by R. H. Dixon
‘No!’
‘TELL ME.’
Freya looked Callie in the eye, her lips thin with hatred. ‘Because you slept with Thurston behind my back, you fat cow.’
Dean closed the gap between him and Roxanne. ‘Who’s Thurston, Essie?’ he said. His voice was calm as though he was talking to an upset child, but his blue eye was overwrought with terror.
‘No, no, no!’ Freya said, scowling and waving the metal file at him. ‘I’m not talking to you. Stay back!’
‘But it’s not true,’ Callie said, scared in case she lost contact with Freya. ‘I’ve never slept with Thurston.’
‘Liar! You’ve been trying to take him off me for ages.’ Freya’s fingers wound tighter in her mother’s hair, but Roxanne Bennett barely seemed to notice, her consciousness was waning fast. ‘And I know he has feelings for you.’
‘Wow, you’re so wrong it’s almost funny,’ Callie said. ‘Even though you wanted me to, I never did sleep with him.’
‘You did!’
‘No, I didn’t,’ Callie insisted. ‘And while we’re on the subject I may as well tell you, he never loved you.’
‘Liar!’
‘It’s true.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Because he told me.’
‘When?’
‘Last night. He’s here with me right now.’ Callie looked at Thurston, who was standing close to Dean like a nightmare version of him. ‘So is Miles Golden. And Pollyanna. We’re all getting along just great without you.’
Freya’s face contorted with rage, then as though summoned by her unspoken anger two massive ravens blustered down the stairs. Callie whipped round, turning her back to them, and covered her head with her arms. But the birds swooped hard and fast, mostly aiming for her face with their beaks and claws.
Dean leapt forward and shoved Freya away from Roxanne. Freya stumbled backwards but quickly righted herself. She screamed in anger and swung her arm in an upwards arc, aiming the file at Dean who was already scooping his wife into his arms. The whole cabin sucked in air then gasped loudly as the file popped the already scarred membrane of Dean’s white eye. The metal shaft glided almost handle-deep inside his skull, puncturing soft tissue. His initial scream surpassed everything else that was going on. Even the ravens were startled and forgot about Callie for a moment.
‘No! No! No! Look what you made me do!’ Freya cried. Though to whom she was talking, nobody knew.
The ravens began a more frenzied attack on Callie, bloodying her arms and scalp within seconds. Thurston pitched himself forward and plucked one from the air. Its wings flapped furiously against his arms and it squawked its wrath till his ears hurt, but he managed to crank its neck to the side with one sharp jolt. It fell silent. Flinging its limp body to the ground, he reached for the second bird. This one fought harder. It gouged wedges of skin from his hands and almost severed one of his fingertips in its powerful beak, but Thurston wrestled it to the ground and repeatedly hit it with his fist till it was still.
Freya crumpled to the floor and clutched her head. ‘NO!’ She touched Dean’s face with tentative fingers and stroked his hair, then shoved her mother’s lifeless body away from him. ‘This wasn’t how it was meant to be,’ she said, laying her head on his unmoving chest. ‘This wasn’t how it was meant to be!’
Everything seemed to stand still then, as though time and everything bound to it was irrelevant. And maybe it was, Callie supposed. What did time mean for her now anyway? What did anything mean? The injuries on her arms might be nothing at all or very real. They were hurting and bleeding what looked like real blood, so maybe they were real. She felt that they were. She looked down at Freya and felt an array of negative emotions. Then she heard Smiler’s voice. ‘Poll?’
Callie turned to see.
Pollyanna was trying to stand, a look darker than rage plaguing her face.
‘What are you doing, Poll?’ Smiler asked.
‘What I should have done years ago.’ Pollyanna’s arms trembled under the weight of hauling herself up. ‘If I’m really not real, then I can do what I like. I can move my legs. I can walk.’ But when she let go of the arms of the chair, her legs folded beneath her and she crashed to the floor. Smiler dashed over to help but she smacked his hands away and started dragging herself across the carpet towards Freya; her cousin who was lying with Dean’s body and finally showing remorse for something she’d done.
Pollyanna’s nails dug into the thick pile of the carpet and she moved quickly, perhaps fuelled by anger and hate and seven years’ worth of retribution. The others just stood and watched. When Pollyanna reached Freya, she stretched up and grabbed a heavy looking snow globe off the coffee table and raised it high. Without a moment’s hesitation, she then brought it down on the side of Freya’s head. The subsequent crunching of skull bone, Callie thought, was a noise that would stay with her forever. Freya tried to move away, but Pollyanna brought the snow globe down on her head again and again and again, screaming wildly as she did, as if to give greater strength to every subsequent blow. Callie, Thurston and Smiler continued to watch on, dumbfounded. Sickened. Avenged. It was only when Freya’s head was a bloodied mess and she was no longer breathing that Pollyanna let go of the snow globe. It rolled some way across the carpet then all of them watched, mesmerised, as snow fell down behind the blood-smeared glass dome onto a beautiful white swan.
38
Callie, Thurston, Smiler and Pollyanna weren’t dead. Freya was, but they weren’t.
‘What happens now?’ Smiler asked, his voice a dread-filled whisper. ‘Why are we still here?’
None of them had dared to move in case they drew attention to the fact that they shouldn’t be there, thus prompting the great fabric of existence to fold in on them.
