Trapped Within

by Bradshaw, Duncan P.

  Greg stepped backwards through the doorway. Barry’s eyes widened as he realised what Greg was doing. He ran for the door, skidding on the wet, soft floor and fell over amongst the broken skeletons.

  Greg slammed the door shut. He heard the latch click into place. He gripped the wheel and turned it, the rusty levers protesting at the movement. Barry was on the other side of the door now, banging his fist against it.

  “Greg, for fuck’s sake, stop dicking about and let me out of here!”

  Greg unsheathed his knife and jammed it into one of the metal latches holding the door closed.

  “Greg!” Barry roared, pounding even harder at the door.

  The lever jiggled in place as Barry tried unlocking the door.

  It held.

  Greg began making his way back down the passageway. Back to his tank and mask and fins.

  “Greg, you shit!” Barry shouted.

  Greg kept moving.

  Greg thought about Barry fucking Lisa.

  Greg thought about what he might do to Lisa when he got back.

  By the time he got back to his air tank, and the pool of black water waiting for him to enter it, Greg could hardly hear Barry at all.

  He strapped the tank on his back, slipped the fins on his feet, pulled the mask over his face.

  He fitted the regulator in his mouth and bit down on it.

  The wreck let out another long, anguished groan. Seemed as though Barry and Greg had disturbed it somehow. That it might move, slide deeper into the ravine.

  Didn’t matter.

  Greg was out of here now.

  He slipped into the dark, cold water, his LED lighting his way.

  Greg swam down, along the cramped passageways, through doorways and down stairs. He just had to keep going down, through the wreck’s maze of passageways and corridors until he reached the deck. And then swim further down, past the artillery and the bridge, until he found the sliver of a gap in the side of the ravine. Back through the narrow cave beneath the ocean floor until it opened out and he could swim up again.

  Back to the surface.

  Poor Barry. Greg told him not to attempt getting inside the Scharnhorst. He told him it was dangerous.

  But that was the thing about Barry, he wouldn’t listen.

  He always wanted to be the first at everything.

  Out of the ship’s innards, Greg turned and twisted in the water, his LED cutting a beam of bright light through the darkness. He couldn’t see the narrow gap in the ravine wall. He felt the urge to panic rising in his chest.

  He reminded himself to keep his breathing level and calm. Didn’t want to use up his air too quickly.

  All he had to do was keep looking.

  It was here somewhere.

  He had plenty of air in his tanks, there was no rush.

  Greg noticed movement beneath him. Down in the darkness of the ravine.

  Just a fish of some kind, that was all.

  He wondered how far it went down, what things lived in the darkness down there.

  Greg swam over to the wall of rock, covered in fronds waving gently in the current.

  His torchlight caught the shadow in the rocky outcrop. The entrance to the long cave which led to freedom.

  He wondered what Barry was doing right now. If the lonely ghosts had found him. Frank had come down here on his own, hungover. He had always been reckless and stupid. And he had obviously seen the skeletons and imagined the ghosts, and that had sent him into a panic.

  Silly bastard.

  Greg wondered how long it would take Barry to start imagining things. How long it would take him to die.

  Greg noticed a flash of something pale in the gloom. A disturbance on the periphery of his vision.

  He turned and looked. Down into the darkness.

  More movement. Much more.

  Not fish.

  Greg screamed when he realised what that disturbance was.

  A mass of naked bodies clawing its way up to him. The flesh was dripping off these ghastly corpses, their black eyes fastened on Greg as they swam closer. Their hair drifted like seaweed, and they opened and closed their mouths like fish, lying on the deck of a fishing boat and gasping for breath.

  Greg screamed again, the bubbles obscuring his vision for a second before they floated up towards the upside down wreck of the Scharnhorst.

  The first of the dead sailors reached him, hands clawing at his legs and torso. More quickly followed and within seconds he was surrounded. They ran their hands over him, their black fingernails tearing holes in his wetsuit, in his flesh. Mouths opening and closing, revealing blackened, pointed teeth. Their skin was wrinkled and soft, some of it ripped into open sores, the rotting flesh waving in the water like the sea kelp on the rock walls.

