The Gated Trilogy

by Matt Drabble

  A rumbling voice suddenly appeared at her shoulder and a powerful hand clamped onto her arm, steadying her instantly. The touch was insistent and she soon found herself being led through her front door and into the house. Her assistant had to dip his head slightly and turn sideways to navigate in through the opening.

  She craned her head up for what seemed like an awful long way to see the man’s face. “Sheriff,” she said gratefully, “thank you for your help, young man. I guess the sun was just too hot today.”

  “All part of the service, Mrs. Garfield,” Quinn replied pleasantly. “Let me help you into the lounge; maybe you’d like to sit for a spell.”

  “I think that might be a good idea,” Alice said, finding herself moving into the lounge as though the choice was ever really hers to begin with.

  “Here we are, Mrs. Garfield,” the sheriff said as he placed her into the old, but comfy, sofa.

  The springs sank with familiarity as it took her weight.

  She watched as the huge man eased himself gently into the armchair facing her, and for a moment she worried the chair would not take his bulk.

  She envisaged the chair collapsing under his sheer size and it brought a tipsy smile to her lips; even as inebriated as she was, she instinctively knew that laughing at the man mountain would not be a good idea.

  As pleasant as he came across, the sheriff was one of those men who had a smile that never quite touched his eyes - eyes that were distant and cruel.

  Her thankfully long dead husband had been such a man. He could smile and laugh but he had a quick temper and a quicker fist. One minute they would be sharing a joke and the next she would be lying on the floor with a bleeding mouth for some imagined slight that only David had seen.

  She watched the sheriff now. His large round face was smiling but his eyes were watchful. The dark orbs darted around the room and back to her time and again.

  “I saw that you had some visitors leaving, just as I was passing,” the sheriff said casually.

  For some reason, an alarm bell rang loudly enough to pierce her gin-soaked fuzz and it slapped her in the face like a bucket of cold water, waking her senses fully.

  As relaxed as Quinn’s voice was - and as seemingly casual as the question was - she felt panicked, trapped in an empty house and suddenly free from the view of her neighbours. Her eyes darted around the room which had never seemed smaller or darker.

  “What did they want?” The sheriff leant forward, unfurling his colossal arms from across his broad chest and placing his massive paws on his knees.

  “Oh, it was just a couple of teachers from the elementary school. They wanted an old fart to talk to the children about the town’s history.” Alice attempted a tone of levity, but knew that she was falling some way short. Her voice trembled and the air was thick with menace.

  “Really, and that was all they wanted?” Sheriff Quinn stood and stretched. He was a huge man, and his mass was overpowering.

  From her seated position, Alice sank further into her seat. The disparity in their sizes was never greater and she trembled as the sheriff towered over her.

  “Now I don’t believe that you are being entirely truthful here, Alice, are you?” He smiled with shark’s teeth as he placed a hand under her chin.

  Alice trembled; even the sheriff’s lightest touch was painful as she guessed it was meant to be. He tilted her face upwards, his rough fingers stroking her cheek with a sandpaper caress.

  “I think that I would like to hear everything that you told them, Alice, my dear, and I think that I would like to hear it right now.”

  Alice whimpered as the powerful hand squeezed her chin. Soft tears spilled out and ran down her face. “I didn’t say anything, I swear,” she sobbed.

  “Now why don’t I believe you?” Quinn whispered, his voice low and hoarse.

  “I promise,” Alice cried.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, yes, I promise. I didn’t say anything, nothing.”

  “Well, if you promise.”

  Alice grabbed at the lifeboat. “I promise,” she said repeated earnestly.

  The sheriff released her face from his painful grip. He eased backwards away from her. Alice sighed, trembling with relief, her mind racing and confused.

  The blow was loud and the pain monstrous. Alice fell from the sofa, propelled by the sheriff’s powerful fist; her nose was crushed and her throat filled with the coppery taste of her own blood as it flooded downwards.

  She dizzily raised a hand to her face; the nose was shattered and spread across her cheek and the skin was split open by the large class ring that Quinn wore.

  Her vision blurred with tears on the onset of a concussion. Both eyes felt swollen and her breath hitched dangerously in her thin chest. She tried to crawl but her senses betrayed her.

  The huge shadow of the sheriff fell across her as he watched her feeble escape attempt. A thick, heavy work boot kicked her side absently. She felt the rib crack instantly, and curled into a ball.

  A hand suddenly gripped her neck and she was airborne, her feet jerking wildly above the floor. Her weight was meaningless to the powerful sheriff as he brought his face in close to hers.

  His breath was fresh and minty, but his teeth were ivory and sharp. Despite her drifting consciousness, she screamed when he bit her. His teeth sank into her cheek and ripped a chunk of bloody flesh away. She stared through blurry vision as he smiled and swallowed.

  “You’re going to tell me,” he said through insane eyes.

  “I don’t know what you want,” Alice panted painfully. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she sobbed hysterically.

  “Oh, I think that you’re going to tell me all sorts of things, you bitch,” Quinn spat. “All sorts of things.”

