Death's Realm, page 18
Old Tod...
When they first came through the door many a traveller did not notice Old Tod in his overgrown alcove. If they did, they often mistook him for a statue, for he was the colour of ancient iron.
When he was sure all was right, Old Tod would creep up and strike the traveller down with his big hammer. Often this killed them outright, sometimes it only rendered them insensible. At other times he would employ a long metal spike or a stone club. Then Old Tod would take the traveller apart with the tools he stored under his bench. The tools were old, rusted and stained, but Tod kept them sharp.
He fed bits of the travellers to Dog, who liked the tenderest parts best of all. The bones Tod threw in the river. He made candles of the fat. Blood he kept to paint the floor of his alcove and teeth he sorted in jars to make mosaics on his walls. This was his only pastime and pleasure.
A skinny, pale, toothless traveller he would let pass, even if they deserved his attention. They had nothing to interest Old Tod, and further along the road The Fisherman or The Crone would be sure to find them.
The book carried on in this vein—terrible, meaningless carnage, horror piled upon horror, described in almost childishly simple prose. Was it some kind of allegory? I didn’t understand and I couldn’t imagine anyone reading it for pleasure. I shuddered and returned the book to the table, but I could not shake off the morbid mood created by the tale of Old Tod.
The sun had vanished behind the trees and the library was now swathed in shadows. As I stood up to return to my room above the stables, I glanced at the alcove and there, once again, was the mysterious panelled door.
For a long moment I simply stared, then I forced myself to approach the door. I dared not open it, but below the knob there was a keyhole. Cautiously, I knelt down.
“Have a look inside. You can see the bones.” I remembered Lily’s words from so long ago.
I leant forward.
“Be very quiet or he might wake up and grab you.”
I applied my eye to the keyhole. I could see nothing. Then the darkness seemed to shift as if a huge form was pressed up against the other side of the door. I thought I could hear breathing. As the shadows moved again, I drew back allowing a little light to enter the hole. I could see my eye reflected in the depths of the keyhole. It had a peculiar yellow tint as if seen through stagnant water. I wondered at how bloodshot it was, the pupil slightly oval. Then the eye blinked and I realised I wasn’t looking at a reflection of my own eye at all.
I scrambled away on hands and knees, expecting that at any moment the door would burst open and Old Tod would emerge, hammer raised. But the door stayed closed, and I hurried out of the library and back to the horses and sanity.
* * *
It snowed that September. Lily was heavily pregnant. There was an old motorcycle in the stables and she had taken to using it, roaring fearlessly along narrow country lanes. One evening I was in my room when I heard raised voices in the stable yard below. I peered through the window to see Lily and Edward.
Lily was pushing her bike out into the yard. Edward was following her and he grasped the handlebars, arresting her progress. His face was scarlet. They argued furiously but I couldn’t hear what was said. After a few moments, she wrenched the motorbike out of his grasp, mounted it and tore out of the yard. He stared after her, swore under his breath, paced back and forth for a moment, then went into the garage. A moment later Edward’s car drove out of the yard and headed off after Lily.
I waited for them to return. I didn’t think Lily should have been riding the motorbike at all in her condition.
As night fell it became colder. I eventually slipped into a fitful sleep. I dreamt Lily and I were in the library. She had her back to the dreadful door, which was slightly ajar. She was describing a book to me and waving it in my face. I tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen, and she batted my hands away when I attempted to draw her further from the gaping portal that was slowly opening behind her. I was awoken from the dream by the sound of Edward’s car returning.
Through the window I saw that Lily was not with him, and her motorbike was nowhere to be seen. Edward stomped off towards the house. I walked downstairs and out into the stable courtyard. Snow had begun to fall again and it sparkled in the light.
Sergeant, the big, black stallion stood in the centre of the yard, his breath clouding in the cold air. I didn’t question how he came to be there, saddled, ready. I swung myself up into the saddle, and Sergeant walked under the arch and onto the lane leading away from the house. I could see the motorcycle tracks, now beginning to be obscured by falling snow. Sergeant and I followed them.
