by Alec Dunn
Gregor left the words to worm into Tristan’s brain and then continued. He was earnest, pressing. “Join us, Tristan.
I know how to bring your talent to its fullest spectrum, to fruition. Your dim little flickering candle will become a clear spotlight turned on the creatures of the damned.
Join us.
I cannot promise success, but we can search for the demon that took your mother.
You will find the evil, Tristan, and, together, we shall stop it.”
Tristan did not know what to say, did not know what to believe. He looked down at the mist and the grass which shifted and swirled beneath his feet. Creatures? Monsters? Demons? Evil? Prophecy? Ancient orders?
It wasn’t possible, no, not possible.
He looked up again, into the expectant face of Gregor.
He needed to respond, to reply, to answer. He forced his lips together to form the words, but his mouth simply fell open as he saw the hand emerging from the open tomb of Earnest Matthew Grimm.
It was a grey, withered hand that reached upwards, before falling down to clasp the side of the tomb.
The others recognised that something was wrong from his face. They looked over at the tomb and then they seemed to be there, beside it. Tristan followed, his stomach threatening to emerge from his throat and his heartbeat thudding through his whole body again.
As he came close to the tomb, he saw a rectangular shape of utter and absolute blackness out of which rose a skeletal, thin, shrivelled arm. At the end of the arm a bumpy protuberance of knuckles and gnarled, lumpy awkward bone sockets made up the hand, they were held together by ropes of darker veins and thin arteries among twitching sinews all writhing intolerably under mottled, thin, maggot white, translucent skin.
A keening noise came from the tomb like a distant howl of a wolf or wind in a storm, a scream, a plea, a voice, weak, desperate, dry and pitiful, “Help. Help me.”
Eleven : No Time Like the Present
Tristan was back in the library.
The night pressed its dirty face against the windows. A whispering wind strained and swished through the unseen distant tree branches in the blackness outside. At this late hour, the rest of the school lay hushed and silent, filled with shadows.
Gregor had driven them back to the school in a surreal and uncomfortable ride in his completely normal, if crowded, Ford Fiesta.
No-one had spoken in the car.
He had unlocked the outside door of the school and ushered them all into the echoing darkness of the library. And now, Tristan was back in the library, the familiar cloying stench of age and decay filling his lungs.
He was lying on a cold wooden table, staring at the ceiling with his stomach clenched like a fist. Gregor was behind his desk, gathering some ‘materials for the ritual’. Lucretia was nearer, off to the right, still in his vision.
Tristan turned his head to watch her. She had one booted foot pushing down on the side of Max’s chest and she looked like she was trying to pull one of his arms off. She was talking to Max and sounding annoyed, “If you don’t stop wriggling and lie still, Max, I’m going to pull the bloody thing off. Honestly, how many times is this? Three? Four?”
Max growled at her, “Get on with it and stop fussing you old woman.”
“If you don’t like me standing on you, then stop getting your arm dislocated.” She gave a sudden strain, momentarily changing her speech, “Just have to lift it back over the bone.” There was a quiet sucking, popping noise. “There. That’s got it.”
Tristan watched Max get swiftly to his feet and move the shoulder of his reset arm around, testing his fingers by making a tight balled fist and bending and flexing the arm in various directions. His face wore its usual scowl, but Tristan couldn’t see any hint of pain. “Thanks, Lu.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie.”
Tristan let his head fall back on the table, stared at the stained styro-foam ceiling tiles again and waited nervously. His thoughts replayed the night’s events.
