Dark Winter: Trilogy

by Hennessy, John

  Beth nodded. She turned to go up the stairs, when her grandmother tugged her arm.

  “Beth, why don’t you wear this anymore?”

  In her hands was a small cross made of white gold. The chain was

  pure silver. Beth smiled and took it from her grandmother, thanked her, and went to her bedroom.

  She could hear Toril’s words. ‘What solace can be found amongst the bones of the dead?’

  Maybe no solace, no peace could be found. Here, in the daytime, Beth knew she could get through. The night was a different matter. It was where the demons fed off any remaining happiness she was desperate to hold onto.

  As she lay on the bed, she moved the cross and swung it like a pendulum, to the point that she felt sleepy. She clutched the cross, and in her mind, started to pray. Not a formal prayer like a Hail Mary, just a conversational request.

  “Okay God, here’s the deal. I won’t touch any more alcohol, and you give me back my sleep. Without the nightmares. The nightmares stop, okay? Deal?”

  As usual, there was no answer. God works in mysterious ways, she had often heard that. Beth suffered a bad nightmare at least once a week. They were getting more intense of late, more real.

  “God, just make them stop, will you? I will do whatever you want, just make them stop.”

  She coughed violently. The pain in her chest from where the zombie-girl, pretending to be Toril, had reached in, had worsened over time. Beth had taken to drinking shots at the local bar, sometimes with Toril, but they had not seen each other for a while now. The alcohol dulled the pain a little. Her teetotal grandmother was unlikely to understand.

  Beth began to feel uncomfortably hot, and unzipped her dress. As she stood up, the coughing got worse, and she threw her white dress to the floor. With her eyes bulging in her head, she coughed hard and a slew of blood expelled from her body, spoiling the dress. Beth rolled back onto the bed and clutched her stomach.

  Her white dress was ruined. But there was something good to take from all this. Her eyes began to feel very heavy, heavier than she could ever remember, and within a few seconds, she fell into the deepest sleep ever.

  “Beth,” the voices whispered, over and over again. Beth ignored the voices, because this was a good sleep. A deep sleep. She would not be disturbed from her slumber.

  One by one the chorus of voices petered out until only a single voice remained.

  “Beth…are you listening to me?”

  Beth’s eyes flickered whilst the voice she knew all too well continued. Her eyes closed fully once more.

  “Hey….Toril,” mumbled Beth into her pillow. “Can you stop them….stop the nightmares?”

  “Of course I can,” said Toril. “I’m much stronger now.”

  Beth had been relieved at the sound of a pleasant voice, but became more unsettled as Toril spoke.

  “Much stronger,” Toril reaffirmed.

  In her dream, nightmare, unconscious state – whatever you would like to call it, the warm, knowing vision of Toril began to unsettle Beth. She could feel Toril climbing up her body underneath the bedclothes, and Toril’s hands were soon on Beth’s shoulders, pinning her to the bed.

  “Toril…for God’s sake, what are you doing?”

  “There is no God. Not from where I come from,” said Toril. She yanked Beth with such force that she hurt her neck and, leaning back, revealed glistening silver fangs from her mouth.

  She sank them deeply into Beth’s neck, who woke up screaming. She checked her neck for any damage, but palpitations kicked in and she could not calm down. Having the presence of mind to know what to do in these circumstances, Beth grabbed a bag, closed it over her mouth, and breathed into it until her palpitation passed.

  Her grandmother could be heard running up the stairs.

  “The Lord be praised,” said her grandmother, “whatever is the matter with you, child?”

  “It wasn’t Toril…it wasn’t Toril…not her, she wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “You were having a nightmare. It’s over now, Bethany.”

  “I wish that were true, Gran.”

  “Pray to the Lord, read the good book. Lucifer can’t touch you then. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  Grandma Finn looked around Beth’s room, and hid her revulsion at the blood splattered dress.

  “Beth, maybe you need less rest. Nobody needs that kind of dreaming.”

  “I’ll sort it out Gran, okay? Just a nightmare, like you said.”

  “Maybe that’s all it was. But this is not your first bad dream, is it Beth? I’d tell you to go and see Doctor McGuinness if I thought it would do any good. When was your last confession?”

  “What?”

  “Your last confession, Beth. The Devil grows stronger with each test he sets for us. We go to confession so we can be stronger than him. Much stronger.”

  Much stronger, indeed, thought Beth.

  “I’m alright.”

  “If you say so, Beth. You’re eighteen, I can hardly tell you what to do. But look around this room, and still tell yourself that you’re alright. I’ll come back in a moment with some tea for you.”

  Beth nodded a thank you and her grandmother closed the door quietly.

  Beth grabbed her phone and looked my name up.

  “Damn you, Romilly, answer.”

  I wasn’t really in much of a position to answer.

  As Beth looked around her bedroom, she was sure she could see the image of Dana Cullen wearing her dress.

