The Ghosts of Sleath (16 page)

Buckler lowered the instrument and noticed that seen without it the mist had now become more opaque at its centre. He set off again, even more cautiously, curiosity as well as duty overcoming his trepidation. He hardly breathed, not because he did not want to give away his presence - the twigs snapping under his boots would have already done that - but quite simply because he had almost forgotten to. Although partly obscured by bushes and trees, the mist appeared to have a stronger texture as he drew nearer, as though it were a fine gauze rather than vapour, and there was more movement inside.

Oddly the noises, still no louder, were becoming clearer and as he approached he realized it was human voices that he could hear. And he was suddenly sure that they emanated from the centre of the … the what? What
was
it?
Haze
was the best description he could think of right then.

He was close, very close, only one or two trees and bits of shrubbery between himself and the enigma. Through the eyepiece of the night-sight the floating objects began to take on even more clarity and, with a gasp of disbelief, Buckler started recognizing those with definite forms.

One piece had three points to it, two long, one shorter and certainly thicker, and the keeper could have sworn this was part of a hand - two fingers and a thumb attached to a lump of flesh.

Another tinier piece was rounded and had a darker circle within it; a long sliver hung loose behind it like a tendril or the slender tail of some species of deep-sea fish. With a shock, Buckler realized it resembled a floating eyeball.

A solid chunk weaved into view and - or so it seemed to the bewildered keeper - another larger piece chased it. The one behind caught up and they joined together, fitting snugly, like some three-dimensional jigsaw.

Buckler jerked the night-sight away in horror as it dawned on him just what he was witnessing. The sounds were a wailing-
moaning, at times a howling, and the dancing flotsam was segments of human flesh.

Without the use of the image intensifier, they appeared as faint shapes with no particular form, but now, knowing what they were, he could detect a pattern to their movements. They were all seeking each other, joining and fusing together, gradually becoming more of a mass.

Fascinated, perhaps mesmerized, the keeper inched closer, the night-sight held loosely at his side, no longer necessary as the haze grew paler and the shapes inside became more defined. Something very close to the ground stirred in there and began to rise.

A notion, albeit a bizarre one, entered Buckler’s mind and it was that inside this mysterious haze was a disassembled body, its parts circling, weaving, constantly seeking the whole; only there seemed to be too many bits, for they clustered together and made no sense, too many were jostling for the same position, so that they were forced to disjoin and begin again.

The scattered parts swirled into a maelstrom, each morsel, large or small, becoming a blurred particle of light. Buckler did not remember to breathe, his instinct did it for him. He swayed and reached out to grasp the trunk of a nearby tree, his fingers curling into the rough bark to hold himself steady, the giddiness leading to an urge to vomit. He managed to control the rising bile by closing his eyes against the soft, yet somehow dazzling glare.

When he opened them again, the movement inside the haze was slowing down, taking on a more disciplined order. He realized his original notion had been right: this was a body trying to assemble itself, for the fragments were more perceptible, their shapes more recognizable.

But there were still too many parts …

Another, larger chunk squirmed on the earth and this too, like the one before, began to rise, sending the smaller pieces - the fingers, the eyeballs, tongues, ears and other body parts
- into excited flurries so that they swarmed, he told himself, like flies over dog shit.

‘Good God in Heaven,’ he murmured as two bodies gradually formed, ragged lines indicating where the flesh joined, an eyeball in one of the heads protruding uncomfortably from its socket, a foot twisted the wrong way round on one of the ankles, a glistening, rubbery tube of some kind flopping loosely from a breach in one of the shoulders.

The keeper felt his knees weaken and he dropped the night-sight so that he could cling to the tree with both hands. He wanted to run away, but the strength just wasn’t there. He wanted to cry out, but the sound was locked tight in his throat. He wanted to close his eyes, or at least look away, but the abominations before him would not allow it.

As he watched - was
forced
to watch, the hypnotic grip too strong to break - he noticed there was more movement beyond the haze.

Grover, Crick and Mickey sprinted through the woodland, hoping they were leaving the dreadful low moaning behind; but it stayed with them, coming neither from left or right, nor from in front or behind - it was just there, all around them, only inches outside their own heads.

