Winter Falls

by Eddie Skelson

  He placed the plate of food, a mountain of instant potato mash covered with what he assumed was a whole tin of beans, onto the table. There was a chance it was drugged, but if they did it now, this early, he might wake in the night so he figured it probably wasn’t. Joe sniffed at the food although he wasn’t sure what smell he would need to detect for the presence of drugs. His stomach growled fiercely and he tucked in regardless.

  After thirty minutes had passed Joe thought it was a safe assumption that there had been no drugs present in the food. He felt better having eaten, even if it had not been a spectacular spread. He cast his thoughts to the rows of brown boxes in the Satanic Lidl. Everything was processed in there, or dried or salted or in some other way preserved. Nothing fresh.

  Kevin had said that men from Winter Falls would occasionally come into the village and buy stores. Clearly they only bought goods that would last a long time. They kept their contact with the real world to an absolute minimum. This tied in with their fear of him working for the government. If the town was involved in some kind of cult, if they were murdering people for bizarre and horrible rituals of worship, the last thing they needed was government interest.

  ‘By Christ they will get some interest when I get out here.’ Joe thought. ‘I’ll bring the fucking army.’

  The sound of the storm blowing outside interrupted his thoughts of leaving. He wasn’t going anywhere while a foot or more of snow was added to the roads each day. The Winter Falls townsfolk didn’t need to have a wall built around the place to keep him here, not while they had the weather. He had never felt so remote from his real life.

  He thought of Melanie. She would be coming to him later and it lifted his spirits a little. They would get out of Winter Falls together and head to London. This place would be all over the papers by the weekend. He closed his eyes and pictured them cruising along the banks of Loch Lomond in the Nissan. London signposted a mere few hundred miles away. She touched Joes hand as it rested on the gearstick and looked up at him with her beautiful hazel eyes. Joe was asleep before he knew it.

  He awoke to knocking on the door. It took him a moment to realise he had been asleep and wondered if he had actually been drugged again. His watch stated that it was slightly after eight. No he had just dozed off. The knocking came again, a little louder.

  Joe got up and approached the door.

  ‘Yes?’ He said

  ‘Got your meal.’ Henrys flat voice answered.

  ‘Right sec.’ Joe said and turned the key in the lock. He opened the door revealing Henry, stood before with a tray once again. There was once again a bowl of soup and a plate heaped with bacon, beans and mash.

  ‘Excellent.’ Joe said, taking the tray. ‘Please compliment the chef on his diverse and wholesome selection for me.’

  He didn’t bother checking for Henrys reaction to his sarcasm he simply turned and pushed the door shut with his elbow. He wasn’t entirely sure that he needed to keep up the ‘Southern Wanker’ persona with Henry now, but he was enjoying it.

  ‘I’m just staying in character.’ He thought.

  He placed the tray onto the table, having to move the plate from his earlier meal aside to accommodate it. There was no way he was touching this meal, not this time.

  He now had three hours to kill before Melanie would be here. He picked up the iPad, plugged the charger in, his phone was at 100%, and started to go through the documents again.

  There had been two very distinct Black Holes in his data, 1914 and 1939. The most obvious thing about the dates was that they were war years but for the moment he couldn’t see any other relevance.

  He skipped to the 1939 documents and began to examine them. Once again the format was familiar. No Doctors scribble, no notes from the mid-wife, except this was not wholly true. He bookmarked a number of images and then swept back to the 1914 entries. He started to go through them again this time highlighting the female births rather than the male.

  Joe found something that brought the two dates together. Whereas the male birth records were just the parent’s name, the child’s name, date of birth and the signature of the attending Doctor, which he couldn’t read anyway, the female records had all of the missing information. Some bore notes haphazardly scrawled in corners or across the ‘particulars’ section. The name of the mother and father were listed but also the father’s occupation was stated as well.

