movements of his arm. The other stood still as if looking upward. Then the second shadow began to turn in a slow circle, neck craned upward.
Mark felt panic creep up from his guts and once more he chewed on the collar of his shirt. As he watched, the second shadow completed its circle, then jerked back, looking toward the trees. Without knowing how it could be possible, Mark knew that he was watching his own shadow as it had existed only moments before the present time. Above him the sun flared, diminished and returned to its normal baleful stare. The second shadow was gone. Only his first shadow remained, and as he watched it, it shortened and drew back toward his feet. As his shadow got smaller the heat around him built.
Finally, Mark stood there wondering what had just happened. Everything seemed normal now. He was standing in the warm summer sun, looking across the golden wheat and the unnaturalness of the last few minutes had fled. He felt like he’d been caught in some surreal dream and had woken abruptly.
Maybe the pizza he’d eaten last night was a bit dodgy, he wondered. Perhaps a bad anchovy had made him sick and he was delirious or something. Maybe those odd tasting mushrooms had been picked wild from a field and something nasty had sneaked into the mix. Either that or he was as much a cretin as his big brother Jake used to call him.
The field shimmered in his vision, but there was nothing weird going on this time. He sneaked a thumb under his glasses and wiped away the tears. Thinking of Jake always did that to him. It was funny, when Jake was alive, the brothers couldn’t seem to be in the same room for long without a fight erupting. Now that Jake was gone, all Mark wanted was to have him back.
‘What’s the problem, Mark?’
Mark jerked. He looked for his friend, Shax, who had just popped out of the woods and was staring at him like he wasn’t right in the head.
Feeling caught out, Mark swiped the tears from his cheeks. ‘I...I’ve got something in my eyes,’ he stammered.
‘Get in here quick,’ Shax said. ‘If old man Tanner see’s us, he’ll fill us full of lead, then stick us on a pole in the middle of the field to scare the crows away.’
Mark clucked his tongue in his cheek. Shax always was a one for dramatic overstatement. People weren’t allowed to shoot trespassers these days. Not even Henry Tanner, the grouchy old farmer who owned half the land around Larchwood.
‘C’mon,’ Shax said, waving Mark toward the woods. “Do you want to go swimming or not?’
If he’d been asked that a couple of minutes ago Mark would have declined. He’d felt chilled. But now he realised he was hot. A trickle of sweat had broken on his forehead, and there was another running down the curve of his spine toward the waistband of his shorts. Thoughts of plunging into cold water now seemed like a great idea.
He trotted after Shax, following the flash of his green shorts, watching as his tall friend moved through the trees like he’d been born to the wild woods. In contrast, Mark felt clumsy and out of his comfort zone. He was also a little afraid. The strange happenings as he’d stood at the boundary of Tanner’s field still dug a needle into his mind. That had just not been right. He had no words to explain what he’d just witnessed and more than anything he wanted to halt Shax in his tracks and tell him all about it: Shax maybe would have had an explanation. Except that he was afraid that Shax would laugh at him. He didn’t want Shax laughing at him. Shax was his best friend in the whole wide world – even if they’d only known each other for a week.
Mark stopped and hitched up his shorts. The worm of sweat had made its way down his backside and was a little uncomfortable. He stamped a foot to shake the growing droplet loose. Behind him he heard an echoing thud. Quickly he turned, searching the woods, expecting to see Old Man Tanner and his collie dog in fast pursuit. But there was no one there, only the hint of flickering shadows that danced like flames behind the trees. Mark quickly snatched a glance upward, searching for the sun. The heavy crowns of the trees blocked the sky, but he was full sure that once again the sun had flared-dwindled-flared. Looking at the ground he had only the palest shadow, but at least there was only one this time.
‘Get with it, Mark Darrow,’ he admonished himself. The words were those of his big brother.
He set off after Shax who had gained a good lead on him. The thud he’d heard had to have been an echo, he decided. What else could it have been?
‘Stop jumping at shadows,’ he grunted. ‘You’re not a little kid any more. You’re thirteen. Act it!’
He heard Shax whooping in joy. From beyond his friend there cam
e the sound of running water. His friend had led them unerringly to Larchwood Falls – just as Shax had promised.
Mark followed the sounds of Shax’s yells, feeling stupid now.
