The Chronicles of Jonathon Postlethwaite: The Seed of Corruption

To Tamsin

May all your dreams come true….

Other Works by this Author.

Published Poetry :

The Siege of Beacon Hill

Incident at Congleton

Transformations.

All are available at
www.thepoetryofdaviddenny.co.uk
where you can also hear him read his work.

Twitter : #Englishpoet

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Web : www.doomofdubh.com

Chapter One

                            Jonathon Postlethwaite ran as he had never run before. Soon his pounding feet would carry him far away from his home of fourteen years, as he travelled swiftly through the  shadowy  tunnels  of  filth  that twisted through  the  Underworld of the City of Dubh. He was running for his life.

                            Danger lurked behind and ahead of him. Few able-bodied or sane  people  ventured   to   the   lowest of Dubhs' inhabited levels. For those who lived on the Upper levels there was the constant threat of  disease and attack  from  the  creatures  that  hunted  and haunted these lost and half  forgotten  subterranean realms of darkness and depravity. Yet ironically it was those from the Upper Levels who offered the most serious danger to the young boy, yet his journey took him towards them now.

                            So,   following   his    grandfathers instructions he covered himself in a greasy, woollen cloak and protected by the historically protective chant of the leper, Jonathon became one of them for a time. In his guise he was ignored or avoided, safe as a member of a paradoxical fraternity  of  the  depraved and the diseased. Here he was temporarily part of the fellowship of  living  shadows  that  lurked  in  deepest pits of a corrupt and malevolent city; shadows who preyed only on the healthier  specimens who strayed from the higher levels.               “Unclean! Unclean! “Jonathon shouted and even the hungriest of morons and cretins ignored him.As he moved amongst his unlikely companions, Jonathon saw sights to curdle the stuff of the soul, the corruption of mind and flesh was everywhere, as if here in the forgotten lanes and tunnels  of  depravity  beneath the  surface  streets,  here  the  corruption  of   Dubh was distilled. The stale underworld air and ether were rank with it. He scuttled quickly past a group of grey, gaunt women, who sat around a fire feverishly gnawing on blackened bones. An aroma like pork reached him, but he knew their victim was not a pig. At regular intervals, he had  to  skirt  around  the  corpses  that  lay  in pools  of  unctuous filth. Their demented eyes stared wide  above twisted terminal smiles frozen by rigour mortis,  their last memories the drug or disease induced hallucinations of a world that cried out for compassionate end. Here the unclean copulated in the inky shadows, moans and groans echoing around him as he sped past.

                            Jonathon closed  his eyes  to the  physical manifestations of corruption around him as the spirit of this world assaulted his soul, enveloping him with a spiritual caress so different from his Grandfathers.

“Join with us.” it hissed inside his head, “Become!" it cackled. "Be free!" With a great effort, Jonathon managed to cut the invasive voice out of his mind. The voice had chilled his bones. At every stairway, he moved  quickly  upwards  from  the  threats that inhabited the lower levels.

                            Through  grim  level  after  grim  level,  he  moved onwards and upwards toward his initial goal of the surface streets of Dubh. As he moved upward the number    of inhabitants increased. Here  they  appeared  physically healthier,  but  still  they  exhibited the slow degradation of the soul that was rife in this malignant metropolis.

                            If they had sensed what he was he would have been seized immediately. He was a prize they all sought - that of innocent, young and yielding flesh. He would have been repeatedly raped and abused, then ended up on the roasting knives of those grey, snickering, denizens of the deepest, darkest pits of the Underworld, or worse.               However, they saw him as a leper. Even killing a leper had its risks of disease beneath the  city,  so  he was given a wide berth and relatively unhindered passage.

                            Finally, after hours of twisting and turning Jonathon reached a level where the shadowy, underworld warrens opened  out  to  the  lacklustre,  sour  lemon  light  of  an artificial,  sky  which  seeped  in  between  the giagantic,  towering  tenements of the surface levels.

                            The streets here were packed with screaming, bellowing crowds. People milled around in a state of drunken and drugged release. Crowded alehouses lined the streets, their occupants spilling out to be consumed by a churning, clamouring mass of humanity,  a tumultuous sea of shifting and vying flesh.

                            This scene was always repeated when a  work shift was returned from the forced labour beyond the Great Gate. After weeks of hard labour in an uncompromising world and under the incessant whips of the Tans, the work slaves of Dubh returned for their day of liberty. On this day they  celebrated  their  survival and now  they  attempted  to  escape  into  pleasure for a while, before being returned to the draining toil of the mines, farms and production plants beyond the Great Gate. They were little more than slaves, slaves to their Tan Overlords and slaves to their own acute Hedonism. To work meant  life,  food,  and  the  occasional  release to rest  and  pleasure.

                            The pursuit of that pleasure was evident everywhere.  Prostitutes   of   every   sex   and   age were  paraded  to  all  that  passed  by,  absolutely every taste catered for and new tastes developed daily. Dubh was the  ultimate market for  all physical desires. Huge muscled pimps  discouraged  those  who  could not  pay,  those unfortunates lying bruised and battered, bones broken, in the gutters alongside those overcome by the excesses of drugs and alcohol.

