The Bone Keeper

by Luca Veste

  ‘It’ll be some nutcase who just wants to make a name for himself,’ Tim said, as the TV in the corner still flickered with breaking news banners and shadowy images from their city. ‘He’s not real.’

  ‘I’m telling you, I saw him once . . .’

  ‘You saw something, Karen, but I doubt it was the bloody Bone Keeper.’

  ‘I know what I saw. We were in the woods by Formby and he was in there. Waiting for us. Ask any of the others. That’s where he lived, inside the woods. He had marks on the trees that showed where he was or had been. Everyone knew about him round there. People would go missing and never turn up. We barely got away from him.’

  ‘I’m going for a smoke,’ Tim said, lifting himself off the sofa, so he didn’t have to hear anything further from her.

  They went to bed the same time as always. The cat safely ensconced inside; Karen didn’t like him staying out all night. It didn’t matter that he inevitably ended up on the bed, a dead weight between them. A living, breathing contraception.

  Tim couldn’t get out of this despair of a marriage if he’d tried. She would give him those sad eyes of hers and he’d relent. Anything to keep the peace.

  He dreamed of a different life.

  He dreamed of death.

  Lying there in the darkness, he stared at the ceiling and wondered what he’d done in a previous life to deserve this. Turning over, listening to Karen snore, he closed his eyes and wished for the perfect dream. One that would wake him up hard and excited.

  He couldn’t remember the last time they’d actually gone to bed early enough to contemplate intimacy. He didn’t miss it. Was actually thinking about taking up the big-chested girl in Accounts’ offer. A quick fumble in the disabled toilets in work would provide some excitement, even if the guilt might eventually become too much to live with.

  Tim was thinking of her as he drifted off to sleep.

  When he heard the first noise, he was still not fully alert. The moment inbetween sleep and wakefulness. Confusion washed over him as he tried to work out if he was still asleep and dreaming, or awake.

  It was a voice.

  ‘You’re talking in your sleep again, Karen,’ Tim mumbled, his mouth dry enough to notice. He coughed and cleared his throat. ‘If you carry on, I’m moving to the spare room.’

  Karen didn’t answer, but then she never did. He was more awake now, the creaking sound from beside him not bothering him. The damn cat again. Probably disturbed by his voice.

  They had never got on.

  He reached over, landing a hand on the glass of water on the bedside table. He brought the glass to his lips, sipping on the lukewarm liquid, which did little to quench his thirst.

  He heard the sound again. He was becoming more awake by the second. Now he heard it properly.

  It was whispering, in the darkness.

  It wasn’t coming from Karen.

  The whispering grew louder, rhythmic and repetitive. Tim couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. Fear crawled around inside him and set up home. Words flew through his head, crashing into each other like moths on strip lights. He couldn’t work out what was happening to him.

  All bravado had gone. He had often thought he would be able to cope in any situation, used to defending himself growing up on a council estate in the middle of Liverpool. He had faced down the biggest bullies, rounded blind, dark corners when out in town at stupid o’clock in the morning. He had talked often about what he would do if someone broke into his house at night. How he would tackle them to the ground, get a few digs in while waiting for the police to arrive. No one could best him in a fight.

  He had always thought that.

  He had never known real fear. The terror of being awoken in the middle of the night, confused and disorientated.

  While someone whispered in the shadows.

  He couldn’t move.

  He couldn’t move.

  He wouldn’t move.

  The whispering grew louder. He could hear it now. Over and over.

  You can do this. You can do this.

  Do it now. Do it now.

  His eyes were open as the shadow grew form and came towards him. He begged his body to move, to do anything. Fight or flight.

  He did neither.

  Instead, he lay there, paralysed with panic, fear, dread. Whatever it was, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t talk. He was rigid.

  The bed became wet beneath his groin, as the shadow person now loomed over him. He could see its eyes, its mouth. He could see the clothes it wore, sense the smell of him. The square of his jawline, the hairs protruding from his nose.

  The blackness of its breath on his skin, as it leaned over him.

  He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Saliva disappearing from his mouth, throat going dry. He could see better now, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.

  He wished they hadn’t.

  He was unaware of Karen beside him. She had disappeared from his consciousness. The only things there in the room were him and the figure a foot away from him.

  There was something in his hand, but Tim could only see it in his peripheral vision. He could only stare into its eyes, above him, studying him.

  The movement came fast, before his brain had a chance to catch up with what his throat wanted to do. As he stretched open his mouth to cry out, to speak, to do something, the knife plunged into his neck.

  Tim could feel the air cut out, a grunt of effort above him, as the blade plunged further in. There wasn’t much pain at first; it was almost as if there was just something lodged in his throat, ready to be coughed up. His brain tried to make his body do that, but it didn’t respond.

  He felt pain suddenly, like a blast of wind as you opened a door. Bang, there it was. He felt as if he were screaming, but he couldn’t hear anything. The knife was lodged in his neck, the thing above him still holding onto the handle.

  And twist.

  The pain became agony in an instant, as the knife twisted in his neck. The handle moved upwards, cutting into him, as his vision finally gave up. Blurred, distant. His head flopped on the pillow as he bucked under the strain of the thing above him. A hand came across and laid him back down with little effort.

