Tanners Dell: Darkly Disturbing Occult Horror

by Sarah England

  One morning shortly after dawn, Rosella followed her, watching from a distance as Ida selected flowers, leaves and stalks. But then, and it was most peculiar, the scene in front of her had frozen as if it was a video-still, and the air crackled with static. She tried to move but her feet were leaden, stuck fast in the ground; nor could she breathe in. But just as the panic rose inside her the spell was broken. Birdsong burst into her ears again and her legs crumpled slightly.

  A voice directly behind said, “Hello Rosella!”

  Rosella swung round to find Ida directly behind her. Those eyes – she would never forget those eyes as long as she lived – had no irises, no pupils and were entirely white. Rosella stared open mouthed, transfixed… No, no, this couldn’t be…it had to be an illusion or magic… Gradually she backed away, and then she was running like hell with the sound of echoing laughter ringing through the forest.

  There was something so not right about Ida. No one knew where she’d come from, which camp she’d been with before the last one, or why she was alone in the world; and the longer it went on the more the others deemed it ungrateful to ask.

  Why couldn’t her mother, Mala, see through Ida? The woman was no good and bore them ill, Rosella was sure of it; some of the women had become ill – new mothers with impaired vision, nausea and headaches, causing them to snap at and shun their husbands. There had been more arguments recently too, with several of the women in low spirits and a couple of fights breaking out amongst the men. And all the while Ida flirted and danced and glowed more radiantly than ever, serving up meals and administering medicines or poultices. One evening shortly after the incident in the woods, as they sat round the camp fire, something – she couldn’t quite say what it was – caused Rosella to glance across the flames to where Ida sat smoking roll-ups and laughing. A tall shadow was hovering over her like a dark-cloaked gatekeeper. Mesmerised, she watched as it then coiled into a plume of black dust and vanished into the wood smoke.

  She had always been able to see auras, right from being a small child – and mostly people had white or misty fields of energy around them, sometimes a hint of blue or green, occasionally yellow or gold. But Ida’s was a cloud of sludgy, dark brown that clung to her like a bad smell. If she tried to talk to her mother about any of this, though – anything to do with the occult, in fact – Mala would fly at her in temper. And so for weeks Rosella had lain awake at night alone with her suspicions, haunted by a creeping fear that traced her skin like cold water on a hot day. What was it? What was coming?

  And then the nightmares began, her dreams becoming spiked with terror. At first it was an inexplicable feeling of dread that would build and build until the need to get out of the caravan became overwhelming; yet any hope of escape was impossible because she was unable to move so much as a limb, much less wake up. Very rapidly this then escalated to visions of black shapes forming from the darkness into demonic creatures with faces that peered directly into her own, false pity oozing from cavernous black eyeballs in a stench of human excreta that made her retch even as she slept. When finally she came to, it would be in the early hours, coated in sweat and gasping for air. Night after night this continued, wearing her down until the days became drugged stupors, her appetite dried up and her energy drained away.

  And how Ida grew rosy on it.

  Something had to be done.

  The answer came on a day Mala had been shouting at her for lying in the long grass again instead of doing her chores. Overhead a biplane hummed and the sun warmed her body on the scent of a summer breeze. Do something… Her drowsy mind turned over the facts: if Ida was poisoning her then how? Rosella only ate her own food and she watched the woman like a hawk.

  Was there a hex on her then? Is that what the woman had done?

  Above her a kestrel hovered and far, far away a children’s nursery rhyme carried on the wind.

  ‘Ring-o’ Ring o’ Roses…’

  And then the solution came riding in.

  A night not so long ago she’d gone to a fairground with some other girls and they’d got drunk on cider, hiding behind one of the caravans to the drone of the generators while they swapped ghost stories and tried to scare each other. One thing you could do if attacked by demons, said one of the quieter girls, was to put anise seeds in a little pouch under your pillow at night; another was to smudge sage smoke and hang white heather and holly outside the caravan. She’d spoken as if she believed it and become upset when the others hadn’t taken her seriously and said it was old gypsy women’s rubbish.

  Well it was worth a try, so that night she put anise seeds under her pillow.

