Three Mile Drove, Chapter six (standard:horror, 2017 words) [7/29] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Jul 04 2006	Views/Reads: 3009/2253	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
further instalment of a completed horror story set in the English fens

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

shriek. It had sounded like nothing on earth, derived from pure 
madness, as from the watery depths he had made out her head floating 
down towards him, as if it were to be his tortuous, eternal partner in 
a nightmare that was to continue beyond death. 

Goldie's head had vanished as the tumultuous rolling funnel of water had
seemed to carry him ever more quickly. Every so often his head had been 
thrown above water as if his sufferings weren't enough, as if an 
invisible force was saving him from a yet more harrowing end. The sound 
of the water had been growing, the rushing in his ears intensifying as 
carried to and fro he'd seemed to be pitched from the channel into a 
lethal waterfall. He'd thought this was to be his doom, his tomb – 

Darren had felt his head spinning as he was tossed through the air,
crashing down into a dark, boiling sea. He'd thought he could see a 
hint of light through the darkness above, like a tiny hole in a black 
cloud. He'd thought this must be the last he could see of the sky 
before being submerged forever, and then suddenly he'd heard the 
throbbing of an engine, a motor boat perhaps coming to save him from 
burial in the vast dark waters of the ocean. Then, thankfully, slowly, 
consciousness had finally come to him. Consternation gave way to 
puzzlement and then relief, as getting groggily to his feet he'd heaved 
back the curtain from where the tiny source of light had filtered, to 
reveal an overcast morning, and out across the fens, a tractor was hard 
at work. 

So it had all been a dream. But he'd lived his nightmare to the brink,
the thunder still inside him, which was his heart pounding at the walls 
of his chest, bore testimony to that. 

* 

The wind was whistling through the row of willows as she reached her
uncle Sam's house, like a frenzied fiddle player who'd lost his sense 
of rhythm, she later thought, though to a nine year old child it spoke 
in the chilling voice of another world. 

Bare branches blowing in the wind seemed to bend and thrust out at her
like long, grey fingers, warning her away, to keep away. 

Only she couldn't keep away. 

Because her Uncle Sam was ill, he needed his bottle of tonic. It would
help make him better, her parents had said that when they'd asked her 
to run the errand. 

She'd tapped on the door and her uncle had called out in a throaty
voice, for her to go in. The door was on the latch, but it was a 
rickety thing and got stuck when it was damp, she'd managed to push it 
open only by placing all of her six stone against it. 

She'd found her uncle in bed. He looked better than she'd thought he
might, his dark, lined face was smiling at her, and he asked her to 
fetch a spoon from the kitchen. The kitchen had been in a mess, she 
couldn't find a clean spoon, so she'd had to wash and dry one. She 
would have done all the washing up for her uncle, but her parents had 
told her to come straight back once she'd given him the tonic. 

Her uncle had been sitting with his back and head against the iron
railings of the bedstead. He looked too uncomfortable like that, so 
when she got back into the room she took the pillows and propped them 
behind his back, then at least he could settle better. 

He'd leaned forward, she'd thought it was too help her. There had been a
smile on his face but it hadn't seemed friendly. She would always 
remember the way his yellow teeth gaped out of a widening mouth, so 
that with a sudden startle she thought they might eat her up, and with 
her throat thickening at the sight of it, she'd watched froth from his 
mouth drip onto a dirty eiderdown. 

Uncle Sam had asked her to sit down on the side of his bed but she
hadn't wanted to do it. She didn't like the way he was looking at her, 
but she'd done it anyway, since she'd been brought up to do what her 
elders told her to. He was her uncle, after all. 

But it wasn't only that – 

Because with a sudden sense of alarm she'd realised that it was his bony
hand that had pulled her down onto the bed. 

He'd asked her to feed the spoonful of tonic into his mouth, but she
hadn't wanted to do that either. His breath stunk and it made her feel 
sick. She'd held her own breath as she'd spooned the tonic into his 
mouth with an unsteady hand. 

Then something had happened which seemed to make her heart bang against
the walls of her chest, that made her feel like it was leaping and 
battering in an attempt to get out. 

His hand had gone under her skirt. 

It had clasped her thigh so tightly, but the action alone, rather than
the force of it had held her rigid. She'd started to utter a feeble cry 
when his hand let go its hold and shot quickly to her crotch. She felt 
his fingers probing her and struggled to get away, though she couldn't. 
His other hand was now pressing so heavily on her shoulder that she 
couldn't move. 

No, this shouldn't be happening. I'm only a nine-year-old child but this
shouldn't be happening. But it is. 

Why? 

Suddenly the offending hand had been withdrawn. Oh thank God, it was all
some kind of silly game that her uncle had been playing. A game that 
she didn't understand, but now it was finished with – 

Over – 

But of course it wasn't, that simple thought had been summoned by the
naivety of a child. Because moving faster than she'd ever seen him 
before, in that split second he'd flung back the covers and through the 
hole in his torn pyjamas she'd seen his “thing.” It was stumpy and 
ugly, swollen and covered with thin lines. 

He'd pointed it towards her and she'd lashed out blindly in sheer panic.
Her young arms couldn't have had much power but she'd got lucky, 
striking him in the eye, making him groan and release the grip on his 
shoulder. 

Confused, shaken and angry she'd run from the house as fast as her legs
could carry her. Outside, the leaning branches of the willows pointed 
down the drove like exposed tendons which shouted, “Go, be on your 
way!” 

And on her way she'd rushed, grabbing her cycle and heading home like
one who'd been taught a cold, grim fact of life in the most painful 
manner. 

It had stayed with her all these years, the memory of those few
agonising moments had lasted a lifetime. Even now she hated the sound 
of the wind, whenever there was a gale she'd press her fingers to her 
ears to keep it out, and when she wasn't alone, when she wasn't able to 
cover her ears, then the sound would torment her, shout its howling, 
whistling messages deep into her head. 

And the embarrassment, anguish and confusion she'd suffered that day
seemed to go unnoticed. Her parents hadn't seemed to notice the way she 
was shaking when she got home, the way she was breathing so quickly 
that the breath wasn't entering her lungs. Perhaps they thought it was 
due to the cold, to the wind, or whatever. But perhaps, a doubting 
voice spoke to this day; it was because they had been too wrapped up in 
their own little world to really notice about her. 

At any rate, when she'd learned that her uncle's bungalow would become
hers she'd been horrified at the very thought of it. Darren Goldwater 
was welcome to it, both the bungalow and the fiendish existence, which 
lay just beyond its boundaries. 


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