Dark Lakes, Volume One: An Uncanny Kingdom Urban Fantasy (A Dark Lakes Collection Book 1)

by Matthew Stott

  ‘Just, you know… exercise. General walky exercise. Leg stuff. Circulation is important. You don’t want to clot. Never want to clot. Clots are killers.’

  Big Marge looked me up and down, ‘Mm-hmm…’ There was a rumour in the hospital that Marge used to earn money traveling around unsavoury pub backrooms and beating all comers in arm wrestling bouts. Knowing her the way I did, I saw no reason to doubt that.

  I was no stranger to Carlisle Hospital, or to Big Marge. I work at the hospital as a caretaker, cleaner, and all round handyman. It pays terribly, and the canteen lunches do nothing for my figure, but it pays the bills and allows me plenty of freedom. I used to wonder what job I’d had before I woke up with my life missing, but nothing sparked any sense of recognition, and I couldn’t for the life of me find a stand-out aptitude in myself that helped narrow things down. As far as I could make out, I wasn’t that great at most things. The idea that perhaps I was a homeless person, a drifter, like my mysterious lady friend, was starting to make a lot of sense

  ‘You Joseph Lake?’

  I jumped at the unexpected intrusion, causing piping-hot coffee to spill over my fingers. I swore and waggled my hand around like I was trying to fling off a piece of sticky tape. A woman in a sensible suit and a dark red leather jacket stood before me, screaming “police” from every pore. She was also black, which is a rare sight indeed in Cumbria. Around here you are about as likely to stumble across a troll under a bridge as you are an individual not sporting a pasty white face.

  ‘Hi!’ I said. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear you sneaking up on me.’ I held up my burnt fingers, which were already turning a nice shade of rouge. ‘Good job we’re in a hospital, eh? Efficient.’

  ‘I didn’t sneak up on you, I walked up on you.’ Her voice was clipped and to the point. She seemed like the kind of person who didn’t like to waste ten words when six would do the job just fine.

  ‘Well, that is one light-footed walk you have there. You’d make a great thief, you could walk right into a sleeping person’s bedroom and clear the place out without making a peep.’

  ‘I’m not a thief.’

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  ‘Nor a murderer.’

  ‘Great, me neither. Messy business; plus not a huge fan of blood. I mean, I’m a big fan of it when it stays inside our bodies, in its proper, you know, “venue,” but not when it gets out and about.’

  ‘You Joseph Lake?’

  ‘Of course, I do come across blood quite a lot, as you can probably imagine,’ I said, gesturing around my place of work, ‘I think that’s actually helped me master the distaste a little. Otherwise, stumbling across the kind of thing I did tonight would have sent me into a puke frenzy.’ I mimed puking. ‘Which actually is great for another reason as I have a weird phobia about throwing up outdoors.’

  ‘Please answer the question.’

  ‘I am Joseph Lake,’ I said quickly. ‘Well, not really. Joseph Lake is what I decided to call myself. Sorry, long story.’

  ‘Woke up by a lake, memory loss, I’ve already heard it.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  ‘So, you’re Joseph Lake?’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  She looked at me with disdain, sniffed, and pulled out her regulation notepad. She had a natural, scary authority to her that was at once terrifying and deeply attractive. I was pretty sure she could beat the crap out of me with little to no effort.

  ‘Are you new? I asked. ‘I’ve not seen you around here before.’

  ‘Been here a couple of months. Transferred from London.’

  ‘Ah, that explains the accent, I was actually going to bring that up.’

  ‘I know I have an accent.’

  She looked at me as though she were a scientist peering through a microscope at a particularly troubling specimen.

  ‘So, you know my name, and you are...?’

  ‘Detective Maya Myers.’

  ‘Ah, “Detective.” A beautiful name for a boy or a girl.’

  I gave her my best winning smile and she arched one eyebrow slightly then looked down at her pad with a dismissive sniff.

  ‘How is she?’ I asked. ‘The other one I mean? The not-dead one?’

  ‘Still not dead, but it’s touch and go.’

  I felt my body begin to relax. I hadn’t realised until that moment just how clenched up I’d been since finding the woman laid out in the street, so close to death.

