by M. V. Stott
Bob the exorcist stepped into the chalk circle and thrust the knife into Carlisle’s heart.
18
Nightmares can happen whatever time of day a person sleeps, but at night, when the moon is high, that is when nightmares are at their most potent. When even the sublimely crafted horrors conjured by Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike are given extra depth.
Mr. Cotton walked the streets of Blackpool, his white-gloved hands clasped behind his back as the dark fingers of the Angel’s power writhed around him. Each house he passed he could feel discomfort within. Dreamers shifting in their sleep, moaning half-formed sentences as their covers grew damp with sweat.
‘Do you hear their cries, brother of mine?’ asked Mr. Cotton as Mr. Spike stepped from nowhere and joined him. ‘Fear. Ah yes, they are playing our song.’
Mr. Cotton licked his lips, he could still taste Ben Turner’s terror upon them. Could still hear Rita Hobbes’ anguish as she discovered the man’s dead body. Yes, that certainly wiped the smug grin off the hexed detective’s face.
‘Was that not something to savour, brother?’
Mr. Spike giggled behind his mask.
‘And yet, that is such a small morsel. What we have done to the ex-wolf. What we have created so far in this tired town. Tentative steps only. Is it not now time to throw off these self-made shackles to see what we can really do? I do believe that it is time to turn up the screams.’
Mr. Cotton began to dance.
Elaine Travers turned over in her bed, unsure if she was awake or asleep. The room around her was a warm fuzz. A perfect cocoon.
A cough.
Elaine’s muscles turned into piano wires as she realised she was not alone.
On the chair in the corner sat a man, face shrouded by the dark, his chest heaving up and down.
‘Who is it?’ asked Elaine Travers, reaching for her glasses on the bedside table. Maybe it was her brother, Simon, who had come up to stay for a few days and was sleeping in her spare room. What was he doing sat there, though?
She slid on her glasses and turned on the bedside lamp, but still the man remained in the dark.
‘Simon?’ said Elaine her heart speeding. No, that wasn’t Simon, too big for Simon. Her brother was a short man, five-foot-six on a good day; this person was much larger, much wider.
Elaine realised who it was. All of a sudden she knew. It was the trousers. She could see the trousers, poking out from the dark that hid the rest of him. The trousers were mustard-coloured cords. She remembered being six years old, covers gripped tight in her hands, stealing a look through scrunched up eyes and seeing those trousers walking towards her bed.
Remembered his hand reaching towards her.
‘Uncle Alan?’ whispered Elaine.
Uncle Alan leaned forward.
‘Hello, little one,’ he replied, a smile on his face and a hungry look in his eyes. Eyes that twitched this way and that across the covers hiding Elaine’s body.
Uncle Alan had been dead for thirty years.
‘I’ll tell mum,’ cried Elaine, as Uncle Alan stood. He had a knife in his hand.
‘Don’t worry, little one,’ he said, ‘everything is going to be fine, fine, fine.’
Elaine cowered and closed her eyes.
Mike Lewis always went to pee at least twice before he settled down to sleep. Sometimes it drove him to distraction, curled up in bed, wide awake, waiting for that familiar urge to occur so he could throw back his covers, pad down to the toilet, relieve himself for a second time, and finally get some rest.
It had been a habit of his since he was five, when his dad died. At first he’d just wet the bed, but it made his mum so cross with him that he’d taken it upon himself to make double sure he didn’t do it again. It was a comfort thing; he didn’t want to be causing his mum any more distress, and as the months and years passed, it had become a trigger that flipped the switch on his brain and let sleep take him.
Mike shook off, flushed the toilet, and went to the sink to wash his hands. As the warm water rushed out the tap and he rubbed his hands under it, he could already feel his pillow calling him.
It was as he turned off the tap that he saw that someone stood behind him in the bathroom.
‘Please, no,’ said Mike Lewis as he turned to see his mad Auntie Alice.