  For each period the births of the boys had been faked but the girls appeared to be accurate. Why hide the births of the male babies? Joe thought that maybe the Falls look might have something to do with it. Perhaps they did it to hide incest or disease or whatever it was causing the problems in the children.

  Both Melanie and the girl he saw in the store bore no signs of the look, but then Macgregor, Peake and the thuggish looking man, Billy Duggan, all looked normal too. He dropped that as an explanation and considered the dates alone.

  The war years might be the thing. Could the records have been misplaced or not reported, a clerical error due to the upheaval of the war. It was possible. But why only the males for both periods. Joe dismissed this. It didn’t feel right.

  He turned his thoughts reluctantly to the religion of the place. Whatever it was these people were involved in they weren’t above mutilating men on slabs in the forest. Possibly the connection was here. They were hiding the births of the men of the town, or perhaps it was only the men who had the look they wanted to hide but did them all wholesale anyway. He knew he was making a huge leap of faith in deciding that the women didn’t suffer the disease. But this would then explain why they felt no need to change their records for them. However, they did hide them. The data he had received in London had indicated no births at all during these periods and in Glasgow the records were absent.

  It made sense that it was a ‘job lot’ decision though. Although the girl’s records were not faked the records were not passed on to the authorities to keep the consistency. Joe tut-tutted to himself. His logic was shaky here at best. He was leaving too much to guesswork and there were some gaping holes in his theory. It was the best he had though, for the moment.

  He decided to copy the data from the pad to his phone as a backup. The phone was also easier to carry around. ‘

  If I have to run for it.’ Joe thought grimly.

  As the phone was now fully charged he thought it wise to power the iPad to its maximum as well. Meanwhile he transferred the files via Bluetooth.

  After he had set the pad to work he decided to make the most of the heating situation and have a good wash. He tested the water from the tap on the little sink and it was hot. He perked up a little. In his travel case was a bag with his toiletries. He stripped, stood on the small towel he had packed and rinsed himself down.

  Once he was washed and dried as best he could Joe clutched at the bottom of his denims. They were warm and dry. He slipped on his underwear, jeans and sweatshirt and waited for Melanie to arrive.

  A little after eleven a quiet knock sounded at the door. Joe didn’t ask who it was he simply unlocked the door and quietly pulled it open. Melanie stood before him, her coat dribbled water onto the carpet and her huge boots still had a small hill of ice on each toecap. A backpack was slung over her shoulder.

  She smiled at Joe when she saw him. He gestured for her to come in.

  ‘Is Henry gone?’ Joe asked in a low voice. Melanie nodded and Joe closed the door.

  ‘Henry, Dad, Macgregor, they will all be at worship now. Are You Ok?’ She asked as she removed the backpack and slipped out of her coat. Joe helped her with it and draped it next to his near the window.

  ‘Yeah fine.’ He said. He felt awkward standing so close to her in the small room and put his hands into his pockets. Melanie appeared to be unaware of any such tension and sat on the bed. She noticed the untouched food on the table.

  ‘We will need to get rid of that.’ She said. Joe nodded. He had already decided to take the plates to the back door and to tip the food into the snow.
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br />   ‘What have you been doing today?’ She asked.

  ‘I went for a stroll.’ Joe said

  ‘You left the hotel?’ Melanie looked shocked and a little scared.

  ‘It’s Ok. I kind of set it up so that Henry would be convinced that I have no idea what’s going on.’ Joe said to reassure her. ‘Although actually I don’t have any idea what’s going on.’

  ‘You have to be careful, things are tense here and not just because of your visit.’ Melanie said.

  Joe could see that more was about to come. He decided to be bold and sit by her on the bed. Currently he understood that his life could be in danger, that the people who might wish him harm were capable of staggering brutality, but all he could think of was how much he wanted to kiss Melanie. As he sat Melanie turned to him seemingly unfazed by their proximity.

  ‘I’m going to tell you everything that I know or at least how much I can make sense of what I know.’ Melanie placed her hand on Joes which was resting on his thigh. The skin on his throat and neck felt like a fire was spreading across it. He hoped that Melanie couldn’t see his blush as it threatened to colour his entire face.

