The Revenants

by Alec Dunn

  Max struggled weakly against the creature. His determined grip on its throat loosened as it hammered blow after blow into his head and body. Max was slumped against it now. Only his spirit kept the grip in place.

  “Gregor,” Earnest said, “you have been very naughty. Where did you get him? He’s not moulded from clay. Does he know?”

  Max’s body had finally succumbed and he sank to his knees before Earnest. The creature was smiling, Lucretia’s blood dripping down its chin, fangs barely protruding from beneath its lips.

  And it was then that the moonlight peeked in through the window.

  Max’s back arched and he fell forward onto his hands. To Tristan it looked like Max’s whole body rippled, like his spine performed a Mexican wave and his hands collapsed outwards, growing gloves on them.

  The confident smile vanished from Earnest’s face. “Oh, that’s where you got him from. I suppose he must know then.” And Earnest, the creature, was serious. And Earnest became vicious. He picked up Max by the neck and threw him into the wall with unbelievable force.

  Tristan heard the bones breaking and saw the blood splatter from his skull. But still Earnest didn’t stop.

  Earnest stamped down upon the rippling, bubbling form of Max as though trying to put out a fire. Tristan heard each brutal stamp. He heard the thudding impact and saw the face of Max bloodied and unrecognisable. The nose and mouth seemed completely out of place. Max’s teeth were sticking out, jagged and wrong. His eyes were covered by blood.

  Tristan gave a sob of fury. He was unlocking the cell door with one hand, pushing it open. He must help Max.

  The cold hand of Lucretia dropped onto his hand on the key. She had dragged herself up to him, “No. Let him be. Max wouldn’t want you in there. It’s not safe.” She pulled herself slowly, heavily to her feet and took his hand from the key. She was leaning upon him. They stood together. He was holding her up, watching anxiously through the tiny barred window. She held his hand in the gloom, as Gregor chanted behind them.

  It was only when Max’s eyes opened and they were yellow that Tristan could piece the different parts of the face together and make something new. My, Max, what big eyes you have… His eyes were not the eyes of a boy any longer, but the eyes of a creature. And what big hands you have… His hands were large animal paws with pointed claws. And what big teeth you have… His jaws were wide, wide and filled with grim looking canine fangs.

  It was like one of those pictures he had seen that was really two pictures and after looking at it for ages and only seeing one picture, suddenly, he saw a completely different picture. Only the picture hadn’t changed, just how he looked at it.

  There was Max, looking all broken and distorted.

  There was the Max beast.

  The cell rumbled with the thunderous growl of the animal that had been his friend. The Max beast was angry at being thrown at the wall. And what big claws… Max was doing some throwing and hitting of his own now.

  The Max beast seemed very angry at having been stamped on. And what big teeth… Max was savaging and biting.

  It wasn’t Max. It was an animal, a monster, a thing.

  Tristan was both relieved and horrified. Holding Lucretia’s hand made him feel a little better, but then maybe it shouldn’t, he thought. She’s a… His mind refused to complete the sentence so he simply held her hand and she leaned on him while they watched their friend, the monster, fight the creature, Earnest Matthew Grimm.

  The titanic struggle raged within the confines of the gaol cell. Both were forces of nature, wild, colossal uncontrollable. The tornado of damage and violence was worse for being in such a small space, contained and intense, and eventually they were spent. There were two broken, bleeding, staggering forms, lashing out instinctively, base survival all that was left of them.

  Both figures looked like they had been shredded and knifed and stoned. They leaned on each other, both biting, both struggling for final dominance, lashing at each other’s sodden and bleeding carcasses, too numb to even feel the blows of the other.

  They were so even that neither could claim ultimate victory. They were both so weakened that they were barely aware of the world around them.

  Tristan was watching, emotions in conflict. He felt revulsion for the monsters. He was disgusted by the things fighting in there, and yet, Max was alive. His friend was alive. But it wasn’t Max he tried to tell himself. It was a thing.

