Harvest (16 page)

Scott fell against the door
drowning in himself. His bloodied fingers grasped the door-frame
behind him for support but failed to gain purchase. Another glint
of silver flashed as Harry punched into Scott’s stomach. A spike of
pain burned intensely in his guts, reaching a blinding white hot
zenith until something gave up in his head so the only sensation
was Harry’s fist kneading his belly roughly as he rummaged the wide
flat knife inside him. Rasping for breath, bubbling blood sprayed
from his lips and throat as his lungs pumped for air. Gently the
colour in his vision began to fade into blackness and the grim room
was no more.

Harry looked to the table
and the freshly sliced hulk of Beef, which looked strangely the
size of half a cow, far too large for them to get through alone.
Deirdra stood behind him; she would probably be wearing her
housecoat that she usually donned for cooking. He knew she was
there for she had talked him through the slices he had just made.
The beef smelt
good.
Mouth-watering.
“Now,” she breathed. “Section the meat. That’s it. We can portion
it for later. Cut right to the bone... Waste not, want not Harry.”
Harry felt her smile although he couldn’t see her. He was glad to
be home again, with his wife, having the perfect Sunday
afternoon.

Chapter
Eleven

Rachel took hold of the
steaming mugs of hot chocolate and headed from the kitchen, walking
carefully with her load in the gloomy hallway, guided by the light
of the lounge ahead, her eyes fixed on the steaming liquid that
lapped close to spilling over the rim of the mugs. She approached
Craig’s lounge and stopped abruptly as the light was obstructed by
someone in the doorway, she prepared a smile for whoever stood in
her way but her expression migrated into a puzzled frown as she saw
the figure was holding out a palm as if expecting payment to
pass.

She expected it to be David or
Craig and prepared to dismiss the playful gesture. The figure was
in a cowl of dark roughly woven robes, staring back at her with
crystal blue eyes set in deeply age-engraved sockets. His face was
chiselled from the darkness of the hood like a pale withered
cadaver, bearing a crown-like coronet of weaved mistletoe and a
wispy pointed tongue of white beard that flicked out from the
hood.

Shocked, Rachel’s eyes
leapt back to the hand that now bore a rune, the rune of protection
she had seen within the mosaic in the lobby. The twig-like fingers
wrapped closed around the tablet then reopened again in one smooth
motion, revealing the engraving of the rune changed to that of the
interlocking chevrons of the
‘
Jera’
rune: The rune of
the harvest.

She looked back to the face of
the old man for answers to the symbolism, but saw only the lounge
and Kelly waiting expectantly for her drink with a puzzled look at
Rachel’s hesitation. He had gone. Rachel gathered her concentration
that had been scattered by the old man, and summoned a dismissive
smile against Kelly’s questioning looks.

Rachel settled on the floor
next to Kelly and joined her in leaning up against the sofa before
the coffee table and its monitors opposite Craig and David. Seeking
distraction from the startling apparition Rachel motioned with her
head to Craig and David who sat on the second sofa. David’s head
was resting at an unnatural angle on the back of the sofa his mouth
agape with shallow breaths that occasionally snorted, beside him
Craig slept lightly with his head slowly sliding towards David’s
shoulder. “Lovely couple aren’t they...”

Kelly smiled. It had been four
hours since they had found themselves together. There had been a
smattering of conversation within the group, then awkward moments
of quiet. Rachel cupped the hot mug in her hands and saw Kelly
wince at a sip from her own mug.

“
What
is in
this?”

“
Oh,
that would be
mine,”
Rachel said rolling
her eyes in playful innocence as a cover for her
embarrassment.

“
Oh, no;” Kelly stopped
her in mock indignation. “I think I’ll keep this one unless you
want to share the joy?”

Rachel grinned back at her and
dragged her large bag to her side. She reached in several times and
lined up three miniature bottles of alcohol, one after the other on
the table in front of them. “Pick your poison.”

Kelly returned Rachel’s drink
then picked a bottle of dark rum and laced her own drink. “I feel
like a teenager, trying to hide what were drinking,” Kelly giggled
conspiratorially. She shivered. “Is this cold snap the first of
tonight’s spooky goings on or do you think Craig is having trouble
paying his heating?” she whispered.

Rachel laughed and she draped
her own thick woolly cardigan over Kelly’s shoulder, watching her
shift under the gesture with obvious awkwardness. “I will be okay.
I have more fat to insulate me than you have.” Rachel settled
again. She accepted Kelly’s thanks as she pulled the cardigan round
her more comfortably.

Kelly suddenly leaned closer to
the screen that displayed the Chambers lounge and stabbed a finger
at a luminous dot drifting through the air. “So is that an orb
then?”

“
No,
dear. It’s a spec of dust.” Kelly looked disappointed with the
answer. “Maybe if it was seen on
Most
Haunted
they might be considering it as an orb, but
not by me or anyone that has genuine experiences with spirits. Of
all the spirits I have seen in my time, none of them have resembled
specs of dust. As far as I know orbs have only been found since
digital cameras have been around, before then ghost pictures on
35mm film used to be of figures, people – something to get excited
about. I think it’s the sensitivity of these modern cameras to
light that causes the problem as it catches the light reflected by
dust.”

“
You
truly
believe
there is something ghostly in their flat though?” Kelly reinforced
bluntly.

“
Well
that was very leading…” Rachel cast her hand across all the
equipment. “All this would be a lot of effort if I didn’t believe
in the possibility of some paranormal activity. It’s quite obvious
you don’t believe.” She broke her look and paused thoughtfully over
her mug. “I don’t need all this to believe what I
see
every day, all this technology
and nights like this are for people like you: The
sceptics.”

