Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  It could be that I think things over too much. It could be that the Mirror of Souls has affected me for far too long. It could be that I have convinced myself that everything will work out just fine. There’s a strong chance I’m just playing tricks on myself and those around me.

  There is a very strong chance things will not work out fine.

  There’s a very strong chance that the Demon inside me will win.

  I hope to God I am wrong.

  I plant this tree with some aversion,

  As nature controls her own reversion,

  When reversion is completed,

  All those lives will be deleted.

  Whoever cuts or harms the tree,

  Will likewise suffer some adversity.

  - A local Midlands curse.

  1 Corinthians 15:51

  Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

  Luke 22:3

  Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was of the number of the twelve.

  Revelation 12:4

  His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.

  Prologue

  49 years ago.

  His eyes were black. Not his pupils. His eyes. Only five years old, and Donald Curie was making people scream. The boys had blindfolded the girl; an innocent game of kiss-chase. In this regard, Donald was a boy typical for his age. He didn’t really want to kiss the girl the group had caught for him.

  He had a surprise for her in his small hand. Something that was doing all it could to emerge.

  Hold her still, Joey, he’d say. Joey would guffaw and say yes, that he would hold her still. Not that blonde-curled, eyes-as-large-as milk-bottle tops Janey Reid was fighting it. She liked kiss-chase. She giggled as she could make out the shape of the boy in front of her. Her friends were pushing her forward gently towards Donald, unaware of the event unfolding in his head.

  He took one smile at Joey, opened his hand, then shoved the hairy spider into Janey’s mouth and used his two fingers under her chin to push her jaw shut.

  He laughed, but no-one else did. Not Joey. Not Janey’s girlfriends. Least of all, Janey, who vomited into the tall grass.

  A teacher, Mr Daniels, grabbed Donald by the shoulders and ordered a supervisor to tend to Janey, who by now was an unattractive mix of vomit, tears and red-rimmed eyes. Not to mention the hairs of the spider’s legs which clung to her lips and chin. He uttered no words to the boy, because Mr Daniels wanted rid of him. Not to another school, not even to the police. He wanted rid of the boy with the black eyes and empty expression. Talking with the boy’s mother, Mrs Eloisa Curie, was certain to be a waste of time.

  Mr Daniels knew, because this would not be the first time he had locked horns with the parents of wayward children.

  Wayward would be easy to deal with. A fairground ride. This child, he was convinced, was as close to total and utter evil in a human being as you could possibly get. He had said as much to Eloisa Curie on the previous occurrence of Donald’s special brand of playground fun.

  “His eyes are black, Mrs Curie. I don’t see any kindness, anything good. No sense of compassion for his classmates. It’s not school policy to pry-”

  “Then pray, Mr Daniels. Do not pry,” interrupted Eloisa curtly.

  “I must.” Mr Daniels, Bernard to Donald, who thought the portly teacher’s first name was hilarious, spoke hurriedly to avoid another interruption. Eloisa Curie was 5’1” tall, wore her hair in a bun, dressed in imitation Chanel suits from China, and spoke her words like a diamond cutting glass. She would not have her boy criticised, especially by some breast-groping middle-aged fatso who would go on strike at the drop of a hat if his union said so. Bloody socialists always wanting a free lunch, thought Eloisa scornfully.

  “Any history of abuse at home, Mrs Curie? Where is Mr Curie? We cannot afford a repeat of this kind of incident.” The words came out, rapid-fire style, as if the speed would lessen the intensity of the statement. It didn’t.

  Eloisa smoothed the crease in her skirt and crossed her legs. Her chest knitted closer together, and Bernard’s eyes glimmered with delight as her breasts pushed upwards by the slightest of notches.

  Have a good gawp, you bald-headed bastard, thought Eloisa.

  “No abuse. Mr Curie died whilst on a training exercise with the RAF. He was due to be discharged this year.” She took a breath. “There will not be a repeat of this kind of incident.”

  Understanding the limitation of his powers, Mr Daniels let her statement conclude matters. That would be his official report to the Head, along with a letter of apology to Janey Reid’s parents, where he would allude to a typical schoolboy prank and hope you will accept the School’s apology and assurances that this event will not be repeated.

  The reality of the meeting’s conclusion was the sight of Eloisa Curie standing up stiffly and leaving the Year Head’s room once the word incident had left her thin lips, which had a tint of rouge. Her stilettos hammered the school floor with purposeful intent. She wanted to show these upstarts at the school she was better than them. Donald was complex, yes. But a good boy. She had no doubt about that. He was just misunderstood. He would grow out of…whatever this was.

  As she drove back home, she knew the routine would play out as it had done so before. Donald would do his wide-eyed, lost puppy routine, Eloisa would wilt, and give in once again.

  “I’m sorry, Mum. And I’ll say sorry to Janey tomorrow too.”

