by Lex Sinclair
A family.
Something he had had and ruined by his body-abusing addictions. If only he could turn back the hands of time, like that song he’d heard in rehab at Closereach by R. Kelly when he was saying goodbye to all his dear friends, remembering the last time he’d heard the song, dancing slowly under the spotlights, gazing deeply into his wife’s eyes on their wedding day. It was one of the only memories he’d had that had kept his heart beating when he was at his lowest ebb; drinking his life down the drain he was pulled out of more than once since Naomi and Corrie had left him.
Life was never going to be quite the same for him or them again, he’d told Naomi. But that didn’t mean it had to be the end of all things worth living for. At that moment, she’d taken his hand in hers and squeezed it gently.
Brian had tears floating in his eyes once more and that was the main reason he didn’t see the four hooded figures materialise from out of nowhere, near the burrow in the bank and seize him before he had chance to react.
The recovering alcoholic and drug addict’s high-pitched screams - screams that freeze the heart and paralyse the mind in terror no one ever thought possible - were drowned out by the sounds of rush hour traffic passing on the roads overhead.
***
Naomi consulted the clock on the wall above the window sill in the living room, thinking about everything Brian had told her about how to beat his addiction, he had to face up to a lot of hard truths first.
The aura coming off her husband was a humble one, in contrast to how confident and outspoken he used to be. She liked the fact that he’d endured a lot of hardship (not out of spite), but so he could identify with the hurt he’d induced on her and Corrie, which made him grateful for the time he’d spent with them earlier on.
Although she was still wary of him, Naomi was overall glad that he came by that day (not because of the money). If nothing else it had relit a spark that had been lost in her daughter for a long time; a spark that a child would never truly recover from if the fuse had blown and was irreplaceable.
With a lot of exertion, she got to her feet, switched all the lights off downstairs, and checked that doors were before retiring to bed.
Naomi dreamed of Brian that night.
Corrie dreamed of the four devil-worshippers.
***
The earth where the four bodies were dumped was being excavated by a big yellow JCB, digging deep into the ground, rocking the foundations around the building site where construction would soon begin.
Instead of one of the bodies being dug up, as was usually the case in these situations, their bodies tumbled over each other down the slope where the ground was hollow, then fell into a deep ravine. Had they been discovered they’d most likely be sent to be incinerated and disposed of discreetly. It was as though the cadavers - or fate - knew this somehow, and opted to find a safe haven in the ground alongside the canal.
For countless years the cadavers lay in a heap, like broken, unwanted appliances found in a skip at a rubbish dump. Then a brilliant light from within the cave grew brighter and brighter... and something beyond the light developed. The light was its womb where it grew - and when the light abated, the thing beyond where the light had shone emerged, reborn.
The thing with the goat’s head (now a silver head gleaming in the gloom), approached the four cadavers, holding a long staff pole with a miniature, silver goat’s head and carefully laid them out side by side, face-up. Then it moved back into the centre of the open space, got down on its hands and knees, and with its long, sharp fingernails (which looked more like talons) drew an accurate depiction of the Pagan symbol. Then it lifted up the dead bodies one by one and placed them around the newly etched symbol, taking up nearly all the floor space in the dim cave, opened its long black silk robe and took out a gold urn, removed the top and watched with its red piercing eyes - that looked like taillights - as coils of smoke drifted out of the opening.
Then it very slowly, very deliberately, walked around the symbol chanting an eerie foreign incantation that made no sense to anyone who spoke English and was not familiar with the works of these kinds of rituals. Bone-gnawing music played in the background from another region, echoing in the gloom, bouncing off the rocks, sounding as though it were being played on an invisible electric keyboard.
The thing with the goat’s head raised the staff pole upwards at arm’s length, watching as the smoke drifted from it, as well as the urn. He placed the urn in the centre of the symbol, moving in a fluid motion past the dead bodies, chanting, muffled slightly by its hideous mask, seeing the coils of smoke from both the staff and the urn float into the faces of the deceased.
The gothic ceremony taking place shrouded the room in incense. The creature that had promised the four men eternal life in the physical form they were accustomed to banged the staff on the floor, rhythmically. BOOM... BOOM! It echoed in the cave so loudly that cracks appeared in the rocks, crumbling through the new apertures.
After circling the bodies four times, chanting incessantly in time to the eerie, hair-raising background music, varying pitch when the invisible keyboard player hit the high keys and then lowering into a deeper guttural melody when the low keys were used.
Now, the thing with the goat’s head moved with a purpose to each cadaver and touched them purposefully on the shoulder, watched behind the Mask of Death as the first one of the quartet rose to their knees, raising their head to their master, waiting with inhuman patience for a sign. There was no physical or verbal sign anyone human could comprehend. The master and its disciple could now use telepathy to converse with one another.
The first of the foursome stood, bowed, and then stepped backwards two steps, until they were hidden in the surrounding gloom, skeletal hands by their side, standing tall, proud, waiting for the second coming.
When all four of the deceased had risen from the dead and were facing their master, they listened to the voice whispering in their heads, chanting to them in a language that does not - and will not - exist, something only their kind will ever understand.
