Location, Location, Damnation

by Nick Moseley

  'That's different,' he remarked.

  'Excellent,' breathed Granddad. 'Now you just need to reach into that shadow. You'll feel the join between realities. Push gently against it and it should let you through.'

  'Where am I going once I'm in there?'

  'Agatha knows the way, she'll guide you.' Granddad put a hand on Trev's shoulder. 'Are you ready?'

  'Yes. No. Er, maybe,' said Trev. His glowing hand was trembling. If he hadn't been so scared, he might have found the effect quite intriguing.

  'Relax,' said Granddad. 'You'll be OK. Just remember to fire up that vapour weapon as soon as you pass through and the Shades'll leave you alone.'

  'If you're wrong and they turn me into a mindless zombie, I'll be sure to come back and drool all over you,' replied Trev. He gave himself a shake. 'Right, let's get on with it before I see sense and run away.'

  'Good luck,' said Granddad, giving the shoulder a reassuring squeeze before stepping back.

  Trev faced the shadow, took a breath, and tentatively reached out. As his hand passed into the darkness, he felt an unpleasant thickness to the air. It pressed around his fingers, numbing them. He forced his hand deeper into the shadow, groping for the join that Granddad had spoken about. Initially finding nothing, he was about to ask the old man for some help when his probing fingers encountered something that felt like a small empty space in the clammy blackness.

  'I think I've got it,' he said, forcing his hand into the space. Immediately he felt a strong pulling sensation. He gulped. 'Or maybe it's got me.'

  'Don't fight it,' advised Granddad. 'You just have to-'

  Whatever he said next, Trev didn't hear it. The unseen force encircled his wrist and he was dragged violently off his feet and into the shadow.

  It happened too fast to comprehend. One second he was standing under the Ransom Bridge, the sound of traffic above him and the smell of the river in his nostrils; the next thing he knew, that scene was nothing but a pinprick of light behind him as he plunged through a roaring black void, the pressure on his right arm unrelenting. He was dimly aware that he was screaming, but he couldn't hear himself above the background noise.

  Another pinprick of light appeared ahead of him and he hurtled toward it as it expanded. He threw his left hand in front of his face as the brightness filled his vision and erupted around him. Then the grip on his other arm was released and he fell, landing on his face in what felt like grass. The scream died as the air whooshed out of his lungs.

  Trev struggled shakily to his hands and knees, wheezing for breath. 'Old bastard didn't tell me that was going to happen,' he said.

  He looked up, and his jaw sagged. He was kneeling on the riverbank, except he doubted that it was the one down which he'd walked with Granddad a few minutes earlier. The grass on that riverbank had been green, not a weak shade of grey.

  He scrambled to his feet and turned in a slow circle, taking in a three hundred and sixty degree view of his surroundings. It was the same stretch of river, only it wasn't. It was a mirror image, with everything on the opposite side from where it had been in what Trev was already fondly thinking of as the 'real' world. Even more disorientating was the lack of colour. Trev's clothes were as they'd been when he'd left and his skin was its usual pasty pink hue, but everything else was monochrome shades of black and grey. It was as if he'd been flung into an old black-and-white film.

  'Where's Agatha?' he wondered. Loneliness and fear began gnawing at the pit of his stomach. What if something had gone wrong? What if Agatha had been unable to follow him?

  And worst of all, what if he were trapped in Dark Limbo? Alone?

  'Don't panic,' he said to himself, the words having the opposite effect. Aware that he couldn't very well just stand there indefinitely he took a few halting steps, intending to make his way to the top of the riverbank. He hadn't got very far when he heard something that made his heart clunk to a halt in his chest.

  It was the creepy whispering, rushing sound he'd heard in the mist in Bandstand Park and in the spare room at Fancourt Street. It was getting closer and louder. As Trev stood, frozen, the source of the noise appeared at the top of the riverbank.

  It was a Shade. The creature was larger and more solid-looking than the two Trev had seen in his own reality, which was perhaps to be expected. It seemed to be wandering rather aimlessly, but as soon as it spotted Trev it reared up and the whispering became a startled hiss. Then it rushed him.

