Wake Wood

by K. A. John

  ‘Do you really think the room looks the same as Alice’s in the old house?’ she asked.

  ‘Exactly,’ he murmured.

  Louise went to the wardrobe, opened it and lifted out one of Alice’s dresses. ‘Do you think Alice’s clothes will still fit her—’

  He interrupted her. ‘I don’t know, Louise.’

  ‘There are so many things I should have asked Arthur and didn’t think to. Will she—’

  ‘I don’t know any more than you do about what’s going to happen tonight, Louise.’ He opened his arms to her and she went to him. ‘But one thing I do know is that this is going to be a very long day. For both of us.’

  Patrick was right. That day was the longest Louise had experienced in her life. Restless, unable to sleep or relax, she cleaned the shower and bathroom, put on a load of washing and opened the pharmacy, all before nine o’clock. Customers wandered in and out, most browsing, few buying. She served pills, potions, medicines and cosmetics, answered questions automatically without really thinking about what she was saying, all the while watching minutes tick past longer than hours.

  During the slack times when no one demanded her attention, she stared out of the window at the rain-sodden street, preoccupied with thoughts of the night ahead. She’d given the sample bag containing Alice’s finger to Patrick. She hadn’t asked what he intended to do with it until it was needed.

  And … in the meantime, all she could do was wait and wonder.

  ‘Do you realise it’s finally stopped raining?’ Patrick commented when they left their car and walked across the windswept yard at the back of Arthur’s house.

  Too emotional to risk answering, Louise nodded.

  ‘The sky’s clear. We’ll be able to see the moon and stars tonight.’ He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a brief hug.

  They weren’t alone. Half the residents of the town were already in the yard, and behind them more people were parking their cars or walking across the fields towards the back of Arthur’s house.

  The strange contraption Louise had seen the night their car had broken down dominated the skyline as it had then, rising high above the roof of the house. Again, Louise noted its similarity in shape and structure, albeit of a very different size, to the rope-and-twig object Mary Brogan had placed around Deirdre’s neck when she’d convulsed.

  A tractor was parked in the yard next to the metal cage that hung from a central point in the high wooden frame. Arthur stood alongside it, feeding an enormous bonfire that had been built in the exact centre of the yard. He waved Patrick and Louise over as soon as he caught sight of them. The heat grew more intense the closer they drew to the flames.

  ‘Watch out.’ Arthur pointed to a yellow JCB lurching its way out of the barn. Mick O’Shea’s body lay inert in the shovel. Ben and Tommy, the two farmer brothers who’d watched Patrick perform a Caesarean on their cow a few days before, stopped the JCB but left the engine running. They jumped down from the cab, lifted Mick’s body from the shovel and hauled it up inside the metal cage, fastening it into a metal harness that hung inside the cage.

  Working together, they secured the corpse with metal chains, wrapping them around Mick’s neck, limbs and chest. When they’d finished, they closed the cage and attached it to a power drive at the back of the tractor.

  Arthur checked every inch of Ben and Tommy’s handiwork meticulously before turning to Patrick and Louise. He held out his hands to them and the assembled townsfolk.

  ‘You’re all very welcome here, especially Patrick and Louise, Wake Wood’s newest permanent residents.’

  Louise’s attention was drawn to a table behind Arthur. It held an array of archaic-looking surgical and medical instruments resembling nothing she’d seen before. She glanced at Patrick, intending to show them to him, but his attention was fixed on the tractor.

  Something whipped through the air above them and the tractor engine exploded into life. It belched out a dark, foul-smelling cloud of diesel smoke that engulfed Louise and provoked a fit of coughing.

  When the smoke cleared, she saw that the drive at the back of the tractor was spinning, tightening the chains wrapped around Mick’s body. The group of townsfolk drew closer to Arthur, Patrick and Louise. She recognised Martin and Mrs O’Shea among many of her customers. Both of the O’Sheas were watching her and Patrick intently. Mary Brogan left the mass of people, approached Louise and hugged her in a gesture of solidarity and friendship.

  Arthur waved to attract the tractor driver’s attention. When he was sure the man was looking at him, Arthur rotated his finger, signalling that he should increase the revs on the engine. The man pressed down the accelerator and the air was filled with the sound of bones cracking, snapping and shattering. Mick’s limbs and torso shuddered as his skeleton splintered, jerking his corpse in a parody of the way he’d moved in life.