  “It’s the dress I was destined to wear,” said Dana, whose voice rang terrible in Beth’s ears, “but I’m happy to share it with you. Forever.”

  With fear overcoming her, Beth could no longer hold her phone as Dana moved towards her. Blood poured from Dana’s mouth and splattered on Beth’s bedspread. The crucifix above Beth’s headstand flew into Dana’s outstretched hand, who crushed it before slamming the pieces onto the bedroom floor.

  “Do you still think this is only a nightmare, Beth?”

  ***

  Grandma Finn found Beth cowering on her bedroom floor. She had seen this look before, when Beth had been the first in the family to find her home alight with flame. Hoping to God and all that is good that her parents weren’t in there, but knowing in her head that they were, and were no longer alive.

  “Beth, it’s alright.”

  “Stay away!!!” screamed Beth.

  “Bethany, please, listen to me. It’s alright. Just a bad a dream. I brought you some tea.”

  Beth sat up. The woman handing her the tea was not her grandmother. Her room looked different too, and there were bars on her window. Something was very wrong here. She sipped the tea, expecting it to be hot, but it had a tepid, lukewarm taste.

  “This tea is cold,” said Beth feebly. “Sure it is,” said the woman in a whatever else were you expecting? kind of tone. “You can’t have hot tea here. Might scold yourself, or worse, someone else. Can’t have that, no, no. Now be a good girl and drink up.”

  Beth drank the liquid. Where was her grandmother, and why were there bars on her window?

  “Who are you?” quizzed Beth.

  “Well, aren’t we impertinent this morning?” said the woman. “Who I am, is of no consequence to you. You are just to do as you’re told.”

  Beth stood up. Even her clothes were unfamiliar. She was wearing a white dress, almost floor length. Except it wasn’t a dress. It was the kind of all-in-one clothing that she wore at St Margaret’s Hospital. The kind of clothing she wore for six months after she went temporarily insane.

  There had to be a reason for this. She went to her door tried to open it, but found it locked. The woman looked at her as if to say ‘Now where would a nutjob like you be going?’

  Okay, I’m going to take deep slow breaths, just like Doctor McGuiness told me to, thought Beth. It will be fine.

  Beth got back into her bed.

  “Good,” said the woman. “Now. No funny business from you, and I won’t have to restr
ain you again, okay?”

  Again? When was the last time they did this?

  “Okay.”

  “Well. It seems you and I have an understanding. I’ll be back later with some tea.”

  The woman unlocked the door, and Beth could hear a click on the other side. Beth had accepted that, because she was good at picking locks, and could attempt a break out later. She would find her grandmother, and tell her about the horrid woman.

  Trying to focus, she recalled that she was using her phone when Dana, Toril, some kind of mash-up of the two, had attacked her. Whatever the Dana demon had said, it had been just a nightmare. This….what she was experiencing now, was a nightmare too.

  All that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream, isn’t that how the song goes?

  Maybe we place too much importance on what a dream is, what a nightmare is. They are just images in our head, Beth reasoned. She closed her eyes for what seemed like an age. On re-opening them, she could see that things were back to normal. Looking around, it was definitely her bedroom. There was a photo of herself with Toril and Jacinta placed was where it was supposed to be, and there were no bars on her window.

  “Phew, that was intense,” thought Beth, and rummaged around for her phone once more. She checked that she had actually called me, and the phone folder confirmed this. Beth believed I had decided not to answer for reasons known only to myself.

  The dreams, nightmares….whatever you would like to call them, Beth had had enough. She called the next name on her list, Toril, who also did not answer.

  “Hmmph!,” thought Beth. “Are we having an amnesty on answering phone calls or something?”

  “I’ll be having that, my girl,” said the woman, who had somehow returned.

  “What?” said Beth. “How did you get back in here?”

  Beth recoiled in horror as she saw the bars across the window again.

  “Don’t make me get the others to restrain you,” said the woman coldly, “and I will not ask you for that phone again.”

  Beth clutched the phone to her chest. It was the only real thing that made sense in this world. Beth could not tell if she was shifting back in time or not, through the real world or not. This place was back in her past though. This was St Margaret’s Hospital, which she now knew stood in ruins after the lunatics – sorry, patients, burned the place down, whilst killing many of themselves in the process.

  Beth had been an occupant of one of the beds, and so had Jacinta, for a while. The woman had a cold stare. Vacant, beetle-black eyes. A tight black uniform with a white scooped collar that looked as restrictive as she was. But this was not now…..this was years ago. If this was a dream of the most nightmarish kind, it would be over when Beth woke up. She really thought she was awake. Maybe the phone calls made were also a dream, she reasoned. There had to be some kind of logic that could be employed here. If she waited things out, she would be clear of it. She desperately wanted to see her Gran.

  One thing troubled her though. The cross was not above her bed. Then again, if this was St Margaret’s, she would not have been allowed a crucifix anyway.