  Trev's hand flew to his pocket but the dagger wasn't there. Terrified, he looked around him and spotted the weapon lying on the grass a couple of yards away. He dove for it, snatching it free of its sheath just as the Shade reached him. The blue blade crackled into life and Trev swiped wildly at the creature as it lunged for him. The blade passed straight through the Shade and it burst like a balloon, small black shreds filling the air before fizzing away into nothing.

  Trev stood up on wobbly legs, his chest heaving. 'That was a close shave,' said a voice from behind him. Trev spun, holding the dagger out in a defensive stance.

  Agatha cocked her head to one side. 'Now, is that any way to greet your guide?'

  Twenty-Six

  'Where the bloody hell have you been?' Trev growled. 'Did you take a tea break or something?'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' said Agatha. 'I followed right behind you. The difference is that you have mass, which allows for greater acceleration.'

  'Mass?' said Trev. 'But I'm not even Catholic.'

  Agatha rolled her eyes. 'Hilarious, I'm sure.'

  'Best I can do on short notice, especially when I'm scared within an inch of soiling my pants.' Trev shuffled awkwardly. 'Maybe half an inch.'

  'How delightful,' said Agatha. 'It's quite astonishing how you are able to keep plumbing the depths of crudity. Every time I feel certain you have hit rock bottom, you manage somehow to surprise me.'

  'It's taken years of practice, believe me,' said Trev. He gestured at the colourless scene around them. 'So this is Dark Limbo, then.'

  Agatha gave him a curt nod that looked very much like it meant of course it bloody is, you tit. Not that she would ever have actually said it.

  'A whole plane of existence given over to the Shades,' she said with distaste. 'All this,' she indicated their surroundings, 'has been created from what remains of their memories, although not consciously. They are incapable of thought any more. All they have left is the desperate desire to return to the pleasures they left behind when they passed away. All those fragments of memories, slowly accreting here to form this insubstantial facsimile of a world.'

  Trev pressed his foot into the ground. It was solid enough, but with an unpleasant underlying sponginess. He looked across at the nearby trees. Those too seemed to pass muster at a glance, but a closer examination revealed that they were slightly translucent.

  'I'm not going to fall through the floor or anything, am I?' he asked nervously.

  'No, though I would suggest you take care should you decide to climb any flights of stairs once we get to the town itself,' replied Agatha.

  'The town?' echoed Trev. 'There's a creepy black-and-white version of Brackenford here as well?'

  'Naturally.' Agatha drifted up the bank toward the road. Still gripping the flaring vapour weapon, Trev followed her.

  The road hurt Trev's eyes. He could peer down through its layers from the modern asphalt at the top to the original dirt path below it.

  'Not all the memories are the same,' explained Agatha. 'Some recall a paved road; some a cart track; some a mere path. Thus it is all of them and none of them.'

  'I'll be honest, I'm struggling to get my head round this,' said Trev, testing the road with his weight. It supported him, though the unnerving softness was just as noticeable. 'I'm walking on bits of thought?'

  'Just so. In this place the "weight of memory" is more than just a metaphor.' Agatha moved off along the road. 'Come along. I don't wish to prolong my visit any longer than necessity demands.'

  'I'm with you on that,
one hundred percent.' Trev hurried to catch up, falling in alongside her. 'What about the Shades?'

  'They will inevitably be drawn to us,' replied Agatha. 'However we are both capable of defending ourselves, so they ought to keep their distance. Just ensure you do not extinguish that vapour weapon.'

  'I won't, don't worry,' said Trev firmly. 'Hang on, though - you said we could both defend ourselves, didn't you? They're not going to attack a ghost, are they?'

  'I may not have a physical form any more, but my consciousness remains intact,' said Agatha. 'That is more than enough to encourage an attack by the Shades.' She gave Trev a stern look. 'My sanity is at as much risk as yours.'

  'You can't carry a vapour weapon,' observed Trev, 'so you must have another way of keeping the Shades off you.' Agatha didn't reply, but as Trev watched she manifested the same glowing white aura she’d used when confronting the Shade on Railway Avenue. 'Yep, that'll probably do it,' Trev said with a shrug.