He’d been ten and alone in the house when Auntie Alice had turned up and let herself in. He didn’t like to think about what happened next, but the look on her face, the awful sounds she was making, that was always there.
He’d heard a family friend commenting how Auntie Alice wasn’t the first in the family to, “Lose her bloody mind”, and from that point on, Mike had worried that one day that’s how he would end up. How he would look.
He turned away from Auntie Alice, her teeth grinding, feet shuffling, and saw his own face in the mirror, a leer of sheer insanity across his face.
He screamed and fell backwards, hitting his head against the edge of the bath as he went down. As he lay on his back, blood spreading across the tiles, he looked up to see a man in a mask, crouched in the bath.
Empty glass eyes were the last things Mike Lewis saw.
Will Devon had always had this thing about bats.
He had no idea where it came from. Did not recall any incident in his past, in his childhood, that might have brought about the deep, frantic revulsion he felt for them. He’d once asked his mum if she remembered any reason for his hatred of the things (and he always used the word “hatred” when discussing it with others, as “fear” felt so silly). His mum said she had no idea why he disliked them so much, and that they were a daft thing to get in a tizz about anyway. How often do you come across a bat?
Will couldn’t even enjoy a Batman film, his aversion to the flying rats was so all-consuming. A friend once told him he should go and see a hypnotist. One had helped her quit smoking, maybe she could do something for him too. She’d given Will the hypnotist’s details, but Will had never got around to doing anything with them. He didn’t really believe in that sort of thing. As far as he was concerned, for hypnotism to have any effect you had to actually believe that it would. It was a placebo, and without that faith he’d just be handing a wad of cash to a charlatan.
Will stopped to pull up the zip on his coat while his dog Pepper pissed against a tree. He was strolling through London Square, giving Pepper his final walk of the day before the two of them called it a night. Will enjoyed taking these late night walks with Pepper. The streets were mostly empty, just the two of them roaming around, tiring each other out.
Pepper had finished and was walking over to Will when he froze and cocked his head to one side.
‘Come on, boy,’ said Will.
Pepper made a strange noise in the back of his throat, and began to back away.
‘Pepper, come on, time for sleepy-byes.’
Pepper barked once and ran into a bush.
‘Jesus,’ said Will, annoyed. He turned to look at what might have spooked Pepper so much. Was there another person out there taking their dog for a moonlit walk? Pepper always was antsy around other dogs, ever since he’d gone up to one a few years back and it had given him a deep bite on the leg for his trouble.
Will squinted, but he couldn’t see any other dog, nor any other people.
A flash of movement in the corner of his eye. Will turned and looked up to the sky, trying to make out what it was he was seeing.
At first it looked like a little black cloud growing larger with each second. Then Will realised it wasn’t growing larger, it was that it was moving closer, which was very, very strange. And what was that sound? A whooshing sound, over and over. Wings beating?
Will’s eyes widened.
That wasn’t a cloud.
He hoped it was just birds, but his gut knew the truth.
‘Pepper!’ he yelled as he turned, a sharp pain in his chest, as the bats descended and Will was swallowed up.
Pepper poked his face out of the bush and whimpered as Will
Devon thrashed, screaming, desperate. Soon he was on the ground, in the dirt. It would not be long until he stopped screaming. Until he stopped moving.
A white-gloved hand reached out and stroked Pepper’s silky, chocolate fur.
‘There’s a good boy,’ said Mr. Cotton.
19
Rita Hobbes had never believed in a life for a life. Through all her years on the force, she’d believed in bringing the guilty to justice, and justice did not include death. Could not include it.
This new life of hers, post-hex, was making that an impossible ideal.
She wanted Cotton and Spike dead. She wanted them to feel fear, to know their end was coming, and then to die. She wanted the Angel of Blackpool dead too, if such a thing was even possible.
Her stomach churned as an afterimage flashed in the dark each time she blinked.
Ben Turner’s corpse.
Cold.
Still.
Dead.
‘Are you sure this is the best idea?’ Formby asked again.