  Greg struggled to escape, but there were too many of them. A hand reached out and grasped his mask, pulling it off his face. He was plunged into darkness as his head torch drifted down into the pit of the ravine, its beam of light swirling around and around. Another one tugged at his regulator, yanking it from his mouth. The rush of air bubbles startled the dead sailors, giving Greg a moment’s freedom. He used the rock face to kick off with and propel himself up to the ship. If he could get back inside, get back to Barry’s kit, he would have another chance at getting out.

  At escaping.

  He pulled a spare torch from his belt and flicked the switch. The beam, weaker than the head torch, illuminated the upside down ship.

  He swam for the wreck’s deck, looming over him like an alien spaceship.

  He was almost at the door when he felt the cold hand grasping hold of his ankle. Greg was pulled down with a violent jerk. The bodies enclosed him, hands running over him, open mouths drawing closer.

  Greg screamed again, letting all the precious air out of his lungs.

  And the crew of the Scharnhorst pulled him deeper and deeper with them, down into the murky depths of the ravine.

  Ken Preston lives in a cellar on the street where Jack the Ripper was born. He writes dark fiction for adults and young adults.

  Go get the entire first season of Joe Coffin for free, plus more free books every month, exclusive content and competitions and giveaways, by signing up to his VIP list at kenpreston.co.uk

  She was your typical old lady dressed in her finest—she always wore her finest—seated at the end of the dining-room table. Empty plates sat before us; me, my younger sister Zoe, Mum and Dad too, and Grandpa. So yeah, I’m talking about Gran. Out through the bay window, a blue sky framed her round shoulders, her frizzy hair. Somewhere near the beach the sound of seagulls resembled echoing screams.

  The threadbare cushion did little for my boney arse as I sat with the taste of rabbit and vegetables clogging my mouth. As I often did every time I ate at my grandparents', I wished they would just serve a plate of fish fingers, chips and peas, and a dollop of ketchup. I still heard the clatter of a fork dropped on a plate that marked the end of dinner. I wondered if this time we'd get dessert, but of course not. Always, I hoped.

  Gran reached up to her face. She tugged off her glasses, pinched in long fingers. It’s weird to see someone’s eyes, having removed their spectacles; the eyes seem small, the eyelids pale and somehow sunken. However, it was strange only for a moment to see Gran without them, for in the next second her eyes were larger, greyer. The pupils dark, piercing… and they further widened. She didn’t blink.

  A silence pressed down on me, and I was aware of my pulse drumming in my ears.

  She stared, holding my gaze.

  Those eyes. Those fucking eyes.

  They widened still. My vision shrank, the corners darkening, and the room faded into a tunnel, the end of which filled only with those two immense eyeballs. They shifted from grey, to a weak green, to yellow. And in the very centre, that black, black core, a darkness no child should ever see. Indeed, a blackness even an adult should never see. Those eyes drilled into me, channelling, sapping my energy, my senses… I no longer felt the chair
beneath me, no longer could I smell or taste roasted rabbit and soggy cabbage. All that existed were those hungry eyes.

  The silence swamped me.

  I’ve no idea what my sister was doing at the time, no idea what Mum and Dad were doing. Didn’t they care? Couldn’t they see what was happening? I knew that Grandpa didn’t give a shit. And still Gran’s eyes drilled into me, into my head, burrowing through every fibre of my body. It was like she was extracting my secrets, to see what a naughty little boy I was. Damn, I was only eight years old—we’re supposed to be naughty at that age, boys and girls, that’s what we do.

  Gran. No blinking, no movement; not even a muscle twitch. Nothing. Just those eyes boring into my core, my soul. At that age I knew nothing about souls, but now I do and it was like she managed to penetrate my very being.

  It probably only lasted seconds, though it felt like minutes. No, it felt like hours. My breath became short and tight, my chest rising and falling rapidly.

  Inside that burning yellow, those black pupils seethed.

  My vision blurred. Wracking sobs heaved up my throat like lumps of bitter fruit urgent for release. Tears flowed over hot cheeks. My palms itchy. Everyone looked at me. I knew this without seeing them. Why couldn’t my parents help? Even my sister, why didn’t she save me?

  Still Gran stared.

  And still I cried. Deflated, small.

  Then her face cracked into a grin. She laughed, great shoulder-jumping bellows.

  “What is it, Bobby?” she said, throwing her smile around the table. “What?”

