Darkness Demands Part 36

Even today the myth of Baby Bones endures as a children's spook story to be told at night round a cracklingfire when the moon rides high and the owl hoots. But, with the exception of the youngest child, who believes that dark forces can reach out, demand 'treats' from us, then, if we should ignore the demands, punish us with 'bad luck?'

The last paragraph had been crossed out, and in the margin a single fiercely scribbled word:Wrong!

So, Herbert Kelly learned the hard way, too. Like the doomed Benjamin Greensmith in 1850, who'd killed the orphan boy, Jess Bowen. Now the ghosts of these former residents of the Water Mill who'd received the sinister demands were beginning to line up behind the present owner, John Newton.

Perspiration stuck his hands to the paper. He needed a drink like crazy, but he knew he had to go through the files from beginning to end. All this made a terrible sense now. But a bleak foreboding hung over him. As if a storm was building over the house that would soon break with devastating results.

Inside the study the temperature rose as the sun climbed higher, subjecting Skelbrooke to its naked heat.

John read the seventy-year-old files, searching, he hoped, for an answer to his own dilemma.

Much of the files consisted of typewritten notes (clearly written in a hurry: John imagined Kelly furiously hammering at the typewriter keys; sometimes with a force so great that the typeface had punched right through the paper, leaving holes through which daylight pa.s.sed); the notes revealed Kelly's sudden obsession for researching superst.i.tion. They echoed John's own notes of just a day ago. Likewise, Kelly devoted pages on how to protect yourself from ill luck. John scanned the list: Planting holly bushes.

Burying a c.o.c.kerel in the foundations of a house.

Throwing salt over your left shoulder into the eyes of the devil.

Cold iron is a powerful defense against witches and demons, particularly in the form of horseshoes.

Good G.o.d. Herbert Kelly had been laboring to find a weapon to use against whatever force sent the letters! He'd also made sure that his work would be preserved so that people who came after him could pick up where he left off.

The overwhelming conclusion John reached was that Kelly had run out of time. He'd tried to discover some supernatural protection for his family, and perhaps Skelbrooke in general, but he'd failed. Beaten by the ticking clock.

He must have packed up his notes into a variety of bags before handing them to people he could trust to preserve them. Ten-year-old Stan Price had been one such person. Now Stan had pa.s.sed Kelly's notes to John to continue the work.

As John flicked through a bulky file a piece of paper slipped out, a pencil drawing made by a child. At the top of the picture stood a house. The perspectives and proportions were skewed but he recognized it as the Water Mill in which he now sat. The distinctive roof shape was there, while a series of straggling lines depicted the millstream running beneath the house itself. In the foreground were four figures. The tallest wore a hat, the next wore a long skirt, the third had pigtails, and the fourth was the smallest, holding a doll. In a child's hand beneath the figures were the words PLEASE LORD, PROTECT OUR HOME AND OUR FAMILY. AMEN. Then a drawing of a sad face with tears forming pear shapes on the cheeks. A note on the reverse of the drawing ran: I write this in haste. Mummy and Dianne. I will miss you very much, but Daddy says we must leave at this very moment. If we do not bad things will happen to our family and our neighbors. Please hug Teddy for me. I love you all. Mother, I always tried to be a good girl and make my bed every morning and keep the sink clean. I am crying now. Daddy promises we are leaving for a finer place.

Mary Kelly, aged nine.

To try and ease some of the sting of leaving in secret, Herbert Kelly had suggested that Mary write a farewell letter to her mother and sister. She had, only for some reason he'd never posted the letter to the family he'd left behind in Skelbrooke. Now here it was: in the hands of the wrong person, seventy years too late.

John glanced at his watch. It was now noon, Friday. The latest letter demanded that he leave Elizabeth in the graveyard at midnight on Sat.u.r.day.

That didn't give him long. It didn't give him long at all.

3.

Stan Price sat in the shade of a tree.

