Pinprick (15 page)

The lights faded in their alcove and she felt herself go rigid in horror as she heard a rasping breath behind her; on the edge of her peripheral vision stood a dark figure.

“Johnny!” Shane whispered, hoarse with fright. It was Johnny, but it was Johnny fallen through the ice. The skin on his face was pale grey and blue round the mouth and eyes. Ice particles formed on his wet hair and his winter clothes hung heavy and wet. His black mouth yawned wide and dark pond water ran in a constant stream. When he spoke his tongue undulated like a black slug around the slurred words.

“You must leave this place,” every word was a chore to say. “If you stay here now you will be here forever. Brantham is rotting; its core is black and infested with the bodies of thousands. Go and let it be over.”

“What, I don’t understand?” Shane managed to find his voice. “Tell me Johnny, tell me what to do!”

The apparition of his lost friend staggered across the room towards the wishing well, leaving a trail of sodden footprints that soaked into the carpet. Johnny leant on the well and looked mournfully over his shoulder at Shane.

“Go!” A strange smile took over his face and he vanished over the side and into the well.

Enough was enough; Shane got shakily to his feet. He wiped his face on the back of his hand and didn’t care that his nose was bleeding again. He was going to get out of this place as soon as possible.

As he staggered out of the pub the bright sunshine smacked him in the face and made his head giddy. He needed to get to the station and leave, whatever he left at Catherine’s could be replaced. He had to get away from this village for good. Fuck Catherine, fuck Jack and fuck his nieces. Wartburg could have the house and the land; the sooner this village destroyed itself the better. Fuck them all.

Something had gone terribly wrong inside his head. He felt drugged and could only manage a few steps before everything started spinning. He fell and struck his cheek against the glass front of Dury’s bookshop. He slid down like a drunk onto the pavement. His heart thundered in his chest and throat. He stared at blue sky.

When he came round he was sitting in the leather chair back in the bookshop. Dots of daylight shone through the closed metal shutters over the windows and door. In the chair opposite him was a giant of a man with a full head of auburn hair flecked with grey. He’d only ever seen the man once in person twenty years ago. Mark Somerfield.

He tried to get up but a strong pair of hands pushed him down and Brian Dury said calmly, “Don’t try and get up my boy, you’ll only go and fall over again.”

“What’s going on?” Shane asked, his throat felt rough as though he’d swallowed a pint of sand.

“It’s been twenty years since you lost your friends Shane,” Somerfield spoke with a slight West Midland twang. “Soon you will have your answers but there are things that need to be done first.”

Morgan appeared from behind him carrying a tray. Somerfield stood up and took a large syringe from it and flicked the needle. Shane struggled against Dury but the big man overpowered him and held him still. Somerfield jabbed the needle into his arm. Darkness closed in.

Chapter Thirteen

The door slammed shut and Jennifer rushed at her mum with a hug.

“What’s wrong?” This wasn’t like her.

“He’s gone mum. We went to the pub and he was sick in the well. Then when we went back, there was this weird shadow just behind me and he was staring at it and acting really weird like he’d seen a ghost and then he ran off.”

Catherine couldn’t believe her useless piece of shit brother had up and left without saying goodbye. She’d spent all morning trying to persuade Jack to be civil when he returned from work since Shane was due to leave in the morning and probably would never come back again. She just wanted him to leave on good terms.

“He ran off and I couldn’t find him anywhere and then Morgan Dury said she saw him get into a taxi and speed off.”

When Jennifer calmed down a bit she went to her room for a nap, giving Catherine a moment to look in the guest room. Shane had left all his new clothes and an expensive looking briefcase that was locked with a combination.

She would give the clothes to the collection for the school jumble sale when they next came round. There was no point in doing anything drastic to the briefcase just in case he came back for it.

Maybe things would get better now
, she thought,
we can all just get on with the rest of our lives.

Her brother had always run from everything. His friends’ disappearance probably had something to do with him, and even then his subconscious ran away from whatever he had witnessed. He ran from the village now, as he did back then when he went to university. If he stayed here the people, eventually, would have accepted what had happened. Maybe they would have even started to believe his story.

To strike up such a bond with Jennifer, such a bright impressionable girl, only to cast her aside when things got too much was just wrong. She was furious at him for hurting her.

*

He was cold and uncomfortable, tied to a capsized wooden chair. A puddle of dried vomit stuck his face to the rug. An open doorway revealed the end of a single mattress lying on the floor. Morgan lay on the mattress, her long black hair fanned out across the floor towards the open doorway. Dury held her left hand in his and made soothing shushing noises to her. Shane could see one of her long bony arms stretched out, muscles taught, fistful of mattress. What the hell were they doing to her?