  ‘So, she’s not dead and everything’s great,’ I chirped. I did a little twirl and punched the air like I was at the end of a movie, ready for my freeze frame and end credits.

  ‘Everything’s great?’ repeated Myers.

  ‘Yup. Great, tip-top; fine and dandy and randy. Not the last one. Nothing about this is randy.’

  ‘One woman is dead, another close to it, and a psychotic murderer is loose on my streets. Everything is not “great.”’

  I squirmed a little under her glare, went to reply, then thought better of it. She was right, it was stupid of me to react that way, the euphoria had just overtaken me for a second. A woman had lost her life tonight; lost it to someone… to someone not altogether right. I still felt as though the aftertaste of the attacker—well, aura, or whatever you want to call it, whatever it was that I had experienced when the killer barged past me—was coating the back of my mouth.

  ‘Mr Lake, what were you doing walking through Carlisle city centre at three a.m.?’

  Stalking a woman.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘What was I doing?’

  ‘That was the question.’

  ‘Just, you know… catching the night air. Nothing bad or illegal. You can count on that, one-hundred percent.’ I gave her my best I’m not at all suspicious smile and attempted to lean against the coffee machine in a casual manner. The coffee machine turned out to be on my right, not my left, and as I staggered to one side, knocked over a chair, then just about managed to right myself before I crashed to the floor, I began to worry that I was not making the best of first impressions.

  ‘You seem nervous, Mr Lake. Any reason for that?’

  ‘Well, I did just break up a potential double murder, so yeah. I mean, he might come after me. He saw my face. Do I need police protection? Is there a safe house anywhere? Will I be safe in the safe house? Sometimes those things get compromised, I’ve seen movies.’

  Detective Maya closed her notebook and pocketed it. ‘You’re in shock. I’m going to have a lot of questions for you, so come into the station tomorrow.’ She turned and walked back into the ward. I had the distinct impression I’d made her “suspicious” list. Which is a bad list to be on when the list belongs to the lead investigator of a murder case.

  ‘Will do! I’m looking forward to it!’ Yeah, bit of a weird thing to say, that.

  Big Marge watched Myers exit through the hospital’s automatic doors, then turned to me. ‘Now, her I like.’

  4

  I was sat on a wall in the hospital car park enjoying a smoke when Chloe finally came to find me.

  ‘As a health professional I feel it’s my duty to point out how bad and stupid that is.’

  I smiled and passed it to her.

  She leaned against the wall beside me and took a drag. ‘Ah, sweet, sweet poison.’

  We sat in comfortable silence for a few seconds, watching the sun come up. Chloe Palmer was a doctor at the hospital, and as near to a close friend as I had. She was also very pleasant to look at. Sometimes I got the impression that she was attracted to me, in a holding hands and skipping through a meadow sort of way, but I’m a bit of an idiot when it comes to romance so I hadn’t taken a swing. Better to nurse an unrealised crush for the rest of my life than take a chance and face thirty seconds of acute embarrassment.

  ‘How is she?’ I asked.

  ‘Still alive. She’s been knocked around something fierce though. I had to stitch up a few nasty wounds.’

  It suddenly occurred to me that if the assailant h
ad been carrying a knife as they pushed past me, they could easily have sunk it into me on the way past. I’d taken a hell of a risk chasing after that scream. Being brave and doing the right thing were a bloody dangerous way to go about your day.

  ‘What’s her name?’ I asked.

  ‘Mary. Mary Taylor. I’m pretty sure her mum used to teach me French at school.’

  ‘Est-ce vrai?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Huh, small world.’ I watched as Chloe leaned her head back and sent twin plumes of smoke streaming from her nostrils like a… like a…. sexy dragon? A sexy, non-scaly, wingless, person-shaped dragon. Yeah, let’s go with that.

  ‘Here,’ she said, passing back the ciggy.

  I took a pull. ‘What about the, uh... the other one? The dead one?’

  ‘A friend of hers, Janet Coyle. She’s in a drawer already, ready for an autopsy in the morning.’

