Whisper

by Michael Bray

  Melody was crying, on the inside at least. Outwardly, she wore a blank expression of indifference. She tried to regain control of her body and force herself to mentally break the bond with the Gogoku, but she couldn’t physically do it. It was impossible, as if there was a barrier between her consciousness and her own volition.

  The voices of the Gogoku came to her again, their tone venomous and malign. It was a chant, which soon became a deafening symphony.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.”

  “Please, don’t…”

  She was unheard or ignored, and still the chant went on.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.”

  She wanted to scream, or cover her ears, anything to avoid having to hear those awful words, growing louder and more intense with each passing. But instead, her stubborn out of control body reached out to the tree and ran its fingers across the rough, cold bark.

  She willed her body to stop, to listen to her, but the battle of wills was one that she couldn’t win, and even though she did everything to stop it, she started to climb. The chant was with her as she ascended, mingling now with the sound of leaves as they rustled and swayed in the wind.

  It was a cauldron of noise, a terrifying wall of malevolence that, for a split second, made her want to climb higher if only to get away from the terrifying mantras. But when she realised where she was going, and what the likely outcome would be, terror found her again. She was about to die, and wondered why Steve wasn’t there to help her.

  ***

  It doesn’t hurt!

  That was Steve’s first thought as he stared at the handle poking out of his chest. Donovan was just inches away, his face twisted into his maniacal grimace. As if he hadn’t already done enough, he pushed the blade in deeper, but even as he did, Steve found it remarkable that he felt nothing. No pain, and certainly no white light, which in his book could only be a good thing.

  He looked at Donovan with genuine bewilderment, and it seemed that Donovan was just as confused, as his twisted expression melted into one of equal confusion. He stood and pulled the knife free, and Steve immediately saw the blood well up—actually no he didn’t.

  His mind expected to see his life’s fluid leaking out, and for a second he had, but as he looked now at the white t-shirt covering his chest there was not only no sign of blood, but no wound either. Now it was Donovan’s turn to look at Steve as if he were some kind of monster.

  “I don’t understand…!” he mumbled as he looked at the knife in his hand.

  Steve could sympathise. He didn’t much understand either.

  “He can’t hurt you no more,” Isaac said in his deep drawl.

  Steve and Donovan both looked to the spirit of Isaac, who looked at Steve with kind eyes.

  “I don’t understand…!” Steve said, echoing Donovan.

  Although he didn’t say anything himself, it seemed that his attacker was still in agreement.

  “He be one of us now. A part of this place.”

  Isaac looked towards Donovan, and offered a pleasant smile.

  “No!” Donovan said, shaking his head. “I’m protected!”

  He held the cross towards Isaac, who seemed unconcerned.

  “Sometimes, it takes moah than words…” he said simply, and stepped aside.

  Donovan’s body lay in the hallway at the foot of the steps, his dead eyes gazing straight ahead. Blood pooled on the wooden floor around him, and Steve could see the bulge of the wooden crucifix where it had wedged itself into his stomach as he had fallen, Donovan’s previously grey hoodie now a deep maroon in colour.

  Steve looked at Donovan, and then back to his body.

  “This isn’t right… I’m okay!” Donovan blurted, and he looked down at his own dead body and then at Isaac.

  “Steve, help me out here!” Donovan pleaded.

  But Steve didn’t think there was any help for Donovan. Not now, because Donovan was dead, killed as the two of them had fallen down the steps. He just didn’t seem to know it yet. Now, like the ones gone before him, he would be bound to Hope House forever.

  He turned his attention back to Isaac as Donovan stared at his own corpse and struggled to come to terms with what had happened.

  “How did I get here, who tied me to this chair?”

  Isaac smiled patiently.

  “This place, it plays tricks with yo’ head as well as yo’ eyes. You ain’t any moah tied up than this one is still livin’.’”

  “But…”

  “…Just look, mistah. Look and see what’s real.”

  Steve looked at his hands and saw that Isaac was right. They were unbound. He stood and was now completely unconcerned with Donovan. He looked at Isaac instead.

  “Melody…?”

  “Go to the place across the rivuh. You may still have time. Give them what they desire moah than their thirst for blood.”

  “I don’t understand… I…”

  “Hurry mistah, you don’t have much time befoah it’s too late.”

  He gave a quick glance towards Donovan, and then pulled on his boots, opened the door and sprinted towards the woods.

  45. SACRIFICE

  SHE HAD CLIMBED TO the long, thick branch from her dreams, and now clung to the tree trunk as the wind tried to pull her away and send her crashing to the ground twenty-five feet below.

  Although she couldn’t really connect to her physical body, Melody was mentally exhausted. She had almost given up trying to push the Gogoku out of her mind, and on some level had accepted the inevitability of her impending death.

