Three Mile Drove, Chapter Two (standard:horror, 1616 words) [2/29] show all parts
Author: Brian Cross	Added: Feb 19 2006	Views/Reads: 2970/2094	Part vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Chapter two of a "chiller" situated deep in the English fens

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

it was like something out of a nineteenth century horror film, but it 
was right here, just outside Bramble Dyke.' 

Mcpherson began his account of the incident and thought he saw her face
drop at the outset. Great, she wasn't going to believe him. She wasn't 
going to believe how he had encountered the wretched, ugly, deformed 
children who could hardly speak a recognisable word, who spoke in their 
own language of squeals and whimpers and inhuman cries and lived 
amongst discarded garbage, rotten flesh and bones, and who when his 
back was turned and his stomach erupted, had fled the place so silently 
he hadn't heard them go. The bones hadn't been human, he knew that. 
They were the decaying carcasses of pigs and goats, the skeletons of 
hares and rabbits, all contributing to the obnoxious smell, the 
stifling odour that had caused him to vomit while the children, or 
whatever they were, had escaped. To where, he hadn't a clue 

His mobile phone wouldn't function, perhaps it was the conditions. He'd
been forced to search out the nearest phone box and that meant a drive 
to the village, through the pools of water that had partly submerged 
the uneven drove in places, through the waterlogged lane which 
connected to the main street, before finally placing his call 
requesting a back - up team with forensic capability to assess the full 
implications of what he'd found. 

Only, when they had joined him at the phone box and they returned to the
drove approximately an hour later, they found nothing. Just an empty 
property and an odious smell. Nothing more. 

He could perceive her now as she could perceive him, her face had an
unusually worried look. So he was stressed out, overdoing things, he'd 
taken one case too many. Let the others do their share for once. Take a 
break. 

He'd known her for years this woman; this clever attractive woman who
had made her home in the fens, even though she might have made it 
anywhere. How she came to be here he had never found out, she had never 
said and he had never asked. Her probing mind had helped him solve 
incidents in the past and had helped him gain respect and praise from 
the constabulary. 

But not this time. This time he knew it was more than a touch too far.
He shouldn't have bothered her. 

She was regarding him now. The smile had gone, the humour had left it,
leaving the serious side of her nature. She was regarding him 
carefully, studying him even. Edgar Allen Poe eat your heart out. This 
is the twentieth century after all, live in it. Don't be afraid to 
admit that you're ill. The mind turns inward when it's in trouble and 
in doing so it conjures up fantasies. Seek help. Seek professional 
guidance, only don't seek it from me, you're beyond my help. 

That was what she was thinking. 

‘I know it sounds over the top,' he said before she could demoralise
him, reaching forward and clutching his glass as if it contained not 
liquid but solid gold, ‘but I saw it with my own eyes and I haven't a 
shred of evidence, not the slightest explanation for it.' 

‘I trust your judgement Tim,' she said gently, her brown eyes taking a
while to meet his, before regarding him anxiously, ‘if you saw this 
thing - these creatures - then I believe you. But how can I help you ?' 


Mcpherson blinked, surprised by her reaction. He'd convinced himself she
didn't believe him, he was sure she would inwardly ridicule him. Maybe 
she did, but it didn't seem that way now. But how could she help him? 

The truth was that without evidence nobody could. 

‘You've lived here for years, you associate with everybody, relate to
anybody. You're a nurse and a damned good one I reckon. If there was 
anything unusual taking place wouldn't you have a whim?' 

He thought her face flushed at his question, but maybe he was too
uptight in his own mind. 

‘I can't know everything Tim, even in a small community such as this.'
She gulped the rest of her drink, which he thought unusual for her. 

‘Will you have another?' Tim asked. 

‘No thanks.' Sighing, Claire rose to her feet. Mcpherson thought she
looked jaded all of a sudden, but in his own current state of mind he 
couldn't be sure of that. 

She'd started to leave but stopped in her tracks, returning to the table
and placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘As an afterthought Tim, you might 
talk to David Endleberry, he knows more than anybody about what's going 
on in the community. Not much escapes him.' 

Mcpherson smiled and nodded as she walked out. What she'd said had been
true, David Endleberry, the village parson was involved with all 
aspects of the local community, and he was regarded as the natural head 
of the community. But doubts persisted within him, was she suggesting 
him as a helpful source in investigating what he'd told her he'd seen, 
or because she thought that in his current state of mind he needed 
professional guidance?


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