The Angry Ghost and Other Stories
Page 48
“Where do yuh think you’re going?” Dean slurred.
“We’re both off for a walk,” George said looking up at him and slowly moving in front of Kathy.
“You’re half right. Now get lost,” he said and returned his gaze to Kathy.
George moved closer. “No, we are both leaving now, togeth…”
Dean was getting impatient and had never liked fencing with words or for that matter anything that had any form of cerebral interaction, especially after a skinful, and so he gave George the ‘Hammer’ as he liked to call his right-handed uppercut.
As if from nowhere, the landlord suddenly appeared and pulled Dean back roughly by the collar. “Are you all right, son?” he said with concern to the now doubled-up boyfriend.
“I’m okay; we’re just leaving,” George said looking directly at Dean.
“And you, Cowling, are out. You and your friends leave now,” the landlord said.
This would be a good time to show how tough he was, Dean thought, but maybe it would be more fun to burn down his pub. Maybe think twice before talking to the head of Satan’s Army.
Dean and his mates left.
He looked both ways up and down the road and spied the loving couple and he knew what he was going to do.
His mate, Vic, grabbed his arm. “C’mon, Dean, let’s go up to the yard. Frank pinched a crate from round the back.”
Dean shook free. “No! I’ve got something to do – something that’s needed doing a long time.”
“Relax, Big Guy; you lose your head too easily…” Vic started.
Normally Dean would have slammed Vic to the ground with that kind of audacious criticism, but as he had called him by his favourite nickname, he simply scowled and turned around.
The other two that constituted the rest of ‘Satan’s Army’ looked at Dean for several moments before shrugging and then walking back to the yard to see if they couldn’t make some impression on Dave’s crate. Vic looked back just once. Dean was a great guy to be with but sometimes seemed to take things too seriously and go looking for trouble. He sure was too quick to lose his head.
He turned and followed the others.
Scene 6: The Woods
“I’m scared,” Kathy said looking behind her as George walked beside her tightly gripping her hand.
“Dean’s harmless – well… fairly,” he said still rubbing his stomach.
Kathy continued to look over her shoulder. “George! I think he’s following us.” Her voice shook slightly.
George looked back and then increased his pace. After several seconds he looked again. He could see Dean about fifty feet behind him and swaying as he crossed the road. George tightened his grip on Kathy’s hand and broke into a run.
Exactly one hundred years earlier to the day, Jimmy Mann had run along the same road to escape his pursuers.
George saw a gate and immediately dragged Kathy into the woods. Despite the darkness and likelihood of getting completely lost, consideration of his current circumstances suggested the woods as the best option.
If caught, he expected to be beaten, probably quite badly but he felt that Kathy’s treatment would be immeasurably worse.
George kept his gaze ahead; despite the late hour the bright, full moon provided a limited light through the almost bare woodland canopy above to enable them to avoid the trees and branches.
George knew they were making too much noise as they crashed through the undergrowth but neither wanted to slow down.
Just then a black cat appeared to their left and ran away again. On an odd impulse, George headed in a new direction after the cat while still half dragging the terrified Kathy along with him.
They both broke into a clearing. The cat had gone.
Dean was feeling indestructible as his legs propelled him deeper and deeper into the woods, his arms brushing aside the branches and foliage.
Then, he swerved suddenly and felt his knee give under him. He would have sworn that he had almost run into a black cat.
Dean stood up awkwardly and found himself on the periphery of a clearing; and there, on the other side beyond a small mound in its centre, was his prey.
They had nowhere to run to; there appeared to be no breaks in the surrounding forest wall and so he started moving slowly towards them, his eyes on Kathy. Already his mind was taking him places that soon he would be experiencing in the flesh.
Then he stopped and looked up. The light was fading too quickly and in his intoxicated state almost marvelled as he looked way above his head at the uppermost branches of the tallest trees which appeared to be linking together. Then he heard a heavy dragging sound and he looked over quickly at his quarry. Kathy was wrapped up in George’s arms when they both suddenly looked behind them. Dean saw something large moving in the shadows and then both George and Kathy… just disappeared.
Dean ran forwards around the mound, but could see nothing – there was nowhere for them to go.
Then he felt something snakelike twisting around his neck and swatted away several tendrils hanging from the branches above. He felt more move around his neck but this time couldn’t escape them. With both hands he tried to tear them from his throat as they started to become tighter and tighter, digging further into his flesh.
Dean couldn’t breathe and now his hands were becoming wet and sticky. He raised his hands before his face and watched the blood moving down his forearms. He was still wondering what was happening when with a sudden jerk the tendrils tightened and for the briefest of moments Dean saw his body drop to the ground as his head was lifted into the air.
Scene 7: … Dreaming, Floating…
Dreaming, floating…
The trees speak to her of the changing seasons and her beloved and the hope that they will one day be together again and the forest healed…
And to free her from her constraint.
