by Nick Brown
“But I know where you are, little Ed. I could call on you any time, and perhaps I will when you’re alone at night. Would you like that? Do you play with yourself when you think of me; my father used to.”
“Lisa, please, you must stop this nonsense at once. Tell me where you are so I can inform your father. This act has really gone far enough.”
Then the line seemed to be interrupted by background sounds like a radio station shifting its frequency, white noise or static, a wind rushing. Lisa started to speak again, she sounded different.
“Ed, I think that something’s…”
Then the voice changed and he heard the other voice again but this time much louder. He was sure now it was a chant or ritual dirge, like no other he’d heard, in a language he couldn’t understand. Some kind of warped mantra; constantly repeating, the voice growing in harshness and malevolence. He stood trembling, holding the phone, unable to either speak or put down the handset, caught frozen in the spell of the voice. It grew in volume becoming increasingly shrill and disturbed until, with the start of a shriek, it was abruptly cut off, leaving Ed listening to the rushing wind noise until the phone went dead. He continued listening to the dialling tone until with a lurch he threw down the handset. He shakily filled the whisky tumbler and downed it in one then refilled it and sat slumped at the table.
In the early hours of the morning Mary woke to find her husband missing and his side of the bed cold. She went downstairs to find him. There was a light on in the kitchen and the sound of a voice. On the table an empty bottle and in the armchair hunched up with his hands clasped behind his knees rocking backwards and forwards was Ed. His lips were moving as he repeated over and over again,
“Most merciful Father protect us, God have mercy on us, deliver us from evil.
CHAPTER 18
SOMETHING WICKED
On his way to Lindow Giles stopped at an expensive, pleased-with-itself wine merchant. The assistant wearing a long apron and white shirt reminded him of a waiter in a Parisian bistro but was far more attentive and, before Giles could regain control of the situation, had persuaded him to part with £39 for a bottle of Amarone. Giles wondered if this was an entirely suitable offering for a first meal with a woman he hardly knew designed to discuss events that disturbed them both and for which he was responsible. Ten minutes later still smarting at the cost of the wine he parked up in the nearest space to the cottage he could find noticing that cars already parked had accumulated a thick rime of frost. It was December but he’d not got used to the rapid grip of the cold that followed the seemingly endless summer. Shivering he turned up the garden path to the front door.
Claire opened the door, pecked him on the cheek, an encouraging start, then led him into the large single room that along with the kitchen occupied the whole ground floor. Again he was relaxed by the aura of the house, the soft lighting and candles and the smell of spice and lemons. She was wearing an ankle length white cashmere dress over soft leather boots and he noticed that her hair was newly washed and slightly perfumed. A small circular dining table was laid for two at the back of the room beyond the fireplace where split logs were blazing.
“Sorry about running off and leaving you last time Giles. Ah, Amarone, that’s a very generous accompaniment to a light supper, or perhaps you were expecting something more?”
She took the bottle from him with a light, slightly brittle, laugh and moved through to the kitchen. He watched, admiring the way the dress emphasised the curves and suppleness of her body. She returned with a glass of white wine for him.
“Here, drink this whilst the Amarone breathes. Cheap but acceptable and don’t worry, I’m not going to drug you like I did last time.”
They ate the meal, a plate of vegan antipasto then a fragrant risotto, against a backdrop of light, forced conversation punctuated by embarrassing silences. But, by the time it was finished and half the bottle of Amarone had been drunk out of beautiful hand blown goblets, Giles felt more relaxed. They left the table and its candles to finish the wine sitting on a sofa in front of the fire.
“I’ve left the disc with a friend in Shrewsbury. He says it’s toxic but thinks whatever possessed it has moved on. Now he wants you to arrange for him to meet the girl.”
“What girl?”
“The photographer, of course, the one who went into the tomb alone and came out changed.”
“Why, why would he need to see Lisa? Listen she’s disturbed enough as it is, she had a history of mental breakdown before all this started. In fact the photography was meant to be some kind of therapy. I’d leave her alone.”
As he spoke he remembered Jim’s description of Lisa on the night of the party.
“Giles it’s really important we see her. Marcus thinks there’s a strong link between her negative energy, the opening of the tomb and the disc. You said yourself the disc re-formatted itself on the day of the excavation, that’s what brought you here the first time remember? Whatever’s been seeping out over the centuries polluting Skendleby is now free. We know it’s on the disc but where else is it? Think about it, your photographer’s the obvious target: a damaged, empty shell, nothing but negative energy, she’d offer no resistance: the perfect host for a psychic parasite. We have to get to her before it can fully settle in and gather strength.”
“I think you’re too late.”
His memory played the few seconds of film on Lisa’s camera. The brief image of two figures and then Lisa’s slow dislocated shuffling dance. Jim was right; they should all stay clear of this.
“Giles, listen to me, Giles, what do you mean too late?”
“Sorry, Claire, she’s undergone some type of change, not that she was ever stable. The other night she tried to seduce Jim then nearly bit his ear off. I saw the marks and…”
He stopped, wondering what to say next.
“And what Giles: what else is there?”
