Beware The Peckish Dead!

by William Stafford

  “This is interesting...” he strode off to other shelves.

  Is it, I thought? I was bored rigid and on the point of offering to go off and polish his shoes or something when he returned with a battered volume, thick with dust. He blew a cloud of it from the uppermost edge before, reverently, gingerly, opening the cover and turning the gossamer pages.

  “Very interesting...” he breathed, as if saying it would make it so. He leafed through to a different chapter, his eyes darting rapidly as he scanned the handwritten text.

  “Aha!”

  He came to a page that opened out until it was several times the size of the book. “Well, I’ll be buggered!” he cried.

  I hurried to his side, delighted he had changed his mind about abstinence.

  But he only had eyes - and fingers - for the unfolded sheet.

  Yet another bloody map.

  He pored over it avidly, like a starving man handed a menu at the Savoy. To my untutored eye, the thing looked like a child’s scrawl. Lines in a variety of coloured inks were scribbled over the entire surface. Runic symbols, which I recognised as such but was unable to decipher, cropped up hither and yon like the footprints of a hopping chicken.

  With a suddenness that startled me, Cuthbert tore the page from the book and cast the volume aside. He laid the map over the previous one - it was visible through the translucent page.

  “There!”

  He jabbed at the map with a triumphal air. I failed to see what he was driving at.

  “Don’t you see it?” he gasped at my density.

  “See what?” I scowled in frustration. “All I can see is chicken-scratch and doodles.”

  Exasperated, Cuthbert tugged my sleeve and forced me to examine the chart at closer quarters. “There!” he pointed. “There and there!” His finger hopped across the map. The two locations on the map beneath matched exactly a blood red line on the map above.

  I shrugged. “I feel like this should be significant in some way.”

  “It’s a fairy path,” Cuthbert said as though it should be obvious. “The spots where the portal appeared follow the line of a fairy path.”

  I scoffed. “The only paths I know the fairies follow lead to the deepest recesses of Hampstead Heath.”

  Cuthbert gave me a longsuffering look. “It’s all in that old book. See for yourself...” He looked under the maps. “What did I do with it?”

  “You cast it to the floor,” I said. “There it lies, at your feet.”

  He fixed me with a stare.

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” I grumbled. “This is tantamount to slavery, you realise.”

  I dropped to my knees before him.

  “What is the meaning of this?” bellowed a voice from the doorway.

  “Good morning, Grandfather,” said Cuthbert with a chuckle.

  ***

  “I should like to borrow your man, if I may,” the old man blustered, reluctant to enter the room with us. “In fact, I insist on it.”

  “By all means,” I dipped my head. “As long as you return him in one piece, what!”

  Cuthbert’s narrowed eyes cut through my forced levity.

  Oops!

  “Feel free to thrash the idiot soundly.” Cuthbert shoved me toward the door. “In fact, I insist on it.”

  Laird Baird snorted and addressed me without looking at me directly. “You will accompany me to my study,” he announced. I sent Cuthbert a silent plea for help. His eyebrows dipped slightly and his whole expression signalled ‘No’. A warning!

  Cringing, I followed the old man along corridors carpeted after the Persian fashion. It seemed a pity to walk on such finely wrought works of art, woven from bright and delicate silk.

  Believe me, it was nothing to the way that wizened old laird was about to ride roughshod over me.

  Everything about his study was designed or selected to be imposing. Panelling of dark wood scaled the walls. A desk, larger than most people’s offices I shouldn’t wonder, sprawled like a beached whale. The stuffed heads of stags peered superciliously from on high. In a corner, a stuffed bear stood tall with its paws ready to maul and its fangs bared in a permanent rictus.

  Laird Baird indicated a spot on the rug before his desk where I was to cower. Instead, I stood proud, my chin jutting at a defiant angle, although I was glad of the vast expanse of solid wood that separated us. Should he feel inclined to launch himself across it in a bid to throttle the life out of me, I could be out of the door and giving those silk carpets some welly.

