by Lex Sinclair
Kyle recalled the story Leigh had told him a few weeks ago, about a boy who took his dog for a walk into the woods opposite the lake, throwing a tennis ball for his Labrador to chase and bring back to him. When he threw the tennis ball and it had bounced then rolled down the bank and onto the lake. The boy had chased after his pet, intent on retrieving the ball - as was the dog’s nature - but had been unable to stop the mutt hitting the ice, skating on all four legs before the ice, inevitably cracked and he fell through the gap. The boy knew if he stepped onto the ice, he too, would fall through and certainly die with his mongrel. Instead he had to yell and beckon for his drowning pet to swim as close to him as it could, enabling the boy to reach out and seize his collar, in a last ditch hope to yank him out of the freezing temperatures. His attempts were all in vain, and soon the dog’s head disappeared under the water never to resurface alive again.
Ever since hearing that yarn, Kyle had not wanted to take a dip in the Lake, regardless of whether or not it was a blazing hot summer.
Kyle was thirteen years old. He was rapidly developing the urge for his own independence, by venturing outside with his best friend to explore the world beyond the vicinity of his terraced home.
In record time, he managed to get into his tracksuit bottoms, T-shirt and hooded jumper, brush his teeth vigorously, wash his face, then gulp down a pint of orange juice and grab a Kit-Kat and a ripe banana, unfastened his Apollo mountain bike from the porch door and wheeled it outside. Then, once the front door was closed behind him, Kyle mounted his bike and pedalled off down the deserted street in the direction of Leigh’s house.
Today, Leigh was going to show him an unused barn of a farmhouse forty-five minutes from where they lived.
Leigh’s parents knew the resident at the farmhouse and had mentioned, by way of conversation, that the owner had gone on a two-week holiday to Tampa, Florida, which meant that there would be no one to keep an eye out for while they roamed around, sticking their noses into other peoples’ beehives when they shouldn’t. But boys being boys, they let their imaginations and curiosities run away with themselves.
Kyle met Leigh by the BT telephone box opposite Leigh’s house and without any preamble, Kyle asked, ‘So where’s this barn you were talkin’ about?’
‘It’s roughly a forty-five minute drive away. But because we’re on push bikes and we’ll be using the dirt road, it’s gonna take us over an hour to get there.’
‘Oh, man!’
‘It’ll be worth it, though. Think of all the cool stuff that’ll be in there. Plus, it’s a hideout for the next couple of weeks with no prying eyes watching us having a smoke and a drink.’
‘Yeah. True,’ Kyle agreed.
‘Come on, then. What’re we waiting for?’
Together they pedalled down the road alongside each other to enjoy the first day of the weekend prior to Monday coming around, and another long, tedious week wasted in school under the watchful eyes of their tutors, keen to reprimand them on every infinitesimal error they made, so it seemed.
The journey was a lot harder on his legs than Kyle anticipated; however, with his best friend to chat to, it didn’t seem so bad, and it wasn’t long before they arrived at the opening of the muddy path leading into the woods, trees and shrubs blocking out most of the daylight, trying to snag their clothes with their long, scrawny arms with pointed edges.
Leigh took the lead. It made sense, as he knew the way. Kyle trailed him, smelling the country air around them wafting up his nose. It sure as hell beat the fumes from the exhaust pipes of vehicles going past them on the main road, anyway.
‘How much further is it?’ Kyle called out.
‘Not long. We’re almost there.’
Above the tree line, Kyle could see the spire of an old Church to his left. Through a gap in the undergrowth he saw the small graveyard on either side of the rutted dirt road leading to the entrance.
Five minutes later, Leigh came to a halt and put his feet down on the path. Then he pointed to the open field, where three horses stood and eyed them before returning their attention back at each other, at the fringes of another long row of trees and shrubs.
‘The barn is just up there on the right hand side.’
Kyle would be glad to get off his bike and was able to have a sit down. His arse felt as though it had changed shape with a definite imprint of his saddle and his legs were leaden with invisible weights.