It was a strange journey, the horse’s hooves muffled, crunching through the snow. There was little traffic, and like a dream we passed cottages lit up inside and sheep huddled together in fields. The tracks led us around the edge of the estate, eventually vanishing completely at a crossroads, erased by falling snow. I slid from Sergeant’s back and looked round. All was white and midnight blue. Ahead of me in the ditch I saw a twisted, black shape, the handlebars of the motorbike. Lily was pinned beneath it. Her eyes were shut, but as I bent down they flickered and opened. She tried to say something. There was a fleck of blood on her mouth, her lips were blue. Her eyes closed again.
I looked round frantically. There were no vehicles in sight. The bike pinned her like a butterfly on a board. I grasped the handlebars and they slipped through my fingers. I gathered all my strength, put my hands under the bike and heaved. It shifted slightly. I heaved again and slowly, miraculously, lifted it off Lily’s legs. She gave a moan but didn’t open her eyes.
“Lily!” I said.
She muttered something under her breath.
“Wake up!”
Her eyes opened and she gasped for breath. She looked down, saw her situation, and began to slowly drag herself backwards, pulling her legs out from under the bike. It started to slip through my fingers, but I held on. Only when she was clear did I let it fall.
* * *
Lily returned to March Hays after a week in hospital, having recovered from her ordeal and given birth to a healthy baby girl, Amy.
Over the months I watched Lily’s relationship with Edward unravel. He began to drink late into the night, spent more time in London and showed little interest in his new daughter.
A year after Lily’s motorcycle accident it all boiled over. It was a grey November day, laden with iron-coloured clouds. I heard Lily and Edward argue throughout the afternoon, a portable row like a pocket thunderstorm that moved from the stables, through the gardens to the house and back again. I avoided encountering them but it was difficult not to overhear fragments of the argument.
“How can all the money have gone?” Lily cried.
And later: “I hardly see you! What’s so fantastic in London?
Then: “Amy’s your daughter. Make time!”
And finally: “I’m not stupid, Edward. Who is she?”
In the evening Edward locked himself in his study with two bottles of brandy. Lily went upstairs. I slipped inside and followed her.
I found her putting Amy to bed and stood in the doorway feeling awkward.
“Lily, are you alright?”
She gazed down at Amy in her cot. “You don’t have to worry. Everything will be fine.”
“I’m scared for you.”
She didn’t turn round.
“Edward is Amy’s Daddy. He’d never hurt us.” Her voice cracked.
I hovered in the doorway for a moment, unable to offer proper comfort, frustrated with myself. Then I turned away and went back to the stables.
* * *
I awoke in my room, coming from sleep to full awareness in an instant. I had the impression that someone had just been calling my name. A minute later I was running towards the hall without knowing why, except for having a powerful, urgent sense that it was where I needed to be.
I arrived to find Edward staggering to the bottom of the main stairs. Lily stood at the top gazing down at him. Amy was clasped in her arms.
“Edward go to bed. You’re frightening Amy.”
He pulled an old sabre from its mounting on the wall and marched unsteadily up the stairs. Lily drew back. He staggered towards her and lashed out with the sword. She fell and sprawled to the floor. The blow missed, cutting a chunk out of the banister. Edward raised the sword over his head. He looked quite insane, scarlet with fury.
I ran up the stairs and tackled him from behind. He shrugged me off, but I grabbed him and spun him away from Lily as he sliced the air between us with the sword. I could see the murder in his eyes. I rushed at him, pushing him back until he hit the banister rail. Edward twisted away, and this sent him tumbling down the stairs to sprawl heavily on the stone floor below.
I descended the stairs and he rose up to meet me, roaring his anger. His eyes were red and his hands smoked. He tried to make his way up to Lily, but I seized him again and spun him away. We wrestled, Edward struggling to reach Lily, I grappling with him, never letting him get free. Then he turned on me and spat his fury in my face.
