Most of the pictures included me, at various different stages of my life. I remembered each event but had never laid eyes on the photographs themselves. I picked one up, unable to contain a sad smile. In it my father was shown holding me above his head, a wide smile across both of our faces. I must have only been around two-years-old.
One other frame caught my eye, however. It depicted three people, captured in an equally-joyous moment in their lives. I recognised only my father, but the letter he had left me had shed light on the other two people he was with; one arm cradling a baby boy and the other wrapped around the shoulders of a beautiful golden-haired woman.
His wife and son. The family he both had and lost before I came into the world.
Knowing that the unbreakable smiles in the picture would soon be replaced by torture and heartbreak brought a dull ache to my chest. I held the picture close for a moment longer before placing it back.
Next I crossed to behind his desk, sitting back in the dusty leather recliner chair. I leaned back until I was almost looking straight at the ceiling, trying to imagine my father sat there. But I couldn’t. The room now seemed so empty, so lifeless.
There must be a reason why he wanted me to find this place. Something in this room he wanted me to find.
I let the chair spring me back upright and then started surveying the room from my seat, unsure as to where to start. I decided to try the drawers of the desk first but both were locked, so my next option was the filing cabinets. I started with the one closest to me, on the left. I checked for any kind of label on the outside that may hint to its contents, but my father had obviously decided he didn’t need to publicise what was inside.
The top drawer of the first cabinet pulled open easily, the lack of weight within it catching me by surprise so that the drawer flew completely open on its runners with a load metallic clang. It was totally empty.
I tried the next two drawers, my only quarry being two discarded empty cardboard files in the bottom drawer. Unperturbed, I moved along the line and tried the second cabinet. Again, an empty treasure chest. And the third followed suit.
Feeling my frustration starting to bristle, I paused in the centre of the room and took a deep breath as I faced the second row of cabinets. I resumed my search with the left-most one, this time almost getting excited at the sight of an object in the middle drawer. A padded envelope, much like the one my father had left me which had started this goose chase. I grabbed it, my optimism soon waning as I felt that it too was empty. Another red herring.
Come on Dad, take it easy on me. Give me a break.
The middle cabinet bore no more fruit, by which point I was ready to give up and leave Spinwood altogether. I felt a rage building, directed not only at my father but at The Caretaker. Thoughts of everyone I had crossed paths with over the last few weeks since my awakening flashed through my mind, each one bringing a new surge of contempt.
Suddenly my mind was quiet, as if someone had turned down the volume of my subconscious. I was back in the room, both hands tightly drawn to my sides, my fists balled. I stared at the final cabinet, unsure whether I had the energy to suffer more disappointment. I looked around the room once more, convincing myself that there was no other avenue left for me to try. I thanked my father’s simple vision for his sanctum, as I know I couldn’t stomach any more disappointment.
There was a reason why I had been sent there. I could feel it; I just couldn’t see it yet in my mind’s eye. Taking a deep breath, I stepped in front of the sixth and final filing cabinet. I tugged hard at the top drawer, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked.
Bingo.
*****
My moment of triumph was short lived as I quickly realised that the key that I had used to access the secret study did not fit the lock for the filing cabinet. Feeling like I was back at square one, I slumped back in my father’s office chair. I closed my eyes and sank into a place of darkness once more, somewhere where I knew my mind could clear.
An idea suddenly came to me, somewhat out of the blue (or black?) Leaning forward in the chair, I blindly ran my hand on the underside of the desk. Not satisfied with feeling nothing but the shaved wood, I kicked the chair back on its castors to allow me extra room, and got down on all fours, crawling underneath the desk-top. I had only just enough room to turn my body so that I could see the underside of the desk, but it was worth the struggle.
Tucked in the nearest corner to where I had been sitting, held in place by a single strip of sellotape was a small square-headed key. I recognised the type instantly and knew my luck was in, as I remember seeing similar keys in Mrs. Stepson’s office during my time in the stately home-school. I snatched it and crawled back out from under the desk, my haste resulting in my head smacking the top as I stood up. I ignored the sudden burst of pain, driven more by the stirring feeling in my gut.
I was nervous. My hands trembled again as I slid the key into the lock and gave it a half-turn. I tugged at the drawer but it only opened part-way before halting on its rails. My anger flared, I wrenched at the drawer before realising my mistake; the key had slipped back from its position as I had drawn my hand away. Turning it tight once more, holding the drawer with my other hand, I gently pulled.
To my relief, it opened fully.
Straight away, the weight of its contents told me I had finally struck gold. The drawer was full of cardboard dividing files, most stuffed full of thick wads of paper. I decided not to delve too far into any of the files just yet, but rather wanted to survey my hoard. I checked the other two drawers, each of them as full as the first.
I ran my fingers lightly over the tags clipped to the top of each file. Each bore a name, but none that I recognised. So I grabbed a couple of files from each drawer at random and spread them across the desk. I was about to sit down when my stomach rumbled, reminding me that I hadn’t yet had breakfast.
