Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  Curie thought he could make out the silhouette of Redwood in the distance, but in reality he was still some miles away.

  As he was about to pass out, of all the periods of his life that he would have chosen to reminisce about, the first time he killed would not have been top of the list.

  Yet it is here that we find ourselves.

  Sometimes Curie had stayed there for days, sometimes for weeks, whilst the latest drama in the town died down. He stopped eating food when there was fresh young meat to eat.

  He hadn’t meant to kill the boy, just he had been out looking for deer when he came back to Redwood, only to find two young lads trashing the place. One ran away, but only got so far being getting caught in one of Curie’s rope traps.

  The other bashed his head on the door-frame trying to get past Curie, and blood splashed on the old man’s face. He tried to help the boy, and stop him running, but he took it the wrong way and pushed Curie out of the way. Curie then found that he liked the taste of blood – a curious feeling, no doubt about that, and instead of letting the boy go, he picked up his axe and buried it into his body, and chopped him into eleven pieces.

  He cooked an arm first, then a leg, and remarked that, as he ate, how human meat reminded him of pork.

  As time passed, he ate the rest of him, and his friend as well.

  Then Curie sat in a corner of Redwood, wailing for days. No-one would hear his screams, so deep in the forest. Black shadowy shapes would encircle the cabin, waiting for Curie to leave. There was no light outside of Redwood. From Curie’s viewpoint, it looked like the Moon itself had been snatched out of the sky.

  Through the madness came a moment of clarity. He thought he had secured the door, but of course, you cannot keep evil out. She entered, but not with a bang; as you might have expected.

  All Curie saw was a red apple, with a chunk bitten out of it, rolling towards him on the floor. It left blood stains as it approached him. He tried to move out of the way of the apple, but it followed him around, forcing him to get up and run into the bedroom.

  That’s when Dana grabbed him by the neck and pinned him to the bed.

  He grabbed her arm but it snapped off in his hand.

  "So,” Dana purred wickedly. "You like kids, do you? Well, you’re going to love me."

  Curie tried to talk but Dana kept the pressure on his neck. Her damaged limb, meanwhile, had grown back.

  "What do you want?" Curie screamed.

  Dana opened her mouth and blood splattered on to Curie’s face and into his throat.

  "Drink," she said.

  Curie’s body writhed in agony as Dana removed her grip on his neck.

  "What have you done to me?" he cried.

  "Nothing worse than what you have done to yourself," said Dana, rubbing a bloodied apple on her dress. "Here." Dana tossed him a rope. "Do yourself a favour, and do it quick. You are dead now, anyway. In eternal damnation, you will service me."

  "You want me to kill myself? Are you crazy?"

  "I’m not the one who chopped up two boys with an axe and then ate them. Maybe your definition of crazy differs from mine."

  Curie held the rope in his hands. "I-I can’t do it."

  "Because you are weak, and a coward."

  "Y-yes."

  "A killer, too."

  "Yes, and God knows what else I have become."

  Dana burned her eyes into Curie. "There is no God, where I come from. Only Him. The Master. You might know him as Diabhal. You’ve been chosen to carry on his work."

  "What work?"

  "To continue what has been started."

  "I won’t do it."

  "You have no choice. Use the rope, or service me. In the end, your soul is damned anyway. Unless-"

  “Unless what?” shouted Curie; with a sliver of hope returning to his voice.

  "Unless you can find something for me. Well, he wants it. Some kind of Nether weapon. I have no use for such things. It’s a Mirror. An old friend of mine had it, and well, many years have passed since that time. No-one knows where it is now."

  "A Mirror? Is that it? What’s in it for you?"

  Dana smiled. "Do you think I was always like this? No. I was a normal girl, playing happily with my friend, in Gorswood, when I came upon this…..place."

  "Redwood," said Curie.

  "We know it by another name, but yes, the one and the same. I found the Mirror, here. My friend….it’s been so long now, I don’t recall her name, but anyway, she told me not to touch anything that didn’t belong to me. I didn’t heed her words, and much like you, when you say you accidentally killed that boy, and then his friend, my soul was damned."

  "You are still paying the price for taking a mirror?" said Curie. "I don’t understand."

  "I expect you don’t," said Dana. "This is all new to you, but old to me. Anyway, he got me, and told me that he would spare my life if I did his bidding. But it was a trick. I have been here ever since. But his power has diminished over time, and now, there is a chance for me to return to the life I once had."

  "Isn’t your soul damned?" Curie could not believe the normalcy of the conversation he was having with this demon.

  "Yes, it is," said Dana, plainly. "But to live out my days as I intended them to, would be worth it, even if it meant that when I died in the human world, I would return to his keep. I could bear with that."

  "How can you possibly return to the life you had?"

  "Oh, that’s the easy part. You are the key. You must kill thirteen people in order to free me."

