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

by Matthew Stott

  ‘Understood.’

  She straightened up, lifting her cup to her lips and taking a sip of vending machine coffee. ‘Well? Are you going to tell me now or are you going to continue to piss me off?’

  I stood and pulled my coat off the back of the chair, sliding it on. ‘I’m really a bit bushed. Need to get home, I’m on an early shift at the hospital.’

  She grimaced at me. ‘Get out of my sight.’

  I nodded and headed for the door.

  ‘Mr Lake?’

  I paused.

  ‘You will tell me. Sooner or later, you’ll tell me. People are dead and I have a bad feeling that more deaths are going to follow.’

  I pulled my coat closed and strode out the door.

  To say I felt like a glob of sputum hawked out of some drunk’s throat was something of an understatement. Maya was right. People had died, maybe more would, and I was keeping my cards under the table. But what else could I do? There was no way she or anyone else in authority was going to believe what I had to say. I wasn’t even sure I believed all of it.

  The dark outside matched my mood as I steered the Uncanny Wagon home. Maybe it was all over. The murders at least. The thing that had attacked Mary Taylor and me, and that had murdered Janet Coyle, was dead. A crazy woman had punched her fist through the thing’s head, and the last time I saw it, its leftovers were curled up in my bath tub, more than a little dead. Maybe that would be it. Maybe it was all over.

  No, I didn’t believe me either, but I was trying to perk up my gloomy spirit, okay?

  The first thing I did upon arriving home was dart into the bathroom and check the tub. It was still empty. No monster corpse, no blood, no nothing. I leaned close, even clambered inside the thing, looking for any trace that it had been there.

  Not a trace. Not a clue.

  This was rapidly returning to the “I’m crazy and about to have a breakdown” idea. Because the only time the body had been there, the only time the homeless woman had been there, was when I was alone. As soon as someone else entered my world, the strange stuff that nobody would believe, disappeared.

  I saw the plastic bag sat on the couch, three cans from the six-pack still inside.

  That didn’t prove anything, I told myself. As part of my delusion, maybe I’d gone out and bought the beer and then, you know, forgotten.

  I sat next to the bag, pulling one out and taking a swig of warm beer, before firing up my laptop and heading to my website. The mysterious reply, and my responses, remained unanswered.

  Again, what did that prove?

  I typed Hey, if you’re real, you left your beer behind.

  I waited for a few minutes to see if the woman would reply, or suddenly stride back into my flat with a few choice swears to toss in my direction, but I sat alone and silent. I closed my laptop and slumped back, slowly working my way through the rest of my drink. I touched the can to my cheek where the woman’s knuckles had connected. There was a bruise there alright, but still, that wasn’t proof of anything. I could have walked into any old door frame.

  I needed to talk to Mary Tyler, if she was up to it. She was the only one besides me that I knew for a fact was real and had been face to face with the killer. Maybe she could settle this, one way or another.

  I worked my way through another can, then went to bed, where I dreamt about the woman with red hair and her throne of skulls.

  17

  Far too early the next morning, I strode into the reception of Carlisle Hospital, ready for another shift of poop and puke mopping, bulb-changing, and general dogsbody work.

  ‘Morning, Big Marge,’ I said, cheerily. Big Marge greeted me with a grunt, not looking up from her magazine.

  ‘Not really a morning person, are you?’

  ‘I’m not really an any-time-of-day person, Joe,’ she replied.

  ‘Mary Tyler,’ I said, ‘is she okay for a visit, d’you think?’

  ‘Let’s say she is; why would she want to see you?’

  ‘I saved her life, remember? I don’t like to throw the word “hero” around, but, you know, I have heard others use it. About me.’

  ‘The people you see in the mirror don’t count, Joe.’

  Early morning banter seen to, I headed up to Mary Tyler’s new room. After the aborted attack, and the broken window, she’d been relocated to a new private room at the other end of the hospital, with two uniformed officers sat outside, bored out of their minds. I thought I might need to talk my way past them, but it turned out they knew who I was. Most officers around here knew about me. The mystery man. The bloke in the clapped-out car with all the questions. They waved me through.