The dirt road on the other side of the field had numerous potholes, which both boys accidentally ran over in their haste, almost losing balance and control of their bikes and hitting the rutted surface. Fortunately, neither of them crashed to the ground, and soon they could see the barn through the gaps in the bushes surrounding them.
Rays of sunlight burst through the woods, glinting off the boys’ mountain bikes.
When they reached the end of the tunnel of trees, Kyle was momentarily blinded by the brilliant burst of sunlight masking his face in a warm yellow glow.
Leigh climbed off his bike and pushed it towards the farmers’ gate, paying no heed to the ‘Private Property’ signpost jutting out of the earth. Getting his bike up and over the fence was proving to be more problematic than he’d expected. In all honesty, Leigh hadn’t given it any thought how they were going to vault their bikes over the fence until he was presented with this dilemma. He turned back to face his friend, who was shaking his head at him, because of his stupidity.
‘Good going, cock-breath. How’re we supposed to get in or out if we can’t get our bikes over the fence?’
‘I know. I know. I’ll go over first then you lift my bike up as far as you go and I’ll pull it over from the other side. Then we do the same with yours.’
‘Why can’t you just open the gate by using the latch?’
‘It’s locked with a rusty bolt.’
Annoyed that now they had reached their destination, but could get no further without making life awkward for themselves, not to mention the heavy lifting after such a long ride without any intervals, just to get inside some filthy dilapidated barn was proving to be more hassle than it was worth. Kyle gritted his teeth and used all the strength he could muster to hoist the two mountain bikes over the fence, aware that both bikes had been scratched in the process.
Once that task was accomplished, Kyle stood with his hands firmly placed on either side of his hips, breathing heavily. Then, he too, clambered over, landing on his feet with a grunt alongside his best friend.
Leigh clapped a hand on his shoulder, grinning at him, and said, ‘For your patience and help, I’ll give you another free beer when we get back to my place, later.’
‘I’ll hold you... to... that,’ Kyle managed to say, huffing and puffing, wheeling his bike up the dirt road over the stones popping beneath the tires.
The overgrown grass swayed in the gust of wind like a gigantic wave, similar to a Mexican wave at an international rugby game filled to the capacity attendance. In the near distance, they heard the slamming of a timber door against something unyielding.
Without discussing it, they both slowed their paces to a tentative gait, familiar with the stillness that they hadn’t noticed prior to stepping onto private property.
When the barn came into full view, they saw that it was just the barn door hitting the adjoining wall, due to the fact that the wind had blown it open. Although, the closer they got, Leigh spotted that there was a long, dense piece of timber lying on the bald area in front of the entrance. Immediately, he understood that someone had removed that piece of timber, placed horizontally in front of the twin doors, to purposely stop them from being blown open by the wind.
Had the farmer decided not to go to Tampa, Florida for two weeks and not tell anyone? Or had someone else - another trespasser - broke into the barn before them?
Leigh halted suddenly, held up his hand in a stop
gesture to his friend.
Their surroundings had instantly become creepy and unsettling. Leigh thought it might be best to turn around and climb over the fence, cycle back to his house, where he and Kyle could spend the day in his room playing on the Playstation 3 and watching DVDS. Anything was better than a squatter lurking somewhere in the dimness inside the barn, then leaping out at them when they least expected it, frightening them to death.
‘What’s the matter?’ Kyle asked, although if he was being totally honest, he already knew. The barns’ doors shouldn’t be open. Surely, the owner had closed the barn before setting off to the airport, just like he had locked the front and back door to his farmhouse.
Leigh was contemplating their next course of action. The boy in him told him to stop being such a wimp and to go in there, because he had nothing to fear. But his conscience informed him he’d be better off if he swallowed his pride and turned around, none the wiser to what lay inside the barn for a week now, waiting to be discovered.
‘Are we going in, or what?’
Leigh gave his friend a sideways glance. ‘Yeah. Sure. Why not? We’ve come this far, haven’t we? I could do with a sit down, anyway. My legs are killin’ me.’
