ill at ease 2

by Stephen Bacon

  In the instance of 'Masks' the image of a hand sitting in a box started the process. Whose hand was it? How did they lose it? What became of its owner? Who would be mad enough to try to find her? And who would be waiting at the end of the search?

  As for setting, my inspiration came from my home town of Melbourne. It's easy to fall into the trap of using locations foreign to yourself - a faux London or America might appeal to the overseas reader, but oftentimes the writer's lack of knowledge is easy to spot. So, I used Melbourne, in all its rainy, grimy glory. The train station Harry searches gained inspiration from Parliament Station opposite the state houses of Parliament. The pub he and his girlfriend argue in is The Imperial on the opposite corner. Both locations have been altered to suit the story, but the bones of each are there.

  Though I grew up on a diet of Herbert, Hutson and King, my horror reading (and writing) these days inclines towards the ghostly. That said, there's always room for the ghastly, as the end of my tale attests.

  One Bad Turn

  Val Walmsley

  Tim Slater ran, his vision blurred by a stream of anguished tears. In the distance he could still hear the shouts of his tormentors, and although he was far enough ahead of them for their words to be unintelligible, it didn’t matter. He knew what they were and still they hurt him.

  “Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.” Or so the saying goes. It hadn’t taken Tim long to learn that this was far from true. Certainly the physical beatings he had so often suffered at the hands of Carl Mayfield and his friends had been painful, but the resulting injuries were temporary and healed in a matter of days. But the psychological taunts, including name calling, were far more cruel. They caused – were still causing – wounds that Tim didn’t think would ever heal, especially since he probed them in much the same way as one would probe a mouth ulcer with their tongue. You knew it would hurt, yet you couldn’t help yourself.

  Only when his lungs began to sear and he could barely breathe did he slow down to a listing shamble. He was no longer on any street – the ground beneath his feet was no longer level or tarmacked. Instead he was stumbling uphill on soft, grassy and uneven ground. By the time he reached the top of the mound he was so spent that his legs gave way and he fell heavily on all fours, his body heaving with the effort of taking in air. Little by little he regained his breath and leaned onto his haunches. His eyes were crusted with dried tears, and he wiped them away. Only then did he realise where he was. He gasped.

  Somehow his flight had taken him right out of town and onto the fields of Yew Tree Farm. And under the canopy of the lone yew from which the farm took its name.

  Despite the heat of the Indian summer, Tim suddenly felt cold in its shadow. It was a deep chill that had nothing to do with physical temperature. It had everything to do with apprehension, even fear.

  For generations, every child in Kingley Chase had grown up with warnings to stay away from the yew. It’s dying, their elders would tell them, it’s ready to collapse, do as you’re told and don’t go near it. And it was a good, rational reason – the tree was indeed of ruinous age, half-dead, and so bowed by centuries of storms and the prevailing westerly winds, that, from a distance, it resembled a pouncing, many-limbed demon. But this practical consideration wasn’t the only reason why the residents of Kingley Chase kept away from the tree. It wasn’t even the reason.

  Fifteen hundred years had passed since it had sprouted, and for most of that time it had loomed solitary over the town like some dark sentinel. The yew’s history was full of death and blood and violence. The hill it stood on was an ancient burial mound, and local legend told of people being sacrificed beneath the tree to appease the old, wrathful gods that had still held sway despite the advent of Christianity. In more recent centuries, it had been the site of terrible punishments meted out in the name of justice and righteousness. Those the township had condemned as criminals had met their fate there. Some had been lynched from its gnarled branches, their bodies left to hang and rot as a warning to others. Others had been tied, sometimes even nailed, to its enormous trunk, flayed until their skin hung in flaps from the raw flesh beneath and their blood pooled amongst the tree’s exposed roots. They often took days to die, and every moment of those final hours was agony. And it was said that other, much more horrific and unspeakable things had happened there, secret things that were only speculated about in whispers. Of these incidents, all that was really known was that, from time to time, bodies had been found at the base of the tree.