  Eloisa pitied her son. She knew he was fighting some kind of demon. The kind of demons the school teachers couldn’t deal with. The unseen kinds of demon are the worst. They don’t look back at you in the mirror, but you know they’re there. Eloisa had spoken with the new priest at the church, a young man by the name of Fr Brannigan.

  Whilst they were talking, Donald’s face convulsed, and he uttered curses that would make the girls at the Meowsa Gentlemen’s Club, opposite the church; blush redder than a London bus, with their gasps falling into stunned silence when they realised it was a five-year-old boy shouting Tonight you’ll be raped by Satan, and bitch you better enjoy it.

  “Your son’s behaviour isn’t normal, Eloisa. As your friend, I sometimes might have to say things that are uncomfortable for you to hear.” Cathy Tudor meant well, but it was the last thing Eloisa wanted to hear whilst the two women waited for the school day to end, so that they could collect their children.

  Cathy was scared of Donald Curie. Eloisa spun around to challenge her, but as she came to a full stop, she chose her words carefully. “He is only five years of age, and what boy hasn’t played pranks? I’m not defending his actions, just…just see it for what it is, Cath. Don’t blow things out of proportion. He’s always been polite to you, hasn’t he?”

  Cathy was scared of Donald Curie. “Polite he may be. Street angel, house devil, is what he is, though.”

  Donald was only five years old, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t dangerous. He’d had a brother. Malcolm when he did good, Malky when he did really good. But the older boy was still Number-One-Son to Eloisa, even though parents aren’t supposed to have favourites. She’d spoiled Donald rotten too. But that was never enough. He wanted to be Number One.

  Donald was lying in bed when it happened. There was a flutter behind the curtain, but the house was old and drafty, so he paid scant attention to it. It was a summer’s evening, but the temperature in the room was dropping fast.

  The shapes that appeared above his bed could have been explained away as a child’s overactive imagination. He tried to ignore them, and turned his head to the side on the pillow. There were two of those, but they were thinning. Number-One-Son always had three.

  Eyes looked back at him, so he pulled the duvet up above his head and breathed hard. In the blackness where the bottom of his legs would be, two luminous lights concentrated on him.
Blue lights.

  He could feel something on his bare feet. Strands of hair, perhaps. But they didn’t have the scent or feel of his mother when she would hug him. They felt clotted, uneven. Dead.

  A hand, now. At least, it felt like one. It pressed a bony finger behind his knee, and Donald let out a scream. But Eloisa wouldn’t hear. His mother was a heavy sleeper. She was good at sleeping, since the settlement from the divorce came through. A little white lie that would be lost on the likes of Mr Daniels, and she hadn’t cared to enlighten him about that.

  Any regular sleep pattern evaporated when she had fallen pregnant. Malcolm had been born weighing seven pounds and one ounce, and right on time. Donald had been born weighing just four pounds and eight ounces, a full nine weeks ahead of schedule.

  The ultrasound showed Malcolm’s pattern, no problem there. Donald’s image continued to escape and confound the doctors, who in the end said Maybe it’s a phantom pregnancy, Mrs Curie.

  Eloisa told them that a woman knows when she’s pregnant, and to not belittle my intelligence.

  When he was born, Donald was a sickly child. The doctors were not sure if he would survive the first twenty-four hours. At one point, his temperature dropped so much that his lips turned blue. The doctors were about to give Eloisa Curie the bad news, when Donald rat-tat-tapped the incubator with his stubby little fingers, giving the doctors the same, cold, dead-eyed stare for which he would later become infamous.

  “Better, er….let her know he’s um, alright,” said the main doctor, who had seen a lot of babies over his time, but none that gave him the chills in the way that this boy did.

  Malcolm possessed none of the authority an older brother is supposed to have over a younger sibling. When Donald demanded a new pillow, Malcolm disagreed. So whilst the boy was sleeping, Donald crept into his room, and placed his own, thinning pillow over his brother’s face. Donald was clearly getting his strength from somewhere. Malcolm’s arms flailed wildly as he tried to push his brother away, but it was to no avail.

  Donald lifted the pillow up from his brother’s face, whose body no longer stirred. He then went into the next room, and fell asleep, until the screams from his mother woke him up.

  “Donald! Don-aaaaaald!”

  He knew that kind of Donald meant he was in trouble. He wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with his mother. He left his room silently with the object in his back pocket.

  Don’t make me do this, Eloisa.

  It didn’t even seem strange to Donald to utter his mother’s name. He didn’t have to push open the door, because it was already ajar. To Donald, his brother looked strange.

  “Is he not moving?” asked Donald innocently.

  His mother turned around, parked herself on the bed, and dug her fingers into her knees. “No, he’s not moving, Donald. Now was it you?”

  “What? Was what me?”

  “Was it you? I know it was you, Donald. Now tell me, it was you.” Each word sounded like a meat cleaver that was severing chunks of meat from its bone.

