Tanners Dell: Darkly Disturbing Occult Horror (3 page)

He stood framed in candlelight at the doorway.

Gradually her eyes adjusted to the gloom. The room appeared to be devoid of furniture apart from a heavy oak wardrobe in the corner by the window. Her fingers felt around: on top of her lay a scratchy coat, and underneath she was naked. Tracing down her body with fluttery fingers she winced to the slightest touch. Had he broken her bones? She tried to wiggle her toes…no feeling… Panic shot into her veins as he strode towards her. She tried to scream but nothing came out.

“Here’s something you’ve to drink. Get it down. Stay put or you’ll be somewhere you like even less.”

She looked at the proffered cup of evil-smelling stuff and attempted to knock it away but his hand was like an iron girder and all she got was another bruise smashed into the side of her face.

“I said drink it, you stupid bitch.” He held her head back with one hand and threw the liquid down her throat.

Blinding pain shot up her neck and into her head as if the arteries had been squeezed shut, and she gulped in shock when the liquid fired into her stomach wall a second later like it was red hot whisky boiled with chilli pepper.

He left her with a brain pulsing so hard she thought it would burst from her skull. Overhead the ceiling began to rotate, swirling around like a dizzying, nauseating carousel; and each breath was iron-rigid, stuck in a vice grip as she struggled to gasp in the icy air…
Oh God she was going to die
…before a sudden eclipse plunged her from consciousness once more.

Quite when the hallucinations began it was impossible to say – maybe minutes, hours or even days after she had been brought here – to wherever ‘here’ was. At first it was just an awareness of whispering and a light breeze against her skin. But when she opened her eyes it was to see a monk draped in a hooded robe, observing her from the corner of the room. She blinked and blinked again, slowly grasping the fact that he was actually floating several feet off the ground. Staring for several disbelieving seconds she was in the process of trying to rationalise this when suddenly it rushed towards the bed at speed.

A silent scream knotted in her throat. Shutting her eyes she turned onto her side and curled into a tight ball.
No, no, no – it was just a dream; a drug-induced hallucination.
But after that, every time she opened her eyes there would be more of them. Sometimes they loomed over her as if peering into a cot at a baby, other times they cackled and whispered in the corners before fading into the walls like ghosts.

None of this could be real. It had to be because of whatever concoctions he was giving her, like LSD or something
.
Or maybe she’d gone crazy and this was a mental hospital? Soon she’d be told these were just bizarre opiate-dreams because she’d been attacked but was now on the mend.

The cold though…the fridge cold of the place…and the perpetual rushing of water. And the smell too - of mould and wood smoke and some kind of sweet tobacco – not the same as her father’s roll-ups but not too dissimilar either: there was something familiar about it, but what? This was no hospital…Her weary mind repeatedly collapsed in on itself with the effort of thinking. All she could do was try to stay sane: it was all she had left. And so whenever the dark hooded figures came calling, she would close her eyes and cite the Lord’s Prayer over and over.
Please God, make them go away
.

Still the echoing laughter grew, as did the colicky pain, which shook her to the core, leaving her sick and exhausted, lying in a pool of her own sweat.

But now…now there was something new. A raw burn cut into her ankles and wrists.

One time, a voice she thought might be her own asked who the monks were.

“Shut her up.”

A heavy hand clamped something foul-smelling over her nose and mouth, before the dark claimed her once more.

The next time she surfaced the air was as freezing as a mortuary and her body was stretched out in a star shape. Rope seared into her skin and a cold slab permeated her spine.

A different place this time – wetter.
Drip…drip…drip…
A cave?

Cloth had been shoved into her mouth, tied so tightly it cut into the corners of her mouth, and a thin dark fabric covered her eyes, although there were shades of light and dark visible through it. A low chanting echoed in monotone and through the veil she could see hooded figures circling around her. Directly in front of her stood a macabre figure in a horned mask, with a cape of fur and feathers billowing around him. Her eyes battled against the blindfold.
Oh God
, w
hat’s going to happen to me? What is this? A ceremony? What was coming?
Her dulled mind lapsed in and out of consciousness, vaguely registering the escalating chanting, and a heady, intoxicating aroma of burning herbs. She forced herself to open her eyes in response to being repeatedly shaken.
Oh dear God, there were children here too. Really young ones.