  'And not before time,' murmured Agatha, pointing.

  A pair of Shades had appeared ahead of them, weaving through the trees that lined the road. As they drew closer Trev could hear their sinister whispering.

  'What is it with that freaky noise they make?' he asked.

  'It's all that remains of their thoughts,' replied Agatha. She was outwardly calm, but there was a tightness in her voice. 'Take care when it stops. It indicates that they're about to attack.'

  'Will we have to fight them off?'

  'No. Your vapour weapon and my aura should be sufficient to keep them from coming too close to us.'

  'Good,' said Trev. 'Bloody things make my skin crawl. I don't want them anywhere near me.'

  'At last, something to agree on,' said Agatha, with feeling.

  They walked on. The Shades stayed nearby, but didn't come within twenty yards of them. Trev kept a wary eye on the shadowy entities as they flowed into the space that ought to have been occupied by the City Walls Estate. The housing development was so new it barely registered as anything more than a collection of faint outlines in Dark Limbo. There weren't yet enough memories of it for it to appear solid. Trev briefly wondered how long it took for the fragments to form a convincing replica of the real thing, before deciding that he didn't care. Once he was back in his own reality he wasn't planning on coming back to Dark Limbo to monitor their progress.

  Ahead of them the mirror-image Brackenford came into view, its monochrome buildings a looming presence on the grey horizon. Trev could pick out a number of recognisable landmarks, including two tower-blocks on the east side of town that had been demolished nearly ten years previously in the real world.

  The nearer Trev and Agatha came to the town itself, the more Shades they saw. It was becoming difficult to count them. They swarmed among the buildings, hedges and walls, drawn to the two intruders but prevented from getting too close by Trev's dagger and Agatha's aura. Their whispering was everywhere, unrelenting and unnerving.

  Trev was so terrified he could barely manage to place one foot in front of the other. He remembered how he'd thought the ghoul Queen was scary and almost had to laugh. His experience in Murkhome had been a fun evening out by comparison. The only thing keeping him from making a run for it was the likelihood that it would provoke an attack from the Shades.

  'I don't think I can cope with this much longer,' he croaked to Agatha. She was floating along beside him, silent, her face set and resolute. 'Where are we heading?'

  'The Twins are stored in St. Margaret's church,' the spirit answered. 'That's our destination.'

  'Could be worse,' mumbled Trev. He could see the spire of St. Margaret's ahead of them, just the other side of Bandstand Park. They could skirt along the edge of the park and get to the church without having to pass through the town centre itself. This came as a relief to Trev. He didn't much care for the idea of being surrounded by alleyways and buildings full to bursting with Shades. Their presence was oppressive enough in the open.

  The quickest route was through the park, but it was absolutely crawling with Shades. 'Bandstand Park is another place where the boundaries between Dark Limbo and our reality are thin,' explained Agatha. 'It is also usually full of people. The Shades can sense those people and it draws them here.'

  Trev remembered his frightening walk through the park earlier in the week. 'I remember seeing them trying to force their way through,' he said quietly. 'Faces in the mist, everywhere.'

  'That's why we use the Ransom Bridge as our point of entry to Dark Limbo,' said Agatha. 'Coming through into the park would be suicidal.'

  'No shit.'

  They skirted the park as quickly as they could, attracting yet more Shades as they did so.

  'I can't believe just how many of them there are,' said Trev.

  'I would refrain from looking behind, then, if I were you,' said Agatha.

  Trev looked. A huge mass of the shadow creatures was trailing them, flitting over, under and even through each other. He made a tiny mewling sound in the back of his throat.

  'I told you not to look,' said Agatha.

  'What else was I going to do?' squeaked Trev, temporarily unable to get his voice back to its proper pitch. 'If someone says "don't look", it's human nature to look! You can't help yourself!'

  'It hardly matters how many there are if they cannot attack us,' replied Agatha. 'Don't lose your composure now, we are almost there.'

  'I lost my bloody composure about ten minutes ago,' hissed Trev. 'It did the sensible thing and ran away. It's probably in the pub by now.'