  Next day though, she could almost see the smirk on Ida’s face as she walked past Mala and herself hanging out washing. Nice dreams, Rosella?

  None of the other stuff had worked either. And so Ida’s hex - because that’s what it must be - had to be reversed.

  ***

  So now the deed was done.

  They were not supposed to do these things. Apprehension and guilt prickled away at her conscience as she walked ever quicker towards the river… The sun’s coming up… Hurry, hurry... Pagan worship, Christian worship, any religion in fact – was fine. But witchcraft, no. Never.

  When she’d learned about it from those girls that summer, and subsequently told Mala who had been skinning a rabbit at the time, her mother had turned on her with a knife still dripping in blood. “Don’t you ever, do you hear me, don’t you ever bring that kind of dark magic into our home! It doesn’t leave you once you’ve invited it in, Rosella. Ever. Don’t play with what you don’t understand or it’ll haunt you for the rest of your days.”

  Her mother still spoke in a heavily accented Yugoslavian tongue. The family had been in England for most of Rosella’s life but the memory of densely wooded hills and richly fruited orchards still rolled in on blue sky days like that one. Rosella had nodded, chastised, and backed out of the caravan. The day had been sunny but clouds scooted in from nowhere, chilling the air, and she’d heeded the warning.

  Until today.

  She stepped out of the woods onto the river path. The mist had now lifted to reveal crystal clear water, which bubbled and sparkled as it surged over shiny rocks. For a shard of a second Rosella’s mood lifted. It was so beautiful here. She almost smiled, when suddenly the crack of a twig stopped the breath in her chest. Turning, oh so slowly, in the direction of the sound, her eyes straining into a myriad of tree trunks still shrouded in mist, she held herself rigid. Someone was there.

  With heightened senses her nostrils flared, every nerve-ending static with alertness while she scanned the scene. But there was nothing – just the softly lit canopy of trees and a few crows cawing in the distance. For a full minute she waited.

  Gushing water.

  Nothing else.

  Time to get back.

  Then came the faint but unmistakeable whiff of tobacco on the air. Her heart rate picked up, thudding loudly in her ears. Was it Ida?

  Run…run now…you need to run…

  But exactly as before, her feet failed to move. In fact both her legs were completely paralysed and no sound would come from her throat. Once again the atmosphere seemed electrically charged, the scene before her playing out in slow motion. A man had stepped out of the shadows onto the path - an old man with a white widow’s peak and the palest ice-blue eyes imaginable. She stood hypnotised. He had a look about him that was older than time, exuding an almost inhuman chill; his skin wizened like a reptile’s, lips wet and full as they pulled back from yellowing teeth into a leer. The smell of him was rank like he hadn’t washed in months; the white hair combed back in greasy strands. But there was something a whole lot worse than any of that. Far, far worse than the way he looked…

  Revulsion lurched into her throat, her insides loosening as he walked towards her. Don’t look down… Oh God, don’t look…

  His trousers were undone at the zip.

  Helpless, she kept her eyes fixed on his, unable to move or ut
ter a single syllable, yet knowing precisely how this was going to unfold. There was a splinter of a second, just a sparkling flash in time, as a brief image of Nicu, her eighteen year old fiancé, with his shiny brown hair and dancing green eyes, faded from her mind as any kind of future possibility… before the stinking old monster moved in, one hand snatching at her skirt, the other smashing her throat with staggering force. And as the powerful shove rammed her spine into a tree trunk, cracking her head, a searing pain shot through her body. After which she lost consciousness.

  ***

  When she woke up it was night. From somewhere outside an owl hooted, and there were little scratches and rustles like trees scraping at a window. Where was this? Back in the caravan? Doesn’t smell the same…mould…

  She drifted in and out of consciousness. Next time she surfaced it was to the sound of boots thudding heavily upstairs – workman’s boots – coming closer and quickly. Not the caravan then… She leapt back, slamming into the wall behind, the sudden movement causing a sickening pain to rip through her insides so violently it took her breath. Hot liquid gushed from between her legs – blood? – and cold sweat surfaced all over her body as she fell sideways onto the bed clutching her tummy. With pressure swelling inside her brain like the worst of hangovers she struggled to open her eyes. Was someone there? Who was it? What was happening?