  Tristan was stunned. He didn’t know what to think. He felt Lucretia’s hand slide out of his own. Lucretia had slumped to the floor beside him, sitting up but unable to stand any longer. He looked down at her and she was pale and weak.

  Max was a monster; Lucretia was a monster. Should he kill them? If they were monsters, he should. That’s what he was here for. That’s what he had thought he was here for.

  Gregor’s chanting had stopped. “That seems to have done the trick, what!” said Gregor jovially. The old man stepped forward and his silhouette stood out starkly against the poisonous green light seeping from the exit sign.

  The brittle noise of his walking stick falling to the floor shattered the hush of the gaol. It bounced off the flag stones, clattering, sounding out an unexpected change.

  Gregor walked forward and he didn’t seem to be shuffling anymore. He stood tall and straight.

  There was something menacing about his confident approach that made Tristan step back. What was he? If Lucretia and Max were monsters, what was Gregor? His mind seemed to scream the question. He was trapped in the small confines of a gaol with what?

  “What, indeed?” Gregor said as though reading his mind. He was level with Lucretia now, who tried to prop herself up. Her arm was outstretched to the closed door of the cell. She weakly asked, “Max?”

  Gregor was about to step across her. He looked down at her and, putting the sole of his shoe on her forehead, pushed her back to the ground. “You should never have been made, my dear. What it must be like to always be so,” he considered his choice of words carefully, “teenage. I can’t think why the dark gift was ever bestowed on one such as you. Ruled by your emotions, my dear, aren’t you? And you always will be I’m sorry to say, suffering the eternal angst of youth. So now you lie there, worried about your little pet and that, I’m afraid, is why you will never be really useful. Hush now, my child.” He sounded like a loving parent, even as he pushed her head into the stone floor. “Ssshhh. Lie down, my dear. Lie down and die there’s a good girl.”

  He stepped over her prostrate form and said to Tristan, “Fall down.”

  And Tristan collapsed. His body simply gave way and he tumbled with no ability to protect himself into a heap of limbs on the floor.

  “I like this world, Tristan. I shall be sorry to leave it, but if Earnest is correct, the,” he cleared his throat, “end is nigh. So I’ll love you and leave you, as they say.”

  Gregor was leaning over, reaching down towards Tristan who lay on the floor, his body jumbled in a pile, filled with fear. “No, no, don’t worry, my boy. I’ve done quite enough to you already. I must say you did your job well, Tristan. You should be proud, eh.” Gregor’s hands were fumbling through his clothes, patting firmly onto his paralysed body. “You did marvellously well. I have to say though that your light has burnt brightly, Tristan, so very, very brightly and the light that burns twice as bright can only burn for half the time. I’m sorry.” Tristan felt the hard lump of his mobile phone pressed into him. “Ah, there it is. I’ll be needing this, my boy. Consider it one final service you can render me.” Gregor’s wormlike tongue rolled across his lips as he took Tristan’s phone and placed it in his own pocket.

  Gregor straightened up and looked at the door, “And now into the lion’s den, as it were.” He seemed very pleased with himself and Tristan knew that there was something terribly, terribly wrong. “Or, as it’s a gaol, should we call it a den of iniquity, eh? Anyway, time to face the beasts within. Wish me luck, Tristan.”

  Gregor disappeared from his sight. T
ristan couldn’t even move his head. He lay in the agony of despair.

  He heard Gregor’s burbling voice sounding like he was politely exchanging pleasantries from the gaol cell. Tristan couldn’t make out the words in the murmur of voices. He could only lie there and wait.

  Gregor’s clipped footsteps rang out on the stone floor as he emerged again. Dangling from his hand, Tristan could see the small amulet from his dream. It was the amulet Gregor had showed him in his strange book when he had become so animated.

  Gregor looked down at the small amulet and his smile was black in the shadows, the spider webbed creases of his face spread out sickly in the venomous light. He noticed Tristan’s eye looking at him and put the amulet carefully into his pocket, the same pocket where Tristan’s mobile phone lay. “So many precious things to collect! Who would have thought it? What a fruitful day!”