  Tim was dreaming. That was all. The darkness of sleep came back to him. Drifting in and out of consciousness.

  He was dreaming.

  Of silent screams, of blood seeping out of him and onto the sheets he was lying on.

  Of drowning. Not being able to breathe.

  There was nothing else. Just endless, desperate gasps of non-existent air. Being swallowed by the waves, the eternal emptiness of the sea.

  Nothing else.

  He was nowhere. He was a nobody.

  Tim was done.

  He wiped a sleeve across his brow, but more sweat sprang up. He left the knife where he had plunged it into the neck of the man. The woman was still asleep, barely moving at all. He cocked his head, straightening up and dusting himself off absent-mindedly. He studied the slumbering form of the woman, wondering what to do next.

  He knew what he had to do.

  He knew what he wanted to do.

  Twenty-Nine

  Louise stared at the blood drying on her knuckles as she gripped the steering wheel and pulled into her road. She reached across and smudged the small mark away. Smiled to herself as she pictured the lad on the ground.

  Even if he said anything – which was unlikely – having no witnesses or CC TV would have made it difficult to pin it on her. She didn’t think it was very likely he would admit to being smacked around a little by a woman anyway. His ego would never survive that.

  She still had the feeling coursing through her, that rose up after that first blow had landed. The relief, as she finally gave into what was always underneath her cold surface. The anger and rage that was always with her, unleashed for a few seconds.

  There was a part of her that wanted to do it again. And again.

  Louise pulled the car to a stop, adjusted the rear-view
mirror and caught sight of her eyes in it. She turned away quickly, removing the keys and stepping out of the car. The street was quiet, as it always seemed to be late at night. It wasn’t a cut-through to anywhere and it was far enough away from the shops and pubs that if anyone was walking past, they were going somewhere close.

  She walked up to her front door, her breath catching in her throat now, as she thought of the darkness and silence that awaited her inside. Shook her head, opened up and let herself in.

  Louise flicked on the hall lights and knew instantly that someone had been in her house. The air was thick with musk, a foreign aroma, not the usual one which greeted her. She stood still, waiting to hear any sound. Any betrayal of movement, something that didn’t sound right.

  She thought back to that morning, the routine she had gone through. She had locked every possible entrance, every window and door. There was no way anyone could have got in, Louise thought. Just as she always did.

  No one could have got into her house.

  She tried to think back to before she’d gone to the hospital a few hours earlier, but couldn’t remember getting further than the hallway.

  It was her mind playing tricks on her, that was all. Still in the heightened state it had been in all week. There was no way she could know if someone was in her house just from walking in and sniffing.

  It wasn’t possible.

  She moved forwards, gaining more confidence with every step. Walked into the living room and switched on the light while the door was still opening. Looked around, to see if anything was out of place, if there was a sign that someone had really been into her house.

  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Everything where it should be. Still, there was an unexplainable feeling that someone had been in this room. Someone other than herself.

  She left the living room, making her way down the hallway to the kitchen-diner. The house was only small, but it was good enough for her. She hadn’t ever needed anything bigger than this, given she was on her own.

  Louise flicked on the kitchen light, bathing the room in a warm glow.

  She spotted it immediately. The thing out of place. There, on the small breakfast bar that separated the two halves of the room, was a small pile of something. The smell of it drifted her way – acrid and pungent.

  Burning.

  She froze half in and half out of the doorway, unwilling to turn around in case the person who had left them was standing behind her. She listened instead, waiting for a creak or a breath to appear.

  There was silence.

  Her feet finally broke the deadlock, moving across the room swiftly towards what had been left there.

  A gathering of burnt pieces of wood, fashioned into shapes. Bundled together with what looked like vines. They were charred, the bark blackened and crumbling.

  They looked like bones. Burnt and destroyed.

  She swallowed a few times, her breathing becoming heavier as she stared at the offering. She wanted to slam a fist into it until all that was left was ashes, but her hands wouldn’t obey. Instead, they moved towards the card that lay on the surface behind it.

  Louise turned it over, reading the handwritten words on the reverse, hands shaking as she took it in, what it meant.

  Time for you to come home Louise.

  XX XX

  Before

  She was left there to wait, the seconds lasting an eternity. Staring into the void of the tunnel, the blackness growing in the circle, becoming all she could see. It seemed to pulse with an unseen energy, waiting, watching, alive with the possibility of swallowing someone whole. She wanted to get to her feet, move towards it and cross its threshold. Instead, she leaned to one side and the contents of her stomach appeared next to her.

  ‘Ewwww, that’s gross,’ one of the brats said, her shrieking voice disturbing birds in the trees above. ‘Lee, she’s throwing up, look.’

  ‘I can see that, you divvy.’

  She ignored them, coughing and spluttering, as she dry-heaved a few more times until she couldn’t any longer. Her eyes watered, stomach flipping over as she leaned back on her hands. ‘Need to get Matty,’ she managed to say, in the general direction of the two brats. ‘He’s in there.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the point,’ Lee replied, sniggering as he spoke. She wanted so much in that moment for him to have gone last, rather than Matty. Rather than her brother. Let this little idiot boy be the one. Not him. ‘He’ll be here in a minute and then you can stop crying like a little girl.’