  As it turned out, before she died - broken and bloody - he was right.

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Interlude: A Brief Town History Part Three

  Eden grew tall and proud during the first few years. Tolan’s flock were garnered by his strength and fuelled by his will. Their ears burned with the word of God as preached by their founding father.

  Tolan drew a metaphorical border around the town long before a physical one was constructed. The thick woodland to the rear offered a solid wall of privacy; one that was unbreakable.

  He was by now a man of broad shoulders capable of carrying a town’s burden. He gave powerful sermons that sang to the heavens from the building skeleton that would become his church.

  At this point, Tolan was now hearing the voice of God on a regular basis. The voice came to him in his dreams, sometimes dressed as his mother in the bright day, and sometimes dressed in the dark as his father. The voice was always clear and always demanding and Tolan never failed to listen.

  The town construction was steady progress; he took it as a divine sign that those followers who found their way to this holy place were always of the most welcome use.

  Builders and farmers were put to task utilizing their expert skills. The forest provided an endless supply of first rate timber that was used in the construction, and was also traded for other essentials.

  Tolan’s own home was the first to be built and he oversaw the project personally. His cabin was on the outskirts of what would be the town, far removed from the centre and secluded up in the woodlands that would become their lifeblood.

  The home was functional and spacious, and, as per Tolan’s own instructions, a small cellar was dug out at the rear. The builder who carried out the secretive work met with an unfortunate accident at the end of Tolan’s axe - forever ensuring his silence.

  The cellar was to be a surreptitious place of worship as instructed to him by God in the voice and face of his father. It would be here that the will of God would be carried out in blood and sacrifice.

  The cellar’s existence would require secrecy from the masses as they could not comprehend the mysterious ways in which God would sometimes move.

  The necessary removal of t
he builder was unfortunate, but Tolan was assured that the man would be grateful upon his embrace into heaven.

  As the years passed, Eden grew. Cabins sprung up around the town with regularity, housing the disciples who had travelled many miles to join their community.

  A substantial wooden barrier had been constructed around the town’s borders and potential new residents would be vetted by Tolan himself.

  There was a smaller room inside the town hall where Tolan would hold the interviews, accompanied only by his right hand man, Gabriel Quinn.

  Quinn was by far the largest man in Eden; he stood at over six and a half feet tall with a barrel chest and huge, powerful arms that could crush the life from a bear. A man as devout as they came; his devotion to Tolan was absolute and he followed his orders without question.

  Gabriel believed that God himself spoke through Tolan, and that the words were pure. Eden was to be shaped into the new garden on earth, and its inhabitants had to be as untainted as the virgin snow.

  Tolan watched as his vision developed. He knew that his mother would be sitting at God’s shoulder, proud of the beginning of his work. He would spend his days walking in the forest. The voices of the leaves blowing beneath the soft breeze would whisper in his ear. His dreams had begun to fade and now he only heard God’s voice in the woods.

  He had come to realise that God was a vengeful and harsh deity and there should be no other word than his.

  He had learned that the New Testament was only an incorrect human interpretation, as God was not a blissful figure of grace and love. God, in fact, was a being of wrath and furious anger who demanded complete submission and payment in blood, and it was Tolan’s place on earth to cover the bill.

  Whilst Eden could prosper, it would come at a price; a price that was paid in Tolan’s cellar where it was met with screams of pain and whimpers of death.

  The thick woodland that backed onto the rear of his cabin soon became a burial ground for small, lonely, shallow graves. When interviewing families for entry into his haven, Tolan would often turn away those with young children perfect for his purposes.

  He would then send Quinn out into the wilds to follow the spurned families and return with the children, after first disposing of the parents. Quinn would deliver unto him just what God demanded.

  Tolan took a perverse pleasure from his work, but saw this only as a justifiable reward for his service.

  His cellar would be awash with young blood on the eve of the full moon, and he would indulge only his darkest desires in order to purge the town from suffering from them.

  He would inflict the most monstrous damage imaginable on the young innocent flesh, as the tiny bodies were subjected to the sort of long suppressed abuse that he himself had once endured at the hands of his father.

  The corpses were unrecognizable as Tolan emerged from the darkness out into the light of the moon, his body blackened by their blood. Once his savagery was cleansed, the town would be as well, and God was satisfied.

  The trees parted, allowing him access to the heart of the forest where he would bury the sacrificed children. He knew that God was indeed pleased with his work, as the harsh winters grew faint and distant.

  Their icy fingers retreated further and further until the season was but a memory. The warm caress of summer became a constant companion. The ground grew ever more fertile under the hot sun, and the streams ran flush with fish and the woodland thick with game.

  After a time, Tolan’s sermons became more and more intense and he began to preach about the darkness of God’s will and the merciless adherence to his word.

  Soon, Tolan took an inner circle. Including himself, there were five that sat on the council, and they were tasked with the running of Eden.

  Tolan received his instructions from the forest and it was the council’s job to enforce them.