  So many tears, so much water. I drowned then. I didn’t understand, I couldn’t understand.

  Hours afterwards, when the smell of pipe smoke replaced the stink of rabbit and cabbage, the adults would be seated on armchairs and sofas while Zoe and I sat on the floor. We’d be drawing and colouring in, but I felt detached from the black-and-white cartoons on the paper. I didn’t want them; I didn’t want anything. I’d changed. Again. Another piece of me stolen somehow, snatched into the void that only Gran could create. Another fragment of my young body gouged away. I found no pleasure in the colouring-in book at hand. My efforts seemed shallow and, no matter how much red and blue and yellow and green and orange I used, still those pages remained filled with black curves; dark like the centre of Gran’s eyes. Gripping the felt-tip pens with clammy fingers, I felt weak. Useless. It was all I could do not to cry again, feeling my cheeks still damp, still burning. Like my insides.

  Time stretched after that. Long, slow, a weight pushing down on my thin shoulders. I wished Mum would suggest going for a walk along the beach, just the two of us.

  On the coffee table, through the smoky haze, a glass dish containing sweets teased me. The colourful, twisted wrappers mirrored the pages of my pathetic colouring efforts. I wanted one. Maybe a sweet would remove the bitterness from my mouth. It wasn’t the rabbit that clung to my tongue, nor was it the cabbage. It was fear.

  Eyeing the dish, I asked Grandpa: “Can I have a sweet?”

  Chewing his pipe through that reeking cloud, he replied, “Presently.”

  At that age I had no idea what that word meant, but I knew I couldn’t have one. I wanted to ask Mum or Dad, yet I still felt far removed from them.

  The evening dragged, the TV a monotonous drone in the background: News. Never cartoons. Nothing ever fun. Still I coloured in those books, desperate to take my mind off another troubled dinnertime.

  I later asked Grandpa once again if I could have a sweet. Again, his response: “Presently.”

  Presently. It was always presently.

  As I grew up and the occasional day was filled with similar moments, in different situations, of those yellow eyes and that denial of sweets, where that stare would burn into me, digging deeper than anything ever should. And it would always end with that “What is it, Bobby?” and an amused look, a grin, that laughter, that smile, and another “What?” All as though it was natural for a granny to scare the shit out of a little boy. Eventually my tears were fewer, my sobs softer, and I’ve no idea when it finally stopped. I spent less time with them and, when I hit my teenage years, I all but forgot those dreaded days beneath Gran’s glare, those many times Grandpa would say, “Presently.”

  Presently never came. Not once. At least not while they lived.

  Gran and Grandpa died of old age, both within weeks of one another. How poetic, right? It’s odd to see a parent cry, certainly, and that’s something no one wants to witness, but… well, death comes to us all sooner or later. Indeed, to some of us it comes presently…

  These days, I'm known as Robert—the name Bobby is a million miles away. I now stand with Dad in the silent husk of my grandparents’ bungalow. Hollow, void of pipe smoke and the drone of TV. Now a shell, a grey abandonment of the living. Even the family portraits that line the sideboard stare through the abyss, a step aside from the gallons of tears I shed over time.

  The mantel clock ticks away our intrusive seconds.

  I see the glass dish, those sweets.

  My feet move before I even think about it. A torrent of memories reminds me of those dinners, those countless times Gran would stare, my tears, my parents not even helping—saving—me, and that constant denial of being allowed a sweet.

  Just as my feet had moved without command, my hand reaches out. Fingers splayed.

  “Presently,” I hear Grandpa whisper.

  The wrapper crinkles beneath my fingertips. It is red, bold, a colour breaking the surrounding greyness, pushing back the shadows of family history. Still without thinking what I’m doing, I begin to unwrap the sweet. Smooth and round like a perfect crystal, slightly sticky. Red, such a brilliant red. The wrapper floats to the floor, gently sweeping downwards like a plastic feather, to settle on the carpet.

  Again, there’s Grandpa’s voice: “Presently.”

  Dad is now beside me—I hadn’t heard him. He too has a sweet in his hand. Green, another perfect crystal held so precious between finger and thumb. We glance at one another and, as though on a silent command, together we pop the sweets in our mouths. A burst of flavour, but not what I expect. Sour, foul… like rabbit, soggy cabbage, rotten, festering. Yet I do not spit it out. With my back teeth, I bite down. Hard. Dad crunches his, too. Bathed in a bleeding sunset that now soaks through smoke-yellowed net curtains, we both stand there chewing those sweets.