Through the undergrowth they crashed, heedless of their own noise, stumbling over tree roots and trailers, low branches and bushes snagging and flailing them almost wilfully it seemed, as if the forest itself was in league with the tormenting noise. They did not try to understand what it was that they were running from; they didn’t
care
what it was. They only knew that never in their lives had they been so frightened. Perhaps it was the moon-hidden blackness they fled through that made the sounds so terrifying, for unseen and unknown were formidable allies. Perhaps it was the deep, heart-wrenching gloom of the sounds that sent them scurrying so, for it reached deep
inside them, seeming to touch their very souls and propagate an oppressive and threatening despair. Whatever, they cared little for reasons and even less for quizzes. They just wanted to be far away from that inky woodland and as fast as their suddenly clumsy legs would allow.

Such was their fear, and such was their cravenness, that when young Mickey smashed into a tree and went down with a split lip and a startled screech, Grover and Crick stumbled on, leaving their companion to writhe among the rotted leaves and tree roots of the forest floor.

Blood trickled through his fingers as he held them to his mouth and tried to call out.
‘’Enny! ’Ennis! ’Um mack!’

They were gone, though, and had it not been for the constant moaning that filled his head, now complemented by the buzzing of his brain from the knock it had just taken, he would have heard their thrashing retreat fade further and further away.

His face numbed by the collision with the tree, Mickey slowly pushed himself to his knees. He felt around the crumbly floor for the crossbow he had saved so hard for. Still kneeling, and because he was so frightened - even more so, if that were possible, now that he had been abandoned by Grover and Crick - he checked his loaded weapon, stifling sobs as he did so.
‘Mastids,’
he cursed them, wincing at the pain from his lips.
‘’Uckin mastids.’

Once on his feet he staggered off, clutching the crossbow to his chest, not realizing he was headed in the wrong direction. He stumbled through bushes, scraped past trees, the moaning that had developed into a wailing driving him onwards. He pulled a rolled-up handkerchief from his trouser pocket and pushed it against his cut lip to stem the flow of blood, while tears spoiled his already appalling vision.

‘’Enny!’
he cried out again, not caring if he was heard by the keeper or whoever was making that awful racket.
‘’Ennnniiissss!’

He tripped, sprawled, and his finger slipped through the crossbow’s guard to release the trigger. He felt the discharge
of tension and heard the quarrel
thunk
into the trunk of a tree a few yards away.

Mumbling a curse and driven by panic, he reached inside his shoulder bag for another arrow. Although he had sat inside a cupboard at home and practised loading in the dark at least a hundred times, his fingers still refused to take instructions from his brain. He even managed to drop the quarrel once and had to search through the dusty soil to find it again; eventually the crossbow was loaded and he was on his feet, hobbling through the woods with a heaving chest and sob-like murmurings.

Quite soon he blundered into a clearing where a peculiar light glowed. He blinked his eyes rapidly so that he could see more clearly. His numbed mouth dropped open and his eyes pressed against their sockets as they stared at the two pale, naked bodies inside the funny light, bodies that were not quite right because they looked as if they had been crudely stuck together with glue or invisible tape and several bits had gone wrong, like the foot that was back to front and a buttock that was hanging by thin threads and a shoulder that was too far back. One of the heads was swivelling round to look at him and he didn’t want that, he didn’t want this thing to see him standing there in case it decided to acknowledge him. No, he didn’t want that at all.

The crossbow was already pointing. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger again, this time intentionally. It was easy. It didn’t even need thinking about. He just had to do it. So he did.

And when the arrow sped through to the other side, seeming to touch nothing at all inside that curious shell of grey light, he heard a high-pitched scream that sounded much more human than the howling of the two mix-’n’-match creatures before him.