‘What are you afraid of?’ he asked. ‘You’re safe here in the country. It’s not like back home.’
Cities could be pretty scary places at any time, but especially at night. Being an inner-city kid, Mark had known fear on any number of occasions. There had been times when he’d been approached by down and outs who were friendly at first but then became threatening when he refused to hand over his pocket money. Once he was cornered by a gang of youths who wanted to beat him up for no other reason than his hairstyle was different to theirs. One of them had shown him a knife and Mark had run away, chased through dark alleys stinking of garbage and vomit and God knows what else. The gang had chased him, shouting and swearing at him. For days after Mark had burned with shame at his cowardice, but at least he’d got out unharmed.
The city could be a scary place, but at least he understood its dangers. He knew when to run and when to hide. Out here in the country, though, he was at a loss. Everything seemed alien to him. And the most frightening thing of all was that he did not know why. He did have his suspicions: his big brother Jake wasn’t around to protect him.
All he had now was Shax.
Shax wasn’t the type to hold his own in a fistfight, let alone stick up for Mark. He was tall for his age, but he was as skinny as a chicken’s ankle. He had ears that stuck out, and glasses with thick black rims. If Jake saw him, Mark didn’t know what his brother would say. Maybe he’d hate him. Jake had been a soldier fighting Moslem extremists when he was blown to pieces by a roadside booby trap. Shax was a Moslem. But Shax wasn’t an extremist, he was...well, he was just a kid.
He was clever and funny and the colour of his skin meant nothing to Mark. Mark had experienced enough bullying in his own life not to hold anything against someone like Shax.
If Shax had anything to dislike it would be his know-it-all attitude. But Mark enjoyed that about him. He’d learned all kinds of useless information from Shax. Mark didn’t know where Shax learned all the stuff he did. He’d asked Shax once and Shax had stuck his tongue in his bottom lip and thought hard. In the end he’d shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘I guess I’m just a sponge,’ he said. ‘I absorb things.’
Mark thumped him on his shoulder. ‘You didn’t absorb that,’ he laughed, then charged off with Shax in quick pursuit.
Back in the present, Mark followed the trail that Shax had made in the leaves scattered on the woodland floor. Below him he saw his friend leap up, tuck his knees to his skinny chest and then dive bomb into the pool below Larchwood Falls. Within seconds, Shax bobbed back to the surface, howling like a wolf as he fought the effects of the cold on his skin. He blinked water out of his eyes, pushed his thick hair back from his forehead. His hair stood up like a spiky crown, and without his glasses his dark eyes looked tiny.
‘C’mon, Mark,’ he laughed. ‘What are you waitin’ for?’
‘Is it cold?’ Mark asked.
‘It isn’t going to get any warmer,’ Shax told him. Then he did a duck dive, his butt jutting in the air before he kicked under the surface.
Mark tugged off his T-shirt, got it snared on his glasses, then had to wriggle free from both. He piled his glasses on top of his shirt, then kicked out of his trainers, and then approached the pool. In the dim shade beneath the trees his skin looked as white as snow and goose bumps spread up his arms. The water looked inviting, but he wasn’t ready to take the plunge yet. He stared across the rippling surface to the far bank. On that side the trees grew all the way down to the water. Some of the roots had broken from the bank and reached down into the pool like fingers dabbling the surface. Something dark was caught in the roots.
‘What is that?’ Mark wondered.
In front of him, Shax popped up, spluttering and coughing. He blinked up at Mark. ‘C’mon, you chicken. Just jump in.’
‘I will,’ Mark said. ‘I promise.’ Except his attention was still on the dark shape snagged among the roots.
Shax turned to look where he was staring.
Shax was closer to the dark shape than Mark. He could also see better without his glasses on than Mark could.
He screamed.
Then he was backpedalling, thrashing at the water as if trying to push the pool away from him.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mark yelped.
‘Ohmigod...ohmigod...’ Shax repeated in panic. He scrambled out of the pool, grabbing at Mark as though Mark could protect him from what he’d seen.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mark asked again, and now he was grabbing at Shax so they both hung as tightly to each other.
‘It’s a dead body,’ Shax yowled.
‘What? An animal?’
‘Not an animal,’ Shax cried. ‘A boy! Oh, my God, Mark, he’s got no head!’