  "That’s insane. How could I get away with that?"

  "Because I will help you. You can summon me by dropping blood onto a white rose, or by using this doll. It’s a replica of me. I can then kill anyone who is a problem…for you."

  "Why don’t you just kill them yourself?" said Curie, feeling more than a bit indignant.

  "That’s not part of my agreement with him."

  "How do you know he will release you? You said he tricked you before."

  "Oh, Curie. Don’t you see? Without the Mirror in his possession, his power is diminished, and it diminishes further by every passing hour. I can now set some of the terms, not him. But you will carry out his work, nonetheless."

  "You can’t make me."

  "No, perhaps I cannot. But if you do not, he will send the Zerythra to you. They are the undead zombie-girls. You will castrate yourself before they are through with you. Without the Mirror, you won’t be able to stop them. If only you possessed it, you could trap them."

  "So what do I need you for? I can find this Mirror, trap any of these zombie-whores, and while I’m at it, you as well."

  "No."

  "No?" laughed Curie, for the first time in an age. "Why ever not?"

  "Because, except for him, the Mirror can only ever be used by a female entity. That rules you out."

  "I don’t believe you."

  "That is irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is that you heed me regardless. Once you killed those boys, your life, if you could call it that, was finished. Kill just eleven more, and I will be free. But at least in this life, with my protection, you can live out the life you want."

  Ten years had passed, and he had not seen Dana again until Beth O’Neill had summoned her to kill him.

  ***

  That was how it all began. Curie went from accidental killer to a methodical, sadistic murderer. A living, breathing monster. It just opened up a side of him, that, who knows, had probably been there all along. Dana had saved his life, and now all he existed for, was to kill for her, again and again.

  Taking his axe, he waited in the school and butchered four children to death who were just having an after school chess club.

  Beth O’Neill was supposed to be next, but her parents were at home when he broke into the house. He doused their bed with petrol and then set it alight.

  Five kills remained. He hatched a plan to get Toril Withers, Jacinta Crow, Troy Jackson, and me, into his home, and kill us. He wa
sn’t forgetting Beth either. He wanted to put her out of her misery.

  Troy was a bonus of course. Under the guise of Diabhal, Curie had visited with Toril, Jacinta and Beth before – when the ‘stupid wiccan whore’ had messed around with a ouija board. He tried to kill her back then, and failed.

  He had also targeted me, and my parents, Ronald and Daphne Winter. Two Will Die, he had said. But of course, thirteen had to die, in order to release Dana. Tonight was supposed to be it. Killing all five of us would have put him over his target, but he had failed.

  When Toril used the Mirror, Beth and I were saved. The price? Two of Diabhal’s zombie –girls, the Zerythra, were released, and they would not stop until Curie was dead, along with the rest of us.

  ***

  "What a mess," said Troy. "There’s blood and skin, and bits of rat, everywhere."

  "Here," said Toril, handing him a broom.

  "Why me?"

  "Because I have to help the girls. You can help me by -oh !!" Toril clutched her head in pain.

  "Withers, what’s up?"

  Toril was spinning. Or perhaps more accurately, the room was spinning. Troy grabbed her by the shoulders and sat her down. "Too much information," she said.

  "I didn’t know you were squeamish," said Troy. "Sorry about that."

  Toril was not squeamish though. What she meant by too much information was that she could hear people’s thoughts, with perfect clarity. Perhaps because of her encounter with the Mirror, some new ability within her had been realised. The Mirror was more than able to trap souls and return others. Nan was right – it affected different people in different ways.

  To Toril, it felt like she was having the worst headache ever. Her eyes bulged in her head, and the veins on her temple stood out like tree branches, angry that they had been awoken.

  Her temperature raced upwards, and she clutched the back of her head, and murmured "It’s not a headache. Help me, Troy!"

  Troy could not help Toril though. All he could do, was be there, and try to calm her down. There was too much to do, too many things to sort. He didn’t have Toril’s cool head for situations like this.

  Whilst I was still getting my legs to try and move, Beth slowly stood up. She looked at me, and placed her hands on my legs. I felt a warmth spread through me as she did so.

  She walked over to where Toril and Troy were sitting, and placed her hand on Toril’s forehead.

  "Beth, what the f-" said Troy.

  "Shh," said Beth. "I’m trying to fix something."

  Beth murmured to herself. She closed her eyes tight, and Toril, who had been lying on her side, started to feel something again, and sat upright.

  "My head hurts so bad. Pain."

  "I know," said Beth. "Let me find it, okay? Just relax."

  "Oh!" Toril breathed. "That’s it, right there."

  "Feel better?"

  "Yes. Yes, I do! What did you do?"

  "I don’t know," said Beth. "I just wanted to help. I thought if I can put my hands where you’re hurting the most, I could help. But I feel a bit sick, a bit dizzy now."