  As the door swung closed, Mary sat up, startled.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘It’s okay, I work here. I’m sort of a caretaker.’

  ‘Oh. Okay, sorry.’

  ‘Not to worry, I’d be a little jumpy if I was in your shoes. What happened to you was…’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Very not good.’ I grabbed a chair and sat beside her.

  ‘What is it you want?’ she asked, still a little unsure of me.

  ‘My name’s Joseph Lake.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Oh, it’s you. You’re the one who found me.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry I was too late to do anything about Janet.’

  Mary bit her lip and nodded, her eyes turning to shimmering pools.

  ‘Oh, God. I just don’t understand it. It’s so crazy. So horrible. How can Janet be dead? She’s the most alive person I ever met. I know that sounds stupid.’

  ‘No. No, it doesn’t.’

  A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth for a moment, before the grief pulled them back down again and a tear slipped down her cheek.

  ‘Mary, I’m sorry to ask, but… what do you remember about that night?’

  Her hands gripped the covers, knuckle-white, and she chewed at her bottom lip.

  ‘Was there anything… anything at all that seemed, off?’

  She looked at me again, a realisation dawning.

  ‘You know, don’t you?’

  ‘The person who attacked you. Who attacked Janet. It wasn’t really what you’d think of as a person, was it?’

  Rivers ran down each cheek now. She shook her head. ‘You saw it?’ she whispered, her breath ragged.

  ‘I saw it. More than once.’

  ‘Monsters don’t exist, Joseph. Monsters don’t exist. I’m not some stupid little girl afraid of things under the bed, but that monster that attacked me, that…. that did that to my friend... that monster exists.’

  ‘What did you tell the police?’

  ‘Something that wouldn’t make me sound insane. I just, I’m so sorry, Janet. So sorry. But I couldn’t say the truth of it. I thought…. thought maybe it wasn’t even true. But you’ve seen it too.’

  There was no point pretending I was mad anymore. No point in trying to brush this aside, or tell myself I was, I don’t know, hallucinating this conversation or something. It was real. It was all real. I only had to look in Mary Tyler’s eyes to know that.

  Monsters were real.

  I placed my hand over hers. ‘Don’t worry. You’re okay now. You’re safe.’

  We spoke a little more and I tried to distract her from thinking about how scared she was. I think maybe it even worked a little. I left, promising to pay her another visit, loaded with chocolate and a book or two to keep her busy. If almost-deadly encounters with monsters weren’t enough to drive her insane, being trapped in a hospital bed and suffering a non-stop diet of daytime TV definitely would.

  I’d worked in the hospital long enough to know the computer logins that I shouldn’t, and so after leaving Mary Tyler behind, I found the nearest unmanned computer, slipped behind the desk, and gave myself access to the hospital’s medical records.

  I had a sudden, sure feeling that the attack on Mary and Janet couldn’t have been the first of its sort. Searching for anything that looked similar, I soon found at le
ast two cases in the past couple of months that might fit the bill. A man first, Geoff Smith, forty-two, dead three months ago. And there, Angela Carter, nineteen, died seven weeks back. Both had suffered severe throat lacerations.

  I wondered if that would be all, or if there were more. More that hadn’t been found. Dead bodies taken someplace else. Some “monster’s lair,” or even just dead out of view of any common foot traffic. Dead bodies surrounded by strange, occult symbols, painted in their own blood, waiting to be stumbled upon by a holidaying rambler in the hills. Here to take in the best sights the country had to offer, only to find the worst kind of sight anyone could see.

  A hand gripped my shoulder and span me round.

  ‘What on earth do you think you’re up to?’

  Doctor Neil, the Lord of Wank-ville, stood there fuming, his usually pallid skin a trembling puce.

  ‘I was only browsing for porn, I swear it, Doctor Neil,’ I replied, quickly closing the session so he wasn’t able to see what I’d been up to.