  Twenty: No Time for Goodbyes

  He just lay there.

  Gregor had gone and he just lay there.

  In the septic light bleeding out from the exit sign he lay there motionless.

  Only his eyeballs could roll around; his body was leaden and inert. His eyes flicked over to Lucretia, she too was unable to move, gasping out her life. His eyes flicked to the dark doorway of the gaol cell, feeling like they were pulling on the threads of his brain, straining to see, to sense.

  He couldn’t move his head even the smallest amount. Only pull at the corners of his vision, spraining tendons to see more, twisting eyes rolling madly. But his body, his body was crumpled and bent, legs splayed and crossed, unresponsive. He could not move. He could not move his hands. He could not move his neck. He could not move his legs. He could not move his head.

  What he wouldn’t give for that feeling of unity with the world, that vision extending out of himself that had filled him before. He tried to return to the sense of universal oneness that had gifted him sight beyond himself. He let his eyes stop their painful straining and tried to calm his panicking heart. He tried to feel the clouds and the moonlight and the world as an extension of his own consciousness.

  All he could hear were Lucretia’s gasping sobs of breath. And were there noises from the cell? The vision would not come. Could he hear breathing from inside the cell? His eyes flicked and strained at the periphery of his vision. The moons full face was gazing through the cell window now, sending a bar of noticeably brighter light into the small room. Tristan could see that from the white reflection shining on the door. There were noises too.

  Was it breathing? Was Max alive? Was the creature alive? Or were the noises coming through the small, barred window?

  There were definite sounds. He tensed his eyes further, madly rolling them so they were almost back within his own skull. Desperately he tried to look, to listen, forcing all his senses to a point.

  Footsteps: clipped, confident footsteps.

  A sudden darkness blotted out the silver light from the moon that lit the door. A cloud? Police come to investigate the disturbance?

  Through the window, quiet, distant but clear floated Gregor’s voice. “Hello? Hello? Is that Stephanie? Stephanie? This is Gregor. I’m a friend of Tristan’s. Listen, something’s happened, something bad.” Gregor sounded frantic with worry. He sounded concerned and panicked and flustered. Tristan was reminded so clearly of when he killed the small boy in the library. He had sounded exactly the same then. “Can you hear me Stephanie? It’s Tristan. Yes, I know. He said he was meant to meet you tonight… What do I mean? Well, there’s been an accident… Hospital? No, no, my dear. It would be much better if other people didn’t know about it… Well, I really shouldn’t say anymore. It’s best for Tristan to tell you. It’s for him to tell you really. I think that would be for the best.” Gregor’s voice slid through the night like a knife through flesh. It sounded like dried grass blowing in the wind. “He’s been asking for you. No, he can’t talk at the moment. We need to get him somewhere safe. I’m going to take him to the school library… I know, but he needs somewhere and it’s the only place I can think of where he’ll be safe.”

  Safe.

  The word sounded out, hollow in the darkness. Tristan lay unmoving on the floor and felt the fear writhe and twist inside him.

  Why?

  Why Stephanie? Why did Gregor take his phone? What did Gregor want with Stephanie? What was he planning to do to Stephanie?

  His eyes bulged and strained and his wide open mouth screamed out silence. His heart surged with effort and his frantic willpower tried to jerk his unresponsive, heavy carcass into action, but he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t move. He was trapped inside his own body, paralysed, like a caged beast, tearing and raging inside its cage, and able to do… nothing.

  The ancient rasping voice whispered through the darkness, “About fifteen minutes. And, ah, it would be best for you to come alone, Stephanie. The fewer people who know about this, the better.” Gregor sounded so worried, so concerned. “I’m worried about him. He needs you…” Was there a velvety, sugary coating of smugness to his words? “You’ll meet us there? I’m so glad. I’ll tell him.”

  Tristan lay in the sickly green glow seeping from the fire exit sign and felt engulfed, as though the world had swallowed him and he was caught in its throat, trapped and looking at the moment of his death. He was about to fall, to disappear. His mind clawed and wrenched at his muscles, but they did not respond. Deep inside, his bowels sobbed out the cry he could not force his lips to make.