  "You felt my pain then. But I do feel better, thanks Beth. Will you be alright?"

  "I think so, it’ll pass. I shouldn’t moan. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you."

  "Do you know what happened to you?" asked Troy.

  "The details are a bit hazy, but you can fill me in later."

  Beth turned to look around. "Are we all okay? Romilly? Jay?"

  I did feel alright, it was almost like the physical pain had gone, but the emotional scars…I doubted that they would ever heal.

  Jacinta was still doubled up on the floor. Beth went over to her and placed her hands on her stomach, instantly easing her pain. “Wow,” said Jacinta. “That’s amazing. How do you do it?”

  Beth shrugged her shoulders. "I really don’t know how it works. But I think I’ve got my faith back. Hey Milly, do you think I can get my cross back?"

  "I’ll get you a new one," I said.

  The upside down cross that Curie had carved into Beth’s back, had begun to fade.

  ***

  Spring gave way to Summer. I had hoped that the closeness that had thrust me, Beth, Toril, Jacinta and Troy together, could have survived. But there was just too much hurt, too much pain. Things couldn’t bring us closer together, because they reminded us constantly of the terrible things we had gone through.

  I lifted right out of the group. I lived much further away than Beth, Toril and Jacinta. Even Troy lived just three roads away from Toril, and word had it that they were still seeing each other anyway.

  I had no time for love in my life, and yet, this really hurt. The phone calls had all but stopped from Beth too. So much for a resurgence of our friendship.

  I could hold no grudge against Jacinta. After all, she’d been through enough in her life. The strange healing ability Beth had picked up after the encounter with Curie, when he failed to release the five Zeryths, had continued. She’d even fixed Jacinta’s hair temporarily, so it went back to its original blonde. I only found out about this by being on-line and checking one of Toril’s Wiccan forums.

  So Beth was realising some abilities of her own. I would have hoped she would have looked me up some time, perhaps as a kindred spirit, you might say.

  It seemed like fate, that I was destined to spend my sixteenth birthday alone, in Rosewinter, and it seemed that the girls and Troy had moved on. I would have to do so too.

  Unwanted Visions

  Curie lay with the left side of his face in the snow. The extreme cold wasn’t really a bad thing, because it helped to numb the pain in his leg. This winter was going to be a bad one, and he hoped not to be around for the next one.

  Still, the killing would be at an end, and compared to Gacey, Dahmer, Shipman, he was an amateur. He hadn’t killed that many, and it had all been under duress anyway, right? Try telling these grease-balled judges that.

  If there was a God, which he had spent his entire life believing that no such entity existed, he hoped that such a being would meet him on the Other Side.

  He figured that he could endure anything, anything at all except eternity with Diabhal. To think – to know, that there are worse things than the Devil chilled him now.

  Evil does exist, but not in the way people think. It’s too easy to say Heaven is all light and Hell is fire. That’s too simple. Playground stuff for dummies.

  No. There was another true evil, and would claim Curie this day.

  It’s a funny thing, dying. I know, because I’ve been there. Been through the void. Because of Curie, I know exactly what dying felt like.

  If he could trade a soul, however, he could save his miserable existence. It didn’t pass for what others might call a life.

  Then he saw something that might just do that. A single white rose, bent over double with the weight of the snow, came into view.

  He sank his teeth into the fleshy part of his hand, biting deep enough to draw blood. He didn’t know if it would be enough to summon Dana, but he had to try.

  Maybe she would kill him finally. I mean, why not? He was just another pawn in the game to her. At least with Dana, it would be quick. He’d survived the last time only because he served a purpose to her. Usually, her method of killing left the unfortunate soul with their spine ripped from their back, the throat slashed open by her wand, and the point of that same wand would be used to burst the eyeballs in her victim’s head.

  Finally, she would get out her skipping rope and jump up and down on the corpse, with blood and entrails and bone sloshing about everywhere.

  Curie knew all about that. He’d seen her do it to Aaron Noone.

  What else then? Wait for the Zeryth? Or the Erinyes? If anything, they were not as vicious as Dana, in the killing sense of things. They were efficient. They would just snap your neck like it was a twig. Separating spine from brain stem, it meant instant death.

  I could live with that, he laughed to himself.

&nb
sp; Perhaps he could, only for the fact that if the Zeryth killed you, you belonged to Diabhal, because They serviced only him.

  Curie knew he was damned, any which way you called it.

  Thirteen kills and Dana could be released. That was her only agenda. Diabhal – his agenda was different. He got others to do the killing for him, and he’d claim your soul whether you failed or succeeded.

  Dana had said that without the Mirror, his power was diminished. Was she telling the truth?

  No need to flip a coin, even if I had one, thought Curie.

  With his last fleeting bit of energy, he rolled over towards the white rose, smeared its petals in his blood, and waited for her to come.