  ‘You’re not authorised to access these systems, you’re only authorised to push a mop across a shit-smeared floor.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’ve seen you using the hospital’s computers and just assumed that meant any old arsehole could have a go.’

  Doctor Neil’s face moved rapidly between many different expressions as he took in what I’d just said. Doctor Neil and I had always had this sort of antagonistic relationship, though I couldn’t say for sure why. Sometimes another person just rubs you up the wrong way. At times I did think it might have something to do with the closeness of mine and Chloe’s relationship. Perhaps he was jealous. That would make sense. I’d seen the way he looked at her.

  A flurry of noisy activity caught our attention as a trolley holding a body burst through the double doors at the far end of the corridor. Doctor Neil switched instantly into work mode and left me behind.

  Chloe and Jim, one of the nurses, were working frantically on a body as they moved. Blood poured from a wound on the patient’s neck. As they passed me by I got a closer look at the person on the trolley and recognised him at once.

  It was Detective Sam Samm.

  18

  I found Chloe in the car park half an hour later.

  I sidled up and leant against the wall next to her, and she passed the half-done cigarette she’d been smoking. I took it, inhaled, and handed it back.

  ‘You did everything you could,’ I offered, quietly.

  Chloe rested her head against my shoulder and continued to smoke in silence. The number of times I’d comforted her when she’d failed to hold back death numbered in the hundreds at this point in our years together. It never seemed to get any easier for her. I’d heard most doctors manage to somehow step away from it, from the reality of all that death, for the sake of their own well-being. I don’t think Chloe had ever learned that trick.

  Detective Sam Samm was dead. That nice, odd man had been murdered and every part of me was screaming that it was connected to what had happened to Mary and Janet, what had happened to me. The octopus creature. It had gotten to Detective Samm somehow. Either the creature had somehow renewed itself, or there were more of the things out there. Neither option was appealing.

  ‘You know,’ said Chloe softly, breaking my chain of thought, ‘I don’t remember everyone who I’ve failed to save. It happens, you know? That’s part of the job, death. Happens all the time. All the time. Sometimes more than once a day. One goes after the next and you’re just there, frantically trying to hold onto their hand as they slip under the water. There goes another one. And another. And another. And I’m just desperately trying to keep hold of them as they’re dragged away. There have been so, so many. But I still remember the first person I lost on the job.’

  She paused, stomping out the butt of her smoke before pulling a fresh one out of the packet, lighting it, and carrying on, her eyes focussed on something I couldn’t see.

  ‘It was my second day at work. I’d been allowed one death-free day, then a few hours into day two, in she came. Seven years old. Alice Madders. She’d hit her head playing at the park and her parents had brought her in. Over-cautious is what I thought. She seemed fine. Kids fall, they hit their heads, they shake it off. I did a cursory examination, gave Alice some sweets from the vending machine, assured the parents that everything was fine. Their daughter was just going to have a little bruise on her temple. I even felt vaguely annoyed. Annoyed that they were wasting resources and time that could be better used elsewhere, all because they were nervous parents, wrapping their child in cotton wool. Five minutes after telling the parents everything was fine, Alice Madders began fitting. Her body bent back like she was trying to snap her own spine. Her eyes rolled into her head, her mouth started foaming. I didn’t know what to do. The whole world slowed to a crawl. Just a blur. I found out later that the knock on the head had caused a bleed on the brain. There was nothing I could have done about it. The moment she’d hit her head, she was dead. Alice Madders. Red hair in pony tails and her front two teeth missing, a gap for adult teeth that never got to grow.’

  We sat and smoked in silence after that, her head on my shoulder, our hands clasped together.

  I had no intention of visiting the morgue, but my feet took me there anyway.

  I pushed quietly through the double doors and the lights flickered on, triggered by my presence. The room was empty and the chill of the place prickled at my skin. Against one wall were twelve metal doors, hiding gaps long enough to slide a body in. Detective Samm hadn’t been placed in one of the drawers yet, his body lay on the mortuary slab in the middle of the room. I approached his body slowly, placing each foot gently in front of the other. A childish fear bubbled up that if I were to make too much noise, I’d disturb the corpse. It would sit up sharply, its eyes black, dead hands reaching for me, clawing at my throat.