The twisted shrivelled hand emerging from the stone mausoleum, the others gathering around it, approaching it cautiously, a shape flopping out the side of the crypt and crawling in sudden, twitching, insect-like movements behind gravestones, over mist shrouded grass, into the darkness. He recalled the frantic chase, the three trying to chase the scuttling thing down. It was like a giant cockroach hunt. The three had moved quickly, circling, bearing down, stamping and the crawling grey thing moving erratically, unnaturally. It looked almost mechanical, but it was evasive and desperate. They were almost upon it, but then it was gone, leaving them looking around, confused. Tristan saw it pull itself up against the stone wall surrounding the graveyard and only then had he truly realised that it was, or had been, human. The clothing was visible briefly, jeans and a fashionable top, modern clothing, draped loosely over a dried out, grey, skeletal husk. In a jerky spasmodic movement it had thrown itself up and over the wall and was gone. Lucretia had smoothly jumped over the wall with Max bounding after, his left arm swinging lifeless like a pendulum. They had returned some time later, with tense expressions and Lucretia had given a short shake of her head. No.
And then Gregor had told him about the creature, the once human, Earnest Matthew Grimm. He had told him of the danger of the beast, the beast that he had hunted so long. He told him some of the terrible things the creature had done. Gregor had explained that the monster was closest to what Tristan would think of as a vampire, inexorable, undying, hungry. And he had asked for Tristan’s help, for Tristan’s vision, to help them stop the monster. Gregor had told Tristan that this vision was a great gift, a rare gift, and that he could help him develop his talents, develop this ability. With one quick ceremony, Gregor promised to turn his vision into a great light, sweeping the darkness for the beast – and the grey insect thing. The new creature, Gregor told him, was the latest bride of the beast, a half-creature, driven by instinct and thirst. It was evil, absolutely evil. There was no time, Gregor had said, no time. The creature was loose and might escape. Its bride was lost, hidden in the fields and undergrowth, crazed and hungry. Both must be hunted, stopped. But, Gregor told him, they first needed to find the cursed things. They needed Tristan to help find the things.
And, in the graveyard, standing before the empty grave, having seen the things, the monsters for himself, Tristan had agreed.
He lifted his head off the table and looked about for Gregor. Where was the old man?
The sound of Gregor’s wheezing breath approached and the librarian’s shadow fell over him. “Are you lying comfortably, my dear boy? Then we shall proceed.” Gregor’s hand, mottled with age spots and thin blue veins, tremored slightly. In it, he held a metal chain beneath which swung a large brass sphere, inlaid with arcane symbols and black holes of various unknown design. Tristan noticed tendrils of smoke emanating from the holes and an acrid, burning smell. It reminded him of a Christmas, years ago, when his mother had taken him to midnight mass at some massive cathedral in Europe. A grey bearded priest had walked down the aisle, swinging this metal container inside which incense had burned and this looked similar. It looked similar, but smelled much worse.
Gregor raised the curious brass sphere directly over Tristan’s head using both hands now. His infirm hands were shaking visibly with the effort.
Tristan looked up at the heavy metal globe hovering above his face and was seriously worried about Gregor’s ability to hold it there. He could just imagine this strange night topped off with a trip to casualty, a dented head and third degree burns. “So, what happens now?” Tristan asked.
Gregor smiled disarmingly although his words were strained with the effort of holding the brass sphere, “Oh, the usual, my boy. That old black magic, witch-craft, spells, incantations, rituals from the Bumper Compendium Book of Secrets. Nothing to worry about unduly, Tristan.”
“Seriously, what are you doing?” Tristan insisted.
“Well, first we are attempting to focus your chakras, according to Vedi
c lore, to bring your mind and body into harmony, to allow the universal voice to speak through you.” It all sounded pretty unbelievable to Tristan. “However, that can take years of physical conditioning, mental training, meditation and a dedication possessed by so very few, so what I’m doing is more like a version of the awakening ceremony, with a few special modifications of my own.”
“Like what?” Tristan didn’t like the sound of this.
“Well, my boy, I do believe you have a great gift.” Gregor paused and his pale purple lips seemed to chant without speaking. He continued, “But your gift is dormant, sleeping as it were. So, we need to bring it to life, pep it up, eh. What it can take others twenty, thirty years or more to do, we are hoping to achieve in a single night.”
Tristan thought that this sounded less and less likely. “Riiiiiight,” he said, unsure.