  Donald started grinding his teeth like a horse. “He-he was moving, then, he wasn’t moving. I don’t know. I don’t know Mum.”

  “I want to believe you are not what they say you are. I want to believe you are a good, if troubled child. But I can’t do this anymore Donald. You killed him. You killed your own brother.”

  Eloisa Curie then wailed in the sort of manner that would trouble Donald Curie well into his adulthood. Any time he would hear a woman cry like that, he would be reminded of his mother. Just for that moment, it would almost be successful in stopping him from doing….whatever he would be doing to some unfortunate soul. Almost.

  Eloisa thought Donald was crying into her shoulder, when she realised her back felt wet. He had crept behind her whilst she cried, and plunged the knife between her shoulder blades. As he withdrew the knife, she turned around to face him in a futile attempt to stop him. His was a strength far superior to her own, and she was unable to stop the blade as he hurled it like a dart towards her throat. It buried itself so deep that the tip could be seen from the back of her neck.

  Several days must have passed before neighbours sensed something was wrong, and Donald Curie was taken away by the authorities, repeating how his brother and mother ‘had been moving, but now they’ve stopped….moving.’

  It would be a full seventeen years before he would see the outside world once again.

  The Selena Triangle

  Forty-six years earlier.

  “There!” said Maxton Winter. “It’s done! What do you think, Marie? It’s terrific, isn’t it? Our very own summer house!”

  My Nan surveyed the new wood-cabin, the project that had taken my granddad five long months to complete.

  “Well,” said Nan, knocking hard on the wooden structure, “it seems more than strong enough to me.”

  Max jumped down onto the ladder that had been propped up by the first roof. “Could you be more underwhelmed, Marie? It’s taken me ages to build this.”

  “It’s another of your hair brained ideas,” said Marie. “Why in God’s name would you build a wood-cabin here? Here - of all places?”

  Max Winter shrugged wearily at his wife. “You’re not still going on about the crazy house, are you? It’s miles away from here.”

  “Don’t you dare call it that,” said Maria, curtly. “The name is Saint Margaret’s Hospital, and the inhabitants are more to be pitied than laughed at. For the record, it’s no more than a mile and a half away. A mile and a half, Max.”

  “I thought you’d be pleased. The summers are really nice here, and the woods look great in the Autumn. This really is the best location.”

  My Nan knew her husband, and my grandfather, had worked extremely hard on the project. She also knew that he had done it for her, to make her happy.

  “It will outlive us both, Maria, a wood-cabin like this. Something to pass onto Selena when she grows up.”

  “Her name is Daphne.”

  “Now, now, don’t start that again. I’ve always liked that name, and that is what I will call her. I told you that I don’t believe in those scare stories.”

  What my Nan was being accused of starting was her insistence that their daughter, who was to become my mother, would not be referred to by her original birth name of Selena, after three girls bearing that name were abducted, tortured, and God only knows what else.

  Their mutilated bodies were found, the hair of one girl tied around the ankles of another, and the third shackled in the same manner, forming a rigid, macabre triangular shape.

  It was my Nan’s turn to act wearily. “It’s not a scare story, Max. Those poor girls were murdered, their stomachs hollowed out with a hatchet axe. You do remember the trial, don’t you?”

  Her husband decided to stay mute. “They were all called Selena,” my Nan continued.

  “Yes,” said my granddad. “Then they locked the murderer up, and later he killed himself.”

  “You know as well as I do that he didn’t kill himself.”

  “Another of your scare stories, Marie. Do stop it now.”

  When the prison officers found the killer’s body, the name of Diabhal was found carved into the killer’s arm and an inverted cross had been carved into his back. My Nan knew the story well, and even though Selena was the official name of my mother, and the one on the birth certificate, my Nan chose the rather bland name of Daphne, thinking it would keep the demons away.

  At least, that’s what she thought she could do. My mother was unable to outrun her fate, and in the end, Dana Cullen got to her, not in life, but in death. I cannot fight Dana, nor do I wish to. My mum and my Nan would not want that for me. I always knew that one day, I would have to leave Gorswood. That day is coming much sooner than I think.

  Jeannie

  Eight years ago.

  Fifty-five year old toy shop assistant Jeannie Marsh was looking forward to closing the shop for another night. Business had been rather slow, and the manager had l
aid a lot of people off. At her age, she was glad to have a job. A familiar sight approached the counter.

  “Mr Curie! It’s always a pleasure to see you here. So what are you buying today?”

  “I thought it would be nice to try something new. You know, I’ve been the caretaker at Gorswood High for eleven years now. Was thinking of doing something that might bring in some extra income, you know?”

  “Oh?” said the sales assistant. “I thought you liked it there?”

  “Well. It’s a living,” said Don Curie, smiling. “All the same, a man needs a hobby.”