‘Because we’re real,’ Callie suggested. ‘Not in Roxanne and Dean Bennett’s world, but in our own. Though who’s to say their world is any more real than ours?’
‘But Sarah Jane Miller imagined us,’ Smiler said. ‘If she’s dead then how can we be real? I don’t get it.’
‘We’ve all been living independently from her for a long while. We took control of our own destinies. She tried but failed to control us.’
‘Did she though?’ Thurston still appeared to be sceptical on that point.
‘Yes,’ Callie insisted. ‘Remember that time we slept together?’
‘No.’ Thurston shot her a look of bemusement.
‘Exactly!’ She grinned. ‘We evolved outside her head. We do what we want to do.’
‘So what, are you saying you really don’t want to sleep with me?’ He flashed her a playful wink.
To which she laughed and said, ‘You’re a total dickhead, Torbin Thurston.’
‘Hmmm.’ He became quiet then, growing more serious because the situation demanded it.
The cabin felt full, the air around them swollen with too much emotion and violent death. Smiler had wandered over to the window to escape the redness of it all.
‘Maybe now we’re among the dreams of the dead,’ Smiler suggested. ‘And maybe shit’s gonna get a whole lot worse for us.’
‘Yeah, Mr Pessimism,’ Callie said, with a sigh. ‘Maybe we are and maybe it is.’ She and Thurston went to join him. Beyond the cabin they could see that the ravens had gone and the fog had shifted at last. The sky was burnt grey though; a scorch mark of uncertainty that blocked out the sun. The lake was blacker than it ever had been. Callie was awestricken by the desolation of it all.
Maybe now we are among the dreams of the dead, she thought. And maybe shit is gonna get a whole lot worse.
She felt a rush of despair, but this was replaced by some small comfort when Thurston took hold of her hand and gently squeezed. They held hands and continued to stare out of the window till, eventually, Callie said, ‘I’m leaving. I refuse to stay here any longer.’
‘Agreed,’ Smiler said. ‘But where should we go?’
‘Let’s see wher
e our feet and imagination take us.’
‘What if there’s still nowhere out there?’
‘There will be.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I just do.’
‘But what if there isn’t?’
‘Then I know of another place besides the cabin.’
‘You do?’ Thurston looked down at her, a mix of surprise and concern widening his eyes, emphasising true blue.
She smiled. ‘Were you ever a churchgoer, Thurston?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah, can’t say I ever was.’
‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘But this one’s different.’
‘Sounds intriguing, but what about the wolfmen? Will we need to run for our lives to get through Whispering Woods?’
‘Considering we survived Freya’s death then there’s every chance that those two vicious bastards could still be out there.’
‘In that case,’ Smiler said, ‘should we take weapons with us?’
Callie shrugged. ‘Can’t hurt.’
‘Weapons such as what though?’ Thurston wanted to know.
‘Whatever we can find.’ Smiler looked about them. ‘It’s all about improvisation.’
At that moment Pollyanna snapped out of whatever trance she’d fallen into, her blood-spattered expression becoming fully cognisant, and said, ‘Snow globe anyone?’
Callie couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Are you up for an adventure then, Poll?’ Smiler asked, hopefully.
‘I’d say I’ve been cooped up long enough,’ she said, holding a bloodied hand out. ‘Pass me some cigarettes and let’s get the hell out of this lousy, stinking cabin.’
‘Before it drives us mad,’ Callie thought to add. ‘If it hasn’t already.’
Thurston squeezed her hand and threw her a wink, his eyes intense blue. ‘That’s just how it is, sweetheart.’
Outside the wind picked up and the remaining post-summer leaves on the trees in Whispering Woods began to chatter. To the side of the cabin, the branches of the ash tree were filled with large, black feathery bodies. Huddled, quietly. Waiting.
Acknowledgements
Firstly, thanks to all of my readers who enjoyed Emergence and chose to follow me on this new adventure. I appreciate each and every one of you! Thanks also to all of my new readers who are discovering me now with this latest book Ravens – I hope you’ll stick around for the long haul.
Thanks to Hannah Thompson for going through the Ravens manuscript and whipping it into shape, for being politely stern about my bad habits (I suspect that had I been with you during the editing process I’d have got a (well deserved) slap on the wrist with a ruler) and for the helpful suggestions you made. Hopefully editing Ravens was nothing compared to a Force 11 storm at sea. If it was, I apologise. Wholeheartedly.
Thanks to my mam and dad for being my Horden representatives! You’ll be pleased to know that I’m bringing the horror home again next time round.
Thanks to my good friend Benn Clarkson who was always on hand and happy to discuss Norse mythology and other random musings, and for being something of a beta reader and confidence coach in the early stages of Ravens.
Thanks to friends and family for appreciating the vast amount of time and effort that goes into writing a book and, subsequently, for understanding that sometimes I just need to be a hermit for a while.
And lastly, but absolutely by no means least, thanks to Derek who showed me an unending amount of support, belief and love throughout the quagmire that was 2016. I couldn’t have done any of this without you, mister!
About The Author
R. H. Dixon is a horror enthusiast who, when not escaping into the fantastical realms of fiction, lives in the northeast of England with her husband and two whippets.
Visit her website for horror features, short stories, promotions and news of her upcoming books: www.rhdixon.com
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Other Books by R. H. Dixon:
Emergence
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