Suddenly a woman’s face loomed inches from her own in a hazy blur, and old dog breath assaulted her nostrils as it seemed she was climbing onto her chest. Rosella turned her head this way and that to avoid what she now realised was a hissing snake being pushed into her mouth, thrashing in vain against metal clamps clicking into place around her arms and legs. Then suddenly excruciating, intolerable pain – white hot or ice cold – was thrust up inside her, accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream she realised was her own.

When she next came to, it was to the smell of cauterised flesh. The soles of her feet were screaming as if she’d danced on fire.

Not real. Not real. Not real
…

“Oh but it is, my dear.”

Something was forcing open her eyes, a hand holding her head back by the hair.

“Look at me. You have our child now, dear.”

No
.

How long had she been here? Hours? Days? Weeks?

“She can stay down here 'til she gives birth,” said a male voice.

How long? How long had she been missing? Where was Mala? Where was her father? Her brothers? Wouldn’t they find her in this house by the river?

Give birth?

***

                     
 
Chapter Three

Drummersgate Secure Forensic Unit

Sunday December 27th, 2015

Noel stared at the woman standing in front of him in Reception. As a mental health nurse he’d seen some sights over the years, but this one was quite something and certainly put a twinkle in his eye. Wearing a furry green coat she was short and stout, and sported a crown of permed hair dyed a similar shade of red to Jessica Rabbit’s. Crimson lips bled into white powdery skin etched with wrinkles, and each breath seemed an effort even though she had only walked a few yards to the door. Her eyes, though…her eyes were a rich conker brown, gleaming with angel kindness. He smiled.

“I’d like to see Ruby, please,” she said, holding onto the desk while she got her breath back. “Becky phoned and said she’d asked for me but it was Christmas Eve and at the time I was up to my armpits in sprouts and whatnot.”

Noel indicated a couple of armchairs next to a potted plant and she tottered gratefully towards it.

“Did Becky say what it was about? Only Ruby’s visitors have to be pre-approved and I’ve got nothing down saying anyone’s coming.” In fact, Ruby had never had a single visitor in all the two years she’d been here so it was more than unusual. This woman couldn’t be family either. Ruby
had
no family.

The lady plonked herself firmly onto a chair and shook her head. “Oh dear, I’m sorry, love, but I did hope it’d be Becky who’d be here and I wouldn’t have to, you know, explain?”

“Normally she would be, but she’s currently off on a personal matter. We work closely together though, so I hope I can help. Could we start with who you are, do you think?”

“Celeste Frost, love. I met Ruby many years ago and became a friend. We lost touch until I found out from Martha Kind, the social worker who used to work here—”

“Oh you met Martha, did you? God rest her soul.”

Celeste nodded. “Yes, shocking business that, wasn’t it – to just collapse and die so suddenly? She seemed perfectly well and looking forward to retirement too.”

“Yes, I know. We were all very upset. Anyway, sorry, you were saying…”

“Yes, well Martha came to see me just before Christmas. She was digging around, trying to find out what was going on in Woodsend. She’d seen the reports in the papers about how I was supposedly hounded out of the village for being a witch. Anyhow, I told her straight – I’m a medium and I didn’t want to be neither. I helped folk with healing and that was it. Anyhow, I had, ‘Get out Witch’ scrawled across my front door and folk causing trouble so me and my husband left soon after. He was ill with it, nearly died with the stress. It was bad that place, had a bad feel to it. Any road, I’m getting off the subject. I told Martha and I’ll tell you – Ruby came to see me years ago because she was living in that old mill in Bridesmoor and the poor lass was spooked out. I only saw her once after that and it wasn’t good. Then I read in the news a couple of years back she’d attempted murder on Paul Dean. Well anyhow, if she’s sent for me I’m guessing I’m her only friend.”

“Wow, you’re a medium?”

She eyed him for a few moments before continuing. “I don’t expect it to be taken seriously – especially in a place like this… although it might help…” She looked into the middle distance, breaking off the conversation.

“Are you alright?” said Noel.

She jumped visibly. “Oh sorry, love. It’s just there’s a lot of unrest in this building, did you know?”

He laughed. “Oh yes!”

She smiled. “I daresay. Anyway, I’ve come here instead of being at home with my poorly husband for one reason and one reason only, and that’s because Ruby asked for me. That’s it. And I’m not going until I’ve helped her.”