“You’re like a fine wine, Tristan, that’s lain in the cellar for fifty years, with all this potential and promise bottled up, and I’m going to try to pop the cork, as it were. We’ll drain you to the last dregs. Get all that potential out into the world.”
“Eh?” The brass sphere swung disconcertingly above him, smoke was coming out thicker now and, rather than rising, seemed to be falling towards him.
“Ah, there it is.” Gregor broke off to mouth more silent words before speaking to Tristan, “Or, if you will, you are like a great fat slug, lying in the weeds.”
“What?”
“Or a caterpillar, if you prefer, yes, a big, fat, juicy caterpillar. You could fly. You could be beautiful, but you lie there, unmoving. And, in this metaphorical explanation, I’m going to turn you into a butterfly – crack open your brain – and let you fly – let your gift out into the world. Is that simplistic enough for your understanding?”
The pall of smoke was definitely dropping towards him and it was so thick it seemed solid, like a tentacle reaching out of the brass sphere and seeking him out. “What is in that thing?” Tristan asked nervously.
Gregor smiled warmly at him, nodding while he spoke, “Oh, nothing to speak of, Tristan, nothing to worry about. Eye of newt, toe of frog, you know, just the typical offerings, a beam of light from a harvest moon, the finger of a hanged man – now people say you can get anything on the internet, it’s not true – the dreams of a murderer – easier to find than you would believe – and various other trifles.”
More thick tendrils of smoke were stretching out from the various orifices of the brass sphere, snaking down like octopus tentacles to envelop him.
“What…” Tristan started.
Gregor cut him off forcefully, “No more talk. When I say, open your mouth and breath in deeply. Through the mouth would be best. Do it all in one go. You wouldn’t want it clogging up your nose, it’ll be like trying to breath syrup I should imagine. Now, breath out, out. That’s it, get everything out. And mouth open… wait…” The black tendrils were coming together, entwining. His vision was blocked out by the dark smoke. He could feel the solid weight of it pressing down on his forehead, writhing against his skin, forcing itself into his nostrils. It felt like he was going to drown.
“NOW! BREATHE IT IN, TRISTAN! BREATHE!” Gregor shouted at him, demanding obedience and Tristan’s open mouth sucked in the dark cloud of smoke.
Inhaling, choking, coughing, retching all at the same time, Tristan felt smothered. He drank in the smoke, pulling it into his lungs, fighting the gagging for as long as he could and then he spluttered and would have choked, his lungs would have thrown the filthy air back out, he would have coughed out the last wisps in a hacking and instinctive, uncontrolled attempt to clean his body.
He would have…
But, as his determination and lungs gave up drinking in the foul stench from the unknown burning substances within the brass sphere, as he needed pure air and oxygen, as his body was crying out for release, the churning, writhing column of smoke forced itself inwards. He felt it clawing and burrowing down the open tunnel of his throat, mercilessly filling him with unbreatheable smoke. The dark boring tentacle that wormed into him seemed to be accompanied by a keening high-pitched noise like a distant scream.
Tristan was terrified. His body arched on the table. His eyes rolled and he knew he was dying. Gregor had tricked him. His mad rolling eyes flashed over the still benign, smiling face of Gregor and the thought of Joshua’s death filled his mind. The old man had tricked him and he was dying.
He heard Gregor calling out, “Lucretia! Max! Come and hold him down. The offering must have time to take root.”
There was strong pressure on his arms, his shoulders, hands like iron clamping down his body, and it was his body which was now twisting and writhing in convulsing agony. It was his body which was bucking and breaking, his body, his…
He could barely feel the hands holding him down. He could barely feel anything. The bonds of flesh were becoming loose. The distant scream was growing, sounding like an approaching steam train’s whistle or a shrill alarm filling his mind.
He was in his nightmare. It was his mother screaming her silent scream twisting her face.
The scream grows louder, shriller, piercing.
The graveyard: being dragged across the wet grass, pain shooting down his arm.