Robert Gregory glared at him from across the lawn. Why wouldn't the old man die? This heat alone should be enough to kill him. But no, Stan Price sat lost in his senile day dreams, smiling to himself-actually smiling, d.a.m.nnit! Gregory hated everything about his father-in-law. The old man hands that were liver spotted claws, the ridiculous straw hat, that scrawny turkey neck.

Robert Gregory hoed the soil, yet all the time his eyes burned into the man. He was still furious about how Stan had laughed at him yesterday. It was all over those stupid letters that had been left in the garden. Clearly they were a wind-up by some kids. The letters had been addressed to Robert personally, but they'd deliberately misspelt his name in a juvenile attempt to bug him.

Dear Robert Greg'ry, I should wish yew put me a pound of chock latt on the grief stowne of Jess Bowena Yeah, and pigs might fly. OK, so the letters had been mildly irritating, but it was the old man's reaction to them, the way he'd laughed and laughed, that had boiled the blood in his veins.

No, it would be Robert Gregory who'd have the last laugh. I've got plans for you, my dear old Dad, just you wait and see.

All he needed was luck, lots of lovely luck, to be on his side.

Robert watched a b.u.t.terfly settle on a leaf, its powder blue wings trembling in the sun. With a surge of savage excitement he plunged the hoe blade down at the insect, cutting it neatly in two.

CHAPTER 32.

John walked the dog.

He intended going only as far as the village pond. But like he'd been drawn there by invisible wires he found himself walking up to the Necropolis.

The sun beat down, cracking the soil into the pattern of reptile scales. Big bloated cemetery flies sat on path. Trees were motionless. No one was about. Nothing moved. The houses in the village were sealed boxes. It was a world holding its breath, waiting to see what happened next. In his pocket was the latest letter. He knew it by heart. Its words went round his head like an evil chant: No soul should exist alonea And I, like all people, desire companions.h.i.+pa Therefore, I will take little Elizabeth Newt'n awaya Yew will leave her in the graveyarda By the sepulchre of Posthumous Ellerbya Where was the grave of Posthumous Ellerby?

h.e.l.l, why should he want to know? It wasn't as if he was going to find it, then what? Chain his nine-year-old daughter to it as midnight approached?

Yeah, smelly old Baby Bonesa in your dreams.

As he crossed the gra.s.s to the gap in the broken fence Sam suddenly stopped, then lay down on his stomach his head lifted up, watching John as he entered the cemetery.

John looked at the dog. "You're not coming in, are you, boy?"

The dog watched him, his black fur glossy as polished coal in the sun, his tongue hanging down as he panted.

"But it's not too hot in here, is it?" John gave a grim smile. "It's too cold. Way too cold." As he stepped over the threshold into the Necropolis a s.h.i.+ver ran through him, and for a second he did feel cold. Uncannily cold.

"You stay here, boy. I won't be long." The dog remained alert, his ears up sharp. He reminded John of the sacred black jackal Anubis that guarded the tomb of Tutankhamen. If only Sam did have the power to guard their home; to keep away the bad things that circled with all the dark ferocity of sharks circling a sinking s.h.i.+p.

"Wait for me, boy." He flashed a grin that weirdly felt wild and dangerous. "But come running if I howl."

Taking a deep breath, he plunged into the shoulder high weeds that swamped the cemetery in a green ocean. From it sprang thousands of tiny black islands-the stones of the dead. He walked up the hill, stepping over broken vodka bottles, syringes, a blooded tampon that had been torn out in the pa.s.sion of the moment.

From his waist up it was hot as h.e.l.l. But it was cold at his feet, where the gra.s.s held in the shade, and a little of the night. A rotted face peered at him from above the gra.s.s, the gouged eyes locked onto his. Erosion had made a meal of the stone angel. Disfiguring it. Reworking the face into something that oozed sourness. Frost had taken away its wings, too.