Kyle smiled sheepishly, hinting the quaver in his mate’s voice, but choosing not to mention it.
They went inside...
***
The hooded figures formed a circle at the altar of the church, watching as rays of sunlight streamed through the translucent, stained and mosaic windows, depicting several stories from the Holy Bible.
The Acolytes of Doom were unmoving; fingertips touching, not breaking the circle around their leader, whose face was fluxing from skeleton to flesh and blood; metamorphosis not yet completed, giving him the appearance of a cadaver in decaying inevitably.
Candlesticks had been lit around him, illuminating his ragged flesh and bone, hideously, as though someone had used a carving knife on him to great effect and he had lived to tell the tale, giving the other acolytes the illusion of transparency, so they could see inside him. His protuberant eyes bulged from his huge sockets; the only thing keeping them from rolling down his cheeks was the stringy optical nerve, dripping splatters of blood, blending in with the wine-coloured carpet underfoot.
Overhead a china figurine of the Lord Jesus Christ hung from the rafters, half-naked, nailed to the sacrificial cross, weak, helpless and dying.
The leader of the acolytes raised his head so that they could all see his grotesque features and spoke in that deep, faraway voice, reverberating in the rafters, bouncing off the stone walls and dense pillars...‘Creatures of the night... Our time to rise is finally upon us. There will be no escaping the day of our Second Coming. Those who live on the very ground of our graves shall pay with their worthless lives, for they are guilty of treason and show no respect to the dead. Now the dead will rise up and take what’s rightfully theirs. For it is the meek who inherit the earth, said their Lord.’
The ground underfoot shook. The hooded figures remained steadfast until they were told to break the circle of faith and unison.
‘The day is coming when those dancing on our graves will be burned; their bodies will perish, but their souls will for ever burn in the depths of Hell, where they will no longer express mirth, joyfulness and peace. Their hearts will be ripped from their chests and given to those who are worthy; those who do not trespass against others.
‘You, my brothers, are the chosen ones. For it was you who suffered the most in a previous life that was filled with suffering, inflicted by those who foolishly believe they are doing God’s work. But no more. Our day of everlasting is finally here. A chance to transcend; to do unto others what they did to us. For we do not hate our enemy, but will destroy them all the same... Had it not been for them we would have no purgatory. Now it is them who must suffer before they are rewarded, and walk into the everlasting light.’
The leader of the Rising Dead got to his feet, held his arms out away from his torso, palms facing up and raised his arms, head arching back, meeting the sad gaze of Jesus
Christ, suffering, and dying at the hands of his tormentors, without hatred... peaceful.
‘We are... for ever!’
***
Golden motes drifted down from the chinks in the timber-slatted ceiling. In contrast to the yellow radiance outside the dimness over the threshold gave the impression of night.
Hay crunched underfoot. Leigh winced at the thought that the sound breaking the silence would give away their position to anyone lurking in deepest corners, unseen. He waited for a few seconds, as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, in case he detected the sound of movement. But all he could hear was his own breathing. The flesh on his spine crawled, breaking out in goosebumps.
There was nothing to be afraid of, he told himself over and over again, in spite of the foreboding aura telling him otherwise. And he was starting to believe that, until he pivoted right and gasped at the sight of two lifeless bodies, dangling upside down from the wooden beams high up on the girder, skinned alive...
Leigh’s vision wavered so much that it reminded him of the time when he was younger and had gone surfing. His stomach churned. The colour drained from his face, followed by a wave of nausea rushing into his throat, exploding through his gaping mouth, spraying through his splayed fingers in front of him. Everything went a shade of blue. He lost the feeling in his legs and saw the regurgitated food from his stomach on the ground welcoming his pallid face, as he fell. But as he prepared himself for the impact, a pair of hands gripped him fiercely under the armpits, breaking his fall, hauling him upright. Leigh saw through the haze that he was being dragged back outside into the sunlight. Yet all he remembered were the glassy white orbs bulging from the skinless bodies, dripping blood; flies buzzing around them, inspecting the grotesque corpses with their innards removed, a huge, cavernous deep red filled cavity, a heaven for the insects that had swiftly wasted no time and needed no invitation in devouring the remains of the flesh, the bodies gently swaying to and fro.