Shane said nothing as he saw Somerfield pull on purple latex gloves and reach for something out of sight. A metal kidney dish. He put the dish on the floor and selected a pair of long silver surgical tweezers.

Somerfield looked at Dury, “Ready?”

Dury placed a hand each side of her head and nodded. Somerfield looked down at Morgan, “Ready?”

Her breasts rose and fell rapidly. The way she lay cast her hair to the floor like a black waterfall. As Somerfield lowered the tweezers towards her face Shane had to unstick his face from the sick on the floor to see what they were doing. He saw a sliver of black curved needle clamped in the tweezers, trailing black thread. He watched through groggy eyes as Somerfield moved the needle towards Morgan’s face. Morgan whimpered and flinched slightly as her father mumbled some kind of mantra in her ear. Shane’s tongue was a dry piece of meat in his mouth. He had to do something to stop this insanity. He licked his lips as Somerfield worked steadily with no resistance from Morgan or Dury.

“What are you doing?” Shane croaked at them. Dury was startled slightly but took his daughter’s hand in his. Somerfield got to his feet and began searching for something.

“What are you doing to her?” His throat felt raw as he shouted. Somerfield clambered clumsily over the mattress, another hypodermic syringe in his hand. There was no way they were going to knock him out again. When Somerfield’s ankle was close enough Shane bit down hard on Somerfield’s Achilles tendon, tasting dirt, sweat and blood. Somerfield shrieked like an animal caught in a bear trap. He bent over and beat at Shane’s head with one huge fist but Shane held on, fighting the pain in his jaw. He only released his grip when he heard Morgan’s voice close to him.

“Shane, please stop biting Mark’s ankle.”

Shane let go, spat blood onto the floor and stared in horror at Morgan’s face. Her right eye was almost completely sewn shut. From the corner of her eye the thread and needle hung and swung. Despite the crude black stitches over her delicate eyelid, there was little blood. Now that she had his complete attention she smiled, that pretty smile now seemingly sinister. She reminded him of an unfinished shrunken head.

“Now Shane, believe me if it was an option for you to keep your eyes shut, then we would have done it when you were asleep but unfortunately it isn’t.’ She reached up and snatched the hypodermic off Somerfield. “We don’t need your mouth though.” Morgan grinned as she jabbed him in the shoulder with the needle.

*

His head was ringing; the tinnitus had reached a new and terrifying level. He was blinded by the pain as wave upon wave pulsated and throbbed. He could visualise the pain like a submarine’s sonar echoing around the inside of his leaden head.

He felt an intense surge of heat as though he was standing above a furnace. Restraints dug into his wrists and ankles. He could feel a hot smooth surface beneath his bare feet.

When he finally managed to open his eyes, he couldn’t see a thing as something was draped over his head. His breath blew back in his face hot and sour. The material felt rough and dirty and stunk of rotten vegetables; he guessed it was a hessian potato sack. His skin prickled and irritated where the sack chafed against his sweaty brow.

A cloying, rancid odour that was disgustingly familiar made him heave as soon as he smelt it. He wanted to puke again but there was nothing left to bring up.

Coughing, he bucked and brayed and pulled against the restraints making them dig deeper. His head smacked against the uneven wall he was lashed to.

“Help!” Shane rasped through a raw throat. Why had they taken him hostage? He thought about why anyone would do this and whether it was the locals’ idea of revenge for what they thought he did to their sons.

He remembered the surreal scene where Somerfield had sewn closed Morgan’s eyes whilst her father held her head and made soothing noises, and the way she had come at him with the needle and thread dangling from the corner of her eye. No, there was definitely nothing rational about any of this. These people were clearly insane but so far they hadn’t actually hurt him. He tried his best to regulate his breathing and calm down. He had money; he could reason with people, everyone had their price. Maybe he could reason with them somehow?

Shane focused on trying to push the tinnitus into his subconscious and strained to listen for something else. The only other noise he could hear was a low continuous moaning sound like a generator.

The heat was unbearable; he figured he must be in some sort of cellar or boiler room. As for the smell… visions of corpses in various stages of decomposition intruded on his escape plans. Their flesh squirmed with maggots, and flies feasted on and lay their eggs in the skin. He didn’t want to think about the smell.

He lowered his head and tried to shake off his negative thoughts when a voice right by his left ear made him jolt back. He cracked his skull against the wall behind him.

“Shane, Shane, are you alright?” It was a woman’s voice, soothingly local. Morgan.

“Am I alright? Am I alright?” He stammered in disbelief, “Yes I’m perfectly fine, nothing some iced tea and a slice of fucking fruitcake wouldn’t sort out!” he laughed bitterly and then added more politely, “Please untie me Morgan.”

“You’re not tied up Shane; you are chained up using solid iron clasps and one inch thick chains.”

“I don’t care if its ropes or chains let me go!”