  Whatever physical marks these brutal events had left on the tree had long worn away, but there remained an atmosphere that even the most sceptical of humans could perceive. A hint of wrongness. Nothing lived under the tree’s canopy. No grass, no plants, no mosses, lichens or fungi, no sign of any animal, bird or even insect. Other than the wind there was silence, and beneath the tree itself the air was still, heavy and heady with a strange scent, like sweet, overpowering incense. The atmosphere was eerie, unsettling. Dead.

  Claims that the tree was haunted by the ghosts of the people who had died at or lay buried among its roots did not seem so foolish now that Tim found himself so close to it. He could almost see the distorted faces said to be visible in its puckered bark when the light was right. He could almost hear their voices screaming for mercy, for release. The tree’s resemblance to some creature from Hell was also enhanced – its branches were like clawed, arthritic, reaching talons, and the man-high hollow in its massive trunk reminded Tim of the maw of a monster. He felt a vague fear in the tree’s forbidding presence. But he couldn’t go home. Not yet. Carl might not be bored of tormenting him just yet, might be lying in wait for him somewhere – and Tim had had enough for one day. So he overrode his feelings of unease, dismissed the images and sounds as his imagination playing tricks, and instead welcomed the lonely sanctuary the tree offered.

  Tim had been dreading this day – the first day back at school after the summer holidays. First days back were always bad. It was almost as though, in a perverse kind of way, Carl and his cronies had missed him. Tim wasn’t their only victim, but they seemed to derive more pleasure from tormenting Tim than they did their other targets – always had. Tim always went to great lengths to avoid them during the school breaks, spending every day in his bedroom on his computer. He was safe in his room, and through the games he played he could be someone else for a while, escaping Tim Slater and his problems altogether.

  They’d been lying in wait for him that morning, and had turned the twenty-minute walk to school into a humiliating nightmare. They had jeered at him, made fun of him, embarrassed him with sexual innuendo, had grabbed at his buttocks, his genitals. The streets had been busy with pedestrians, many of them fellow pupils. They had heard every word, and even though Tim had kept his head down and his eyes on the pavement he could feel their pitiless eyes boring into him, could hear some of them joining in with the mocking laughter. Tim couldn’t have been more embarrassed if he had been walking along the streets stark naked. He’d felt himself turn beetroot, felt hot, furious tears welling, but all he could do was wipe them away and keep walking.

  Their humiliation of him hadn’t been enough. When they’d reached the school gates they’d suddenly run past him, grabbed him and frogmarched him to an area behind the science block where it was always muddy. It had rained the night before, and the mud was liquid. In fits of laughter, they had lifted Tim off the ground and thrown him face down into the brown-grey ooze. While he had floundered, they had taken his backpack and had emptied its contents into the mire, ruining his schoolbooks and other belongings. They had even opened his sandwich box and scooped mud into it. The rest of the day Tim had had to walk around in wet, filthy clothes, had had to explain to his teachers why he couldn’t hand in his homework, and had had to endure the relentless sniggering, whispering and name-calling that followed him throughout the rest of the day.

  And when school finished, things only got worse.

 
; Ten years he had endured this bullying, and each passing year had honed not just Carl’s torturing skills, but also Tim’s ability to relive the anguish. Tim tensed, holding his head in his hands and squeezing as hard as he could. He couldn’t face the memories tonight. He crawled into the hollow tree trunk, irrationally wishing that it would somehow make him disappear so that he would no longer have to remember, to think, to be – but there was no stopping the ordeal. It was as though a switch had been flicked, and a tidal wave of recollections flooded his mind. Mercifully there were so many incidents that they rushed through his head at too great a speed for Tim to properly catch them. But the intense feelings of despair, agony and hatred associated with them were only too clear. And they hurt. They hurt so much that the pain quickly became unbearable. Burning tears of torment welled in his eyes, spilled onto his cheeks. He furiously wiped them away, but to no avail. The tears just kept on coming, and the emotions amplified. In the end he could take no more, and lost control. He screamed, beat at the tree, so desperate was he to destroy the memories and emotions with harsh, loud sound and physical pain. But they wouldn’t go. They would never leave him now. Over the years they had become a part of Tim, had shattered any self-worth he might once have developed, and had made him loathe himself more than Carl ever could.