  ‘Ok.’ Joe said normalising his voice as best he could. ‘I want to hear it all.’

  Melanie’s hand gripped his fingers, not tightly. She curled her fingers around them slowly, they were smooth and warm and Joe couldn’t hold the stirring of an erection. His trousers were made from thin cloth, they couldn’t hide spontaneous ‘awakenings’ like a pair of thick denims could. Joe was so concerned that Melanie might see his arousal he didn’t notice that she had moved her head closer.

  As he turned his attention back to Melanie she was so close that his nose almost rubbed against hers. He had been about to say something regarding the town, anything at all to keep her attention from the obvious effect she was having upon him but the words were lost. Instead he found himself staring into her eyes, brown, ‘like ginger biscuits.’ Joe thought. Her lips were slightly parted and Joe had never wanted lean forward to kiss anyone so much in his life, but he was too late for that. Melanie leaned forward and took the kiss instead.

  Her lips pressed against his firmly for a few moments and then her free hand reached up to his cheek and caressed it, pulling him in even more.

  Joe recovered from the shock quickly and began to take part with more confidence. Their mouths opened a little and each took turns with a movement of lips or tongue, testing and probing, reacting to the sensation by repeating what the other had done.

  Joe couldn’t help but detect what he thought might be a lack of experience in Melanie, her kisses were simple and light but she pushed at him as though her passion was a force battering at a door, demanding to be unleashed. Joe began to gain more boldness. He broke the kiss and began to nuzzle her neck, she groaned quietly as he ran his tongue up the length her throat and then kissed his way back to her mouth.

  She moved her hands across him, exploring his body. Her palms pressed up and down his arms, following the contours of his biceps. Joe was still conscious of his erection, now embarrassingly obvious, and as he tried to lose himself in the pleasure of the moment he was held back by the polite reserve he had always maintained with women.

  He knew that he was going to break the moment. He cursed himself but he couldn’t help it, he had to apologise for losing control in such a way, in such circumstances. But as he started to draw away Melanie sensed his conflict. Her hands gripped his arms more tightly, she drew her leg up and let her knee slide across his thigh slowly and then in one fluid and sensual move she was straddling him.

  She let weight of her body push down onto his hips. Joe leaned back on his elbows, looking up at her. She reached out with one hand and gently took his wrist. Pulling his hand up to her left breast she pressed it down firmly.

  Joe moved his hand in a small circle, he could feel her nipple, hard through the bra.

  ‘Please.’ She said and began to unbutton her blouse.

  Chapter Nine.

  They left via the back door of the hotel again and ditched Joe’s drugged evening meal. Melanie then led Joe toward the upper part of the town, away from the harbour. The snow blew hard and the wind pushed them around like a schoolyard bully.

  ‘We have to keep off the path and out of the lights where possible, even with this snow we can’t risk being seen’ she told him once they had reached the top of the road.

  ‘Aren’t they all at the church thing?’ Joe asked. He found that he had to raise his voice to be heard over the wind.

  ‘They don’t all go.’ she said ‘none of the girls will be there. Macgregor and Duggan don’t usually attend, although Macgregor is there tonight.’

  ‘Your Father?’ said Joe.

  ‘Oh yes, he will be, he has to be there.’ She said.

  They ducked into an alley just off a street that wasn’t far from where Joe’s Nissan was parked. He had insisted on seeing that the car was still there before they could carry on. It hadn’t moved and was sat in a field of crisp snow that was almost up to the windows.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Joe asked.

  ‘To the church.’ Melanie replied. She produced a small torch from her pocket and tested that it was working.

  ‘What?’ Joe said, alarmed.

  ‘Not that one.’ Melanie replied and pulled his on his hand as she increased her speed through the snow.