  A particularly vicious gust of wind almost yanked her off the immense trunk, and had she been in control, she knew that there would be no way that she would ever have the courage to be able to move out away from the relative safety afforded by the tree. However, she was the slave of another, and with dismay felt herself begin to inch across the branch.

  For now, it was thick and sturdy underfoot, but she could see it would soon begin to taper away. As if foreshadowing the thought, the wind rocked her and, for a split second, she was sure she would fall. In her mind, she tried to rectify her balance, and then realised that her body was reacting to someone else’s commands in order to keep itself upright. She shouted out in frustration, and immediately felt the oozing smile of the Gogoku Elder.

  The branch was starting to dip underfoot with each tentative step and that alone made her feel nauseous, a feeling which increased tenfold when she saw the thick rope tied to the branch and the noose at its end, swaying with the wind. Although she knew it was fruitless, she screamed anyway.

  ***

  The cold bit at him, and sharp, unseen branches clawed at his skin, but did nothing to stop his progress. He had reached the edge of the water, and as much as he was desperate to get to the other side, vivid images of his near-drowning filled his head. Thoughts of his lungs filling with the cold, black waters flooded his mind, and fear of the burning sensation of needing to breathe as he took on the icy stream,rooted him to the spot.

  He stood by the water’s edge, staring into the opaque depths as they raced past him, and knew that he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bring himself to step into the water and cross.

  “Yes you can. Yo’ have-tuh.”

  It was Isaac. Not in physical form, but deep inside his head. Even with the encouragement, he knew that he simply couldn’t do it, and had to on some level applaud the supreme planning of the malign force wanted him to be kept away from Melody, because whatever had co
mpelled him to throw himself into the waters before was always in a win-win situation.

  If he had died, then he would be completely out of the equation. However, even now after surviving his ordeal, it still made no difference, because he was afraid—no, he was terrified to set foot anywhere near the stream. Even though it was just twenty feet or so to the opposite side, it may as well have been an ocean.

  “I can’t…” he repeated, and this time the response came with much more conviction.

  “If not for you mistah, for your unbo’n chil’.”

  That triggered something, some spark transcending self-preservation. He launched into the water, stumbled and fell to his hands and knees. His head momentarily went under, and the sheer shock of the freezing liquid drove the air out of his body. But it seemed that for once, luck was on his side and he regained his footing.

  Gasping against the fierce cold, he waded across the water and onto the other side. The wind roared around him and, even in his half-concussed, freezing state, he could sense the fury directed at him. He lowered his head, climbed out on the opposite bank and ran towards the place where he knew that Melody would be.

  ***

  She was sitting on the branch, legs hanging over the edge. The ground looked impossibly far away from where she was perched, and it would have been enough to terrify her on its own, but she could see and feel the noose in her hands. There was an inevitability about what was about to happen as the spirits of the dead continued their remorseless chant.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.”

  “Melody!”

  The sense of relief was overwhelming at hearing Steve’s voice. She could see him, breath pluming in the frigid air. In her head, she called back to him, but her body simply watched him and remained still, apart from her hands toying with the noose.

  Steve couldn’t see the Gogoku or the rest of the dead, but he could sense their presence. The feeling was that awful, skin crawling sensation of being watched that had been a part of their lives ever since they’d moved into Hope House.

  “Stay there, I’m coming up!” he shouted, not liking the vacancy in her eyes, or the familiarity of the situation.

  He made for the tree and was about to lay a hand on it when he felt a tremendous force slam into his shoulder, sending him crashing painfully to the ground. The voice was incredibly crisp in his head, and familiar as that of the Gogoku Elder.

  “No!”

  It was just a simple word. Delivered with such venom and aggression, but serving its purpose of delivering its message. Steve climbed to his feet, brushing snow from his arms.

  “Leave us alone. You can take me instead!” he bellowed into the frigid night.

  “Steve, no!”

  He heard her.

  It was a strange sensation. He along with Melody and the Gogoku appeared to be connected mentally by a telepathic bond that allowed them to communicate.

  “It’s okay,” he said confidently, “I’d rather they sacrifice me than you.”

  The Gogoku chief began to laugh, and his next words were enough to horrify them both.

  “We want what grows inside. We want what is owed to us.”

  “Take me instead.”

  Something happened then. Whatever bond he had been privy to was suddenly pulled away, and his thoughts were now his own and not shared by either the Gogoku or Melody.

  “Please!” he shouted into the raging wind. “Let her go!”

  The wind blasted into him, and even though he thought it could just be his overtired brain imagining things, he was sure he could hear the voices of the Gogoku laughing.