But her murderer is present… to prevent her release… and a danger to those wishing to help her.
Chapter 2
Scene 1: The Author
The present…
Luther Blaides sat cross-legged on the hill with his back resting against an old oak tree. He was trying to enjoy the sun on his face and the stunning forest vista before him, but was distracted by Lizzie and Jenny; two cats playing with his bootlace, each one studying the aforementioned tie with some intensity before taking it in turns to pounce onto his boot before racing off again.
He wondered as to their almost coordinated actions before deciding he was analysing the felines too deeply.
He had named them Lizzie and Jenny from the characters in his book and maybe that was enough.
He smiled. It was a pleasant and pleasing distraction from his most immediate thoughts. His new house lay behind him and he considered the woods laid out before him – his latest acquisition.
It was a little different to his other buys.
He gazed at the sea of green that stretched out for almost 800 acres, undulating like an ocean, and smiled more so. Yes, this is what he had wanted all along though it had taken time and several odd occurrences to get him here.
Four years ago, he had bought a Corvette and it had been a lot of fun once all the import issues had finally been resolved but the novelty had worn off when too many people of dubious honesty took an interest and so he decided to give it away as a prize in an auction for some forest preservation charity.
The Honda Blackbird had been a lot of fun too up until he woke up in hospital with a broken leg, two broken ribs and a fractured wrist. He still remembered the doctor admonishing him on his apparently lackadaisical attitude towards his health and suggested a racing track rather than the narrow labyrinthine roads of southern Cornwall would better suit his needs.
He had then bought a ten-bedroom house once belonging to some duke. It was cold and he found himself living in only two rooms. It
burnt down due to an electrical fault and it was a miracle that he had survived the flames – according to the fire service crew that pulled him, oddly unharmed, from the conflagration.
He had spent several thousand pounds on a Rolex – he looked down at his left wrist – well, it keeps good time, he thought.
He shook his head and returned his attention to the beautiful vista while the cats continued to pounce onto the top of his boot. The view was devoid of all humanity and its legacies. The cancer that mankind propagated through the natural world made Luther bristle with anger.
His new home was now complete but the builders had strongly suggested the removal of the oak that Luther currently rested against. It grew halfway between the house and the forest and therefore had initially inhibited his view. Luther was more than a little perplexed as to how he had missed it during the planning stages but he had had a lot on his mind. Oddly, he found the prospect of removing the tree quite repulsive and so after much time and expense, instead of the tree, the house was relocated eighty feet west of its originally sited position. The builders had argued that with several thousand trees in his back garden why be concerned with just one? But Luther had shaken his head and told them that it would not be cut down.
Luther wondered how the tree had come to be planted there, sitting alone, the closest tree being some 120 feet at the bottom of the hill.
He knew little about trees but it was obvious that its age was best described as ancient. There was little in the way of foliage in its upper branches and some kind of fungus appeared to cling to a large part of its trunk, but its solidity, its strength of presence, supported the notion of something immemorial; something that had stood strong through the centuries, until that is, some builders felt its continuation of life necessitated immediate deletion due to the need for a person of meagre longevity – in comparison – to have a better view from his house.
Luther shook his head uncertain whether to laugh or cry.
The tree stood barely twenty feet high but must have easily been six-foot wide. He felt oddly comforted by its presence. It looked like a sentinel that might check the credentials (or worth) of those that wanted to enter its leafy demesne and guard against trespassers.
Scene 2: Mary
He knew why he had spent so much money on so many inappropriate or disappointing things: he had never had money before – and now, all of a sudden – he had.
He had always considered himself brought up in something akin to poverty but only recently realised that if you had food, warmth and a roof over your head, anything more was a bonus.
He had read stories of how well-off individuals had become appreciative of life after tasting a period of ill fortune. Though for Luther, the converse was true; for it was only after experiencing what would be regarded by many as good fortune – that is – a sudden vast income, that he really appreciated how things were before.
About six years ago Luther had been working as a teacher in Avebury, a small village about forty miles west of London. He found he was an exceptionally good teacher in that in any class he taught – whatever their cerebral level – the pupils excelled after attending several of his classes. He guessed he had the knack for engaging his students and instilling into them some of his own enthusiasm for the subject.
The subject was paganism in Britain over the last 300 years. Although this might appear a little specific it was easy to introduce under its umbrella issues of religion, anthropology, persecution, human psychology and even astronomy.
It was the standing stones and henges for which Avebury was famous that absorbed Luther’s avid imagination. Were these monoliths simply alignments for the summer solstice and other solar or lunar occurrences? Or were they the gateways to the lairs of unearthly spirits?
Luther liked to parallel his interest for the truth in the stones’ past with fabricated fairy tales.
He was fully aware of where the border lay between historical fact and romantic invention, but still enjoyed a rather quixotic viewpoint.