  Mesmerised, Patrick and Louise watched Mick’s corpse break and crumble before their eyes.

  ‘In times past they did that’ – Arthur indicated Mick’s swaying body locked in its peculiar dance of death – ‘with a lump hammer. Hard work and messy for those who had to carry it out.’ He turned to the driver and shouted, ‘That will do.’

  The driver cut the engine.

  ‘Patrick, lend a hand,’ Arthur ordered.

  Arthur took a couple of the peculiar surgical instruments from the table and led Patrick around to the back of the mangled corpse hanging limply in the chains and harness inside the cage. Slicing Mick’s jacket open, Arthur exposed his buckled thorax and made an incision along the line of Mick’s backbone. Held taut by the chains, Mick’s vertebrae extruded through the cut, protruding one by one, each in turn as Arthur opened the flaps of skin.

  Arthur exchanged the blade he was wielding for a tool that resembled long-handled wire cutters. He slipped the head inside the incision he’d made in the corpse and fitted it carefully around the spinal cord, but stopped short of severing it.

  ‘Do the honours and cut it, will you, Patrick?’

  Patrick took the instrument and squeezed the handles together. The spinal cord snapped and fell back in two separate halves.

  ‘It’s time to produce the relic.’ Arthur waited expectantly.

  Patrick took the sample bag containing Alice’s finger from his pocket and handed it to Arthur, who opened it and examined the contents. ‘That will suffice. Well done, Patrick.’

  Louise approached the men.

  ‘You both all right?’ Arthur asked solicitously. He waited for Louise to signal assent before reaching into the cage and prising open Mick’s jaw. He placed Alice’s finger below the tongue in the corpse’s mouth, and closed it. Pulling Louise close, he murmured, ‘Stay with me.’

  Pushing her in front of the blazing bonfire, he raised his voice and declaimed upwards to the night sky. The moon had risen, a bright yellow waxing segment surrounded by a litter of twinkling stars, that seemed to grow brighter by the minute.

  ‘On the wild wind ye fly, ’tween this world and the next.

  From that twilight realm ye see

  O’er your perch, the trials of the living … and the wake of the dead.’

  A vast flock of enormous ravens flew in from the woods and circled above the yard, once … twice … three times … flapping their wings so hard Louise and Patrick could feel the breeze they spawned. Their harsh, guttural cawing vied for supremacy with the spitting and cracking of green wood on the bonfire.

  Arthur raised his voice further so he could be heard above the noise of the birds. He appealed to the assembled crowd as well as to the sky. Conversant with the ritual, knowing what to expect, people reached for their neighbours’ hands. Holding them, they surged forward in a single line as Arthur spoke.

  ‘Help us now call Alice. We bring her here three days to say her farewells, and afterwards return. Go to the trees, lie among the roots. Go to the trees, lie among the roots …’

  The townsfolk joined in Arthur’s chant after Arthur spoke Alice’s
name.

  ‘Take these hands, ALICE!’ Arthur shouted.

  ‘Take these hands, ALICE!’ the assembly echoed.

  Patrick and Louise found themselves crying out their daughter’s name willingly for the first time since her death.

  ‘Take these bones, ALICE …’ Arthur continued.

  ‘Take these bones, ALICE.’

  Above them the ravens continued to swoop and wheel. Their wings beat ever more furiously, until they whirled and stirred the air with all the strength of a high wind. The electric lights on the outside of Arthur’s barn and house flickered and dimmed. Unseen hands moved in the darkness and poured liquid fuel on the bonfire. It flared instantly, the flames rising high and illuminating the upturned faces of the crowd gathered before Arthur in the yard.

  ‘Take this heart … ALICE!’

  ‘Take this heart … ALICE!’

  ‘And ALICE!’ Arthur looked to the crowd for support. ‘Take these eyes …’

  ‘Take these eyes … ALICE.’

  Dark blood flooded from beneath the eyelids of Mick’s corpse. Seconds later, rivulets of blood ran in steady streams from his ears, nose and mouth. It was a foul and ghastly sight, but Louise simply couldn’t stop staring, charting the slow disintegration of the body as it reverted to its base composition of liquid, tissue and chemicals.