The ground shakes violently and cracks like a gigantic spider-web underfoot at the sounds of the incantation, yet the master and its devoted followers stand firm, unaffected by the tremor breaking the ground beneath.
Behind their master a long wooden table with a velvet cloth and a five-holder candlestick with two communion cups atop it rises from the earth, as does the Pagan symbol smeared in crimson blood on the smooth rock face.
Seeing their symbol the Rising Dead bow simultaneously.
The four skeletons are now shrouded with long black robes, in a blink of an eye. Their hoods conceal their bony frames. And their master is proud that He has fathered his loyal sons, who lost their lives serving him.
Now they are reborn and everlasting.
***
Brian was dragged like a doll through the tunnel, scraping flesh against the rough sides, tiny stones and dirt tore at his face as easy as grating cheese, pecking at his eyes and fresh wounds, stinging him with a thousand pinpricks. He opened his mouth to scream in agony, only to swallow more underground dirt and soil, which found its way into the crevices of his teeth and gums, and when he gritted his teeth there was minor earthquake reverberating in his ears. There wasn’t even enough room for him to get his hands up in front of his bloodied face to protect himself, either. And yet, even though the hole he’d come through was only big enough for a fox or a small child at the most to fit through, his attackers got him into the burrow with astonishing ease.
Brian didn’t see the opening of the tunnel because of the cascading dirt obscuring his vision, but he did feel his back meet the unyielding ground with a hellish thud, that would have rattled his ancestors. The wind was instantly knocked out of him. His whole body was the weight of one of the massive boulders inside the gloomy cave. Getting up was not an option at this point, h
is body had taken a holiday to Numbville after the shuddering collision it had just suffered.
Eventually, breath burst out of him in one long, raspy gasp, partly relief, partly to get air back into the lungs before closing up on him for good. With a grunt and a groan, Brian rolled over onto his side and breathed. That’s all that mattered to him right now, was to breathe. To keep breathing; inhaling, exhaling like he was told to do by his therapist when he was losing control of himself while fighting his addictions in Closereach. Otherwise he would trigger a panic attack, and in his current condition that was the last thing he could cope with. A panic attack would be the physical equivalent of a bow and the drawing the curtains closed at the end of a play at the theatre.
He could taste that sour liquid swimming around his teeth staining them red, collecting tiny crumbs of rock and soil. He wasn’t surprised after the rollercoaster ride he’d just been on. Yet what he was most concerned about was his face scratched and torn, especially at the brow and cheeks. Also, his eyes had not yet attuned to the puff of dirt and dimness.
For a split second when he sat upright, Brian thought his body would separate at the waist due to the aching from the nape of his neck to the small of his back. The spinal cord crunched as it adjusted itself, and he thought to himself that if he ever did get out of this hole alive, he wouldn’t at all be surprised if he ended up in a wheelchair or a cripple using a walking frame for the rest of his life. Maybe it was what he deserved, after all the physical abuse he’d dished out to his wife and daughter, all the misery he’d inflicted upon the only two people in this world who truly loved him, even after everything that had happened.
Negative thinking wasn’t going to help his current situation, he told himself.
He tried to get to a vertical base on two occasions; however his legs blatantly refused to support him. But that didn’t prevent him from getting to his knees and knuckling the muck out of his eyes so he could see where he was and where his kidnappers were.
There was a very good chance that these were the same people who’d murdered his wife’s next door neighbours’ Jack Russell and had killed the other residents in that once peaceful suburban area.
In front of him he saw something which he wasn’t sure was real or not in his confused and disorientated condition.
There were four figures shrouded in long black robes, standing side by side, (strength in numbers) staring at him with red piercing eyes, glowing like taillights on a dark country road from pallid faces, more appropriate on dead people or those dying of something malignant and incurable. Yet the four hooded figures stood steadfast, unmoving, unflinching... and it was the creepy aura emanating from them that sent icy chills snaking down Brian’s sore spine. They were unarmed from what he could see, but that did nothing to reassure him that he was going to be left unharmed; on the contrary, it somehow made the figures before him even less human and increasingly malevolent.
Squinting, he saw - or thought he saw - a makeshift altar and a weird, but recognisable symbol on the wall illuminated by a glow - not from the flickering candles nor from any fluorescent strips or light bulbs overhead - but from a light generated perhaps by body heat or something besides electricity or batteries.
‘What do you want from me?’ he croaked. His throat rattled.
The leader of the quartet stepped forward, the pallor of his features glowing transparently from an unseen force within. It was then, and only then, did Brian realise that he would never see the light of day ever again. Nor would he get to hold Corrie in his arms, hugging her tightly the way he’d got to do only a few hours earlier, which now seemed like a distant, faraway memory that happened a thousand years ago in another lifetime, almost.
It hadn’t, of course. And Brian was even more grateful that before he stared Death in the face and heard the drumming of his heartbeat in his ears, felt its pulse in his throat, that he’d got to see his wife and daughter one last time to get his emotions off his chest, and to tell them that he was truly sorry and that he loved them very much.