“Well, when she was in the chamber her camera was shooting footage and there’s a clip that looks like two women, Lisa and someone else, someone like you, dancing then merging. The camera was probably faulty but…”
She cut him off.
“The camera wasn’t faulty and you know it. Oh God, what have you done?”
“I should have listened to you at the site.”
“Yes you should, I told.........”
She stopped herself and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Sorry. No, it’s as much my fault: I had the warnings but I didn’t want to believe them, I should have acted quicker. But now it’s happened; I think I realised that as soon as I saw the look in her eyes when she left the tomb. We just have to wait and hope she’s too disorientated to do anything yet.”
Giles said nothing; they both sipped their wine.
“Giles, you need to come back here tomorrow and talk to this damaged ex-priest I know.”
“Sounds a really attractive offer.”
“No, I’m serious.”
She came to a stop. Giles stayed silent. Life seemed to have lost all the rules that make it normal. He sat next to her on the sofa and noticed that her shoulders were shaking, she was silently crying. He poured the last of the Amarone into their glasses and they sat staring into the fire as they finished the wine. Then as there was nowhere to go and nothing they could do they began to kiss.
***
Giles woke early in the morning, he’d slept badly: an unfamiliar bed and two people unused to sharing it. Outside it was dark, no sound of traffic, too early to leave for work but he couldn’t get back to sleep. He rolled carefully out of bed disturbing the mattress as little as possible. Even so she murmured quietly in her sleep, aware at some level of consciousness he was moving. He gathered what clothes he could find on the floor and went downstairs. In the main room he was greeted by detritus of the previous night. He made himself a cup of herbal tea, there was no coffee in the house, and sat at the kitchen table to drink it. For a few minutes he enjoyed a feeling of peace of the kind he couldn’t remem
ber for years, or even ever, and thought back to last night.
They’d stayed on the sofa kissing and fumbling until the stage of starting to remove each other’s clothes, like teenagers she’d said, at which point as if by unspoken mutual consent, they moved half clad to her bedroom and into bed. Afterwards, before sleep, she made him agree to return the following night to meet her friends from Shrewsbury.
With this thought the sense of peace left him replaced by his default setting of anxiety. He left a note on the table saying he’d be back about six, hesitated a moment over whether to sign it ‘love Giles’ and then did. Perhaps, he thought as he put on his coat, one day they might both wake at the same time.
Outside it was deep cold. It took some minutes to scrape the ice off the windscreen by which time his fingers were numb and frozen. Driving, it seemed as if his was the only car on the roads and the pre-dawn darkness made the journey seem unreal. Then, at the turn where the road forked for Skendleby, he noticed a police car parked up in a lay-by with the silhouette of two figures inside. By the time he’d reached the inner suburbs fringing the university he’d spotted four more. It occurred to him if this was the best response the police had to the spate of attacks then they obviously didn’t have much to go on. The car heating system didn’t work leaving his hands frozen to the wheel. His nervous system craved a hit of caffeine; he was cold and hungry so parked up by an all night café. The newspaper hoarding by the roadside read
‘FRENZIED ATTACKS PANIC CITY.’
He bought a tabloid in a newsagent then entered the café, frequented by students and nocturnal workers, and ordered the breakfast special, which offered cholesterol and caffeine in the quantities he craved. The front page of the paper carried the headline
‘TV Psychic says killer is Ripper reborn’
Having read the few words that went with the pictures, which included the police version, he decided it was a close run thing as to who between the psychic and the police had more evidence. He was brought out of his morbid reflections by a bleary eyed student in a heavy floor length hooded leather coat asking him if he minded him taking one of the seats at the table. He didn’t and got up to leave.
It was still dark when he reached his house. Inside was cold and empty. To his relief the bath taps weren’t running but the kitchen tap was and all the downstairs lights and the TV were on. There was a horrible stain in the middle of the floor and something near it smelt bad. He packed a bag then backed out of the front door quick as he could.
He arrived early at the Unit to find Steve and Jan already sitting at the big meeting table with some of the post grads, studying a collection of finds from the dig. To his surprise Leonie was there.
“Giles, I’m sorry.”
Leonie looked intently at him through haggard sleepless eyes; she seemed to have aged years in a few days.
“I shouldn’t have walked out on you but even you must understand there’s something wrong with this site, something we shouldn’t have messed with.”
Giles felt inclined to give way to his feelings and tell her she was stating the bleeding obvious but said nothing and she continued.
“We’ve been working on some of the finds while they’re running the data on the body in the labs.”
She’d taken the seat furthest away from Steve.
“Jan and I’ve been examining those two slabs of rock placed over the body. I know Steve says there’s evidence of bodies weighed down with stone objects in Cyprus and the near East but something’s different about these slabs, something we’ve noticed now we’ve cleaned them up. None of us has dealt with anything like this.”
He followed her to the table where the stones were being sketched and photographed by two post grads.
“We all agree these slabs were to prevent her rising from the dead. But look, there’s more.”
Giles looked. He could make out a rough triangular shape scraped into the surface of each stone. Inside each triangle were a couple of deeply incised circles. Eyes.