  Janet Coyle. I hadn’t known her, but having a name made her seem somehow more real. Which was stupid, but true. She wasn’t just an anonymous slab of meat and bones that someone had tried to turn into confetti, she was a real person.

  I closed my eyes and I was back in the square, knelt by the unfortunate Janet Coyle with her torn out throat and strange symbols scrawled on the ground in her own spilled blood. Maybe if I’d been a few seconds earlier she’d have been alive too. As the image stayed with me, Miss Coyle began to fade, and the scrawled shapes and squiggles began to sharpen. To glow, almost, in my mind’s eye. I felt like I could see energy pouring from them, trails snaking up into the air. They felt familiar somehow. Like I should be able to read them, like it was a foreign language I’d once been fluent in, but had become lost to me due to neglect.

  ‘Oi,’ said Chloe, shoving my arm and making me stumble to the side a little. ‘Not putting you to sleep, am I?’

  ‘No! No, absolutely not. Just a little sleepy, not been to bed yet. Running on fumes here.’

  ‘You know, it’s a good thing you were there, otherwise we’d have two corpses in there rather than one. You’re sort of… well, a hero, I suppose.’

  ‘A hero?’

  ‘Mm-hm.’

  ‘Huh. Yes, I suppose I am really.’ I passed her back the cigarette.

  ‘What were you doing out and about in the middle of the night anyway?’

  ‘Oh, you know, just stalking a woman.’

  Chloe raised an eyebrow and let the smoke seep lazily from between her parted lips. ‘Should I be jealous?’

  I laughed, though it came out weirdly high-pitched, so I abandoned it as quickly as possible, hoping Chloe wouldn’t notice.

  ‘That was a very strange and high-pitched laugh.’

  Damn.

  And then I did it again by way of reply, turning it into a little cough for some reason at the end. Chloe cocked an eyebrow, then dismissed it.

  ‘So, stalking, eh? Any particular reason?’

  ‘Well, there’s a very curious homeless woman who I’m pretty sure is following me and may be the key to unlocking my strange, unknown and very mysterious past.’

  ‘A homeless woman?’

  ‘Very homeless, and I keep seeing her everywhere. Sometimes three or four times a day. I’ll be minding my own business—’

  ‘—Perhaps indulging in weird, high-pitched laughs.’

  ‘Right, and I’ll turn around and she’ll be nearby.’

  ‘She’s probably just a local nutter.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that is a very distinct possibility, but on the other hand…’ I opened my arms wide in a “who knows?” sort of a way. ‘This could be it. A clue. A toe in the door.’

  ‘If she pulls out an old syringe and jabs you in the eyeball, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

  ‘You have my word.’

  Chloe raked a hand through her dark bob. ‘Did the police woman talk to you yet?’

  I nodded. ‘Detective Myers, yes. I don’t think she likes me. She definitely gave off a very heavy I-don’t-like-you sort of a vibe. I’m very receptive to vibes.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, you do tend to give off a spectacularly bad first impression.’

  ‘Um, in what way, exactly?’

  ‘The first time we properly met was when you crashed into my car.’

  ‘There was a bee. I’ve explained all about the bee on numerous occasions.’

  Chloe chuckled, took a drag, and handed a quarter-inch of cigarette back to me. Then, rather unexpectedly I might add, she turned, smiled, and wrapped her arms around me.

  ‘You’re hugging me,’ I noted.

  ‘I’m just glad you’re safe, you big goon.’

  ‘Right. Shall I hug back, or…?’ She let go. ‘Nope, good. Nice hug. Brilliant hug.’ I gave her a thumbs-up. She smiled and shook her head.

  ‘Okay, I’d better get back to the grindstone. Go home and sleep.’

  ‘Will do.’

  ‘You can put your thumb down now.’

  ‘Yup.’ I put my hand in my pocket and watched Chloe disappear back into the hospital. Now, that was almost definitely a signal of some sort, wasn’t it? Almost definitely. Unless… friends hug too. I’ve seen them doing it in sitcoms. Hm.

  I turned and made my way over to my battered little car, my head full of corpses and Chloe; which made for a weird cocktail. For a second I thought I saw the homeless woman staring at me from the far end of the car park, but in the time it took to blink, she was gone.