  I looked down at the poor man. Like Janet Coyle, his neck had been severely damaged. Having seen the creature up close, I had to assume it was the large beak that had done the damage. But why? Why were they murdering people? They didn’t seem to be eating them. They weren’t draining them of blood like a vampire. They were just killing them and leaving their bodies surrounded by strange, cultish symbols. For what purpose? What was the point in it all? Just for the thrill of killing? Some gut instinct told me it had to be more than that. There had to be some reason behind it all.

  At first I didn’t even realise that my hands were moving to touch the deceased Detective Samm. It wasn’t until the tips of my fingers connected with the chill skin of his temples that what I was doing became clear.

  I wanted to see.

  It was like a locked door in my mind had opened a crack and muscle memory was taking over. I didn’t quite understand what was happening, but my body did, as sure as I could tie my shoelaces without thinking about it (most of the time).

  I held my breath, and—

  I feel fear.

  Fear so strong I can taste it. Smell it. Hear it, beating in my ears. A tribal drum beat telling me death is near, death is near, death is near.

  I am Detective Sam Samm and I am afraid. I am Detective Sam Samm and I am Joseph Lake. I am both. I can’t hear Detective Samm’s thoughts, but I feel what he feels, the emotions at war within him. I see what he sees.

  I am in a house. This is my house. Detective Samm’s house. It judders past like a film with frames removed. I can hear my breath, the air sucked rapidly into my lungs and expelled.

  I am scared.

  Terrified.

  I am prey and I am being hunted.

  I know this without seeing who’s doing the hunting, without hearing Detective Samm’s thoughts. The way my heart is beating, my eyes pinned, unblinking, the pure fear powering my limbs; these things tell me everything.

  I am prey.

  I am being hunted.

  They will catch me and I will die.

  I’m upstairs, in a bedroom, looking desperately to escape. The way downstairs is cut
off. Only one option; the window. As it stutters towards me, my fingers reach for the handle, but then, as though the window had suddenly, impossibly, been pulled away from me, it retreats. I realise then that I am the one who has been pulled away. Something cold and strong is wrapped around my ankle and is pulling me from my exit point.

  I twist, a scream on my tongue, to see the black shape of a monster, its beak clicking and screeching, its octopus limbs twitching, ready, eager, desperate. I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to—

  I staggered back, pulling my hands away from Detective Samm’s forehead, gasping for air. Falling to my knees, I clutched at my heart, convinced I was about to die. Which was not the most pleasant of feelings.

  ‘Hail, Magic Eater!’

  I fell back with a yelp at the sudden intrusion. I looked up to see the fox, its axe held high and proud, stood upon Detective Samm’s chest.

  ‘Saviour of the Dark Lakes! Eater of worlds!’

  ‘Shut up,’ I replied.

  The fox blinked twice, then lowered its axe. ‘Bit rude.’

  ‘How are you back? I thought that woman with the red hair tore your head off.’

  ‘Well, aye, she did.’

  ‘Then…?’ I gestured at his head, which was very much attached to his body.

  ‘She’ll let my death stick at some point, so she will. It’s just I have yet to fully make amends for my past errors, that’s all.’

  I stood, shaking slightly from what I’d just experienced. From what Detective Samm had experienced.

  ‘What’s happening to me?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘When I touched that dead body—Detective Samm, the man you are standing on—I felt things. Saw things.’

  ‘Course you did. The doors are starting to open, y’see? Open they go and the real you’s peering out.’

  I was past the point of questioning this creature’s existence by now. What had happened just then, that was no delusion. I’d touched Detective Samm’s corpse and been given a glimpse of his final moments. That was real. I knew it was. I remembered the flash in the alley before I’d stumbled across Janet Coyle’s dead body. The moment of insight into the creature as it had brushed past me, our bodies briefly touching, before I’d discovered Mary Tyler.