“Okay. Look, I’ll be back in a minute. Do you want a cup of tea, Mrs Frost?”

“Celeste. And yes, I’d love one please.”

When he returned he sat next to her and leaned forwards, his voice low. “Sorry about that, Celeste, but I’m sure you can imagine that with the sort of patients we have here, we have to be ultra-careful with regard to who visits. Anyway, I’ve checked with Becky and she says it’s fine and she’ll take full responsibility. She did pass on a warning, though. I don’t know how familiar you are with people who have Dissociative Identity Disorder?”

Celeste shook her head.

“Okay, well it used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder and it basically means a fragmented personality. It’s usually caused by trauma growing up. But here’s the thing, Celeste: Ruby can switch into alter personalities and it can be very alarming, so I’m going to get someone to sit in with you and we haven’t got many staff on. She’s a trainee mental health nurse and her name’s Emily. Is that okay?”

Celeste sipped her tea and nodded. “Of course.”

They sat quietly for a moment before Noel asked, “Is Ruby psychic? Only the other patients seem to think she is. So does Becky. And Claire, our doctor, so there must be something in it.”

Celeste drained her cup and placed it down with a clatter. “Oops-a-daisy. Oh yes, definitely. She’s more than that, though. Lots of people have strong intuition and we call them clairsentient, but Ruby is most definitely clairvoyant; and she’s also mediumistic.”

Noel frowned. “But wouldn’t that make her spectacularly vulnerable if she started trancing out? I mean, presumably being a medium involves spirit guides and contact with the dead, or at least a belief you’re in contact with the dead? You have control over your own mind, Celeste, and presumably know what you’re doing, but Ruby’s a very poorly girl. How does she know which spirits are there to help and which are there to you know…?”

“Possess her? She doesn’t and it’s terrifying. That’s why she needs my help, Mister…” She peered at Noel’s name badge.

“Noel. Call me Noel.”

“You’ve seen a bit of the dark side, yourself, haven’t you, love?”

He stared at her, the pit of his stomach plunging.
How the hell did this woman know that?

“So you’ll understand then? That I’ve to help her?”

***

Celeste found Ruby sitting on the window sill, idly tracing raindrops across the glass with a badly bitten fingernail as she hummed to herself. The view of wild, windswept moorland was a bleak one at this time of year, with a mass of thunder grey cloud parked over miles of sodden turf.

The trainee nurse, Emily, shut the door behind them both and indicated Celeste should take a seat. “There’s a friend here to see you, Ruby,” she said in a chirrupy voice. “Do you remember asking her to visit? Her name’s Celeste.”

Ruby turned around so quickly it made Celeste’s heart skitter.

“Hello, love. Remember me?”

Ruby’s eyes were a startlingly pale blue, lighting up gaunt features, old before their time. Her hair, the colour of weak tea, was worn tucked behind her ears, a slight smile playing around her lips. Tap-tap-tapping her feet, which were drawn up to her chest, she stopped humming while she examined Celeste from the tips of her sensible shoes to the top of her scarlet hairdo. “Never seen you before in me life,” she said in a contemptuous voice. “Love!”

Emily interjected. “Ruby!”

Ruby smirked. “Sorry you’ve got
me
.” She turned back to the view and resumed humming the tune, ‘
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie…when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing…’

“She means Eve,” Emily whispered to Celeste. “Eve’s the teenager who steps in to protect Ruby. She’s pretty bolshie.”

“That’s a nice nursery rhyme,” Celeste said. “Where did you learn it? At school?”

Ruby threw back her head and laughed. “Ida used to sing it all the bloody time.”

“Who’s Ida?”

“Supposed to be our dear mother, only she weren’t. Anyway, what do you want?”

“Ruby asked me to come. She came to visit me once while she was living in a mill near Woodsend. I helped her and thought I could maybe help her again?”

Emily interjected again. “Eve, do you think we could talk to Ruby? Celeste is a friend and she’s come a long way to see her.”

She turned to Celeste and whispered, “She’s been doing ever so well, you know? Her alters talk to each other now. Becky and Claire have done a fantastic job – Ruby knows what’s going on and who’s speaking inside her system. It’s amazing.”

Celeste focused on Ruby, who had turned to stare at her again. The girl’s expression was so oddly blank and her demeanour so still, she had the appearance of one who’d been lobotomised, almost like a waxwork. “Ruby?”