  Finally, Arthur broke the spell that was holding everyone in the yard in thrall. ‘Take him down,’ he shouted to Ben and Tom.

  The two men lowered the cage, extricated Mick’s corpse still held fast in the harness, and manoeuvred it until it rested on iron trestles. When it was finally lying flat and firm, they unbuttoned the front of Mick’s jacket and shirt. After they’d prepared the corpse for the next stage of the ritual, they retreated behind Arthur.

  Arthur picked up a wedge-shaped tool from the table and a large mallet. He stepped forward, placed the wedge on Mick’s chest, and with three deafening, ringing blows split open Mick’s sternum, laying the interior of his chest and lungs bare.

  Louise took a deep breath of cold night air and steeled herself against the horror of what Arthur was doing to what had been the living, breathing body of a man she had met and known.

  Arthur again gazed up at the sky. ‘Now we need living blood.’

  Patrick drew alongside him but Arthur looked past him to Louise.

  ‘Female blood would be better.’

  Louise joined the two men and held out her hand to her husband. ‘Cut me, Patrick.’

  Arthur positioned Louise’s hand over Mick’s open chest and passed Patrick a scalpel. Patrick hesitated and looked into Louise’s eyes. Reading Patrick’s reluctance, Louise took the scalpel from his hand and sliced deep into her palm. Her blood dripped slowly at first, then gushed into Mick’s open chest cavity.

  ‘Enough!’ Arthur declared.

  Mary Brogan left the crowd again and handed Louise a clean towel that she helped her wrap around the wound.

  ‘The fuel,’ Arthur demanded.

  Arthur’s prompt galvanised Ben. Like an altar boy obeying a priest, he bowed to Arthur’s command, picked up a can and liberally doused Mick’s body in tractor diesel. Arthur watched Ben drain the container. When it was empty, Arthur waved him back and yanked a flaming length of wood from the bonfire.

  ‘Step back, away to a safe distance, all of you,’ Arthur ordered.

  He waited until the tide of people had receded to the edge of the yard before dropping the torch on to Mick’s body. It flared instantly, bathing the corpse in a searing bright blue flame that dazzled the eyes of the crowd, temporarily blinding them.

  Mick’s body jerked and writhed. Expanding from within the open chest cavity, it grew ever larger and darker, swelling in shape and size, straining the constraints of the harness that held it fast.

  Overhead, the ravens screeched and fled the heat of the flames in a single massive movement. Their raucous cries faded as they flew back and disappeared over the woods.

  The crowd swayed, shaking as though they’d all been caught up in a violent gusting hurricane.

  Arthur turned his head skywards again and declaimed to the stars.

  ‘Feel now the power of transformation course through your true selves … and look away, avert your gaze …’

  The crowd moved as one, turning their backs on the fearful flaming and squirming remains of Mick’s body.

  Louise, Patrick and Arthur began to vibrate, heave, shake and tremble along with the rest of the crowd.

  Louise looked at Patrick and saw trickles of blood seeping from his ears and nose. Then she turned to the crowd and realised that they were all bleeding. She smelled the iron tang of her own blood, strong in her nostrils, felt it dripping down from her nose, over her mouth and down her chin.

  Arthur raised his hands to demand attention. The crowd fell silent, waiting for him to speak again.

  ‘Now, all present here, join me again to bring Alice back among us.’

  The blue flames that had engulfed the corpse moments before now flickered low and became a dull greenish glow.

  Arthur looked wordlessly to Tom. The man knew what Arthur wanted him to do. Tom ran to pick up a fire extinguisher, returned to the corpse and doused the last remnants of the fire.

  Clouds of steam rose hissing, white and billowing in the air. Arthur studied the table of instruments for a moment before picking up a gnarled ancient-looking tool with a long thin blade forged from black metal.

  Tom retreated and Arthur approached the steaming husk that had been Mick O’Shea.

  ‘The harness,’ Arthur shouted.

  Ben, Tom and two other men pulled on thick leather gloves, went to the trestle and forced open the metal harness.