  The fit of impotent rage exhausted him and finally eased, until all that was left were the tears. He lay on his side, curled up and wept.

  And lost himself in the strangest, most vivid of dreams.

  ***

  … Carl’s face, eyes alive with derision, mouth spewing the usual hateful obscenities. It enraged Tim. It was as though a fire burned within him, and he stood shaking, the fury heating his blood. His heart pumped, his breath quickened. Carl’s words fell on deaf ears; Tim could only hear his heart thump, his blood course through his veins. His fists balled, clenched so hard that his nails drove into his palms, and he felt his knuckles grow cold as blood drained from them. Carl goaded him, pushed him. Suddenly Tim saw only red. He pushed back. Carl fell and Tim threw himself onto his prone body, pinning him down until he was helpless. There was a knife in Tim’s hand. He didn’t know how it had got there. It didn’t matter. Hate boiled over. He raised the knife. Brought it down. The blade entered Carl’s shoulder. There was the crunch of bone. Blood sprayed Tim’s face. Carl screamed. Tim laughed in answer. He heard none of Carl’s pleas; he saw only terror and agony in his bully’s wet, squinting eyes. It gave Tim strength, power. He twisted the knife, pulled it out. Raised it again. Plunged it into Carl’s chest. Again. Again. Again. Carl writhed beneath him as Tim repeatedly stabbed him. Tim could taste the blood, its flavour at once sweet and salty, could smell its coppery tang…

  … All too soon Carl lay still. Tim howled with disappointment. Too quick. Ten years of anguish had not yet been expiated. He looked at the knife in his hand. Both knife and hand were barely recognisable as such, so covered were they by sticky, already congealing blood. He looked at Carl’s dead face. All trace of pain and fear had gone from it; it was merely in repose and its unseeing eyes stared past him up at the ceiling. Even though the face was dead, Tim still hated it. Hated even to look at it. Dead or alive, he was still Carl Mayfield. Tim didn’t want that. He wanted to destroy his tormentor, to obliterate him, to make him into the nothing he had made Tim. Again he raised the knife. And sliced into Carl’s slack face over and over again until there was nothing left…

  … No remorse. Instead there was gratification. Appeasement. Relief. The glory of attaining a goal long dreamed of. Punishment. Justice. Revenge wake up Tim get up you lazy waste of space…

  ***

  “Huh!”

  Torn from the dream, Tim sat up, wide eyed and breathing rapidly before he was fully awake. He looked around in confusion, and it took him a few moments to realise he was in his own bedroom. He heaved a huge sigh of relief and let himself fall back onto his sweat-soaked pillow. His head throbbed and he felt hot, ill, achy. He tried to gather his thoughts, but all he could focus on was the nightmare. Not that he could really call it that. Yes, what he remembered of it was horrific, but a significant part of him had enjoyed it.

  “Come on, get up!” shouted his mother’s disembodied voice, “I haven’t got time for your shit today!”

  Tim didn’t respond. Instead he got up and went into the bathroom, where he showered and cleaned his teeth. He performed his ablutions like an automaton. His mind was still elsewhere, but he began to feel a little better. He still felt light-headed, almost drugged, and the dream was still with him, insinuating itself into the recesses of his mind rather than fading. But there was more. The last thing he remembered before the dream was being curled up beneath the yew, torturing himself with memories best left buried. He had no recollection at all of the walk back, coming home to the inevitable row with his mother for not having tea ready when she got back from work, or of undressing and getting into bed. And yet, these things must have happened. He shrugged, sighed, trying to put both the dream and now this strange time slip out of his befuddled mind. But they lingered.