At the end of classes, he would often recite a short story that he had made up about the stones or the time of the ‘witches’. It was at the end of one such class that he became quite suddenly distracted by a scent of perfume. It was a fragrance he had not experienced for a long time. Though subtle he stopped in mid-sentence and looked around the room for its source.
After several seconds the pupils started to look towards one another.
Luther coughed and continued, “I would like you to write on the purpose of the Avebury Stones; this can be serious scientific speculation or wild fantasy…” He stopped again as he noticed a girl he hadn’t seen before. She was sitting at the back of the classroom in shadow and slowly dragging her fingers through her waist-long auburn hair.
Her eyes were the colour of bright emeralds and appeared to shine from the semi-dark.
Fortunately, it was then that bell sounded and a noisy tide of teenagers left the classroom.
Luther gathered his papers together and looked up to see the girl with the green eyes still seated – and still pulling her fingers through her hair.
Luther walked towards her. He had always prided himself on his ability to remember his students’ faces and the names that went with them within minutes of their introduction but he was most certain that he did not know this one; all the odder, as the lesson had been an extended three-hour one.
She stopped combing her hair and sat with her elbows resting on the desk looking directly at Luther over her steepled fingers. Luther stopped beside her.
“Hello,” Luther said.
“Hello, Luther. That was a very interesting exercise.”
“Please call me Mr Blaides, Miss? …” he said pausing for her to speak her name.
“Mary,” she said smiling. “I am so happy to meet you. I was wondering if you’ve thought of publishing some of those little stories? And by the way, you have an interesting name; do you know what it means?”
“Actually, I do, Mary,” Luther said. “I believe it means something along the lines of ‘someone of a pagan persuasion’.”
She looked up and stared fixedly at Luther. “That’s a bit vague, Luther,” she stated with some admonishment.
Luther felt an unfamiliar feeling of anxiety. As a teacher dealing with female pupils of a certain age, he was familiar with being occasionally on the receiving end of flirtation and yet though he felt fairly sure that it was not happening here, Mary’s direct eye contact seemed far too mature for her age – and those eyes…
“Actually,” Mary said, “it means ‘White Witch’.”
Luther stared at her a few moments before coughing slightly and then reminding her of the homework, and hastily departed the classroom.
Mary smiled, a look of thoughtful contemplation on her face, and though she was feeling exceptionally tired, returned to dragging her fingers slowly through her long auburn hair for several minutes before she left the classroom.
Scene 3: The First Book
That evening Luther had sat in front of the PC and stared at the newly opened blank document. He had thought for a couple of years about putting his fictional stories down, but had never got around to it.
Despite the normally prolific ideas he had in front of the class, he couldn’t think of any thoughts on a story.
After a while, Luther went into the kitchen for a glass of brandy. With a couple of glasses of alcohol inside him, he always felt just that little more relaxed as if his mental machinations were suddenly untethered from their usually rigid controls.
On returning to the study Luther stared again at the PC and after several sips from the brandy glass, started to type.
Sometime later he stretched and yawned and looked down at the clock on the PC. It was 3.30 am. He was amazed to discover that he had been writing for five hours straight.
But now he was tired and so selected the save
icon and switched off the PC; the reams of strangely unfamiliar text on the screen disappeared and Luther sought his bed.
Luther was not new to the publishing world having already enjoyed some small success with the publication of several books on the origins of Paganism. However, Mary’s suggestion had been the catalyst that allowed him a greater enjoyment and a wider audience – not to mention publishing success – in a series of books aimed at the under twelve-year- olds.
Luther knew that the persecution of witches occurred though he, somewhat sadly, recognised the absurdity of the whole casting spells thing and flying on broomsticks.
But Luther had always loved the idea of it.
And so, he had created a witch called Mary – after the young girl in his class who – oddly – had not appeared again. Maybe her family had moved away. Sad, as she had a charisma and intelligence that interested Luther.
He had associated his story character with a magical coven consisting of two other witches: Jenny and Lizzie. He also wondered about including a cat called Sabbath which after some thought, he quickly shortened to Sabby. He knew he would not be popular with parents whose children may want to call their newly bought pet ‘Sabbath’. Then after further deliberation he decided to remove the cat completely.
The naissance of this bunch of magical friends had been born in Luther’s slightly intoxicated mind that evening when the sense was out but the imagination was in. It was so refreshing and liberating to write something that did not have to be accurate or subjected to scrutiny by a long line of ‘experts’ just waiting to inflate further their already over-inflated egos through the demolition of another’s hard work.
Scene 4: Miss Jenny Blessing
Luther was brought back to the present – again – by his adopted cats Jenny and Lizzie – pouncing once again on his bootlaces.
He had had a less successful time breaking into the adult fiction market. His attempt and manuscript proffered to his publisher had been met with a disappointing reply.