                            Here Jonathon quickly discarded his bell and cloak, lepers were not tolerated in this part of the city his grandfather had instructed him. Here, it was not unusual for the diseased or merely odd  person  to  be shot or beaten to death for sport. He pushed his way through the sickening throng, following the shadows wherever he could, avoiding the moaning, entangled forms  who  had  secreted  themselves  in every doorway and darkened niche they could find.

                            Jonathon was terrified by what he experienced here, before he had always had Cornelius his Grandfather to protect him, a skilled psycic who deftly used his powers to avert hungry, seeking eyes  from them both when they travelled. Now he was alone; and he already felt something hideous stalking him.

                            The City of Dubh's parasitic Geist waxed and waned with the coming and going of the shift workers from the Great Gate. They were its sustenance. That spirit was like the heartbeat of some gigantic and yet insubstantial beast, that consumed yet sustained, always wearing down the uninitiated with its lure of uninhibited pleasure. There where few uninitiated in Dubh and Jonathon's soul burned in the midst of this dark forest of withering spirits like a beacon.

                            The corrupting being was always here, even when the shifts returned back through the Great Gate. It whispered in the minds of those who remained, in those exempt from the Tans' labour  conscription,  and schemed  with  those  permanently   resident   in   the dark underworld streets through which Jonathon had passed to reach the surface levels of Dubh.

              Now it had felt Jonathon, but  could  not  touch him since Jonathon had inherited some of this Granfathers pshycic skills and was able to keep mind closed to  its attack. It became angry, its silent wail of frustration causing a thousand revellers, in whose minds it presently  worked,  to  clutch  their  heads  and  stare  and scream in unconscious accord.

                            Jonathon kept up his mental defences. He was tired, but dared not rest. He had already narrowly escaped being accosted by numerous men and women as he had struggled through the crowds, all of them intent in practising their own unique brand of perversions on his young and desirable flesh.

                            He pressed onward with his journey through the narrow and winding streets of the surface  levels  and, after  hours  of   following   the   landmarks   given   to him by his Grandfather, Jonathon realised he had arrived close to his destination. It was growing dark and the advent of a synthetic dusk accelerated the city's inhabitants into renewed and most debased of hedonistic frenzies, the city echoed with the howling of thousands.

                            Now Jonathon was moving away from the crowded centre. He felt safer and relaxed his guard as he walked down an almost deserted street toward a bridge over the black, silent river which marked the boundary between the Upper and Lower cities of Dubh.

                            He crossed the bridge quickly, not daring to look over its sooty, weathered parapets and moved into the tenements beyond. As he slowly ascended a steep street, its cobblestones shining darkly with the wash of the City's perpetual misty drizzle, he could see the far boundaries of the Dubh. The gigantic Halls of Machines were silhouetted against the eerie dome of an apricot sky and beyond them, the Towers of the Tallmen thrust their nine mysterious, phallus like towers upwards into the carbon  monoxide  smog which mantled them.

                            Jonathon shivered as he looked to the horizon. Although the air of the city was always warm and humid, he felt cold. He knew that one day, in the not too distant future, he  would  travel to  the  great  Halls  of Machines where his Father had worked when Jonathon was younger. Jack Postlethwaite had worked beneath those cathedral-like domes as a mechanic, a privileged Mek, as they where known to the less fortunate citizens of the Lower City where Jonathon now stood. That was before his sudden and unexpected dismissal.

                            Jack Postlethwaite was soon to learn that he had become a rare commodity - skilled labour, uncommon in the Lower City - and hence became the human merchandise in a business deal between the Hall Engineer and the Tans, the tyrannical rulers of the Lower City.

                            As soon as he and his family had been expelled from the Upper City, the Tans had taken him and his wife. Jack was quickly transported to supplement the Tan's skilled labour force beyond the Great Gate and his Mother sold into one of their brothels in the midst of the Lower City.

                            Jonathon had escaped abduction, left in the care of Cornelius for that day. He was safe with his Grandfather, but it was with him that he suffered the grief of his Mother's death and the beginning of his Father's insanity.

                            His Mother died three months later at the hands of sadistic pervert in the Tan brothel. His Father, in revenge for his abduction, had cut off his fingers in a rotating fan whilst at work, the act of revenge making him useless to them. Then he escaped whilst being prepared for execution, only to hear of his Wife's death which drove him  over  the  edge  of   sanity   and   into the vile and welcoming embrace of the City's corrupt soul. Jonathon stared at the distinctive domes of  the Upper City and wiped a tear from his face. Anger swept up suddenly, a raging fire heated by the revived grief at the loss of his Mother and the new anguish from the death of Cornelius and his Father.

                            It was the latter that he ran from now. His insane Father had been killed by Cornelius defending Jonathon from him, and now Cornelius was dead by his own hand. The last thing Cornelius had done  was  to send Jonathon away to a place of safety, to meet friends at a pre-arranged destination.  Now  all Jonathan's family were dead and he knew who was responsible. It was a man known as the Black Gaffer.

                            He directed his hatred at  the  man  he  saw  as the author of the grief carved deeply into his being; a man who ruthlessly pursued his unrelenting appetite for power in the Halls of Machines; a man who would come to know and curse the young Postlethwaite as a thorn in his side and man who would, in the future, find his insane ambitions threatened by the son of a victim he did not remember at all.