Three Mile Drove, Chapter Twenty Six (standard:horror, 1248 words) [27/29] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Apr 08 2008	Views/Reads: 2800/1982	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Approaching the conclusion of my story, set in the English fens.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

It was as if their inhabitants felt like outcasts, that they needed to
barricade themselves from the vast dome of forbidding sky that 
stretched down to meet the dark flat earth. 

But the true outcast lay ahead of him. In the distance he could make out
a bank of trees, a different shade of darkness to the lowering sky. The 
dyke he travelled alongside ran straight and true, like a liquid 
pointer across the fields to the old house on Three Mile Drove. 

The windmill stood neglected and motionless as he passed, but still it
made him shiver, its tall shape as sinister as the sound of the wind 
roaring through its broken blades. 

And then suddenly he was there, staring across the narrow drove straight
at the lone willow, its deformed branches an uncanny caricature of the 
beings that would soon be inside the house it seemed to strive to 
protect. 

But not any more. 

He'd made good time, and it wouldn't be long before they arrived, even
Claire's daughter, that was where the great pity lay and the thought 
caused him great sadness. But the evil had to be eradicated once and 
for all. There could be no more abductions, no more nasty accidents 
that behind the pretence amounted to murder. 

He would erase it, this was his hour – 

He'd barely reached the attic when he heard the howls and screams that
heralded their arrival. Amongst them the voice of the one called Joseph 
had once filled him with dread, but it would do that no more. He heard 
them clambering up the stairs, heavy footed and yet at speed. He 
thought for a sickening second they would climb to the attic but no, 
they were making it all so easy for him, as if they were willing 
participants in their own deaths. They'd crowded into the room below, 
some sort of chase had come to an end, voices raised even higher. An 
argument of sorts. 

He lit a match from the box he'd carried and placed it amongst a pile of
rags in the corner, pausing briefly while it took hold, then searched 
his pocket for the key he'd taken from Claire's house when he'd last 
visited. 

Without her knowledge – In preparation for such a moment – 

Then cautiously jumping from the attic he'd locked the door below, their
own screaming had clothed their ears from the throaty click of the 
ageing lock and then he'd been away. 

Satisfied that his mission had been achieved. 

Somewhere out on the fens Shaun Tomblin would be scraping up their
evening meal from the hovel of a storehouse he'd been told he used. 

He would have nobody to serve to. 

His little family was vanquished. There would be no more abduction in
Three Mile Drove, no more killings. There would be no point. 

But then as he'd left the building, watching the flames begin to tear
through the roof, he'd heard the low murmur of an engine in the 
distance. Crossing the drove he saw what looked like a four wheel 
drive, and then from the cover afforded by the windmill he saw Darren 
Goldwater leap down from it, hesitating for a second before 
disappearing behind the overgrown hedge. 

His heart rate on the increase again he'd heard the yells and screams
from the creatures he realised the interfering stranger had managed to 
free. With a surge of anger and alarm he'd realised his mission hadn't 
been accomplished after all. 

He'd left his cover, parallel now with the track that lead between
Tomblin's and the old house. If Goldwater had turned his head once 
more, looked across the drove like he just had, then he would have seen 
him. But he was too wound up to care about that. 


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