“
I’ve never had to
believe in them. I have never encountered anything paranormal and
nor has anyone I know. I used to be scared of monsters – I just
guess I grew up and they went away.” She shrugged.

Rachel rested her mug on her
knee and held it there and considered whether she had already seen
a crude representation of a monster in Amy’s precious drawing. Up
until that defining moment Rachel thought the investigation was an
exercise in futility, as it wouldn’t lead to evidence to support
Claire’s belief of what had happened to little Emily. Yes there was
a presence; a powerful one, but Rachel couldn’t make that leap
between what she understood of the paranormal and what she
understood as fiction, or more kindly; the troubled conclusion of a
grieving mother desperate for answers. And possibly a way of
escaping suspicion? No that was too calculated.

That crayon creature had
haunted Rachel ever since with the possibilities it could
represent. Sickeningly Rachel realised she had unknowingly prepared
a trap for a monster – using Amy as bait.

“
There are monsters,”
Rachel said grimly, her thoughts gripping her throat with the long
fingers of the creature within the drawing. “Bullies, murderers,
rapists; everywhere. When they die,” she paused trying to shake
free of the beast and the dark thoughts it used to consume her.
“Sometimes they stay monsters.”

“
You mean ‘evil’
ghosts.”

“
Without starting on the subject of the nature of evil;
yes you get
bad
ghosts. I
don’t think I am going out on a limb when I say that everybody has
good and bad aspects of their personality. That can remain the same
in spirit. In the same way that a picture can fade over time
leaving only trace images, in spirit form a predominant emotion or
aspect of character will be all that remains of a person’s essence.
I saw the spirit of a murderer once. I couldn’t possibly tell you
who the victim was or where it had happened, but I saw the act
through him and all I could feel was his hate and loathing in that
moment, that’s all that was left of him. You understand when I see
a spirit it’s not always like seeing you, or another living
person.”

“
You mean you can partly
see through them?”

“
It’s
more than that,” she took a deep drag of air with the difficulty of
explaining. “They can look solid like you or I, or they can seem
faded, blurry – like a memory where detail seems evasive. More than
that though; you don’t just see them, you feel them, even to the
point of experiencing their memories and thoughts. Sometimes, if
they speak, it’s almost as if your ears have been bypassed and they
are speaking in to you. Your head fills with words and you
know;
you just know what they are thinking or
saying.
You can feel the intense love they have for
those they have left behind, or sadness that they have had to
leave. Or because they are cut off from their loved ones they can
feel loneliness. They can use your emotions to paint a picture of
how they feel so you often experience their
feelings.”

“
And with the
killer?”

“
I
experienced his primal feelings as I said. But, he hated people
being in ‘
his’
house. He was shouting and
screaming at the top of his voice, and flashes of his crime would
cut in and out of my consciousness, when I eventually saw him he
was pacing in all different directions like a caged animal and he
was all blurred and smudged and parts of him moved and shuddered at
unnatural speeds. To feel his bile and hate for life was
sickening.
I hated that,”
Rachel’s words
lingered on her lips like a bad taste as she drifted into
uncomfortable memories

“
Nasty. So would you say
that most of them are the lonely benign kind?” She said, sounding
hopeful.

Rachel laughed. “Yes, don’t
worry. Some spirits just can’t leave the living they have left
behind. Of course, only a very few people seem to be able to see
ghosts, so the spirit has to watch their families living their
lives completely oblivious to them. Their friends or relatives
eventually leave, or die and the spirit is left behind: alone. Then
new people move in.”

Kelly grimaced. “Then the
trouble starts...”

“
Occasionally. Yes. Some
spirits seem to get anchored to certain places or rooms, they carry
on as they had, not seeming to know they are dead. As if they see
the house as it was when they lived there; they carry on unaware of
us, using doors and moving furniture that might not be there
anymore.”

“
How can they interact
with things that aren’t there anymore?”

“
Maybe
the spirits memory of the past shapes their spiritual world. If the
spirits
are
aware of us and
our world they might not be able to understand what’s happened or
why their house has changed or why there are people and different
belongings in their house. Imagine how disorientating or
frightening that might be?”

“
Hence the
disturbance?”

“
They tend to be
mischievous more than anything; spiteful at the worst. I hardly
think hiding ornaments or moving furniture around is evil intent.
Maybe spirits don’t have enough potency or energy to engage with
the world of the living to have any serious impact on us. But it
isn’t usually the action of a spirit that’s frightening; it’s the
fear of things that upset our general consensus of understanding.”
Rachel cupped the hot drink to her lips before carrying on her
hushed explanations.

“
But ghosts are souls,
right?”

“
That’s an
interpretation. Souls, psychic imprints, nonsense, hallucinations,
residue of biological energy, depending upon whether you ask a
person of religious faith, a new-ager, a sceptic, psychologist or
an open-minded scientist – their philosophy for understanding the
world will govern their interpretation of their experience.
Whatever ghosts are countless people have had experiences they
can’t explain, there are photographs and films that have captured
strange apparitions and phenomenon so there is a wealth of evidence
to support the existence of things happening that we can’t
currently understand or explain.”

“
Yeah, but it can’t be
conclusive evidence or opinions and the willingness to believe
would have changed.”

“
Would they? As I said
opinion is dictated by the philosophy that you ascribe to. Science
dominates now, which is a good thing in my opinion; more good has
come out of science than has ever come out of religion. However,
it’s when science tries to explain everything from our current
level of understanding that I have an issue; if something defies
science’s current level of understanding then its possibility is
dismissed or denied. Scientific arrogance.”

“
So you think there might
be a scientific explanation for ghosts?”