11.
Joe had inadvertently fallen asleep in his chair, exhaustion slipping through him like a secret lover at the dead of night, taking him in its warm, comforting embrace.
Now he was wide awake, rubbing sleep out of the corners of his eyes, cursing himself for not watching the street, and letting himself drift off so easily.
Hugh had gone home, grimacing at the pain in his hip as he descended the stepladder onto the landing, to have a nice hot bath. He’d thanked the retired postman for doing his bit for the Neighbourhood Watch scheme, advising him that a nice hot bath would do his pains no harm at all. His new friend told him that was exactly what he was going to do and that they would see each other tomorrow, same time same place.
Joe climbed down the metallic steps to the landing in the pitch darkness, wondering to himself why the light bulb in the attic wasn’t working. Surely, it couldn’t have blown already; it was almost brand new. It wasn’t important right now, anyway. He’d get round to that little chore in the morning, or when he had the chance. But when he flicked the light for the landing to come to life, nothing happened.
Darkness tells us, a voice in his head whispered.
Was that me?
Of course it was. Who else would it be numbskull?
There were many things Joe could and would face up to; getting punched in the head by some of the hardest hitting blokes ever to step inside a boxing ring; facing up to the fact that he was divorced; losing half of his hard earnings to that miserable, cheating ex-wife, who’d travelled all the way to Birmingham to have an affair with former middleweight champion, Fred Johnson - who he’d beat in the unification match at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. (That had been why Fred Johnson had been grinning deviously at him after he’d lost in the rematch with Joe, knowing full well that in spite of his defeat he’d got revenge by doing something unforgivable.) But darkness was something Joe did not like one iota. It simply unnerved him, scared him, making him feel like he was six years old again, listening to the muffled cries of his mother as she was slapped around by his old man, too young, too frightened to do anything to stop it.
At what time did the power cut off? he wondered.
Holding onto the banister, Joe crept down the stairs, his footsteps louder for some peculiar reason in the dark. Why did the dark make mundane sounds that you barely noticed in broad daylight seem as though they were ominous? Or was it just his childish fear of the dark.
What did he mean by, Darkness tells us, anyway?
He got to the foot of the stairs, padded into the living room and looked through the curtains. Outside the street was dead to the world. The neatly trimmed hedgerows rattled like old bones. The tall grass on his front lawn was already slick with dew and glittered under the streetlights. To his immediate right the clock in the design of a championship belt ticked incessantly, and he saw that ticking hand strike the midnight hour. The glass covering cracked right down the middle, killing the clock instantly. Behind him the stairs creaked, as though someone else was now descending to the ground floor where he stood.
Joe’s heart beat faster. His fear of the natural darkness turned up a couple of notches. And all of a sudden his legs were made out of jelly, not bone and muscle tissue. He whirled around staring wildly at the stairs, literally expecting someone to emerge in the dim glow from the streetlamps slanting through the window and stand facing him.
The widescreen TV burst into life, startling him at once.
He stared, transfixed by the electric snowstorm on the screen. Beyond the nebulous, speckled picture and the faint crackling sound, Joe saw a face. A ghost face. He couldn’t hear the crackling noise - but, he could hear the voice speaking from the ghost face, clearly. He didn’t even have to strain to listen. He couldn’t hear the TV any better than when it was working properly.
‘I am the voice of great wis
dom... and I speak to you, Joe, to give you the warning, before we unleash our fury on the demise and desecration of our names,’ the ghostly voice said. ‘We are the fear eating away at the marrow in your bones. We are indomitable, for we are many. We, the shape-shifters - at the hour of the dead - move amongst you to give you our message.
‘Get out! Get out while you still can, for we trespass against those who trespass against us. We show no mercy to the weak. We show no pity to the defeated. That is why we will live and you will die, and repeat your death again and again for eternity.
‘Tomorrow at the stroke of midnight, you and your neighbours will see that we do not lie. We refuse to rot in the earth, eaten by the maggots that live off our flesh and bone. We detest the living. It was the worshippers of God that cast us out and refuse to pay heed to our message. Our warning to kneel to the real master of this world - for there is no eternal life -and to obey his command.
‘Get out! Move away someplace else where the ground you walk upon is not that of someone’s grave, you despicable piece of shit. If you choose to do so, then you will live your life in the peace you desire. If you stay - there will be consequences. And they will be dire, for you and your neighbours.
‘Respect our wishes and we’ll make Jenna-Marie - the unfaithful wife - and that self-righteous son of a bitch, Fred Johnson pay for what they did to you in a five star hotel in Birmingham - which incidentally came out of your pay check - like you should’ve done when you knew what had been going on.
Joe was shaking from head to toe, unable to stop himself. Rage and fear pulsating through him at a high voltage ready to explode in a shower of glittering sparks.
They fornicated for three hours non-stop, going at like a couple of enthusiastic teenagers. She couldn’t get enough of his humongous male organ and, according to your cheating wife, unlike you Fred was much better than you ever were. How does it make you feel to know that the one thing you thought your marriage was good for was a nothing but lies and deception?’