‘I don’t see what other choice we have,’ replied Rita, walking towards Big Pins’ exit. She paused and turned to Formby. ‘Stay here.’
‘I can help. Maybe.’ Formby knew that wasn’t true.
‘Me and Waters have got this,’ she replied.
‘You’re sure I shouldn’t stay here and keep the mole man company?’ asked Waterson.
Rita gave him a look that could have stripped paint from a door.
‘I was only asking!’ said Waterson, following her out.
‘Who is the mole man?’ Formby asked Linton, a confused look on his face.
It was obvious as soon as they stepped from the blind alley that hid Big Pins from the ordinary people of Blackpool, that something wasn’t right.
‘It takes a lot to put the shits up a ghost,’ said Waterson, ‘but consider this spook spooked.’
Rita felt it itching at her skin, like she was covered in bugs. A heavy, thick spell lay over the entire city.
She took out her axe, tightened her fingers around the wooden haft, and closed her eyes. ‘Show me.’
She looked up and saw them. Hundreds of dark lines weaving through the night sky. Thousands of them. It was just as Ben had said: the Angel’s power, Its magic, spreading far and wide across Blackpool. On this night, Cotton and Spike were spreading fear, spreading death, on an epic scale.
She wondered how many people had died already. Wondered how many more would end up that way before the night was through.
She realised her hands were shaking as she strode towards Blackpool Pleasure beach, the huge fun fair that also, unbeknownst to most, housed the Uncanny Night Fair, and inside of that, the dreamscape prison where Alexander Jenner was incarcerated.
Sweat prickled her brow and her eyes darted from one shadow to the next. The spell Cotton and Spike were weaving was intoxicating. Heavy. Undeniable. They weren’t even attacking her directly, but it was like suffering fallout from a nuclear blast. The side effects were eating into her anyway.
‘This is really, really, bad, Waters.’
‘I am getting that impression, yeah.’
A man ran past, screaming.
‘They certainly know how to create an atmosphere, your mask-wearing friends.’
Rita was already running.
She found the screaming man on the ground, desperately scuttling backwards.
‘What? What is it?’ she whirled round, axe at the ready, but couldn’t see what it was he was running from.
‘Maybe he’s having a panic attack,’ said Waterson.
Rita crouched by the man, ‘Hey, it’s okay, you’re safe now.’
The man looked at her, sweat pouring down his face.
‘What is it?’ Rita asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing is wrong,’ replied the man. ‘Everything is fine, fine, fine.’
His torso ripped open and two bloody hands thrust out, grabbing Rita by the neck.
‘Holy buggering shit!’ yelled Waterson, jumping back.
The axe fell from Rita’s hand as she tried to wrench free of the choking hands closed around her windpipe. This wasn’t a man running from a nightmare thing created by Cotton and Spike, he was a nightmare thing. The man laughed hysterically as more arms reached out from his torso and grasped Rita.
‘Everything is fine, fine, fine!’ His left eye bulged alarmingly, then popped out of the socket, a crow’s head poking out, screeching furiously, beak snapping, eager to chew on Rita’s face as she was pulled forward.
‘Axe!’ Rita managed to force out, as she beat ineffectually at the arms wrestling her inside the nightmare man.
‘Right! Shit,’ said Waterson. He fell to his knees and grabbed at the axe, but his phantom hand passed right through.
‘Axe!’ Rita garbled again, as she strained to turn her head to the side, the crow’s wicked beak scraping her cheek, drawing blood.
‘Okay, okay,’ Waterson told himself. ‘Solid. I am a solid.’ He did his best to make his hand corporeal, and slowly reached out for the weapon.
It moved.
He didn’t pick it up, but it had reacted to him. For the briefest of moments, he’d willed himself solid enough to nudge it. Waterson was so exhilarated that he actually laughed. Rita’s strangled screams soon put an end to that.
She was pressed right up against the nightmare man’s open torso now, one shoulder leaning into him, his rib cage opening and closing like the jaws of a steel trap as the crow in his head pecked angrily at her face.