  Joe soon saw what Melanie was referring to. Ahead, away from the street lights and houses, set in its own grounds that were covered with untouched snow, was an old and dilapidated church. It wasn’t a small building. Joe estimated that the grounds in front and to the sides covered about half the size of West Ham’s football pitch.

  The church roof came to a point at around thirty feet. There had been a spire at one time but now it was a broken thing, the brickwork finished in a ragged stump about five feet above the roof. Every window was boarded and the arched doors at the front had a large rusted and padlocked chain doubled around the handles.

  ‘Are we going in?’ Joe asked. He hoped they weren’t.

  ‘Yes, but we need to go around. We can’t let anyone see footprints going in there.’ she said leading him around the rear of the church.

  There wasn’t any light at the back and Joe saw that the low wall surrounding the grounds had crumbled here. Together they cautiously walked up the hill the snow had made over the rubble. It was only a few feet but the uneven bricks beneath the snow wobbled as Joe’s weight fell upon them.

  The cemetery took up all of the grounds except for the wide pathway at the front. Where Joe now stood was dotted with crosses and arched tombstones that leaned at tired angles. Melanie was moving towards the church trying to keep close to the stones and Joe did his best to tread in her footprints.

  He could see that there was a thick door in the side of the church but it hung away from the frame. Only the bottom hinge kept it fixed there and Joe thought that a strong tug would pull the whole thing away completely yet it had held fast in the storm.

  Melanie slid her backpack off. She stepped through the open doorway and waited for Joe to join her. As Joe entered she illuminated the area with the flashlight. He saw rows of wooden chairs that were in various states, some upturned, some with parts missing, some stacked on top of others. Towards the front of the church there were five lines of pews. Two of these were broken and had fallen or been pushed over.

  ‘Could I take the torch?’ He asked.

  Melanie handed it to him and as Joe swept it around the church she opened the back pack and began to take items out of it.

  The entire church was in total disorder and looked as though it was ready to collapse. The windows had all been smashed, the boards on the outside clearly visible. Where the altar would have been was a pile of broken timbers, rags and glass. As Joe turned full circle a light sprang up next to him. Melanie had lit a kerosene lamp and as she increased the flame its light softened the harsh revelations of the torch.

  ‘Wow.’ Joe gasped. ‘I gu
ess Christianity really isn’t a big deal here these days.’

  Melanie checked the strength of two of the wooden chairs nearby and then brought them over to the lamp. She sat and Joe followed suit.

  ‘No one comes here.’ Melanie said. ‘We should be able to talk’.

  ‘Good.’ Joe said but he wasn’t sure that he meant it. He was beginning to think that ignorance might just be bliss. Just stay quiet, let the roads clear and then get as far away as possible. Let the police come and sort this place out.

  He looked at Melanie. The fear she carried inside was visible in her eyes, as she spoke they darted around looking for things in the shadows. He found it hard to believe that no more than an hour ago they had been making love, naked and wanting each other desperately in the small room, on that small bed.

  Melanie rummaged in the bag.

  ‘Do you want a drink?’ She said.

  It caught Joe by surprise. ‘I’m sorry what?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you say drink?’

  Melanie pulled out a silver flask and two tin mugs ‘I made coffee.’ She handed him a mug. ‘I didn’t bring any sugar though.’ She said apologetically.

  ‘I don’t take sugar.’ Joe replied, accepting the mug. They were silent as Melanie poured out the drink. A cloud of steam rose between them and in the cold, dank church, the strong aroma smelled divine to Joe. She took a few sips and Joe mimicked her.

  He could see that she was building up to say whatever it was she had brought him out here to tell him. He didn’t want to hurry her though, and he felt that the longer he didn’t know what it was the better for his sanity.

  Melanie turned the mug around in her hands, her attention on the coffee as it circled inside for at least a couple of minutes. Finally she looked up at Joe and began.

  ‘I don’t know everything Joe, in fact I’m not really sure that what I think I know is real. I could have mistaken some of it, misheard, misread. But I know what I’ve seen.’