  He glanced up at Melody, torn between what he knew he had to do, and what he wanted to do. She watched him from her vantage point as he looked at her, and then he stood and ran back the way he’d come. She called after him, but of course, it was no more than an idea of a scream. Her body was still not cooperating.

  “It is time,” the Gogoku said to her.

  She fought, and for a moment, her hands wavered, and then dropped the noose. She was celebrating her small victory when without missing a beat; she balled her fist and slammed it into her own face. Pain engulfed her, and for a horrifying moment, she was sure that she was going to topple backwards off the branch and plummet to the ground, but somehow she managed to retain her balance. Despite the lack of control over her physical self, it appeared that pain still registered. With dismay, she saw that she had bought herself only seconds, and was powerless to stop herself from reaching out and begin to reel in the noose from where it hung below her.

  ***

  He knew exactly what he was looking for. He had sprinted to the house, and this time crossing the water was no more than another part of the journey. He threw open the back door to Hope House, ran across the room and stepped over Donovan’s corpse, barely registering its presence as he rummaged through the storage cupboard under the staircase.

  Donovan’s spirit, or energy or whatever it had been, was gone, as had Isaac. He couldn’t think about such things now as he had to work quickly. He found the can of gasoline tucked away at the back underneath a box of old mouldering curtains they hadn’t unpacked yet. He hoped there would be enough, and was thrilled to discover as he grabbed it that it felt reassuringly full and heavy.

  He opened the can with hands that wouldn’t quite stop shaking, and began to splash the gasoline all over the walls and floor. He was sure that the old wood would ignite quickly, and the blaze would take hold easily despite the wintry conditions outside. He covered their possessions in the pungent liquid, things which had seemed so important before but now held no relevance. He was acutely aware that time was against him, so much so that for all he knew he was already too late. He couldn’t accept that yet though, and concentrated all of his efforts on soaking every surface.

  With the can empty, he looked for something to light it with, but had neither matches nor a lighter. He ran to the kitchen, and almost slid in the semi-dried blood that had come from Donovan’s stomach on the way.

  He ignited the hob, which came to life with a blue-flamed whump. There was a magazine on the kitchen table, one of Melody’s glitzy fashion ones that he’d never quite understood her reasons for reading. He tore out a few pages and rolled them into a cylinder ready to be ignited.

  He paused and walked to the back door and opened it, making sure that he had a quick escape route once he set the house ablaze. The fumes burned his nostrils, and he was grateful for the blast of cold air that blew in when he pulled the door open and wedged one of the dining room chairs in front of it. He hurried back to the hob and took a deep breath, then lit the paper.

  It held the flame better than he could have hoped, blackened flakes of the pages drifting to the ground as he crouched by the start of the fuel trail. Steve touched the burning paper to the liquid, and it ignited quickly, the heat causing him to screw up his face as he watched the flame snake its way across the room, around Donovan’s body (he couldn’t bring himself to pour the fuel over him) and into the sitting room.

  The flames greedily devoured the old, dry wood and attacked the furnishings, and it was immediately obvious that it would easily take hold. Satisfied, he hurried to the door just in time to see the chair slide across the kitchen floor of its own accord and the door slam closed. He grabbed the handle and tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. It was as if some unseen but powerful force was holding onto it from the other side.

  Panic!

  He turned to go towards the front before the fire got too out of control, and saw two things, which finally broke him and made him scream ou
tright. The first was the fire, which had already become a raging inferno, making the option of escape completely impossible. That was secondary to the sight of Donovan, who was now standing and blocking his exit route, the cross still hanging at a nauseating angle from his bloody stomach.

  Donovan’s dead man’s stare was unchanged, but his crazy salesman’s grin now more red than white.

  He spoke, and the sound was an awful, grinding sound. It reminded him of the way his father had first spoken after his stroke, wet and slurred and barely comprehensible. However, even if the words were unclear, the rhythm was familiar, painfully so.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.

  “We are the wood and the trees, and the blood-soaked earth.

  “We are the things that live in the dark, all seeing but unseen.”

  The figure in his way looked like Donovan, but possessed the voice of the Gogoku. Steve was trapped.

  ***

  Back at the tree, the rhythmic drone of the chanting enveloped Melody, but that was the least of her concerns as she placed the noose around her own neck and pulled it taut. She had gone beyond frightened, and was now withdrawn and lost within herself. All the fight had gone out of her when Steve had left her alone. But alone wasn’t the right word, because he was still there. He was the one who was pulling the strings.

  “Come to us now, and give us what grows inside…” she heard his voice, coming from under the wind’s breath.

  She wondered if it would hurt or if it would be just a short, stomach-churning fall followed by blessed darkness and peace. After everything that had happened, she was looking forward to some rest. The Gogoku seemed to have read her entire thought process, and she felt his smile.