The scream becomes harsher, mixing with the grating of stone as the lid is dragged off the cold, squatly solid mausoleum. Evil, evil, evil.
Lingering screaming in the darkness, the absolute darkness, the screaming, gagging fear in the black, trapped in the black.
Pain that seared and scalded. Being bitten and tasted. A long drawn out bite trapped in the blackness with it, trapped in the blackness with it and the fear, the gnawing, constant, suffocating fear.
A slow acquiesce to unconsciousness.
Terrible light, blinding light and terrible noise, deafening. Too much. All too much.
And the fear. Overwhelming. Unbearable.
Fear of three figures, coming closer in the blinding light – Lucretia’s face, Max’s scowl, Gregor’s spider web of age – but they are strangers. They are unknown, threatening and dangerous.
Then running, fleeing, desperate, instinctive, just survival, base survival, hiding, scuttling, running.
The wall: a gasping effort, into the freedom and blackness of the fields.
The woods: the dark, embracing woods, stumbling, hungry, desperate.
Blinding daylight came, burning eyeballs, and a ditch, grovelling in the shadows of the trees and undergrowth and leaves, hiding from the blinding light, hiding from the searing pain, hiding.
Hunger and pain.
Desperate hunger.
In the moist and rotten ditch, there is a slug. It is alive, life, a living slug. Something to feed the hunger, biting down on the slime, piercing the rubbery mucus filled bloated body.
Such hunger.
The return of night gives the soothing embrace of darkness, and relief, but not from the hunger, not from the weakness.
Staggering, crawling on all fours between the shadows.
Upright, holding dizzily onto the rough bark of trees.
Noises: laughter, familiar, friendly laughter. Voices: familiar, safe.
Help, help close by.
Staggering, lurching from shadow to shadow, filled with aching hunger. The voices closer, but so weak, so hungry.
Voices: louder, thunderously loud, friendly and warm, but like the crack of doom, the end of the world.
Friends.
Help.
The awful hunger: the need to reach the booming voices and safety.
From the shadows, a face, a single face, a beautiful, loved face. Mark.
Staggering to safety, to love, to Mark.
Mark. His face twisted in horror and fear.
Mark. So warm. So full of life. So full of love.
His face screaming.
Life. Hunger. Need. Love.
Love me.
Kissing Mark, his twitching mouth pulling away, his pulsing neck so loving.
The blo
od filling, feeding, giving.
Life.
Feeding.
Ecstasy.
The slaps were faint and feeble.
Slap. His head moved to the right.
Slap. His head moved to the left.
“Tristan!”
Slap.
“Tristan!” Lucretia’s voice was calling him back.
Air was drawn into his lungs like into an Egyptian sarcophagus on the breaking of its seal.
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh.
“It worked.” He recognised Gregor’s voice. He sounded surprised, pleased.
“What have you done to him?” Max, threatening.
Gregor: “Opened the door to his subconscious, to the universal voice, to the nether realms, the greater realms, the Shadowlands among others. A quick tutorial, you might say, but not without its dangers. Not without a cost.”
Tristan was coughing, spluttering, gasping. His body’s ache for air was all consuming, his hunger, his need. He was filled with horror.
In his mouth he tasted the blood.
In his heart he felt the love, the need.
In his lungs the filth of the smoke lingered.
In his mind, detached and rational, he knew the future. “Tomorrow.” He gasped another breath. “The woods.” He breathed in like a drowning man sucking in air. “Behind the cemetery.” He could feel the hands holding him down again and was returning to reality. He knew now what he had witnessed. “The bride will feed.”
Gregor’s voice was amused, “I think we can say that your gift has been unwrapped, eh?”
And Gregor laughed.
Twelve: The Woods
The woods were cold.
The woods were dark.
The woods suited Mark’s mood. He felt cold and dark. Empty. He cradled the half empty bottle of vodka in his hand and took a heavy drag on the cigarette.
The others had gone, left early, left him to his misery. There had been no fun, not tonight, not for the past few nights. Not since Natasha had disappeared.