I left the office, making sure that I pocketed the key before closing the door behind me, and returned to my father’s cottage. Making myself a ham and pickle sandwich and grabbing a somewhat flattened packet of crisps from the back of the cupboard, I made my way back to the mansion. I hurried down the hallway - this time wasting no precious seconds whilst accessing the office - and settled in the chair, ready to begin.
Little did I know that all the while, as I walked between the two houses to grab my morning meal, I was being watched.
*****
I read tirelessly for hours. Each file was laden with a greater insight into the man I will always call my father, answering many of the questions that I never got to ask.
They were case files, each one containing manuscripts, reports, newspaper clippings, journal articles, photographs, maps…anything and everything that Dean Morden needed to investigate whatever strange case he was working on. And they were just that – strange. Not one of them contained the usual murder, assault or abduction. It was evident very quickly that my father was on his own crusade, delving into the world of the supernatural, driven by his ultimate goal; to eventually find his missing wife and child.
I soon established that the files had been logged in date order, starting in 2011 with the case of a man called Matthew Holmes, a man suspected of murdering his own wife and disposing of the body. I read through a full transcript of just one of the numerous interviews my father held with him. It was difficult not to feel harrowed. The man clearly believed that his wife had been taken from him, and the descriptions of the abductors were chilling. It was also very clear that my father believed Holmes to have been an innocent man. Having already read the revelation in his letter to me, about the night his first family had been taken from him, the similarities were glaringly obvious. It was easy to understand now how my father had allowed his quest for the truth – whatever that was – to consume him.
I finally managed to put the Holmes file back down. My eyes were growing heavy, and without my watch I had no idea what the time was. But something was pushing me on; something was telling me that the
answers I was seeking were still there in one of those cardboard sleeves.
I sat back, pressed my fingers over my eyes to relieve some of the tension, and thumbed through a couple more files. I sat in bewilderment looking through some of the glossy images, a rush of cold fear chilling my veins as I stared at hideous creatures, and even human-like beings with piercing red eyes. I told myself numerous times that what I was looking at couldn’t possibly be real, but I wasn’t sure whether I believed that.
Just then, the label on the side of one of the folders near the bottom of my pile grabbed my attention. Upon first sight, it didn’t appear any different from the others, but it was as if an aura was shining around it, beckoning me towards it. I closed the files I had sprawled across the desk and pushed them aside. Taking the “glowing” folder from the pile, I held it in my hands for a few moments, not aware that my hands were trembling again.
I held a hand to my open mouth as I continued to stare at the name on the file; Wildermoor.
*****
I only recognised the name due to having read my father’s letter earlier, and as I plunged deeper into that case file it all began to feel oddly familiar. I glanced briefly at a map, a shaky line showing my father’s intended – or actual – route to Wildermoor. He had never spoken to me about anywhere he had ever been. I was only learning more about his job and his life now that he was gone. But perusing through the other files, I still felt disconnected from it all.
Until that moment.
I was seeing and reading about that place for the first time but something was telling me that I already knew it. This was the place where my father had first found me. Where he had rescued me from.
Why did he do it? What good reason could there possibly be to tear a baby, only a few hours old, away from his birth place?
I had to know. And so I read on.
My father was sent there by the shady group he referred to only as the Society, the same membership to which the Caretaker belonged. The details on Wildermoor itself, or what had taken place there, were rather sketchy. I was none-the-wiser as to why my father had gone there, but found a clue on the next page.
In the top right-hand corner was an old black-and-white portrait photograph of a man in military uniform. The name next to the photo, written in large bold text at the top of the page, was Josef Mengele. I knew of him through my history studies. It was one of only a few subjects that I had taken a genuine interest in when I was younger. I would sneak text books back to my room at night, so that I could stay up until the early hours reading my torch-light, learning more about powerful figures that had ruled and almost ended the world in times past. The sixteenth and seventeenthh centuries – the age of the Tudors and Stuarts – were my favourite periods, but I had taken a keen interest in the atrocities of World War Two also, spawning a particular fascination in the horrors that took place in places like Auschwitz Birkenau.
I often tried going to sleep those nights, my head filled with new and disturbing facts, and wondered how the human race could ever commit such acts against their own, purely on the account of their race or religion. To me, religion was the real reason for war, so I steered clear of it where I could.
So I knew a little of Mengele, including the assumption that the man died in the late-70s. What he had to do with my father and Wildermoor, I still had no clue.
I turned the page to find the end of the file on Wildermoor itself, but what lay below it stopped my heart. A breath caught painfully in my chest. I tried to take another but found I couldn’t, and for a few long moments I felt like I was floating.
The second half of the main folder held a separate file, this one twice as thick as the section on Wildermoor. At that moment, it felt as if I was holding the weight of the world in the palm of my hand, threatening to break it. Emblazoned across the front of this sub-folder was a name I very much recognised.