Moments later he entered the shadowed world of the Vale Of Tears. Doors of cold iron ran ahead of him at either side of the pa.s.sageway. He walked faster. The tomb walls nearly met overhead. In fact, he'd swear they were closer than the first time he came here. All he could see now was a narrow blue cut of sky. Tree roots that sprang from the roofs of the vaults snaked above him, while all the time the smell of old coffin leaked through holes in the iron doors to worm its way into his nose, then into his throat, lodging there as tightly as a fishbone.

Far away a dog howled. Sam, maybe, mourning the disappearance of his master into this world of rotten wood and moldering bone.

He turned through the maze at random. Straight ahead stood a tomb that was larger than the rest. Moss covered the walls in a greenish goblin fur. This time twin iron doors held fast the dead inside. Above the doors two words were cut deep into the stone.

POSTHUMOUS ELLERBY.

"Oh, Christ," John murmured. "Why did I have to see that?"

I don't have to know where Ellerby's tomb is. There's no need at all. But a voice inside his head disagreed: You must know where to bring little Elizabeth tomorrow nighta when you leave her here. She will be the companion of the demon forever and ever. Amen.

"No, she will not," he grunted, as he toiled through the airless world of the tomb complex. "Even if I have to take her to Canada, too. I'll not abandon her here."

Panting, sopping with perspiration, he ran up through the gully in the cliff. Soon he found himself standing before the tomb of Jess Bowen, the orphan boy whose skull was shattered on the doorstep of the Water Mill. Little Jess Bowen, who'd returned from the woods to speak with the deep, rumbling voice of a man.

The grave still bore traces of beer. The red b.a.l.l.s were here, untouched; along with chocolate bars, melted into s.h.i.+t-brown pools in the dirt.

John glared down at the statue of the crying boy.

Then it became too much. Like Herbert Kelly before him, who'd wept into the trunk of the apple tree, and Greensmith, who'd shattered the head of the orphan boy, a wild emotion fuelled by fear and bitter frustration exploded inside John Newton.

With his left foot he stamped hard into the face of the crying boy. The stone shattered beneath his heel, sending fragments skittering across the gravestone.

Panting, John hissed, "You've met your match this time. I'm not going to give you what you want." Anger seared a fiery path right through him from head to toe. "I'm going to fight youa just you wait and see."

CHAPTER 33.

Later that Friday afternoon the Newton family returned home one by one. The dog greeted each one, wagging his tail, making as much fuss as the heat allowed.

If you stood on the lawn, listening, you could hear the onslaught of the sun cracking the earth beneath your feet.

John worked on until evening, reading every book and website on folklore and superst.i.tion he could find. After that he returned to Kelly's typewritten notes. Kelly had searched for a weapon of sorts to fight whatever had sent the demanding letters. Now John aimed to finish the job. By six Val tried to cajole him into taking a cold drink in the garden, and with the words becoming spinning black dots before his tired eyes he did need a break.

"You're going at the new book hard," she told him as they sat in the shade of a tree with a cold beer apiece.

"I made a flying start," he replied. "I wanted to keep the momentum going."

"Well, you should see the black rings under your eyes, John. Take it easy, OK?"

They sat for a while. Even talking in this heat required physical effort. Paul lay in the shade near where the millrace disappeared under the house. Elizabeth was the only one braving the direct glare of the sun. In shorts and T-s.h.i.+rt she practiced tapping a tennis ball into the air with a racquet. The sound of ball against catgut echoed like a hollow-sounding heartbeat.

John's mind gravitated back to the letter. He couldn't think of anything else now but finding some kind of solution. Naturally he could not obey the demand this time and leave Elizabeth in the cemetery tomorrow night. But to refuse would immediately invite retribution. Just what that retribution might be he just didn't know. But it would come, he knew that. He'd been given a taste of it before when he ignored the first letter and Elizabeth had inexplicably fallen from her bike. Just a couple hours ago in a fit of rage he'd kicked the crying boy statue to pieces. No doubt about it. He'd sent a powerful signal to the demonic force known as Baby Bones that he, John Newton, was no longer going to yield to its demands.