“Sorry I’m afraid I can’t see where the key is,” her own laughter was light and ladylike as though she had just revelled in something humorous over afternoon tea.

“Please, just let me go. I’ve got money, how much would my release cost?” Morgan laughed again, “oh Shane quit your tomfoolery. You are worth much more than any amount of money. Now let me see if I can rustle up that iced tea.”

“No wait!” he hollered at her but she had left as quietly as she arrived. He struggled as hard as he could to free himself but just made his wrists sore. He gave up, hung his head and sighed.

*

He must have fallen asleep again, whether it was medicated or otherwise he was unsure. His head snapped up and for a fraction of a second he thought it had been some vivid hallucination or dream. But he felt the restraints. Thankfully the potato sack had been pulled off his head, even the hot stuffy air was better than the claustrophobia of the sack. A wad of material was tied tightly around his eyes as a blindfold.

“Shane, I have some water for you.” Morgan’s voice spoke so close he could feel her breath on his face. He flinched as he felt her cold fingers feel for his lips and lift a cup to them. The water was too cold but he drank it greedily.

“What the hell is going on?” Shane spoke quickly for fear that she would go as quickly as she seemed to come. “Why am I being held hostage? And what the hell is that dreadful smell?”

Morgan was hesitant in her reply as if she had to process what information she was allowed to divulge.

“I see no reason not to be honest to you Shane. You are waiting for The Whistler.”

“Who the fuck is The Whistler? What the fuck are you on about?” Shane shrieked out in the direction of her voice. She was so close to him, he felt her flinch at his sudden outburst and was glad.

He could hear her scrabbling about cursing at her newfound blindness. He felt her move close to him again and snatch hold of his ear. She yanked on it hard sending a sharp ripping pain across the side of his head and neck. After he had finished yelling in pain she spoke again in her usual soft gentle tone.

“Now there’s no need for raised voices Shane, I’m right behind you, almost perched on your shoulder,” He felt her hand massage his shoulder delicately; it was hard to imagine the strength behind it that just nearly tore his ear off.

“The legend of The Whistler doesn’t give us many answers I’m afraid.” She began her tale in words that danced across the nape of his neck like sweet nothings from a lover. “The Whistler has been here for as long as anyone can remember and is a secret my family and ancestors have kept secret for centuries. We don’t know much about it ourselves, only the rules in which to abide by. Over the years we have lost many people to The Whistler whilst sceptical minds sought answers, but we have learned over the last few centuries. That unexplained ringing inside your head Shane, that’s The Whistler.”

Shane wondered how she had found out about his tinnitus.

“It’s been calling you back all these years Shane. It left its mark on you, in you.” she tapped his forehead. “You were one of the few fortunate enough to actually see it.”

Shane didn’t have a clue what she was going on about. She was clearly insane. They all were.

“If only you could remember!” Morgan said with a girlish laugh, knowing the torment behind that oh so familiar phrase.

“Brantham has been a village for well over one thousand years. This secret has been known for just as long. Do you remember what was on this land before my father’s bookshop Shane, back when you were a resident?”

Shane rummaged amongst the organised clutter of his mind but just drew blanks. As a kid he never used to venture up this end of the village much. He could remember landmarks such as the road bridge that cut across the valley where the trains ran and the pub, but everything else was a hazy blur of farmland and indistinctive buildings.

“I don’t remember.”

Morgan laughed silently, her breath against his face and spoke slowly. “The House of Oddities.”

An intense cold spot flared up inside his skull and gathered into a dark, icy raindrop. The raindrop dripped from the rafters of his mind and splashed onto the filthy black glass of the cabinet that held all his secrets. All of the things long locked away.

A technicolor flashback of a rainy night twenty years previous:

The squeal of the pub-style sign in the torrential rain as it swung in the glow of a single light.

Malcolm huddled in the porch trying to light a wet cigarette. Shane saw his friends gather round in the doorway for shelter. Shane was soaked through and could feel his shirt clinging to his back…

The flashback faded as quickly as it came and he was back behind the blindfold.

“We came here that night!”

“You’re remembering Shane, that’s good. Now let me continue my tale. When my ancestors first cultivated this land they were the first settlers here, back before the Vikings burnt their way through the settlements that populated the riverside and gave this village its name. But eventually, they bred into each other, my bloodline is a mix of Anglo-Saxon and Viking blood.

“This whole area has always been farmland, but once The Bull was built smuggling became rife. There were smugglers tunnels all around the riverside. The famous one that’s still almost intact as you may know runs from the pub’s cellar down to the River Stour. My ancestors saw an opportunity to make more money from their produce so set about making their own plans to cash in on the smuggling business. When they began to dig they found a small cavern not that far below their feet. They soon forgot about their tunnelling in favour of exploring the cavern. It was then they happened upon The Pit.”