We fought all the way down the corridor to the library, but now I had the measure of him and I was the stronger. I shoved him inside the room. I wasn’t surprised to see that the door waited for us. I propelled him towards it, and now terror fought with his anger. I held him against the wall, raging and frothing. With my other hand I pulled the door open. Edward divined my intention and struggled harder, beating his fists against my face but they were as the touch of moths wings. With the remainder of my strength I lifted him up and thrust him through the doorway. He grabbed the frame with one hand, preventing me pushing him through. His other hand grabbed the front of my shirt. I shoved him, but I couldn’t make him loose his grip.
Behind him I saw what lay beyond the door. It was a benighted landscape. A narrow path led between high, dank stone walls covered with creeper. In the distance I glimpsed jagged mountains rising from a barren plain. The sky was dark grey, and the whole was lit by a dull red glow like the light from a dying volcano. The air smelled of metal and burnt flesh.
Edward snarled in my face. He couldn’t break my grip, but neither could I break his. Slowly he began to drag me with him over the threshold. In a moment we would both be lost. Then something emerged from an archway in the stone wall behind him, unfolding itself until it towered above us. It was hairless and thin like a praying mantis, with skin the colour of flint. Dull yellow eyes stared at us above a lipless grinning mouth.
Edward saw my gaze shift and he turned to look behind him. Then his body jerked. A rusting blade emerged from the centre of his chest. His eyes widened in shock and he gave a strangled cry. Gore spattered the ground. He was torn from my grip as Old Tod lifted him up with the blade like a speared morsel at a banquet. I turned my face away and slammed the door shut. From beyond, I heard a familiar chuckle, then silence.
* * *
Lily grieved for Edward but, to me, her grief was tinged with relief. I moved back into the house. One night Lily opened her bedroom door. I walked in. She pulled back the sheet and got into bed and I got in with her. I held her in my arms and that is how we stayed.
* * *
Time passed as it does, drip by drip. Many decades later Lily died. It was peaceful. She floated away in her own morphine clouds. She was very old, and I suppose so was I. The funeral was held in the little chapel and she was buried in the family graveyard.
I saw Lily standing with her daughter and grandchildren as they lowered the coffin into the ground. She turned, recognised me and smiled. She ran to me. I took her hand and we wandered away from the place where we had first met so many years ago. All at once she was Lily the little girl, the young woman and the old lady, images in a flick book. I was the boy, the youth, the wounded soldier.
I remembered how we had rolled on the grass and laughed as children, how I had looked down at my own shattered body and how Lily had cried when the doctor declared me dead. I remembered the other spirits like Ted and how they had all departed until only I remained. I remembered lifting the motorbike from Lily’s body, discovering I could still touch the world and how I had grappled with Edward’s murderous ghost after his fatal fall down the stairs.
I had shared Lily’s life, though she had never known I was there. She had saved me and I had saved her.
We all have a door, but where it leads us is not fixed. For some there waits a blighted landscape and the attentions of Old Tod. But that is not the only possibility.
Lily and I walked to the house and into the library. Hand in hand we opened the door. The light that spilled out was not the red glow of Old Tod’s domain, it was spring sunshine. This time there was nothing to fear as together we passed through and the door closed behind us.
Matthew Pegg lives in Leicestershire in the United Kingdom where he writes fiction, stage plays and shopping lists. Since his first job as a painter of canal boats, he has moved on to become an actor, teacher, graphic designer, bureaucrat and director of a community arts company.
Pegg is working on his first novel, Black Annis, a black comedic horror about a shape-shifting witch who eats children and wears their skins as a skirt. His most recent theatre work is entitled Escaping Alice, a love story that combines chains and handcuffs, produced for the York Theatre Royal.
Her breath came in ragged pants, her mouth muffled against the pillow. Her firm, round ass rolled against him in waves as it slapped back against his thighs.
That’s it—any second now, bitch.