  5

  I woke up around midday from a muddled dream about torn-out throats, mystical symbols, and Chloe hugs, still feeling dog-tired from the previous evening’s strange and awful events. I shuffled my way to the shower and let a cold blast of water smack the fug out of me.

  Let me paint you a picture of my home:

  I currently reside in a small, three-room flat in a scenic little town called Keswick, a good forty-five minute drive from Carlisle. I suppose it would make sense to live closer to the city I actually work in, but something about living within the boundaries of the Lake District just felt right. Spending longer than a couple of days outside of its boundaries makes me feel antsy, like I’m a baby in the womb who’s become disconnected from its umbilical cord.

  Also, it just looks nice out here. Keswick has all the picture postcard, countryside trappings you associate with this sort of place. Dry stone walls, hills, green bits, sheep, lakes. The awful stink of manure after the farmers muck-spray their fields. All that good stuff.

  There’s also a mother-fucking pencil museum within walking distance, so don’t for a second think this place isn’t rock and roll.

  The flat I live in might be small and losing a protracted battle with an aggressive creeping mould, but I’d come to think of it as home and couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning it to some stranger. Plus it was really, really, really (really) cheap, and cheap trumps a funky smell and lack of sufficient insulation all day long.

  Dried off and bowl of cereal in hand, I slumped onto the ratty couch (which I had liberated from a skip one fateful night) and brought my laptop to life to check on my site. It’s a simple website: a large pic of my face with the words ‘Do You Know This Man?’ and a little message board to leave comments. I’d set it up a few months after I woke up by Derwentwater. At the time, I’d been something of a cause célèbre, with the police and journalists doing their utmost to try and figure out just who the hell I was. I even made a few appearances on the radio and telly, but it all came to nothing. A few people came forward, but they were either mistaken or just trying to snag a little of the limelight for themselves.

  No one who really knew anything poked their head above the parapet. Any lead that was thrown up took us nowhere. Eventually the police told me I’d better get used to things the way they were. For a while I’d call in several times a day, but eventually they, pretty firmly, told me to stop doing that. Immediately. They would contact me if anything came up, but it was pretty clear I’d slipped to a low, low priority. Unless someone walked into the station and handed them a bunc
h of information, the investigation was done.

  Not great.

  I was meant to accept that I was a man without a past. Without history, family, friends, or lovers. Without memories good, bad or instructive. I was just this new, floundering, gangly beast; a newborn with the body of a man in his mid-thirties. I had a few dark weeks after that realisation sunk in, let me tell you.

  Now all that’s left is my dogged, some might say “heroic” (well, they might), determination, and this barely visited website. I clicked the link and my big face popped up. ‘Hello handsome.’ I checked the message board for fresh comments. As usual there was nothing new to see. Actually, that’s a lie; there was a very helpful bot who wanted to inform me that their friend made $2000 a week working from home, but it seemed unlikely that this would lead me to my mysterious past, even if I could use the extra moolah.

  I closed the laptop and tossed it to one side. I was checking it more out of habit than hope these days, I hadn’t seen a new lead in over four years. I was beginning to accept that Joseph Lake was who I was: a hospital handyman with nice hair, a great coat, and an unhealthy interest in the strange. I suppose you could call that my second job—not having nice hair, that’s a full time gig—but looking into any weird and wonderful goings on in the surrounding area. And it’s no lie to say this whole area is bubbling with weirdness. Being one of those weird goings on myself sparked my interest, and I suppose gave me a distant hope that by exploring other strange happenings in the local area, I’d eventually bump into something useful about myself.

  Yeah, so far that hadn’t really worked out, but I live in hope.

  I have a second website dedicated to my, well, occasionally paid hobby. It’s for anyone who wants to hire me to look into something freaky going on in the neighbourhood. Such a request would be my first port of call today.

  I slurped down the last of my bowl of Rice Krispies and got dressed. After that I slipped into my beautiful coat, gave my hair an expert hand-ruffle, plopped on my wide brimmed hat, and headed out the front door.

  My poor little car coughed and spluttered as I headed at speed out of Keswick and off to my appointment.