  Still he would not look me in the eye but rather directed his remarks at the glassy stare of a stag somewhere over my shoulder. “My grandson is an appealing young man. Some would say he is handsome.”

  “Indeed,” I nodded. “He has often told me so.”

  The laird’s upper lip curled. I saw that what little charm I had at my disposal would cut no ice here.

  “Perhaps even more attractive is the fortune he stands to inherit.” A flicker of his eyes took in our surroundings. The penny dropped! He believed I was somehow after Cuthbert’s inheritance, works of taxidermy and all! Well, I don’t know about you but I prefer my zoological exhibits to be alive and well - and in the wild enjoying their liberty, come to think of it.

  “I can assure you-” I began but he thumped the desk, causing the inkwell to rattle and the pens to roll.

  “Hang it all, this is not a conversation!” he roared. “I want you out of my house within the hour. You are to refrain from contact with my grandson. Go! Return to London. Crawl back under whatever slimy stone you came from. Go!”

  To say I was taken aback would be something of an understatement. I stood gaping like a landed trout with a concussion while he continued his tirade against me. He spat out the most derogatory, defamatory things - I do not wish to record them here. I remained stock still, as though tied to the stake, his insults and accusations roasting me like flames consuming a heretic.

  He may have even used the word ‘heretic’ once or twice - I was too stunned to take it all in.

  At last he stopped for breath and seemed pleased that he had shocked me into silence. He slid a newspaper across the desk, turning it around so I might read it.

  The merest glance made me feel sick. The headline announced the verdict in dear Oscar’s trial. A terrible result and hardly a ringing endorsement of the law of the land. I could feel the Laird’s eyes on me and my skin crawled. He directed my attention to an illustration, an artist’s impression. Of Oscar, it was a reasonable likeness, standing proudly in the dock as though daydreaming of a faraway place or fairer times. Laird Baird’s fingertip tapped the face of one of the spectators - a less-than-flattering depiction of Yours Truly.

  “You are, are you not, the gentleman in this picture? One Victor Morton, a hack writer of some kind?”

  “No!” I protested.

  “No?”

  “That handsome chap is renowned international traveller, bestselling novelist, raconteur and wit, Hector Mortlake.”

  “Same difference. And you are he.”

  “Well, I...”

  “Come now, Mr Mortlake; the jig, as they say, is up.”

  “Jig?”

  The old man’s eyes bore into me. I squirmed like a worm on a hook. On the one hand, I was gratified to be recognised. On the other, I was mindful of Cuthbert’s insistence we keep up the pretence.

  “You’re no more my grandson’s valet than I am,” the old man scoffed. “I’m on to you. Posing as a servant. Trying to swindle my grandson out of his rightful inheritance, I’ll wager.”

  “No!” I protested. I felt my face turning red with indignation. “I have a considerable fortune of my own.”

  “So, you admit you are this man!” he prodded the paper anew. “You associate with degenerates.”
<
br />   He expectorated on the likeness of dear Oscar and seemed displeased to have missed me, either drawn or in the flesh. “I will tell you now,” he snarled, “And I shall brook no argument. You shall leave my estate at once. You shall have no further contact with my grandson or you shall be very sorry for it.”

  “Oh, really?” I stood my ground but the backs of my knees were twitching.

  “Really,” he shot back. “I shall bring the full weight of the law down on your perverse head. It will make your Irish friend’s sojourn at Reading gaol seem like a luxury excursion to Cheltenham Spa.”

  I backed away by a step or two, mainly to get out of spitting range. “Now, listen here,” I said, detesting the quiver in my voice. “I’m afraid I do not know what exactly you are inferring-”

  “I’m not inferring anything,” he cut in. “I’m implying it. As a self-professed ‘writer’ you should know the bloody difference.”

  Damn!

  “In fact,” he continued, “I’m not implying it either. I’m saying it outright and to your contemptible face. I don’t want you near my grandson. And you can tell that to all the other buggers in your precious London.”