After what seemed like an age, with only the sound of the overhead fluorescent lights buzzing and the wind buffeting the window, a light finally flickered in her eyes.

“You alright, love?”

Ruby blinked and nodded. All three sat in silence for a moment, until Ruby said, “Got a fag, Emily?”

Emily shook her head.

“Go get me one, eh? I’m alright, I promise.”

Emily raised her eyes to the ceiling. “You’d better be. Okay then, but don’t move, do you hear me?”

Ruby smiled.

Finally, after a moment’s hesitation, Emily stood up and with just one nervous little glance over her shoulder, walked over to the door before closing it behind her.

The second she’d gone Ruby darted over to Celeste and threw herself at her knees. “Oh God, thank you so much for coming. I can’t stand it. I don’t want them lot to know ’ow bad it is, especially that bloody Isaac – the stupid git pumps me with sedatives and they make it bloody worse – if I’m out of it you see, I can’t protect us...but he doesn’t get it and never will…”

“Slow down, slow down,” Celeste took Ruby’s hands in hers as images began to form in her third eye. “What’s really bad?”

Ruby nodded, searching Celeste’s face. “You know. You can see.”

Celeste closed her eyes, still holding Ruby’s hands:
a line of dirty faced, wretched looking men in the yard outside. It was gloomy and grey, a faint rain spitting on the cobbles, the beat of a drum echoing around the walls.
Fear stabbed at her stomach and she tried not to gag on something tightening around her neck. “Oh dear, yes - restless spirits…” She broke off and forced the images from her mind. “You can’t switch it off, can you?”

“No. It’s at night that it’s the worst. About three in t’ morning. I wake up to drumming noises and the whole place starts thumping. Thing is, if I tell the doctors they’ll just say I’m psychotic again and inject me with that stuff that makes me nerves tick and me legs shake, it’s horrible, knocks me out for days after and I still get the bloody visions. But it’s real, isn’t it, Celeste? You’ve seen it. You know. Thank God. I mean it’s every night. I wake up on the floor being sick and the room stinks like putrid flesh. I can’t stand it anymore. I’ll top meself, I swear. Well anyway, when Becky came in and found me on the floor again I remembered you.”

Celeste was nodding furiously. “Spirit wants you to work by the sound of it.”

“What do you mean, work?”

“There’s a lot of unrest in here, but you’re afraid and I’m not surprised.”

“Please help me. Make it stop. It’s like torture all the time. What have I done to deserve this? It just goes on and on and on.”

“Nothing – it isn’t your fault and you mustn’t think it is. Now calm down and tell me more about what you’re seeing and—”

Emily breezed back in with a lit cigarette. “Got you one, Ruby, although I really shouldn’t have done this.”

“Ah, fuck it,” said Ruby, snatching it from her. “We’ll not tell anyone, eh?”

“Ruby,” said Celeste. “Tell me more about what you see and feel?”

Ruby took a long drag on the cigarette and turned to Emily. “Don’t you dare tell them lot what I’m saying to Celeste or you’ll be sorry!”

Emily’s face registered a flicker of fear, and she nodded.

“I mean it.”

“Yes, I know,” said Emily in a small voice. “I give you my word you have total confidentiality.”

Ruby eyed her for a bit, then satisfied, moved so close to Celeste she was whispering into her hair. “Right, well, just that really! There’s this young lad drumming and he’s standing there in t’ yard all sopping wet in rags, sores on his face. I get the feeling he wants me to see him and to see what he sees.” She took a deep breath and then it all came out in a rush. “There’s a noose on a platform that the men shuffle towards and then I’m one of them and I can see this woman back home looking through a window crying, and I’m hearing the words, ‘Sorry Anna’ over and over, and I’m feeling sick to my stomach cos I’ve got to walk to that rope, and the pounding is getting worse in my head…” She bent over, crouching on the floor and Celeste stroked her hair.

“Yes, I see what you see,” said Celeste. “It isn’t your pain though, Ruby. These poor men don’t know they’ve gone and so they keep reliving it – they’re locked in eternal torture. You can help them, though – by showing them how to pass over.” She shuddered. “There is so much madness and confusion here, disease and wrongful death sentences – the whole building is full of deep unrest. I’m not surprised you’re tormented. But peace will only come with acceptance and that’s where you come in – you must take them to the light.”