  Quinn was designated as the town marshal; his was a fist of steel that suffered no discussion.

  As close as Tolan was to the inner council, only Quinn was aware of the cellar sacrifices. The other members were only too willing to accept God’s generosity without having to foot the bill.

  As the town grew and thrived, word soon spread about Eden and the town was becoming inundated with prospective residents. There were more bodies than Tolan could ever hope to spend in sacrifice.

  They began to concentrate their efforts on the strengthening of the town’s borders, turning them from markers into a defensive line of protection and seclusion from the outside world.

  It soon became necessary for the walls to become defended as more and more outsiders sought to benefit from the prosperity that Tolan had earned for his people.

  Makeshift campsites sprung up outside the town walls as the desperate came and waited for their acceptance. The hungry and the poor, the lame and the crippled - all came to bathe beneath the promised sky and live amongst the privileged.

  Tolan watched the camps from his position atop the great walls and he saw the unfortunates that had nothing to offer his town or his people.

  Eden was indeed a promised land, one blessed by the touch of God himself. His lands were bountiful and flush, but Eden was not infinite; her land had borders and she could only feed so many.

  Her population was already full and her people were all deserving; all contributors, there were no passengers here. No drains on the resources, only the faithful and the worthy.

  Tolan sequestered himself deep into the forest for guidance and he slept beneath the huge dark trees and dreamt of his purpose.

  He was told of what had to be done, and steeled himself for the days ahead. When he returned, he informed the inner council of God’s will and what needed to be done in his name.

  Most of them had baulked at the idea, but all followed Tolan into the darkness.

  It was Quinn who led the assault on the camps. He took those men in town that he could trust - only the most devout disciples with iron wills and stomachs to match.

  They opened the town gates and walked to meet the campers and they were greeted with kneeling prayers as saviours. The desperate prospects wept with joy as they believed that their long suffering was to be finally rewarded.

  Quinn and his men tore through the camp with sharp blades and cold hearts. The earth ran red with the blood of the weak and the hungry; the men were slaughtered and the women and children violated in grotesque fashion.

  The bodies were strung up towards the entrance to the valley as a warning to any who would seek entry to the town, and they successfully dissuaded all from approaching.

  The legend of Eden soon became known throughout the surrounding lands and it became a town known of horrors and nightmares. A bedtime story for children who would misbehave and shame their parents: eat your vegetables or I’ll drop you at the gates of Eden, where they eat naughty boys and girls after dark.

  Tolan knew that after the massacre there would be members of his own congregation that would voice their disapproval and he knew that in the days and weeks following he would need to be strong. He would have to offer iron leadership and suffer no challenge to his voice.

  Quinn was designated to handle the repercussions and relished the task. Tolan retreated to his forest and the voices within and waited as Quinn brought him those tainted with a lack of faith.

  Tolan gathered the town into the forest as the church became empty and obsolete. His preachings were now being taught under the shadow of the huge dark trees as the wind whispered through the lush leaves and around the kneeling congregation. Faces were upturned and bathed under the soothing words that flowed through Tolan and over them.

  Disbelievers were not tolerated, and the worst were crucified on the largest branches; hung to die as a reminder to the town of just who they all answered to.

  Tolan was the word and his was the voice that guided them all.

  Eden prospered in her seclusion as the outside world went about its business. The days were hot and sunny, the sky was blue and the lands lush and bountifu
l, and all for a relatively small price that had to be paid from time to time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  The town library was as old and as quaint as all of the other colonial style buildings in Eden.

  Michael and Thom crossed the town square and Michael felt an inexplicable need to walk nonchalantly, as though they were under constant surveillance.

  He looked over all too casually to see Thom smiling at him, barely suppressing a laugh.

  “What are you doing?” the young man asked.

  “Trying not to draw attention to ourselves,” Michael replied quietly.

  “Walking like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you’re in a bad movie. Just relax. No one’s looking at us; no one cares what we’re doing.”

  “Cheeky sod,” Michael murmured under his breath.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Michael said sulkily.

  The library building was a smaller, similar version of the town hall. As always, the outside was pristine white. A protruding pitched roof porch had four large columns and smooth wooden banister railings.

  They passed under the entrance porch and into the building's foyer, finding that the air was blissfully cool compared to the perfect weather outside.

  The foyer was decorated with posters and banners, all advertising the upcoming Woodland Festival - Michael was already sick of those two words.

  The foyer walls were also lined with cute pictures drawn by what would appear to be elementary aged children.

  Colourful swirls depicted buildings and figures, homes, and people. There were images of the school, the square, the town hall, and carnival, but Michael’s eye was pulled to the pictures of the woods beyond the town.

  The trees were drawn with traditional colours: waves of green circles atop long brown stems, but there was also a lot of black. Dark black scrawls beneath the foliage canopies.

  Some of the pictures also had drawings of stick figures, small figures obviously meaning to represent the children.

  Most disturbingly for Michael, some of the figures were vertical, but some were horizontal with crosses for eyes.