  Seconds become minutes.

  My taste buds shrivel, they tingle, recoil. Still I don’t spit. A glance at Dad and I see his eyes have widened, yellowed, and their black cores now burn into my own. I know my eyes resemble his. I feel my cheeks slacken. We stare at one another, both unblinking.

  I wait for the tears to come. I wait for that familiar fear as those yellow eyes bore into my soul, seeking, searching…

  Nothing happens.

  As before, my legs move as though with a mind of their own. Dad’s, too. We walk outside, out onto the front path that winds down to the street. We tread the soggy leaves that hide uneven paving, with the chill autumn evening pressing down. Without a word, my Dad and I sit on the cracked wall between garden and pavement, facing the grey street.

  Footsteps, voices approach.

  Two school girls walk round the corner, both no more than eleven years old and dressed in untucked shirts over knee-high skirts. Beneath white socks, their shoes clip the tarmac. Their footfalls echo. The girls eat sweets, colourful wrappers crinkling and seeming louder than the screams of nearby seagulls.

  Both now closer, and one looks at me. She jolts to a halt. So does her friend. A silence embraces the four of us. As one pair of curious eyes focuses on my own, a warmth floods through me. It soothes, refreshes, spreading out into my fingers, my toes. I shiver. I feel larger, taller. This is beautiful. Such elation, joy. Such power at hand.

  So this godlike energy fills me as I sap this girl’s happiness.

  She cries. And her misery is sweet.

  Mark Cassell lives in a rural part of the UK with his wife and
a number of animals. He often dreams of dystopian futures, peculiar creatures, and flitting shadows. Primarily a horror writer, his steampunk, dark fantasy, and SF stories have featured in numerous anthologies and ezines including Rayne Hall's Ten Tales series and horror zine, Sirens Call.

  His best-selling debut novel, The Shadow Fabric, is closely followed by the popular short story collection, Sinister Stitches, and are both only a fraction of an expanding mythos. His most recent release, Chaos Halo 1.0: Alpha Beta Gamma Kill, is in association with Future Chronicles Photography.

  For more about Mark and his work, or to contact him directly:

  Free stories: http://www.markcassell.com

  The Shadow Fabric mythos: www.theshadowfabric.co.uk

  Twitter: twitter.com/Mark_Cassell

  Facebook: www.facebook.com/AuthorMarkCassell

  Blog: http://www.beneath.co.uk

  Sadie shivered in the falling snow, hands dug deep in the pockets of her mangy leopard print coat, hungrily eyeing the cars curb-crawling the Strip. Music boomed inside the titty bar behind her, the black tinted window quaking to the bass. She’d danced there herself when she first hit the Strip, before she was busted turning tricks between lap dances to feed her habit. Now she was lucky if they let her inside to slam back a shot to wash away the taste of her last john.

  An ancient green station wagon tootled up to the curb, the exhaust farting fumes. It had wood-paneled sides and an I LOVE MY POODLE sticker in the rear window. A fluffy white cloud on legs scuttled back and forth, barking, inside the cage compartment at the back of the car. Who goes whoring with their dog in the car? Sadie thought. And a poodle, no less. He was a mousy little guy with a mustache and a black frizz of hair swaddling the sides of his shiny bald skull. He wore a maroon parka over a knit Christmas sweater with a smiling snowman on the front. Sadie frowned. The guy’s goofy sweater was reason alone to roll him.

  He popped the central lock, pushed open the passenger door. “Come in out of the cold.” His voice was shrill and whiny. She climbed inside quickly before he changed his mind. He rolled the window back up, made a shivery noise: Brrr! “Too darn cold to be standing around outside.” Like she had any fucking choice. He pulled away like he was driving home from church. “Mind putting your seatbelt on?” he said. “We don’t want to get pulled over, now do we?” The guy gave a little chortle that reminded her of Ned Flanders. I’m about to fuck a Simpsons character, Sadie thought. Wouldn’t be the first time. Usually it was Barney the drunk or Cletus the redneck. Hell, by now she’d screwed half of Springfield.