Eldren: The Book of the Dark

by William Meikle

  Margaret made to follow, but Brian stopped her.

  “Leave him be just now, we need to do something with Ian here, he’s losing an awful lot of blood. Go and call an ambulance.”

  He tried hard to remember what little first aid knowledge he had. Were you supposed to move someone suffering from a neck wound? He knelt on the ground oblivious to the fact that the knee of his trousers was now in a pool of blood.

  Looking up, he noticed that the boiler room was now empty and that Margaret was coming back down the small flight of steps.

  “The ambulance is on its way, but they say that it could be ten minutes or so depending on the traffic. Is there anything we can do before that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe we should lift his head up or something. Anyway, we can’t just leave him lying there. Go and get a pillow or cushion or something and we’ll try putting it under his head.”

  While Margaret was gone Brian looked around for clues as to what the boys had been doing and wondered if it had been an accident. He knew that Ian had been the scapegoat, but he couldn’t believe that twelve year olds would willfully injure one of their classmates in this way.

  He realized that he would have to find Tony Dickie if he was to find out what had happened in this room. He knew the rest of the kids well enough to realize that they would clam up immediately and deny all knowledge of anything that had happened here.

  Margaret reappeared at the door carrying a small cushion from one of the staff room chairs.

  “I couldn’t find anything else. I tried to talk to Tom, but he’s stinking of drink. I think he’s started early.”

  Brian took the cushion and laid it beside Ian.

  He was never to forget the next few moments as he raised the boy’s head and discovered that it lolled in his hands, the fingers of his left hand sinking into the gaping hole in the boy’s neck. He pulled his hand away sharply.

  Margaret’s screams as Ians’ head fell backwards were counterpointed by the insistent “nee-naw-nee-naw” of the ambulance arriving in the courtyard outside. Brian knew already that they were too late as he leaned forward and pulled closed the boy’s dead eyelids.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE REST of the day passed in a blur of images for Brian. The visit to the police station with Margaret crying on his shoulder. The questions as to why the children had been allowed into the boiler room in the first place, and the long and loud denials of the kids that any of them had actually been present. All of these seemed dreamlike and distant, his thoughts always returning to the dead boy’s head lolling backwards and the sound of the ambulance echoing in his head.

  The only person who knew what had happened in the boiler room was Tony Dickie, but the boy couldn’t be found. He had been home, his mother had confirmed that, but had left again almost immediately, and was not to be found in any of the childrens’ known play areas. The police had several men out combing the surrounding countryside, anxious to find him because they had to know whether Ian’s death was due to an adult, or the result of some schoolboy maliciousness.

  The headmaster had been distraught, worrying mainly whether the boy’s parents would sue the school for lack of supervision, and had ‘suggested’ that Brian and Margaret, as the two teachers directly involved, should stay away from the school for a week or so “just until this mess gets sorted out.”

  Which was why, at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, when he should have been taking the guitar group, he sat in the lounge bar upstairs from the bar he’d visited the night before, nursing his second double whisky and holding Margaret Brodie’s hand.

  This bar was a bit more up-market than the one downstairs...it actually had a carpet and chairs...but was no busier. Someone had obviously thought that lime green velvet was tasteful for the furniture, and had added a nice shag carpet for good measure. It was a pity that the carpet had to be navy blue.

  A lone disco globe hung forlornly from the ceiling, a remnant from the days when this bar was used for Saturday night dances. Brian had attended many of them in his youth, back when a frantic grope in a doorway was the pinnacle of his ambition. More often than not though he had ended up blind drunk on a mixture of cider and vodka. Even now, years later, he couldn’t even take the taste of either...one whiff was enough to bring back the memory of vomit in his throat.

  Brian and Margaret were the only customers and, after serving them, the bored barmaid had gone back to staring blankly into space, her only sign of life the robotic chewing as she masticated a piece of gum.

  A large television set was set above the bar. Thankfully the sound was turned down...the last thing Brian needed right now was the frantic chatter of horse racing commentary.

  Margaret was taking Ian’s death hard, and every few minutes she broke into another bout of weeping, her eyes red rimmed and bloodshot. She had hardly touched the brandy that he had brought her over half an hour ago, and it was now sitting on the table just out of her reach.

  Brian reached into his pocket and removed his cigarette packet. He got as far as lighting up when Margaret stopped him.

  “Please don’t, Brian. I think I’d be sick.”

  “It wouldn’t show against the décor,” Brian said. He immediately regretted it as her face seemed to fall into itself and heavy tears leaked from the corners of her eyes.

  “It’s just not fair,” she said for the second time in five minutes. “A wee laddie like that. And he was such a smart boy.”

  She didn’t quite succeed in keeping the tremor out of her voice.

  “You don’t think any of the rest of them would do it deliberately do you?”

  She went straight on, not waiting for an answer.

  “I mean, Tony Dickie wouldn’t do anything bad, he’s a harmless soul. A bit morbid maybe, but a lot of kids are like that.”

  Brian interrupted her, desperately trying to get the subject away from Ian’s death. As he spoke he put the cigarette packet back in his pocket...having them on the table was just too much temptation and he didn’t want to do anything that might drive her away from him.