  Gregor’s dry whisper hissed through the bars and sliced into his mind, “Tristan?” Mocking and teasing, drawing his name out, “Oh Triiistaaan, can you hear me? Were you listening? She is special, isn’t she? Stephanie, I mean. Very special. I don’t think you know quite how special she is, my boy, but I do.” Gregor was talking directly to him, trying to hurt him, torturing him, a cruel boy pulling the legs of a daddy longlegs and enjoying it. “I know how special she is. Frankly, my young protégé, I couldn’t believe it when I saw her. I had never expected to see her like. The chances are… Well, incalculable.” Gregor’s words slithered into his ears, “And she seems to have found you, my pathetic oracle. You have been a surprisingly useful tool for me. And finding you… Well, finding you has brought her to me, the amulet to me, and even my prodigal son to me. But, believe me, special doesn’t begin to describe what she is, Tristan.” His smooth voice susserated like the curtain sliding behind a coffin at a funeral, the words fell out as quietly as the last breath of an old man passing away. “I know what to do with her.” Gregor was friendly again, friendly and warm, “Well, so long, my boy. I hope you enjoy what’s left of your life. Ta ta.”

  The swift, clipped footsteps quickly disappeared, leaving Tristan on the floor.

  He felt alone.

  His insides were writhing in fear and desperation. He felt like he was sliding down the throat of the world, disappearing completely. His body was a dead slab of meat. It lay on the floor, stagnant and sluggish, incapable of movement.

  His mind raced – Stephanie – what was Gregor going to do? Why? How could he stop it?

  His body would do nothing. He could do nothing.

  He felt himself tilting over the precipice, sliding further down the throat of the world. His mind folded in on itself and the blackness of fear engulfed him. Thoughts of Stephanie in pain and desperation filled his mind and the sure and certain knowledge of the hopelessness and futility of life.

  Tristan’s head lay on the floor, as it had for some time, unmoving. The faint green light polluted the absolute darkness and Tristan felt himself slip further into the shadows. The straining jerking spasmodic force of his will had subsided. He could no longer strain his eyes and his neck and try to move the immovable. Despair filled him and hope dissolved. He let himself slide into the shadows. He felt himself disappearing.

  It was her voice that woke him.

  “Tristan.” Lucretia was saying his name. She sounded weak. “Tristan, I think I’m dying. He told me to die.”

  Her words stir
red the dust and emptiness of his thoughts. He was lost in the void and it was only her familiar voice calling him back. His attention slowly focused on Lucretia. She was lying not far away, and she was dying.

  “He wants me to die. But that’s not what I want, Tristan. I won’t. I refuse.” Her voice was small, lost in the night. Not that Tristan could say anything. He was frozen, a spectator from behind his own eyes. He couldn’t even reply when Lucretia was telling him she was dying. She spoke in brief gasps, sobbing out her few words like a heartbeat.

  “I think I might be dying anyway. I’ve lost too much blood, but I can’t believe that filthy old monster told me to die. I will not. That’s not what I’m going to do. I will not lie down and give up.” She sounded weak, but her voice had purpose. She sounded weak and determined at the same time. Lucretia coughed out a sudden strained laugh. “Alright, I guess I am lying down, but I will not give up. That stinking old grave-robber won’t beat me.” She seemed to gather herself a moment before making a flat and resigned statement. “I need blood.”

  Tristan was alive again, focused on Lucretia now, only feet away from him in the bleeding green darkness. She was dying; she needed blood. He couldn’t even raise his head from the floor and Stephanie had been tricked into meeting Gregor at the library where he would probably rape her or murder her or… and he couldn’t stop it. He couldn’t do a thing. But Lucretia was only feet from him. She was going to die only a few feet away from him. They were almost lying next to each other and he might be able to do something to help her, to drag himself the small distance to her. She was a vampire; she was a monster. But she was still his friend, and she was dying.