2
When the aeroplanes were flown into the World Trade Centre Mark was only a little kid. At that age he was more concerned with playing soldiers than understanding the realities of war. His brother, Jake, seven years his senior, had a greater understanding, but even he was filled by images gleaned more from movies and video games than he was the blood and guts reality of heading off to war. Six years later, Jake joined the army. Within two years he was in Afghanistan and three months after that something called an IED – an improvised explosive device – had brought true horror to the minds of Mark and the Darrow family.
It was almost a year since Jake died.
Rarely had a day gone by when Mark didn’t think about his big brother. He didn’t know the details of his brother’s death, but some of the other kids at school had come up with cruel descriptions that they less than subtly directed his way. One of the worst images that Mark dwelled on was that flying shrapnel had decapitated his brother. A headless body was just about his worst nightmare.
He should have run away screaming blue murder. But something gripped him and held him in place. Shax tried his hardest to pull him away, but for some reason, Mark found himself compelled to look.
‘What are you doing, Mark?’ Shax asked, pulling at Mark’s wrists. ‘We have to go and get help.’
Get help? Mark wondered why. The headless body in the pool was beyond help of any kind. He pulled loose from Shax. ‘I just want to check.’
‘He’s dead, Mark!’
‘I won’t take a second.’
Mark reached down and picked up his glasses. He was surprised to find that his fingers weren’t even trembling as he pushed his glasses in place.
The shape beneath the roots was still too far away from him to get a clear look at it, so he slowly made his way around the pool. At the far end a waterfall fed the pool: not a raging torrent, just a splash of water that tumbled between the rocks above the pool. At the nearer end some enterprising kids had built a dam out of rocks, causing the pool to grow so that it was a handy swimming hole. A stream wound its way from the dam, disappearing among the trees.
Mark used the dam to clamber over the stream. The stones were slick with algae and twice he almost tumbled into the pool. Behind him, Shax was making strange noises like a howler monkey that rose in pitch each time that Mark almost fell. Gaining the far bank, Mark turned to look back at his friend. Shax stood with his mouth wide open, his hair plastered on his forehead. He had recovered his own glasses and behind the lenses his eyes were huge now.
‘Be careful,’ Shax said. His voice sounded small.
Mark looked for where the bundle lay under the roots. He’d been filled with a strange sense of distraction, but now that he was this close he began to feel something worming its way through his bowels.
Shax has to be wrong, Mark decided. It can’t be a headless corpse. Not here.
He couldn’t see the shape. The gnarled roots made it impossible to look directly down from the bank. Mark stepped into the water. Here, at the far side, the water only rose halfway up his thighs. The water
was cold but he barely felt it. His own flesh was flushed now, burning back the chill of the water.
His vantage was different than it had been before. He still couldn’t see the thing in the water. Looking over at Shax, he saw his friend waving him on, pointing at a place ten feet ahead of him. Mark bunched his fists tight to his chest, then he waded forward. The water was brackish here, a funny reddish-brown colour. Full of silt, Mark thought. Or full of decomposing flesh and blood.
That thought made him squirm. But he’d made up his mind. He was going to check out the supposed headless corpse then laugh his head off when he found it was nothing but an old sack of rubbish washed into the pool by the stream.
‘Be careful,’ Shax called from the far side.
‘What’s he going to do?’ Mark called back. ‘He’s not going to bite me.’
‘I don’t like this...’ Shax stooped down and pulled his blue T-shirt from the floor. It was shabby, but it was his favourite, emblazoned with a motif of his favourite indie band. He shook bits of grass and dirt off it and then pulled it over his head. Then he stood hugging himself as though his swim had chilled him bone deep.
Mark could also feel the cold now. It ran down the length of his spine, and almost – just for a second – he thought about turning around and leaving things well and good alone.
The strange sky, the strange shadows, everything was strange today. Not less his new found bravery. He leaned down amongst the roots. Something very dark bobbed just below the surface of the water. He probed for it with his bare feet. He recoiled from the touch. Whatever the thing was it did not feel good. It was like sodden cloth over a pile of dough. He quickly blinked behind the lenses of his glasses, leaned forward and reached for the thing. His fingers pulled on cloth and for a moment the submerged weight resisted him. Maybe it was caught up in the roots and they’d sent tendrils around it and were reluctant to give up their prize. Mark grabbed the thing with both hands and hauled backwards.