  He stood framed in candlelight at the doorway.

  Gradually her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The room appeared to be devoid of furniture apart from a heavy oak wardrobe in the corner by the window. Her fingers felt around: on top of her lay a scratchy coat, and underneath she was naked. Tracing down her body with fluttery fingers she winced to the slightest touch. Had he broken her bones? She tried to wiggle her toes…no feeling… Panic shot into her veins as he strode towards her. She tried to scream but nothing came out.

  “Here’s something you’ve to drink. Get it down. Stay put or you’ll be somewhere you like even less.”

  She looked at the proffered cup of evil-smelling stuff and attempted to knock it away but his hand was like an iron girder and all she got was another bruise smashed into the side of her face.

  “I said drink it, you stupid bitch.” He held her head back with one hand and threw the liquid down her throat.

  Blinding pain shot up her neck and into her head as if the arteries had been squeezed shut, and she gulped in shock when the liquid fired into her stomach wall a second later like it was red hot whisky boiled with chilli pepper.

  He left her with a brain pulsing so hard she thought it would burst from her skull. Overhead the ceiling began to rotate, swirling around like a dizzying, nauseating carousel; and each breath was iron-rigid, stuck in a vice grip as she struggled to gasp in the icy air…Oh God she was going to die…before a sudden eclipse plunged her from consciousness once more.

  Quite when the hallucinations began it was impossible to say – maybe minutes, hours or even days after she had been brought here – to wherever ‘here’ was. At first it was just an awareness of whispering and a light breeze against her skin. But when she opened her eyes it was to see a monk draped in a hooded robe, observing her from the corner of the room. She blinked and blinked again, slowly grasping the fact that he was actually floating several feet off the ground. Staring for several disbelieving seconds she was in the process of trying to rationalise this when suddenly it rushed towards the bed at speed.

  A silent scream knotted in her throat. Shutting her eyes she turned onto her side and curled into a tight ball. No, no, no – it was just a dream; a drug-induced hallucination. But after that, every time she opened her eyes there would be more of them. Sometimes they loomed over her as if peering into a cot at a baby, other times they cackled and whispered in the corners before fading into the walls like ghosts.

  None of this could be real. It had to be because of whatever concoctions he was giving her, like LSD or something. Or maybe she’d gone crazy and this was a mental hospital? Soon she’d be told these were just bizarre opiate-dreams because she’d been attacked but was now on the mend.

  The cold though…the fridge cold of the place…and the perpetual rushing of water. And the smell too - of mould and wood smoke and some kind of sweet tobacco – not the same as her father’s roll-ups but not too dissimilar either: there was something familiar about it, but what? This was no hospital…Her weary mind repeatedly collapsed in on itself with the effort of thinking. All she could do was try to stay sane: it was all she had left. And so whenever the dark hooded figures came calling, she would close her eyes and cite the Lord’s Prayer over and over. Please God, make them go away.

  Still the echoing laughter grew, as did the colicky pain, which shook her to the core, leaving her sick and exhausted, lying in a pool of her own sweat.

  But now…now there was something new. A raw burn cut into her ankles and wrists.

  One time, a voice she thought might be her own asked who the monks were.

  “Shut her up.”

  A heavy hand clamped something foul-smelling over her nose and mouth, before the dark claimed her once more.

  The next time she surfaced the air was as freezing as a mortuary and her body was stretched out in a star shape. Rope seared into her skin and a cold slab permeated her spine.

  A different place this time – wetter. Drip…drip…drip… A cave?

  Cloth had been shoved into her mouth, tied so tightly it cut into the corners of her mouth, and a thin dark fabric covered her eyes, although there were shades of light and dark visible through it. A low chanting echoed in monotone and through the veil she could see hooded figures circling around her. Directly in front of her stood a macabre figure in a horned mask, with a cape of fur and feathers billowing around him. Her eyes battled against the blindfold. Oh God, what’s going to happen to me? What is this? A ceremony? What was coming? Her dulled mind lapsed in and out of consciousness, vaguely registering the escalating chanting, and a heady, intoxicating aroma of burning herbs. She forced herself to open her eyes in response to being repeatedly shaken. Oh dear God, there were children here too. Really young ones.