“Look how much more effort has gone into the eyes than the shape of the face. The design is all about the eyes. It’s deliberate: must have taken them ages to finish. The stone is local so it was done on site, probably last thing before the tomb was sealed. Think about it: these people are terrified yet they take time to decorate the stones. They have a special purpose; they watch, they keep her ghost in as well as her body; that’s what frightened them most.”
Across the table Steve snorted derisorily.
“What, you mean, like an astral insurance policy? If the weight doesn’t do the job the eyes will. Get real, we’ve hardly any idea what psychology drove these people. We can’t get inside their minds. You can’t even be sure that these are eyes or faces; they didn’t do faces. They could just be patterns, or have a meaning we don’t know, there’s no evidence for what you’re suggesting.”
“Exactly.”
She spat the word back with real venom.
“Exactly, Steve, something we don’t know – that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you since we opened the mound. There is no evidence of anything like this is there? This horror stuck out on its own where there’s nothing, not under, not round, not for bloody miles. What does that tell you? The place isn’t meant for people: it’s there because the place frightens people.”
She stopped, on the brink of tears, but recovered some form of control.
“It should never have been found. Wake up to what’s happening Steve. Look at the site history, the warnings, that foul rotting bird crucified in the desk, what happened during the excavation. Or is this normal practice on all your digs, Steve?”
She glared at him for a moment then shouted,
“And stop stalking me, stop hanging around outside the house after dark, stick to whatever little groupie you’re currently screwing.”
Steve started to say something but Giles got in first.
“OK, calm down both of you, there’s too much personal feeling creeping into this. What else have you got for me?”
“It’s in the lab, come on we’ll show you.”
Steve snapped.
“Well, you’ll have to excuse me. You know you’re really sick, but listen carefully: if there is any poor bastard desperate enough to stalk you it’s not me. Now if you’ve finished I’m going to do some non-supernatural work on the site report. We’ve got to write this up to justify our funding or perhaps on this dig even these rules don’t apply.”
He walked off muttering and lighting a cigarette then stopped to talk to the Unit’s administrative secretary, Sophie.
Giles followed Leonie and Jan through the passageways under the university’s Victorian administrative building to the labs they shared with two other departments. They moved through the storage area to their own section and entered a windowless room like a mortuary with the three skeletal remains on slabs. It smelt of mouldering earth and some type of sickly disinfectant. Giles felt claustrophobic and the longer he was in the lab the sensation grew he was being watched. He sensed the women felt the same; Leonie said.
“Look at the woman’s body – crushed by the stones and disarticulated over the years. The two men died violently. The Neolithic one has a crushed skull consistent with the blow of a stone axe and his shin bones had been shattered. The other we’re not sure about but there’s evidence from the neck and top of the spine to suggest he was garrotted like the Lindow body. Both of them were sacrifices; there’s a good two thousand years separating their deaths yet they both end up in the same pit. The pit is linked directly to the tomb, so we’ve got two sacrifices linked with one unique burial and a corpse that had been dead for millennia before the second one was killed. Try explaining that.”
Giles had no answer; she was right, there was something frightening about this. Leonie returned to the female skeleton.
“Look at what’s really strange: some of the small bones are missing, finger, toe, bones from arms and legs. Cut out so the body wouldn’t work when it came bac
k from the dead.
But get this: the tests indicate the bones from the middle finger were removed quite recently, probably no more than five hundred years ago. Which means that since our Iron Age villagers hurriedly resealed the tomb and we opened it, someone else had been in?”
“What! You’ve got to be wrong on that; why would anyone open it up in the late Middle Ages. You’ll have some occult code, Da Vinci and the Knight Templar’s mixed up in it next.”
“I know how weird it sounds but we’re pretty sure.”
“Come on: it makes no sense; you’re saying people are so scared of this place that they won’t go near it in one breath; then you say they pop in from time to time to open it up and choose a bone. That means knowledge of the Neolithic ritual survived and we know that’s not possible”
“Yeah, disturbing isn’t it?”
Giles didn’t have an answer and didn’t want to think of one and particularly not there amongst the ancient dead. They completed the inspection of the bodies and left, locking the door behind them, relieved to be out of the room. Leonie left the unit without saying anything else and Giles returned to his desk and forced himself to address the pile of paperwork accumulating there. By lunchtime the Unit had emptied leaving only him and Steve.
“What’s got into you, Steve? You need to keep your private life to yourself. You could have been easier on Leonie; she’s right on the edge.”
“You heard what she accused me of but, yeah, OK, I know, I’m sorry but all this horror movie stuff is bugging me. We excavated too quickly so there’s evidence we missed and probably destroyed. Now we’re just jumping to conclusions. Our interpretation’s more Julian Cope than Julian Thomas.”
It was a rubbish joke that only an archaeologist could get, but it broke the tension and Giles was vaguely reassured by Steve’s attempt to rationalise his fears; he managed a weak laugh.
“OK, point taken, anyway I’ve got a planning meeting at the Town Hall this afternoon about the Borough constraints map, it’ll go on forever so I’ll probably go home from there. I’ll see you tomorrow, and go easy on Leonie.”