She let out an inarticulate cry and began to tremble. He grabbed her hip in one hand and a fistful of her dark hair in the other as the last shuddering convulsions of his orgasm rocked him, and he exploded inside her. She shivered as she slumped forward on the bed, moaning in contentment.
As far as Raymond White was concerned, this was the life, and one of the great virtues of having money and power was that he actually got to live this life. While losers out there ground through the boring nine-to-five to go home to their plain Jane wives and brood of squealing, snotty children, he had Stacey Bishop, the face of Channel 4 News, face down and ass up.
Just the way life should be.
He rolled onto the bed beside her and took a moment to catch his breath. When he could breathe a little, he took a cigarette and lighter from the bedside table and sparked it. Stacey turned her head to face him, an indulgent grin on her face.
“Oh my god. That was fantastic,” she said. With each pant of her breath she made a little mouse-like squeak of pleasure as the aftershocks rocked her.
“It was pretty good,” he said, adding some warmth to his voice to take the sting out of the response.
It was more than good, but he knew how to play the game. To keep her eager to please and attentive, he couldn’t let her know just how good she really was. He’d made that mistake before.
“Pretty good? Mmmn. Wanna go again? You can’t come to the banquet and try only one dish.” She smiled and gave her ass an inviting little shake.
“We’ll see,” he said, exhaled a cloud of smoke and ashed his cigarette into the half-empty beer bottle on the bedside table. He stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
He took a drag of the cigarette, but he didn’t respond.
“Goddammit. Tell me you’re not thinking about her?” Stacey said, her full lips—natural, by the way, no collagen necessary—pressed together into an unappealing thin line. A straight razor of red slashed across her face. Not nearly as appealing as when she held them plump and open for his finger, or his cock.
“I’m just tired. I need to get some rest,” he said. He dropped the cigarette into the bottle and relaxed back into the pillows, shutting his eyes. Stacey pulled the sheet up from the end of the bed and rolled over.
One of the benefits of possessing both money and power was that it immunised one against such base emotions as regret. Apparently, however, this miraculous effect did not extend to the time when Raymond White had murdered his wife.
He shook his head. No, he didn’t regret his actions, but occasionally he found himself being rocked by a strange feeling to which he was unaccustomed. That gut twisting feeling that strikes just before something goes drastically wrong. It couldn't be Stacey—she’d never tell anyone about the hit. She had just as much to lose as he did in her reputation alone. But what exactly it was that kept tugging at the edges of his consciousness, prickling his skin with a nauseating unease, he couldn’t be sure.
He took several deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth.
He’d made peace with the decision itself long ago. He was free from the endless nagging and the perpetual grind of domesticity; freed from the ball and chain and her relentlessly ticking biological clock. He knew he’d gotten away with it, and Ray was free to enjoy all the pleasures of life that their five-year marriage had denied him. But it was easier for Stacey, who hadn’t had to get involved. Easier for her, who hadn’t had to look at the postmortem shots.
The police investigation was ongoing, but their focus on him had been short-lived. They had arrived at the house and taken him in for questioning. Through his profession as a prosecutor, they knew him. A good guy, reputable.
They had been thorough, but his alibi stood up to scrutiny. Years of legal work in courtrooms, viewing and participating in cross-examinations, paid him due as he went through his story over and over again for their benefit. He did it flawlessly, faultlessly, displaying all the expected measurements of bewilderment and shock.
It was what happened next that really sealed the deal.
They opened the folder to show him the photographs they’d taken at the crime scene—a typical cop tactic to check reaction, match it against possibility of guilt. The second that smooth, yellow file slid open and he saw for the first time exactly what he’d brought on his wife of five years, revulsion blasted through his gut. The reaction was physical before it was mental. He felt his lunch of fresh, grilled salmon roll acid up his throat as his stomach clenched, his eyes stinging shut. He staggered to his feet with his hand clamped over his mouth, pink flesh laced with bile and olive oil bursting out between his fingers. Choking for air, he heard himself gasping, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus, the fucker—”