  “How do you mean morbid? He’s been in my class for Elementary Biology, but I’ve never really noticed him much. He doesn’t ask many questions and keeps himself to himself a lot. I had him pegged for one of the middle orders...you know…bright but with no great drive to learn.”

  At first he didn’t think she would answer. She searched the brandy glass as if it held the answer to all life’s great mysteries.

  When she did start talking her voice was a dull monotone and for the first time Brian wondered if she was in shock. He was about to offer to take her home, but something in her words gripped him and made him pay attention.

  “Oh, things like asking about ghosts and whether dead people could come back to life. I had his class for religious education the other day, and all they could talk about was ghosts and ghouls.”

  Brian’s drinking arm stopped before it got his glass to his mouth but Margaret didn’t notice...she was lost in remembering.

  “I think a couple of them had been playing with an ouija board and they’d had the usual experience, you know the kind of thing…a few bits of possible information mixed in with stuff about your dear departed granny or some such.”

  She paused, and in doing so seemed to really notice her brandy glass for the first time. Leaning forward, she lifted her glass, and just at the same moment Brian gave in to an urge he’d been harboring for a few minutes, bent forward and brushed his lips softly across her cheek.

  She sat up straight, not exactly shocked but almost spilling her drink.

  “What was that for?”

  Brian could feel the red heat of a blush move up from under his collar. He didn’t know why he had given in to the impulse...it wasn’t his usual style...but it had felt right at the time and he wasn’t about to apologize at this stage. Besides...she hadn’t rushed out of the room screaming, had she? Not yet anyway. He decided to brazen it out.

  “Oh, I just felt
like it. Anyway, to change the subject quickly. What about that drink I invited you out for?”

  He held a hand up as if to fend off her expected protests. He felt callous, but a part of him realized that he might never get up the courage again if he didn’t at least try now. He pressed on.

  “I know we’re having a drink just now, but this isn’t the best time for either of us to enjoy ourselves. Seeing as how we’ve been told to stay off work, we might as well make the most of it, so how about seeing me tomorrow night?”

  She looked hesitant, but didn’t turn him down straight away, so Brian pressed on.

  “Come on, Margaret, it won’t hurt. I’ll take you down the coast in my old banger; we’ll go to the pictures, then for a meal somewhere and watch the sunset from the top of a hill. I’ll promise not to make a pass at you until at least ten o’clock. How does that sound?”

  This time he did get a laugh, along with a peck on the cheek, and an address to pick her up at, at seven. She drained her glass quickly, almost choking as the liquor went down.

  “I’ve got to go. See you tomorrow,” she said.

  Brian sat, bemused, as she picked up her coat and left, with a backward glance to smile at him.

  He’d been expecting her to say no.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Tony had been running all morning and it felt like a week—a week running and hiding from his worst nightmare come true. But all the time he could feel those eyes, those blood-red eyes that seemed to see straight inside him.

  He would never be rid of the sight as the fangs tore at Ian’s throat, the sound of the deep chuckle as the creature fed, the smell, hot and coppery, of Ian’s blood as it sprayed in a fine mist in the air of the boiler-room.

  Now, finally, he had stopped running, not because he had got away, but because he didn’t know where else to go. He squeezed his small frame through the railings of the cemetery and headed for the church.

  He was afraid. Not because it had spoken to him…no, it went deeper than that.

  When Ian Brown was killed the pictures had unfolded in his mind like a video film, the images jerky and fast as if shot under a strobe.

  Tony saw his mother, but as he’d never seen her before. She was naked, writhing languidly on the bed in his parent’s bedroom. The vampire was standing over her, its forked tongue sliding wetly between thin lips as it crouched over her body. The fangs slid out from a suddenly red mouth and a long white hand ran over his mother’s thigh, then her belly, and then her breasts. His mother bucked under the hand and groaned in pleasure, bending her head back and offering her throat. The picture stopped, freeze frame, just as the fangs slid into the soft flesh.

  The picture in his head had faded out and Tony found himself looking deep into those blood red eyes. And the creature had smiled; its bloodied fangs dripping a flow of red across its chin as it lowered its head once more to Ian’s neck. It was only after Tony found the energy to scream that the vampire stopped its feeding. Tony only looked away for a second...just long enough to register Ian’s body falling to the floor, but when he looked up the vampire had gone. A faint mist drifting in the corner of the room was the only sign that anything had been there and by the time the first footsteps sounded in the corridor behind him even that had dissipated.

  After that, he had ran, ran until it felt that hot razors were sawing in his chest, until his breath tore pain out of him with every stride, ran until he stood, crying still, at the back door of his parent’s house. He had opened the door, slowly, praying that the dog wouldn’t bark, and slipped into the house and up the stairs. His heart had pounded hard as he felt under his mattress, and it gave a sudden lurch when his fingers met only space. But then he pushed his hand in further and met the rough leather of the old book he’s found back in the ruined Hansen House.

  Then he ran again, not stopping until he got to the church.

  Now he felt the book, sitting against his skin under his shirt.