  “We shall see what Cuthbert has to say on the matter.”

  “No, we won’t. You have turned his head.”

  Ah, memories!

  “You have corrupted him with your wicked ways.”

  Yes, that had been a busy afternoon.

  “You have defiled, debauched and debased him.”

  Well, I try to give as good as I get.

  But instead of making wisecracks, I shook my head. “You do not understand. Cuthbert and I love each other.”

  Laird Baird looked stricken and ready to vomit.

  “Love?” he spat. “You know nothing of love, sirrah. You are little more than a beast - No, you are worse than a beast for you know what you do is wrong and against nature. I love my grandson and it is to protect him that I banish you from his company.”

  “Oh, really?” I countered.

  “Really!”

  “Then, sir, if you love him so much, why will you not allow him his happiness? Why have you had no contact with him for over a decade?”

  My words were like a punch to his nose. The old man seethed and shook like a kettle coming to the boil. “Get out! Get out of my house,” he struggled to keep his voice low and even. “Get off my land and never come back.”

  I nodded curtly. I may even have clicked my heels together, I don’t recall. I turned my back and left the room at an unhurried pace, wondering if at any second I would feel the letter-opener strike me between the shoulder blades.

  Out in the corridor, I faltered. I leant against an ornamental vase for support, almost upsetting its table and causing untold damage.

  Leave Cuthbert!

  I must!

  But how? He is the beat of my heart, my very life, and all that is good in this world.

  To leave him is to sign my own death warrant - and, let’s face it, a handsome chap like me wouldn’t last in prison. I’d be rogered to death before my first week of incarceration was out.

  Weakly, I stumbled to my room. My unpacked case stood beside the bed, ready for the off.

  And Cuthbert, naked, was in my bed, ready for something else.

  Chapter Six

  It was my turn to turn him down. I was keen to get away from there as fast as possible. I could not risk the scandal of arrest and a trial. My publisher would tell me to consider the positive effect on sales such attention would bring. Sod that for a game of buggers.

  “Grandfather be buggered!” Cuthbert swore. He had had a change of heart; it turns out I can be quite irresistible myself, you know.

  “Unlikely,” I said, turning my back on the wares on display. Cuthbert reached a hand to my shoulder.

  “But where will you go? What will you do?”

  I gave his fingers a pat. “Frankly, my dear, I haven’t the damnedest.”

  I shoved my case toward the door. Cuthbert sprang from the bed to block my egress.

  “Not like this!” he pleaded.

  “Then come with me,” I stroked his cheek - one of the facial ones. He looked pained.

  “I can’t,” he hung his head. “I made a sort of promise.”

  This was the first I had heard of any promise. Before I could probe, we were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Berryman, the butler.

  “Pardon me,” he intoned from the other side. “There is a carriage to take you to the station. Shall I take your case, sir?”

  Cuthbert looked stricken; it almost broke my heart.

  “Thank you; no,” I replied, having to clear emotion from my throat. “I can manage.”

  “Very good, sir. Mrs Forth has put together a packed luncheon, sir. I shall leave it out here, sir.” Berryman withdrew. Cuthbert perked up, suddenly inspired.

  “The croft!” he cried. “Auld Jock Hitchin’s cottage!”

  “What of it?”

  “It stands empty. You could go there. I can visit.”

  I was not sure I liked the idea of being holed up in that, um, hole.

  “It’s perfect, don’t you see?” he threw his arms around me. “We can meet. We can continue to investigate the fairy paths. It will be perfect. We won’t have to sneak around.”

  The enthusiasm in his eyes - and elsewhere - was unmistakable. I remained uncertain. “What if he comes back?”

  “Who?”

  “Auld Jock.”

  “Then we can ask him where he’s been!”

  “I don’t know...” I demurred.

  Cuthbert pecked my cheek. “You know it makes sense. And it won’t be forever. When I’ve done what I have to do here-”

  “And what’s that?”