  Mick’s body lay unrecognisable before the crowd. It was burnished hard and brown, transformed into a thick bronze eggshell-like cocoon.

  Arthur hit the top of the cocoon with the instrument. The shell cracked open, splintered, shattered and broke. A small piece of the outer casing fell to the ground and a sluggish stream of sticky blood-streaked coagulating liquid trickled out. It dripped from the edge of the trestle, covering the shell fragments on the ground.

  Arthur rattled the tool around the aperture, enlarging it. When he’d finished, he plunged his arm inside to the elbow. He moved it around for a minute. When he finally withdrew his hand, he was holding a pulsating umbilical cord that dripped blood. He pulled it up, high in the air so everyone could see it, then, using his instrument, he cut through it. The crowd cried out.

  Discarding the cord, Arthur turned his attention to the burned remains of Mick’s head and shoulder girdle. He attacked them slowly and methodically with his instrument. Every cut and thrust he made on Mick’s body shattered more pieces of the shell and released yet more glutinous, gelatinous bloodstained fluid.

  Patrick and Louise continued to watch, stunned, speechless – awestruck by the spectacle unfolding before their eyes.

  Arthur looked around. Anticipating his need, the men who’d helped him throughout the ceremony joined him at the trestle and assisted him in tearing pieces from the shell.

  When they’d made a wide enough gap, Arthur inserted both his arms inside the cocoon to the elbows. He pulled back smoothly, drawing out the head and shoulders of a young girl.

  He turned to Louise and smiled. ‘Here she comes.’

  Louise’s eyes filled with tears. Through a mist she watched Alice slide out into Arthur’s arms. Her daughter was covered with broken pieces of charred shell, viscera and blood. Her eyes – Alice’s wonderful dark eyes that she thought she’d never see again – were wide open.

  Alice looked directly at Louise and murmured, ‘Mum.’

  Sobbing, Louise ran forward and enveloped her daughter in her arms. She was barely aware of the applause from the crowd.

  Patrick moved alongside them. He took the towel someone handed him and wrapped Alice in it. Throwing his arms around his wife and daughter, he turned gratefully to Arthur.

  ‘No need for word
s, Patrick. One look at the three of you together says it all.’ Arthur reached out to the young girl. ‘Welcome to Wake Wood, Alice.’

  Thirteen

  PATRICK DROVE THEM to the cottage. Louise sat in the back cradling Alice, who seemed very tired and sleepy, but wonderfully, blissfully alive.

  While Patrick parked the car, Louise carried Alice upstairs into the bathroom. She stripped the bloodstained towel from her daughter and knelt beside the bath after Alice climbed in. Holding the shower head in one hand, Louise gently sponged and rinsed Alice down with the other. The residue of blood, ash and slime washed away easily, leaving Alice’s skin white, clean, smooth and blemish-free.

  Patrick followed them upstairs. Scarcely daring to believe what he was seeing, he leaned against the doorpost and watched his wife bathe their daughter.

  ‘Just look at your hair, Alice. It’s so long.’ Louise finished soaping Alice’s hair and combed through the length with her fingers. ‘And your nails.’ She sponged Alice’s hands, paying special attention to her fingers. Every one of them was whole and unmarked, but that didn’t stop her from re-examining the little finger on her daughter’s right hand – the one Patrick had severed and taken from the grave.

  Alice smiled at Louise sleepily through half-closed eyes. ‘Mum, I had the strangest dream.’

  ‘It’s over now, sweetie. You’re home safe and sound. Nothing can hurt you here.’ Louise continued to shower Alice until clean, unstained water spiralled down the plughole. ‘As soon as we’ve got you dry, it will be bedtime. And this time, I promise, you’ll have the sweetest, not strangest, dreams.’

  ‘Here.’ Patrick lifted a bath towel from the heated rail. He handed it to Louise, who enveloped Alice in its folds before carrying her through into the room she’d prepared.

  Patrick stood back while Louise towelled Alice dry, dressed her in clean pyjamas and tucked her into bed. Alice fell asleep before Louise even began to tell her a story but, unwilling to leave their daughter, Louise lay beside her. She lay looking at Alice for a long while but eventually her eyelids grew heavier and heavier and then she too slept, leaving Patrick to keep watch over both of them.