Mine.
*****
There it was, in the palm of my hand. My story. The one that I had never known.
Everything was there. A handwritten account from my father as to how, when and where he found me. How he took me away, on the run for two weeks before he found us a suitable place to stop and make our first home, but only when he was sure we were not being followed.
That was the life that I remembered – always being on the run. Running away from something. But now it all made more sense. My father was no coward. He was suddenly the strongest man I ever knew. Everything he did was to protect me, even if it was protection from the dangers that he himself had brought on us.
I still knew very little about the men that were chasing after him, after us. In all of the pages stuffed into this file, he hardly talked about them. I turned another page, revealing a cluster of tattered newspaper clippings. Reading the opening paragraph of the news report, I instantly recognised the name of the seven-year-old boy that the feature was written about. The photo of his smiling face brought heaviness to my chest, a yearning for that simpler time.
His name was Thomas Harding, and he had been my best friend. In fact, at that time he was my only friend. And then one day he simply disappeared, and then we were on the run again. I never saw or heard from or about Tommy again, but I often thought about him. After reading only half of the article, I had to push my chair away from the desk, a hand clutching my head. I didn’t want to read anymore, but knew I had to.
The article was not about Tommy’s mysterious disappearance. It was to report his hideous and tragic death, two days before the date my father took us away from that place.
*****
They were all there. From each clipping, another of my lost and forgotten friends smiled back at me again. Next to each picture, an article reporting their death. And even a brief description of the nature of their demise. I shook my head in disbelief as I flicked from one article to another in quick succession, zeroing in on those particular details; the similarities were undeniable. Each child had died of the same unexplainable condition, their bodies covered in sores and open wounds indicative of a flesh-eating virus. But each article stated that it was an isolated case, that none of the children’s loved ones, friends, neighbours or teachers were showing signs of the illness.
Each case would have gone largely unnoticed, with the reports only making the minor local newspapers. A simple case of a child dying through illness would not have been unique enough to make the national press. And still remembering each of those places implicitly, I knew that each death would have occurred at least fifty to a hundred miles – and a month or so – apart.
No link would have been found, unless someone could compare each story side-by-side. Just like I was doing right at that moment.
There was a link between them all, I was sure of it. There had to be. But what was it?
My head became foggy. I felt like I needed a lie down, but the leather chair was no longer comfy and would not recline me enough to relieve the tension between my eyes. I pinched my fingers to the top of my nose, trying to alleviate the stress that I could feel billowing inside me.
I tried to block the images and voices out of my head long enough to concentrate. I thought of the facts: I had shared what I considered to be close friendships with each of these youngsters, at different stages of my childhood. They were the only people, besides my father, who I let close to me. And then they disappeared, seemingly without a trace. I was made to believe they just vanished. After a while I started to convince myself that I had said or done something to drive them all away. And then we ran, my father and I. And the cycle would repeat itself in the next town. And the next.
Then it hit me, the truth was so clear it was almost blinding. My eyes flicked open in an instant, my body bolting rigidly upright once more. I had found the link between these deaths.
It was me.
*****
It still made no sense, but I had to convince myself that it must be true. What was it about me that had resulted in these deaths? Maybe a cruel coincidence, but why the
running away from it all, all of a sudden, all of the time?
Suddenly, it felt like our constant moving around had a new meaning. It wasn’t simply my father’s work that meant we could not settle anywhere, it was me. I always thought it may have also been to evade my father’s pursuers each time, those darkly-clad men from the Society that appeared out of the blue, watching us from within the same black vehicle.
Then another thought hit me; maybe it wasn’t my father that they were after. Maybe it was me all along?
Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. The room was growing darker by the second, the walls drawing closer. I had to get out. I had to get away from this place. I ran from the office and out of the huge double doors leading out of the mansion. I ran back to the cottage, not bothering to check whether I still had my father’s key in my pocket.
The chill and darkness of the night sky hit me, biting at my naked arms. It was deep into the night. My god, had I been in there all day?
I threw myself through the door and back into the sanctum of the cottage. Except it no longer felt safe. There was something in the air now, something different. I felt my chest constricting as the panic set in. Not knowing how else to handle the physical effects of the stress I had brought on myself. My father had always kept a stash of liquid courage in the fridge. I opened it, only to find it was empty.
Dammit. Pull yourself together. Think about it all rationally. The Caretaker said he would be back, where is he? Wait, what time did he say he would return? What time is it now?
My legs began to falter, so I dashed into the lounge and collapsed into my father’s chair. Very soon, my anxiety subsided. The more I thought about it all, the easier I found it to start convincing myself I was blowing it way out of proportion. There was nothing saying I was in any way responsible for my friends’ deaths. Nothing. Except my own distorted imagination and surging paranoia. True, I couldn’t deny that my explanation could make some kind of sense. Except for the fact that I was nowhere near them when they died.
Poison in the Well Page 6