T
HE RUSHING WATERS
close over his head and unseen forces conspire to drag him down into the murky depths. He screams, but the sound is muffled in an explosion of bubbles. He sinks, deeper, deeper, and his arms smash at the currents, his hands claw at the silky fronds. A shape glides towards him from the gloom, tiny, pale fingers stretched towards him. He calls out her name, heedless of the water that fills his mouth, and he sees that she is smiling as she draws near; her dark hair frames her ghostly face, the tresses curling and weaving in the turbulence. She is close and her smile festers into a grin so malevolent, so vicious, that he screams again and tries to turn away
…

Ash twisted in the bed, one naked arm thrown across his brow as if to resist the dream’s spectre.

Now this pallid vision changes: she is no longer his sister, a child, but a woman whose grin is as evil, whose glare is as insane. Her slender arms slip around his neck, the gown she wears billows in the flow, her lips move closer to his, and her eyes gleam with madness … and desire. Her mouth is on his and he feels her pressure, feels her draining his life as the waters have drained his breath. He ceases to struggle, he gives himself up to her embrace. Blackness consumes him
…

Ash murmured something in the darkness of the bedroom,
but the words had no coherence; they were ill-formed, part of the dream.

…
and mercifully, he is alone again. A small glimmer appears in that blackness - the blackness that has no weight, no eddies or flows, but is equally as oppressive as the water that sought to take him - and soon it is joined by another, and then another, so that he sees they are candle flames. They multiply, become a mass of light that fills the room he is now in with its soft, unsteady glow. Yet there is no warmth from them, no comfort, only a gradual unveiling of further horror. For the light reveals stone coffins set on tiers around the black walls. But that is not the only horror. Before him, in the centre of the mausoleum - he knows this place, he has visited here in another time - is one more coffin, this one smaller than the others and made of rich, shiny wood, its interior plush with white satin. There is movement there, a little hand on the rim of the coffin. The child sits up and seeks him out, her wicked smile never wavering, her cold eyes never blinking
…

The bedsheets were damp with Ash’s sweat. Still in sleep, he pushed the covers away, leaving his chest bare to the night.

He weeps in the dream and the tears at first blur, then dissolve the scene around him. And now he is by a broad expanse of water lit by moonlight. Its surface is calm, without even a breeze to ripple its stillness, but soon he begins to hear gentle cries, the voices seeming to be a great distance away, perhaps from the other side of the great lake. Yet somehow he knows this isn’t so; he knows the cries - the moans, the sighs, the grieving - are much closer. He knows these sounds come from beneath the great lake itself. The thin, almost translucent skin of the lake stirs. It shivers. It trembles. And the first hand breaks the surface, and is quickly followed by another, this one close enough to be from the same body. The wailing rises in pitch, although it is still contained by the water. Another hand emerges, the movement swift, sudden, and the fingers reach upwards, wetness running from them. Another hand. Another. And then the surface of the lake erupts as a million hands break through together. And the cries break
through with them and the lake is a turmoil of sound and motion. The limbs rise until heads begin to appear, and their eyes are wide and their mouths are open and the heads turn towards him and they attempt to call his name but their voices are distorted as if their throats have been rotted by the water that has clogged them for so long. Yet even this is not the worst of the horror
…

He uttered a cry, a whimper.

…
for all the heads that stare across in that moonlit expanse of water are small
…

His leg kicked at the sheet.

…
and all those hands that claw the air are tiny
…

He tossed, he groaned.

…
and all those wide but little eyes still hold the terror of their own premature deaths
.

In sleep, he moaned a long, drawn-out ‘Noooo …’

And the drowned children moan with him, pleading to be saved, imploring him to help them. But he knows he cannot, that it’s too late, they are already dead and nothing can save them anymore. And so they plead with him to join them in their watery crypt
…

Ash’s eyelids fluttered. He almost awoke. But sleep held its grip.

The scene - the waving, imploring arms, the small pale heads bobbing on the water like spectral buoys, the silver-coloured lake - vanishes and he is in a field of stubble. He thinks he is alone - he
feels
desperately alone - but he sees a small figure in white standing by a group of trees in the distance. The little girl wears only one white ankle-sock and he calls her name, this calling hollow to his own ears as if he has not uttered the sound. ‘Juliet!’ She does not respond, for she is as the children in the lake. She is impassive because she is dead, and that is her revenge on him. He will see her - he will forever see her - but he will never be acknowledged. That is his punishment; and his dead sister’s retribution
.