He heard his name being called from another region.
‘... Leigh... Leigh! LEIGH! For God’s sake, answer!’
Leigh tried to answer, but all that came out of his mouth, which tasted and smelled of something that belonged in the sewer, was a faint gurgle. Then the pain in his chest from vomiting violently, unexpectedly, crushed and suffocated him. Wincing, he used his arms to help push himself off the ground and to gingerly sit upright, yet the world from his perspective still spun at a frantic speed on its axis.
For the couple of seconds before vomiting, he honestly thought he was going to either die or lose consciousness. Had it not been for the quick thinking of his best friend, he would have. There was no doubt in his mind of that. Furthermore, Kyle had the intelligence to drag him out of the high-ceilinged barn, which had instantly shrunk to the size of a cabin, as claustrophobia shrouded him in its heavy cloak.
Gradually, his dotted vision was becoming lucid again, and he could see in his peripheral vision that Kyle was wheeling their mountain bikes, which they had leaned against the outside wall, over to where he was sitting.
His best friend was trembling. Kyle’s chest was rising and falling far too fast for him to be able to control his breathing rate. His friend’s heavy breathing wasn’t a pressing concern at the moment, though. Their shock was to be expected. What they needed to do was get the hell out of there and inform someone about what they’d seen to make them look like a couple of terrified ghosts, wheeling their mountain bikes over the rutted field towards the gate they’d vaulted a little earlier.
All Leigh kept thinking was, how he should’ve listened to the sagacious voice inside his head advising him not to go any further; and how, in the future, if his intuition advised him to do something, then he would do it, no questions asked. That sensible voice in his head was there for a purpose;
it was there to prevent him from trespassing, keeling over and vomiting.
He didn’t remember much about getting to a vertical base and hurrying to the gate or even lifting his bike onto the public footpath on the other side. However, he did recall the impact his back made on the stones as he landed awkwardly, clambering over the fence.
Kyle asked him if he was all right, gripping him by the collar of his plaid shirt and hauling him to his feet. Then they took off down the muddy path, sheltered and enclosed by the trees and undergrowth, Kyle in the lead, constantly glancing over his shoulder to make sure Leigh was still trailing him.
At last they emerged from the woods into the warm sunlight beaming down on them and cycled past the same houses, ignoring anyone on the street they knew calling out to them or raising their hand in greeting. They couldn’t have reciprocated the cordial gestures even if they wanted to. Their minds were set on one goal and one goal only: to get to Leigh’s house, pronto.
Their legs felt like jelly when they eventually came to a halt.
Leigh half-walked, half-staggered to his front door, opened it and went inside. Kyle followed him, not for any other reason but to make sure Leigh didn’t collapse from shock and overall exhaustion.
When his mother - who was standing at the kitchen sink, washing the dishes - caught sight of him, she dropped the china plate in her slippery, soapy hands, where it smashed into a hundred pieces on the tiled floor. Then she darted over to her son and shook him by the shoulder, stopped, then held him close, realising that if she shook him, he’d probably break into a hundred pieces, just like the china plate.
‘What happened to him?’ she screamed at Kyle, tears running down her cheeks.
Leigh looked as though he was unconscious on his feet.
Kyle cleared his sandpaper-dry throat before saying, dully, ‘We saw two dead bodies...’
Detective Inspector Sark rubbed his furrowed brow, profound concern written across his carved features, seconds after emerging from the barn and stepping back outside. He trudged over towards the Ford Focus, opened the drivers’ door, leaned over the seat and retrieved his bottle of Evian under the glove compartment, removed the cap and gulped down about a quarter of the contents in one swallow, wiping his chin. He put the cap back on, tossed the bottle on the seat, closed the door and headed over to his colleague, who looked as though he was an advertisement for paleness.