  He pressed his body against the wall and shivered as the first stars twinkled in the sky above him.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Sandy patted his pocket, just to make sure that the money was still in place. He smiled as he remembered his conversation with the teacher. Maybe he would see Brian again; he was sure that the story about the house had some mileage left in it yet, and the teacher seemed to be taking it all in. But then again, people always only heard what they wanted, and the teacher was an easy mark.

  Good for a few more whiskies yet anyway, he muttered to himself.

  It was really so easy. Mix a few bits of truth with some wild speculation and Bob’s your uncle. Already he was working on the next phase of the story...the ‘researchers’ in the house during the war finding something unspeakable.

  In reality it had only been an air raid shelter, but old Sandy had never let bald fact get in the way of a good story, and he wasn’t about to start now. Besides, the bit about the building of the house had been true enough, and the story about the poacher trapping the rabbit had been told to Sandy in the same pub only a couple of weeks ago. So Brian couldn’t complain too much if the rest was all in Sandy’s head, now could he?

  Since his return to the town Sandy had taken to walking all of his old paths, ticking them off one by one in a mental notebook as he found out how much, or how little, remained from his childhood.

  Before tonight he had been sorely disappointed. Most of his old haunts had either been demolished or “improved” out of all recognition. Even the house he had been born in had gone, replaced by a supermarket. The actual spot where he had been born was now in the middle of a bare expanse of tarmac...a fitting memorial for an anonymous life.

  Not that Sandy was complaining...that was the way he wanted it. Nobody knew his business, and nobody cared what he did, which lent him a certain freedom in these increasingly regimented times.

  The trip to the supermarket had stirred some memories though, which was why he’d made his way to the cemetery.

  His mother’s grave was neat and well tended, as were all the graves around him. But there were no flowers; no touches to show that anyone still remembered her, still cared. Hot tears ran from the corner of Sandy’s eyes before he turned away towards the church.

  Being in the cemetery in the dark didn’t bother him. In all his travels, and despite all his stories, he had never yet had any proof of the existence of ghosts. And even if he had, he didn’t think that dead people had the power to hurt the living...not physically anyway.

  He was just about onto the path out of the cemetery when something caught his eye, a gray shape moving amongst the stones. He started to call out, but his breath caught in his throat as a pair of blood red eyes turned their stare on him and held him.

  And all around him the black rain fell.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Margaret Brodie was lying in the bath wondering whether she wanted to get herself involved with another loner. Especially after the last time.

  The job in Finsburgh had been grabbed quickly after her last one had turned sour. The headmaster had taken a strong interest in her right from the start, making it plain that he wanted her. He was another loner, quiet and studious but she had found out the hard way that there was more to him. He liked to hit women. More to the point he liked to hit strong, self-sufficient women. Of course he’d denied it when she reported him, and it got to the stage where she either stayed and put up with him leering at her every day or resign.

  She resigned.

  What with that and the abrupt end to her most recent relationship she wasn’t sure if getting involved with another teacher was such a good idea. She decided as she got out of the bath that she liked him, she could be friends with him, but that was as far as it would go.

  After a cursory rub down with a small towel, she retired, damp but warm, to her favorite room.

  Margaret was proud of her house. She’d finally got enough money together for the deposit three months ago and, almost magically, the first place she’d gone to see turned out
to be exactly what she was looking for.

  The place had once been a miner’s cottage but the previous occupant had given it a complete going over, turning it into a comfortable home but retaining its old fashioned charm.

  She was well aware that if the house had been nearer Glasgow the price could have been double what she paid for it so she thought herself very lucky. It was a little house on the outskirts of town. It sat back away from both the main street and the new bypass, with a small secluded garden and a view over the loch which, this early in the year, was often covered with a fine silvery mist which clung softly to the water like very fine silk.

  She loved to sit at her window and watch the herons fishing as the sun went down over the hills.

  As she sat once again in her large leather recliner staring out of the French windows across to the hills beyond she thought again of the night ahead. She still hadn’t made up her mind about Brian. She found him attractive in a little boy lost kind of way but was that enough to build a relationship on?

  She forced herself to stop thinking about it. Brian hadn’t mentioned anything about a long-term relationship had he? Best just to play it as it came. If Brian tried to get too serious she’d just have to let him down...gently of course.

  ~-o0O0o-~

  Thursday passed slowly for Brian. He awoke early but stayed in bed listening to the local radio station until eleven thirty when the mid-Atlantic accent of “The Country Show” forced him out of the bedroom and into the kitchen for coffee.

  He tried telephoning Tom Duncan to tell him about his talk with the Minister. But the prim and proper Miss White, the school receptionist, coolly informed him that Mr. Duncan had not been in and, if the headmaster had anything to do with it, Mr. Duncan would not be returning.

  She also said a few things about teachers who allow little boys to get hurt in school time and also those who spent their leisure time in pubs instead of healthy pursuits. She didn’t say which healthy pursuits she had in mind, but Brian was sure that, in Miss White’s case, they didn’t include anything remotely resembling sex. Unfortunately she had rung off before Brian could test his theory.