  Absently he dried himself, and only came to when the towel caught on something and he felt a sharp pain in his arm. He looked down and frowned. A large splinter protruded from his arm. The skin around it was red, hot and swollen, the web-like capillaries leading away from the wound visible and dark. His frown intensified. What had happened there? And then he remembered his outburst beneath the yew. The splinter must have driven itself into his arm then. The wound was obviously infected, or poisoned – weren’t yews poisonous? Was that why he was feeling woozy and drained? He scrabbled around in the bathroom cabinet for some iodine, a pair of tweezers and a plaster and saw to the wound as best he could. He was just finishing dressing when his mother shouted again.

  “Tim! Get down here now!”

  “Okay, okay!”

  He found his mother coming out of the kitchen, dressed in her usual working outfit of tailored jacket and skirt (plum today), a pristine white blouse and high heels. She was fully made up and her hair looked as though she had just walked out of a salon. Tim mentally shook his head at her. The way she looked would make anyone think that she was in some sort of high-powered, senior management position when in reality she was a receptionist at the Kingley Chase dental surgery. She glared at him through overemphasised eyelashes.

  “About time.”

  “Mum, I don’t feel well…”

  “None of your crap today. I want you in school, and I want you home right after. I won’t be home till gone seven, and I expect tea to be ready, got that? And do something about the housework. It’s like a pig sty in here.”

  She didn’t even bother to wait for a reply. Instead she reached for her handbag, slung it over her shoulder and flounced out of the house. He heard her high heels clatter on the drive, the slam of the car door, and the engine roaring into life. And then she was gone. Tim sighed. There was no arguing with his mother when she was in one of her moods. And it’d be more than his life was worth to go against her.

  He went into the kitchen and thought about choking down some cereal. But he already felt unwell, a feeling exacerbated by the prospect of school and its inevitable ordeals. His stomach churned uneasily. He dismissed the idea of breakfast, fetched his bag, remembering only now the mud-covered books inside, and left the house.

  Tim had only been walking a few minutes when he realised that something odd was going on. There were more people on the street that usual, and everyone seemed to be hurrying in the same direction, turning right onto the next street. An ambulance rushed past, and it too turned right. Sandringham Close. That was where Carl lived. Whatever was happening, Tim felt sure Carl and his cronies would be right at the front of the crowds, ogling and finding out what dirt they could – and that meant that Tim might just make it to school unmolested that morning.

  But when he got to Sandringham Close, Tim’s curiosity got the better of him, and he headed towards the crowds. Around twenty people had already gather
ed outside one particular house, talking in hushed tones outside a barrier of the sort of crime scene tape he had seen so often on cop shows on TV. He frowned, broke into a run when he realised that the scene of the crime, wasn’t just in Carl’s street.

  It was Carl’s house.

  The people that had gathered stood for the most part in small groups, speculating in hushed tones. Others were silent, watching the house like hawks, determined not to miss a single movement, camera phones at the ready to record the events as they unfolded. Among them was Ginny Horton, a neighbour of the Mayfields who worked in a junior position at the Kingley Chase Gazette. She had the starry-eyed, excited look of one who’d had the biggest opportunity of their lives fall into their lap.

  Tim had only stood with the rest of the crowd for a few minutes when the front door opened and a suited man strode out, his face pallid, his eyes dark and haunted. Even though this was the moment the crowd had been waiting for, they shifted uncomfortably, moved closer together as though they needed the safety there was in numbers. Only Ginny stepped forward, pocket notebook in hand. There was a brief exchange between journalist and policeman, and Tim was close enough to hear what was being said. It ended with Ginny begging for just a few words. The detective relented.

  “Alright, alright,” he said, “I can confirm that the body of a teenage male has been found, and has been positively identified as being that of Carl Mayfield. It is likely that Carl died sometime between seven and eleven pm last night when he was known to have been alone in the house. Due to the, er, extreme nature of the injuries we are treating this as a case of murder, and we are confident that forensic evidence found at the scene will provide several positive leads to investigate. Further details will be made available as and when appropriate. We urge anyone who may have seen anything suspicious in the area between the hours of seven and eleven pm last night to come forward and contact Kingley Chase police station in the first instance. That’s all. Don’t push it, Miss Horten, that’s all you’re getting.”