  She closed her eyes, wiping a sleeve across them to remove the moisture. She did the same across her chin, rubbing the sleeve against the ground once she’d done so. She turned back in the direction of the tunnel, wondering how long it would take until she heard the noise.

  Expecting to hear screams. Agony.

  She was convinced of it now. She knew what would happen to him in there. What had almost happened to her.

  ‘There’s someone in there,’ she said, a growl of anger in her voice now. These two brats had led them to this place. It was their fault. If something happened to Matty . . .

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Faye said, hands on her hips, desperately trying to look older than her age. She looked exactly what she was. A little girl. ‘There’s nobody in there. We would have heard them.’

  ‘I’m telling you, there’s someone in there,’ she replied, turning on them now. There was a sudden moment when she felt like a mother facing her two errant children. She was eleven years old, but felt thirty years older somehow. Ancient. ‘I don’t know who or what, but there’s something in that tunnel and now it’s going to get Matty.’

  ‘It’s him,’ Lee said, making his voice deeper and more frightening. ‘It’s the Bone Keeper.’

  ‘He’ll slice your flesh. Your bones he’ll keep.’ Faye’s singing voice lifted birds from the trees around them and into the darkening sky.

  ‘Shut up, you stupid cow,’ she almost screamed at the kid.

  ‘Well, why don’t you go back in there and save him then?’ Faye said, drawing herself up to her full height, as if that was anything to be proud of. Faye looked even smaller to her now. A little waif, a stray. ‘You’re freaking out for no reason. Are you trying to scare us or something, because it’s not working.’

  Faye looked towards her brother for support, but he was looking past the two girls and towards the tunnel itself. She watched him for a moment, trying to read what was going on behind his eyes. She thought for a second that she saw something float past them, but then it was gone.

  ‘We all have to go in,’ she said. Her tone was firm, but even she could hear that there was no conviction behind it. ‘We need to go and help him.’

  ‘He’ll be out in a minute, just keep your hair on.’

  She ignored the little girl and concentrated on Lee, who had fallen silent and was simply staring at the tunnel. She could see he was shaping to speak, but something was holding him back.

  ‘What is it, Lee?’ she tried, hoping she hadn’t read him wrong. ‘What’s in there?’

  Lee looked at her as if she had just appeared there and he was confused by her presence. ‘It’s not real,’ he said softly, his words almost dying on the breeze between them. ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘What is it?’ she replied, fighting the urge to cross the short space between them and shake the answer out of him. ‘What is waiting in there?’

  ‘It’s in there.’

  She had never believed the stories, even when they kept her awake at night. The idea of something like that existing was ridiculous, even to her young mind. She had gone along with this trek today because it seemed like a fun thing to do. Something to alleviate the boredom that had been threatening to overwhelm her.

  ‘The Bone Keeper is going to get him,’ Lee continued, his whole body beginning to shake. She could see that the bravado he had previously displayed was evaporating. What was left, was all that he was. A small boy, body growing faster than his mind wanted it to. He wasn’
t a teenager, but a child. Scared. Afraid. In over his tiny head.

  ‘He’s not real,’ she said, but her voice betrayed her. She had been in there. Had felt it. There was something in that tunnel, something she couldn’t describe. The smell, the feel of it. The air growing thicker, as if she had stepped into another world.

  It had been too long. Waiting there, breath returning to a normal rate, allowing her thoughts to become more ordered.

  She couldn’t let this happen, she thought. There was just the two of them now. No more Mum and Dad. Just them. The two of them against the world. They were supposed to have each other’s backs. Mum had brought a stranger into their lives, Dad had dropped them both as soon as he was able to. The only people they could count on were each other.

  She couldn’t move. She couldn’t rush into that darkness and be by his side, whatever was in there waiting for him. Her feet were stuck to the ground, no matter how desperate she was to move.

  ‘The Bone Keeper has got him,’ Lee said, his voice shaking and wavering. ‘That’s it now. We’re never going to see him again. There’s nothing we can do. The Bone Keeper never lets you live. He skins you alive, so all that’s left is your bones. No one ever finds your body. No one ever knows you’ve even gone.’

  Lee continued to babble on. She turned away and ignored his voice. Stared at the tunnel opening, her jaw clenched as she waited for Matty to emerge. Behind her, Faye began to moan, then cry in a horrible fake way. She continued to stand and stare. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

  She wanted to run in there. Make things different. Change everything that was going to happen if she didn’t. Just her presence, her voice, might be enough. If Matty could hear her speak, could hear her voice, he might be okay.

  Instead, she stood there and waited and hoped and prayed and did nothing.

  The three of them. Waiting for what felt like hours, but was in reality only minutes. Standing, waiting, for her brother to emerge from the tunnel.

  For whatever was in there to make itself known.

  A few minutes, that was all that was needed.

  ‘We can’t just stand around here all night,’ Faye said, trying to sound tough, now the crocodile tears had stopped. Her voice betrayed her. ‘He’s obviously having us on.’