  Suddenly a woman’s face loomed inches from her own in a hazy blur, and old dog breath assaulted her nostrils as it seemed she was climbing onto her chest. Rosella turned her head this way and that to avoid what she now realised was a hissing snake being pushed into her mouth, thrashing in vain against metal clamps clicking into place around her arms and legs. Then suddenly excruciating, intolerable pain – white hot or ice cold – was thrust up inside her, accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream she realised was her own.

  When she next came to, it was to the smell of cauterised flesh. The soles of her feet were screaming as if she’d danced on fire.

  Not real. Not real. Not real…

  “Oh but it is, my dear.”

  Something was forcing open her eyes, a hand holding her head back by the hair.

  “Look at me. You have our child now, dear.”

  No.

  How long had she been here? Hours? Days? Weeks?

  “She can stay down here 'til she gives birth,” said a male voice.

  How long? How long had she been missing? Where was Mala? Where was her father? Her brothers? Wouldn’t they find her in this house by the river?

  Give birth?

  ***

  Chapter Three

  Drummersgate Secure Forensic Unit

  Sunday December 27th, 2015

  Noel stared at the woman standing in front of him in Reception. As a mental health nurse he’d seen some sights over the years, but this one was quite something and certainly put a twinkle in his eye. Wearing a furry green coat she was short and stout, and sported a crown of permed hair dyed a similar shade of red to Jessica Rabbit’s. Crimson lips bled into white powdery skin etched with wrinkles, and each breath seemed an effort even though she had only walked a few yards to the door. Her eyes, though…her eyes were a rich conker brown, gleaming with angel kindness. He smiled.

  “I’d lik
e to see Ruby, please,” she said, holding onto the desk while she got her breath back. “Becky phoned and said she’d asked for me but it was Christmas Eve and at the time I was up to my armpits in sprouts and whatnot.”

  Noel indicated a couple of armchairs next to a potted plant and she tottered gratefully towards it.

  “Did Becky say what it was about? Only Ruby’s visitors have to be pre-approved and I’ve got nothing down saying anyone’s coming.” In fact, Ruby had never had a single visitor in all the two years she’d been here so it was more than unusual. This woman couldn’t be family either. Ruby had no family.

  The lady plonked herself firmly onto a chair and shook her head. “Oh dear, I’m sorry, love, but I did hope it’d be Becky who’d be here and I wouldn’t have to, you know, explain?”

  “Normally she would be, but she’s currently off on a personal matter. We work closely together though, so I hope I can help. Could we start with who you are, do you think?”

  “Celeste Frost, love. I met Ruby many years ago and became a friend. We lost touch until I found out from Martha Kind, the social worker who used to work here—”

  “Oh you met Martha, did you? God rest her soul.”

  Celeste nodded. “Yes, shocking business that, wasn’t it – to just collapse and die so suddenly? She seemed perfectly well and looking forward to retirement too.”

  “Yes, I know. We were all very upset. Anyway, sorry, you were saying…”

  “Yes, well Martha came to see me just before Christmas. She was digging around, trying to find out what was going on in Woodsend. She’d seen the reports in the papers about how I was supposedly hounded out of the village for being a witch. Anyhow, I told her straight – I’m a medium and I didn’t want to be neither. I helped folk with healing and that was it. Anyhow, I had, ‘Get out Witch’ scrawled across my front door and folk causing trouble so me and my husband left soon after. He was ill with it, nearly died with the stress. It was bad that place, had a bad feel to it. Any road, I’m getting off the subject. I told Martha and I’ll tell you – Ruby came to see me years ago because she was living in that old mill in Bridesmoor and the poor lass was spooked out. I only saw her once after that and it wasn’t good. Then I read in the news a couple of years back she’d attempted murder on Paul Dean. Well anyhow, if she’s sent for me I’m guessing I’m her only friend.”