Already he felt uneasy, however. Even with thirty hours to the deadline he wondered if he'd triggered some early response. He found himself looking round the garden, then at the sky.

What are you expecting, John? A plane falling out of the great wide blue yonder to crush the house? But misfortune's coming, Johnny bay. It's coming soon. You can feel it, can't you? It's clotting the air. You can even breathe it into your lungs. A formless dread that clings to your skin like slime.

You shouldn't have wrecked the grave of the little orphan boy, lying there in the ground with his skull all broken like a dropped egg.

You shouldn't have desecrated the statue.

That's like sending a big fat e-mail to that smudge of darkness there in the heart of the hill that oozes its poison all over the village. You told it plain that it's not getting its paws on your daughter. That it can go to h.e.l.l. I'd wager no one's rejected its evil little letters as firmly as that before.

The sweat rolled into John's eyes. It burned where it touched like acid. All he could see were blurred greens of trees, and the dissolving outline of Elizabeth as she played with the ball.

So, how're you going to defeat the thing, John? What's it going to take? A cross of iron planted up on the cemetery? Or maybe a sack full of salt-isn't that a sure way to kick the devil's a.s.s?

He took a mouth full of beer, but found it hard to swallow. His throat muscles were knotting with tension. Perspiration still burned his own eyes. He could barely see a d.a.m.n thing. And the heat squeezed his lungs so hard it was all he could do to draw breath.

"I'm going back to work on the book," he said suddenly. "I've a lot to do."

"John, can't you just take it easy for this evening?"

"I can't." He found himself snapping the words. Val looked stung.

"Sorry, Val, it's something that can't wait."

He returned to the house. He'd reached the top of the stairs when the telephone rang. Before he could reach it the ringing stopped; someone had answered the extension in the kitchen.

Paul's voice s.h.i.+mmered along the walls. The tone stopped John in mid-step. His son's voice rose in surprise, even astonishment.

"Miranda!" he heard his son exclaim. "Where are you? I thought thata No, no. Okay, I'm listening."

John didn't mean to eavesdrop but as he began to climb the stairs he heard Paul's surprised voice. "Let me get this straight. Your mother received a letter that said what?" A pause. "But that's insanea it must be from some nut."

A letter? John stopped and listened hard. Paul said something he couldn't make out. Then his voice rose as if he'd just heard something that astounded him. "So, because of that your mother sent you to London? When will you be back?" Another pause then Paul said, "Miranda, if there's some weirdo sending letters then your mother should call the police."

The blood tingled in John's veins.

So he wasn't alone. That's why Miranda Bloom had left home. Mrs. Bloom had received the same sinister letters. Only she'd chosen to send her daughter on an extended trip to London. Hopefully out of harm's way until it blew over. But did it work like that? Look what happened to Keith Haslem. Maybe you had to cross a whole ocean to escape its malign influence.

At that moment John decided to book two airline tickets as soon as he possibly could. This time tomorrow he and Elizabeth could be on the other side of the world. If it had worked for Kelly and daughter Mary, then it would work for John and Elizabeth Newton. Crossing that volume of salt.w.a.ter did break the thing's hold.

"Dad, what are you doing?"

Paul stood at the bottom of the stairs glaring up at him. His face had a dark, angry look to it. "Did you hear enough of my telephone call? Or do you want a tape so you don't miss anything?"

Stung, John said, "I wasn't listeninga at least not deliberately."

"Oh, you just happened to overhear as you stood there on the stairs? Dad, I could see your reflection in the oven door. You were gulping down every single word."

"Paul. I'm sorry. I didn't meana Paul?" He ran downstairs as his son walked away. "Paul, listen. This is important. Was that Miranda?"

"You're not wrong, Sherlock."

"Paul, wait a minute. Am I right in thinking that Miranda hasn't really run away from home but she's staying in London?"