  Cuthbert looked troubled. “I’ll explain everything some other time. You do trust me, don’t you, sir?”

  Ah, so! I was ‘sir’ again, was I?

  “Wholeheartedly.”

  This cheered him considerably. We shared a tender embrace and a bit of a grope, then he opened the door for me to leave. My toe struck a metal lunch pail and I experienced a mixture of emotions: sheer bloody agony and mawkish sentiment seeing the trouble to which the cook had gone.

  Dragging my case with one hand and swinging my luncheon in the other, I left the house. A coachman relieved me of my burden but I held onto the pail, nursing it on my lap. The carriage made its way along the long gravel drive. I did not look back but I hoped Cuthbert was at a window, watching my departure. I was altogether certain his beastly grandfather would be.

  My stomach rumbled; I could not resist opening the lid and peering inside. Wrapped in greaseproof paper was cheese. There was bread and jam, pickles and apples, and several sausages like dead man’s fingers. It all looked delicious and I knew not where to begin.

  We passed through the main gates and onto the open road, plunging into the dappled shadows of the trees that lined both sides. I must complete the journey to the station so that the coachman could report back to his employer, then I would have to double back, on foot, to Auld Jock Hitchin’s cottage. I did not fancy that part of the plan in the slightest. I hoped there would be left luggage provision at the station.

  I was about to nibble on a piece of cheese when I noticed a puddle forming on the seat opposite mine. My first thought was that the roof was leaking, but it wasn’t even raining. The puddle spread and ran over the edge to the carriage floor, where it formed the shape of two footprints, wet and glistening. The air shimmered and the pale figure of Drownded Ned materialised before my very eyes.

  Reader, I dropped my cheese.

  He looked at me with terrible, blank eyes, like those of a cooked fish. He held up a white hand and flexed his chalky fingers. Waving hello?

 
Then he vanished! Eyes, fingers, puddles of water, all!

  With a gasp, I reached across to feel his vacated seat. It was as dry as a bone in a desert.

  I sat, pushing my packed lunch aside, for I was suddenly devoid of all appetite.

  The words of Sally the cook rang in my head and chilled me to the marrow.

  A sighting of the boy in white heralds the coming of the Peckish Dead, come to satiate their hunger, to satisfy their craving for the flesh of the living...

  The horse whinnied and then screamed. The carriage jolted to a halt, unseating me. I righted myself and, determining to give the driver a piece of my mind, thrust my head through a window.

  I quickly withdrew. What I had glimpsed was seared into my memory. Small hands wrapped in filthy, ragged bandages pulled the driver to the ground. The poor man struggled and shrieked. I pulled down the shutter but I could still hear his pitiful cries. I tried to shut my ears - above the man’s cries, I could hear the terrible munching of the Peckish Dead. The gnashing of their teeth and the horrible murmuring of their enjoyment.

  Omnomnomnomnom!

  Gripped by fear and paralysed by cowardice, I held onto my seat. The driver’s cries subsided to sobs - perhaps the attack was over.

  A thud against the carriage door disabused me of that notion. The shutter rattled. A dirty, ghostly hand intruded through the slats. A rolling eye. A flash of fangs. The fingers grasped the air just inches from my face. I froze. The shutter would not keep out the clutching, grasping thing indefinitely.

  But I was not resigned to giving up my fingers to an undead child, no matter how peckish it might be. I need them for important tasks. Like writing, for one thing. And for Cuthbert...

  It was time I did some grasping around of my own for anything that might serve as a weapon. I seized upon the tin lunch pail and battered the intrusive digits with it. The fingers closed around the handle and I found myself in a tug-o’-war. The creature was preternaturally strong and it snapped its teeth and growled like a dog I was seeking to deprive of its dinner.

  And then its fingers were inside the pail. They curled around the sausages and snatched them away. I was unseated again as the carriage jolted to a start. I heard the coachman cry, Yaah! And the horse broke into a gallop.