The quietness of his room is broken by his mumblings. In his sleep he calls her name again and again.

As he watches he hears the
crumph
of exploding flame and her ashen face is warmed by yellow light. He seeks the source of the fire and sees the burning haystack behind him, hears the screams from within, screams that turn to laughter, distant laughter, and when he searches for the child once more she is gone and in her place is a swirling storm of crisp leaves, spinning in the air … and inside the storm a form slowly takes shape. When the leaves scatter the mutilated figure of a man is left behind and the man’s drooling grimace is really a corrupted smile and the thoughts that came from him enter Ash’s mind and they are degenerate and dirty
…

Ash threw himself onto his side, his fist pounding once against the mattress. But still he did not wake, although a part of his subconscious was now alert to the nightmare.

He runs from the abomination and as he runs a dry, brittle leaf brushes his cheek. He realizes the leaf, and the next one, and the next, have come from behind him as if in pursuit. He tries to increase his speed, but his footsteps only become slower, his legs heavier, his breathing harder. The leaves circle him, scratching his skin with their sharp edges, and he brushes them away from his face with his hands, continuing to flee, his movement becoming sluggish. He notices a redness spreading across his palms and fingers, and the redness is slick and shiny and he realizes it is blood
…

His back arched and his lips drew back across his teeth as though he were in agony. Consciousness, still far away at that moment, endeavoured to haul him from slumberous depths.

He tries to swat away another leaf that has clung to his cheek like some blood-sucking parasite and this time he feels its substance is different: it’s soft, and long tendrils stirred by his own motion hang from it. He tears the raw and bloody meat from his face and dashes it to the ground, all the time moving, never allowing his exhaustion to bring him to a halt. He sees the dismembered hand before it attaches itself to his wrist and with a shriek he snatches it away, but even as he does so a deep red sliver of flesh hovers before him, its end trailing behind like a
long, dripping tail and, searching for a natural home, the tongue tries to enter his open mouth. His clamped teeth stifle the scream and with both hands he pulls at the slithery flesh, turning his head aside at the same time. He throws the alien tongue away from him, but more and different lumps cling to his own flesh, arriving more rapidly and in greater numbers as though it is their intention to smother him completely, to use him as the infrastructure for their own eventual shape. He pulls, tears, pushes, but still they come, and he slips on something pulpy and slimy, something that is from inside a body, an organ that glistens and steams in the grass. He goes down and his fingers curl into the soil as he hides his face in the grass. He feels the weights on his back, his neck, his shoulders, his legs, his ankles, feels them slide over him to adjust their positions, to find a part of him on which to nestle, and he rolls over to crush them and cannot help the scream that erupts when he sees the air above filled with loose meat and organs, so many pieces, so many bits. And they land on him and he wonders, as they darken his vision, as they hinder his breathing, how many bodies have been torn asunder to make up all these cuts, these portions, these segments, and he tries to rise, using his elbows against the ground, but there are too many layers, they are too heavy, yet still he tries, for he knows if he succumbs to their load they will draw his life from him so that they can live as a whole once again. He resists them, his neck strains to lift his head, his shoulders shake with the effort, and his back is off the ground. But they insist, they bear down on him, filling his eyes and his mouth, and he screams and screams again, and he rises, rises, rises
…

And he awoke.

He was frozen there in the darkness of the room, with only a slip of light from the hallway outside shining through the gap at the bottom of the door, and it was several moments before he realized he was sitting up in bed. His naked body dripped with perspiration and his breath came in sharp gasps. Only a dream, he told himself.

‘Only a dream,’ he said in a hushed, frightened voice. His
breathing deepened, the trembling diminished. The dream visions lost their colour.

He was awake, and he was safe. Safe from the nightmare.

But if it
was
only a dream, and now he was awake, why was the little boy standing by the bed watching him? Why could he see him so clearly in the darkness?

Why was the boy so still, so silent?

And why was he now slowly fading … dissolving … to nothing …?