  Her thoughts were broken by a curt voice.

  “I told you I wouldn’t ask you again!”

  The woman grabbed Beth’s arm, and Beth screamed out aloud. The pain was intense and went through her like acid, however it wasn’t all bad…when Beth came around, she was on her bed. Her own bed, with a warm, wrinkled, but reassuring hand stroking her hair.

  “It’s okay,” said Grandma Finn. “I heard you shouting and screaming.” I spilt some tea on your arm in all the commotion. I’m sorry about that. Are you okay, dear?”

  Beth looked up at her grandmother. “The tea…the tea was hot.”

  “Of course it was,” said her grandmother. “Wouldn’t do to give you cold tea now, would it? Bethany, you had a nightmare, alright? Why don’t you see Dr McGuiness, please? I’m sure he can give you something to put your mind at ease.”

  “Alright Gran,” said Beth, “Maybe I will.”

  ***

  Beth gulped down the tea whilst it was still hot, perhaps too quickly for her delicate throat, but staying in that bedroom wasn’t a good idea right now. She undressed and ran into the shower, electing to stay under the hot water until she felt properly cleansed.

  As the water cranked through the pipes, the heat at first startled Beth, but she kept the intensity on all the same. She gently massaged her scalp with shampoo, then whilst it settled into her hair, she washed her body thoroughly. She hadn’t been unclean at all, but the nightmares were making her perspire more than normal, and if no-one else noticed she did. The shower was making her feel much better. That woman…the woman from her nightmares….the woman who personified the strict wardens at the hospital….they could not get to her here. The shower room was safe.

  Beth gently washed the shampoo out of her hair, and shook the excess water off, before using conditioner. Some of the strands of her hair came out and hit the shower room floor. This was normal when her hair got a bit too long, a bit too out of control, but she felt something else as she massaged the back of her head.

  A hand. A clammy hand. A child-like hand.

  Beth’s heart rate pulsed. As she looked down, she saw strands of blonde hair, mixing with her own. Beth had flame red hair. The colour of the blonde hair was darkened by blood.

  Beth pushed the shower door open and crashed to the floor. Checking the back of her head with her hands, everything felt normal again. The shower water continued, until she could hear her grandmother saying to turn the ‘bloody thing off if you’re not using it’.

  So much for not cursing in a Catholic household, thought Beth.

  Talking to her grandparents about what she had seen and felt would not go down well. They had accepted long ago that their daughter and Beth’s mother had died in a house fire. An accident. Whether Don Curie, Michael Dean, or the Devil himself had been culpable, the fact remained, they were gone.

  “They haven’t been back to tell us, have they Beth,” Grandma Finn said one day, “so you can be content that their souls rest in peace. I won’t live out the rest of my years fighting wars that can’t be won.”

  Beth dried herself off, and managed to open the shower door, hoping that the water had washed the bloodied blonde hair away.

  “That’s where you and I disagree, Gran,” said Beth. “I just cannot bear to live like that.”

  Beth slipped into a black dress with a white collar, a 1960s style like in Mad Men. She wore her thickest black stockings and pulled on her boots before up-doing her hair with a black scrunchie.

  She went heavier with her eye-liner and pausing to look in the mirror briefly, if it wasn’t for her flame red hair, she could look for all the world like Toril.

  Toril would know what to do.

  Beth made no attempt to stifle her sighs and paced up and down her bedroom floor whilst calling Toril who did not answer her phone.

  “What is going on?” said Beth. “No Milly, no Toril, am I just alone in this world with Dana and some crazy tea maid for company?! Feckity-feck.”

  As the expletive came out, she looked at the cross above her bed. “Forgive me Lord, I have sinned. But I don’t know what to do.”

  Getting dressed had been the easy part. Beth sank to her knees beside her bed and prayed for something, some kind of message to come through. A message of hope, a message that told her she wasn’t going crazy. A message that her friends were okay.

  Prayer is an odd thing. I’m not sure if it truly worked for Beth, but that day, she resolved to do something, and it wasn’t to go see her doctor.

  “He can’t help me, not with this,” said Beth to herself. “I have to sort this out myself.”

  She grabbed a package which had been in her wardrobe for far too long. Since she had come into contact with it, her life had taken a considerable turn for the worse. It was time to do something about it.

  Turning the handle on her door, the feeling was of great reli
ef as she heard the click of the latch. She had freed herself from the room and the nightmares she had been having. Shutting it behind her, she said to herself that I’ve been in here far too long.

  Grandma Finn met her at the foot of the stairs. “Dear Lord, Beth. You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

  To her grandmother, Beth answered, “It’s just winter clothes, Gran. I thought I’d take a walk, you know, get some fresh air.”

  “It’s freezing out there! You’ll get your end of cold, I’m telling you.”

  “It’s fine, really Gran, it’s fine.”