‘You’ll like it inside me,’ said the nightmare man. ‘No, not like it, those are the wrong words. You’ll sit inside all broken and pained and screaming those good, tasty screams and we’ll be best of friends forever and ever.’
Waterson tried to concentrate, tried to block out Rita’s anguish, the nightmare man’s gloating, the crow’s angry squawks, and reached out again and again for the axe. Each time it would move, just a little, but he couldn’t grab it, couldn’t lift it. If he had a few hours to practice, he was sure he could actually do it. But he didn’t have hours. He barely had seconds left.
‘Come on!’ he yelled in frustration, but the axe merely nudged forward again.
Rita felt herself starting to go limp, the fight draining from her as the lack of oxygen began to take its toll and the world turned dark and fuzzy around the edges. She thought she could hear Waterson saying something. Shouting something. But the nightmare man’s laughter drowned out everything, even the crow’s screeches.
Rita was pissed off.
Even as the black hole of unconsciousness promised to make everything okay, she felt the fury in her stomach burning. They were going to win. That pair of mask-wearing freaks were going to win and Ben’s death would go unpunished. All the deaths in Blackpool.
She’d failed.
Then the laughter stopped and she felt herself crumple to the ground.
‘Rita,’ said Waterson, rushing to her side.
‘Wh… what the…?’ she managed, gasping for air, eyes streaming, as she struggled up on to her elbows. She looked to where the nightmare man had been and saw only a little pile of ash on the ground.
‘How did you…?’
‘It wasn’t me,’ Waterson replied.
‘You must never rely on the help of a ghost, Detective,’ said a new voice.
Rita turned to see a tall, narrow man with the whitest of white complexions and the most wonderful, dark purple coat stood before her.
‘Well,’ said Carlisle, the devil of all grins across his face, ‘what did I miss?’
Carlisle sat on the bench facing the sea, looking up at the thousands of smoke fingers stretching out of the water, from the Angel’s prison, and arcing high above them into Blackpool.
‘So, do you want to tell me where you’ve been?’ said Rita. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘Do I detect worry? How sweet of you.’
‘You’ll detect a pissed off woman with a sharp axe if you don’t spill, Pasty
Pete.’
‘I’d tell her,’ said Waterson. ‘She once threw a full cup of coffee at my balls because I forgot to tell her there were free doughnuts in the staff canteen.’
‘Very well,’ said Carlisle. ‘I was inside a small boy.’
There were a few moments of silence after that.
‘Okay,’ replied Rita, finally.
‘You have a depraved mind, Detective.’
‘So that whole time you were.. .whatever it was you were doing... inside a small boy?’
Carlisle shifted, uncomfortable. ‘I was… trapped. At the hands of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Spike. Trapped within the Angel’s prison.’
‘What happened?’
‘I am no longer trapped.’
‘Wow, and you say I have a talent for stating the obvious.’
Carlisle smiled and breathed in the night air. It felt good to be back inside his own body. No, it felt better than that, though he also felt as though he needed a scalding hot shower, or eight, to get rid of the stink of the almost thing that Bob the exorcist had forced out.
His smile faltered as he recalled the price he’d paid. A promise. A big promise. To be called in at any time. Carlisle was not bound by many things, he had spoken more lies and half-truths in his life than most, and thought nothing of letting people down. But if he offered a promise, he did not welch. He did not like the feeling of being in another’s debt, of knowing he could be made to do something helpful at any given moment.
He wondered just what it would be that the doomed exorcist would ask of him.
‘So,’ he said, ‘it would appear that Cotton and Spike are having a grand old time with this wretched resort of yours.’
‘They’ve expanded their operations, so to speak,’ Rita replied.
‘Indeed. Normally they go person by person. Their scope, their power, limited. Now,’ he gestured to the smoke tendrils spreading far and wide, ‘they are playing with everybody.’
‘It’s the Angel’s power, boosting them, isn’t it?’ said Rita.