  'Please don't become hysterical,' said Agatha calmly. 'You might lose your control over the vapour weapon. And if that happens…'

  Trev looked down and saw that the dagger's spectral blue blade was flickering like a candle caught in a strong draught. The thought of losing his one protection against the horde behind was enough to snap him out of his rising panic. Hurriedly he re-focused himself and stabilised the blade.

  Agatha nodded. 'Well done. I won't claim to be very comfortable in this realm either, but we are both safe while you keep that dagger active. There is no need to become overwrought.'

  'Perish the thought,' mumbled Trev.

  They reached what ought to have been the south-eastern corner of the park and turned north toward the town centre. Trev couldn't help but think in terms of compass headings, despite their glaring irrelevance in such a place as Dark Limbo. If it was a mirror image, were they now in fact travelling south instead? He shook his head, unwilling to devote much thought to the problem.

  At least he could see St. Margaret's clearly. As one of Brackenford's oldest buildings it stood dark and solid amongst its hazy neighbours. With their destination in sight, Trev and Agatha picked up speed. Trev was moving at a trot by the time they reached the church's front door, which stood open. He peered inside. The interior was black and uninviting, even by Dark Limbo standards of hospitality. Behind him the Shades massed, swirling around the weathered oak tree that stood in the square outside the church.

  'On we go,' said Agatha encouragingly.

  Trev looked at her, his expression doubtful. 'Are there going to be Shades in there?'

  'It's quite likely, yes,' she replied, 'but they won't be any less afraid of your weapon than those outside. We can simply shoo them out.'

  'Shoo them, right,' said Trev. 'Why didn't I think of that?'

  He stood there, stewing in his own indecision. Entering the church was no more appealing than staying outside, but having come that far he knew it would be monumentally pointless to turn around and return to the Ransom Bridge without The Twins. He exhaled, checked the glowing dagger was secure in his hand, and stepped inside.

  Trev had only been inside St. Margaret's once in his life, and that had been on a primary school history trip. The interior of the Dark Limbo version was much as he remembered it, albeit even gloomier. Rows of pews stretched up the narrow nave toward the pulpit and the raised dais upon which stood the altar. The stained-glass windows, stripped of all their
colour, let in little of the grey light from outside. Trev held up the dagger, finding it temporarily more use as a lamp than a weapon.

  A burst of whispering erupted from among the pews as a pair of Shades bolted from the approaching light. Trev stumbled back, startled, and raised the weapon to defend himself, but the creatures gave him a wide berth and disappeared out of the door.

  'So where are The Twins?' he asked Agatha, fighting to get his heart rate back down from cardiac arrest territory.

  'Behind the altar,' said Agatha, gesturing toward the far end of the church.

  Trev nodded and set off down the centre aisle, walking on shaky legs. Mercifully there were no other Shades lurking in the shadows and he reached the imposing black altar without further incident. Circling around, he found a simple wooden box sitting on the floor behind it. It was roughly three feet across by two deep, with no markings or indeed any kind of obvious lock or catch. Trev crouched down for a better look.

  'How does it open?' he asked.

  'Transfer some of your power into your finger and touch the lid,' Agatha replied.

  Trev did so, touching a luminous fingertip to the box. There was a faint click and the lid popped open by an inch. Holding his breath, Trev gently raised the lid all the way and stared inside.

  The interior of the box was set with deep blue velvet, upon which rested The Twins. Both swords were missing their blades, like the dagger Trev still clutched in his hand. One of the hilts was larger than the other and shaped like a Celtic cross, with the arms forming the crossguard. Trev guessed that with the blade in place the weapon would originally have been a longsword. The other hilt was a simpler design, its only decoration being a set of angular runes running around the domed pommel. Carefully he reached into the box and picked up the larger hilt. It felt solid and heavy.

  'This one looks Celtic,' he said. 'Not sure about the other one. Norse, maybe?'

  'Quite right,' said Agatha, looking surprised.

  Trev shrugged. 'I spent a lot of time with my history nut of a Granddad when I was a kid, remember,' he said.